According to their announcement, it “provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index, and it’s the largest collection of web content we’ve offered. Whether it’s a news story, a blog or a forum post, you can now find links [...]]]> Late yesterday afternoon, Google announced the launch of its new web-indexing system called ‘Caffeine’.

According to their announcement, it “provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index, and it’s the largest collection of web content we’ve offered. Whether it’s a news story, a blog or a forum post, you can now find links to relevant content much sooner after it is published than was possible ever before.”

Google have been trialling this index for some months at certain of their data centres and the impact on individual company’s search results have been very mixed.

However the fact that content will be indexed much faster will definitely help those companies that update their sites regularly with fresh content.

And as the search results themselves are ‘fresher’, this implies increased weight in the rankings will be given to newer content, such as blog posts, Twitter etc.

Whenever Google updates its search strategy, there are always winners and losers. If you think your website traffic has taken a major hit rather than gaining a boost from Caffeine, give us a call.

We can help you to get your internet presence working hard for your business.

This is a figure which Google never discloses, however Chitika Research in the US recently published research based on traffic sampled from their advertising network of sites.

It showed that the traffic to the No1 ranked site :

But do the developers of Google’s myriad of web-based products follow their own guidelines?

Google has just reviewed 100 of its products and released [...]]]> Getting high Google rankings is never far from the minds of most website owners. And Google’s guidelines for webmasters are the major guide to what is acceptable and good practice when optimising a site.

But do the developers of Google’s myriad of web-based products follow their own guidelines?

Google has just reviewed 100 of its products and released their SEO Report Card.

It makes very interesting reading and shows there is definite “room for improvement” !

If you would like an SEO report card produced for your own site to assess how well it is optimised, please call or email Andy at WSI on 01928 787026.

Previously this was only available to logged-in Google users based on their web history.

According to Google :

“This addition enables us to customize search results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your [...]]]> Early in December, Google quietly announced that ‘Personalized Search’ results will now be the default for all users.

Previously this was only available to logged-in Google users based on their web history.

According to Google :

“This addition enables us to customize search results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your browser. It’s completely separate from your Google Account and Web History (which are only available to signed-in users). You’ll know when we customize results because a “View customizations” link will appear on the top right of the search results page. Clicking the link will let you see how we’ve customized your results and also let you turn off this type of customization.”

The impact of this is that the Google search results seen be an individual browser will now be influenced by that user’s previous searching habits and history.

Search results will no longer be ‘largely’ universal as different searchers will see different results. One person’s #1 search result could be another’s #21, depending upon their searching history!

Does this mean SEO is dead? No!

Personalized Search is designed to deliver the most relevant search results to each individual user. So traditional SEO techniques are still important:

1. Make pages accessible and easy to use
2. Target with keywords that your target searchers will use
3. Build unique content that users will find useful and valuable
4. Build in-bound  links from good sources

In addition, as Google is now specifically looking at site visitors and traffic, then increased focus on building brand and site loyalty and generating return visits will be very beneficial.

The potential is that Personalized Search will deliver higher quality searchers to your site, i.e. those more likely to be interested in your content and so more likely to convert to clients. Time will tell.

The one certainty is that search ranking reports will become a less useful tool for measuring site effectiveness and reach, and that a much broader range of visitor analytic data will be needed to monitor the impact of a site.

If you would like to discuss the optimisation of your website for the new world  of Personalized Search, call WSI on 01928 787026.

After conducting a search, you will now see live updates from sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace  and Friendfeed together with headlines from news channels and blog posts.

And the results will continue to be updated in a scrolling feed area as you [...]]]> Last week, Google starting featuring real-time content from across the internet in its search results.

After conducting a search, you will now see live updates from sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace  and Friendfeed together with headlines from news channels and blog posts.

And the results will continue to be updated in a scrolling feed area as you view the search results.

Try searching for a hot topic, such as “Tiger Woods” and you’ll see the new real-time search in action.

For more on this exciting new feature, visit Google’s official blog on the topic.

Update: 3 seconds after publishing this post and generating an automated Twitter tweet, it appeared in Google’s search results from my Twitter feed!

There was a nice [...]]]> Whenever we launch a brand new website for a client, often on a newly registered domain, we always tell them that Google will probably ignore it for a few months. Then it will slowly start to index the site as the site’s online reputation grows. Some clients want to know why this happens….

