Masterlink Interactive Blog

Facts and strategies are cheap in the search engine optimization (SEO) world, as one day’s success-certified SEO formula is the next day’s waste of code.

Last week, we talked briefly about how Google’s increasing emphasis on local search could dramatically change SEO. Specifically, we showed how the page placement of local search results (the Google map, local listings and user-ratings) could sometimes push otherwise perfectly optimized websites further down in the search rankings. Worse page placement could equal less incentive to spend a bunch of time and energy getting such a page to the top.

Amazing how rapidly things can change.

SEO watchers around the web noticed this week that Google has already started experimenting with different page placements of local search results. According to Mike Blumenthal’s Understanding Google Maps & Local Search, some of the tinkerings include:

1) The Places listings are BIGGER and look like the organic results except they have a map pin.

2) As you scroll down the MAP scrolls with you. So even when you are at bottom of page in the organic listings the map moves down and shows on right.

3) ONLY 7 (purely) organic listings show and in this instance most are directories or assn. Only 2 are Dentists.

4) To get on the top TWO screens you need to be in local. Most of the organic are 2 screens BELOW the fold.

5) Reviews are more prominent

6) Link to Place Page is marked as such, instead of just “More Info” which means better branding and name recognition for Google Places

7) It’s pulling meta description from the site – just like organic.

PLUS it adds some snippets from reviews on the Place page. So best of both worlds and BIGGER!

Click to Enlarge

In this format, the best-optimized websites are back on top… at least, of course, until Google decides to experiment with placing the local search results in a different spot. Or perhaps mix in a variety of placements, based on the importance of local search to that particular query. Or at least until a new, innovative way of organizing and accessing information emerges.

Two points:

1. As always, fundamentals matter the most when it comes to SEO, and an effective, well-designed site that gets shared around by clients and customers will grab the attention of the search engines one way or another.

2. Even if Google and the other search engines tinker with the placement of local search results, don’t expect them to ever minimize the importance of local search. It’s here to stay, even if the algorithm and factors the search engines love most might change.

It’s something we’re watching very closely, because local search can have huge implications for your company’s Internet marketing strategy. Stay tuned…

Search engine optimization around location increasingly matters. Here’s what you need to know:

What is it?

It’s optimization for searches that take into account location—of both the searcher and the local business—as well as other, more traditional searching factors. According to Google, 73 percent of all online activity relates to local content. Each of the major search engines now routinely mix local elements in with regular search results.

What’s led to its development?

The rise of smartphones and mobile web usage. The growing integration of web-usage into all areas of life and business. The demands of a more web-savvy public.

But also just the basic mission of the search engines: as we talk about often at Masterlink, their primary goal to get you the best, most accurate, most valued-by-the-wider-web-community information possible at any specific place or time. And if such best possible information can be tailored to your current location, then they’re going to try to get you that as well.

How does it work?

So let’s say while out on the town you get an urgent craving to slurp down some spicy green curry—Google is waiting, wok in hand. Search for “Thai food in Dallas,” and you get a result that looks something like this:

Boom: Directions. Prices. Reviews. Phone numbers. Links to websites and access to menus. Everything a customer could want short of a ticket to Bangkok.

But even if your office location doesn’t really matter — say, you’re a Dallas web design and Internet marketing company working for small businesses all across the city as well as nationally — location SEO still matters. Why? Trust. Familiarity. Community pride. The fundamentals of good business are still, well, fundamental. And customers and clients will still value the ability to meet you in a concrete location and build that business relationship.

How does it change SEO?

Look back at that Thai food listings. Let’s say you owned a local tom yum shop, and had worked really hard over the past year to get your site listed at the top of the search rankings. Suddenly, with the local business results occupying the top of the page, your well-respected, well-linked, well-optimized site might find itself in the middle of bottom of the page.

