The Title tag is considered to be the most important on-page element of search engine optimization. Most search engines assign maximum value to the Title tag when determining what sites to index, since the Title tag is what usually shows up for the title of your listing in search results.

Having customized Title tags for every page of the website is an essential part of successful optimization

• Personalize each title tag for each page of your site if you would like your web pages to rank high in the SERPs. Ensure that the title tag references what the page is actually about.
  Place your most optimized keyword phrases at the beginning of the title tag; so that there is no fear of the phrases getting cut off due to character restrictions from the search engines.
  •Make your Title relevant and appropriate to what your site’s focus is, making sure that it’s a readable title that will appeal to viewers and the Search engines.
  • If you are targeting specific geographic locations, put the geographical location in your title tag. Ensure that you do not stuff the Title tags with too many localizations and or key terms to avoid being penalized for spam.

The goal of any business’ website is to increase leads and conversions, in order to be successful the site needs to be on the top pages of the major Search engines and therefore needs to be both viewer and search-engine friendly. Redesigning your website can be an effective way of repositioning your brand, or changing public perceptions of your company.
However, redesigning a site without keeping in mind the search engine aspect can cause a negative impact on your SE results. It is therefore imperative to include your optimization specialists in the initial discussions about the redesign so that the changes that come about in the redesign do not cause your site to lose any of it’s existing “equity” .

As the new site is designed, the site architecture, content, internal links, navigation and meta data should be taken into consideration. The impact of external links should be considered as well so redirects that are both user and search engine friendly can be planned. It is important to keep the site content rich and design it in a way that the SE spidrers can crawl important information about the business. A site redesign or change in content management system may need a migration plan to ensure a smooth transition of existing categories, link URLs and anchor text. If the site changes URLs, 301 redirects must be put in place. Making sure that the redesigned site has an updated HTML and XML site map can help search engines find and crawl new content.

When there are major changes to a web site’s design, content and URL structure, there will be some effect on the search engine visibility of a site, However, if the fundamental elements are taken care of, one can greatly minimize any negative effects and have an appealing new site that stays on the first page of the search engines.

In 2007 Google began displaying “Universal Search” results . This was a big change in the way search results were delivered to viewers and it affected all web site owners that depend on Google traffic for their business.

What is Universal Search and why does it matter?
In the past, when a search term was entered into Google’s search field, the SE returned the web sites that best matched the query. So a particular site competed only with the other web sites vying for placement with the same keywords.
With the introduction of Universal Search, Google began displaying results that included other digital content such as video, images, news, books and blogs. Now the competition for valuable first page real estate grew much more fierce as websites not only had to compete with other web sites but also with digital media of all types.
Since Universal Search was introduced websites have a broader and more competitive playing field. To be successful with Universal Search, website owners need to broaden their reach to viewers using digital media such as Images, Video ( YouTube) , News ( Press Releases) , Social Media ( Facebook, Twitter) and Google Maps.
In the new era of Universal Search, business need to be proactive in using these opportunities to stay ahead of the competition.

Is Matt Cutts the Google Santa? Inquiring minds want to know.

It’s that time of year when Google Santa is checking his list of the naughty and nice SEO boys and girls. The elves in Mountain View are beta testing the sleigh, giving the reindeer their fat holiday bonuses, and My Mapping an international flight plan to deliver his special brand of Google magic to IP addresses worldwide. And SEO boys and girls around the world are all busy composing their emails and help forum wish list posts asking Google Santa for Android smart phones, slick new search engine features and, of course, ponies.

Here’s the wish list the White Hat, Black Belt ninjas sent to Google Santa. You can rest assured we’ll be leaving cookies and link juice next to the chimney. We believe in Google Santa! You’re never too old! Yes, Virginia Nussey, there is a Google Santa!

(That may have been a little too much fun to write.)

Dear Google Santa,

The ninjas at White Hat, Black Belt have been good little white hat SEOs this year, and we have a few special things we’d like to see under the tree this year.

Becky would like the ability to add multiple administrators to a Google Places account to make profile management easier, and for profiles we claim to be displayed the same way the form is completed. Basically, Google Santa, she wants Google to trust her when she says that this is the URL, and these are the categories and such instead of thinking it knows better than she does and overriding her edits when everything is well within the published guidelines.

Patti would love a quick break down of the items that factor into the Google algorithm, complete with ratios, examples, and if it could update automatically like Caffeine, that would be wonderful. However, Google Santa, she’s well aware that this is tantamount to asking for a ’54 convertible in light blue, so maybe, just maybe, Google Santa could bring her a free could-based database system that mimics the database available with the MS Office Suite. It would make the Google Docs Suite so perfect and robust that she promises she’d never stray. Probably.

John, playing the little SEO brother, would like to mimic Becky’s request that Places accounts become easier to manage. John’s real problem is multiple accounts that are created for a single Place listing through online yellow pages, scammers trying to pushover our clients, or other listing sites that generate duplicate Google accounts. Google Santa tells me that I shouldn’t have multiple listings, and yet removing listings that you didn’t create is near impossible! Like Becky said, it’s a matter of Google “knowing” when to merge accounts, and then outright denying my request for the very same thing using their “report a problem”. If that’s not possible, Google Santa, then I’ll take the six billion dollars that Groupon turned down from you.

It came to my attention this morning when trying to conduct some research on a client’s rankings that Google appears to have removed the “View customizations” option from its result pages. Here’s an image of what it used to look like:

Image from SEO-e Blog by SEO Advantage

(Full disclosure: I lifted that image from SEO-e’s post about turning off personalized search since I can’t do a retroactive screen grab. Attribution and some effusive gushing about how much I loved the post enough to bookmark it will have to serve as my plea for mercy should anyone over there be upset with me for it.)

