Posts Tagged ‘google’

Now you can search the internet in an entirely new way by starting your search with an image. This could revolutionize how we search online by not only using text, but now Google’s search engines can “see” a photo and index similar photos that match your search.

Go to the Google search engine, and at the top left are tabs for different types of Google searches. The one labeled ‘Images’ is the one you need to click on. (photo left, click to enlarge)

Once there, if you notice at the right of the search bar there is a camera icon that reads ‘search by image’ if you hover over it with your mouse cursor. You can either click that then paste the image url or upload from your computer. Even easier, you could just drop the image into the search box.

I just conducted a test by using a screen shot of a pool table from Yahoo Pool. I saved the photo to my desktop, and when I dropped the image into the search box, immediately images from Yahoo Pool were indexed with 129 similar image results. This tool could prove to be rather useful depending on your search needs, but now there is the option to search with a photo instead of having to type in phrases.

Once you conduct a search on an image, you can then refine your search by entering a descriptive word in the search box.

Keep posted on my blog and website for news, tips and advice on a regular basis, and contact me for ideas for your next small business website design.

Utilizing SEO to improve your website’s stickiness could be a great way to gain more traffic from website visitors and possibly increase the income of your business. The more visitors that arrive at your website strengthens any chances to gain more potential customers. The first challenge is to define how stickiness and SEO work.

First to define the difference between stickiness and SEO. SEO is what gets websurfers online to arrive on your website, whereas stickiness is what keeps them there. Of course more information on your website will encourage your website visitors to dig more into your information and resources, but the key is to have what you offer to be easily accessible. Using links that direct your online visitors to what they are looking for is important so navigation is easy for them.

Of course, directing website visitors to your website to just harvest information and leave is worthless unless you can convert some of those visitors into paying customers. The importance lies in defining your business and making it clear what you offer, and what makes your company stand out above the rest. Define your business niche and give examples of why you stand above the rest. Give your website visitors a “call to action” to interest them in what you do and desire to use your services.

In my case, custom CMS website design services, I’ve gotten all my customers to Google page one for key phrases that describe their business niche. Using nondeceitful methods and techniques of SEO in a variety of ways is what separates CodeRepair from a majority of web design services offered today. Promotion is not just about a pretty website or flashy photos and videos, but just like a car, what is under the hood to drive your business to success makes an impact. Learn more about using SEO to promote your business.

Need a website for your small business? Feel free to email me with questions or bookmark my blog and website for tips and advice on custom CMS small business website design.

Google Instant Results is a new feature automatically integrated with Google now to make our lives easier. Perhaps you noticed on your last Google website search that results began showing up as you typed your query. The news of this added feature has made web design related research much smoother for me.

Google Instant search is changing search engines with faster, more accurate search results. Your website search streams results in real time as you type each letter, therefore giving you the power to scan matches as you complete the search. Google has stated this predictive search could increase productivity at work by saving an average of 2 to 5 seconds per query.

The Google search engine even gives you the option to turn Instant off if you’re uncomfortable with it. If you don’t have Google Instant Results yet it should be available to you soon being Google intends to make the feature available to users across the globe.

Review these tips on conducting basic Google searches with advanced features. Although a simple search is quite often enough, using some advanced techniques could be helpful to further refine your results.

Quotation marks (“”) surrounding a search phrase tells Google to search for the exact words in the exact order they have been entered, without any change. Quotes are often unnecessary because Google already uses the order of words entered as a strong indication of the results. Using quotes further insists on search results focusing on only indexed pages with the words in that exact order.

The minus sign (-) indicates that you want your search results to exclude those with that word in it. The minus sign needs to have a space before it in order to be read by Google as an excluded term. For example, consider the query: anti-spyware -software. This would search for anti-spyware, but not those queries relating to software.

Use the site search (site:) to search about a topic within only a specified website. The proper way to do a query of this nature (for example only about CMS relating to this website) would be: CMS site: coderepair.com. This type of search also works for specifying an entire class of websites as well. For example: CMS site: .org, would only search for CMS websites with the .org domain.

Using the asterisk (*) is like using a wildcard telling Google to use it as a placeholder for unknown terms, and to find the best matches. For example, let’s say you did the search: Obama voted * on the * bill. This would produce results on how Obama voted on different bills.

The plus sign (+) indicates to search exactly as is, excluding any synonyms you may not want in your Google search. Use the plus sign before the search word, with no space after it to produce results excluding synonyms to that word. In essence, the plus sign acts the same way as quotes around a single word.

Using the OR separator (OR) to give you Google search results in either of two search terms, rather than leaving out the OR producing pages that include both. For example, imagine doing a Google search query for: lakers champions 2009 OR 2010. This search would produce pages that have EITHER one year or the other, not both.

Some examples of words that are usually ignored include ‘a’, ‘the’ and ‘for’, and are also known as “stop words”. There are even exceptions to this rule. For example if you search: the who, Google will suggest websites referring to the band, therefore not ignoring the word ‘the’. Should you search for the word ‘who’, Google would first index websites that refer to to the World Health Organization.

Knowing some of the basics of doing an advanced Google search could narrow your search results easily. When retrieving your search results with ease, the probability that you’ll quickly find what you’re looking for is higher.

Adding a Google search function to your website can be useful because finding something on a site that’s large can sometimes be difficult. Google search functions give your visitor the ability to find exactly what they are looking for on your website without being discouraged by having to hunt for it.