Furthermore, users are increasingly likely to look for more narrow results when it comes to location searches. So instead of “Thai Food in Dallas,” check out “Thai food in Plano.” The results change. A site perfectly optimized for a larger, more competitive area might get missed by more specific searches.

What can I do?

We’ll talk more extensively about this in the coming weeks. But here are some basics:

1. Register

The obvious first step is to register your business (even if you don’t yet have a website) with mainstream search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Also make sure your business is listed on directories like Yelp and Citysearch, plus more traditional paid listings like Superpages.com and Yellowpages.com.

2. Spread the (Your Own) Good News
After registering, ask your best clients to write reviews. Ratings and reviews are one of the first factors clicked on by searchers.

3. Experiment. Have Fun With It. Just Don’t Forget About SEO Basics.
Since location searching is still relatively new, there’s plenty of space for exploration about what boosts rankings. But the game hasn’t completely started over, and all the standard elements that search engines love still matter the most. The location-specific elements are just a new twist on an ever evolving marketing arena.

Here’s your new search engine optimization strategy:

1. Build a company that is valued by your customers and clients.
2. Build a smart, effective site that highlights this value.
3. Build a company that is valued by your customers and clients.
4. No, really, build a great company.

Here’s why:

A few weeks ago, we mentioned that Google had made a small tweak in the search algorithm, referred to as “Mayday”, and that such tiny changes in the formula could mean significant drops in search engine rankings for companies that focus more site optimization than on what the site actually offers to customers and clients.

Apparently, it happened as expected.

According to Web Pro News:

Google’s recent algorithm update, nicknamed “Mayday” by webmasters got a lot of people riled up, as many claimed it seriously affected their rankings, and potentially their revenues.

[…] Here are a few samples of reader comments from our previous coverage of the update:

“In conjunction with the drop in Google traffic, I have seen a matching drop in clicks out from my site to other sites. So it’s real, and it’s not been rosy to deal with.”

“Every time they make an improvement something else goes wrong.”

“Yes I have worked hard trying to rank and it keeps changing. Decided to go to other methods and forget about Google and their ranking.”

[...] One reader offered some sound advice:

“Never forget the first rules in SEO: It changes all the time. So, Google has made a change, which is not the first one. Do the basics right and you will have a sound long-term strategy.”

In an interview with the site, Google SEO liaison Matt Cutts says: “We’re trying to spot what are the signals of quality, whether for pages or for sites, that really are going to be good for users. [...] So part of what ‘Mayday’ addresses is trying to say ‘How do we return the best sites—the sites we think users are going to like?’”

We agree, and say as much often here at Masterlink Interactive: Focusing your web site’s SEO too much on a single, specific search ranking factor leaves you vulnerable to the whims and business interests of the search engines themselves. Quality sites that visitors love will thrive in a rapidly changing search environment.

This doesn’t mean that understanding the more complicated ins and outs of SEO isn’t important. Quite the contrary—the right tweaks can mean the difference between first page and third. SEO is constantly evolving, and someone (like us!) a little bit obsessed with following and figuring out the industry can benefit your company in a big way.

But web design quality is primary, and a site built solely to please the search engines is bound to fall whenever their algorithms get tweaked. We help you build sites that your customers and clients value, and it’s that element that the search engines are working endlessly to make sure matters most.

Contact us to develop a customized web design, search engine optimization, and comprehensive Internet marketing strategy.

Speed now matters in SEO, according to an announcement on the Google Webmaster Central Blog by by Amit Singhal, Google Fellow and Matt Cutts, Principal Engineer, Google Search Quality Team.  The search engine behemoth revealed that it will start factoring in website speed (how quickly a website responds to web requests) into its search results algorithm - a decision based on split seconds it thinks have no business being wasted.

Google recently added Site Performance and Page Speed suggestions in Google Webmaster Tools accounts and actually indicated it would start tinkering with the idea a of speed as a ranking factor last year, and soon realized they were onto something. According to Search Engine Land, Google sees this as a win for both its interests and those of the wider web.

