You may have noticed over the last few months that faces are starting to appear in the Google search results.

For example, if you jump into Google and do a search on search tempo seo training , there is a little picture of me on the left of one of the top listings.

In my opinion this is an SEO game changer and I do not use that term loosely

People are naturally attracted to pictures and having an image (no matter how ugly you are), will increase click-through rates dramatically. Search results with pictures seem more credible and more interesting don’t you think?

You can imagine how beneficial this would be to businesses who make personal face-to-face contact with their clients like doctors, dentists, lawyers, psychologists, podiatrists, tradespeople and so on.

I suspect this is yet another way of Google taking on Facebook in the social media space. What business person wouldn’t get a free Google plus account and link their plus account to their web site if it meant increasing click-through rates?

UPDATE: I’ve had a few people ask if we can do this as a service because it either all seems to complicated, or they haven’t got time. The answer is yes. You can order your Google Faces Package here.

Beware of SEO Gurus

During this week’s SEO course we covered two of the more popular misconceptions about Google.

The trouble with the SEO industry in general is that there is so much misinformation out there spread around blogs, forums and other public areas from so called “experts” and “gurus”.

Google does not go to much effort to refute this information because it is in their commercial interest to keep their ranking formula secret so it is much harder for people to game the system.

If you ask me the Google ranking formula has got dumber over the last three years. There is a finite limit to the processing capacity of the Google data centres and with the internet growing at such a breathtaking rate , I believe it is impossible for Google to make the complex calculations that people assume.

Just because Google has a patent for an idea doesn’t mean they have implemented the idea.

Here are two common half-truths that you will read on a lot of SEO forums:

MYTH 1- Google uses domain age as a major factor in ranking a web site

This is a half-truth. Age alone has no bearing on Google rankings. BUT, an old domain is more likely to have more incoming links through random internet activity than a brand new domain. So what’s the solution?

When you register a new domain and build a new web site, go out and get a bunch of links. It doesn’t really matter where you get them from. Buy them, beg for them, exchange them or steal them. You must have quality incoming links to your web pages to rank well. The number and quality of incoming links is the key factor in ranking a web page.

MYTH 2- You can’t make a one page web site rank well in Google

This is another half truth. And again, it’s all about links. A brand new one page web site on a new domain will have zero incoming links. Compare this to a brand new 100 page web site on a new domain that has 99 incoming links to the home page due to the menu navigation. Yes, they are links from the internal pages to the home page, but those links do count (a little). Even an internal link between pages on a site is better than no links at all.

Bottom line: if you want a one page web site to rank well. Go and get some external links.

Here are some more posts about Google myths and half-truths:

I had this poster made up to see if social media is really useful for spreading a message or promoting a cause in Australia. I’ll be tracking the distribution of this graphic  and unique visitors to this web page. I will report back in 8 weeks.

The poster will be promoted on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. I’ll leave comments on so people can leave their thoughts.

Google PageRank Update 2012

It appears there was a mass Google PageRank update last night, the first for 2012.

At least 76 sites that we own or monitor have moved up or down (mainly up).

Interestingly this wedding photography Brisbane site that is less than 3 weeks old, went from unregistered and unindexed to PR 3 in one fell swoop.

I suspect the Mister Purple Link Sandwich is the reason. As I keep telling people in our SEO training Course: “Google doesn’t care what your web site looks like, it’s about structure and most importantly, THE QUALITY AND NUMBER OF INCOMING LINKS !

I’m pleased Google is making things happen faster these days. There’s lot of Google Dancing going on so far this year.

Here’s some blog posts about Google PageRank for your enjoyment:

In late November last year the SEO world was shaken by the announcement that Yahoo Site Explorer was shutting down as a result of the technology merger of Bing and Yahoo.

Yahoo used to have a fabulous tool that allowed people interested in SEO to discover and analyse incoming links to a web site. This was a free service and a lot of other online tools used Yahoo Site Explorer as the source of this backlink data.

So the big question is how do you get backlink data now?

We are still searching for a fast, good and free solution, but in the meantime we are recommending the Blekko tool to the students on our SEO courses.

You can see Blekko in action for yourself at Blekko.com

You have to log in to use the SEO tools, but it is free and only takes a minute to sign up.

The data in Blekko isn’t as current as Yahoo Site Explorer was, but it is presented well and can still be quite useful for analysing your own, and your competitors backlinks.

