Google has been testing their changes to their SERP again. The changes are quite small and not too noticable to its users. Google has made the following changes;
I’m not too happy with Google removing the Cached and Similar links as they have been a very useful source for reviewing websites on a glance.
Recently I needed to get some work done for my front yard and started looking for service providers within my area; but truely speaking it was trouble finding relevant results; as most of the service providers were from out of town. So I had to go the traditional way of finding the service provider. I just wanted to shout out to all service providers to get their business listed on Google; which could have made my life easier.
Google local business has recently been renamed as Google Places is a great place for finding local business and services online. As search engines have become a big resource for any any type of information as opposed to the old traditional way of finding local business on Yell Directories and other business directories. Google local business is a great way for local business/service providers/professionals to get in touch with their customers for free. Yes Free; there is absolutely no cost for getting your business/service added to Google Places. Go to Google Places and start creating your business/service profile; you will need to get an email registered with Google before you can start creating your profile.
As most of the local business/service providers have lots and lots of competitors, there are quite a few tips and tricks that you can apply to your listing to appear above your competitor. You can get more info on local search optimisation at;
Google Local Business Optimization – How to Increase your Google Local Business Results / Listings
One Dead Simple Tactic for Better Rankings in Google Local
Watch Rand Fishkin & David Mihm discuss Get listed in Google’s Local Search Results
Watch Rand Fishkin & David Mihm discuss the root of SEO for local search.
So go ahead and start adding your listing to Google Local Business Center. Remember your customers are looking for you online.
Earlier this month Google launched personalized results by default for all users. Searchers will however have the ability to opt-out completely, and there are various protections designed to safeguard privacy. Check out Google’s personalized search result announcement of how this will affect you future search.
Personalizing search results has worried the SEO community as it seems to be the end for SEO according to some SEO’s. Danny Sullivan mentions; this would not be the case as there will still be normal search results for many queries. The Personalized search result would only come into affect if users visit the same website again and again. This is however useful from a user experience but not for SEO. However, people would still want to visit/research other websites and would be typing in different key terms to find the results. Danny goes onto add “SEO remains important to ensure that you’ve got that first shot at being considered. And the best tip in this new world of personalization remains the same. Make a good impression.”
I totally agree with Danny’s comments and that it is more important that before to make sure you get to your users before your competitors. Along with making sure that the website is optimally optimised to users and search engine standards, it would be very useful to analyse the often neglected long tail search terms and optimising website to rank highly for such search terms. Avinash kaushik covers the topic quite well with analytics data.
Also along with SEO, websites should look closely into usability factor by improving the design, structure and making website more user friendly to keep driving the interest of their users. Remember, more often that not, it’s the first impression that is the last. Engaging in Social Media should also be very useful tool for driving user interest as on an average people spend 25 minutes on Facebook everyday.
Rand Fish from SEOmoz covers the topic quite well as well; How Personalized Search Changes SEO (and Doesn’t)
So cheer up SEO’s and start planing new strategies for the New Year! Merry Christmas to everyone!
Bing & Google have signed deals with Twitter to display real time tweets in search results. Bing signed up with Twitter before Google and have also posted snapshot of the implementation and test searches. Bing blog post “The explosive popularity of Twitter is the best example of this opportunity. Twitter is producing millions of tweets every minute on every subject you can imagine. The power of those tweets as a form of data that can be surfaced in search is enormous. Innovative services like Twitter give us access to public opinion and thoughts in a way that has not before been possible. From important social and political issues to keeping friends up to date on the minute-by-minute of our daily lives, the web is getting more and more real time.”
Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience posted a quick post on the Google official blog commenting that “We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months. That way, the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you’ll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.”
With the large popularity of search engines, this could exposure twitter to spamming and black hat techniques.
With the successful launch of Window 7 and continuous improvements to it’s search engine, Microsoft is looking to take the leap over Google in search over a period of time. However, I still believe that Bing has a long way with search as Google has become second nature for search as Microsoft is for desktops.
With the popularity of video search over the last couple of years, Google has been looking into opportunities to make money from Youtube. Earlier this year Google introduced ads within the videos, which is very annoying to me. Google blog announces that the Promoted Videos can now be advertised via Google adowrds as opposed to seperate search advertising program. Google Blog: “in the past year Promoted Videos has evolved into a much broader discovery vehicle, appearing on search, the YouTube homepage, video watch pages and recently across the AdSense network. We’ve also built better conversion opportunities via Call-to-Action overlays. As a result, Promoted Videos is now driving millions of video views per week, with clicks having increased 500% since January. In a world where 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, Promoted Videos has become a critical way for creators to get their content in front of viewers across the web.”
This weeks SEOmoz whtieboard friday was interesting. Google’s Senior Developer Programmer Maile Ohye’s was interviewed and was asked some interesting questions for the SEO industry. Check out the video!!!
The dashboard is quite impressive and gives the graph of impressions and click through. It also shows the top 10 impressions query terms. Most of the query terms are quite generic as opposed to being location specific. I feel that one reason for this could be that Google stores the location of it searchers and pops the local business results for generic key terms as well. For example if Google has saved your location, then any key terms you search for, Google will also try and find out local providers for the keyterm.
SEO’s can start reporting to clients on this and raise awarness of local business listing.
Today, Google announced the inclusion of ‘Google Hot Trends‘ graphical information in it’s search results on Google.com. Google Blog “Now, when you search Google.com and your query matches one of the top 100 fastest-rising search terms, we’ll show you a graph at the bottom of page, with more information — like how popular the query is, how fast it’s rising over time, and other useful data.”
Was listening to Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer’s interview with Michael Arrington, and Steve was mentioning that the next 5 years should see enhancement in search results.
This morning, I started typing a search query in Google and noticed soemthing different with the font size. I had to checked wherether my screen resulation has been increased, it was not the case. Checked the Google Blog post and my query was answered.
Google has now supersized it’s search box to show keyword typed in bigger font. According to Google blog it will be using a 17-pixel font for the search box, up from 13 pixels. Google’s VP Marissa Mayer comments that “Google has always been first and foremost about search, and we’re committed to building and powering the best search on the web — now available through a supersized search box”. Google says that with the new larger text, users will be able to see the query typed clealry.
Google has been updating it’s search results quite frequently now, especially after the launch of Bing(Microsoft’s new search engine). Search marketers have been commenting about Bing’s impressive look and feel homepage and search results page. I clearly feel that Google’s search results page need an uplift, considering that Google is far the most searched search engine.
Check out Changes to Google’s homepage over the period.
Google has improved the way it shows back links pointing to your website in Google webmaster tools. It seems to be using an add-on made by Yoast.com. According to Yoast.com, “The SEO link analysis tool gives you a bit more information about back links, such as the Page Rank for the linking page, the anchor text used on the link, and checks whether the link is nofollowed or not.”
These are really useful information for SEO’s who can now glance quickly at links and anchor text pointing back to websites and make decisions quickly. This would also help SEO’s reduce excessively targeting one key term when linking. Google Webmaster Tools has JavaScript link pointing back to the Yoast.com which is quite un-common of Google.
Google Webmaster Tools SEO Back Link Analysis
You can install the Firefox SEO Link Analysis Firefox Extension on addons.mozilla.org now. Please review it on addons.mozilla.org if you like it!
So get your website verified in Google, Yahoo & Bing to get relevant information about your website.
