Web Design & SEO Blog, Inverness Blogs

Secure Socket Layering (SSL)

Google have announced changes to its privacy for users of personalised search. The main points appear to be

• SSL (Secure Socket Layering), used to encrypt data sent over the Internet, will be turned on by default for Google.com users and for logged in users.
• Google Analytics will no longer show for this group of people which search terms they entered to find a website.
• Analytics will show that an organic search through Google resulted in a visit
• As @yoast points out if you’re buying Adwords space you will still get the data.

So what does this actually mean and should we get too excited about it? Well we got excited about Google Instant Previews, saying that would cause havoc with SEO and not a lot changed. And I suspect the same will apply here. We need to keep things in perspective:-

• The search terms concealed will only relate to a relatively small percentage of results – .com searches for users who are logged in, or .com users who have purposefully chosen to use the SSL version of search.
• Google Webmaster Tools will still show the search data, which can be imported into Google Analytics if you are an authorised administrator of both for that site
• Here in the UK it should have minimal impact at least for now. I have asked @mattcutts if a UK roll-out has a timeline, I will wait to see if we get an answer

Some may cry that this will destroy SEO efforts, as has happened on numerous occasions, but the principles of Google SEO will still be the same – quality content organised around relevant keywords, which is shareable, naturally linkable and gets some social media buzz. You can still measure success of keywords and visitors from search in general, which is a see KPI of SEO.

Although I agree with Yoast that it is not right if privacy is genuinely the motivator for Google that advertisers can get the data but non-payers can’t, I don’t think this will be as drastic as some may be making out.

But as with everything in SEO, we wait and see. What’s your opinion and where do you think this could lead?

This week, I attended a networking event at Stamford, not far from Peterborough. It is a group I periodically pop along to and meet some great new people, some with their own business and some part of larger organisations or support networks.

You get about a minute to introduce yourself and your business and then have time just to get alongside people, make some new connections, potentially some new clients. It was during one of the two chatting sessions that I spoke with a lady about SEO services. Her observation of me was that I seemed to think more technically or analytically about search engines and how they work. Which made me think tonight – is SEO too technical, or have people allowed it to appear so?

There are technical elements

Considering search engines use an algorithm (basically a stupidly complicated set of calculation with over 200 different ranking influences) to decide how great your content is compared to others, I’m afraid there is a fair amount of maths and analysis to do. From information architecture (how your site’s content is structured) to competitor analysis, there are numbers to deal with.

Something as apparently simple as ‘link building’ can appear more technical as it’s not just about getting a load of links, but harnessing good quality, authoritative websites to get them to link to you – understanding authority is partially down to statistics.

And of course in order to find out what phrases you want to rank for you need to do keyword research, may with Google Adwords, for a while, or the Google Keyword Tool, where you look at search volume and competition – all displayed in numbers.

So SEO can be very technical, with understanding statistics and maths underlying it. But that’s only part of the picture.

SEO Can Be Very Natural

The true aim of SEO should be to make better content rank higher in the search engines for terms that are relevant to that content. But it’s not just about rankings. You want traffic to your website, and people (traffic is impersonal, remember you’re dealing with real people, really typing stuff into search engines) who you would love to fill out a contact form, make a telephone call or buy something from you.

In the age of the Internet, I believe we risk losing the ability to develop good customer relationships that go beyond the monetary transactions. So here’s a few tips.

1. Provide Good, Sharable Content – people will begin to respect you if you show you know what you’re on about. Make that content easily sharable
2. Don’t write content purely for SEO or for links – this just disrespect people’s intelligence and does not provide actual useful content.
3. Get involved in community – don’t just go after people to make them link to you or to add you as a Facebook friend or follow you on Twitter. Get involved with people, share opinions and content. Link to someone without asking them to do likewise.
4. Remember Social Media is ‘Social’ – today’s Whiteboard Friday at seoMoz shows you can build links with twitter – and if you listen carefully, it works because you develop relationship first and not just to get a link – but to be genuinely helpful now and in the future.

