How To SEO For Google Real Time Search – A Case Study

Anyone that pays any attention to the search engine optimization world knows that real time search is a hot topic and Google is getting VERY good at picking up on trends and enabling their scrolling news section in the middle of their normal search results.

The part that many people miss is that social media streams are one of the ways Google picks up on trends and links that should be included.

Although there are things that happen everyday I do not like to do a test unless there is something actually relevant to write about when testing the real time search results. Yesterday during the Hawaii tsunami warning though I caught the mention of HITsunami.info on CNN and thought it was a great use of a .info domain name and after seeing the timeline between registration and mention on CNN I thought it was a great story so I blogged about it and also realized that there was a chance, like on my Google Superbowl Commercial post, that it would be picked up in the real time search results.

Click here to find my Hawaii tsunami warning and the HITsunami.info post.

So, all that said, I started by determining the most keyword rich but non-spammy title I could use, you will see it if you visit the post. I truly thought it was amazing how quick John Garcia took the domain to full site and mentioned on CNN so fast, truly amazing. I am a big promoter, user, and all around lover of all things social media so taking advantage of all those aspects was pretty awesome to see. So I wrote the post to be relevant, do not go spammy when trying to take advantage of this, Google is not stupid.

So, after doing the post, it was indexed and getting traffic, this is not a joke, in one minute.

Below I have a ton of snapshots of what real time search results can do, Google is getting very good at this and it is amazing to see how they are picking up trends and changing the structure of their results in real time. If you do not think real time search matters then you need to think again, determining how you can use this to benefit your sites is very important, and myself, as a geo developer, really can think of ways to make sure that we are always on top of what is happening and providing up to date data.

You can see in the below pic that my post showed up on the first page for the term "hitsunami.info" when search in Google, as we all know a good portion of people do not go to the browser address bar when searching for a site, they go to their default search bar. I am amazed by this but it can be valuable as well:

And in this version, timeline 2 minutes since I posted, I was in the top couple results for searches for the site, keep in mind this was the 39th most popular term overall on Google at the point:

And here is the example of the link scrolling through the real time search feed. As you can see much of that is powered by info being gathered from Twitter:

And one that was really nice, top of real time search for Hawaii Tsunami Warning

And the kicker, the term Hawaii Tsunami

And here is a look at the Statpress from my blog for a bit, I did not catch it at the beginning but still shows what was happening:

Real Time Search And The Google Superbowl Commercial

During the Superbowl I did a couple blog posts with the second one being firmly planted in my mind as a good test for what real time search can do for traffic and why paying attention to real time SEO for certain events can help drive visitors.

Being in the field we are in I was interested to see if Google would do a search commercial or something around the Nexus One, I was actually pleasantly surprised to see it was a commercial based on search, actually all the different things search can do for someone using all the capabilities Google has. Most people are not aware of the way they can use search and this was a nice venue to show them.

All that said, I knew there would be a ton of search done on Google Superbowl Commercial and although I had real honest commentary on the subject I also knew that it would be a real time search trend that would trigger Google into having their scrolling box in their search results page scrolling news as it happened from Twitter and blogs.

Well, the results, in a very short period of time I had hundreds of visitors to the one post, you can see a bit of what I am talking about by looking at the keywords  sending traffic to my blog below for just a few seconds, click on the image for the details:

This is the tail end of the real time traffic that came in, I wish I would of caught it from start to finish but this will give you a good idea of the terms that were sending traffic from the real time search box that scrolls on Google.

Just an example of how social media and taking advantage of it can do.

Long Tail Search Results, iPhone Apps, And A Third Grader On Google

I always like to sit back and watch how "non-technical" people use the tools (like search) compared to how people that live online constantly use them. It can be enlightening and show you why certain things work and why others do not.

As many people have shown with various graphs, numbers, marketing data, and other ways to show the same thing, long tail search is growing. The number of people using more than a couple words when searching grows every year which means that people are getting much more sophisticated and using the tools the same way many of us did that were early adopters. I know this is not earth shattering news to those that keep up with this trend, and anyone that buys names for network sites or who does any level of SEO research for high conversion keywords has probably spent a good portion of their time research long tail searches (up to several words or more).

Well tonight as I sat with my daughter on the couch (with both of our laptops out, bonding???) offering to help her with her creative writing home work (seriously, creative writing in third grade?), she shunned my help to use Google to search for writing prompts. I thought this would be a fun thing to watch, here is how the process went:

1) Search for writing prompts

2) Before clicking on one thing switches search to third grade writing prompts

3) Clicks on two entries that look likes made for Adsense sites, starts to click on ads but I stop her (someone can thank me later).

