Website Design Blog | Graticle.com » search engine optimization

Google Caffeine Search

Shawn — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:13:02 +0000

So Google has allowed anyone to access their newest project, Google Caffeine. If you haven’t heard about Caffeine yet, it’s Google’s project to increase “size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions” of their current search engine, according to Google’s Official Webmaster Central Blog. This is huge for consumers, now being able to get what they want from this search engine giant at even quicker speeds (as if you knew it was slow before).

When searching graticle, I achieved a .19 second decrease in search and 2,300 less search results — hoping none of those were ours

Before Google Caffeine

After Google Caffeine

You have to give Google credit, I don’t remember complaining about the speed or the accuracy of my searches, yet they still improve. That’s respectful.

Go check out Google Caffeine and give it a test yourself: http://www2.sandbox.google.com/

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What do you think about Google’s project? Do you see negative effects coming from this?

Search Engine Optimization Tips

Shawn — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:40:16 +0000

Here is a short list of search engine optimization tips, allowing you to further the SEO of your current website. These are to the point, allowing you to get your way into SEO quickly.

1. Meta Tags

Include your keyword or keyword phrase that you are optimizing for in the title of your webpage. This is between the tags “< title >” and “< /title >” (without spaces).

Also include your keyword or keyword phrase in your meta description tag and your meta keywords tag, respectively < meta name=”description” > & < meta name=”keywords” >.

2. H1 & H2 Tags

On every page of your website you need to have at least one < h1 > tag, and one < h2 > tag. The search engines analyze an h1 tag as being the topic of the page, while the h2 the subtopic. Again, include your keyword or category keyword in these header tags.

3. Keyword Density

For the keyword that you are focusing on, on a particular page, you need to make sure the density is somewhere around 10%. For example 10 out of every 100 words is in relation to your keyword or keyword phrase. You can check the keyword density of your website at Ranks.nl.

4. Anchor Text

For links on your webpage (especially internal links), make sure to include your keyword or keyword phrase. (ie. “Our Web Design Services” not “Click here”).

5. Images

For images, don’t forget the alt tag which allows the search engine to know what a picture is. Here is an alt tag example: < img src =”images/graticle.jpg” alt =”Website Design Logo” >. Again, don’t overdue it, only use relevant information — this is also how people with viewing disabilities or otherwise know what your pictures are.

6. New Content

Keep your website updated regularly as you can do this by adding a blog to your website. This not only allows you to have a better ranking, but also connects you with your customer base at the same time.

7. Linking From Other Websites

A great way to earn credibility through a search engine is having a well established website link to yours. This show the search engines that your website is more important than the website that has none.

Remember, this is not a magic bullet, it is a constant effort to increase your rankings in the search engines. So keep updating, editing, and creating fresh content and slowly but surely, your rankings will increase.

Three Firefox Plugins for Web Developers

Shawn — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:50:50 +0000

Using plug-in’s for Firefox is a necessity and a gift that the Mozilla team has given us the freedom of having. There are a lot out there, and we want to share with you our top three.

1. SEO Fox

SEO Fox is a great tool for search engine optimization specialists. It gives you quick information on a websites Page Rank, Alexa Rank, and even the age of the website you are currently viewing. The entire feature list is listed below.

Features:

PR: (Google PageRank) an estimated measure of global link authority
Age: age pulled from Archive.org, shows the first time a page was indexed by Archive.org’s spider. The theory is that if Archive.org found a page so did many of the major search engines.
Links: (Yahoo! linkdomain) shows a rough estimate of the total number of links pointing at a domain
.edu Link: (Yahoo! .edu linkdomain ) shows a rough estimate of the total number of .edu links pointing at a domain
.edu Page Link: (Yahoo! .edu link ) shows a rough estimate of the total number of .edu links pointing at a specific page
.gov Link: (Yahoo! .gov linkdomain ) shows a rough estimate of the total number of .gov links pointing at a domain
Page Links: (Yahoo! link) shows a rough estimate of the total number of links pointing at a page
del.icio.us: number of times a URL has been bookmarked on Del.icio.us. Heavily skewed toward techy / Web 2.0 stuff.
Technorati: an estimate of the total number of links to a site from blogs
Alexa: rank based on website traffic . Heavily skewed toward internet marketing and webmaster related resources.
Cached: (Google site:) shows how many pages from a site are indexed in Google
dmoz: searches the Google Directory to count the total number of pages from a site that are listed in DMOZ, and the total number of pages listed in DMOZ that reference that URL.
Bloglines: shows you how many people are subscribed to a particular blog via Bloglines.
dir.yahoo.com: is a site listed in the Yahoo! Directory or not.
WhoIs: makes it easy to look up the whois data for any site.

2. Google Global

Google Global Plugin

This plugin is a great feature for an SEO expert. It allows you to view search results on Google from other countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, and Australia. This tool can open your eyes on your search results — allowing you to see how well you are optimizing your website globally.

3. Firebug

Firebug-Firefox

Firebug is a great all around tool for web programming allowing you to view code on the fly. If you would like to see a specific DIV on the style sheet and HTML, it’s as simple as clicking a button.

