Posts Tagged ‘google’
An Introduction To Information Architecture Optimization
Information Architecture Optimization involves the global navigation of your website. It will be helpful for users and search engines. Basically, it is a way to get the keywords you want to rank high for within the link text. The users experience should always come first before the search engines – so, you don’t want to cram a bunch of keywords on the buttons at the top of your website, because it might confuse users, it may not fit within the space you have, and could disrupt the look and feel of your website.
For example, most people have very general terms like “about us” “contact us” and “customer support” as their navigation pages. With information architecture, you would make these more specific and keyword focused, so if we were to implement in our about us page, we could say:
“About Us – We are an internet marketing firm in San Diego”
The ways around actually displaying all of those words on the page, but still having them there, is by using one of four different strategies listed below:
Code Order
Within the code of the website, you can rearrange the order so that the first thing listed is the content of the page, then the side bar navigation, and then the header information. This way, your website will be more optimized so that the links with the keywords are prioritized.
CSS Status Tip
The CSS Status tip is what appears in the bottom left hand corner of your screen. If you use this technique, your keyword rich sentence will show up at the bottom of the page when someone hovers over one of the buttons in the navigation.
CSS Tool Tip
This strategy is most commonly used and would display the longer keyword phrase right at the same place you are scrolling over. So, it will appear as a text balloon right next to the link.
Image Based Navigation
This way you would use images as the actual buttons and add alternative or ALT text to these images as the keyword phrase you want to use.
All in all, information architecture optimization is a more advanced technique, but if you are willing to put the effort into it, it will make a big difference. Have any questions? Let us know!
Analyze This! The Future of Web Analytics
Two recent independent developments promise to shakeup the way traffic is measured on the Internet. First Google announced plans to soon allow users to opt-out of being tracked through Google Analytics. Secondly, the increased deployment of Flash cookies over HTML cookies has given analysts and business people a bit of encouragement, as Flash cookies are more sophisticated and harder to detect than their HTML counterpart, stoking the fears of privacy advocates wary of the amount of information collected on Google and search engine servers.
Anxiety Over the Future of Analytics
Google’s announcement poses some serious questions as to how traffic will be measured on the Internet. Precipitated by growing concerns over privacy on the web, Google appears to be attempting to set itself in front of the issue and above the fray. As Google Analytics is already an imperfect system, statistical purists find themselves asking whether data can be trusted once users can prevent their information from being tracked. Once a significant number of Internet users opt-out, Google Analytics information may be rendered less useful. Businesses will not doubt turn to other analytic services; however, the question remains whether other analytics tools will follow Google’s lead and offer users the same option.
On the flip side of the debate, analysts look to the promise of Flash cookies. As mentioned above, Flash cookies are more sophisticated and pose hurdles for a user to detect and delete. Furthermore, Flash cookies, one of the Internet’s better kept secrets, can re-spawn after deletion. The additional hurdles users would need to overcome to free themselves from Flash tracking than simply opting out of Google Analytics could ensure that analytic information would retain its accuracy and integrity.
Not So Fast, Flash Cookies
Unfortunately for businesses and analysts, the public isn’t quite as ignorant to Flash cookies as they would like. A recent article in OnlineMediaDaily claims that 7% of Flash cookies are deleted, which may not seem like a significant proportion; however, this number has doubled in the past 10 months.
6 Slick Tricks To Make Google Work For You
What Google lacks in catchy television commercials, it more than makes up for in service. Coming off the heels of those surprisingly memorable television ads, Microsoft’s Bing experiment has carved out a respectable slice of the search market share but hardly gained any traction against the Internet behemoth we all know as our homepage or as Google. Google’s share of the market floats at 65%, changing minimally from month to month, with Yahoo (17%) and Bing (13%) lagging so far behind their combined share doesn’t equal half of Google’s total share. The search engine holds an unassailable position atop the search engine hierarchy.
This is perhaps a result of Google offering users more than just search results – Google has become a one-stop shop, affording users the ability to check their mail, get directions, watch the latest viral video, find up to date news sourced more than a thousand times, and even translate the website for that hotel in Reykjavik, Iceland, which doesn’t seem to have an English button.
6 Slick Tricks
Nonetheless, most Internet surfers are unaware of the many tools Google provides that does not warrant an insular tab at the top the page. By entering specific codes into the search field, you can manipulate Google to do whatever it is you want it to. Here are six of my favorite unknown tricks of the trade:
1. Spell Check:
Google is perhaps the fastest way to check your spelling. By typing your word into the search field, Google will confirm a million times over the correct spelling or suggest an alternate. Likewise, you can enter the “define” operator to instruct Google to show you only dictionary entries.
