SEO Consultant & Specialist in Australia

Archive for the ‘SEO’ Category

Let’s say there are 2 teams competing in a game called Skipping Stones. The 2 teams need to get across a path of 20 marked floaters. Six of the 20 floaters are called “sinkers” and when they stepped on these sinkers, they will sink into the water. The player then has to go back to the starting line and start over. The mission of this game is to see which team can cross the floaters the fastest.

Let’s see how this game might look.. Both teams start out the same way without knowing which of these floaters are actually “sinkers”. The first player from Team A moves over so slowly on the first step, then to the second step and so on until he steps on the first sinker on floater #6, he then needed to start over knowing to avoid floater #6 next time around.  The second Team A player now crosses the first 5 floaters and carefully avoiding floater #6. They keep going with this cautious method until the next team player hits the next “sinkers” at floater #9. Then the next player starts knowing which 2 floaters to avoid.

It sound very simple and safe, but Team B have a different approach to this game. The first player RUNS across the floaters until stepping on the first sinker on floater #6. The next player RUNS past the first 5 floaters, skipped the 6th floater and continue to RUN until coming across floater #9. Then the next player RUNS across passing the first 5 floaters, skipped floater #6 and #9 until they hit the next “sinker” as soon as possible. Team B won the game.

The difference was that Team B knew they had to fail fast! They knew that they would stepped on those sinkers but if they learned from those mistakes fast enough, they will win the game. The message is clear, we live in a fast pace & very competitive world, learning from others’ successes as well as from their failures is an important element of success. This has also been my experience in this very competitive SEO industry as an SEO Professional.

Google Panda Update

So what is Google Panda Update? Google Panda Update also known as “Google Farmer” is one of the newest algorithms in Google when it comes to identification of websites and ranking them. It aims to remove all the websites that have spam-like articles and contents like the ones which are stuffed with keywords.  So instead of the crowding of these somewhat useless websites on top ranks, you’ll see them crowding at the bottom of the line. It focuses more on quality and it enhances the user-experiences.

Much of the buzz has been pointed out to Panda Update especially to the website owners. This change has just been implemented this year (February 2011) and lots have benefited from it. However, it has been reported that over 40% of websites claimed that Google panda Update have brought their site down, specifically, ecommerce sites and online stores. Even popular sites like Mahalo and Buzzle have been affected and are now included on the bottom in Google page ranks.

This new change is meant to give benefits to the searchers like students, who need to have good sources of information. Google Panda Update aims to put the high quality websites based on several factors—unique and high quality content, which have no duplicate and are not copied, and articles that are more of personalized and talks directly to the readers.

How often do they roll Out the Panda Update?

Webmasters are a bit puzzled on how often the Google Panda Update is being rolled out, since it seems to be operated manually, so there are no definite time when they role this out— all we can figure out right now based on historical update data is, Google is manually rolling it out at least every month. First was in the UK (first Panda roll out), then next was the time it has been applied internationally, and now it’s the Google Panda Update Version 1.2/3.

Rest assured, webmasters have learned that this update isn’t rolled out daily. The manual checking of the websites are so much like a surprise like the GoogleBomb. As a tip of advice for webmasters, always make the best out of your contents and never ever copy from other websites.

Who are affected by this?

Google Panda Update affects the websites in either good or bad way. For SEO Professionals &  Webmasters which have websites that has a lot of useful information, quality and unique content which cannot be found on other sites, they have the highest probability to be included in the top page rankings. Most websites that has been affected by Panda Update in a bad way are mostly ecommerce sites. The reason behind is may be due to the presence of highly indexed text or phrases, and they’ve got numerous duplicate contents like reviews on other sites.

The changes in Google Search Engine algorithm is a big leap towards enhanced user-experiences. It eliminates frustration among the searchers when looking up for information, unlike before where people tend to click on sites which are filled with ads and useless information. Though it may affect other websites, it is a way for them to revamp their site and be creative in filling it with useful and unique content.

The market today is filled with many professionals who claim to offer the best services in SEO. This has created a puzzle when people are searching for the best company to hire. However, the puzzle can be alleviated through the understanding of the main qualities of a dependable service provider.

The first thing that one has to look at from an SEO Company is the nature of their client focus and support. This is what determines their reputation. When a company gives less attention to the needs of a client, chances are that the services rendered will be frustrating. The customer service of a reputable company has to be superb and their focus must be second to none in able to always deliver the client’s expectations and most importantly the results they desire.

Second, one has to look at the variety of services rendered. Different companies concentrate on specific SEO packages. It is important to counter whether the services rendered meet personal needs. A company rendering a variety of realistic SEO services is the best to go with.

Lastly, it is very important to consider the number of years that the company has been operating and the knowledge & experience their staff have. This is what determines its competence in SEO services. Some of the new firms in the market are out to exploit the desperate and naïve clients. If unsure of the best companies to go with, the choice of the experienced one is advised.

Last January 2010 I have set myself some SEO goals, that if I will be one of the Top SEO Professionals in Australia, I need to get this little blog of mine on the top of Google Australia for the following keywords:

• seo professional
• seo consultant
• seo experts

So I’ve done a few tweaking and link building once in a while, I couldn’t do it full time because I have other priorities, I was working for Telstra BigPond making sure they are on the top spots on very popular keywords for their main portals like BigPond Broadband, BigPond Music, BigPond Shopping and BigPond Games. So anyway, after performing a little onsite SEO on my blog here and there, building high authority backlinks using those 3 keywords I have mentioned on top, it didn’t take long for my site to reach Page 1. Even better I have attained Top 1 ranking for “seo professional” keywords in Google Australia.

This year my goal is to keep my top 1 spot for “seo professional” and claim the top 1 spots for “seo consultant” and “seo experts” too. I will try to set a little time to post some helpful and useful SEO & SMO related articles here once in a while. As we may all know, Google like unique relevant content and activities on websites, the more unique relevant content I have in a regular basis will send a signal to Google that there are activities happening on my site and gain its favour.

Last year we have seen a lot of changes in the SEO world, from the joining forces of Bing and Yahoo to the improvements that Google has done to its Search Engine. Some of the improvements they have implemented are; the new Google homepage look with more features in the left sidebar, the new Image search result interface, Google Instant and  the biggest news last year was Google Caffeine, the new and better way of displaying search results. Seriously when I first saw these changes I was overwhelmed with all the new features they brought on board, I thought it will just confuse casual searchers but I got used to it after a couple of days and accepted the benefits of these changes to searchers and for SEO.

Now this year 2011 I expect that Google will make further improvements with SEO not within Google but within people’s websites, most of these improvements will be within their algorithm, things like how Google the search engine view certain websites and add new ranking signals. Here are my predictions:

1. Social Media will now become a major part of SEO, this will help Google in deciding how valuable and popular the website is. Social media features on the websites will show visitors activities and Google likes websites with high activities, because its a way of telling Google that its an active website and its useful
2. I also see a big rollout of Google Products, this will make it easier for searchers to find the product that they are looking for in the price range they can afford, it also gives them a lot of options and information.
3. Since Google has appointed one of its co-founder as their CEO, I expect him to make a lot of changes in the algorithm, add more ranking signals and make a lot of their automation process more efficient

These are just some of my predictions, I have been focusing a lot more on Google because they are the biggest search engine as we all know, how about you? Do you have any predictions? Feel free to share!