Google Instant

The latest update from Google attempting to literally read your mind! Wow!

On Sept 8, 2010, Google introduced Google Instant, a change to make search fast and interactive by showing you results instantly as you type.

This of course presented a challenge to Google developers and poses many new questions to professional SEO companies. Previously, results were returned after you selected the “search” button. Now, as long as your connection speed is sufficient, Google Instant will refresh the results panes AS YOU TYPE and before you complete each term.

Click this link for the full article on Google Instant.

We have not seen any significant changes in our overall client rankings due to this and we do not expect to based on the key word targeting that we do for you. However what we are looking out for is whether users will stop typing before they reach your originally intended search term phrase.

Our current opinion is that the final results will largely depend on the user. If a user is a proficient typist then they are already typing faster than (or as fast as) the results pane is likely to refresh. If however, the user is a pick and peck two-finger typist (of the slow variety), then they may very likely see results they like before typing out their full search phrase.  We’ll see how this goes and whether it will make any significant difference in our approach to keeping you ranked highly in the search results.

Google Instant Features:

• Dynamic Results – Google dynamically displays relevant search results as you type so you can quickly interact and click through to the web content you need.
• Predictions – One of the key technologies in Google Instant is that we predict the rest of your query (in light gray text) before you finish typing. See what you need? Stop typing, look down and find what you’re looking for.
• Scroll to search – Scroll through predictions and see results instantly for each as you arrow down.

Thanks for reading and we hope you enjoy our updates.

Google Instant… a whole new world of search.

- Johnny Vargas

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Research shows that web users focus most of their time and attention on the top and left of the search results page.

Are you advertising your business online with paid ads that appear on the right side of the web page? How is that ad working for you? Chances are it is not performing to your expectations. The reason why: Research shows that internet users ignore content on the right side of the page and spend more time looking at content along the left, where the natural listings are located.

Whether this is due to natural eye movement or learned behavior “to avoid ads” is a completely different study; in fact this is one perspective which I’m not sure has been studied. But back to the point, does it really matter why this is occurring? Well it might in the future, but frankly right now we aren’t so concerned in knowing why as we are in taking advantage of the fact that this is the resulting pattern of behavior. We know that based on Google’s current arrangement of ads and search results, users are spending most of their time on the top and left of the search results. What is located here? The natural “organic” listings.

Studies on this topic have been performed at major universities such as Cornell University, University of Hamburg, Oxford University and many others. While the individual results had some variations, for the most part they are in concurrence.

Take a look at this “heat map” to understand more about this phenomenon.

My advice? When investing in your business, spend considerable time and resources in trying to improve your natural rankings. Rising to Page 1 of the search results may take some time to achieve; however, the end results will be worth your effort.

To your success,

Johnny Vargas

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One tiny piece of the puzzle which will help your website rank higher is to include your keywords in your web page title tags.

Chances are if you are new to marketing your business online, you only have your company name or some “catchy” phrase in your web page’s title tag. Why? Do you really think users are searching for “Henry’s Careful Clippers – Where Your Happiness Is Our Number 1 Priority” ??  Even worse are those pages with something generic such as “Home” or “Services” as their title tags.

Seriously, who do you think is searching for such terms and phrases? A more effective title would be “San Diego Hair Dresser” or if you must hold on to part of your ego, “San Diego Hair Dresser – Henry’s Careful Clippers” might be okay depending on market congestion.

Bottom line, you need to use terms in your title tag that match what users are searching for in the search engines.

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Google Caffeine Announced

In a recent announcement Google made public its new search index, Google Caffeine. Click the image below for the full story.  As a professional marketer, my interest is in keeping up with changes like this in order to ensure that activity on my client accounts is kept up to date. 

In my personal opinion Google Caffeine is a welcomed update.

So, bottom line what does this mean? As a quick summary it means that with Google Caffeine, users will receive the freshest, most relevant content available on the web. One of my techniques for keeping client sites well ranked is to keep their content fresh. So, from my perspective this change is a great change and keeps my clients ahead of the competition.  As each day passes, Google is making it clear that new, fresh, relevant, dynamic sites are what will rank well in their overall search results and Google Caffeine is a bold confirmation of that idea. One prime example of dynamic sites are social media sites where content is updated literally on a second by second basis.

Google Caffeine

If you are not maintaining a dynamic website with changing content, user updates, posted feedback and comments, etc… well you might want to start packing your office up because your competitors that keep up with changes in the search engines like those in Google Caffeine will quickly outrank you even if you’ve enjoyed riding page 1 now for sometime. 

Google Caffeine is changing the site ranking game.

Read the full Google Caffeine article by clicking the image above, it’s pretty fascinating to hear these updates as they are released!

To your online success!
- Johnny Vargas

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