Holistic SEO

These are only a few points, but to do SEO effectively, you need to use the data, most definitely. But it’s bigger than that – you need to see the bigger picture and also question your own aims for your website, but get out there and be human, not some sort of ranking machine!

So you think that if you search Google for something and other people do the same that you’re bound to see the same search engine results?

It’s balderdash, complete tripe and utter rubbish. And yet it’s also vitally important to understand.

Relevant Results

If you are logged into Google, have a Facebook page, share things on StumbleUpon etc, then Google incorporates these things into your search results. Let’s look at an example.

I have an SEO client in the VAT Consultancy Business. If I am logged into Google (in this instance using Firefox) and search for ‘VAT Consultancy’… this is the result:-

My client appears to be in fourth position and only the second company in the list. But you see the small text that says ‘You shared this’. That’s Google saying that because I think it’s great that I want to see more of it. Big, fat assumption.

Let’s perform the same search logged out and in the Safari browser:-

This time my client is 9th (out of 7.2million searches, let me add). This is his real rank.

Can I turn off Google Personalization?

In an excellent post on turning off Google Personalisation, the writer explains that Google does not make this easy. However, check out that post for some helpful pointers.

Some SEO Take-Aways

This post has been intentionally short, because it’s an urgent issue for webmasters, business owners and SEO’s alike and some important conclusions need to be made.

• Just because you think your website is ranking number one for “blue magic kittens”, to quote the above article, doesn’t mean it actually is.
• Getting people to see your content through other websites and encouraging them to share that is all the more vital – if you’re to stay in your potential customer’s mind then the more your content is shared and viewed, the more it becomes ‘relevant’ to your audience and that’s a major part of marketing, on-line or otherwise.
• SEO is still needed! – shocking as that may be, it can be easy to see your own rankings and still not have much traffic to your site. Don’t ignore your absolute ranking because you need to reach new customers – but don’t neglect people already reading your content and who are aware of your business/website as the more you’re shared the better it will be.
• Make an effort to unpersonalise your searches from time to time – if you don’t you may end up with a very narrow view of the world and that is not going to help anyone.

Relevant Related Article

The Ethical Issues of Personalisation Online – c/o Hannah Smith @ SEOmoz.

Take Away’s from Matt Cutt’s Live Stream

Today, Matt Cutts from Google graced the world with a live stream from Google Webmaster Central Channel on You Tube.

During the live session which included a LOT of fun (including playing with a can of SPAM) the following points were taken away as useful to our readers:-

• You should not focus on keyword density – this is something that we in SEO have thought for some time, but it is just great to have this from Google’s mouth. Matt explained that it was more important to include your target keywords naturally in the content. Read your content out loud and see if it makes sense. If it does, then you should be fine.
• There is no real harm in having high quality link partners – the ‘reciprocal’ links page is not yet a dead concept, but focus on good hooks and quality content throughout your website.
• The Google +1 Button Will Have an Impact – Matt did not seem to want to be drawn on quite how much the +1 Button would impact rankings but said that in tests it does give a ‘strong signal’ for ranking.
• Tag Clouds: – you must decide if these will be helpful to your users. If you’re not careful these could be perceived as keyword stuffing. Therefore, use with care!
• Block Data: – if websites are blocking your URLs, these will eventually have an impact on your rankings. Presumably because it shows others think your content is not worth endorsing, so why should the big G?
• H1 Tags: – One H1 tag is sufficient. If you fill your page with H1′s it is likely to be less heavily weighted. As with everything don’t SPAM a technique, Google isn’t stupid.
• IP Address: – Yes Google, uses your IP address to deliver relevant content for that region. Ensure you put your address on the website and register with Google Places. If you need to target another region/country than the one you’re in then you’ll need to use these tools to do that.
• hCards: – if you’re trying to use hCards for reviews and local optimisation – put more work into XFN
• No Follow: – don’t NOFOLLOW your internal links, but do NOFOLLOW any external links you don’t trust or any links you paid for. Your own reputation can be affected by the places you link to – bear this in mind during your link building process.