4) Blames Google for bad results. Says she wishes they would show something to help her, her brain works for a few minutes thinking.

5) Refines her search even further to something even longer

Now, even though she was not looking to buy, this is the basic learning process people go through as they search. This is why many smart people focus on the long tail terms for higher conversions.

I know a third grader may not sound like a good reference point, but in reality I think this means alot because if a typical (it is my daughter so I want to say brilliant) 8 year old refines their search to find more relevant searches as she becomes the consumer aged kid (lets say the tween years) how she searches is what matters. I watch her when she browses on her iPod Touch and she will sit in a Paneras on WiFi and search like any other mobile search user. Can you imagine what these kids will be doing in a few years.

The thing I hate to admit here but should be pointed out is that other than a few gaming sites I know my son visits I can honestly say I have never witnessed my kids actually type in a generic domain name. I know that may frustrate some but they are the future users. They hit Google or use an iPhone app for pretty much any information gathering online. Search traffic matters, social media matters, mobile apps matter, do not ignore that, instead think about how you can blend all those together to be successful.

OK, what is my point.

My point is watch what the kids around you do and how they use the Internet. They will be the ones driving how items are consumed online in the near future. Long tail search is just one way that we see all people changing their habits, but with kids using mobile search combined with local long tail search  to find products it may be just the way to determine how to make your next domain purchase or search engine optimize your next project, or even more importantly, figure out how to implement social media and mobile apps into your plan.

Measuring Incremental SEO Changes

One of the things that many people get frustrated with is measuring the progress of their search engine optimization changes. As we know it can take days, weeks, or even months to see results of the changes made to the site being worked on.

And to make matters even worse, it will also depend on how "important" the search engines see the site as well since a site that is visited by the search bots more frequently will be more likely have the results of the changes show up faster.

Recently I decided to test some incremental changes one by one, the site I was testing on is a site that has been established for some time, has a Pagerank of 4, but does not necessarily get updated daily or even weekly.

Since I am a big believer that the title tag is the most important single item you can do for on-site SEO (feel free to argue that one....) I wanted to modify one pages title tag from something that was less competitive to something that was more competitive but when the site was first launched the site would not of had the link juice to rank for.

The term is still directly related to the site content but is the higher searched version of the product term it focuses on.

One thing I like to look at before measuring anything like this is the number of Google search results for the term based on how a typical user would search for the term and not a techie  (without quotes in other words).

In the case of this term there are around 5 million or so results that show up with a solid range of companies on the first 3 pages. Overtime my goal is page one but for now I want to see what one little tweak can do, can that one tweak take the site from not showing up to showing up for the search (at least in the first few pages) and how fast will that happen, or even will it happen.

After I measure the initial tweaks results then I will do one more change, all "white hat".

Results? Well after just two days the site now shows up on page 3 of the Google SERP's for the term and that is before any further optimization is done and without waiting for any real aging on the term.

It would be completely expected, from past experience, that over time that ranking would do even better without any further optimization, since I have the benefit of time for what I am testing I am scheduling to check the results after one month then two months before making any further changes.

After that I will start to make further optimizations to the site, at times we tend to ignore the fact that we need to measure SEO results over time. We expect fast results and with competitive terms it may take time before you see those results.

Sometimes we get spoiled with long tail search terms ranking fast, but when working with more competitive terms it is best to measure over time and not get frustrated.

Creative Link Building And A Pleasant Surprise

As a late Christmas gift I noticed today that we were getting traffic to a new site we are launching plus one of the Missouri.me city sites from a .GOV site.

We all know that .GOV links hold very high regard with Google for SEO purposes, to have one of the first backlinks to a site we have not even launched yet come from a .GOV site is a great way to get ranked well in Google from the start. We have had several links pop up from local libraries and city government sites but had yet to have one of them be from a .GOV (or at least one we have noticed traffic from).

During one of  my recent seminars their were several local government officials, afterwards I had spoke to them a bit and they had show much interest in supporting our work and push to help small businesses. Well thanks to them for showing the love with two VERY well placed banners on their site to us. It may seem like a lot of work for a couple links, but we have seen this happen time and time again and even more so than SEO benefits it goes a long way with local businesses.

