Getting to the Top (of Google)

Every business owner wants the same thing: free advertising provided by Google search results. Where your website falls within the search results depends on two things: 1. How relevant your site is to the search query, and 2. How high Google ranks your site (known as Pagerank).

1. Site Relevance. Google needs to know what your site is all about if it's going to list your site for a query. For example, if I type "web design in Arizona" into the search engine, Google will look for sites that feature content about web design and Arizona. Since Google uses software programs called "bots" or "spiders" to read websites, many sites are miscategorized by Google. This is because all Google can do is read the code and text that's available and interpret it based on their algorithm. Sites can definitely be optimized so that Google can easily figure out how to index them. This is a process of cleaning up the code and text to better reflect the keywords you may be targeting.

Your URL, or domain name is one of the biggest factors Google uses, and the name "webdesigninarizona.com" would get huge preference from Google for the query "web design in Arizona" because it's a dotcom address that exactly matches the query. This is the reason why simple domain names, such as "marketing.com" are so valuable. They get preference for all of the millions of queries for the keyword "marketing."

2. Pagerank. Pagerank is mainly determined by external links and time. Older sites get preference and there is a lag between the time you've optimized your site and the time that Google decides to recognize these changes. Other websites linking to your site will bring your Pagerank up if they are relevant and reputable. If your site is about web design and marketing in Arizona, the majority of the links to your site should also be about web design and marketing or Arizona. A low-ranking site about landscaping in Alabama linking to your site about web design in Arizona would do little or nothing to help your Pagerank. Also, unrelated links may confuse the Googlebots and they may miscategorize your site. You definitely want good links that are high ranking sites with content related to yours.

Knowing this, many site administrators work hard to set up link exchanges with other site owners. These quid pro quo setups are easily identified by Google and the links often cancel each other out. Google is actually looking for sites that are so awesome and so informative that everyone wants to link to them, without any form of incentivation. In other words, the best way to achieve a great Pagerank is through building an awesome site with tons of great content that everyone wants to link their blogs to.

Final Analysis: If you want free advertising from Google, you have to give Google something worth advertising -- an awesome site with many loyal users.

Google Local Business Results

Google has been adding Local Business Results to the top of search results pages since 2007. On November 17th, 2008, when I typed in "marketing gilbert, az," Away Marketing came up in the number one slot (see below). It is also coming up high for various other search terms, including "marketing az" and "web design gilbert, az" These results are actually pulled from the listings in Google Maps. If you don't know, due to their phone-friendly nature, Google Maps is becoming a large player in the local search industry.

Now that this prime real estate is more available to local companies, the question is how to take advantage of it. While these results may seem arbitrary, remember that nothing with computers is arbitrary. You should also realize that Away Marketing is a relatively new company that has floated to the top in a sea of tough competitors in the advertising field. Also realize that your position on the page could change at the drop of a hat because of something Google does on their end.

Since these results are pulled from Google Maps, the first place to go to optimize your position is Google Local to check out your profile (or create a new one). While Google has not released a definitive explanation for how these rankings are done, we can gather clues based on how our competitors are positioned. All of the clues seem to point to a few common factors:

1. Proximity to city center. The closer your business address is listed to what Google recognizes as the center of the city, the higher you are likely to rank. To identify the Google center, do a search for the name of the city you are targeting in Google Maps. Google Maps will drop an icon right on the center of town.

2. Completeness of profile. The more complete your profile, the more likely you are to get a high rank. Also, since Google searches all local directories, it's a good idea to have very complete, consistent profiles in all the major local directories (do a search for yellow pages, and start filling out profiles). I have noticed that Google tends to favor BBB listings.

3. Reviews. A review or two on Google Maps is likely to give your placement a boost as well. Google also pulls reviews from many other sites, so you may already have reviews there. The way I feel about reviews is that you can almost always use more. Make sure they're good reviews, though. Phony reviews are easy to spot and they ruin the integrity of the review system.

A final note: Google Maps results are becoming more and more visible. Don't get left behind on this one.

"AZ" beats "Arizona"

In my never-ending quest to find the right keywords to get maximum search engine exposure, I noticed an interesting trend: "az" has overtaken "arizona." Back in 2004, the term "arizona" was typed into Google about 150% more often than the keyword "az," meaning that if you had optimized your website and your search ad campaign with the term "arizona," you'd get way more hits. However, earlier in 2008, "AZ" surpassed "Arizona" as the dominant term, and its share continues to increase. Apparently people have realized that the two terms are equal, and they've gone to the more efficient abbreviation "AZ" as they've become more and more proficient with Google searches.

What does this mean for the future of search? I would say that you should definitely focus on "AZ" as a keyword over "Arizona," but continue optimizing for "Arizona" as well. For example, if you are a realtor who is hoping to sell homes in Queen Creek, Arizona, use the term "Queen Creek, AZ." The difference is subtle, but it may get you a few more hits. In all reality, though, Google knows that "AZ" and "Arizona" are pretty much equal, so I wouldn't expect a huge difference. If, however, you are setting up a Google AdWords campaign, make sure you use broad search, or if you use exact search, use both "az" and "arizona."

Information from Google Trends

Google Now Uncovers Scanned Documents

Scanned documents such as academic papers, or government reports used to be off limits for the Googlebot. That's because when scanned, the entire paper appeared as a giant image, instead of text.

Now, using Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Google is able to turn these documents into text and will begin including these files in its search results.

Previously, Google was only able to search the filename and limited meta data associated with these files in order to include them in search results. Google's new technology now turns the scanned "images of text" into computer readable text itself.

As with traditional PDF files, when you encounter a scanned document, you'll be able to view the original version, or the text only version Google has created. To see the technology in action, try the search repairing aluminum wiring (the first result should be a scanned document).

This type of technology has been around for a while now, but the scanning accuracy has always been a problem. Some words would get jumbled or miss spelt, so it's impressive that Google has found a solution that's accurate enough to be used for their search results.

What does this mean for SEO?

If you've got any scanned documents on your site, for example press releases, newspaper articles or research papers, this now gives your business more chances to appear in Google's results. By giving more content for Google to index, you'll improve your chances in coming up for queries related to these documents!

P.S. If you're hiding any information on the web by keeping it as an image, you may want to consider removing those files now :)