SEO Exposed

One good resource for website owners, web designers and SEOs alike is Google’s Quality Guidelines - here the Search Engine giant sets out recommended dos and don’ts for inclusion and ranking in their index.

Now they’ve made a good resource even better, by providing more information on topics that have traditionally caused some confusion.

Areas such as keyword relevancy, hidden links, cloaking/redirecting and automated queries have all been fleshed out to help those who work (or play) with websites ensure they are being nice, rather than naughty.

So if you read one thing about SEO this week, read this.

This week Google have announced “Universal Search”, the next evolution in their search technology and one which may have a significant impact on the way people use the Web.

During it’s lifetime the Web has evolved from being a text-only medium to a highly featured multimedia playground, and search technology has had to evolve with it. When images became an intrinsic part of the Web Google launched Image search, allowing people to find pictures easily. When video too became part of the Web landscape so Google launched Video search. These different branches of Google search are know as “vertical markets” or “verticals”, and can be accessed through links at the top of the main Google search page (see image below).

Up until now, if you wanted to find information about “Nosferatu” with Google you could do a Web search, which would return lots of websites, if you wanted pictures you could use Google Image search to find those, and for video you could use…Video search.

That is all set to change, as Google being to integrate these formerly separate results into the main results pages.

So where the Web results for “Nosferatu” used to look something like this:

with universal search we are starting to see multimedia results within the results like this, where video and images are returned within the main results:

So at the fundamental level, universal search is bringing together the previously disparate Google search technologies such as Google News, Local, Video, Images etc. into the main web search result pages.

This promises to deliver a more comprehensive response to the end user, with one query returning the best possible results regardless of the media.

That’s all well and good, but what does this mean for you as a webmaster? Well to a degree it’s too soon to tell what the long-term implications will be, but on the face of it, universal search means more competition.

There’s only room for so many results on the first page of the SERPs. Integrating image, map, news and video results into the main results means your site is not only ranked against other webpages, but other images, videos, maps, news articles etc.

This means that your site will need to be absolutely relevant to your target keyphrases, if you’re on a budget your market needs to be even more niche, your media needs to be properly tagged. In essence your site needs to become a mastermind contestant with recognised authority on your “specialist subject”.

It is the nature of the Web to keep changing and search has to change with it. If universal search takes off, we can expect to see Yahoo! and Microsoft Live search to follow suit in quick order. If you hire or retain an SEO already, talk to them about your site’s requirements. If you don’t, well, you could always talk to us.

Some interesting statistics on the UK Internet audience were released by Nielsen//NetRatings yesterday.

The dominant demographic of Internet users in the UK is now women between the ages of 18 and 34, they represent 18% of online Brits.

There are twice as many men over 50 online than boys under 18, and a quarter of the online population are 50+. Hurrah for the Silver Surfers.

So the next time someone tells you the Internet is for the boys, you can tell them it’s a myth and it’s been busted.

Source: http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_070516_UK.pdf

In the 19th Century the world was awash with travelling salesmen peddling a cure-all “for whatever ails you”. These “medicines” were at the best ineffective and at worst fatal.

Modern medicine is based on the principles of diagnosis and study combined with the experience of qualified doctors.

There are plenty of “snake oil” SEOs on the Internet, offering to sell you the magic formula for Search Engine success at a knock-down price, but let the buyer beware!

SEOs, proper SEOs, are website doctors. We appraise your site with a critical eye, identify the symptoms and use our experience to diagnose the problem. Then we treat it.

We get to care for some sites from the day they’re born, others we see only briefly as troubled-teens, but the process is the same. Diagnosis and testing are our watchwords.

So how can you tell the difference between “snake oil” SEO and the real thing? Well, just as you wouldn’t expect your doctor to have decided what treatment you need before they’ve even asked what your symptoms are, a good SEO won’t sell you their services until they are sure what you need.

Sometimes client expectations, especially when on a tight budget, can be far too high. It is the job of your SEO company to ensure you are fully aware of what is and isn’t possible within the scope of your industry and budget. Only when this consultation process has been completed, and both parties are happy, should you be ready to part with your money. Anything less, and you should look for another SEO.

So that’s that, the “magic formula” is a myth that is well and truly busted.

Don’t let your SEO sell you a universal cure-all, because there simply isn’t one.

Hi all, and welcome to the launch of 123Ranking’s SEO blog.

I’m here to give you a sneak peak into the murky world of Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO. I’ll be covering the latest industry news and how it affects you as webmasters, explaining the jargon that is rife within the community and busting a few commonly held myths about the SEO process.

The world of online search doesn’t stay still for long so keep an eye on the blog to get the skinny. If you’re one of the cool kids why not subscribe to our feed and get the latest info delivered to the reader of your choice.