Exciting things you can do with Google

Google’s remarkable ability to produce speedy, relevant results to search queries has changed the way people find information. To google means to search; the company’s name has become a verb in English, German, and other languages. However, many average computer users are not aware of many of the functionalities built in Google. Here, I will share a few tips to enhance your googling experience.

• Searching for a term and its synonyms

Prefix a word with the tilde character “~” with no space between, in the Google search box, and Google will return web pages relevant to the word as well as its synonyms. For example, a search for ~auto will list web pages containing the terms auto, automobiles, cars, vehicles, trucks and more.

• Precision searches for lyrics, book titles etc.

If you are looking for information about exact phrases such as song lyrics or book titles, you should add quote marks around your query. Thus, typing “I should have known better” into Google will return web pages about the song by The Beatles. Google ignores common words like and, is, are, the, of, on and to when they are used in search queries without quotes.

• Browse the world’s libraries online

You can browse or read the entire text of books that are not copyrighted, by searching for a topic at print.google.com. Google has scanned and indexed millions of volumes from the libraries of Oxford, Harvard, Stanford, New York Public library, etc.

• Google for scholarly research

If you are a research scholar looking for scientific papers and academic journals, search for them at Google Scholar (scholar.google.com).

• Google as your dictionary

If you type define followed by any English word into the Google search box, you can see a quick definition of the word at the top of the search results.

• Google as your calculator

If you enter a mathematical expression into the Google search box, Google will compute the answer. You can use numbers and symbols as in (113 + 25) or use words as in (ten plus two), or a combination such as (10% of fifty million).

• Google as your phone book

If you enter a person’s or business name, city and state into the Google search box, you will see the matching phone and address listings at the top of the search results.

• Get instant stock quotes

If you type a stock ticker symbol into the Google search box, you can get instant stock quotes for any public company listed on NASDAQ, New York Stock Exchange, or American Stock Exchange.

• Google as language translator

You can translate text and web pages among several languages using the automated translation service built in Google.

• Maps and driving directions

Enter a city and state or just a zip code in Google search box, and Google will provide a direct link to its own map and direction service (maps.google.com), as well as those by Yahoo and MapQuest.

• Get instant answers on your cell phone

If you are in the U.S., send a text message to the number 46645 (GOOGL) with your query, and Google will reply you back with instant answers. So, you can get phone numbers, stock quotes, movie information, etc. even when you are on the go.

These selected features just provide a glimpse of the limitless possibilities for accessing information using a search engine such as Google.

SEO Tips for launching a new website

Search Engines like Google and Yahoo have become intelligent in the past 4-5 years. It is very difficult to game search engines nowadays by manipulating tags and keyword stuffing. For a new site it may take 6 to 9 months to achieve competitive rankings at Google. From SEO point of view, I recommend the following steps for launching a new website.

• Registering a domain name

Pick a domain name which either has keywords associated with your product/service or your brand name. It is better to go for short domain names which are easy to remember. If your target market is global, go for a .com domain. If you are targeting a particular country or language, it is better to register a domain name in TLD of that country. For example, go for a .jp or .co.jp domain, if you are targeting Japan. I recommend you to register the domain for at least 2 years; more the better to gain the trust of search engines.

• Domain Hosting

Host your site with a reliable hosting company. Stay away from companies which allow hosting of pharmacy, gambling and adult sites, or have a history of serving spam. If you are targeting a particular country/language, it is advised to host your site in that country to boost your rankings in the local search engines for that country/language.

• Registering with Search Engines

Since search engines give important to domain aging and can track parameters like the registration date & first crawled date, you better register your site with search engines as early as possible. Even if your site is not fully ready, it is better to make a temporary one-two page site and register with the search engines at the earliest. Getting indexed in MSN may take only 3-4 days, whereas it may take 2-3 months to get indexed in Google and Yahoo. To speed up this process, you should build incoming links from authority websites. More the links a site receives, the less it is ignored by the search engines. It also reduces the Google sandboxing time for new sites. Submitting your sitemap to Google Webmaster Central also ensures that your site would get crawled and indexed regularly.

• Build trust with Search Engines

To build trust with the search engines, you should build your incoming links and content at a regular pace. Keep your content unique and relevant to your products/services. Building links from relevant websites will boost your rankings.

Google Filter: Minus 30 penalty

Google is harder to manipulate compared to other search engines because of various filters it incorporates in its algorithm to prevent spam. Minus 30 penalty is one such filter for handling spam in Google algorithm.

