People are starting to comment on these new snippets that have recently appeared throughout Google result pages and are wondering; is it just another Google test or is it permanent? Google’s new snippet layout is not a test. Google came out with the new format about week ago in order to create a more efficient way of display listings for pages. The new snippets are an accumulation of extracted list data from pages that contain listings of whatever content is available on that page. When I searched “NFL Preseason” on Google, it came up with this snippet format:

So instead of showing two lines of text, Google is now displaying the structure of the page. There is a maximum of three bullets that actually show up from a pages listing information, but the snippet also displays the approximate number of items or rows of information available on the page. The first line of text, which usually contains the meta description, still remains. This new format also has the ability to boost click-through and page real estate. Although Google is still experimenting with different designs, their ultimate hope is that these snippets will help to better mirror the content in their search results so the user can easily find the most relevant search results.

For more information visit:

StateofSearch.com

Social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google +, have recently begun to affect what comes up in your search engine results. The problem is not that people don’t understand that social media affects SEO, but how it affects SEO. Google released Google Social Search tool back in October 2009 and made it available to all users in January 2010. This tool basically allows you to find articles written by people you know and trust, the same basic concept as following someone on Twitter. What people really want to know is; how much does social media news really affect search engine results?

Back in December of 2010 Google’s Matt Cutts stated, “I filmed a video back in May 2010 where I said that we didn’t use ‘social’ as a signal, and at the time, we did not use that as a signal, but now, we’re taping this in December 2010, and we are using that as a signal.” Social media has fit its way into SEO and has started to alter traditional organic search results. If you are logged into your Google + while searching for something on Google, your search results will be different than if you were not logged into a Google account. If one of your friends has a web content that is related to the topic you are searching for, then Google gives that web page higher placement on SERPs. Google and Bing have both admitted that they look at their users’ social authority when making search engine ranking decisions.

Social media can influence search results depending on the number of times an author’s content is shared on a social networking site. If you are not connected with any social media sites, do not fret because there are steps that you can take to change this. To get more traffic through social media, you first want to build a presence on a social media site and stay up to date with your followers. Optimize your website for social media sharing, for example if you are based in WordPress you can install the Sharebar plugin to enable sharing. Lastly, you are going to want to constantly encourage your followers/views to share your content through other social media tools. Just because social media is booming doesn’t mean that traditional SEO is irrelevant. There will always be that group of people that don’t prefer social media sites, so traffic for non-social media site users will not completely diminish, but realize that traditional SEO is beginning dwindle, so changing with the times is not a bad idea.

For more information on this topic visit:  Quicksprout.com

In a new study conducted by Slingshot SEO, the values of the top spots in organic Google rankings have changed with the number one position at about half of its previous worth.  Using various tools including Authority Labs and Google applications, Slingshot SEO gathered data from more than 170,000 user visits and 324 keywords over the course of six months.

The results show very similar overall outcomes to previous studies yet it reveals different numerical values.  The study concludes that the top Google search result gets 18.2% of clicks, 10.1% for second, 7.2 for third and 4.8% for fourth.  Past studies like the one done by Optify in December last year have these numbers at higher values – the #1 spot is at 36.4%, #2 at 12.5, #3 at 9.5 and #4 at 8%.

The study didn’t stop at numbers.  Various explanations have been offered for this discrepancy including seasonality, Long-Tail terms, data sets and perceptions but the outcome doesn’t change.  Basically, get your site as close as possible to the top of the first page of results.  It has been emphasized that the two studies should not be labeled as denouncing one another but, in fact, complimenting each other do to different data pools.  The Slingshot SEO study has suggested, however, that positions 2, 3 and 4 are getting looked at more frequently. This is good news for businesses with keywords not ranking in the #1 position but close to it! We’ll be monitoring this ourselves as well. For more on this discussion visit: SearchEngineWatch

Yahoo’s new image search presentation replicates Google and Bing’s enhancement, but has many significant features. Yahoo has just launched their new image presentation and is catching up to competitors Google and Bing by having a large thumbnail gallery that expands to multiple pages and increasing the image size when a user scrolls over the thumbnail. It also allows an easier search of galleries, a connection to your friend’s Facebook images and a simpler navigation of full sized images.

What Yahoo has that Google and Bing doesn’t have…

If you notice at the top of image search in Yahoo, there are three tabs. These tabs let you better categorize the images that you are more interested in.