Now that I think about my comment about a lot of work for a couple quality links, we did close a few deals from the seminar so I guess the links would be considered a side benefit.

Anyway, just thought I would point out creative link building techniques:)

How To Turn Off Google Personalized Search

As was reported widely last month Google has decided to turn on personalized search for users that are not even logged into their Google account. If you are not familiar with personalized search, this is the algorithm Google uses to determine which search results to show based on your previous search engine usage.

Previously you had to be logged in to your Google account to see the results, this would at least give you the ability to log out to see what the general browsing public would see compared to what your usage has caused the search results for you personally to be.

Once Google turned on personalized search for people even when they were not logged in it caused a bit of an uproar because now, even with all the SEO effort you may put in, you were never quite sure of what the general browsing public would see.

One of the first things I did was found a way to turn off personalized search, this allows me to see what the actual SERPs are compared to what I personally see when logged in, although  someone who has searched for a specific term before may have their own personalized results I can now at least see what the Google results would be if personalized search was not on.

In the case below I am logged into my Google account but will go through what I see and how I turn off Google personalized results:

You can see the View Customizations link on the right side above the search results. Click that link.

Above you will see the links to remove web history for your account, to remove web history and personalized search click on Remove Web History from my Google Account.

Now things are a bit different when you are not signed into your Google account, per Google your search is personalized based on a cookie.  Here is a the quote from Google on how to disable personalized search when you are not signed in:

1. In the top right corner of the search results page, click Web History.
2. On the resulting page, click Disable customizations.(Because this preference is stored in a cookie, it'll affect anyone else who uses the same browser and computer as you).

One interesting thing that I should point out is that Google does say that if you have turned off personalized search for those times you are not logged in you will have to redo the process again since the settings are stored in the cookie itself and the service is opt-in by default.

That last little bit is concerning.

Anyway, enjoy your non-personalized results.

Selecting A Small Business SEO Company

All SEO companies targeting small businesses are selling snake oil!

OK not really but there are many out there you need to watch for which I believe has given the industry a bad name. Search Engine Optimization is something every company with a website or developing a website should take into consideration as they develop their plan for implementation.

If you are not familiar with SEO the simplest explanation without getting technical is the following:

SEO is the process of building your website in a manner that allows it to show up in the search engines for specific items that people maybe searching for, and more importantly it is optimizing it in a way that draws in searches that are specifically targeted at the products you sell.

There are many more technical explanations but that one really is the gist of it.

Now, why did I say many companies are selling snake oil, well let me first say, my company is not an SEO company, I say that very specifically because we do more than just optimize sites. That said we do work with customers that do want some level of SEO work done on their websites and we do build every customer website with SEO in mind from day one. Our success getting customers the search traffic they want has been great but we never guarantee anything, period.

There are a few things that you need to pay attention to when selecting a search engine optimization partner.

If they promise you page one listings run away, here is why. In many businesses you can guarantee something, when it comes to the search engines you are always at Googles (or Bing, or Yahoo) mercy. The provider can do everything right but at the end of the day there is always a chance that Google may not rank the site on the first page number one listing.

If they guaranteed it there are a few things they may be doing that you need to ask about or be aware of, there are companies that will take advantage of the lack of awareness of how the search engines work and will sometimes do one of the following to show you a first page listing:

1. Paid submission directories or search engines - Many will pay a fee to have your site listed number one in a lesser search engine or website directory or possibly take advantage of pay per click advertising on a lesser search engine or directory. These listings are only there if you are paying, quit paying and the listings go away.
2. Black Hat SEO - When it comes to search engine optimization there are two main types without getting to technical, there is white hat which is the proper way to optimize the site, and there is something called black hat. Black hat is the process of trying to trick the search engines into ranking your site but doing things that Google and others frown on. It may work for a short period of time but sooner or later Google will catch on and your site will be banned from search and your competitors will be smiling.
3. Using very odd searches to rank - What this means is showing you a page one ranking for a term that really no one searches for, for instance if you are interested in showing up for Chicago Hair Salons they may work to optimize for Chicago Illinois Hair Salons On Rush Street. You can see how it changes the value of a first page ranking.

Those are just a few things, there are many more but after speaking with customers lately I have a concern that there are people still working down these paths with customers.

All that said, there are many very upstanding SEO companies out there, there are MANY MORE good than bad. Make sure you select one you are comfortable with and ask the right questions.

