Google Caffeine is the name given to Google’s next algorithm update that is going live after the holidays. It seems that Google Caffeine will be more than Google’s regular updates. It will probably be a major overhaul of the calculations that Google uses to rank web pages.

What is going to change?

Of course, Google hasn’t revealed the details of Google Caffeine yet. However, the new index has been live on some test servers and some Google employees also talked about the next index. The following factors might play a larger role in Google’s next index:

• Website speed: if you have a slow loading website, it might not get high rankings on Google.
• Broken links: if your website contains many broken links, this might have a negative impact of the position of your web pages in Google search results.
• Bad neighborhoods: Linking to known spammers and getting a lot of links from known spammers isn’t good for your rankings in Google’s current algorithm. The negative impact of a bad neighborhood will probably be even worse with Google Caffeine.
• The over-all quality of your website: Google’s new algorithm probably will take a closer look at the over-all quality of your website. It’s not enough to have one or two ranking factors in place.

You’ll probably need good optimized content, a good website design with a clear navigation, good inbound links, a low bounce rate, etc. The number of social bookmarks might also play an increased role.

Factors like the age of a website, its past history, authority etc. will still play a role in Google’s new index. However, the effect of the different factors on your rankings will shift.

How can you adjust your web pages to Google’s new Caffeine index?

Although Google’s Caffeine update hasn’t been released yet, there are some things that you can do to increase the chances that your website will get good rankings in Google’s new index:

• Remove all spam elements from your web pages. Anything that might be considered spam can and will have a negative effect on the position of your web pages sooner or later. This includes text that has nearly the same color as the background, cloaking and fully automated linking systems.
• Check your website design and the navigation of your website. Your website should have a professional look and feel. The navigation should be easy to understand and your web pages should easily be parseable by search engine spiders.
• Get links from social bookmark websites. Social bookmark links already play a role in Google’s current algorithm and that role might increase.
• Check your links. You shouldn’t link to websites that look like spammers. It’s better to focus on selected quality links instead of as many links as possible.

Google Caffeine is going to be released after the holidays. Contact Kantner Design so that we can help you get the most out of your internet presence.

For many businesses, it is very important to be listed in Google Maps. If you offer a service or a product that is relevant to a special area, you might miss many visitors if your website is not listed in Google Maps.

Your website can be listed on page one, above the regular results

This summer, Google changed its algorithm so that the search results automatically include local results if relevant:

“We like to make search as easy as we can, so we’ve just finished the worldwide rollout of local search results on a map, which will now appear even when you don’t type in a location. When you search on Google, we will guess where you are and show results near you.”

These local results are often displayed above the first regular result on the result pages:

If your website is listed in the local results, it will be listed above the regular results on that page and people will also see the exact location of your business.

Quick access to your company information

If web surfers enter your company name in Google (for example “cafe habana, nyc”) they will get your company information at the top of the search results, above all other results on the page:

As you can see, Google will also show user reviews about your business in the results.

How to get listed on Google Maps

You can submit your website to Google Maps through Google’s Local Business Center. Login to your Google account and click “Add New Listing” to enter your company information.

How to optimize your Google Maps listing

There are several things that you can do to get a better listing on Google Maps or to make your listing stand out. You can enter your business information in Google Maps for free but to be listed at the top of the list, you have to optimize your entry.

• Enter as much information as possible about your company. Include important keywords in your description. Also add information about opening hours, payment types, etc. Choose the best possible category for your website.
• If possible, include images and videos to help your listing stand out. The more information you provide, the better.
• If your business location is in the center of the town, it is more likely that it will appear at the top of the list.
• Submit your website to other local directories. Google Maps compiles its local results by crawling and parsing data from other online directories and databases. A good position in online yellow pages can cause your listing to be placed higher on the list.
• The more local directories list your website, the better.
• Optimize your web pages for local content. Add your city and state name in your web page title. You can also use local meta tags to tell search engines the location of your website. IBP’s website optimization editor can add regional meta tags and meta GEO tags to your web pages.
• Get positive reviews. Encourage your website visitors to write positive reviews about your company on Google Maps. More stars can mean a higher position.

If you follow the tips above, your website will get a good listing in Google Maps. Do not spam Google and describe your business without exaggeration. Include your keywords in your company description but don’t overdo it.

Here are a few strategies for promoting your website and business using social networking.

Use social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to build followers, but you must give them a reason to become a member of your community. Do this by giving people information they can use or offering special deals and sales. Ask yourself: “What do I have to offer that people would want, would I want to follow my Tweets, or become a fan of myself of Facebook?”

With social networking, good content goes viral in a matter of hours. Once you publish some good content readers will re-tweet it or pass it along using any number of bookmarking and sharing services. This is basically word of mouth referral, but it  moves incredibly fast. This is how natural links are built, and this is the only meaningful way to start a linking campaign nowadays.

Social networking is becoming increasingly important to your online marketing plans. We will continue to provide you with with tips and techniques to make the most of these new methods.

Kantner Design has been working on a new website for Performance Signs, located in Athens, Ohio.  Performance offers a full range of signs and services including vehicle graphics, banners, dimensional lettering, ready to apply decals and lettering, full color graphics, and much more. Performance ’s previous website was created around 1997 and didn’t really do anything for them. Performance did not have a website listed when someone searched for signs in the Athens area. The primary goal of the new website is to generate business from web searches and create a professional online presense.

