Website Design & SEO Tips

I found this free resource on the internet which could be useful for analytics.  Must say I don’t understand all of it!  Credit to Conversation Marketing for this.

google-analytics-cheatsheet[1]

Current discussion regarding Google’s new real-time search seems to suggest that Google will rank Tweets in a similar way it ranks websites currently.

Website pages are given credit by Google by looking at the external links to that page and looking at the relevancy of those links taking into account the keywords for that page and the importance of the websites linking to that page.

For Twitter this will work slightly differently.  For websites inbound links are seen as votes for the page, in Twitter the number and type of followers will be seen as votes for that account.  The type of follower you attract will govern how Google views you and again it will be based not just on the number of followers but also the relevancy of those followers to what you do.  As with websites we cannot directly control who links to us or follows us but we can indirectly control this by making sure the content of your Tweets is relevant to our business, and then hopefully the RIGHT people will follow.

With Google’s algorithm for websites, the reputation of the websites that link to your website is important.  Google takes into account the popularity of the linking website ie its PageRank and who links to it and, in addition, looks at the relevancy of the content on that website in relation to your own site.  With Twitter it is thought that Google will not only look at how many people follow you but also will look at how many followers they have and how closely their “content” is relevant to yours.
Therefore it is not just a question of the number of followers but the quality too.

Remember too to be mindful of who you follow, that too indicates your content or “theme”.  In addition, if you have a good number of followers and start to follow someone with very few followers you are passing some of your credibility to that Twitter person.  Question whether you want to pass that amount of credibility to them.

Spam is obviously something that Google needs to take account of in its algorithm and it is thought that hash tags # will be used as a possible indicator of spam.  I have written a post on hash tags in another blog.  Google I understand are studying hash tag behaviour and no doubt over the next few months many changes will be made to adjust to the spammers ability to find loopholes in any spam minimising tactic by Google.

It is thought that geo-location data will also be used to refine search results to ensure that the most relevant tweets are shown in the search results.

Although I have just talked about Twitter here, Google will no doubt be applying the same or similar principles to real-time results for blogs, news and press releases.

With regard to website design a part of your considerations when it comes to accessibility should be the text size used on your website – ie is your text really large enough for older people and people with sight disabilities to read, AND is there sufficient differential between the text colour and the background colour to make the text readable.  An quick and easy way to check this for your website is to use the online tool at AccessKeys which can be found here.

When choosing keywords for your website do bear in mind that some words are normally ignored by the search engines.  These are the small join words in a sentence like “and”, “if” etc although it does depend on the context in which they are used.  I am not going to go into that here, this is just a general overview.  The basic point is there is no point making one of your keywords a stop word in general, although as you will see from the list below the words web and website are normally stop words however for website designers it is still relevant to optimise your website for those words.  As you see it is a matter of context sometimes.

Stop words include most abbreviations, shorthand for countries eg UK etc plus the following;