Google Panda

• There are no manual exceptions to Panda – it is an algorithmic change only. The Panda algorithm will keep iterating. Google are constantly fighting low-quality content so although we’re on Panda 2, it will keep being worked on, without a doubt.
• Worry less about content farms and focus on providing content that users love. See what Google say about building high quality content
• Google works hard to stop others harming your site by pointing spammy links to your site.

Google Correlate

Interested to see which search terms have a similar correlation to others? Then check out Google Correlate. The Geographical correlation appears to be just the USA at the moment, but the tool can help with keyword research. Matt did remind everyone something that the guys at seoMoz have said for ages, but it’s good to be reminded – correlations is not causation – but correlation is helpful and interesting.

Conclusion

I had to take a client call while watching the video stream, so I did miss the end, but these are some helpful nuggets to take away. So go ahead and produce quality content, Webmasters!

Thanks for your attention.

Addendum

Half an hour or so after we posted this, Search Engine Land also released their summary – a few more pictures for those who are that way inclined. – Google’s Matt Cutts’ Live Webchat

In my last post on small business SEO, I looked at the main issues of on-site optimisation, getting a local listing and ensuring you get reviewed.

Today, I will look at the issues of competitors and link building.

What’s With All this Link Building Stuff?

No website exists in isolation, and if it does it will be difficult to rank well in the search engines. This means you need to connect your website to the outside world.

Technically, it is better for search engine to initially discover your website through another website that has linked to you. But in reality, you need to be indexed earlier than you’re likely to get your initial links.

Links are Google‘s main indicators as to how to rank your website. Why is this? A link from a website is a ‘vote’ for that website – the assumption being that the website owner(s) approve of your website. The basic principle being that ‘votes’ aids ranking.

Quality, Not Quantity – sort of

Any links you want to obtain for your website should be quality – i.e. from an authoritative source which reinforces what your business does or where it is. Getting involved in local community forums or industry Q&A websites can be so valuable for this.

Authority can measured using Google Pagerank (although per Google, this is not regularly updated) and SEOMoz’s metrics of MozRank, Domain Authority and Page Authority (easily trackable using this SEO Toolbar).

For a full discussion of PageRank and Page Authority, see here

So if you want to know whether a site is worth getting linked to you can use these two metrics. You need a good quantity of links, but you must get some authoritative sources.

Where’s Your Competitors Getting Their Juice?

A key element in improving your rankings through link building is to analyse your competitors link base. How do we look for this? There are a few avenues:-

Google’s LINK Command

Firstly you want to find out who ranks for the keyword you have chosen. Continuing the elephant theme from my previous post, let’s see who ranks highest for ‘Elephant Migration’.

So we can see that Seaworld.org holds first place (Not the most obvious, as elephants don’t swim). So how do we find out where their links are from? By using Google’s LINK command, it will tell you where they are linking from:-

Yahoo’s Site Explorer

Often assumed to be a more accurate gauge of links, Yahoo’s Site Explorer is an excellent way to view your website’s links and those of your competitors. You can also exclude links from that website’s subdomains to look for purely third-party credit.

Open Site Explorer

By far one of the best tools for assessing competitor links and authority is another tool by SEOMoz, Open Site Explorer. Let’s look at SeaWorld again.

This excellent tool shows us the total links and domains link to that website – and the authority ratings too. On top of that, we can see the authority of the pages that link to Sea World – very useful!

So What Happens Next?

Now you record all the great places your competitor(s) are linking from and see if you can request links from those places. They are not all going to be possible, but if you use a spreadsheet you can easily narrow down which sites you can target and ensure you do not re-request links. Maybe more to follow on this later.