Articles in ‘Search Engines’

• Be Big on YouTube

  by Webfusion in Search Engines, Social Media on April 23rd, 2012 Post a comment

  From the Official YouTube blog this weekend came an announcement aiming to put small businesses on a level footing with the big boys.

  Google AdWords for video has been about in some form for a while but is now available to all. Like the pay-per-click scheme we all known (and love?) you can now set a budget and work out how to target video advertising. You only pay when someone chooses to watch you ad, meaning you can work on creating and managing campaigns that fits with the rest of your marketing model.

  As part of the launch push Google / YouTube are giving away $50 million in free Google AdWords advertising. The aim is to help 500,000 businesses get into video and show them how they can match bigger competitors. New to AdWords? There’s a $75 credit upon sign up.

  For those needing help in creating their first video, there is the YouTube Advertiser Playbook plus My Business Story – a free tool to create your first video.

  More information on the new scheme can be found in this video too.
  

• New Google webmaster tools help multiple-domain issues

  by Webfusion in Search Engines on November 2nd, 2011 Post a comment

  Using a portfolio of domains to promote your website used to be simple. Buy-up, re-direct and watch the traffic come in. Changes in the way Google and other search engines see domains, duplicate content and the like however have made it all a lot more difficult…until now.

  Google has launched a new range in its Webmaster Tools system, aimed at preventing cross-domain URL isues. If a problem is spotted by a googlebot it will attempt to notify the webmaster.

  Cynics may suggest this is just another way of making sure webmasters are signed up to Google’s Webmaster Central system, but to be fair, other than personal opinions there isn’t much reason for you not to be subscribed anyway.

  The big issue that Google dislikes is duplicate content. There are a number of reasons similar content may appear on more than one URL and this blog by Google highlights most and what should be done about it. It’s not all webmaster created issues either site hi-jacking and plagarism are also problematic and the new Google tool changes will help make your aware of them.

  Have you used the new tools? Have they helped your business?

• This time it really is Google Related

  by Webfusion in Search Engines on August 17th, 2011 Post a comment

  Whether you see it as a helpful signpost or a further move towards big brother Google Related is the latest move by the search giant to guide what we do and when.

  Available as a Chrome extension and part of the Internet Explorer Google toolbar, as you search Google Related pings up other content relevant to what you are browsing (news, images, etc all in real-time).

  With Google Related teasers of related content pop-up at the bottom of your browser page that you can rollover to view more and even interact with.

  In terms of venues – restaurants, etc – Google Related could force them to take more notice of what people say online about them. Browse a restaurant’s own website and the Google Related pop-ups will include Google Maps and Reviews written about the restaurants.

  Basically, Google Related does what many savvy surfers already do when comparing something or researching a purchase etc, but automatically and all on one page. It takes a barrier away – or as some see it, it thinks for you.

  What do you feel about Google Related?

  Watch the official Google Related promo video here

• Google adds Offers to its portfolio

  by Webfusion in Search Engines, Tech News on July 14th, 2011 Post a comment

  It’s often said that Google does everything in a big way and that frequently means taking a good idea in practice elsewhere and improving on it. The social buying phenomena is no doubt led by Groupon, but more and more competitors are moving into the market and that includes Google who have launched Google Offers in beta – covering the New York and San Francisco areas only.

  Money-saving offers are sent daily via email to those subscribing to Google offers who can then take advantage of big percentage savings (65%, 50%, 40% seem common – the power of bulk sales). Nothing too different from the other options already in the marketplace, but this is Google and the slick marriage of it to its product portfoilio could see this one fly.

  Your subscription will obviously be linked to your Google Profile, which given the hidden wonders of Google+ is about to become more ‘personalized’ than ever before. That means, once more businesses sign up to offer via Google Offers, the deals ‘selected’ for you could become scarily more accurate to your precise desires. Find an offer you like and you can swiftly pay via Google Checkout. Whether you buy or not you are also encouraged to share the offers via Google +1 and social networks like Google+. In fact, with the release of Google Offers, the whole purpose of Google +1 and Google+ becomes a bit clearer. They want to be our online personal concierge – and to be fair they are making a good pitch for it.

  You can watch the video of some of the first businesses to be included in Google Offers here. – a diverse range.

