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Archive for the ‘Webmaster Tools’ Category

Google Now Helps You Improve Your Site Performance

December 7th, 2009 by lucianmih | No Comments | Filed in Webmaster Tools

A new addition in Webmaster Tools this week sees Google becoming your own personal usability and accessibility consultant.

Site Performance,  an experimental feature added to the Webmaster Tools console courtesy of Google Labs, provides detailed information about your site’s load time and gives suggestions for speeding it up. It includes a chart of your site performance data over time, which can help determine latency triggers.

As explained in Google’s official blog post about it,  the Site Performance console includes examples of specific pages and their actual page load times, plus Page Speed suggestions that can help reduce latency.

I was pretty shocked when I logged into Webmaster Tools today to find my blog pages take an average of 6 seconds to load. Google states that this is slower than 83% of sites! The Example Pages and Page Speed Suggestions revealed the culprit was a banner ad that was not optimized and a couple of extra DNA fetches on some pages so I was able to fix the issues pretty quickly.

The load time data is apparently sourced from aggregated information by users of the Google Toolbar but it’s important to remember that it’s all averaged. A specific user may experience your site faster or slower than the average depending on their location and network conditions.

As a Labs tool, Site Performance is still under development and Google are seeking feedback on it via the Webmaster Tools Forum.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Google Now Helps You Improve Your Site Performance

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How To Keep Your Website Visitors Coming Back For More

January 22nd, 2009 by lucianmih | No Comments | Filed in Marketing, Social Media, Social Networking, Webmaster Tools

Driving great quality traffic to your website can be a pretty tough task, but getting those visitors to come back is even tougher. The worse thing you can do is let your visitors come and go without attempting to intervene. What are the odds of them returning? Not very good at all. That’s where opt-in lists can be a big help and make a huge impact on your sales.

For those of you who don’t know, an opt-in list is a collection of emails that have been obtained by permission. Unlike spammers, you have the consent of these people to send them offers, messages and information relating to your Internet marketing business. Because they opted in, they also have the ability to unsubscribe to your list at any time.

You’ve undoubtedly heard of how important list building is in the world of online marketing, and there’s very good reason for it. It’s been said that it takes a potential customer an average of 7 times to see something before they make a purchase on the Internet. The best way to capitalize on this is through your list. By sending several well-written promotional messages over a period of time, you build their trust in you and increase the chances of making a lot more sales.

As your valuable list increases into the hundreds or thousands, you’re developing an extremely powerful resource that you can tap into every time you want to promote something new. You have already gained their trust and selling to them is a lot easier than selling to anyone else. Can you imagine having the ability to exclusively broadcast to your own email list of thousands at anytime? It’s a pretty big advantage that can really boost your income online.

Creating an opt-in list isn’t a difficult thing to do. There are many websites offering tutorials on how to do it step by step. You can even invest in an autoresponder which you will eventually realize to be a necessary tool as your Internet business grows. Autoresponders make it easier to capture emails and are a great way to manage your list especially when it becomes to large and complicated to handle by yourself.

Once you’ve got your website setup to build your list, you need to offer some sort of an incentive for them to sign up. People aren’t just going to hand over their email addresses to you. Most marketers online offer free Ebooks, newsletters or any type of valuable and useful information in exchange for visitor’s contact info.

It’s important to continually build and maintain the trust of the people on your list. Don’t jeopardize that by selling their emails to anyone and resist contacting them too much as all of this can be seen as spamming. There’s nothing that will shrink your list faster than being accused of practicing spam. Developing a trusting relationship with your subscribers is key to maximizing your income with them.

If you’re not attempting to capture emails on your website, you are letting money flow rapidly down the drain. An opt-in list allows you to build a relationship with your visitors over a period of time. That’s extremely hard to do with a website alone, especially when you only have one chance to impress your visitors enough to return again. A nicely maintained opt-in list has the potential to generate a substantial portion of your income online.

Jimmie Leonguerrero – Creating an opt-in list for your website is one of several vital tools necessary for success in today’s Internet marketing world. Visit www.LegitimateCashFlow.com now to discover more powerful resources to help build your legitimate home based business.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How To Keep Your Website Visitors Coming Back For More

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Content Management Systems & SEO Revisited

January 6th, 2009 by lucianmih | No Comments | Filed in Content Management System, HD Publishing, Marketing, Ranking, SEO, Training, Webmaster Tools

Two years ago, I wrote an article entitled “Content Management Systems Equal Business Suicide.” The basic premise was that at that time, CMS applications were inherently devoid of basic SEO functionality. Building a new site, or converting an existing site to the existing CMS versions of 2 years ago was rapid way of consigning those sites to the oblivion of Google’s supplementary index. Lacking inbuilt search engine friendly URL’s, outputting duplicate titles, descriptions and keywords, no ability to have customised Titles that differed from Headings – all those things were extraordinarily bad elements.