•  Top Images: Next to the “Top Images” tab will be an additional “Latest” tab that will automatically appear for image search results of trending topics, such as images of events, news, or celebrities.
• Galleries: This will include photo galleries from Yahoo News, Flickr, and OMG.
• Facebook: The Facebook tab automatically appears if the search results include matches from your Facebook friend’s name or photo albums. This tab works only if you set up your Facebook account with Yahoo Image Search.

That isn’t it for Yahoo Image Search. Yahoo has a new design element that when after you click on the thumbnail, it uploads the full sized image in a large gallery. The original site that provided the image is listed at the bottom, while the top bar gives a close-up of the image. The right navigation allows users to browse between options from Yahoo’s original image search results. This is an important change for Yahoo.

Yahoo Stepping Up Their Game

Yahoo’s new design of their image search will hopefully guide Internet users to search more in their image search rather than Google or Bing. These improvements were longer over due, but now they are launched and ready to be enhanced by users. The tabs of Top Images, Latest, Galleries and Facebook provides the most simple view and a clearer understanding of browsing and navigating through images.  Check out Yahoo’s new Image Search design and tabs and let us know what you think!

Sitelinks have helped users navigate through websites more easily with specified links to different pages on a site. Users searching with both long-tail keywords and short-tail keywords enjoy the benefit of sitelinks because they provide the most relevant parts to the site.

So what about the changes? Google understands how valuable sitelinks have been, so their continued improvements now make them more valuable than ever. There is now double the amount of links—from 8 to 12—arranged in a column of links beneath the main URL. The biggest change to the links is that they have actually become fully developed links, with one line of snippet text, which makes it even easier for users to find the sitelink most relevant to their search query.

Google is also improving their algorithm by combing their sitelink ranking with regular result ranking to customize a higher quality list of links. These improvements now make Google searches even more comprehensive and navigable.  So, what does this mean for you? Well, for starters this means that you should improve the meta title and description of your site links to ensure that you can capture visits to your website right away. Make sure to re-optimize pages on your website that are site-linked to make the most of this update.

While everyone has been impressed by Google+ and Google’s new facial recognition system, Microsoft also announced that Bing and Yahoo! decided to form a new search engine alliance in Europe. This transition was actually already made in countries such as the United States, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, New Zealand, Peru and Venezuela. From now and on, Yahoo! organic search results both on PC and mobile will powered by Bing in France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and the UK as well.

 
Why did Bing and Yahoo! form an alliance?

The answer is simple. Both Microsoft and Yahoo want to improve their search results and attract more users with rich information and options to accomplish their goals.  Just like AT&T bought T-Mobile earlier this year, it is important to expand the scale of search engine. The more people search on Bing or Yahoo!, the faster and more relevant their search results will be. With this transition, Yahoo! hopes to improve the overall relevancy of its organic search results and attract more of an audience. Meanwhile, Bing wants to corroborate their new investment in their search engine results. Bing recently worked with companies like Facebook, Nokia or RIM to adopt their technology for web search services. For Bing, this transition will be a great opportunity to measure how effective their new technology is.

How might this alliance affect paid advertisements?

 For now, Bing and Yahoo! alliance won’t be as influential as it could be on search advertisements. However, you want to be well prepared for this change if organic search results are the number one important source for your website. This alliance may have a great impact on SEO strategies.

 How should you be prepared for this change?

You need to make sure whether your website is properly referred and indexed by the Bing platform. In order to do so, webmasters should register your website and sitemap in the Bing Webmaster Tools. It will give you the free analytics and adopt the best way to be shared in search engine results.

What’s next?

As for the paid advertisements, both Microsoft and Yahoo! will keep focusing on meeting marketplace and product performance benchmarks. They have been working with independent agencies such as Efficient Frontier and Marin Software and making more efforts to provide international audience quality services. Although they are still testing, they will be able to come up with updated global rollout plans for Internet marketing. They are more committed to advertisers and partners ever before. They will assist them fully through innovative changes.

Google announced on July 26 that Panda 2.3 was officially up and running, as mentioned on Search Engine Land. Ever since the initial Panda update back in February, content Farmers that were gaining higher ranking through poor content have been fearful. Every one of Panda’s updates has filtered out more and more low-quality websites or “scraper” sites from Google’s list of high-ranking websites. Google’s new actions with Panda have caught the attention of everyday search engine companies since Google estimated that the new updates would cause 12% of queries to come back different.

