Category Archives: Company News and SEO Tidbits

The latest and greatest company news and industry tidbits.

Page Load Speed HUGE SE Ranking Criteria in 2010

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Article by Jtree.net; a Boise SEO and PPC Internet Marketing company.

Does Your Site Go … Too Slow?

His Site Loads Slow When Google posts about something that could be a major factor about how web pages are ranked, it’s always a good idea to listen. When Google blogs, releases news, speaks on camera and blogs some more about the same thing – it’s time to do more than just take note.

Just like the fuzz, the big “G” typically likes to warn us before a smack-down is coming. In this case, it’s a potential Search Engine rankings smack-down.

In a nutshell; G-unit is telling us that slow websites could soon be ranked lower regardless of other factors like number of quality backlinks and other On-Page SEO factors. They have even provided a site performance tool for testing any website you have added to Google Webmaster Tools. What this tool does is show how fast your site (or blog) loads in comparison to other sites/blogs, in addition to some tips (not always useful) to increase load-times.

Note: Once in Google Webmaster Tools, click on a website, then click on ‘Labs’ (left-column) and finally ‘Site Performance’ to use Google’s Site Performance tool.

Google allows you take it a few steps further by providing access to their open-source anti-latency tool AKA Page Speed. A Firebug/Firefox extension that runs several best practice tests on your web server (the physical location where your site is stored) and front end code. Page Speed takes a deeper look at issues related to the overall load-times of your website and provides suggestions for increasing speed.

If you’re not into the Google tools, you’re in luck. Here’s another tool that tests your page speed. This tool can help you identify slow loading items for removal, and is a little more useful than Google’s site performance tool in terms of identifying items that can easily be removed or streamlined.

Benefits of Increasing Site Speed

  1. The obvious – not having it work against you in the form of ranking penalties
  2. Bandwidth Efficiency – the faster your site loads reduces the amount of bandwidth required to load it (lower web hosting cost)
  3. Usability – site visitors like fast loading websites; helps increase stickiness and decrease bounce-rates
  4. Environmental – faster, more efficient websites increase the efficiency and resource management of the world wide web as a whole

If you’ve noticed site speed issues by using the tools above, give us a shout, we’ve been successfully speeding-up web content for businesses for over a decade.

Google is Getting Personal with Your Search Results

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Starting last Friday (Dec. 4), Google is now returning personalized search results regardless if you are signed-in to your Google Account. In the past, you had to be signed-into a Google account with ‘web history’ enabled for personalized search to work. Now, it’s the standard method of delivery for everyone. What that means is instead of returning results that are relevant to the average person, results will be returned based on their relevancy to – YOU.

Related: Learn how to temporarily turn off Google personalized search with this SEO tip

In the beginning, Google personalized search basically meant that if you modified your search results with the “up arrow” and “X” buttons provided by Google (see image), future search results would include those past modifications.

google-personalized-search-buttons

Please note that this result has not been personalized, we really do rank #1 for “boise internet marketing”, and a number of others ;).

Currently, Google is customizing your search results based on what you’ve clicked on in the past. For example, if you regularly search for “blue widgets” on Google, then proceed to visit the 2nd listed search result instead of the first – eventually the 2nd listing will move up to the 1st result position. This stored personalization only effects your search results. Non-personalized results will remain the same regardless if thousands of other people have the same personalization. For now.

How Will I Know if My Results are Customized?

A “View Customizations” link will be displayed at the top-right of search results that have been personalized. Clicking the link allows you to view what’s been modified, as well as turn off the personalization service. More from Google about this…

Initial Thoughts

This could be a benefit to the user (web searcher) if implemented correctly. Our preferences are vastly different from each other, it only makes sense that improving the relevancy of search results would be driven by a personalized approach. The important thing to remember here is IF implemented correctly.