Since then, things have changed markedly. These days, there are still deficiencies in evidence, but for the CMS applications that have survived the intervening 2 years, and those that have evolved since, most have addressed the basic SEO issues.

My personal favourite CMS is WordPress. Especially since version 2.5 there’s been a wealth of feature expansion in the core application, the availability of plugins that expand on the core functionality, and the advent of professionally designed Themes that have taken WordPress to new heights. All of this has allowed WordPress to blossom into a fully-matured CMS with exceptional Search Engine Optimisation features.

Lets take a closer look at the SEO functionality. As Google et al are attempting to analyse and categorise a web site, there are an estimated 200 individual elements that are calculated in the SE relevancy ranking algorithms. Every one of these you can get right improves your chances of attaining your full ranking potential. Individually, each element offers incremental albeit small gains, but collectively, they can add up to the winning difference in the ranking stakes for competitive search terms.  Duplicate content is Google’s pet hate, and its vital to every  site’s standing that every single page be accurately described and categorised. Here are 10 of the most prominent among the many opportunities to achieve this individualisation of pages are;

SEF URLS:

Search engine friendly URL’s are important, because inclusion of keywords in page URL’s are taken into account, and have a bearing on rankings – particularly on Yahoo. Being able to exercise total control over page URL’s is important, and WordPress allows this with Permalink mod_rewrite functionality, coupled with manual URL control on every page or post!

Meta-Tags:

There are several WordPress plugin tools to provide total control of title, descriptions and keywords, and these are easily installed and configured.

Titles:

Being able to control the off-page Title separately from the on-page heading is very important. The title’s 70 character limitation needs to be exploited to maximum effect, its the single most important on-site page SEO element! Page Headings are usually space-constrained, and in systems where the Heading automatically become the Title, you are deprived of a significant advantage.

Description:

The off-page Description (meta-tag) is a vital element in accurately describing the page contents. If each page has accurate, custom-written Description content, its used verbatim in the search engine results pages (SERP’s). In contrast, if you are forced to use a generic Description, then Google will helpfully do its level best to generate an ‘ad lib’ Description of the page based on content. The result of that ca neither be not so bad, or truly awful. Regardless, its essential that YOU have control of the Description, and that you use it to maximum effect!

Keywords:

Erroneously dismissed by some people as of no account these days, the Keyword (meta-tag) still has a part to play. Stuff it full of vaguely relevant garbage unrelated to page content and it will be ignored. Use it wisely, with specific / relevant long-tailed keyword search phrases and it can give you a little bit of SE traction – even on Google!

Image File Names:

Accurately name your image files, and include keywords relevant to the page. WordPress allows you to upload media and retain the original files names even when auto-generating thumbnail images etc.

Image ALT Tags:

Accurately describe your images using the Image ALT tag, and include keywords/phrases relevant to the page. WordPress Add Media tools allow you to add ALT text and captions, enabling inclusion of additional relevant text content. Used wisely, without spamming, its another useful element.

Anchor Text:

The words you use to link to other pages / sections of the site. WordPress Link Editor allows full control of anchor Text links, including the ability to specify “Hyperlink Title” which essentially work like Image ALT text – the title of the link pops up when the mouse pointer hovers over the link… Again, used wisely, its another useful SEO element.

CSS Dropdown Menus:

Many of the new, highly professional WordPress CMS Themes utilise CSS dropdown menus, which is extremely important in aiding search engines to locate and index internal pages. This also facilitates Google’s ability to pass Page Rank throughout the internal page structure!

Google SiteMaps:

Another delightful WordPress plugin is the automatic Google Sitemap Generator! Once installed and configured, every new page, post or edit of a page or post automatically updates the sitemap.xml page!

RSS Feeds: WordPress RSS feeds are easily extended by installation of an onsite Feedburner email subscription service, where your posts and pages are automatically distributed to subscribers by email. Moreover, your Feedburner account and site feed gives your site a pipeline directly into the Google index! I regularly see WordPress posts that make it into Google Alerts distribution in less than 4 hours!

