Whenever new content is published on a website (note that we are specifying website and not blog), the content is not indexed in just one go. The Google bot has to come by and digest the content. Most of the time, this depends on the bot’s crawl sessions. Another element is to update the sitemap, resubmit it and wait for a refreshing crawl. Long wait.

Quick indexation.

Content can however be quickly indexed in Google by going through a specific filter: the news filter. Getting through that filter can be fairly easy if done right. This filter will allow a website’s pages to get indexed really quickly. This strategy is called live search optimisation. With this type of optimisation, the bot gives priority to the newly published content.

Case study: an article plublished at l’Express.

An image is better than a thousand pages. Let’s take a look at how this works. One of the local newpapers publishes its content. The following screenshots were taken on the 15th of February 2012 (date of publication of the shown content). A simple search on Bollywood actress “Kareena Kapoor” on Google.mu’s News search gives some of l’Express’ articles.

There are 2 things to be noticed.

1. There is an article published a week earlier.
2. There is an article that has nothing to do with the keyword that has been published some 5 hours earlier.

The oldest article was spot on “Kareena Kapoor”. The second one cites the actress only once but still. The information is fresh and the article is in the line for “News” rules. Below is a screenshot of the actual published page.

Doing live search optimisation guarantees the inclusion of a page in less than an hour. This, however, calls for the publisher to abide by several rules.

Live search optimisation rules.

The usual SEO strategies such as optimised head element are staples for this. Having a clean title tag will boost traffic with a clear message on the published news.

Among many other rules, the most important ones are these:

• Publish at least 3 new pages/articles per day.
• The URL of the published content must bear at least 3 numbers and look static.

Publish for live search optimisation.

Publishing like this seems huge. That is true. The aim today, when working in the Internet business, is to drive as much traffic and generate buzz as much as can be done. Applying new content publication strategies for a website will change the way a website is crawled. Live search optimisation can help having a constant flow of traffic, so go for it. Use “News” strategies on your site.

Social media are the new buzz and the new musts in terms of web presence. Be it in the Web Design world and especially in Web Marketing. Let’s take the most used ones: Twitter and Facebook. The aim of communicating on these in terms of business is to drive traffic as well as gain more finite information on the prospects and clients. Client profiling is therefore really, really important. But…

Fake profiles.

One of the worse things on social media is the proliferation of fake profiles. Why? Personal branding has become a major concern with the use of social media. As employers started stalking employees and prospective employees, people started building fake profiles to hide send them on red herring chases.

Impact of fake profiles.

The impact of the profiles is without doubt on the information sent out by these profiles. Some traffic managers would just say put these to trash because they’re just here to pollute one’s metrics. This should not be the case because the information is there. One just has to look in the right place.

Fake profiles, real people.

Ok, you’ve got a lot of, say, supposedly fake Facebook friends because the names are more like pseudos that any other thing. They attract less attention because one will not know much when looking at the profile info. The trick here is to look at the second level. The people are real with real friends out of Facebook. These friends are those who’ll give the necessary information.

Friends will be friends.

The mean of a profile’s Facebook friends’ age is likely to give you some idea of the age. Friend’s mentions and comments might give information on the whole profile after all: relationship, family, type of car, social status… Profiling can be really easy if this strategy is adopted.

We’ve discussed a lot on the new position Google has seemed to be taking over the past month, especially on the “social media scene”. In a previous article on Google +1, I did put in light the problems Google met in trying to get involved in social media. As predicted in the conclusion of that article, the major changes were too big to remain small, it was really the tip of the iceberg.

Google plus color scheme?

I tweeted this (in French) yesterday:

Je l’avais remarqué hier sur Google UK et aujourd’hui sur Google com. Pouvez-vous confirmer que la barre Google est noire?

(Translation: I noticed this on Google UK yesterday and on Google com today. can anyone confirm that the Google bar is black (well gray actually) ?)

We now know why Google was trying this out! It is the new Google+ color scheme.

Plusses! This is what Google is exploiting.

The Google + project is oriented for +YOU. All in all, the new features are gravitating around the PLUS. Google is offering more and is slowly getting all MySpacey and Facebooky! The whole PLUS concept will be federating Google services in a sort of package that evey web user will want to have.