Here are some related blog posts and articles about Yahoo Site Explorer alternatives:

http://www.techiemania.com/alternatives-of-yahoo-site-explorer.html
http://maheinfo.blogspot.com.au/2011/12/yahoo-site-explorer-alternatives.html
http://www.socialmedianews.com.au/blekko-yahoo-site-explorer-alternative/
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2012/01/yahoo-site-explorer-is-dead-what-are-the-alternatives.html
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2126582/Yahoo-Site-Explorer-Shuts-Down-Today-What-Alternatives-Are-There
http://seo-hacker.com/great-alternatives-yahoo-site-explorer/

Too often lazy web designers and people new to search engine optimisation will use the same title tags and meta description on every web page on their site.

This is a problem because the metatags are telling the search engines is that all the pages are the same.

Imagine a bookstore with 10,000 different books with exactly the same title and back cover blurb

To get more quality traffic and improve search engine rankings for multiple pages, every page should have a unique title and description with a focus on the keyword phrase that page is targeting.

And it’s not just for SEO either. In this era of tweets and sharing or promoting web pages on social media sites like Facebook and Linkedin, the one-click sharing process extracts the Title and Description from the web page being shared. You also have the opportunity to get even more attention and click-throughs by having a thumbnail image (see example)

The sharing process extracts metadata from the page

Bottom line is you need correct descriptive information in your title tag and meta description because this is what people will read on social network sites before they decide to click through to your web site or not.

To check your web page metatags there is a free tool here that I have used for over 10 years. http://www.scrubtheweb.com/abs/meta-check.html

Related information and resources related to social sharing:

http://www.nouveller.com/general/free-social-media-bookmark-icon-pack-the-ever-growing-icon-set/
http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/infographic-addthis-sharing-trends/
http://lornali.com/social-media/6-steps-for-creating-a-social-media-marketing-roadmap-plan
http://www.singlegrain.com/blog/impact-of-social-media-in-todays-business-world/
http://dannybrown.me/2010/01/17/the-real-cost-of-social-media/
http://www.noupe.com/how-tos/how-to-spend-less-time-with-social-media.html
http://www.mpdailyfix.com/seven-social-media-mindset-markers/
http://www.aimclearblog.com/2009/04/05/social-media-community-manager-job-description/
http://webdesignledger.com/inspiration/55-examples-of-beautifully-integrated-social-media-links-in-web-design
http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/the-top-10-social-media-presentations-online/

The exponential rise of blogging as part of the web 2.0 phenomenon has taken the Internet by storm. Smart online and offline marketers and business owners are now using blogs as an additional tool to generate leads, add credibility and improve their search engine rankings. Here are eight reasons why you should set up your own blog:

Blogging gives you products and services personality.
People like to do business with people they like. By blogging you show your target market that there is a real person behind the company or product you represent. By reading you blog posts they get an idea of what you’re all about – warts and all. The personal aspect of blogging is one of it’s most powerful characteristics.

Blogging is entertaining.
Yes, blogging can be great fun. Just open you posting window and go for it without the restrictions of corporate style guides and other impediments to creativity. Got something to say? Just say it. The other fun aspect of blogging is that people can post comments about your blog posts. You posts plus reader comments all become valuable food for the search engines.

Blogging encourages community.
Bloggers love to talk online to other bloggers. If you join blogging communities and make a worthwhile contribution you will see your traffic skyrocket. It’s all about content – fast, useful and entertaining content that people enjoy reading.

Driving traffic to blogs is easy
You’ve probably heard about social bookmarking sites like digg.com and reddit.com ? A large proportion of submissions to these sites are blog entries. Want to promote you product? Write an honest review of your product on your blog then submit that blog entry to a social bookmarking site and see what happens.

Blogging is inexpensive.
The most powerful blogging systems are free. WordPress is one of the blogging standards and now comes bundled with many cheap web hosting packages. For less than $100 per year anyone can get their own domain with blogging included.

I wouldn’t use one of the free blogging services unless you are really desperate. You can’t be sure if they will always remain free and your posts will be building up someone else’ asset rather than your own.

It’s fast and easy.
If you can use Microsoft Notepad you can blog. The user interface is very intuitive and allows you to add and edit, text, pictures, videos, whatever you want. Want to change the look and layout of your blog? There’s literally hundreds of themes available that take less than a minute to upload and install.