So, on that basis I’m happy to accord WordPress 10 out of 10 for SEO functionality. Couple that with more than 3000 available plugins to extend the core functionality, the thousands of available design templates or themes, the ease-of-use factor, robust software, ease of installation etc, and I think we’ve got a winning CMS formula.

About The Author: Ben Kemp has more than 20 years of experience in the IT industry, including 15 years as a free-lance IT consultant. He is one of Australasia’s longest serving website seo practitioners, with clients throughout NZ, Australia, Thailand, UK & USA. He specialises in implementing CMS websites

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Content Management Systems & SEO Revisited

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Google unleashes its new Webmaster Help Group

December 5th, 2008 by lucianmih | No Comments | Filed in SEO, Search, Training, Webmaster Tools


Since its launch in June 2005, Google’s Webmaster Help Group [GWHG] has helped tens of thousands of frustrated webmasters to overcome a vast array of problems, penalties and other assorted issues between their websites and Google. Now, some three and a half years later, on Thursday December 4th 2008 at 8.15AM PST, Google’s main front-line support group has undergone a dramatic transformation.

Moved from its old location within the Google Groups framework to a brand new home within Google’s own support site, the Webmaster Help Group has received a much-needed technological upgrade. Gone are the old ‘Usenet Feel’ and the clunky, unresponsive, plain-text interface, replaced with a slick new look, rich-text functionality and the ability to cross-reference answers, post live links, cite resources and even embed video, all of which combine to turn the group from being a great webmaster resource into a truly outstanding one.

Another major improvement in the new group is the introduction of user-levels, ranging from 1 through 6 [One being a new user and six being a Google employee], with increasing access to the group’s new functionalities as users gain reputation and progress through the levels. And, since a user’s level is clearly displayed next to any posts they make, it is now much easier for new forum members to distinguish whether the person answering their question is also a new user, a regular, a top contributor or even a Google employee.

So, from a sheer technology & functionality standpoint, Google Webmaster Help has taken a huge leap forward

But, like so many things, a support group of this kind cannot function on technology alone; it needs expert members, capable of dealing with the myriad problems webmasters around the globe will ask it to address.

As things stand currently, some three and a half years after the group’s inception, Webmaster Help is inhabited by a colourful assortment of professionals from around the globe, always ready to answer the many questions thrown at them by close to 42,000 members. During the past year, the group has also seen the ever increasing participation of Google Employees (affectionately called Googlers), with even such ‘celebrities’ as Matt Cutts, Adam Lasnik, John Müller and Susan Moskwa answering the occasional frustrated query.

Indeed, given the ever-growing number of Googlers regularly frequenting the group, Webmaster Help can now safely be counted as the best place to get your website questions answered by Google’s own staff, given that the company fields no means for webmasters to contact them via phone or email.

However, the Webmaster Help Group’s strength lies not simply in the participation of Google’s staff, but mainly in its population of resident experts, dubbed Bionic Posters by Google. Currently numbering fourteen, the ‘Bionics’ are an eclectic crowd of experts in subjects ranging from site design, CSS, Java and W3C compliance to more SEM-specific topics such as improving conversion rates and SEO Consultancy, who freely donate their time each day to help webmasters and frustrated site owners who reach the group in need of some expert advice.

Ultimately it is this little crowd, along with a growing number of less frequent regulars, who answer the vast majority of users’ questions, be they about Rankings, HTML, Penalties, SEO or whatever. And, thanks to the new group’s architecture and facilities implemented by Google, they will now be able to answer those same questions far more efficiently.

And, with persistent rumours of a group companion-site, laden with answers, statistics and diagnostics tools coming in the New Year, Google’s Webmaster Help Group is poised to further extend its reputation of being the single most comprehensive resource of its kind on the internet.

Having spent a substantial amount of my spare time around Webmaster Help since August 2006, I have witnessed a great many changes and improvements to the group, though none on quite this scale. I have also been privileged enough to be part of an online community which has taught me more about web design and online promotion during these last 28 months than any other resource on the web, and would heartily recommend anyone reading this article to take a look at the group and learn from the wealth of knowledge shared by its many inhabitants.

As a technical writer and SEO consultant with a career spanning almost fifteen years, Sasch Mayer has been living in the Republic of Cyprus since 2005. He has helped countless webmasters and online business owners to diagnose problems with their websites and is rated as a Top Contributor by Google in its Webmaster Help Group. His company, IceGiant Web Services also undertakes graphic and web design work.

By Sasch Mayer

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Google unleashes its new Webmaster Help Group

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