Recently, Panda has been making major changes for Google users.  Prior to the Panda update 1.0, Google had frequently been changing its algorithm, but each change was not significant enough to be announced. But with Panda update 1.0, the change was not minor. Panda 1.0 impacted Google’s US search results by 12%, majorly dropping the rankings of numerous websites.

With the introduction of Panda 2.0, Google’s change impacted all English queries around the world, as well as all the US queries as before. Panda 2.0 also incorporated Google “blocking” data that resulted in a 2% change in search queries and search results.

In June Google released Panda 2.1, but did not release Panda 2.1’s percent of impact on queries since they admitted that it was not a major update or even close to having the same impact as Panda 2.0 did. Similarly when Panda 2.2 came out, Google proved to have only made a few additions, which as explained by Google’s Matt Cutts were, the improvement of scraper detection as well as making it clear that these updates were now being pushed out manually. Panda 2.3 continues the trend, showing multiple updates, including some new signals that further help to filter out lower- from higher-quality ranking sites on Google. Since the introduction of these multiple Panda updates, Google has been slowly paving a road for the most elite websites, helping them to gain rankings the right, natural way.

SEOmoz has collected dozens of the world’s best search marketers to get their opinion on search engine ranking factors. This year, for the first time, SEOmoz presented correlation-based analysis with comments from this 132-person panel.  We also attended the webinar of these findings presented by Jamie Steven, and Matthew Peters, PhD of Applied Math.

Source: SEO Moz

Correlation and Causation Significance in Ranking Factor Analysis

To understand what the difference is between correlation and causation as the SEO Moz study presents see our examples below:

 Correlation and Causation Example:

• In summer, there is an increase in people at the beach and there is also an increase in shark attacks.

There is a correlation here because both items increase and the correlation is directly proportional.  The causation exists because the shark attacks increase since more people are in the water.

Correlation only example:

• In summer, beer sales increase. In summer, ice cream sales also increase. But beer sales do not increase ice cream sales so though there is a correlation between them there is no causation.

Thus, these factors mentioned in the SEO Moz study might be correlated to each other, but there is no proven direct cause between ranking improvement and one of these factors.

SEO Moz Ranking Factors Findings

This research shows several segments of the search-ranking algorithm such as page specific, link level features, and domain-level, keyword features.  Their Search Engine Ranking Factors study demonstrates the power of statistical analysis in SEO. This survey and statistical analysis provides us with a good idea of what the majority of internet marketers believe affects website rankings.

Since search engines do not disclose completely how their algorithm works, SEO professionals rely on each other for the best tips in ranking well. Now, with so much information out there, these tips and conclusions are subject to different interpretations.

One of the items in the study showed that websites that rank higher on search engines generally have a high volume of links or other unique features. This does not necessarily mean that those links are the reason these sites are ranked higher. Rather, it is because higher rankings and links are related or correlated.  Listed below are some other important factors that you should keep in mind when you are marketing on the internet.

Domain Level – Keywords

One of the most successful search engine marketing and optimization factors that you should remember is the inclusion of keywords throughout your website content and structure.  When your domain matches a search term exactly, this increases your chances of having a user click on your website in the results pages.  It’s important to remember, however, the more unrelated characters, especially punctuations, that are included in the domain search, the less chance the users will find your site.

The length of the domain name, the numeric characters, and the number of hyphens included the domain name all could negatively impact rankings. Try to have a domain name that includes keywords without punctuation or numbers, and no more than 3 hyphens.

 Branding

 Branding is also another important element to search engines. It’s essential that many users recognize your site. Having your brand mentioned in nonaffiliated sites, such as social media sites like Facebook or Twitter will increase your search volume. The more you spread your brand in various places on the internet, the more users will visit your website. So, get your brand out there and create your trend.

 Page Level – Keywords

 In the same way as the domain level, keywords are extremely important. When users select specific words and search for something, they will look for those specific words in the result. It’s important to have the correct set of keywords present in title tags and content on your site.  As long as your site contains the information and relevant content, which users are looking for, your site will most likely to be viewed based on the popularity of their keywords. It’s always better to have keyword rich, descriptive tags so that users can easily make out what your website is about and decided if they want to click or not.  Remember users like to read interesting, valuable, unique content.