If this takes hold, it would seem that the same amount of traffic that exists for a particular search phrase would then be divided up. Meaning; focusing on ranking well for 1 and 2 word keywords/phrases would be less important than long-tail targeting (keyphrases composed of multiple words).

As with most personalization-type services, Google makes it fairly easy to opt-out (in spite of automatically opting you in). Signed-out searchers can click on “Web History/Disable Customizations” to turn off personalized search results.

Google isn’t exactly trying to be invasive with a shift towards personalization. They are attempting to improve the quality of their search results by serving up the most relevant content to the user while fending off black hat spammers/affiliate marketing attempts to subvert their ranking criteria at the same time.

As an SEO, I have opted-out of the personalization. My viewing pane has to remain unbiased in order to uphold the relevancy of research results.

Find Out Who Links to Your Site with the SEO Backlink Checker Tool

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Why Backlinks?

Oldskool Backlink CheckersBacklinks are linky votes of confidence, and are core to any serious SEO campaign. Backlinks represent links from other websites that point to your site, and are very important in regard to how well your website or blog ranks in the search engines. The more quality backlinks a site has translates into better search engine rankings… in a nutshell.

Backlink Intel

  • Google typically only reveals LESS THAN 1% of the actual backlinks for your site that they are giving you credit for.
  • Yahoo! typically only reveals LESS THAN 5% of the actual backinks for your site.

The main reason why backlink sources are not revealed is simple; Blackhat SEOs can use that information for shady intentions.  All the more reason to hire a professional SEO; which have the tools to track backlinks beyond what is readily available to the general public, and experience to formulate viable Off-Page SEO strategy. Plus, we tend to have a ‘knack’ for knowing all of the good places to get ‘juicy’ backlinks. 🙂

Backlink Checker Tool

Curious about who’s linking to your website or blog? Use the backlink checker tool below to find out. Note: Pay close attention to the PageRank of backlink locations (URLs), this is a quality indicator of the site linking to you. Generally speaking, you want backlinks from websites that have a higher PageRank than your own site or blog. You can check your PageRank here.

Tip! Enter your competitor’s website address to find out where they are getting backlinks from.

Tip! Enter your Twitter, YouTube, Facebook Fan Page or other social network profile URL to find out if people are linking to you.

Your domain:
  (eg. iwebtool.com)
 

Powered by iWEBTOOL

Interested in Off-Page SEO (aka acquiring quality backlinks)? Contact us with questions or to get started!

SEO Hiring Guide

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A good SEO is worth every penny. Getting a website to rank on competitive keyphrases is a very difficult task which requires an ongoing effort from an experienced SEO. If your business depends on the web, ranking well for keyphrases that potential customers will use to find you is crucial to your ROI.

Everyone claims to be an SEO these days. Web design/development companies and consultants are hastily adding it to their service roster, despite having any real clue as to what SEO really is. Marketing and Brand Management agencies have done the same, adopting a technology they know little about.

That leaves the SEOs themselves… the consultants and companies fully devoted to SEO, PPC and Social Marketing. Many of which drop the ball on keyphrase targeting, monitoring and/or reporting. SEO is so much more than just marketing. It requires a fundamental understanding of the technology that powers the web.

I recently posted about how to hire an SEO that can actually rank on SEOBoise.com. Consider reading it if you have even the slightest interest in SEO, especially if you or your company is considering hiring an SEO.

The 6 rules below are designed to help thin the crowd when searching for a knowledgeable SEO.

  1. Google Them.
  2. Portfolio Availability.
  3. Under the Hood Optimization.
  4. Backlinks. Backlinks. Backlinks.
  5. Competing Clients.
  6. Who Does What.

Click here to read the complete post >

Related: Three Free Web-Based SEO Tools to Evaluate and Compare Websites (and SEOs)

Josh (the post author) is the founder of and consultant for Jtree.net; a Boise, Idaho based SEO, PPC and Social Internet Marketing consulting firm that has provided services to over 50 companies and agencies over the last 10 years.