The design of the website uses vibrant colors which is intended to convey the creativity and wide range of options that are available in sign design. An image slider showing different types of signs and photos is included on the home page using jQuery.

Vibrant colors and a professional image are conveyed with the new website

Visit the new Performance Signs website!

Bing is not dramatically different from Google, but some people have found its results stronger. There are some visible changes:

• Bing shows a preview of the web pages in the search results when you hover your mouse pointer at the right side of the search results.
• Bing displays fewer results if it is certain that it has understood your intent. The search for “Facebook”, for example, brings up just one result linking to the site itself.
• Some search results are divided into categories. For example, if you search for the popular musician “Justin Timberlake”, you’ll get results in the categories news, songs, movies, biography, wallpaper and downloads. In addition, the search results show images, videos and the popularity of the musician.
• Wikipedia searches can be displayed inline in the search results without leaving the Bing site by clicking the “Enhanced view” link.
• Bing features a different background image every day. The image contains special hidden hotspots that lead you to more information (soon advertising?) about the image.
• Despite the background image, Bing’s homepage loads very quickly in your web browser because the search box and logo load first. You can turn off the background image.
• Bing’s video search lets you watch videos without leaving the search engine.
• Bing offers specific health, shopping and travel search engines, as well as instant answers to travel searches. For instance, the search “Vegas hotels” displays a selection of hotels in Las Vegas, including hotel stars and prices.
• Bing’s search history lets you return to your most recent searches of the last two days. This feature can be turned off to protect your privacy.
• Some of Google’s features are missing, for example, Bing doesn’t seem to recognize misspellings and returns no results in these cases.

Microsoft’s Bing search engine has overtaken Yahoo! to become the second ranked search engine in the United States and worldwide (Google is #1 of course.) Perhaps some of this is due to the novelty of the new search engine and time will tell if people will continue to use Bing for their everyday web searching. But it certainly looks like Microsoft has winner on it’s hands.

The new search engine from Microsoft, called Bing, is really looking neat! Here is a video about it

Link Building

Inbound links are the basis for good search engine rankings. The more links coming in to your site the easier it will be to rank high. Each link is like a vote for your website, saying, “This is good, relevant information.” On the other hand if you competition has more inbound links than you do they will probalby rank above you.

The quality of the website that is linking to you matters a lot also. Links from unrelated websites won’t help you as much as links from websites that deal with a similar topic as yours. If the website that is linking to you itself has quality inbound links, that will in turn help you as well.

It’s important to keep working on your links. Link building is a bit of a race.  If you slack off for too long your competitors may pass you on search engine rankings.
Don’t pay for links! This could get your website penalized with Google

Site Optimization

Search engines rank individual pages in search results. You want to have a single page optimized for each keyword or key phrase. It’s better to have a page that is highly relevant for one search term than somewhat relevant for many terms.

Google considers all pages of your website. Even though you want to have individual pages optimized for each keyword Google will look at all of the pages of you site. If the pages are part of a related topic you will gain better ranking.

Inbound link text and page optimization work together. If the content of the page and text of the links linking to it are in harmony then this will help your ranking

Some Technical Things

Search engines don’t like duplicate content. Google wants to list only one copy of a piece of content in the search results. If your web page contains the same content as another page on the web then Google will pick one version of the content for their search results. Google considers exact copies and near copies as duplicate content. Google compares your page’s unique content with other pages and if it has a certain similarity to another page than it is considered a duplicate.

You can create duplicate content by mistake Technically, the URLs http://example.com, http://www.example.com and http://www.example.com/index.php can contain different content. That is why search engines treat them as separate pages. Only link to one version of these URLs. Otherwise, the other versions might be duplicates of the other.

Trust is an important factor in Google’s ranking of websites.  The most important thing is to always design your site for the user and not for the search engine. If Google thinks all you are doing is spamming and not providing valuable content, you will lose trust.  You need to show that you are a real business and that you are in this for the long haul.

How can you achieve a  high level of trust?

Your domain name

Domain age is important.  Consider buying an old domain if possible

If you are buying a new domain name consider purchasing a renewal period of at least two years. This shows that it won’t just be a throwaway domain.

Do not use exotic top level domains, stick with .com .net. or .org

Artificially stuffing keywords into your domain name using hyphens (www.keyword1-keyword2-keyword3.com) looks spammy and should be avoided. Obviously you want to use keywords in your domain, but remember, design for the user first.

Your content

The more contact information you include the better, and make it easy to find. Have your full address, not just email. This will make you look more like a real business.

Don’t use doorway or gateway pages.  They annoy search engine spiders and users alike.  This is a clear indicator of a low quality site.

Regularly updating the content of your website shows Google that your website is alive. Write articles on your areas of expertise and related to your industry. Always be thinking of things you can add to your website. The bonus is that users will return to your website for new information also.

Your links

Do not participate in automated linking schemes.  If you suddenly get 2,000 links to your website on a single day Google will know that you are spamming and punish accordingly.

Links to your website should contain keywords but they should not all be the same text. If all links to your website contain the exact same text this will be a red flag to Google. Do not pay for links.

If your website is trusted by Google then it will be easier to achieve a high ranking on Google.  Kantner Design is here to help you with search engine optimization. Let us help you create some optimized content today!