Google’s New Look Means More Opportunities for You!

You might have noticed that Google’s results page looks a bit different. There’s a new way to navigate the search results. There’s an options panel on the left-hand side of the page that enables you to sort the search results by information type: news results, blogs, shopping, images or books related to your query.
The change is really about customizing search results. Google keeps perfecting their search to provide the most relevant information for their users. The tweaks to the design are to clear up the search engine results page (SERP) so it’s more streamlined.

The sponsored-links on the right-hand of the page, have also changed a bit. They’re closer now to the main body of the search results, and the look of the ads is similar to the natural search results.
So what does this all mean for you? We’ll explain after the jump!

Google has listened to their users – both the search audience and the advertisers – and has taken heed. The movement of the right-hand ads closer to the center search results is great – searchers who once ignored or missed the advertisements can’t help but see the options now.
The left-hand panel allows the user to refine his or her search, which can be really useful for you, the Internet marketer.

For Example…

Think about it; if you have a blog associated with your exercise site, instead of your latest entry on Reebok shoes competing with every page Google finds on the query, if the user specifies ‘blogs’ – which she might do if she’s looking for reviews – your blog has a better chance of a better page rank.
Here’s a screenshot of a Google results page for the query ‘Reebok easytone shoes:’

As you can see the first few results are the big retail websites.
Now here’s a screenshot of the results page sorted by the ‘Blogs’ category:

You can see that the pages that show up in the results are much more diverse, there’s even a blogspot blog by a Malaysian dancer (the SashaBashir link).

The Result?

The results are the same with videos, images, and shopping results – every category listed in the panel. Now if you use multiple types of content on your site, your site has multiple opportunities to rank higher on Google’s SERP!

http://blog.affiliateclassroom.com/more-opportunities-on-google/

SEO Outbound Link Relevance

by Joel Walsh

You know search engines evaluate a site based primarily on the links going to it (inbound links). The PageRank of the sites on which the inbound links are located, and the anchor text of the links, matter a lot. But if you're like most webmasters, you don't appreciate the value of outbound links.

Outbound Link Relevance & Anchor Text

The clearest way that outbound links can affect SEO is through their anchor text.

Outbound links' anchor text affects a page's search engine ranking in much the same way that inbound links' anchor text affects search engine ranking. Anchor text of inbound links is arguably the most important factor in search engine rankings for particular keywords. For instance, if "fuzzy keyword" is in the anchor text of a link to a webpage, that webpage may well appear in SERPs for "fuzzy keyword" even if neither the word "fuzzy" nor "keyword" appears anywhere on your site.

Outbound links' anchor text works the same way, though it is slightly less powerful. If you have a particular keyword in the anchor text of a link on a webpage, that webpage will likely show up in search engine results--even if it appears nowhere else on the page, and even if there are no inbound links with that anchor text.

Don't believe me? Look at your web traffic logs. Check out the search engine traffic to specific pages. You'll likely see plenty of instances of the page getting traffic for search strings that appear nowhere else on the page but in the anchor text of outbound links.

One example from a site I own is on endometrialcancer.org, a project devoted to provided information about a disease. There are separate pages for symptoms, diagnosis, prognosis, and other aspects of the disease. Strikingly, one page my rank highly for another page's target keyword, if it links to the other page with the target keyword in its anchor text. For instance, the "diagnosis" page may outrank the "symptoms" page for the keyword "endometrial cancer symptoms," merely because the "diagnosis" page has that keyword in the anchor text of its link to the symptoms page.

How to shoot yourself in the foot with outbound link anchor text relevance:

There are four main ways to shoot yourself in the foot by mishandling outbound links' anchor text:

1. Don't include relevant outbound links on the webpage. There are many sites nearly all of whose pages have no outbound links but a standard navigation bar, and perhaps a link to the site's web designer, host, or CMS maker. What exactly is a search engine algorithm supposed to make of a webpage if the only outbound links it has have anchor text such as "about us," "contact," "privacy," "site map," "Design by TechGnome," and "This site powered by Mambo Open CMS"?

2. Don't include off-site outbound links on the webpage. Think about it for a moment: what is the one thing a truly informative webpage would have to have, besides content? Links to other sites! If a page has no outbound links to other sites, there is a good chance the page is a dead end, or worse, a billboard. At the very least, include at least one intra-site link that isn't part of the standard site navigation.

3. Include irrelevant links. I have a client site that sells computer equipment. After paying me all the money for my services largely in hopes of getting more search engine traffic, they decide to sell irrelevant links on the homepage, for a fraction of what they paid me. If you were a search engine algorithm, what would you make of a site that had "computer equipment" in the page title, headings, and inbound link anchor text--but had two outbound links with "Costa Rican beach resort" and "Low-cost mortgages" in the anchor text? If I were the algorithm, I'd get a little confused, and play it safe by ranking the site for none of those keywords. After all, there are plenty of sites that make a less ambiguous case for their relevance for any of those keywords.

4. Include relevant outbound links, but forget the anchor text. If you are linking to a relevant webpage, whether on-site or off-site, by all means, use your page's target keyword in the anchor text! Now is not the time to get lazy and use the URL as the anchor text. You are doing the right thing by linking to relevant webpage. Make sure you get credit for your good deed!

