The Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide

In the wild west of Search Engine Optimization, the range of SEO expertise, experience, competency, ability, productivity, and (yes) humility is wide and remarkable. As the number of websites worldwide continues to soar, and Google punishes spammers and poor content sites with Panda, Penguin and other dangerous virtual beast attacks, the need for good SEO knowledge, capability and practice becomes more and more important.

The Google SEO Guide: Helping with SERP

Google has a great tool to help us achieve SEO success, and possibly reach SERP "Search Engine Nirvana" where our webpages dominate our competitors. I am happy to say that many, many of the webpages I am responsible for are thriving and in a state of "SEO bliss", happily and brutally crushing most competitor webpages for key search term rankings in organic search. But this is where objective humility becomes so important. I take nothing for granted, absolutely nothing! Today's success in SEO can be tomorrow's defeat if the steps in the Google SEO guide are not followed diligently.

The Google SEO guide won't give away top secrets which automatically rank your site first for queries in Google. This is no surprise. However, following the best practices in the guide make it easier for search engines to crawl, index and understand your website and its content.

This statement from Google SEO Guide really sums up the formula for success with SEO:

"Search engine optimization is often about making small modifications to parts of your website. When viewed individually, these changes might seem like incremental improvements, but when combined with other optimizations, they could have a noticeable impact on your site's user experience and performance in organic search results." 

In other words, successful SEO takes dedication, knowledge, skill, education, work ethic, talent, desire, patience, perseverance, objective humility and more. Make sure you and your SEO team have these key attributes in abundance. Then get going!

Download the Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.

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Young Scientist Builds a Better Search Engine

Seventeen-year-old Nicholas Schiefer is on his way to developing the next Google search engine for the social-media world. The Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award winner sits down with the WSJ to explain. This kid is obviously very intelligent, and listening to him talk about his idea reminds one of Jobs, Gates, Brin, Zuckerberg, and so many others who helped drive the highly creative and disruptive tech and internet revolution and change the world.
Be prepared for a short discussion on the Markov Chain, a mathematical system that undergoes transitions from one state to another, between a finite or countable number of possible states. Watch this space, and watch the young Mr. Nicholas Schiefer in the coming years!
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Inside a Google Search Engine Meeting - Video

Google offers a real-life glimpse into a Search Engine Meeting inside the Mountain View HQ. You might recognize some of the attendees... Matt Cutts, for example. 

Lights, Camera, SERP: Google Quality Launch Review Meeting

The meeting occurred on December 1, 2011 at a weekly Google “Quality Launch Review” meeting.
Meeting participants gathered in Mountain View and joined on videoconference from Moscow, New York, Zurich, Seoul, Haifa, Tokyo, and other locations.

Obviously, Google released this video because there are no hidden, amazing, newly revealed algorithm secrets to encourage black-hat spammers and all SEO practitioners to 'game' the system. But this is still a remarkable, if transitory, lifting of the Google curtain of secrecy. I very much enjoyed watching this..... talented Google denizens coming to life.

Why do I feel like I'm a fly on the wall of a secretive Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meeting? LOL.

A very special thanks to Brandignity for bringing this to my attention!

You can watch this Google Video at:
http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/03/video-search-quality-meeting-uncut.html

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Monitoring Kids' Usage of Social Media

Alternative Social Media Sites enjoy growth as kids try to avoid Mom on Facebook. 

Facebook has become mainstream, going way beyond its initial avant-garde college student origins. Early adoption by other young adults was then followed by teenagers and tweeners. But now with Mom and Grandma busy posting updates, photos and playing Farmville on Facebook, the 'cool' appeal has worn off for these younger demographics... Facebook has become way too inclusive for their tastes... they don't want parents and other relatives or older adults see them doing or posting things which can get them into trouble. This short video from WSJ helps explain the current trends in tweener and teenager social media usage. Learn more at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303916904577377813269480788.html

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