Search Engine Related
Google's Panda Update: Haters, Cheaters and Consequences
Whenever Google has a major algorithm change or update, like clockwork, you can count on a huge army of "haters" to come pouring out of the woodwork complaining about the injustice of it all. Google's last major update, "Panda" was no exception. The criticizing and complaining came fast and furious and non-stop. And even though the update occurred months ago, people are still posting diatribes about it on websites across the Internet. Sheesh...get over it, already!
Or, as they say in the hood, "Don't hate the player, hate the game!"
10 SEO Mistakes to Avoid
When you're starting off in SEO there's a lot of conflicting information about what to do and what not to do. There's a constant battle between White Hat and Black Hat and which is more effective.
It's pretty easy to get frustrated at how long it actually takes to achieve a decent ranking. This can lead to taking the wrong advice. I learned by trial and error the SEO mistakes listed below.
Here are some rules to follow if you DO NOT want your site to rank in search engines.
How Social Media has Changed SEO
Social media websites have spread like wildfire over the past couple of years. Today, people spend more time on Facebook, Twitter or other social network sites than on any other type of website.
Aside from connecting people, social networks also provide advertising opportunities. Take Facebook, for example. What do you do when you come across a website with half a billion active users? Develop Facebook Web promotion strategies and use the website as a marketing tool, of course.
How Can Twitter Improve Your SEO?
What do you do when you come across a social media site with over 190 million users and 65 million daily posts? Turn it into a website promotion tool, that's what.
Twitter links are nofollow, but that doesn't mean that you can't use the social network for website promotion. On the one hand, many SEO experts say that Twitter isn't a ranking factor. However, Twitter pages directly influence Google's SERPs and thus may be a major force in search engine visibility.
Google Place Search Changes - How Local Searches are Displayed
Google Local and Map have become a big influence on how people search and get results. We can demonstrate this by searching for 'accountant' and the search result returns a broad list of 'accountants', but perhaps too broad so we tend to search again by narrowing the result - adding a location to the search - 'accountant in city' and the results we see are now closer to home.
Dear Google... Stop Making Me Look Like a Fool!
I'm tired of you making me look like a fool.
I've spent a good portion of the last 10 years patiently explaining to business owners and budding SEO enthusiasts that the key to being found in Google is to have one, great, all-encompassing website. That throwing up multiple keyword-rich domain doorway sites is a fool's errand. That writing crappy articles and submitting them to networks full of other crappy articles is a waste of time and bandwidth. That keyword-stuffed gibberish on your website just makes it look stupid. That link farms are spammy.
Google Caffeine update
Today, Google are announcing the completion of a new web indexing system called Caffeine. Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than before, and it's the largest collection of web content they have offered so far..... read more
15 Important Web Design Tips
Here are 15 important website design tips that you might not be aware of or have overlooked. Consider taking advantage of them if you haven't already done so...
1. Custom 404 Pages
Create a custom 404 web page, so that any time your website visitor mistypes or misspells a URL on your site, they will still be provided with navigation options for your site (instead of getting nothing but a "Page Not Found" error message, which is neither friendly or helpful).
Social Marketing vs Generic SEO - What's The Difference?
There are many different methods of marketing your business website, on-line shop or e-commerce website, but for many business owners there seems to be a bit of confusion between what is considered generic back link building and what is a true social marketing campaign, and more to the point what is the aim of each marketing strategy?
How Google Image Search Helps SEO
What is Google Image Search?
Google has a dedicated version of its search engine called Image Search which helps find images. Claiming to be the most comprehensive image search facility on the web, it has billions of images from websites already within its index. When searching for images, you can tailor the search for various sizes and choose a specific type of image you're looking for, such as a photo, clipart or head shot.