So, what is this minus 30 penalty? If your site was previously ranking high in Google search results, and suddenly its ranking drops by 30 positions, there is a chance that the minus 30 penalty is applied to your site. Normally, if you do a search on your domain name, you would expect to see your site at the first position; but if you see your site at 31st position, it is very likely that the minus 30 penalty is in force.

Most likely candidates to experience this penalty are affiliate sites which do not add much value for the site visitors. However, many non-affiliate sites also have reported this penalty. Though there is no proven theory which can identify sites which are likely to face this penalty, sites with excessive low quality inbound or outbound links and lots of non-unique content may have a minus 30 ranking penalty applied.

The only solution to avoid this penalty is to have unique content on your site, to get links from well trusted sites and to link to high quality sites. For detailed information, please refer to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

Single Canonical URL for better Google ranking

A Common SEO mistake made by many webmasters is that they are not consistent when it comes to linking to their URLs across their site.

If some of your links go to the URL http://yoursite.com, and the rest go to http://www.yoursite.com/, your link popularity gets divided among these two URLs - thus affecting the pagerank as well as the ranking for that URL. So, it is better to pick the URL that you want and use it consistently across your entire website, as well as for your incoming links. One cannot, however, control how other sites would link to his website. So you have to inform Google which URL you prefer to be canonical. Google calls Canonicalization as the process for picking the best URL when there are many alternatives.

‘Google Sitemaps’ offers an option to select a canonical URL for your site. Another way to achieve canonicalization is by adding a 301 redirect (permanent redirect). So, if you want your default URL to be the www version, then you can 301 redirect your non-www version to the www version. Having a single, canonical version of every URL on your site will improve your site rankings as well as the pagerank.

Things To Remember When Creating a Site Map

• Use plain text links.

Search engine spiders can have a more difficult time "seeing" JavaScript. To receive the most benefits from having a site map, make sure that the links are created as plain text links!

• Things To Remember When Creating a Site Map

There isn't a lot of sense in creating a site map if you don't put a text link to it on the front page of your site where site visitors and search engine spiders can easily find it.

• Use anchor text links.

Use your exact page titles so that you can take advantage of anchor text back links. Once again this will increase link popularity for your site.

• Add descriptive content.

Many search engines don't like pages that are filled only with links. By adding descriptive content (much like search engines do) you can have a page filled with links and still have relevant content.

• Organize into categories.

Remember that your site map isn't created just for search engines. Organize your site map into categories. By following the structure of a table of contents that you'd find in the front of a book, you'll make it much easier for your visitors to find what they are looking for!

Content Optimization

Good copy equals conversions.

This is probably the hardest selling point to get across to a client when seo speak begins. Sure people know they need to get ranked in Google, and they know you need to build an online presence, and of course, they all know that they need to get traffic to their site.

But site copy? Anytime that topic is brought up, most clients proudly boast that they have already posted their brochure's information on their site and that works just fine.

Well, it doesn't. Content optimization is a skill that few people possess. Words sell, images don't. You need to get the user to take action! So, in that spirit, here is a list of things to do and ones to avoid:

Things to do:

• Use the main keyphrase you are targeting on every page, except for the home page.
• Use keyphrases in your hyperlinks.
• Create a page title that is intriguing and eye catching. Remember words sell, graphics don't.
• Limit your keyword usage to 2 or 3 keywords per page. Otherwise, you may get tagged for keyword spamming.
• Create supplemental content like FAQ pages, how-to pages, industry glossary and related articles about the product.
• Use the description meta tag. Google refers to this when it can't find content or a listing in DMOZ.
• Always keep an eye on competitors and how they rank for the same keywords.
• Focus on the the pages that have your best conversion rates.
• Think like a reporter, asking the five W questions (who, what, when, where, why).
• Display your location. Studies indicate that people look for local vendors, even when online.

Things to avoid:

• Inserting keywords into copyrighted material.
• Forgetting what your audience is looking for.
• Leaving the title of your page as "Untitled".
• Using too many graphics.
• Waiting to implement copy changes for expected seasonal sales. You need 6-months when optimizing seasonal content to give the engines time to adjust to your alterations.

Content optimization is a continual process of monitoring and updating. By staying true to this course, you'll see the results in your sales.

-To your online success!

Creating A #1 Rank in Google

Impossible, right? Not really worth the time, right? Wrong on both accounts.

Many times while entering phrases into Google, I find a lot of somewhat related sites, but hardly ever anything exact. So why bother on getting these supposedly un-searched terms?

