Google has announced another logical and time saving feature. By using the Google Analytics asynchronous code or the new Analytics code you can verify your site and get all the good information that is provided in Webmaster Tools. You need to be an administrator in order to verify but once done you will also be able to share the data with multiple users as you have been able to do with Webmaster Tools since the spring.
This simplifies the process for Web site owners and managers like ourselves. If you haven’t set up Webmaster Tools becasue you haven’t got around to adding the verification code there is now nothing to wait for.
Google Webmaster Tools are constantly adding new features which makes a Web site owner’s life easier by providing much more information on how their site is being crawled. As new features come on stream it is a foolish Webmaster who ignores a clear message from Google that a certain area of their site is not up to scratch. Some of the areas may be considered of minor importance, but if Google gives something like your robots.txt a lot of space on Webmaster Tools then take note and get it right.
That is why we took special interest when Webmaster Tools added in the video sitemap option. Although we have been setting up Google Channels for clients and encouraging them to download relevant videos to their channel we haven’t really found that the results are worth the effort. We have seen the figures which shows the dramatic increase in video usage online and the benefit of increased visibility online but the traffic still has to justify the effort and cost to our clients. On that I would say the jury is still out.
However using the YouTube channel as a video host is one of the most cost effective ways of organising your videos and allowing them to be embedded in your Web site, blog or other Web sites. The videos can be optimised within YouTube to ensure that when they are spidered the targeted keyword phrases can be promoted.
Although the value of building your video channel at the moment is debatable we feel in the longer term videos will play an important part in how your Web site will position on Search Engines and the inclusion of video sitemaps on Webmaster Tools is a clear indication of that.
Google Webmaster Tools continues to improve the help it gives to Web site owners in spotting trouble with their sites early on (http://bit.ly/9Iodwf). A big headache for site owners is if their sites cannot be fully spidered by search engines. Should a site not be spidering correctly it means pages could be being missed by search engines, or even worse, missed off altogether. Crawling errors can have a number of different causes from hosting to a coding problem on the page. We have seen these problems crop up sometimes from a small change the designer may have made on the site and inadvertently causes a problem with the search engine spider.
Google has reported on the dashboard of Webmaster Tools crawling problems but you had to log in to see them. Although we do monitor Webmaster Tools on a regular basis that doesn’t mean that there can be a sudden increase in crawling errors that may not be picked up immediately. Google now notifies the site owner if Google detects a sudden increase in crawling errors that might be impacting a specific site. Additonally Google will provide a sample set of URLs for diagnosing and fixing them.
This useful bit of information is only available if you have verified your site in Webmaster Tools and Google detect a significant change in the number of crawl errors. As Webmaster Tools is a free service from Google there is no excuse for all Web site owners to take advantage of this.
On Wednesday 14 July at the Assembly Rooms in Chichester, Dr Tony Mobbs from IBM and Françoise Murat from garden and interior design business Françoise Murat Associates shared their experience of social media with SCDF members and organised and hosted by a451.
Françoise explained how she used social media, namely Twitter, LinkedIn and blogging, to connect, network and engage with people, while Tony gave a comprehensive overview of social media and how it is being used at IBM. The message from both speakers when using social media was clear: be open, honest and genuine.
The evening was a great success, and more formal and informal meetings will be planned for the future.
More and more of our clients are using pdf as well as other media downloads as one of their KPI’s for their Web sites. Downloads of pdf’s such as product catalogue’s, projects the client may be involved in or other specific information is a very valuable additional bit of information when determining the overall performance of a Web site. Especially for those sites that do not ‘sell’ directly online and need a blend of KPI’s.
If you are using Google Analytics tracking clicks on links that lead to file downloads is pretty much straight forward. As there is no code on the pdf page what you do is tag the link that goes to the pdf itself. You use the_trackPageview() JavaScript in the link to the pdf you wish to track. This will assigns a pageview to a click on the link, and therefore the pdf you specify.
If you wish t track every click on a particular link such as www.yoursite.co.uk/catalogue/june2010.pdf as a pageview for/downloads/june-catalogue you would add the following attribute to the link’s <a> tag:
To ensure that _trackPageviewis tracking the information you want check your Top Content report after 24-48 hours after you have installed the link. You should see the assigned pagename in your report.
Previously known as the Google Local Business Centre, Google has changed the name of this service to Google Places. The Local Business Centre was Google’s online version of Yellow Pages type directory. It allowed businesses to list their details such as address and telephone number plus additional information such as a more detailed description of their products or services, images as well as an integrated Google Map and Streetview of their location. This was at no cost to the business, all they had to do was to open a Google Account. The same account would allow a business all the other free Google offerings such as Gmail, Analytics and, of course AdWords just to name a few.
In April Google announced that they were going to integrate the Local Business Centre with Google Places. Google Places was launched in September last year and listed restaurants, hotels and other businesses as well as non-business places such as museums, schools and parks. As business owners were allowed to update their Google Places listing it was a natural step to integrate it with the Local listing.