After all, they call it the web because the links go both in and out, tying sites together like nodes of spider silk. If links were only meant to flow one way, they'd just call it the chain.

Don't chain your website down. Start sharing the links.

http://ezinearticles.com/?SEO-Outbound-Link-Relevance&id=122112

Walsh, Joel "SEO Outbound Link Relevance." SEO Outbound Link Relevance. 3 Jan. 2006. EzineArticles.com. 12 Aug 2008 <http://ezinearticles.com/?SEO-Outbound-Link-Relevance&id=122112>.

SEO Jargon

The guys over SEOMoz have published the “Complete Glossary of Essential SEO Jargon.” Below you will find my favorite ones:
Cloak: The practice of delivering different content to the search engine spider than that seen by the human users. This Black Hat tactic is frowned upon by the search engines and caries a virtual death penalty of the site/domain being banned from the search engine results.
Doorway (gateway): A web page that is designed to attract traffic from a search engine and then redirect it to another site or page. A doorway page is not exactly the same as cloaking but the effect is the same in that users and search engines are served different content.
Google bomb: The combined effort of multiple webmasters to change the Google search results usually for humorous effect. The “miserable failure” - George Bush, and “greatest living American” - Steven Colbert Google bombs are famous examples.
Google bowling: Maliciously trying to lower a sites rank by sending it links from the “bad neighborhood” - Kind of like yelling “Good luck with that infection!” to your buddy as you get off the school bus - there is some controversy as to if this works or is just an SEO urban myth.
Google dance: The change in SERPs caused by an update of the Google database or algorithm. The cause of great angst and consternation for webmasters who slip in the SERPs. Or, the period of time during a Google index update when different data centers have different data.
Hub: (expert page) a trusted page with high quality content that links out to related pages.

Keyword Cannibalization: The excessive reuse of the same keyword on too many web pages within the same site. This practice makes it difficult for the users and the search engines to determine which page is most relevant for the keyword.

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI): This mouthful just means that the search engines index commonly associated groups of words in a document. SEOs refer to these same groups of words as “Long Tail Searches”. The majority of searches consist of three or more words strung together. See also “long tail”. The significance is that it might be almost impossible to rank well for “mortgage”, but fairly easy to rank for “second mortgage to finance monster truck team”. Go figure.
Link Condom: Any of several methods used to avoid passing link love to another page, or to avoid possible detrimental results of indorsing a bad site by way of an outgoing link, or to discourage link spam in user generated content.
Sandbox: There has been debate and speculation that Google puts all new sites into a “sandbox,” preventing them from ranking well for anything until a set period of time has passed. The existence or exact behavior of the sandbox is not universally accepted among SEOs.

Keep your Website Fresh for SEO

Keeping it fresh is another thing that is great for SEO. Make sure to update your website once a week. 

The changes don't have to be big. They could be very small like changing the homepage text or posting comments on your services page. Any change will be considered as keeping your site fresh which search engines love. One of the worst things you can do for SEO is to have a stale website.

No one likes outdated information and neither do search engines.

Verify Your Website with Google

Verifying your site with Google’s webmaster tools can give you more information about your site and help your search engine optimization efforts.

If you don’t have an account with Google yet, you need to get one. Google offers a set of Webmaster tools that can help you to manage your site, and get a better understanding of what‘s going on as far as Google is concerned. But most of all it’s a great SEO tool that can also help you with your search engine optimization efforts.

Once you’ve signed up for an account and added your site, the first thing you are going to want to do is get your site verified. By getting your site verified, you will be able to access comprehensive reports on your Website which includes statistics, diagnostics, and link information.

Website verification is very easy to do. Simply click on the link to ‘verify’ and choose the method you would like to use for verification. You can either choose to verify with a Meta Tag or by uploading an HTML file to your site. You’re probably wondering why in the world they are asking you to do this… I know I did too. However, one of the main reasons is security. Google wants to make sure that you are the Website owner. This prevents other users or worse - your competition from putting in your Website into their account and getting information about your site.
After you have your site verified, give Google a few days to populate the information for you. Usually waiting about a week will give you a better idea of what’s happening, and then you can see what you should fix or change to improve your Website.

One of the features I like best about this Website tool is that you can see the query stats. Query stats will show you the keywords and where you are ranking for them in Google’s index. There are couple of different options too that will let you sort the data; you can sort by either web or image search, and also by country. You can even download the information into Excel for further analysis. The only problem I see at this time is that the information is not real time; it is an average over the last seven days. So if you click on a link to see your Website listing in the index, it may not be in the same place as it says in the report.

If you have a rather large site, the error logs can be especially useful. You can see what pages in your Website give you HTTP errors, timeouts, and pages not found. The pages that are not found feature also gives you more details about the error. I would recommend going through these errors and fixing them. The fewer errors on your site, the more professional your site will appear to your visitors and the search engines.

There are many more features to the webmaster tools on Google; I highly recommend that you take a minute to check them out. This tool is great for doing search engine optimization and should be a part of every webmasters toolbox.

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