There was a nice piece of research from the team at SEOMoz in the US which really underlined why Google, and the other search engines to a lesser extent, ignore new pages on new sites.

SEOmoz technology crawls the web regularly, visiting tens of billions of webpages. However they found that after only a month, 25% of those pages were either ‘duplicate’ or couldn’t be retrieved. After 3 months, that had risen to 65%!

After one year, only 20% of those original pages could be retrieved and indexed, 80% had disappeared!!

So Google’s strategy is to let nature take its course, and after a few months spend effort on indexing those pages which probably have a future.

But there are things site owners can do to help persuade Google that they are survivors and get their site properly indexed quickly and efficiently.

If you would like to learn more, please give us a call on 01928 787026

At the end of last month, Google quietly announced its website translator gadget which can be added to your site.

Then when people visit your page, if their language (determined by their browser settings) is different to the language of your web page, they’ll be asked if [...]]]> Do you want your website to be understood in 51 languages?

At the end of last month, Google quietly announced its website translator gadget which can be added to your site.

Then when people visit your page, if their language (determined by their browser settings) is different to the language of your web page, they’ll be asked if they would like automatic translation of the page into their own language. If the visitor’s language is the same as the language of your page, no translation banner will appear.

Unfortunately this can also drive people to make false economies – that unbelievable offer becomes very tempting when funds are very tight. But unbelievable offers rarely deliver the anticipated results, and I’ve heard the ‘war stories’.

I have spoken to [...]]]> Businesses everywhere are cutting budgets and trying to achieve more with less, as the recession continues to bite.

Unfortunately this can also drive people to make false economies – that unbelievable offer becomes very tempting when funds are very tight. But unbelievable offers rarely deliver the anticipated results, and I’ve heard the ‘war stories’.

I have spoken to a number of companies over the past few months seduced by cheap “Page 1 Search listing guaranteed”  offers, and similar. And three months later, have little to show for it in terms of increased web traffic and conversion, just a bill.

WSI aim to deliver the best SEO in Cheshire to our clients – delivering real results to local business.

To do this, we need to understand not only your businesses but also the motivation of your prospects: What information are they looking for? What problem are they trying to solve? What phrases are they likely to use in a search engine?

Only then can we start the process of focusing the site to match their needs. Usually referred to as Search Engine Optimisation, we are really optimising the site to match your visitor needs when they use a search engine.

For example – there were over 2 million searches for ‘wedding dresses’ in the UK last month, but only 60 thousand for ‘bridal gowns’ – so which phrase should the site be optimised for? The one which could bring 30 times as many visitors!

There is a lot more to delivering the best SEO in Cheshire for our client, but understanding visitor behaviour is the critical first step.

If you would like to discuss how we can improve the performance of your website through optimisation and other internet marketing techniques, just give us a call – WSI, probably the best SEO in Cheshire!

The internet can be a powerful tool for getting sales and marketing messages in front of target clients in export markets. However like any strategic marketing campaign, it requires careful analysis and planning if [...]]]> More and more UK companies are looking to their export markets to help them through the recession and to grow their business.

The internet can be a powerful tool for getting sales and marketing messages in front of target clients in export markets. However like any strategic marketing campaign, it requires careful analysis and planning if you message is to be seen and understood online.

Probably the most fundamental question is whether you plan to develop a market within a specific country or group of countries, or do you want to be visible and accessible to specific language groups wherever they may be. For example is Spain your chosen market, or all speakers of Spanish? Sometimes the two are closely aligned, but often a country may have a number of ‘business’ languages.

This can help determine the most appropriate strategy for domain names and how the webcontent is translated and structured. And ultimately this will determine how that content is viewed and indexed by the local search engines.

There isn’t one ‘right’ answer which fits every company – no ’silver bullet’ strategy for getting your web content seen in overseas markets.

However by understanding a company’s export objectives and marketing strategy, we can advise on the most appropriate internet marketing strategy for that business and then implement it.

WSI is a member of the UK Export Marketing Alliance, which aims to deliver a comprehensive collection of skills and services to help UK exporters.

If you would like to discuss how an effective internet marketing strategy can help your export business, please contact us.