Today Google announced that they have rolled out Social Search.  It’s now available to all users who are signed into Google.  This is something that has been talked about recently but nobody really knew exactly how it would work.  As with all things Google they will be constantly tweaking it as time goes by.

There are a lot of interesting implications to Social Search so we will see how this all plays out. I think it’s pretty amazing that when I search for information about a new movie or a restaurant in town I could see reviews, blog posts and other content from people I know, like and trust.

This will have a direct impact on companies who are not paying attention to their online reputation management and addressing concerns in a positive way.

If you are a small business owner it’s time to take the reigns of this use it to your advantage.

To your success,
Ken Partain

Not all code is created equal!

This is the second in a series of five articles on Search Engine Optimization – Back to the Basics.

One of the strongest factors of a website that ranks well is the code itself.  This is something that most small business owners never even consider.  If a site looks good, as far as they are concerned, it’s a good site.

However, the coding plays a big part in how well your website ranks in the search engines.  If your site has a lot of unnecessary code to compensate for lack of technical ability on the part of your web designer, that can cause a problem.

I see this alot with small companies who sign up for cheap web sites because they can build it themselves.  The companies offering such sites have done so many things to make the sites dummy proof that there is an extremely high amount of unnecessary code.  This is true for scripts as well.  Scripts are small (sometimes not so small) pieces of code that make a site function a certain way.

Every bit of code and every script that is required to make your site function properly can potentially slow down the amount of time it takes for your site to load.  Site load time has always been a factor in rankings, but just recently Google made an announcement that page load times are going to be a bigger factor in rankings and have even provided some tools in Webmaster Tools so that site owners can measure their page load times and take steps to improve it.  Keep in mind that if your site is built on one of the do-it-yourself platforms mentioned above that you will have little to no control over these factors.

Our own site is built on the WordPress platform, which, in my opinion, is a very well coded system.  It is an open-source platform so there are literally thousands of programmers around the world working on it every day to make it better.  Every site we have built on the WordPress platform performs significantly better in search results, even than the sites we had previously optimized on other platforms.

It just takes a few seconds to look at a site and tell if there are issues with bloated code.  Give me a call or send me an email and I’ll be glad to take a quick look at your site.

If you would like to know all the other factors affecting your rankings, you may want to consider our Comprehensive Website Marketing Analysis.

Tomorrow we’re going to talk about your on-page content as a ranking factor.

To your success!
Ken Partain

Clienst and prospects alike have been asking me about some of the real-time search functionality being built into Google and Bing.  Google announced today that real-time search is available to some and will be rolled out to all of their data centers over the next few days.

Here’s a video from Google with some examples of how this works.

I originally found this breaking news on Mashable. Click through for more details.  This latest change is one of the biggest reasons I have been encouraging my clients to get involved with social media even just a little bit.  With real-time search results at the top of the search results I expect that the local map listings will be below that and the top 10 organic (or natural) search results will be pushed even further down the page.

This is why you not only need to work on optimizing your web site, but you need to work on a complete online marketing strategy so that your information shows up no matter where people look.

This is not the only change coming so if you need some help preparing yourself, give us a call.  I’d be glad to work with you to get your company to the top of the search engines.

To your success!
Ken Partain

Another thanks to Mark Isherwood for submitting his Top 3 Online Marketing Questions.

His first two questions were:

Do Traffic Exchanges Really Work? and Can You Really Expect Good Marketing Results from Twitter?

Today’s question is:

Is Google Adwords still the top marketing tool?  What else brings good results (besides SEO)?

First off, I’m going to make a couple of assumptions about the question.  1. It seems to me that you are referring to online marketing tools, and 2) that you want quick results (don’t we all!).

I’m sure that we could assemble 100 people in a room and we would have about 100 different answers to what the top marketing tool might be.

Adwords is Google’s version of pay-per-click advertising, also referred to as paid placement.  The other major search engines, Yahoo and Bing, also offer paid placement, so I’ll lump them all together to answer this question.

Pay-per-click definitely has a place in your marketing toolbox, but in my opinion, it’s not the top tool.  From where I stand (and I’m a bit biased), Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is one of the best ways to attract qualified visitors to your site, for the money.

In a recent article, Is Pay-Per-Click Losing It’s Charm?, I mention the fact that the percentage of clicks in the paid placement area of the search engine results page (SERP) has dropped dramatically over the last few years.

I believe this is because more and more people realize that they are ads and therefore prefer to click on the natural results that the search engines believe are relevant, not just the advertisers.

My approach to online marketing is a more holistic one, that includes small business websites and blogs, article marketing, link building and directory listings, email marketing, social networking, social bookmarking and local business profiles.

I believe if you focus your energy on providing good content that your target market can benefit from and you spend a little time each and every day in all of the areas mentioned above, over time, you will build a strong following and loyal customers.

My approach may not bring a million visitors to your site tomorrow, but it will certainly build a strong foundation so you can attract a million visitors down the road.

If anyone else has thoughts to add, please leave them in the comments below.

To your success!

Follow Me on Twitter