a, about, above, according, across, actually, after, afterwards, again, against, all, almost, alone, along, already, also, although, always, am, among, amongst, an, and, another, any, anyhow, anyone, anything, anywhere, are, aren, aren’t, around, as, at, be, became, because, become, becomes, becoming, been, before, beforehand, begin, beginning, behind, being, below, beside, besides, between, beyond, billion, both, but, buy, by, ca, can, can’t, cannot, caption, cc, click, cm, co, com, copy, could, couldn, couldn’t, did, didn, didn’t, do, does, doesn, doesn’t, don, don’t, down, during, each, edu, eg, eight, eighty, either, else, elsewhere, end, ending, enough, etc, even, ever, every, everyone, everything, everywhere, except, few, fifty, find, first, five, for, former, formerly, forty, found, four, free, from, further, get, go, gov, gt, had, has, hasn, hasn’t, have, haven, haven’t, he, he’d, he’ll, he’s, height, help, hence, her, here, here’s, hereafter, hereby, herein, hereupon, hers, herself, him, himself, his, home, homepage, how, however, hr, ht, htm, html, http, hundred, i, i’d, i’ll, i’m, i’ve, id, ie, if, in, inc, indeed, information, instead, into, is, isn’t, it, it’s, its, itself, join, last, later, latter, least, length, less, let, let’s, like, likely, ltd, ma, made, make, makes, many, maybe, meantime, meanwhile, mg, microsoft, might, million, miss, ml, mm, mo, more, moreover, most, mostly, mr, mrs, much, must, my, myself, namely, neither, net, never, nevertheless, new, next, nine, ninety, no, nobody, none, nonetheless, noone, nor, not, nothing, now, nowhere, of, off, often, on, once, one, one’s, only, onto, or, org, other, others, otherwise, our, ours, ourselves, out, over, overall, own, page, per, perhaps, rather, re, recent, recently, reserved, ring, same, seem, seemed, seeming, seems, seven, seventy, several, she, she’d, she’ll, she’s, should, shouldn’t, since, site, six, sixty, so, some, somehow, someone, something, sometime, sometimes, somewhere, St, still, stop, such, taking, ten, text, test, than, that, that’ll, that’s, the, their, them, themselves, then, thence, there, there’ll, there’s, thereafter, thereby, therefore, therein, thereupon, these, they, they’d, they’ll, they’re, they’ve, thirty, this, those, though, thousand, three, through, throughout, thru, thus, to, together, too, toward, towards, trillion, tv, twenty, two, under, unless, unlike, unlikely, until, up, upon, us, use, used, using, very, via, was, wasn’t, we, we’d, we’ll, we’re, we’ve, web, webpage, website, welcome, well, were, weren, weren’t, what, what’ll, what’s, whatever, when, whence, whenever, where, whereafter, whereas, whereby, wherein, whereupon, wherever, whether, which, while, who, who’d, who’ll, who’s, whoever, null, whole, whom, whomever, whose, why, width, will, with, within, without, won, won’t, would, wouldn’t, yes, yet, you, you’d, you’ll, you’re, you’ve, your, yours, yourself, yourselves

 Bad news for anyone working in the web or design or seo industry as Google have decided that as a result of customer needs they will not list any of these businesses with the map at the top of the search results if you put “web design town”  into the search box.  Sometimes it will list the map entries at the top of the search results if you write “web design IN town” but how many searchers will know that!!  Isn’t this just clear discrimination by Google against anyone involved in the web design business.  Why would they do that particularly when we very effectively were selling Google’s services to our clients.  Are we really going to promote Google’s services when they make our industry invisible in this way?

I found particularly disturbing the response in the thread below from Joel a Google employee; (my emphasis)

“Hi Folks - 

Earlier thread, Brian (BB- baseonballs) noted that this may be related to a known issue regarding the display of local search results on google.com. After further investigation, they are slightly different, and I’ll explain our intent.

Today, we’re intentionally showing less local results for web design / SEO queries. For example, [web design sacramento] doesn’t display local listings today. We believe this is an accurate representation of user intent. In some cases, we do show local listings, however (as NSNA/php-er noted) [web design in bellingham]. I’m sure some of you feel we should be displaying local results for queries like [Web Design Vancouver]. I understand that concern, but based on our understanding of our users, we feel this is the right decision for now.

I’ll give the usual disclaimer that we’re constantly working on improving the user experience and results will vary over time. So, this could change in the future, but I wanted to be explicit about what we’re doing today.”

Discrimination-Google confirms it no longer lists local map results for web design, seo unless the word in or near used!! http://goo.gl/4a52

“

RMilne Level 1 10:38 AM

Joel H: “some SEOs/web designers want their website, not a local listing, to be the primary destination”

 

The local listings link directly to businesses websites, how could any SEO / web designer not want users to see their business shown in a group of local listings???

 

Joel H: “we think this is a better user experience”

“Using words in or near seem to be suggestive of a different intent”

 

In what way is a search for something like “website design sacramento” any different at all from a search for “website design in sacramento” ??? The first search is just shorthand for the second one.

 

Google gave users on screen hints for years and years along the lines of “in is a very common word and was not included in your search”, that’s how users have been educated to search and so now they quite reasonably expect to not have to use common words like in and near. They don’t have to when they’re searching for other businesses so why would it occur to them to use those words when they’re searching for SEO and web design companies???

 

The other thing that hasn’t been addressed is why some searches for website design and SEO are still working as before? Why on earth would user intent differ from country to country?

 

Working examples:

 

Italy -

website design rome

website design milano

website design parma

 

Australia -

website design sydney

website design melbourne

website design brisbane

 

France -

website design paris

website design bordeaux

website design lyon

 

In short, how can any of what’s been happening with local listings possibly be considered a “better user experience”

Check your Google Pagerank here.