Pushing things further and harder, Google has launched Google Takeout which is a sort of stream “à la Facebook” which can be read by other networks. This hints one thing: until now, we’ve all been streaming Facebook and Twitter… now Google+ will impose the others to stream Google features.

The beginning.

I’m sure that this is just the beginning and that Google is still working on this major hit. It is not letting itself being overwhelmed by other social networks, so let’s wait and see. Google will hold other surprises for its users.

Responsive web design! The whole new buzz word is taking on momentum all over the web. Why is that so? Why did people not talk about responsive web design a whole year ago when Ethan Marcotte launched the topic on in his now famous article?

Technology is the vector for responsive web design.

Technology is evolving very fast. Some 10 years ago, we were all dreaming of using the Internet on a portable device. Today it doesn’t surprise anyone to see somebody using a smart-phone or a tablet to read, surf, mail… It would be more surprising to see somebody using a cassette walk-man on the bus today (mind you, I don’t have anything against cassette players, I still have one).

There has been a notable increase in terms of screen resolutions over these years. The tremendous amount of devices make users visit websites from diverse perspectives. Web designers usually had alternate layouts for mobile phones, but what is the approach to tablets?

This is where responsive web design gets into the picture.

Evolving development languages.

Part of the solution comes from the fact that web development languages are continuously evolving. Responsive web design takes its roots in exploiting these new features. One in particular, media queries.

Media queries allow developers to identify the screen resolution a user is experiencing the website with and this allows them to offer a dedicated style-sheet. Does this sound familiar? It was the option one had in DOM scripting at a given time to serve the right style-sheets to any type of resolution. Another easy parallel is the fluid layout developers could use before the advent of the 960 pixel grid system.

What would these look like? If you’ve never heard of responsive web design then this site will be very very interesting to you: mediaqueri.es. Each site is presented in 4 layouts: optimised for mobile phones, standard tablets, standard wide-screen tablets and standard desktop computer screen. All these are dealt with CSS mediaqueries.

Against responsive web design?

Responsive web design does have its drawbacks. Building 4 style-sheets is a heck of a job. We don’t know what technology can hold for us concerning new resolutions. What about building 15 style-sheets and maintaining them one day?

In responsive web design, the images are resized by the browser itself. This is a drawback concerning performance, especially on mobile phones. CSS 3 and media queries are not yet implemented on all browsers, just like HTML5. This is also one of the obstacles to go past. The code (HTML or JS) is not optimised, hence a huge kick in performance’s teeth.

So, would you embrace responsive web design or not?

My personal view of responsive web design is that it is a huge step forward. The emerging problem of multiple screens is still new and new solutions will come round. We should however keep in mind that this solution exists and can be the opening of a new age in web designing. The problem is huge and we are all trying and testing new solutions.

Responsive web design a temporary, perfectible, answer to the problem. A new browser war is starting but standards are now paving the way. There’s still way to go but if you need hype, you’ve got it with your media queries. These can be used as deal closers but be sure to master them.

As a web user and blog reader, one is used to the fact that a comment can be left on the post that a given author (blog administrator or guest poster) has written. Most of the time, one comments on the main topic waiting for the author to respond. It usually ends up like this:

1. author writes and posts,
2. commenter reacts and comments the post,
3. author reacts to the commenter’s comment,
4. [optional]commenter reacts to author’s comment,
5. [optional]repeat steps 3 and 4 indefinitely.

What might strike us, is that in the normal configuration, no 3rd or 4th or Xth party is included. Question is, does it have to be like that?

Debate.

The idea of commenting is to create a debate, confront views or improve or complement the original post. Most of the time, only the authors reply to the comments comments posted. Now let’s be honnest, many people ignore other people’s comments. This usually makes comments stale as 3 persons out of 4 will say the same thing.

Why not debate? People seem to be afraid to respond to other people’s comments. It usually looks like people are only interacting with the author and not with the other people around. It ends up being one person yelling alone in a crowd. Just for the intellectual side of it, one can get in and debate a subject with other users.

Drive trafic.

Read all the MMO and “how-to-blog” blogs you can find. All of them will tell you to comment around the clock and the world as comments are gateways for traffic to come from other websites. Not a bad idea but does it really have an impact when your comment is lost in a stream of comments? If there is a “no other comment reading” profile, how will your comment attract attention.

