google

Sarah Worsham / Jul 15, 2009

Don't We Have More Important Things to Regulate Other Than SEO & Google?

falloutieatedacookie Recently there was a call for the government to regulate Google in terms of how the search engine displays results. The anonymous author of the post called for transparency in terms of how Google’s algorithm works. Reading the post, I became convinced that the author’s company had recently had some type of run-in with Google – which probably means they did something that was against Google’s TOS. Just like any 5-year old that gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar, our anonymous author has started to throw a temper tantrum and scream “It’s not fair!”

Aaron Worsham / Feb 13, 2009

Is your brand 'Google Safe'?

There is a term we used to throw around the publishing desks back in the day. If we had a new branded product or publication we wanted to create, the first bullet point on the ToDo list was to find out if the name it was ‘Google Safe’. For us, ‘Google Safe’ meant the term or name or phrase or tagline was light on targeted search results in Google and was available for someone to make their own. I use the quotes there because, unaware at the time, Google was branding its own line of services and calling them Google Safe Browsing (who knew). The term stuck in my head since and I’m not sure what the the kids are calling it today but at least the concept is alive and well. The CEO of a web startup that will intentionally mispell an english word as their brand to find a niche in a crowded search market, that’s a woman who enjoys the path less chosen.

Good online branding is getting difficult. It has to be memorable, short, representative if possible, and it has to be somewhat available on Google. I was sitting down just today thinking of a good product name when I came up with some guidelines that at least helped.

Pick one word that speaks to your product, lets say Community, and another word that neither adds nor distracts from the first word. CommunityOne, CommunityPrime, CommunityNow
Prefix words like colors are easy to remember and can give your name a little separation from the pack. Sure you could call your wireless mini networking technology ‘tooth’ but ‘Bluetooth’ is so much cooler and more unique.
Locations make good Google Safe additions to names. Your town, your county, your street, your state can all help you find a unique name for your business that is easy to remember and representative as well
Numbers are popular with the online community. 37siganls, 43folders, 30helens.
So are strange animal combinations. RazorFrog, GlassFish, FireFox. Entire product releases for Ubuntu are renamed with an allerating combination of Adjective and Animal name: Gutsy Gibbon, Intrepid Ibex, Hardy Heron.
Of course, would be remise if I didn’t mention the trend Apple foisted upon us. Take a word, slap on a lower case letter in front, surround with rounded corners. iPod, iTouch, iMac, iGotNothing

I’m sure you can come up with better suggestions of how to pick the next great name.

Photo attributed to audreyjm529

Technorati tags: strategy, marketing, google, google safe, search engine optimization, seo, search engine marketing, sem

Sarah Worsham / Jul 10, 2008

Google Shares Their Ranking Philosophy

Google shares their ranking philosophy, which is used in many of their products, including News, Images, YouTube, Maps, and, of course, Search. Their philosophy breaks down to:

1) Best locally relevant results served globally.
2) Keep it simple.
3) No manual intervention.

– Official Google Blog: Introduction to Google Ranking

What does this mean for your business website?

Best locally relevant results – if you have a small local business you are still very much in the running for search results to people within your area. Your company does not need expensive nationwide advertising or reach to still be relevant in Google’s eyes.

Google may change their algorithm which may change the ranking of your website in their search results. However, they are not manually removing you from searches unless you violate their terms of service. Most importantly, keep it simple, implies that having good content that is of value to your customers will get you further than just relying on SEO tricks.

I still believe content is king. If you have information that your customers want (remember to listen to them), they will come.

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