There will also be some additional information that businesses will be able to add to their Places listing such as a real time, Twitter like updates such as special offers. Additionally you will be able to add coupons that will appear along side the business listing. Google will also supply information as to visitors to your Places pages.
Google highlights the fact that 20% of all searches are related to location so an effect Places listing is a must for all businesses looking to increase their local presence.
Setting up and managing your Google Places listing:
There is no way to transfer the Google Places listing so make sure that you as a business owner set it up in your Google business account. Anyone setting it up on behalf of you will not be able to transfer it to your account. The best thing to do is to have a specific Google Account for the business no only for the Places listing but for all the other Google services you may use.
It is fairly straight forward; you go to the Google Places home page and click the ‘Add new business’ link and fill in your business information. The next step is a bit more trickey and that is the verification process. Verification can be done by Google sending you a PIN number by telephone, SMS or postcard at our option. The PIN number will verify the account. Once you have entered your PIN the account will be live.
For businesses with less than 10 listings you need to verify them individually. For companies with more than 10 listings there is a bulk upload option. Google puts a lot of emphasis on unique telephone numbers for each listing so any duplicates may result in a business not being listed correctly or not listed at all.
At the F8 Conference on 21 April Facebook announced some major changes to their popular social media platform.
Facebook announced the roll out of their social plugins. Social pugins are simple tools that give users instant personalisation using an iFrame and a cookie on third party sites. If you are logged into your Facebook account and visit a Web site you will see which friends have also logged in there, what their activity is and a set of recommendations based on their actions.
There are three social plugin actions that a Facebook user can take. The first is a ‘like’ or ‘recommend’ button, the second is an Activity Feed to see what other Facebook fiends are liking, commenting on or sharing and thirdly Recommendations which are the most liked content amongst your friends.
Social plugins will appear as buttons and boxes on third party sites and you will need to be logged in to Facebook to use these buttons. The area on the third party site is effectively a small space set aside for the use of Facebook and the information there is in control of Facebook. None of the information there is shared with the third party site.
By liking something this information will appear on your Facebook page and may become part of your profile. Likes and recommendations are public information as if you have commented on a public Facebook Page. The “Like” button, Activity Feed and Recommendations only display your friends’ names and profile pictures and to show the likes and recommendations from people who aren’t your friends in an aggregated format (“15 people like this”).
Some third party sites will be allowed to take this ability even further, showing users personalised content based on the details of their public profile on Facebook.The company will be able to read and interpret that content without asking users. At the moment, only three sites have this extra ability, which Facebook calls “instant personalization”—they are Docs.com (an online document-hosting and editing site from Microsoft), the music site Pandora, and the review site Yelp.
As with previous Facebook changes this has caused a great deal of comment and some users have deleted their Facebook accounts.
If a Web site targets users in a particular geographic location then Google Webmaster Tools can be used to provide Google with information that will help determine how the Web site appears in search results. This data supplements existing information such as language and IP address.
Insofar as Geo location is concerned Google will differentiate between two types of domain names:
ccTLD – Country-code top level domain names. These are associated to a specific country such as .fr for France or .ca for Canada. gTLD - Generic top level domain names. These are not associated to a specific country. So for example .com, .net, .org, .museum. are all generic as well as .eu and .asia as they cannot be associated to a specific country. Google will also treat some vanity domains such as .tv and .me as generic as search engine users as well as Webmasters frequently see these as more generic than country-targeted.
Factors used in determing Geolocation of a Web site:
ccTLD is one of the best ways of indication the target area of a Web site as well as using Webmaster Tools’ manual geotargeting for gTLDs (this can be on a domain, subdomain or subdirectory
Server location (through the IP address of the server)
Local addresses and phone numbers on the pages, use of local language and currency, links from other local sites, and/or the use of Google’s Local Business Centre.
Google made it official on Friday when they announced that speed would be one of the factors when determining relevancy and therefore search rankings http://bit.ly/9sBY9o. Google flagged this up last year and also added site speed performance in Webmaster Tools. We have been treating it as part of our ongoing management of client sites since then. Although it should be noted by all Web site owners that speed is another area to keep an eye on but realistically it will only be the very slow sites that will notice a downgrading in positions. However by monitoring it you will be able to spot potential problems before they effect your positions.
Google has added speed of a site as a ranking factor as their own research shows that users don not like slow loading sites. Visitors spend less time on slowly responding sites and Google has seen this from their own internal studies according to their announcement. That is interesting as it means Google must be tracking how long a user stays on a site before hitting the back button or tracking them through Google Analytics. Either way the message from Google is that if it is good for your users then it is good for your search rankings.
As a Site owner what should you do to see your site is performing slower than other Web sites? Webmaster Tools has a site performance section that will show you quickly and easily how you are doing (image below). If you are running slow your first port of call should be your hosting company and make sure there aren’t any issues with the server. You may also want to review just how much you have running on the site and do away with resource hungry flash or reduce image file size.
Speed is part of our overall management of a Web site – make it part of yours!
