Below are some highlights of the data from Nielsen Wire’s November article, as well as a comparison of October’s and November’s numbers.

But while Experian Hitwise reported that Google’s and Yahoo’s percentages fell, and Bing’s search share increased, Nielsen tells a story that’s a bit different. Google gained 2% , and it was Yahoo and Bing that each lost a point.

Shannon
New Media & SEO Specialist, Copywriter
http://www.facebook.com/keywebconcepts
http://twitter.com/keywebconcepts

In the month of October, Google was the clear winner, accounting for close to 71% of all searches in the States.  Yahoo was next at 16.14%, and Bing received 9.57% of searches.

Also according to the article, Google’s and Yahoo’s search share dropped slightly from September to October, each losing about 1%.  Bing’s searches, however, grew about 7%.

What do you think – will Google’s dominance in search ever end? Will Bing ever pose a bigger threat to Google?

Shannon
New Media & SEO Specialist, Copywriter
http://www.facebook.com/keywebconcepts
http://twitter.com/keywebconcepts

What initially started as excitement… soon became pure embarrassment… to the point that they removed the web address from their advertising. But please note this.. Design is NOT EVERYTHING! I have seen some beautiful websites built by some very talented graphic designers. These websites usually open up with rich colors, flash animation, music, ALL the bells and whistles. They make you say WOW…… but… how did you find them? If you found them on the first page of a search engine, Congratulations… you have found a REAL Website Designer who KNOWS what he/she is doing. But this is a rare occurrence. Often times the nicest looking websites can’t be found anywhere on the search engines. The client usually paid a hefty price for a nice looking site.. but where did it get them? Not much further than they were before. Building a beautiful website that nobody can find unless you tell them where to go is like paying thousands of dollars for a Beautiful Billboard, and then sticking it in the middle of a field on a farm in the country. What good is it for your business if nobody sees it without you telling them where to look. Let’s look at the main goals of owning a website:

1. Company Validation: A company that has a well designed website looks credible. People are more likely to use a company that has established a web presence.
2. Information: You can say more about you and your Products/Services through a website than you could EVER say in an advertisement or sales pitch. And it conveys this info in a non threatening way! People can read about your services on their time schedule.
3. Introduction: Thousands of people everyday go to search engines like Google, MSN and YAHOO every day to search for products and services… and they are immediately introduced to companies that have the products and services they are looking for through the company websites. Who wouldn’t want to be introduced to people LOOKING for products/services that they provide!
4. Make Money: E commerce has revolutionized the world economy. Look how many companies are now able to market and actually sell their products online, limiting the need for a sales staff and accounting department. Everything but the shipping is automated… (and they may be soon too).
5. Save Money: A website can drastically limit the number of phone calls your company receives by simply answering the client’s questions through a website. Think of the money that would be saved each day if your company were to reduce your incoming customer questions simply by 50%.

Key Web Concepts does not claim to be the BEST website design company out there… but we can promise you that we are better than most, and can build a website that will “WORK for your business!”.. and can do it for a lot less then you might think! Please feel free to check out my website and some of my client’s sites and contact me for a FREE consultation at your convenience!

Jim

Short for search engine optimization, the process of increasing the amount of visitors to a Web site by ranking high in the search results of a search engine. The higher a Web site ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance that that site will be visited by a user. It is common practice for Internet users to not click through pages and pages of search results, so where a site ranks in a search is essential for directing more traffic toward the site.

SEO helps to ensure that a site is accessible to a search engine and improves the chances that the site will be found by the search engine.

How do Search Engines Rank Sites?

A search engine sends a “spider” (AKA “bot”) to crawl… the servers on the world wide web to find documents to bring back to its index or database. In the index, it filters documents according to the search engine’s rules (such as, to weed out duplicates) and stores those which meet its quality criteria.

When a searcher makes a request, the search engine evaluates the sites in its storehouse of indexed sites, assessing which are the most relevant to the requested information, based on area of expertise as evidenced by keywords in content, and references in the form of links from authoritative sites. Note that the links that count with search engines are the ones pointing to your site. Each search engine has it’s own set of rules that govern which sites rank higher (their “algorithm”). Some, like Google, change from time to time to continually improve the process and to make sure sites are keeping their sites “Fresh” with their Search engine optimization.

How Does SEO Help?

Search Engine Optimization clears and maintains a path for search engines in four ways:

1. Addressing the limitations of the “bots” with crawler-friendly site design, as well as addressing indexing filter issues. Proper site design and critical code elements are ESSENTIAL for a site to perform well.
2. Making the site accessible to searchers by identifying keywords most used by the target audience and writing the keywords — sensibly — into the text of the website.
3. Attracting inbound links from authoritative sites and targeting those links to searchers’ interests.
4. Analyzing visitor activity on the site — human and “bot” – to look for ways to improve the search experience for both.

When you do this right, you help the search engines do a better job providing their visitors the information they seek, and they display your site to the visitors you seek. Everybody wins.

“Google really does want to encourage appropriate SEO; we want to help you rank better if you follow our guidelines,” said Matt Cutts, Google’s senior software engineer on a radio interview last month. You’ll find those guidelines at http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html .

Why Is SEO Important to Your Site?

In the “everybody-knows-that” department, studies reveal that 70% of searchers click on natural or organic listings. But with Google, that jumps to 87%. Nearly 50% of all searches are done on Google — more than half, if you add in AOL, which displays Google search results. So, do the math. Of 1000 searchers, 555 (55.5%) will use Google or AOL, and 483 (87%) of these will click on links that are not “sponsored”. Of the remaining 445 non-Google searchers, 311 (70%) will choose organic listings over paid. Altogether that’s 794 out of 1000 searchers! Who wants to pass up that many visitors? What’s more, research last year showed that 60% of searchers click on one of the top three organic listings if it interests them. (Just how to capture their interest, well that’s a topic for another time.)

There you have it. Search engine optimization to get some of those top rankings is vital to website success. Fortunately, successful SEO rests on following through on some basic principles for your site. If you haven’t begun SEO already, now’s the time to begin.

Feel free to give me a call if you have any more questions or if you want to improve your SEO for your site.

~ Jim