Thursday, February 01, 2007
Bacward link Bonaza
Well Web-rescue are doing something really different this month, You can join for just £4.99 and see what backward links do for you.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
The importance of four seconds.
Shoppers are likely to abandon a website if it takes longer than four seconds to load, a survey suggests.
The research by Akamai revealed users' dwindling patience with websites that take time to show up.
It found 75% of the 1,058 people asked would not return to websites that took longer than four seconds to load.
The time it took a site to appear on screen came second to high prices and shipping costs in the list of shoppers' pet-hates, the research revealed.
Akamai consulted those who shop regularly online to find out what they like and dislike about e-tailing sites. About half of mature net-shoppers - who have been buying online for more than two years or who spend more than $1,500 (£788) a year online - ranked page-loading time as a priority.
It found that one-third of those questioned abandon sites that take time to load, are hard to navigate or take too long to handle the checkout process.
The four-second threshold is half the time previous research, conducted during the early days of the web-shopping boom, suggested that shoppers would wait for a site to finish loading.
To make matters worse, the research found that the experience shoppers have on a retail site colours their entire view of the company behind it.
About 30% of those responding said they formed a "negative perception" of a company with a badly put-together site or would tell their family and friends about their experiences.
Further research by Akamai found that almost half of the online stores in the list of the top 500 US shopping sites take longer than the four-second threshold to finish loading.
The survey questioned 1,058 net shoppers during the first six months of 2006. Consultants Jupiter Research did the survey for Akamai.
The research by Akamai revealed users' dwindling patience with websites that take time to show up.
It found 75% of the 1,058 people asked would not return to websites that took longer than four seconds to load.
The time it took a site to appear on screen came second to high prices and shipping costs in the list of shoppers' pet-hates, the research revealed.
Akamai consulted those who shop regularly online to find out what they like and dislike about e-tailing sites. About half of mature net-shoppers - who have been buying online for more than two years or who spend more than $1,500 (£788) a year online - ranked page-loading time as a priority.
It found that one-third of those questioned abandon sites that take time to load, are hard to navigate or take too long to handle the checkout process.
The four-second threshold is half the time previous research, conducted during the early days of the web-shopping boom, suggested that shoppers would wait for a site to finish loading.
To make matters worse, the research found that the experience shoppers have on a retail site colours their entire view of the company behind it.
About 30% of those responding said they formed a "negative perception" of a company with a badly put-together site or would tell their family and friends about their experiences.
Further research by Akamai found that almost half of the online stores in the list of the top 500 US shopping sites take longer than the four-second threshold to finish loading.
The survey questioned 1,058 net shoppers during the first six months of 2006. Consultants Jupiter Research did the survey for Akamai.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Did you just get banned in Google?
Google stepped up its quest to remove poor quality pages from its index. But the only problem is that Google send an email warning the owner of the site to an email address called webmaster@yourdomanname.com.
This just isn't an effective way of advising the site owner for lots of different reasons.
So how do you know if you got banned in Google?
1. go to Google and type site:www.yourdomainname.com
If you can't see any pages from your website, but previously you know that you were displayed then it's a safe bet your banned, provided that the result is the same for about 3 or four days.
How do you get re indexed?
You must remove any hidden text or spam content or whatever you think is causing the ban from all your web pages. Google is generally pretty vague about what you have done wrong.
Then create a google XML site map.
Then via the site map interface request re-inclusion to Google index. If you haven't been re indexed within 60 days. My advice is get another domain name and start again.
The moral of the story is don't cheat keep your web marketing clean and don't employ dodgy tactics such as cloaking. You will get caught out in the end.
This just isn't an effective way of advising the site owner for lots of different reasons.
So how do you know if you got banned in Google?
1. go to Google and type site:www.yourdomainname.com
If you can't see any pages from your website, but previously you know that you were displayed then it's a safe bet your banned, provided that the result is the same for about 3 or four days.
How do you get re indexed?
You must remove any hidden text or spam content or whatever you think is causing the ban from all your web pages. Google is generally pretty vague about what you have done wrong.
Then create a google XML site map.
Then via the site map interface request re-inclusion to Google index. If you haven't been re indexed within 60 days. My advice is get another domain name and start again.
The moral of the story is don't cheat keep your web marketing clean and don't employ dodgy tactics such as cloaking. You will get caught out in the end.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Google Hiring and looking at the results
I noticed today that Google are hiring.
a few names come to mind.
Search Quality Associate Manager - EU Headquarters
This position is located in our European Operations HQ in Dublin, Ireland.
Google is looking for an enthusiastic, experienced, and dynamic individual to lead an international team of Online Evaluators helping to improve the quality of Googles search results. This is an operational role for a web-savvy, energetic and motivated self-starter who is passionate about team-building and creating a great user experience. Applicants should have experience training and developing operations representatives in a customer service environment.
Responsibilities include:
- Lead a team of international evaluators assigned to reviewing sites for quality and content.
- Take a lead in developing and implementing best practices for troubleshooting website issues and identifying areas of concern and interest.
- Help build team structure, recognize leadership potential, and develop enhanced skill sets within the team.
- Increase effectiveness of staff and tools by recognizing opportunities for development and proactively suggesting and implementing new systems and structures.
- Provide regular reports on growth and performance of the department, and develop metrics to measure this growth.
- Act as a point of escalation for technical problems and liaise with engineering team.
- Quick learner with proven ability to grow and lead a team.
- Excellent oral and written communication skills.
- 3-5 years of prior operations management experience.
- Great process management and multi-tasking abilities.
- Passionate about the Internet.
- Passion for learning and creative problem-solving.
- Proven track record of success in previous work experiences.