Adding a Google searchbox to your website can make it easier to navigate your small business website. Visitors will tend to stay longer on your site if they can find what they are looking for easily. Adding a Google searchbox is as easy as copying and pasting the code into your HTML. If you don’t feel comfortable with doing it yourself, just have your webdesigner do this for you.

By adding a Google search function to your website, visitors may stay longer, therefore giving you a better chance of turning them into potential customers, and perhaps even clients. Adding a Google searchbox may be the touch your website needs to keep the traffic that lands on your website coming back. Let your users search your website with Google Site Search

Add a Google Map to your business
Learn how to Add a Google Searchbox to your website
More about Adding a Google Searchbox to Your Website

Also read my blog post on Site Maps for Your Website and Add a Google Map To Your Website

Add a Google Map to your small business website when you want your website visitors to be able to easily locate your business. Adding a Google map can have great benefits to your customers for your small business website because you will be easliy found when one of your website visitors wants to visit for your products or services. Not only can Google Maps give your potential customer a map of your business location, but you can show what the outside of your business looks like, aiding your customer in what to look for when they arrive in your area.

Besides adding contact information such as email, phone number and address, sometimes adding a Google Map to your website may be to the advantage to your small business website if your business depends on physical contact with your customers.

Adding a Google Map is easy to do. Simply find a map that pinpoints your business location and surrounding roads, then click on “link” for that specific Google Map. Then copy and paste it into your website to show your customer how to physically arrive at your business. Google Maps can make it easy for your customers to find your small business.

Let your users search your website with Google Site Search
Add a Google Map to your business
Learn how to Add a Google Searchbox to your website
More about Adding a Google Searchbox to Your Website

Also read my blog post on Site Maps for Your Website and
Add a Google Search Function to Your Website

The custom cms web design launch one month ago for Haggetts Aluminum in Central Florida provides evidence of the value of natural methods of search engine optimization, or seo. The new site as launched in June 2009 proves the value of our custom cms seo and Google SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). Some designers overpromise, yet we never tell clients we guarantee page one results in Google or the other major search engines.

After email feedback from the client about new sales, viewing site visitor statistics, and checking generic key phrase searches, the following search terms show the customer’s website on Google page one:

• orange county aluminum awnings (#1 on page one)
• clamshell awning florida
• clamshell aluminum awnings
• osceola aluminum awnings
• osceola county aluminum awnings
• central florida aluminum awnings
• florida aluminum awning manufacturer
• kissimmee aluminum awnings
• kissimmee mobile home awnings
• mobile home awning installation in florida
• central florida awning factory
• pictures of aluminum awnings

This success is really remarkable when compared to 1-2 years ago when new websites faced what some call the “sandbox” or waiting period before a site becomes trusted. Obviously Google has fine tuned their algorithms to determine credibility and trust early in the life of a new website domain.

Our natural methods of seo means another happy customer success story when it comes to custom cms seo and Google SERPs.

Comparing whitehat SEO and blackhat SEO methods involves understanding of the terms. Picture the good guy and the villain in old western film. The difference in whitehat and blackhat SEO are comparatively the same.

Whitehat techniques use usability to give a website page better standings in search engines by keeping the user in mind with no tricks for deceptive means of rank boosting. Whitehat SEO methods are more favored and usually have longer lasting effects than other methods.

Blackhat methods use tricks to get SEO results, such as buying backlinks to a website. Google’s algorithm’s can detect whether linked sites are relevant to each other, and may ban websites that use these practices. Websites that use Blackhat SEO methods usually don’t last very long, and aren’t good for long-term SEO results.

In comparing whitehat and blackhat methods for SEO, obviously whitehat methods outweigh blackhat ones. It may take more time to use proper actions to help your website’s SEO, but in the long run it will be well worth it. Don’t let the end justify the means because Google punishes deceptive promotion practices and can ban a website for it.

Getting a website to Google page one is not something I would ever promise a client because it is something that takes time, hard work and patience. Small business website owners should realize you can’t launch a website, kick back, and expect the money to roll in. By using the appropriate techniques, appearing on Google page one really is achievable.

Several factors are taken into consideration by search engines in order to decide what pages are indexed in the top rankings. A high number of pages and inbound links, appropriate keyword density, a blog, an RSS feed, and an appropriate length title, description and number of keywords are important factors. Using non-deceptive means of enhancing my own website, this site ranked on Google page one for over 30 searched key phrases, and THIS POST for position #8 out of 571,000,000 hits, the moment I published it.

Getting a website to Google page one by using non-deceptive tactics for page ranking is a key in attaining more traffic for small business website owners. Attaining more traffic leads to more potential clients, which leads to return customers, and soon your business can grow through your website.

Add a Blog to Your Website

I recently did a project analyzing and comparing some of the top 10 websites indexed by Google with certain key phrases. The purpose of this study was to figure what key factors affected a high page ranking in Google, and how to tweak my own website to gain a competitive edge over the competition.

In taking each website, running it through Website Grader, validating the code, and reviewing the results, a few factors were consistent. The top sites had hundreds, thousands, even hundreds of thousands of pages and inbound links, and maintained top positions in Google despite of missing or too many keywords and descriptions. Also noted were sites with an older domain age and longer time until expiration were given higher priority in Google indexing. These factors seemed to affect a website in a positive manner, despite imperfections in code.

Regardless, my theory is that optimizing the source code for as few errors as possible and correct numbers of characters and keywords contained is important to obtain a winning website. Combining this with a pleasant layout, color scheme, and effective business strategy can turn more of your visitors into repeat customers.