Google Webmaster Tools provides an extremely useful set of information under Top search queries (find it under “Your site on the web”). It provides a sanity check to ensure site content matches the searches that visitors are using to get to the site.
This tool has two statistical tables: Impressions and Clickthrough. Impressions lists [...]
Google Webmaster Tools is currently providing a Site Performance feature in Webmaster Tools. This feature delivers two pieces of information:
Performance overview: how long it takes your site to load (measured in seconds), how this compares to other sites, and an assessment of this measurement’s accuracy based on the number of data points.
Page Speed suggestions: suggestions [...]
Here’s a few points to note as a follow up to the Need More Power? post.
Word Exceptions
Commonly used words like ‘a’ and ‘the’ are usually ignored, but there are exceptions [the hobbit]
To avoid synonym replacement of words in a query, insert a ‘+’ before the word to disable this feature
Google may omit a word from [...]
Basic searching usually does the trick, but sometimes a little more power is helpful. Google offers several helpful examples highlighting the advanced features of Google Web Search:
Phrase search: put double quotes around the search phrase. This tells Google to search for those words in that order, no changes.
Search within a specific website: [ diamondbacks site:mlb.com [...]
Think about planning a trip. Take a map and mark out a path to a destination. A map will provide useful information about routes and connecting points. A map should also be accurate and provide a realistic expectation for the actual travel. After planning a trip and departing, what happens when a [...]
What happens when potential customers call a business and ends up confused by what they hear on the other end? If they’re expecting a certain familiar greeting and end up hearing something different, customer’s experience and impression starts out on the wrong foot. Some may persist, others may call someone else. Consistency in a company’s [...]
Consider the rotary phone. It had a familiar, sturdy design. It entered service in 1919, with a demise beginning in the 1970s. Its nemesis was touch tone dialing provided by a keypad instead of a dial. Its primary legacy is that phone numbers are still “dialed”.
Now consider the phone book. [...]
Google cites three “key processes” in delivering search results. Anytime an SEO effort is underway it’s important to ensure that these three areas are properly addressed.
1. Crawling
Crawling is how pages, either new or updated, are recognized, discovered, and “read” by Google. Google uses a program called Googlebot that determines the pattern of searching sites, including [...]
As much as we’d like to always have the promise of a top ranking fulfilled, the truth is that there is no way to guarantee top rankings. Watch the top SEO providers, and a common theme is the absence of top ranking guarantees. Here are a few points to note:
- Rankings fluctuate by nature. This [...]
Think of investing in SEO like buying a nice new pair of leather shoes. The largest investment is the pair of shoes (like the SEO setup fee), but the monthly management is like polishing and repairing the shoe. By taking care of your shoe, they stay useful and nice.
Once you pay the initial [...]