Your blog site becomes another Internet asset. Some blog sites get thousands and thousands of readers each day. This traffic can be converted to hard, cold cash through Google Adsense advertising, affiliate programs and straight advertising space sale. Some people make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, from providing excellent content through their blogs. Once you blog increases it’s Google PageRank, you also get the benefit of linking out from your blog site to other web sites you want to promote.

Search engines love blogs, I mean really love them.
It is said in many SEO forums that Google staff are great bloggers and subsequently Google spiders and indexes blogs more frequently that normal web sites. This may just be a rumour, but I have found it to be true in my case. If you blog every day there’s a good chance Google and the other major search engines will spider your blog every day looking for that new content. I have seen blog postings get spidered and indexed and ranking well in as little as 30 minutes. It seems the blog RSS feeds go straight into the search engines’ data centres. Go to Google and do a search on Blue Nike Sneakers and you will see what I mean.

Convinced? Give blogging a try. There’s stacks of free resources listed in article directories like this one that will help you get into blogging.

Further reading:

If you run a blog on your web site and post regularly, you can increase the power and authority of that blog page and improve your search engine rankings by linking out to other relevant blogs.

Blogs have a bit of magic embedded in them called trackback and ping.

The way it works is as follows.

• You write about your topic of interest on your blog and link out to other relevant blog pages on the internet.
• Once you publish your blog post, your blog will automatically contact the other blogs (that’s the magic bit), to let them know you have referenced them.
• If the other blogs are set up correctly, your blog page will automatically get a free backlink from those other blogs.
• Those new links will improve the Google PageRank of your new blog page, which in turn, will improve the Google PageRank of your home page and other main pages that are in your menu.
• Over time, your rankings will improve due to the increasing PageRank.

So if you want to get a few quick links and improve your PageRank, I suggest you do the following:

• Go through all you old blog posts and find relevant blogs that you can link to. If you’re lazy like me, simply include a list of reference sites at the bottom of your posts. Google Blog Search will help you find them.
• For any new blog posts you are writing, find 4 or 5 other blogs that you can link to that add value to your new post.

References and other resources

http://www.untwistedvortex.com/a-wordpress-guide-to-pingbacks-and-trackbacks/

http://www.tribalblogs.com/2012/01/10/pings-trackbacks-and-backlinks-what-do-they-mean/

http://www.vanvox.de/wordpress-tutorial-pings-und-trackbacks/1927/

http://www.adambrown.me/2011/10/ping-and-trackbacks/

[contact-form-7]

You have probably heard that Google has launched a service called Google Plus to take on Facebook. (Good luck with that Google)

What you may not have heard is that they have very recently launched Google Plus Business Pages.  They are a lot like Facebook Fan pages but “Googled” and in my humble opinion for more business friendly.

Think of a Google Places listing, but with status updates.

Google have big plans for these new Google Plus pages including incorporating direct links to them in the Android mobile device operating system.

And there is a good chance that Google will use the existence and popularity of Google Plus pages as yet another ranking factor (citation), in the Google search rankings formula. In other words if you don’t have one, your Google search engine rankings may suffer.

You can see an example of our Google Plus business page here:  http://gplus.to/seobrisbane

To create your own Google Plus business page, simply visit http://www.google.com/+/business/

Note that you will need a Gmail account to create a Google Plus business page.

All you do is click the “Create your Google+ Page” link. Then click on the “Local business or Place” link and follow the instructions.

If you have a Google Places/Maps listing, most of the profile information you see there has been pulled from Google Places/Maps.

Like most social media sites, Google Plus also has it’s own search engine. Over time, I believe it will become popular with people looking for the latest deals and news for products and services in their local area.  You can see what I mean here:  https://plus.google.com/u/0/s/seo brisbane

Until next week,  thank you for reading. If you want to sign up for our free Friday SEO Tips, please complete the form at top right of this page.

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For more information about Google Plus pages, I can highly recommend:
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-set-up-a-google-page-for-your-business/trackback/

http://www.socialfish.org/2011/11/you-finally-have-a-google-plus-business-page-now-what.html

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/google-pages-connect-with-all-things.html

http://www.business2community.com/google-plus/how-to-create-google-plus-business-pages-089773

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