 Page Level – Social Media

Social media is often correlated with website rankings. Indeed, social media is a great candidate for best website advertising. For example, sharing the domain on Facebook, or having Facebook comments or likes are all influential factors in spreading your brand. Twitter also helps with circulating your brand, products or services. When someone tweets about your brand, it increases varieties of the audience and authority for your brand.  Also, tweet connections attract specific individuals based on their interest and needs. Additionally, when reputable or authoritative users in the social sphere make multiple references about your site through Facebook or Twitter, your site becomes more credible and preferable among the broad audience.

Page Level – Links

Links are also extremely important especially on an individual page level. The quantity of links definitely employs the keyword as part of the anchor text. Those links must be unique and contextual. The overall page authority is of course a necessity in boosting traffic, but root domains, partial match in keywords, and unique linking naturally back up your traffic volume.

In conclusion, just because there is a connection between ranking improvements and for example Facebook likes to a page, doesn’t mean the Facebook likes caused the ranking improvement.  Instead, it could mean the content was good in itself, which contributed to it being deemed valuable to users by search engines and that is why it was ranked higher. Your best bet is to do all of these items well, but always keep the user in mind.

Often times SEO companies will target a list of keywords for optimization. Month over month you will get ranking reports showing how you are doing in the various search results pages (SERPs). Even when tied to overall traffic numbers, or branded vs. non-branded, these reports do not fully show you how the website is doing in terms of the target keywords driving traffic to the website.

Using Google Analytics and excel makes it a relatively simple task to evaluate over a defined period of time how many visits a specific keyword is sending to the site. At first glance you may say, but it is easy to simply search the analytics database for a specific keyword. I agree this is not a difficult task. However, searching 70 times may be a bit more challenging when done on a weekly basis. In addition to identifying exact search terms that are driving traffic, often times marketers will refer to long tail variations driving traffic.

There two things I plan to show you. The First is how to extract the data we need from google analytics. The second item is how to then take this data and identify which keywords are performing well and which ones are not. From a performance standpoint we can look at visits, goal completions, or even revenue.  (note, this demo will not show you how to setup ecommerce or goals as that is a whole separate topic)

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Thanks to Google, now it’s easier than ever to find the closest burrito to you.  The new Place Search feature changes the way local businesses appear on Google’s search engine result pages.  So if you’re searching for a place in San Diego to grab a bite, Google will recognize this and provide local business locations, based on your search, and rank them higher in the results.

The Place Search results will now include longer descriptions, as well as important contact information. In addition, it will provide a picture and reviews for each local business, building on the previous local map listings.  This feature will compete with local directories such as Yelp and Citysearch, and help local businesses compete for space on that first page of Google, leveling the online playing field.

What does this mean for SEO?

In a recent article from Mediapost.com titled “Google Place Search Emphasizes Local SEO”, David Harry, community manager at the SEO Training Dojo commented on the Google’s new search feature.  “The ability to rank high in the search engine results pages for local search will require SEO professionals to consider domain extensions such as .com .ca .co .uk” .

This change will mean businesses that don’t have a physical location in the city may get pushed down in the results. Also, businesses that have customer reviews are more likely to appear higher in the rankings. The organic results are being merged with the business’ local listing, if they have one.

Google’s new Boost advertising is another way that local businesses can better amp up their online presence.  When Google believes web users are searching for a local business, Boost ads appear in the “Sponsored Links” section and only cost the business owner when the ad is clicked.  A map located in the right hand corner of the page will appear containing various local business locations related to a user’s search.  The map also moves as the user scrolls down the page.

We tested this by doing a search (not logged into a Google account) for “sushi in San Diego”. What we found was that this highly competitive first page of Google empathsized the local listings more than the organic results. It takes quite a bit of scrolling with your mouse before you get to see the rest of the organic results.

It will be interesting to see how this feature changes the way searches are done for local businesses such as restaurants and other attractions. Put yourself in the best position by making sure you have a Local Buisness listing, with a captivating picture and keyword rich description. Also make sure to have people leave positive reviews on your listing on multiple local directories such as Yelp, Citysearch, and InsiderPages. Don’t have time? Ask us about our new local business package.