Has Google changed the way it ranks websites?

There has been an email going around the last few days scaremongering that Google has radically changed it's natural listing ranking format by including 'Google Places Pages'.

Google Places Pages are what we have know for a long time as Google Business Listings.


They have been a useful long term SEO tactic for local businesses such as trades and B2B suppliers. Not many people had latched on to the fact that Google has, for a long time, shown listings and a small local map with markers when a geographic qualifier was included in the search term.

Like any SEO activity, the 'secret' to success to being shown in that map is relevance. A good description, keywords and choice of categories is more likely to bring a listing higher. Add to that a few reviews and the always important external inbound links to the website from influential sites, and you have a top listing when someone types in 'Plumber Gorleston' for example. The more refined the geographic term - the better chance you have of success.

So is this new?

No not really. All that's happened is that Google have decided to give it a little more relevance than they had done previously.

Any web designer worth his salt would have organised a Google Business Listing for you anyway and encouraged you to get your customers to login and leave a good review. Plus, of course, look for good directories and sites to gain links from. Inbound links are good for your website and your Business Listing too.

Google Places Pages are covered in my email Website Marketing Course which all my clients receive now, once their site is up and running.

So looking at this email, it's more about trying to sell you a link on their directories rather than 'new' news. But a useful reminder of it's importance all the same.
 
Need help setting up a Google Places Page, or Google Business Listing if you prefer it in old money, then just call or email me.

What's special about your home page?

On a recent web marketing course I was running, one of the delegates said ".. so my home page is a bit like the reception area of my bricks & mortar business?"

Well yes, he's probably right.

Those visitors who arrive on your website after seeing your domain name in your adverts, on your business card or on your van, will most certainly land on your home page. You then have just a few seconds to create the right impression - exactly as you would when someone walked into your main reception.

Things get complicated from then on.... Not everyone will land on your home page.

Some will go straight to one of your sub pages that have been suggested by Google, or one of the other search engines, as relevant to their search phrase. They don't know (or care for that matter) that the page they've been sent to isn't your pristine, smart reception home page.

But they will certainly treat it as such! That means you have some hard work to do!

Every page on your site needs to stand up as a viable and professional reception page otherwise you'll fall at the first hurdle and they will look elsewhere.

Get looking at your web pages in isolation and see how they stack up.

A simple guide to website ranking with links

One of the key factors influencing how your site is indexed, and ranked, in the search engines is that of inbound links.

These are hyperlinks to pages on your site from other sites on the web. The basic theory is that the more links you have, the higher the value of your own site. Why? Because the search engines will assume that, if all those other people think your site is interesting enough to link to, then it must be important.

That was the premise a few years back, but sadly that assumption was abused by the darker side of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). They set up thousands of sites that were just 'Link Farms'. Pages and pages of listings with links to other sites. The more links you had on these sites, the better value you appeared to have, thus skewing the listing results.

Google got smart to this idea and, in an attempt to reduce the effect, they introduced a system of ranking each page it indexed. It's ranking process included a host of factors but was mainly designed to weed out the Link Farms. In fact sites that were/are still found to be listed on these sites are often penalised heavily and their own indexing can be severely impaired making it difficult to appear in any of the results listings.

So let's go back to the beginning. Inbound links are important, but they have to be carefully chosen and prepared links.

Here are the three key factors you should consider:

1: What is the Page Rank (PR) of the page and site that will show the link? The higher the PR the better as it seen as an important site and it's outbound links are valued higher too. Not only that but it will 'feed' some of it's high ranking across to your page as a bonus.

2: Is the site relevant to yours? As an example let's say your site was about pet products. If you had a link on a site with heaps of information all about dogs - that would make sense to Google and be valued. A link on a dating site would be seen as totally irrelevant and virtually ignored.

3. Use good 'Anchor Text'. Having a hyperlink to your pet product site showing as www.petproducts.co.uk on that dog information site is not so effective, and meaningful, as having the hyperlinked text saying 'Buy dog baskets, leads and dog food'. Google sees and understands the relationship between the wording on the information site, the anchor text and that of your site - so it will value the link higher.

So to summarise, links to your site are good, but not all links. Be careful about accepting offers of links, especially if they are asking you to pay. Take time to consider those key factors before you commit.

Finally there is the issue of reciprocal links - the 'You show me yours and I'll show you mine' of the internet world.

You may be offered a link to your site in return for a link to theirs. If you accept this and the link to them is shown on, for example, page 2 of your site and the link to you on their site also points to your page 2, it will easily seen as reciprocal and not a 'vote' of confidence in your or your website, therefore valued less.

Turn that around based on the 3 key factors earlier in this blog. If the link from them is on a page of information about dogs, the anchor text reflects that and the page on your site which it points to is about dogs that's good.

So in return, work something on the same principal but using different pages, perhaps about cats. That way the links are less likely to be seen as reciprocal.

I hope that all makes sense, but you can always talk to me about how to maximise your website profits at Alloy CRM, Sales & Marketing Strategists

Will you profit from the Google changes?

What is the point of having a website if it doesn't bring you a sale or at least high quality enquiries?

So we live and die by Googles' ability to index and rank our sites correctly to attract the right visitors. At any one time we can search ourselves on the keywords and phrases that we would like to be seen for and see exactly how we fair in the listings.

But according to search engine specialist Bruce Clay that's all about to change.

Google has, and probably always will, had to fight a battle with the 'black hat' SEO specialists who work hard to unfairly skew the rankings in their, or their clients, favour.

Google wants to maintain its standing as the leading search engine (over 80% market share in Europe) by offering the best, most useful and most appropriate web pages to us as web searchers. That's what keeps us coming back time after time.

Google has been experimenting for some time with ways to overcome the black hats by making each search unique. They are getting 'up close and personal' to help personalise each and every search that we make.

By using information gained from your previous search history, your location and a broad understanding of your 'intent' (are you looking to buy something or are you looking for information) they can create a different listing of web pages for you to view.

This is great for us as users as the results will probably be more akin to our requirements.

Google are also able now to interrogate video, flash and audio files on web sites and convert the spoken and printed word into text to help offer those in the listings too.

Overall, from a user point of view it's all good news.

How does this affect my website?

As a web site owner we still need to keep our eye on the SEO ball so that Google continues understand our site and knows when, and where, to rank it. Our problem is that we won't be able to check it's ranking for key words and phrases as that will vary from user to user.

This means that we'll need to study and understand the site analytics far more. How many people visit the site, from which keywords, how long did they stay, what pages did they view and did we gain something from them - some contact details or a sale for example?

With that information we are able to test and measure changes and influence the results without resorting to under handed tactics.

The other big change is the importance that Google is putting on what are described as 'Engagement Objects' - such as video and audio. These are seen as enhancements to the user experience and will give considerable weight to the ranking of a page. I have seen statistics that have indicated this for some time now so this element hasn't surprised me.

So the time has never been better to include video elements on your site as these changes will start to take effect during the first quarter of next year.

If you need help with video or how to make your site Search Engine Optimisation is up to scratch contact me at Alloy CRM - Sales and Marketing Strategists.