- BA/BS or equivalent; advanced degree a plus.
- Outstanding academic background.
- Basic HTML experience.
- Familiarity with typical web practices such as managing a domain name.
- Familiarity with internet infrastructure such as WHOIS info and the Domain Name Server (DNS) system of domains, understanding of Firewalls, IP addresses, and name servers.
- Strong computer applications skills.
- One to three years related experience in an Internet company and with web research or technical support.
- Previous experience with a computer programming language.
a few names come to mind.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Choosing the right keywords
Choosing the right keywords is without a doubt the hardest thing to do.
First make a list of the keyphrases you think people will be using when they look for you using a search engine.
As a guide, people who regularly search on the Internet generally fall into two categories.
1. Researchers, It is a known fact that someone who types in two words or less into a search engine, in most cases is doing research.
2. Buyers, people who type in three words or more are generally looking to buy something.
I.E. Someone types in “plastic surgery” probably research.
Someone types in “plastic surgery private clinic London” Probably a buyer.
Now take a look at your list and decide if your phrases are research or buyer?
Obviously this is good but you also need to be left with phrases that will drive some traffic to your site.
A simple thing you can do at this stage is to look at a direct competitor to see what keyphrases they are using. Don’t look at a pay per click competitor as they are paying for their positions. Make sure you pick the top organic listings and look at those.
You can also use some great tools to help you search for good phrases,
Login in to web rescue and use the three best keyword tools for evaluating keywords.
Just remember that your whole internet success or failure will rest on whether you get this bit right or not, as the case may be.
First make a list of the keyphrases you think people will be using when they look for you using a search engine.
As a guide, people who regularly search on the Internet generally fall into two categories.
1. Researchers, It is a known fact that someone who types in two words or less into a search engine, in most cases is doing research.
2. Buyers, people who type in three words or more are generally looking to buy something.
I.E. Someone types in “plastic surgery” probably research.
Someone types in “plastic surgery private clinic London” Probably a buyer.
Now take a look at your list and decide if your phrases are research or buyer?
Obviously this is good but you also need to be left with phrases that will drive some traffic to your site.
A simple thing you can do at this stage is to look at a direct competitor to see what keyphrases they are using. Don’t look at a pay per click competitor as they are paying for their positions. Make sure you pick the top organic listings and look at those.
You can also use some great tools to help you search for good phrases,
Login in to web rescue and use the three best keyword tools for evaluating keywords.
Just remember that your whole internet success or failure will rest on whether you get this bit right or not, as the case may be.
Linking and the major search engines
We all know that we have to optimise our web pages for the search engines whilst going easy on the consumer’s eye.
You can see overly optimised web sites every day on the web with BOLD, italics and keywords all over the place.
You know what I’m talking about.
But have you ever considered and I mean properly considered why your competition goes above you?
A good thing is to make sure your tags, are well thought through and that your keyphrase choices are based on facts rather than what you think is good, and that you use your keyphrases on the page a couple of times.
But some of you are already doing that. Yes?
What is it that makes one page go above another especially in Google?
Listen now… the answer is LINKS, LINKS, LINKS and more LINKS. If you forget all about SEO and make no effort whatsoever in getting your pages optimised, you can still go top as long as you concentrate on your links.
Prove it ! I hear you screaming at your screens.
OK I will. Who do you think is top in Google for the term "click here"?
(I'm choosing the phrase "click here" because no one in their right mind would ever optimise a web page for that search term.) Yet someone will be top in Google for it. Who?
Let's have a look.
Top in Google for the term "click here" is
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
Here are the results 1 - 10 of about 2,040,000,000 pages in google.
Out of 2 billion pages, adobe.com has gone top. But it doesn’t have "click here" in its title, keywords or description tags. In fact, It doesn’t even have "click here" mentioned on the entire page. So this website and its pages are not optimised at all for the words "click here".
So how have they achieved their positioning?
The clue is to check their backward link count.
link:http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
Now you’ll see why!!!
This webpage has 661,000 backward links pointing to it. That’s why it’s top. Full stop.
Some SEO consultants will tell you Pagerank is a joke, and that you have to concentrate on getting on-page factors(that's keyphrases, titles descriptions and copy) absolutely right. They charge through the nose for these services and you go along with it for months, even years, paying for tweaks that will never make you go top.
If you don’t hear anything else from this newsletter, hear this: “The difference between no position, an average position and a great position in Google is LINKS links links and more links.”
Think about it.
Another example is “News”
An absolute killer keyphrase and CNN have been top in Google on this keyphrase for over five years.
Type news into Google and you get this.
Results 1 - 10 of about 5,550,000,000 for news
CNN.com - Breaking News, US, World, Weather, Entertainment & Video ...
Cable News Network's Headline News. Includes story headlines and briefs.www.cnn.com/ - 99k - 21 Sep 2006 - Cached - Similar pages
Yet look at the page. It’s not optimised for the word "news". It is in the keywords tag but that’s four words in on the keywords tag.Today, the word "news" was on the front page 12 times. Tomorrow will be different, the news will have changed, so they can’t optimise this webpage.
So we know it's not about optimisation. It has to be backward links.
Have a look. Here is the backward link count for CNN.
What makes it top is the staggering backward link count. Results 1 - 10 of about 113,000 pages linking to http://www.cnn.com/. (0.23 seconds) It has a Pagerank of 9 out of 10.
We can't possibly prove it more clearly than that.
It's beyond any doubt that building backward links is the single, most important factor in achieving top positions.
At Web Rescue this is what we do, brilliantly.
We help you generate thousands of backward links to your website. It takes a bit of time, patience and determination. Give us six months and watch your website climb to its rightful position.
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