On interacting with another or other commenters, these will certainly be interested in your blog or site. Some qualified traffic for you there. Each interaction with a commenter will be a gateway for the commenter to have a look at your own site or blog.

Along with that, you can visually attract attention especially if the site where you are commenting has threaded comments. The “scrolling reader” will be more inclined in trying to find out what the debate is about when s/he notices the amount of interactive comments being threaded. Now you can attract attention and effectively drive traffic!

Backlinks.

So, you are commenting for the sole reason of creating backlinks. For sure, your “Great Post! Thanks for the inspiration!” comment is not that interesting and you can drop it only once. If you’re interacting with the author, you’ll be dropping one or some more backlinks on the page. Now, why not go for the big job and throw in more backlinks, especially if the post is in your field and your scope?

If the post is destined to hit high PRs, why not maximise the link juice towards your site? One should be careful not to fall into the comment spam trap or turn into a troll. Honest, to the point and on topic comments might prevent this.

And you?

How do you comment on blogs? What drives your commenting? Do you usually reply to other people’s comments? Would you change the way you comment?

Can anyone stop them? Google is still making changes to its interface. In fact, it is testing some new features that might or might not be included in future versions of the results pages. One of these features has been published Google Operating Systems.

Look Ma, no URLS!

The finding is that Google is testing the replacement of the any site’s URL by the site’s name in the Search Engine Results Pages. Only the site name is published. In the excerpt below, only LinkedIn and Facebook are listed.

To be or not to be?

This feature has been sighted but it is not said that Google will actually remove URLs from SERPs. What this purports is that Google is trying to find a way to effectively reduce the length of URLs in the results. For the time being it has to reduce the URLs by removing part of that URL. These reductions are often made after the .tld (top level domain).

Application.

If Google needs to implement this, it has to be very careful. This might be a gateway for phishing websites and other ill intentioned websites. Now, if Google finds a way to verify large or major websites (Google +1 anyone?), it will be able to separate the good from the bad. Riccardo Perini has noticed today that a new form of URL is being shown on Google Italy today: Sitename – URL, which seems to be a better choice from Google. This might be the final version of the feature.

Impact on SEO ?

The major question remains: what is the impact on SEO? For me, it is one simple answer. Using such a feature will increase the power of keywords in domain names and site titles. If the site name bears keywords, these will be put forward in the SERPs, hence improve ranking.

If you are used to the modern website management systems, you are aware of all the possibilities given to webmasters through CMSes (Content Management Systems). Among those lies one of the best Open Source eCommerce CMSes, Magento. However, the information has been dropped by Roy Rubin some hours ago: Ebay has agreed to acquire Magento. Nothing has developers and users prepared for this but here’s how it goes.

SAAS, where the strategy begins.

Back in 2008, I was talking about the new business models that Saas and Soas were taking to new shores. This type of business model, as expected, has gained momentum over the past years and Ebay will be playong on that ground.

With the integration of MagentoGo, Ebay will be the ultimate market place offering Saas shops along with a default use of Paypal. Along with that other options can be full blown shops with commissions taken on all transactions with automatic market place diffusion such as Amazon does.

X.Commerce, online solution for offline retailers.

One of the big problems some companies are facing in terms of eCommerce is the difficulty of working online and offline while managing a host of tools. The “software” approach of the X.Commerce platform, an open platform that can offer a wide array of end-to-end services to merchants, will allow companies to leverage all these elements: pricing, payment, enterprise ressource planning, transactions… you name it.

Offline retailers will now have the possibility to go online with a clearer objective and an open mind to new technologies. This is where Ebay is really bidding for the future.

Why?

The big question! Why would Ebay invest that much? Amazon has gone market place a long time ago. Ebay still has one card to play, that of closing the door behind it so that possible competitors like Google (which is already equiped to build the ssame type of solution) can’t get into the game. Ebay wants to be the King of the Hill and Magento is the tool for this.

You might have noticed the new Google +1 button just below this site’s articles titles. Google +1 might be one of the most awaited features launched by Google these last months. In fact, Google +1 had been announced well before the Google panda update. It has major reasons to be so much sought for.

Google goes social?