• Google Voice Search in action

  by Webfusion in misc, Search Engines on June 23rd, 2011 Post a comment

  After success in the mobile market, Google has announced announced the launch of Voice Search for desktops and with that comes a realm of possibilities.

  Many of which have been dreamed about and tested by Brooklyn-based gadgetminds Breakfast who have created The Verbalizer, an open source board that utilizes Google’s voice search for desktop to ” inspire people to build their own useful and wacky contraptions to take Voice Search to another level”.

  The results can be seen in their video here. Well worth a look.

• Webmaster Tools and Analytics integration

  by Tim in Search Engines, Tech News, Web Design on June 17th, 2011 Post a comment

  Google is on the hunt for volunteer Webmasters to help with a new pilot project aimed at integrating its two most successful add-ons Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics.

  The idea is to supply website administrators with a more holistic view of internal traffic and SEO data. It will also allow Webmaster tools to take advantage of the graphs and charting functions of Analytics.

  According to the Google Analytics blog this integration has been top of the wishlist for many Google users.

  A limited pilot is planned to far, with not all those looking to sign-up likely to be successful. So if you are not a chosen one, you may have to wait another year or so to see how it all works.

  Have you been selected for the pilot? We’d love to hear from you.

• Financial searching with a trusted name

  by Webfusion in misc, Search Engines on May 25th, 2011 Post a comment

  Price comparison sites are nothing but what if that price comparison was driven by a name as respected as Google?

  The Google labs team have been helping us compare mortgage loans, checking accounts and the like for a while with various tools but now at last they are all available in one place.

  Google Advisor is designed specifically for the US market with the aim of combining speed, trust and control to offer those searching for the best deal the best chance of making difficult financial decisions.

  You can search without the need for entering any personal information so there shouldn’t be too many security scares either.

  Would you be more likely to use a comparison site from an established brand?

• AdSense to dormant domains

  by Webfusion in Online Business, Search Engines on February 11th, 2011 Post a comment

  If you have a portfolio of dormant domain names and are not yet putting them to use you may consider spending a few hours of your time developing a basic site and signing it up for Google Adsense. Adsense is perhaps Google’s lesser known advertising programs. The more familiar Google Adwords is actually used as the source of the ads used for the Adsense program but the latter is free to sign up to and free to use. Effectively Adwords users pay money to run these ads so that they themselves can generate money by sending people to their websites, while AdSense enables people running websites (Publishers) to place those ads on their sites and earn money from them. When an ad is clicked, Google pays the publisher about half of what the Adwords advertiser is paying and keeps the other half itself.

  Relevance

  Google Adsense works well within any site because the ads that Google shows on a website is relevant to the website’s content. This means the ads appear less conspicious to your visitors and ensures that more clicks come from your visitors who are more likely to be seeing ads that appeal to them. For example, a website page about ‘holidays in mexico’ would be populated via AdSense with ads about ‘holidays in mexico’ or something relevant to the same. So after reading your content, the likelihood is that your visitors will be only too keen to click on relevant links being thrown up in the AdSense panel.

  So you can earn per click from AdSense but also if you have high volume traffic to your site you can also earn from that too. In addition Google will also pay ‘per-thousand-impressions’ (CPM). So, for every thousand unique visitors your site gets, providing the Adsense ads are being displayed you will get paid whether they click the links or not.

  Making the most of AdSense

  Natural ads – through the Google AdSense control panel you can alter the look and design of the ad block as it will be displayed in your page. Try and make this blend as naturally as possible in with the rest of your page – colours, theme, appeal, etc. The more ‘part’ of your site the ad block appears the more likely your visitors will click the ad links displayed.

  Content is king – we will keep on about this but the better the content you have on your page the more likely people will want to read it, recommend it and come back. This will push up your traffic and produce the possibility of CPM payments too. Make sure you use keywords effectively too as the higher you feature in search engine listings the more likely you will pick up natural traffic too.

  Don’t be tempted to click your own ads - remember Google is one of the most resourceful and technologically advanced companies in the world, they know all the tricks, scams and potential short-cuts used by the less scrupulous. The chances are if you try and abuse the system they will find out and then ban you from the scheme and potentially all other Google tools. The small benefit clearly wouldn’t be worth it.