Google Local Business Center Tips

Shawn — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:52:04 +0000

When optimizing your website for the search engines, sometimes details get ignored — one being the Google LBC (Local Business Center). Some businesses either don’t know how to post their business on the LBC (www.google.com/local/add), or have already seen their business listed when searching (sometimes Google does this automatically when it finds a business through online listings) and they don’t think much of it. Well we are here to let you know that you need to put more energy than you think into your business listing, as there are tricks (just like anything else) to get you higher on the list.

1. Pay Attention To Your Name

Rather than just posting your company name, try to insert a keyword(s) into your name as well. For instance, if you sell computers, rather than listing your company name as Johnny’s, list it as Johnny’s Computers. This not only lets Google know that you are relevant (besides your tags), but also lets the person browsing know that you at least have something to do with computers. This will help you stand out from your competition, while still being ethical.

2. Domain Name

When you list your domain name, rather than listing as http://www.graticle.com or www.graticle.com — list your website as Graticle.com. This will help you maintain your “brand,” while becoming more clear for someone looking at your domain name. You can find some great information for listings on Adwords (which is very similar) in Perry Marshall’s book Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords.

3. Phone Number

Your phone number should be local as people browsing your website tend to gravitate towards local businesses — depending on your industry. Sometimes when Google automatically enters your business on it’s LBC, it might find your information from an old listing in YellowPages.com that you forgot to update. So your company might not have a phone number listed, or even worse, your previous phone number.

4. City Center

Although no one (besides Google’s engineers) knows the excact procedure how the LBC or any Google listing system works — but this tip has a lot of weight. If your company’s site is optimized to a certain location, your address to that city center is crucial. Now we won’t give you a way around this, but just know that this factor is crucial — so keep it in mind if you have an opportunity to move to another location, or even if you are just starting out. Again, remember it’s more than one factor that plays into their equations — so if you can’t get any closer, don’t sweat it.

5. Forms of Payment

This is another factor that Google will not automatically insert for you — if they have entered your company into the LBC. Hopefully your company already accepts payments for any medium used, so listing these on the LBC will help give your customers confidence in your company. If you only accept checks, it would also be a good idea to let your customers know this up front.

6. Hours of Operation

Again not something Google will automate. Regardless of the hours that you list your company open, make sure you stick to them.

That sums up the tips for the LBC for now. Also, don’t forget to add to the rest of your listing including Tags, Description, Coupon, Picture, and Video — anything to set yourself apart from your competition and you will do great.

*Enter your business into the Google Local Business Center here:

www.google.com/local/add

Great Blogs for Web Design, Graphic Design, and Business

Shawn — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:26:32 +0000

With the amount of blog reading that we do, we wanted to share with you our top picks. We read from these blogs every day in order to stay on top in the industry, and to hone in our skills.

1. Smashing Magazine

Smashing Magazine has the most interesting and up-to-date (in our opinion) information in the industry. Their posts are always educational and informative. What’s great is that they mix it up with a few educational articles, and then freebies or how-to’s helping you further yourself. If you haven’t given Smashing Magazine a chance, try a few of their articles — you won’t be disappointed.

Smashing Magazine

2. A List Apart

A List Apart is one of the top blogs for in-depth coding and web design. Their posts cater to validation, generally the correct way to do anything web design. Their articles are in-depth so plan on more than one cup of coffee, but also plan on expanding your knowledge and become a better web designer in general.

A List Apart

3. Noupe

Noupe offers tons of free goodies with great tutorials as well. Browse around and you are sure to find something that you have been looking for all along. They even post links to other sites regarding industry news which is refreshing.

Noupe

4. You The Designer

You The Designer is a great site for getting inspiration, tips, and freebies as well.

You The Designer

5. Doug Williams

Doug has great information whether web design, graphic design, search engine optimization, and even business help. His blog will help you become familiar with the industry as a whole — a blog you don’t want to miss.

Doug Williams Blog

Well that just about does it for now. Although we do read many more blogs – and there are many other greats, we feel these are the most important to share with you. If you keep up-to-date on these blogs alone, you will have more than enough information to keep you at the front lines of the industry and expand your knowledge to become a leader in your niche.

Validating Your Website

Shawn — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 05:02:23 +0000

I know this is an old concept to some out there, but many are still not validating their websites. Validation doesn’t exactly lend towards helping finish your client’s website in time, but it has many benefits that can help in the long run.

1. Cross Browser Compatibility

By validating your website, it gives you the confidence that it will look the same in all browsers. It’s actually simple compared to going to Browser Shots every time to see how your website looks, just to dial it in. Or even downloading a ton of browsers, and then testing them individually. My point, by validating you don’t have to do this – saving you time.

2. Search Engine Optimization

With search engine robots becoming increasingly smarter every day, it is very important to create complaint code throughout your website. Reason being, if your website confuses a robot while it’s crawling, it will see this as a beginner level website, and will lower your ranking on Google. Since the validation service will make sure you have certain attributes such as an alt tag with an image, this will also double as making your website search engine friendly, user friendly, and also able to be used by the visually impaired.

3. A Validating Conclusion

Although it might take you more time to validate than not- once you understand the validation systems, you will have taught yourself the right way to code, and therefore giving you a better understanding of back-end web design in general. It will not only help the website that you are working on become more accessible, but will also act as a benefit to the programmer in the long run.

1. Cross Browser Compatibility

2. Search Engine Optimization

3. A Validating Conclusion

Validate your HTML / XHTML

Validate your CSS stylesheet