Eric Schmidt himself admitted that Google missed the point when it came to social media and social interaction. A lot of interesting projects went overboard over the years. To cite some: Wave, Side Wiki, Buzz. Those projects never really caught momentum but the +1 button seems to play on another field. The Google +1 button in SERPs makes one think of some Digg-like interaction. The more you have plusses, the better you rank. Easy. These also act as one’s bookmarks, replacing the Google “star” feature, and also help to recommend pages to others. Facebook “like” anybody?

Google +1 and Google Panda.

Remember what Google’s Panda algorithm is: a way to give high quality content to users. This is where the whole thing gets serious. How would you know, for sure, which pages are really relevant and high quality when a person makes a query? Google +1! The user will be clearly saying “this result is a good one and is what I have been looking for”. Relevancy, quality and user interaction.

Tip of the iceberg.

I have said it before and am still maintaining that Google’s Panda algorithm is just the tip of the iceberg. Many major changes will be coming in its way. Google +1 being launched just 2 weeks after the Google Panda havoc seems calculated. Website owners have all the good reasons in the world to integrate that button on their websites. It is not about going social anymore but about ranking. The +1 button will soon be as popular as the Facebook “like” button if not more.

Getting paranoid over Google’s Panda Update? You might have been hit with Pandaranol. You might be wondering what Pandaranol is? It is the new disease that seems to be affecting Search Engine Optimisers all over the world the last weeks.

Origins of Pandaranol.

Pandaranol is a new disease discovered at the beginning of the 21st century. While experts coin Pandaranol with a psychologic, if not psychotic, state, physical changes have been observed. This is what pushed Pandaranol into the “disease” category.

Symptoms of Pandaranol.

As said earlier, Pandaranol is an illness primarily affecting Search Engine Optimisers and Webmasters. Known symptoms to Pandaranol include:

• FEAR,
• lack of sleep due to the Panda algorithm fluctuations,
• high level of perspiration with indexation penalties,
• frequent heartbeat skips giving the impression of dying,
• addiction to Google search (whatever the country,)
• possible lectures and posts on Pandaranol or on Google Panda.

Risks and issues of Pandaranol.

Most of the risks and issues linked to this illness reside in FEAR! Pandaranol is fuelled by fear and this leads to personal seclusion involving dark rooms and computers. Pandaranol also bears the risk of heart attacks especially when checking the Google index.

Cures to Pandaranol.

Pandaranol being so very new, no cure has yet been found. The disease is propagating rapidly around the world and many are waiting to get a headfirst hit of Pandaranol. In order to keep some sanity it is recommended to get out and have a whiff of fresh air. This is the only accepted cure to Pandaranol to this day.

Explaining Pandaranol

Many of you must think that this is 100% true or that the editor of this blog has gone berserk. Let me clear things up. The Pandaranol game is an SEO ranking game launched by SEO World Cup on a fully fictional word “Pandaranol“. You can follow the race over here.

Please do not hesitate to comment, tweet, share, like, digg or do whatever you can to help the Web Design Bureau’s entry in this game.

Mauritius is a small country. There is a lot of top notch companies here topping the African economy. These do have their corporate websites and their business is made in spheres which most of us are oblivious of. Our economy is however not only made of those companies.

What about our local business, our small companies. How can they invest the web and seo in Mauritius and have a real return on investment? What is the range of these businesses? What type of client do they target? Where are those clients and how to get them through the door while concentrating on local search ranking?

ROI and SEO for local businesses in Mauritius.

The local business needs to exist on the local web, on local searches and converting local users. It currently is the client who has had access to the site and who is ready to pay for service that will be getting the money to the local business or shop. 40% of searches have proven to be local even if the searcher doesn’t implicitly ask for them.

It is an opportunity to be smarter than the other companies. Getting ranked locally means that the company can drive really targetted traffic to itself. Local presence means that the client has more incentives to get into contact, to drop by or even order directly.

When SEO meets the business’ targets.

The proximity of the client justifies the smart turn that local SEO can provide in countries like Mauritius. Pinpointing the fact that the company is local and available best serves the goals of the business and the interests of the customer. People tend to go local when looking for hairdressers, telephone shops, clothing etc. This is where the local business needs to be present.

Topping a keyword in Google on a generic term is not the greatest of feats when being a more localised business investing in a website. Converting thousands of rupees through local search ranking is the real deal.