In addition to the numerous studies over the years that show Internet users prefer fast pages, Singhal says Google ran its own testing on how users respond to page speed, including experiments on Google.com. Singhal and Cutts point to a June 2009 blog post on the Google Research Blog that talked about how Google purposely slowed down its search results to measure the impact on search behavior.

All other things being equal, more usage, as measured by number of searches, reflects more satisfied users. Our experiments demonstrate that slowing down the search results page by 100 to 400 milliseconds has a measurable impact on the number of searches per user of -0.2% to -0.6% (averaged over four or six weeks depending on the experiment). That’s 0.2% to 0.6% fewer searches for changes under half a second!

“When we slow our own users down [on Google.com], we see less engagement,” Singhal says. “Users love fast sites. A faster web is a good thing all around.”

Speed makes for an interesting SEO factor, because it’s one of the few that directly rewards website performance (as opposed to design factors like site architecture and keywords). And it’s a reminder of what good search engines try to do: give searchers quick, accurate access to the best and most relevent information they’re looking for. Slow sites inhibit that goal.

So here’s a few tips for keeping your website humming:

1. Consider SEO ramifications before adding heavy, unnecessary features — especially if the benefits of such features are unproven (we think a sleek, uncluttered web design looks better, anyway).

2. Tinker with tools. Google has a bag full of tricks that can help “make the web faster” in addition to the specific page speed suggestions provided in Google Webmaster Tools.

3. Limit HTTP requests. According to the Yahoo Developer Network: “80% of the end-user response time is spent on the front-end. Most of this time is tied up in downloading all the components in the page: images, stylesheets, scripts, Flash, etc. Reducing the number of components in turn reduces the number of HTTP requests required to render the page. This is the key to faster pages.”

Ok, so my SEO gurus are not going to like my title, but it’s true! Now don’t get me wrong, my SEO Specialists are the BEST and they do an excellent job of getting that wonderfully sought after target audience to your website. However, what happens when the user gets to your site? Is it easy to use? Is it compelling for the visitor? Does the web design look professional? Does it look trustworthy? Is it outdated?

A billboard or newspaper advertisement can be used to drive foot traffic to your brick and mortar store, but if the store is dirty, the merchandise is not properly organized and the service is poor, you will not make the sale. The same is true for your website – probably even more so! Whether you are selling a product or a service, your prospective online customer is going to make a judgment about your company before ever talking to a real live person or stepping into that million dollar office you occupy.

That old saying, “You never get a second chance to make a good first impression” was never more relevant than today. If that visitor to your site hits the dreaded “back” button before visiting anything more than your homepage (referred to as the bounce rate), you are dead in the water. They will not be coming back.

Now is a great time to take a retrospective look at your current site and see what can be done to catch those visitors that are coming to the site. Some great ideas for drawing those visitors in might be:

• Incorporate some interesting Flash animation to your site that also provides a valuable message to the user that will entice them to want to learn more. Don’t use movement just to see something move – your visitors do not want to be entertained.
• Prominently place a call to action on your homepage.
• Offer some type of online-only value to the visitor, a special coupon, discount, free evaluation, etc. Make sure this information is front and center when they come to your site.
• This may sound simple, but put your phone number and a contact us button on your homepage – users do not want to hunt for that information.
• The homepage should be clean and clutter-free – don’t have too many messages fighting for attention.
• Make sure the content is fresh and new – add a press release, new blog posting.
• Remove any annoying music, sound or auto-launching video.
• Employ a tagline that tells the user exactly what you do – no “cutesy” or “creative” taglines.
• If your site looks like it was designed more than 2 years ago – START OVER.

We have seen conversion rates as high as 30% on sites that are well designed with great SEO that really targets the correct visitor. Even if you are getting conversions with your current site, study your online statistics – you could be missing out on a lot of potential new business.