Because there is a perception that having your site in the #1 spot in Google means that your site is an authority on that particular subject. As any experienced user knows, this is most often not the case, but perception is reality.

Granted, some of the phrases that you can get ranked on may not be very popular, but you never know what a user is going to enter into the search box, or do we ever know at what point of information gathering they are at.

One of the most common traits of searching is that when a user firsts begins a search, they use a broad term, but as they get further along into their search, the phrases become more precise as they themselves filter out the un-related sites.

This is the same concept of which a successful PPC campaign can be run. While it may be great to get tons of traffic for the keyword "shoes", if a user is really looking for "Nike running shoes", the site has wasted money on that search.

Another curious stat that web analytics reveal is that a consumer that comes to a site through PPC is not a life-time customer. They are usually interested in the quick fix, or easy solution. Compared to a user who arrives through organic search engine optimization, they are more likely to be lifetime consumers since they tend to trust a company that has "earned" it's way to the top of the rankings.

By the time a user has a four to five keyword phrase entered in for their search query, chances are that they have already eliminated the "noise" and are focused on the "signal" i.e. the product or service that your site is offering.

One final item to remember is that if you have an exact phrase that is not common to a search engine query, once it gets indexed, it will most like appear in the number one position since the search engines always try to find an exact match when other factors aren't available.

As an example, here are some articles I've written that have a #1 ranking in Google (as of March 14, 2007):

The SEO Halo Effect
All Links Matter
The Benefits of Black Hat Techniques
It's All About Me Advertising
Automatic SEO
Clinically Proven SEO
Why You Need Outbound Links

-To your online success!

Why Search Engines Fail

Imagine asking a stranger for directions to a clothing store. Chances are, the stranger will tell you one of two replies. They'll direct you to the nearest clothing store they know of, or they'll send to to the last one they just passed. But you're looking for the latest Spongebob Squarepants kid's shirt. You didn't tell the stranger that, did you? Probably not. So, you got directions to the local Disney store, which of course, would not be selling any competitor's clothing.

How did this happen? Simple.

Like most of us, when we type something into a search engine, we just assume that the search engine knows what we mean. A computer can only do what we tell it to do, so that's why we may not get the desired results that we are seeking. Back when the 'Net was young (1990), you could get away with such simple phrases because there wasn't much content on the Internet as there is now. This is why when you're searching, be sure to be as specific as possible. The Search Engine's entire existance is to provide relevant and specific results to you, the user. Tell the engine more relevant phrases, and you will be rewarded accordingly.

Even when searching for a singular or plural version of something, you will get different results. Some words are even more complex. For example, if you enter "wheelchair", Google will tell you there are about 1.4 million results. Add a space, and now you have "wheel chair" and Google will tell you that there are about 4.6 million results! Now to even complicate matters more, if you enter "wheel chairs" there are only 760,000 results. Remove the space and for "wheelchairs" you now get about 1.2 million results.

How does this happen?

Remember, the search engines are programmed to try and deliver the best document for each given keyword/phrase. Through a complex algorithm, they mathmatically determine which page has the most relevant content. They do this for every possible keyword and phrase that they are aware of. This why you see such a disparity in the search results.

How can I rank for all of my similar keywords?

Glad you asked. One of the many factors used in determining keyword relevancy is proximity. By using the variations of the spelling in a logical manner - such as the example I presented above, describing the different ways it can be spelled - the search engines will use this to determine that since your page talks about these variations of wheelchairs, this page must be relevant. Of course there are many other factors involved, but for the sake of this discussion, that's all we need.

-To your online success!

How to Get Your Site a Top Ranking in Google

It's the new American dream. Your website appears in a top spot on Google for your chosen keyword. Next thing you know, orders start coming in faster than you can handle, and you are rolling in the money. If only it were so easy, right?

Well,

It can be done. I've done it many times in many different industries. There is no secret, but rather, it's just knowing what to do. I've made just about every mistake one can make with a website, but I learned from every setback. If you were only allowed to do one thing to get ranked for your site in Google, without a doubt, all you'd need to do is get links for your site.

Yes, there are many other factors involved in getting your site to a top position. But this is the most powerful way as of this writing to get a top spot in Google. It's not just enough to have links pointing to your site, but you need to have your keyword "anchor linked" to your site. Anchor linking is when you use your keyword phrase as the click-able text for a link. So, instead of saying "Click Here", you would use "Widgets" as the link text.