2. Calculator:
Yes, your computer does have a calculator. So does your phone. But sometimes those places are just farther away than a Google search bar. Try searching an arithmetic nightmare like “538/14 * (17+284)/ 2”. Then go ahead and check it on your calculator and ask yourself which method was easier.
3. World Clock:
Trying to figure out if you can call that hotel in Reykjavik to book a room? Search “time Reykjavik” to see whether or not it’s business hours. Naturally, this is an invaluable tool in a world were you need to call London, San Diego, and New Delhi all in one working day.
4. Currency Converter:
Need to find out how many kroner you’re getting for your dollar? Type “100 dollars in kroner” to find out. You can, of course, use Google to find out that Iceland is on the kroner before you begin converting.
5. Exclusion Operator:
This one is an oldie but worth repeating. Search ‘ “masters” –woods ’ to see the untold stories of this weekend’s golf tournament. That little minus sign may be all that stands between you and a torrent of unwanted search results.
6. File Type Operator:
You can limit your search results to specific file types. Ever want to know what power points people have published on Reykjavik? Search “reykjavik filetype:ppt” to be amazed. Likewise you can search everything from avi to zip for your file-finding needs.
Google’s Super Bowl ad search results are not the same as actual results… but at least better than Bing
If you are not from the search marketing industry, you already know that rankings fluctuate. They change over time and this is were SEO companies use ranking reports checking how rankings change over time, looking at the trend and seeing the benefits of these ranking improvements in terms of traffic, conversions and ROI. Knowing that ranking change all the time due to different factors such as personalization, geographic location, all sorts of Google One-Box algorithms, Google Subscribed Links, Image Search, Video Search, Real Time Search, the search engine results page (SERP) may always look different from two different people. So I decided to check last Google commercial that was aired during the Super Bowl. This is actually not a new commercial, it was uploaded by Google online on YouTube last November 19, 2009 and many people in the search industry already knew about this commercial. A full set of all their other video commercials can be found on YouTube’s Search Stories.
I took a deeper look into the search results and replicated each search query to see how these results were different from the actual results below: (more…)
In Lala Love with Google
Oh Google, how you never cease to amaze…
Until just a few days ago, Lala was a fairly unknown online music streaming site. Since its 2006 launch, the site has experienced growth rates far inferior to other music sites like Myspace and Pandora. That is, until a partnership with Google suddenly moved their company into the everyday internet vocabulary.
Try this: type in a band or song name into the Google search box, and check out the first results that come up. Rather than directing you to Myspace or the band’s official website, you can now listen to the entire song, for free, with one click. For example, if you were to type in the up-and-coming band The xx into the box, your results would look like this:
The first time you listen, the service costs you nothing; for every time after that, it’s a nominal fee of $.10. Add this to the laundry list of Google’s cutting-edge innovations like Google Voice, Google Wave, and the Android phone, that have all recently been released.
Also, keep a lookout for a new Lala iPhone application, which will allow music streaming similar to the online model: free for the first listen, $.10 per every future listen . Rumor has it the app will be available mid-November, and likely with a very high demand.
…let’s just say we’re in la-la-love.
May 2009 Google PageRank Update
Recently, Google made an update to the Google Toolbar page rank algorithm. We saw an increase in our Page rank from a 4 to a 5 over the past couple of days. Internet Marketing Inc. has worked vehemently on meeting the Google guidelines of being a well optimized and relevant site for Google Natural Search, since its inception. Although, you should not solely rely on PageRank as a main factor for your success or failure as a site. You should instead consider PageRank as a possible sign to what you are doing right or wrong as a website.
Google has specifically stated (FAQ: Crawling, indexing & ranking) that page rank is one of over 200 factors in the ranking of website. When a site begins to meet all the criteria for being a well indexed site in Google, than your success can be reflected in your PageRank. Most good websites all have the following components, great internal site structure, good relevant content, strong external links to the site, and smart seo tagging of their pages. These factors plus PageRank all can equate out to a well indexed site in Google Natural Search.
In conclusion, PageRank is a factor in your ranking and component of website success, but not necessarily everything. Your actual page ranking in Google Natural Search, traffic to your site and conversions on your site are the most important barometers of your success.
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