  Do you use Google AdSense? Have you used it for dormant domains? What are the returns like?

• Maximize your traffic by understanding Alexa

  by Webfusion in Development, Search Engines on January 21st, 2011 Post a comment

  

  Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

  So 2011 is here and the internet is set to play a more important role in business success than ever before. Economics and customers desire for interactivity mean that role of the internet in revenue building and customer relationships will be key in the 12 months ahead.

  However, to start building on that you need to make sure you are monitoring and maximizing the traffic your website is getting.

  Alexa.com is recognized as one of the best tools in measuring a website’s popularity and with a growing user base, expect its own role to continue to grow too. Alexa ‘measures’ traffic by using data collected from web users who have the Alexa toolbar activated in their browsers. With a reported 1.9 million users by the end of last year, that is a fairly comprehensive set of users, making it one of the largest Web Crawlers around. However, its results are by no means comprehensive. With no toolbar yet available for Opera or Safari browsers, nor older versions of other browsers, the results are somewhat skewed however.

  Anybody can use Alexa to see the ranking of a specific site. Alexa provides stats on page views, time spent on the site, sites that link in, bounce rate and where the audience is from (geographically). It also offers socio-demographics of audience – although the accuracy in households where more than one user uses the same browser must be questioned.

  Yet, despite the flaws with Alexa it is essentially the best there is in terms of truly measuring traffic web-wide. So it is important that when you are formulating your online plan, you consider the four key metrics that Alexa bases it’s rankings on.

  1.Traffic Rank: Provided by Alexa Toolbar Users and supplemented by data collected from other, diverse sources over a 3 month period. Updated daily and based on a combination of Reach and Pageviews.
  2.Reach: The percentage of global internet users who visit your site
  3.Time on Site: This is the daily time spent on your site (minutes), not necessarily single visits.
  4.Upstream Site: The sites users visited immediately after visiting the site.

  So that’s how Alexa ‘measures’ and creates its rankings but how can you affect that? Well the rankings offer a few pointers. Social Media is set to be ever more important this year so it is important to note that Alexa ranks the top 10 of these sites in this order:
  1. Google, 2.Facebook, 3.Youtube, 4.Yahoo, 5.Twitter, 6.LinkedIn, 7.Flickr, 8.Digg, 9.StumbleUpon, and 10.Delicious. So you should consider if and how you feature within each of these. Learn how each works and what features they offer, such as Googles Adwords and Facebook advertising.

  Facebook is possibly the most key for upstream traffic and the like and share buttons, along with a fully featured Facebook page likely to boost your ranking substantially. A re-tweeted post on Twitter could also have similar effect.

  Looking ahead to 2011, if you find things a little slow you may be well placed to spend some time getting to know the top 10 social media sites and implementing what you know. It may bring in more traffic and potentially more revenue simply by getting a higher rank.

• Is Google Instants a step too far?

  by Webfusion in Search Engines on September 15th, 2010 1 Comment

  So after monochroming its home page to pre-empt the announcement, Google has brightened our lives once again with colour and a new look search to make our lives easier. Or has it?

  Is the possibility of computers developing the ability to read our minds not one of man’s biggest sci-fi fears? “Google Instants” as it is being branded does just that. As you type, Google suggest search terms that it thinks you might be looking for – and it’s scarily good too. It is all in the aim of making your searching easier and more efficient, but as well as the potential ‘step too far’ fears it may raise, the new tool might also expose searchers more to internet dangers.

  One blog elsewhere is already reporting the potential risk that Google Instant brings. Predicting what a user will type next opens up the possibilities of suggestions of potential malicious sites. These scam portals at first glance and by name might sound like they are of help but are usually result in bug-ridden software being downloaded that only a hefty payment can remove.

  And the fears are that with the push towards real-time search the problem will only get worse. The concept of Blackhat SEO as it is refered, aims to make sure links to malicious sites come among top of topical searches. With these scammers already monitoring current trends and adjusting their campaigns accordingly, the fear by some is that Google Instants and real-time search will be of most benefit and easily exploited by rogue sites looking to promote scams, scareware and the like.

  So the future of Google Instants might not be as bright as the colourful launch suggested, although for the full effects on SEO and the way we search will probably take several months to come clear.

  Do you like Google Instants?