Now, another point of consideration is determining what keyword/phrase you want to use to get your site found. Most times, people impulsively choose a one word phrase. While this would be a great way to bring traffic to your site, would it bring targeted traffic, with people looking specifically for your product or service? Most times when people type in a one letter keyphrase, they are in the beginning of their search.

They may type in "Shoes", but are really looking for "Running Shoes". So, if you have a top ranking for shoes, do you serve that user's needs? Maybe, but they may also be looking for dress, casual, Women's, Men's, Children's, athletic, girl's, boy's, etc. This is why when you begin to optimize your site, you should focus on more targeted keyword phrases.

Suppose you sell a certain brand name of dress shoes. For this example, we'll call the famous brand XYZ. So, by getting anchor links as "XYZ Dress Shoes", you are already eliminating those users who are looking for another brand or line of shoe. Next, you need to make sure that the page that gets linked contains the on the page content with "XYZ Dress Shoes". If you would link to a page without relevant content, Google would view this link as possible spam, or more appropriately, irrelevant content.

Now, once you have compiled your list of keywords, you need to see which one are searched on the most. The best tool for this is WordTracker, and it is worth the tiny fee you need to pay to have access for one day. There are also free tools online that you can use, but WordTracker will give you the most accurate results.

Once you have run through your list of all your keywords, the obvious choice is to pick the ones with the highest amount of searches (and content relevant to your site!). The next step is to then begin the process of a link campaign. Now, I can already hear you complaining about doing a link exchange. This is only 1/3 of your campaign. The ideal method is to not only engage in a reciprocal link exchange, but to also engage in strategic linking.

Strategic linking is when you get a link to your site without having to return the favor. What's the best way to do this? Write an article just like this one. If I get one website to use this article and have it point to my site, I've just created another link to my site. Pretty easy, eh?

Since you have now engaged in a linking campaign, you should expect to see results in Google in as little as 4 days, and as far as 6 months. All of this is determined by where your links are coming from, and the popularity of the site from which the link came. Next, you need to get as many links as you can pointing to your site with your popular keyword phrase anchor linked to your site.

As I mentioned before, there many other factors that will only enhance your rankings in Google, but the implementation of a link campaign is the strongest method to get your site to a top ranking!

-To your online success!

Why You Need Outbound Links

Just in case you've forgotten, an outbound link is a url that you have on your site that points to another website.

In today's Google PR obsessed Internet world, everyone is completely focusing on getting in bound links to your site. While you should always be on a mission to get more sites to link to yours, you must not forget their polar opposites.

Remember, by having outbound links from your site, you are in essence "voting" for the site you link to. This is part of the entire ranking algorithm process for all the search engines. The idea is, that if two sites are similar in content and design, a site with more links pointing to it would be considered more important by the search engine.

So then, why should you help out any other site? Actually, by carefully linking to other relevant sites, you are increasing the relevancy of your own site.

Pretend I have a pizza shop, and I am located in Anywhere, USA. It's a typical site that displays types of pizza, store location, hours, and coupons. I also know the power of outbound linking. For this case, I am going to link to 10 sites: Domino's, Pizza Hut, Little Ceaser’s & Papa Johns. Next, I link to 6 sites that are physically located in Anywhere, USA. (And their physical addresses are listed on their sites.)

Now, I will switch roles and view the site as a search engine spider. I navigate through the site, and determine that this site is about pizza. Then I find a resource page and discover some well-known links (Domino's, Pizza Hut, Little Ceaser’s & Papa Johns - and as the spider I know that these are major players in the realm of pizza). Next, I find 6 links to sites located in Anywhere, USA.

So, as a happy spider leaving the site, I now know that the site I just visited is about pizza (site content and links to the major players of the pizza industry), and that it is located in Anywhere, USA.

Next, I visit one of the 6 sites listed as a resource in Anywhere, USA. I find the local address, and it has the same zip code as the pizza site I was just at. Now I know how these two sites are related to each other.

Taking into account the fact that this local pizza shop has also linked to the major pizza chains, as the spider, I am lead to believe that this shop has relevancy to the zip code of Anywhere, USA.

So, as the spider returns the information to the database to be processed in the algorithm, it has pre-sorted some search results based on the links your site points to.

Another benefit of outbound linking is Geo Targeting, or Local search. There is a lot of speculation that local search is the next big trend in Search Marketing. While only time will tell, it won't hurt to have your physical address listed on your website for those who will be embracing local search.