From that “View customizations” link we used to be able to see unfiltered results – really handy stuff when trying to counter the effect of personalized search to see where your client really ranks.

And then today, there was no nifty “View customizations” link. There was only this:

No bottom search bar, no “View customizations” link! “Search within results” has also gone AWOL. We’ve checked this on several computers around the office, and all have the same missing elements, though ninja Patti reported getting a bottom search box and the “Search within results” option when Google Instant is turned off. She contributed this screenshot:

We were able to duplicate this across computers across three different locations in two states, so it appears to be a system-wide change.

To summarize:

• The bottom search box and “Search within results” options disappear when Google Instant is on.
• “View customizations” is gone entirely.

I’m less upset about the bottom search box than the “view customizations” option being gone. It was nice to have some kind of neutral ground on which to view raw, unfiltered results. Maybe Google thought this view provided a little too much insight into the personalization algo?

What does SERP mean?

The search engine results pages, usually referred to as SERPs, are the listed web pages that are returned when a user types a query in the search engines.

What are “Organic” SEO Results?

When a user types in a query, a page is returned with results that include paid or sponsored results and the non-sponsored or “Organic” results which are the unpaid, algorithm-driven results of any particular search engine.
First page Organic Results are more challenging to achieve as your website needs to fulfil a number of criteria set in place by the Search Engine in order . It requires a consistent efforts to keep your site one step ahead of competition by using the best White Hat SEO techniques so that you get a high placement on the Organic results and stay there for a long time.
Research has shown that viewers tend to trust “Organic ” results more than Paid results and that the higher you are on the list , the better the chances are that your site will generate leads for your business.

It is a well known fact that Google changes its algorithm a lot. They have changed it over 500 times this year alone. Usually those changes are pretty small and will only be noticed by the most scrupulous of eyes.

More recently, Google has been experimenting with larger changes. Some of the highlights from the recent months include:

• Caffeine
• MayDay
• Tags for your Places listing
• MayDay: The Comeback
• Google Instant
• Google Boost
• Google Blended Search
• And the one we’re talking about today: Google Previews

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We’ve been watching Google test integrated Places search results for a month or two now, and today they began rolling it out systemwide. What has changed and what does it mean for you and your business? In this post, I’ll walk through some of the changes and their implications.

Your search results look different.

And actually, they don’t just look different – they really are different results. Take a look at a before shot from the Do’s and Don’ts article we posted last week.

Before today’s rollout, search results were broken into three distinct and separate areas: Local (pictured above), Organic (the ten results below the map) and Sponsored (PPC above the map and along the right hand side of the page). Local and Organic each had their own unique algorithms to serve up results. There were anywhere from 10 to 17 non-paid search results on the first page for any given search query.

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The Google Sandbox has been described as a filter that acts as a de facto probation for new sites, keeping rankings low (for the most important key terms being targeted by that site) despite good Google PageRank, authoritative links, and good optimization practices. It has the effect of keeping new sites lower than expected in searches, prior to giving them full value for content, inbound links and user friendly elements.
While all types of sites can be placed in the Sandbox, the problem appears much more frequently for new websites seeking rankings for highly competitive keyword phrases. There have also been cases where new sites have started ranking well in a very short time, but this seems to be more the exception than the rule.

The Sandbox effect was first noticed in early 2004, it is thought that Google created the Sandbox to prevent spammy sites from immediately ranking highly for their keywords using black hat techniques. Not everyone agrees that the Google Sandbox exists, some webmasters and optimizers believe that the phenomenon merely echoes an already existing Google algorithm, and the Sandbox effect is an illusion.

The Sandbox effect is said to vary from one to six months, with three to four months being the normal time frame. As the only way out of the Sandbox is earning Google’s trust through time, optimizers should continue to work on on-page and off-page strategies for the site such as adding new keyword rich content and quality incoming links, checking on metatags and updating the sitemap. Purchasing existing domains and steadily adding inbound links and content is also supposed to help new sites move out of the Sandbox
faster and gain higher page ranking more quickly.

As a Webmaster / Optimizer one of the most important points to keep in mind while using SEO techniques to gain high rankings on Google is to always follow their guidelines and to always watch out for any inadvertant violations which can result in Google “Blacklisting” your site.
Blacklisting can result in your site being completely dropped from the Google search result pages. Since most potential clients use Google for online searches, this can result in a drastic drop in your traffic which can have a detrimental effect on the business generated by the website.

What can cause your site to get Blacklisted?

Google has some of the most stringent guidelines which they lay out pretty clearly on WebMaster Central.
Any of the following tactics could get your site Blacklisted:
1) Creating deceptive or misleading content, such as doorway pages or ‘throwaway’ domains.
2) Having spam on your site.
3) Having excessive links (more than 100) on your webpages.
4) Registering a domain using a common misspelling of a well-known company or site.
5) Link cloaking and redirects.
6) Link building schemes.
7) Involving your site in phishing schemes, viruses, and other malware or association with an affiliate program that does not provide unique and relevant content.

What can you Do About It

Check your site for any obvious violation of Google’s policies.
Check files and links for signs of infection. Take necessary steps to rectify any problems.
Go to Google Webmaster Tools and ensure your site is included in your account and verified.
Request Google to review your site, state that you have taken the necessary steps to bring your site upto speed with their guidelines. Request a re-inclusion .
It can take some itime for Google to review your site and re-include it in their index, as there is no way to speed up the process , you’ll need to keep monitoring the search results regularly.

In the end, it’s best to always use only White Hat techniques and follow guidelines , the problems you are likely to face as the result of being Blacklisted by Google simply aren’t worth the risk of using Black Hat SEO.