A blog from The Design Loft geeks about SEO, web design, traditional marketing, some iPhone stuff and general geeky ramblings.
Posts tagged Google
Google Offers Insight Into What Makes A Great Backlink
Jun 23rd
Hey all, just a quickie today – but something potentially very valuable.
Google has posted a very interesting article on their Webmaster Central blog regarding what makes a good quality backlink.
The usual fare is present about directories not having the weight they once did, not creating spammy content and so on. But one of the main highlights of the post is that Google points to “community involvement” which seems to indicate a nod to social media.
With the impact of social media on SEO being closely scrutinised, I wonder whether this will provide a clear view point on it, or at least go More >
How Google Synonyms Are Working More And More Effectively
Jun 18th
As a search marketer, Google synonym functionality poses some interesting problems. We optimise for keywords that we’ve strongly researched, and try to include as many quality variants that we can without sacrificing usability and copy quality.
However, we can’t really cover every base; there are always keywords providing entry points to your site that you won’t have optimised for; usually longer tailed phrases.
As we know, Google is always looking to provide the most relevant results to its users and searchers, and to facilitate this further they’ve been doing work for years on how their algorithms deal with synonyms:
An irony of computer science More >
Google Now Checks Your Page’s Load Speed When Determining Your Search Rankings
Apr 14th
Well we knew it was coming didn’t we; last week the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog announced that Google will now take into account your web page load speed when determining your search rankings.
Notice however that the Google guys & gals state that this currently only applies to 1% of search queries sent through Google.com – a little less urgency on checking your site than you might think, but still; getting your website upto speed (pun alert!) is a wise move considering Google rolls out changes like this to it’s data centre worldwide fairly sporadically.
How quick is your site?!
More >“Web Design Barnsley” Term Takes A Beating In The Search Results Thanks To Google Caffeine
Apr 12th
Google Caffeine is being rolled out to various data centres in Google’s arsenal progressively and some search marketers may see significant changes to their rankings, and their client’s rankings over the coming months.
The “Web Design Barnsley” test.I’ve been keeping an eye on this using the keyphrase “web design Barnsley” via the Google.co.uk (The Web) engine. The reason being, it’s a term that we used to optimise for, don’t anymore but still (used to) rank well for.
We were consistently number 3 in this search without spending any real time optimising. Now when I search we appear at number 7…
On the More >
Does Google Personalised Search Really Affect Your Search Rankings?
Mar 4th
Wondering if Google Personalised Search will affect your search engine rankings?
It’s a question that we’ve all been wondering the answer to since Google rolled out the service late last year. In the alreay dubious world of search marketing, the addition of personalised search was seen by many as a potential “kiss of death” to search marketers.
Whilst it’s not as bad as all that, conducting any sort of testing on whether your search rankings are affected by personalised search is both time consuming and difficult at best.
Well, the fantastic Dr. Pete at SEOMoz has done some of the hard work for More >
Facebook Pages Get Google Real Time Search Boost
Mar 1st
Facebook has, as you know, side swiped MySpace from the top of the social networking tree. I for one prefer Facebook and with the addition of Facebook pages for businesses, it’s scope became huge.
As a search marketer and general digi marketing geek I’ve often wondered the best way to use Facebook for my clients. Of course we know about the “Pay Per Click” style advertising Facebook allows but what about those people who can’t afford that; the people who want a more cost effective Facebook advertising solution?
Well, whilst it’s not a golden egg, the recent announcement by Google that Facebook More >
Google Buzz iPhone Web Interface Review – As Good As An App?
Feb 22nd
Well there’s been a lot of, ahem, buzz around Google’s new product Google Buzz, and for those of you looking for a Google Buzz iPhone App, the web interface may just fit.
Whilst I’ve had a play around with the desktop version and to be honest, couldn’t see much point in it considering we’re on Twitter and Facebook (just another social network to update?!), I didn’t find it revolutionary or at all useful; especially considering I’m not an ardent Gmail user.
Anyhoo, I can see why people would like to use Google Buzz and one day (if and when it opens up to More >
