Faster, Faster!! Page Speed and How Your Site Ranks in Google
Filed under: Google, SEO — Tags: algorithm, Google, google algorithm change, google serps, SEO — Amye Saunders @ Tuesday, January 19th, 2010There is a lot of talk in the traps about website page speed. Google (via Matt Cutts and Webmaster Tools) has openly stated that page speed will be a factor into the ranking algorithm for 2010 and will likely roll out with Caffeine – faster the better and you’ll be rewarded for it.
Google Webmaster tools have been reporting sample data from sites that have page speed issues (you can find this in the Labs section under Site Performance). Within Google Webmaster it also suggests the supplied Page Speed Firefox plug-in (installs as part of Firebug) should be used to get more accurate and full data. This has been available since July 2009 so I guess we have had plenty of notice. This is already in play for AdWords where page speed will affect your quality score.
Mash-Up of the Best Infographics for 2009
Filed under: Research, SEO, Social Media — Tags: infographics, link baiting, optimisation, SEO, social media, visualisation — Poorani Prithiviraj @ Monday, November 23rd, 2009Over the past couple of weeks, while I’ve been researching Search related stats and Social Media information; I have come across some ultra-cool Infographics that explain the most complicated scenarios through the use of visual mediums – usually these are images and videos.
Hence, the cliche of “a picture speaks a thousand words” is definitely true in this case, especially in the world of Search and Social Media. So I decided to share some of these cool Infographics with you and to show how powerful they can be for SEO.
This was definitely at the top of my list for the best Infographics. The whole idea of simplifying an incredibly complex situation such as the credit crunch was illustrated incredibly well. Not only did this allow people to understand what really happened with the current credit crisis, but the use of pictures, and a well deployed Vimeo video, helped create a viral marketing spin on the whole thing. From an SEO perspective, the hub website, www.crisisofcredit.com, gained more than 18,500 links within 8 months and the Vimeo video gained 2.1 million views. In addition, iIf you also look at the SERPs for “the crisis of credit”, you’ll see that the 6 out of 10 results are all surrounding this original infographic, which is a great example of dominating the search engine results. (more…)
IDNs and the Potential Impact on Search
Filed under: Updates — Tags: IDN, international domain name, Paid Search, search, SEO — Ian Lavelle @ Tuesday, November 10th, 2009It was announced by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) this week that International Domain Names (IDNs) are to be made available by early to mid 2010. IDNs will allow for registration of domain names that do not use the latin alphabet, instead using local language characters, for example Chinese or Arabic. ICANN chairman Peter Dengate Thrush described the new system as “the biggest technical change to the Internet since it was created four decades ago”.
Google Caffeine – What You Should Expect for the Beta
Filed under: Google, News, SEO, Updates — Tags: Google, google algorithm change, News, SEO — Amye Saunders @ Wednesday, August 12th, 2009Over the last few days it was announced that Google will be making changes to its algorithm; a sizable modification which we may have not seen since the likes of Big Daddy and Jagger’s 1-3 in 2006.
Google has stated:
“For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search. It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits “under the hood” of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so we’re opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback.
Some parts of this system aren’t completely finished yet, so we’d welcome feedback on any issues you see.” (more…)
Tips for Small Business Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Filed under: Updates — Tags: google local business, keyword research, SEO, small business — Kate Reuvers @ Tuesday, August 11th, 2009Small business’s need to establish trust in the online community. Consumers may not know who you are – you need to ensure you’re ranking well and also offering a trustworthy product from a trustworthy source. This trust can be established through factors including the TLD component of a domain (i.e. “.com.au”) for the website which shows your business is Australian, as well as the inclusion of information such as addresses, phone numbers, and an ABN number.
Trust is just one tiny aspect of the actual user experience. How are you actually going to get the visitors to your site in the first place? (more…)
10 Of The Worst Things That Can Happen To Your Website
Filed under: SEO — Tags: error, fail, SEO, seo disaster, website — David Boyd @ Monday, May 25th, 2009Managers do well to consider worst case scenarios and SEO consultants dread the consequences. Of all the damaging things that can happen, here are 10 of the worst things that can happen to your website, all of which are coming from a search point of view. Some of these scenarios are completely self-inflicted and therefore totally avoidable. The other scenarios leave your website mostly at the mercy of outsiders.
International and Multi-lingual SEO
Filed under: SEO — Tags: domains, international seo, languages, local search, SEO — Amye Saunders @ Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
I have worked on sites for multi-national clients targeting different regions and languages. The first question that always arises is “what is going to be the best way to localise my site?”
Everyone – this is a loaded question!
My answer is: get a ccTLD (country code top level domain such as .au) and/or have the site hosted in the country that it is targeting. Simple, right?
OK – this blog post is now complete…….
Oh, but wait, I did say it was a loaded question and it truly is because it is rarely that simple. This post hopes to cover off a fair few situations.
There are a number of ways, or indicators, that tell search engines what your target region is. (more…)
Reflections on Ad:Tech Sydney 2009
Filed under: Conferences — Tags: 2009, ad:tech, data portability, marketing, sem, SEO, social media, sydney, twitter — David Boyd @ Thursday, March 12th, 2009The Outrider Sydney team were amongst the record number of visitors at this year’s ad:tech Sydney. Here’s what our team are saying about the ad:tech presentations that they attended.
The Relevance Of Twitter
Having been on Twitter for about six months prior to this but really not participating I was really glad to go to this session.
Relevance of Twitter session
Twitter certainly is becoming a powerful medium online in the United States but the panel of speakers including Mike Hickinbotham of Telstra expect that Twitter will become more and more used and useful here in Australia as a means of engaging with real people and real customers.
The list of Australian brands on Twitter just keeps growing, making it harder to write off Twitter as a fad and more of a force. Household name brand including the ABC, AFL, BigPond, Domino’s Pizza, Fairfax, Jetstar, NRMA, Rio Tinto, Virgin Blue, Vodaphone and even Westpac are on Twitter. Certainly, time will tell if Twitter grows in its revelance here in Australia.
For those who didn’t attend but wish they did, check out speaker Laurel Papworth’s coverage of the session on her blog where she kindly includes the slideshow used for her part of the presentation. (more…)
