Search Engine Optimisation
How Does PageRank Affect SEO Rankings?
The thing about your website’s PageRank is that it has very little to do with your SEO ranking for a target keyword phrase. PageRank is a number that Google generates to indicate the overall value of a website in relation to all other websites on the web.
If Google were ever going to rank all of the websites in its index in a single list, PageRank would be the sort-by column of that list. It’s just a number. A probability. Calculated from the incoming links to a page. You want the PageRank formula? Here it is…
What does that mean? It doesn’t really matter… it’s simply a numerical formula. The sum of the value sent to your website, through links, from any websites on the Internet, regardless of source, anchor text, context or any other data. PageRank doesn’t care what your target keywords are, it’s just saying “this is how likely you are to be found on the web randomly”. But there’s one major thing missing from that: Relevance.
How To Get Your Business Listed On Google Places
Last year Google made an important search engine update that integrated Google Places listings (ie Google Maps listings) within the organic search results. Businesses that did not have a Google Places listing found that their rankings for location-based keywords fell out of the top 10 spots in Google instantly. Conversely, businesses that did have a Google Places listing suddenly found themselves on the first page.
Any business that wants to rank for location-based keywords (eg mortgage broker sydney) must setup a Google Places listing for their business. Here is the step-by-step process of doing so…
The 5 Biggest SEO Mistakes That Can Stop Your Website From Ranking
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is hard enough when everything is implemented correctly. SEO becomes virtually impossible when you do things wrong. Here is a list of the 5 biggest SEO mistakes website owners make, that make achieving SEO rankings virtually impossible…
iFrames
Google ranks pages, not websites. iFrames are pages within other pages on a website. Because iFrames display the content of a page within the ‘frame’ of another page, the search engines do not have enough information to rank either page – the outside page contains the navigation, the sidebar and the footer… the inside page contains the content. Unfortunately, one without the other is not enough to rank.
Duplicate Content
Duplicate content can occur a number of different ways. It can occur when one web page has the exact same wording as another web page, for example when multiple ecommerce sites use the same wording provided by the manufacturer. Or it can occur when there is not enough wording on the page to differentiate itself from all the other pages on the Internet. If Google can’t differentiate your web pages from others on the Internet, you will find it very difficult to rank those pages.
Hire An SEO Company or DIY SEO?
Need SEO for your business but unsure whether to hire an SEO company or just do it yourself? We’ve taken a look at the Pros and Cons of each to help you make your decision.
DIY Pros
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It’s $0 p/month! Essentially you are getting SEO for free by doing all of the work yourself, saving you and your business thousands of dollars. Of course, we aren’t counting the value of your time. |
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It’s relatively easy! The most difficult part of SEO is developing the strategy. Once you know the exact process and have been shown how to do it, you don’t have to be a genius to implement the strategies, as it’s all step-by-step. |
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It’s a great learning experience. Some SEO companies take advantage of the fact that people have limited knowledge of how it all works. The best advantage you can give yourself when it comes to SEO is to educate yourself on it. And let’s face it, once you get your website climbing the ranks on Google and see yourself higher than all of your competitors, you’re going to feel like a pro. |
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Plus it’s fun! Like pizza – sometimes it just tastes better if you make it yourself. |
DIY Cons
Why Google Places Is The Biggest Opportunity For Small Business In 2011
According to Google, 20% of searches on Google.com are local in nature. That means that of the +11 billion searches per month conducted on Google, more than 2 billion searches are location-based. If you’re a business that services a local area then it is time to seriously consider Google Places.
How Google Places Has Changed The SEO Landscape
In the second half of 2010 Google made some significant changes in how they displayed results for location-based searches. Before these changes were made, a location-based search would display a map within the search results with up to 10 business listings next to the map – this map would rank anywhere within the top 5 positions, depending on the keyword phrase.
After the changes were made, location-based search results (ie rankings) would include the Google Places listings, displaying each result in the same format as a standard SEO listing but adding additional information to the listing including address, phone number, reviews and star ratings. A Google Map is now at the top of the sidebar and moves down the page as you scroll.
