Search engines and SEO

Hi Marshall and Gary here,

Here at Small Business Internet Marketing we are often asked by our small business clients “What is the one thing we can do to get a good ranking in Google?” It is like many people see that their site is lacking the one special ingredient that, when corrected or incorporated, will pump up their ranking. The number of snake oil internet sales pitches floating around seems to encourage this perception. You know “Rank number 1 in Google in 24 hours” type of push.

We feel a bit like the Christmas Grinch when we have to say “There is no magic bullet.”

As we have discussed a number of times on our posts, on-page SEO and off-page SEO is what gets your site ranking in Google. These are not overnight results. On-page optimisation by and large is within the control of a small business (with the right advice and understanding) whereas off-page optimisation is a far longer slog but certainly builds a fortress around your ranking when done properly.

Continue Reading – There is no magic bullet for rankings

Hi, Marshall and Gary here

Lots of people on who read Small Business Internet Marketing liked the Goggle Profile information in one of our recent posts. Well here is another nifty tool that Google have recently released. It is called Wonder Wheel and can really speed up finding great keywords for online marketing.

Beware – it is highly addictive and you will find yourself chasing keywords all over the internet.

Continue reading – Google provides the wheel deal

Hi Marshall and Gary here,

We like to post on many and varied online marketing topics here at Small Business Internet Marketing. We are also fairly inquisitive – so when the experts say “ipso facto, this is the truth”, we wonder “is it really so?”

We have posted a lot of late about the Google algorithm and backlinks, or so called off-page SEO. We also recently posted a list of 7 critical on-page SEO factors for small business. There is no doubting the importance of PageRank and backlinks and most SEO experts hammer on and on about it, but sometimes the simple things are often the best.

The Small Business Internet Marketing blog has been running since the start of this year. We have been diligent, if not a bit anal, about on-page SEO. This is due to the fact that quality backlinks and a good PageRank take time and effort. It is not that we are not trying, it is just that it takes lots of time. If its one thing we know its that small business owners do not have a lot of spare time to chase elusive links. It is a bit like the chicken and the egg – good sites do not want to share links with a newbie or low ranking site with no presence, but a good presence requires backlinks. See the problem?

Continue Reading – The Power of on page SEO

We have posted previously on Google and its algorithm at Small Business Internet Marketing. Google makes the following statement about its search engine:

Traditional search engines rely heavily on how often a word appears on a web page. We use more than 200 signals, including our patented PageRank^TM algorithm, to examine the entire link structure of the web and determine which pages are most important. We then conduct hypertext-matching analysis to determine which pages are relevant to the specific search being conducted. By combining overall importance and query-specific relevance, we’re able to put the most relevant and reliable results first.

So we need to spend some time to understand what the PageRank algorithm is. Fortunately, as Google notes, it is patented and we know what is in the patented algorithm. As an interesting aside, the “Page” refers to Google co-founder Larry Page and not a web page.

Google provides a very good description of PageRank, as you would expect as it is one of their key sales points:

PageRank Technology: PageRank reflects our view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.

PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the linked page greater value.

For the mathematically minded, the original algorithm is:

Continue Reading – How Google’s PageRank fits in

Hi, Marshall and Gary here,

At Small Business Internet Marketing, when working with clients in developing their internet marketing strategies, we are required to explore both “On-page and “Off-page” search engine optimisation factors. The search engines look at these two areas when calculating how to rank your site’s individual web pages.

On-page search engine optimisation factors can best be described as the content contained on your pages that is relevant to a particular search query. The great thing about on-page SEO is that you have total control over it…. you can simply edit your page content to improve it.

Off-page SEO is not as easy to manipulate. Your web page rankings are not only determined by the page content but also by its popularity. Your page popularity is calculated by the number of other sites linking to your pages, the linking text used and also the importance and rank of those linking pages. Links from pages with a high page rank or authority sites such as .edu and .gov sites can weigh in heavily.

Today we are going to take a closer look at “On-page” search engine optimisation factors; you are unlikely to get back links and score well with off-page factors if your on-page content is not up to the mark in the first place. We’ve included our top 7 on-page SEO factors for small business.

Continue Reading – 7 Critical Onpage SEO Factors

Hi, Marshall and Gary here.

Much has been written about the algorithm that Google use – much of it unintelligible to the everyday internet user. A comment from “softplus” on a post in the excellent SEO site SEOmoz.org is:

How about reciprocal factors? For example: if the competition is high (threshold or range): use the age-factors; otherwise ignore age. With a sigmoid-type function it’s easy to do (given range or threshold) and it is the perfect model for the famed sandbox.

Here at Small Business Internet Marketing we do not pretend to fully understand this but we are inquisitive and ask “Why does the algorithm matter?”

Well let’s go right back to square one- to the Google corporate website.

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

One of the Google founders, Larry Page, said:

The perfect search engine would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want.

So if someone is talking about a search engines complex algorithm issues, take a deep breath and just remember what it is all about – returning the most relevant results for a search query. And remember the opposite of relevant is irrelevant – so Google will try to ignore (or punish) anything it believes is irrelevant (or deliberately misleading).

Continue Reading – Google and its Algorithm

Hi, Marshall and Gary here.

We have said at Small Business Internet Marketing quite often that 88% of searches in Australia are done on the Google search engine (it runs at about 72% in USA) – so in effect SEO means getting visible in Google.

So it stands to reason that what everyone who dabbles in the black art of SEO wants to know, is how Google determines who ranks where. Every small business would love to know so they could dress appropriately to ensure that Google whistles at them in the crowded bar of websites and blogs.

Continue reading – SEO and Google

Hi, Marshall and Gary here.

Without a doubt, the biggest buzzword that we run across at Small Business Internet Marketing with small business owners is SEO (technically it is probably a buzz-acronym). As we said in the last post, it stands for search engine optimisation.

Everyone wants it. Everyone wants their website or blog on the front page of Google. There are lots of people selling on the internet who will “guarantee” the front page. We always find this a bold claim, and one that generally is not quite true. Of course there are many businesses out there who do a great job for their clients with SEO and give them as high visibility as possible.

The biggest problem with Google is virtually all users have the front page set to 10 listings (yes – you can change it if you want, but people rarely do). So getting on this page is highly competitive. And the people who are already on it tend to be very protective of their position so they (or their website designers) will use all their skills and knowledge to stay there.

Continue reading – SEO for beginners

Hi, Marshall and Gary here.

There is no doubt that the advent of the internet has created many new colourful words and phrases to the English language.

One is search engine. A search engine is simply a software program. It allows the user to type in a words or words that the user considers relevant to what they are seeking to find. The program then searches an index of databases to see what it has that it believes user is seeking. It then displays the results to the user, who can choose a relevant result and click the hyperlink to access the site.

We all know that computers are getting faster and faster, but obviously it would be technologically impossible to search every existing website, blog, document, video, etc. Especially when it returns 57.9 million results in 0.15 seconds (this is the result in Google if you search for “search engines”).

How does it do this?

Continue reading – What is a search engine