Tag Archives: search engine optimization

Google has released a new Image Search. Ever true to their aim of providing the best possible user experience, the new Google Images is a lot quicker and more intuitive to use. If you are looking for photos or graphics, the new image search interface is great.

But what about website owners and small business operators that want their websites to be found through image search?

Well, in terms of reach, Google Images is responsive, which makes it convenient to use on any device. With the rapid growth of Internet use on touch and mobile devices, this means more exposure for marketing purposes.

But wait, there’s more…

This is a tale of woe for all you out there who have not kept up to date with Big Brother (Google) changes. Once upon a time, I had a good pagerank, and there was much rejoicing and I even boasted my good fortunes and considerable SEO skill in a post.

Then, the mighty Google enginerds decided to let loose a large, wild Penguin, and they updated the Google quality guidelines and they automated detection of “unnatural” links and their new algorithm flagged my site and there was much misery and there was no point posting about it, because nobody could find my blog anyway.

Fortunately, the email notification from Google Webmaster Tools provided a handy link to the reconsideration request page. I promptly submitted the site for reconsideration and waited for 8 weeks.

My request was denied, my site remained hidden from the public eye and there was much hair pulling and screaming, but I didn’t record any of it, because the site was still virtually invisible, but also because it was really pathetic to listen to.

Let’s face it. Search engines are not interested in making SEO easy. By definition, SEO is a set of ways to manipulate search results, so why should the?

Google has always made it clear that the best way to promote a website is by focusing on human searchers, rather than on robots and crawlers. In several algorithm changes, it specifically targeted links that serve no purpose other than SEO and content that serves purpose other than SEO and advertising revenue.

So basically, traditional link exchange – you link to my site and I’ll link to yours – is dead. Gone. Buried. No more. You get it.

What now? How should an honest small business use the mighty Internet for some promotion, then? Without swapping links, what CAN we do?

The answer is … (drum roll) … fresh content.

C H E C K   T H I S   O U T ! I was showing someone this site as an example and quickly checked my Google PageRank (PR). It was 5! In the past, whenever someone offered me SEO services, the first thing I did was check the PR of their site, [...]

This may not be strictly related to online marketing, but in the course of my work, I often have to count the number of words and characters in a given text (like page titles and descriptions). If you’ve ever used Microsoft Word, you know how that works. Well, before Firefox 4.0, there was a nice [...]

So here I was, showing some small business owners how to get more business online in a webinar, and I suddenly noticed that the Google Search results page (or SERP for short) is behaving differently. Here is a quick summary of what’s new.

I think that if you’re going to ask for professional help, it’s better if you stick to what you want to get for yourself and don’t try to use jargon, because that will get you both in trouble. Leads? Great. Sales? Even better. Profits? Awesome. But SEO? Is that a business word?

How long does it take to get your site listed?

One of my clients recently found out that, with my help, it can take as little as 6 hours!

How would you like just 2 more client per month? How about just 2 more clients per week? Per day? Per hour? How would that affect your bottom line? Your life?

As inventive as ever, Google is now launching a new version of its crawling and indexing engine. They’ve even given it a name: Google Caffeine.