Google Search had a big week full of new announcements such as Music Search, Social Search, Similar Images on Image Search, Personalized Search on Mobile, Google Suggest now global, and the recent Newly-formed partnership with Twitter. All of this is great news to any Google lover and SEO. I have put some quick summaries below of all the updates and news.
Google Social Search – “Social Search finds relevant content that your social circle has published and returns that content with your web search results. To use Social Search, you need to be logged in to your Google Account and opted in to the Social Search experiment. We then analyze your Gmail contacts (if you have a Gmail account) and the connections on your social networks (if you have a Google Profile and have listed public social networks like Twitter and FriendFeed).”
Music Search – “Every day we get millions of search queries about music. You want to know more about your favorite artists, find that new album or iconic song or figure out the name of that tune stuck in your head. In fact, according to Insights for Search, two of the top 10 queries in the U.S. are music-related. But often, if your answer is in a song, it can take a while to get there. We call this “time to result” — and we’re always looking for ways to reduce it.
Today, we’re rolling out a search feature that does just that by enabling you to search and more easily discover millions of songs, all via a simple Google web search. If you’re searching for music, “time to result” is really “time to music.” Now, when you enter a music-related query — like the name of a song, artist or album — your search results will include links to an audio preview of those songs provided by our music search partners MySpace (which just acquired iLike) or Lala.”
SEO Dojo launched to the public last week and I had the opportunity to be a part of the launch by providing a sweet testimonial (Watch Below):
So what is the SEO Dojo exactly? Well for starters it is an amazing community for search optimization professionals and really anyone that wants to learn more about Search Engine Optimization and Social Media.
Dave Harry the creator of Huomah.com, a well respected SEO blog, put together the SEO Dojo community to bring the industry together and provide a training and news center for all us SEO geeks.
I have had the opportunity to be a part of the pre-launch beta of the community and I have to say I am very pleased with all the content and caliber of people in the community. The community platform is well laid out and has some very intense social building aspects to the community.
So enough of me, why not go check it out. In fact Dave set my readers up with an exclusive 25% off discount code: YSMRocks
Here is what they had to say about their new experiment:
“Your friends and contacts are a key part of your life online. Most people on the web today make social connections and publish web content in many different ways, including blogs, status updates and tweets. This translates to a public social web of content that has special relevance to each person. Unfortunately, that information isn’t always very easy to find in one simple place. That’s why today we’re rolling out a new experiment on Google Labs called Google Social Search that helps you find more relevant public content from your broader social circle. It should be available for everyone to try by the end of the day, so be sure to check back.”
So the question is, Is Google Search On or Off the Mark?
I think they are making good strides but it seems slow. I talked to my good friend Dave Harry about Google Social Search and this is what he had to say:
“I think it’s interesting… but still has a ways to go… but certainly can’t be ignored as far as what they’re looking to do. I think Google Wave would work well with it also…soooo… might be tied together…”
So I recently wrote an article for my good friend Ron Hudson at his new blog SocialMediaMastermindTulsa.com. The article was titled SEO Meets Social Media and I really put a lot of time and effort into the article. Here are some of my favorite points from the article:
“Here is the problem though, most people think SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is hard and is too technical to understand. As for Social Media, many of you think it takes too much of your precious time. Here is what I have to say about all of this. “GET OVER IT.” Okay, so that was a bit harsh, but come on, if you had a way that you could combine both of these wonderful techniques to drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website and to totally crush your competition, then would you at least spend one (1) hour a day on it? Well I sure hope so!”
So I love the part where I tell everyone to “GET OVER IT” cause it is so true. We all are busy but yet we all want to make money as well, so get over yourself and get to work.
In the article SEO Meets Social Media I gave 6 amazing tips to help you really take your business to the next level using SEO and Social Media to get more website traffic, build relationships, and find the most qualified prospects in your market.
SEOMoz recently came out with the new 2009 Search Engine Ranking Factors report that is full of some great insights on what the search engines are looking at with the algorithms. Now you can disagree with all or some of what the report represents but you have to admit that it is a great report regardless.
The following ranking factors were rated by our panel of 72 SEO experts. Their feedback is aggregated and averaged into the percentage scores below. For each, we’ve calculated the degree to which the experts felt this factor was important for achieving high rankings as well as the degree of variance in opinion, estimated using the standard deviation of the contributors’ answers. Thus, factors that are high in importance and low in contention are those where experts agree the most that the factor is critical to rankings.
The Search Engine Ranking Factors in the report focuses on the following factors in regards to SEO:
On-Page (Keyword-Specific) Ranking Factors
On-Page (Non-Keyword) Ranking Factors
Page-Specific Link Popularity Ranking Factors
Site-Wide Link-Based Ranking Factors
Site-Wide (non-link based) Ranking Factors
Social Media/Social Graph Based Ranking Factors
Usage Data Ranking Factors
Negative Ranking Factors
Factors Negatively Affecting the Value of an External Link
Geo-Targeting Factors
The scale that the results are based on is by importance:
Going about the whole process of SEO can be sometimes confusing. This is where a SEO mentor can help you. They are professionals who know how to achieve desired SEO goals on leading search engines and can train you on the same. You can easily get in touch with one of them through an online search. The SEO mentor can guide you on several areas such choosing the right keyword and planning the best strategy for online marketing by attracting more web visitors to your website.
An experienced SEO mentor can train you on the various aspects of leading search engines. They would be able to explain you in a detailed way about the way in which search engine spiders work and about the various algorithms that are used by leading search engines. They also should be able to clarify all your doubts and reinforce your understanding of whatever has been taught by them.
Also if you would like to learn how Social Marketing can help your online business then visit BuildingSocialEquity.com and learn more about Online Social Networking Courses.
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