Backlink.us Up and Running Try It Out

Getting ready to get away from the laptop as much as possible the next couple days but thought I would put a quick note out on something we are testing.

The other day I did the post about sometimes just doing things for fun to see where they end up and that is what we are doing with Backlink.us.

In the end it will be a much larger resource than it is now but for now we just wanted to test some directory functions we are working on plus some Twitter integration tools. So far so good.

Before someone tries to give me all the info on SEO and weak backlinks, etc, etc. We know, but sometimes testing a few things is worth it. So far this works well for the purpose it was created for. If you want a quick free one-way backlink try it out, you also get tweeted out to our almost 4 thousand followers and counting, use often, free traffic, and you can deep link as well.

This tool is here to stay and the resources will be growing. Consider this the just for fun version.

Top 5 Small Business Website Mistakes

As we work with small business owners daily to develop their plan for their online presence we hear a lot of the same questions and at the end of the day the customer is always right but there are things we try to help people keep away from or things that we find that maybe they did not do the first time they built their site that they should do this time. Here are 5 things small businesses either need to avoid or need to think about when they have their websites built:

Music playing on site- This is a major thing to avoid, when websites were being bought and deployed because they were "neat" and new this was something a lot of people did. Also I have witnessed this a lot on customer sites that were built by non-professionals. Without fail the majority of people visiting your website will be turned off by the auto-playing music as soon as they hit your site. This is an absolute avoid. Please please do not do this.

Using templates based on framesets - This is something else I see weekly by customers who have bought websites from people that focus on vertical markets, many of these niche market template websites are based on frames and you lose the ability to link to individual pages of the site. This is very late 1990's. If you bought your website from a niche market provider or you had your website built in the late 90s or early 2000's and your site is built with frames it is time for an update.

Working with developers that do not understand SEO - This is also very common, in my mind if you are having a website built and basic SEO is not part of what they do by default what is the point, if you spend 5K for a website and no one ever goes there does it matter? No. This is a very common issue with older technology companies in an area that have never upgraded past the "tech" part of websites. This is also very common when people focus on the flashy/pretty part of the site and not on attracting customers. If you ever hear someone say "Oh yeah my sister was gonna build my website" this is probably going to be a problem as well. For the small business customer that may read this and needs to understand what I mean please feel free to use my contact me form.

Using Flash and only Flash to build a site - Last week I sat down with a potentially large Missouri.me advertising customer who also wants a custom website developed. Although we do not focus on custom websites in this case it makes sense for us to do it. But what was interesting is they brought up the site of their would be competitor and it was done almost 100 percent in Flash. Sure it looked great and did some cool stuff but it ranked no where in the search engines, all their traffic was from PPC. They focused on pretty and not getting customers. Flash is another item that decreases the ability of the small business owner to optimize their site for the search engines. Avoid making it the focus of your site.

Clip Art Animated GIF's - Just like the music reference above, this is very late 90s early 2000's. Having clip art based graphics on your site will turn users off. The little guy walking across the screen that is on a graphic is not something that is neat anymore. Please avoid this, clean nice looking graphics will be more interesting to your visitors.

Thanks to @DanSanchez for inspiring this post.

If you have questions about the right steps for your small business website please use the contact me link above to contact me. If you have more suggestions for small businesses to avoid feel free to put them in the comments section below.

SEO Content for Black Friday and Christmas 2009

As the holidays fast approach we have been getting several content requests from customers who are wanting to optimize some of their new site content around Black Friday, Thanksgiving, Christmas 2009, and the New Year.

As the first year that I have had a company that created content for other people it has been interesting to see the types of requests that come in, since I do not focus much on seasonal traffic I was a bit surprised at the level of work people want around SEO content yearly. But to be honest it makes complete sense.

As we know if you continue to add content to your site Google comes back more frequently and indexes faster (at least it seems) and if you have kept up through the year with putting content up you will be indexed fast as you put up your content related to the holidays.

It can be as simple as adding a Christmas 2009 Specials page to a site, or New Year Parties 2010 page, there are many options, but seasonal traffic can be amazing for the right sites that are properly optimized for the terms they need. I read a couple years back about a site that makes 10s of thousands every June/July just on Fourth of July focused traffic.

Although you may not make it to the first page for a term like Black Friday you may do well for long tail search terms around it. That is the goal for many of the customers I am working with.

Do you have a product related site that could benefit from content purposely optimized for the holidays  in 2009, let me know we would be happy to help.

Next Page »