As an experiment, I created a site with a very unique url (to avoid the possibility of people finding it by accident), and I made it only 1 page long. The only thing the page consisted of were 80+ outbound links to relevant sites in the SEO industry, tools, forums and some tutorials. When the PageRank was first updated for the site, it came out of the box with a PR of 3. It has since fallen to a PR of 2 (now that I’ve pointed a few sites to it!).

The whole point of this experiment was to see how outbound links affect your own rankings of your site. I was able to generate a PR of 2 based entirely on linking to authority sites in the SEO industry. So, take the time to link to some relevant sites, the big names (if any), and enjoy the power of the easy, outbound link.

-To your online success!

Speed Up Your Web Page

When you try to improve the speed of your Web page, you must consider several things:

• Images
  Optimizing your images is the best way to improve the download speed of your Web pages. A good rule of thumb is to strive for no one image being larger than 10 Kb. This is especially hard with animations, but if you can do it, you'll have some great fast images.
  
  Also, after you optimize your images, you should call them in your HTML with the height and width specified in the image tag. This will allow the browser to continue rendering the Web page while the image downloads in the background.
• HTML
  Once you have your images down to a reasonable size, try streamlining your HTML. You will find sites out on the Internet that advocate removing all extraneous tags, to the point of removing the final and . I do not think this is a good idea, but you can remove all the unnecessary attributes created by some editors, and use the defaults of tags as much as possible. For example, if you create a table and you want the cellpadding and cellspacing to be 2, then leave out those attributes. That is the default for a table.
• Page size
  With small images and clean HTML, you can still end up with a page that takes forever to download because there is so much information. If you are striving for a speedy download, limit your page total size (including images) to about 30 Kb. You'll still be on the high side if you're at 30 Kb, but 50% of the pages on the Web are 32 Kb or less, so you'll be in good company. (From the Seventh Georgia Tech GVU WWW survey as quoted in "How Much is Too Much")
• Tables
  Nested tables are a common cause of slow pages. They are so tempting to use as they improve the layout enormously, but they take a long time for the browser to render. It's not that the page didn't download, but with multiple tables in tables, the browser has to work harder to display the page. It cannot display any part of the page in the tables until it has figured out how to render all the tables that are nested.
• Advertisements
  Many advertisements are served from a different Web server than the Web page. If that server is down or slow, it will impact the loading of any page they are called from. The same is true for counters and other external CGIs and images that are not on the same Web server.
• Web Server
  If you've optimized your graphics and HTML and kept the page size to a minimum and it still takes forever to load, check out your Web server. Is it getting more hits than it can handle? It might be time to upgrade the machine or the connection between it and the world, if it isn't showing the bandwidth you want.

7 Ways to Turn Visitors into Customers

Web users are impatient, ruthless and fickle creatures. It’s estimated that over 50% of visitors to your site will get bored and click away. Here are some quick ways to remedy that figure and turn more visitors into customers…

1. Cut your Copy by Half

Your homepage has 10 seconds to capture that user. Urgent measures are required. If users are uncomfortable reading on-screen text, the amount of copy needs cutting. This doesn’t mean you can cut-and-paste your full catalogue onto the website and hope it works. Web copy requires brutal editing – aim for about 50% of what you’d write for printed brochures.

2. Subheadings

Subheadings are also useful for exactly the same reason. Bear in mind that a user is scanning the page for content, so try to make the keywords stand out however you can.

3. Avoid Clichés and Word Litter

Paragraphs should be short and contain one key idea each, to facilitate scanning. And avoid word litter – fluffy phrases like ‘we pride ourselves on high levels of customer satisfaction’ will send that badger next-door.

4. Use a Slogan

Stating your company’s purpose in a clear manner – in other words, providing a slogan for dummies – is vital on a website. If users can’t work out why Google has sent them to your site, they won’t stay. Your slogan needn’t be clever – a simple statement summarising your products is perfect, especially if your company name doesn’t speak for itself.

5. Lure your Users In

Card and Pirolli (1999) described how good websites create a strong ‘information scent’. In other words, provide simple navigation and an obvious trail from one page to the next. Use interesting information as bait to make sure your readers end up where you want them.

6. Give Great Content

Web experts all over the world emphasise the importance of features. Be they reviews, entertaining or factual articles, features will be picked up on search engines and will send new users to your site. Convert readers to customers by placing product links within and beneath the feature.

7. Added Incentives

Users are worth leaving treats out for. Update the home page with new links and features. Invite users to sign up for an e-newsletter, clearly stating that you will not pass their details around.

And make your site a bit different. Have some fun features, competitions or games, especially around occasions like Easter and Bank Holidays.