The improved listings enable business owners to lay emphasis on a feature of their Local Business Center listing – which they perceive as an excellent offer for their customers. Those who own businesses can opt to improve the manner of the appearance of their listings in search results; they can achieve this by incorporating a link that customers can follow directly to their website, videos, photos, directions, coupons, reservations signup or menu. For instance, if someone who owns a deli, perceives that the large assortment of imported cheeses actually distinguishes her deli, it will be wise to give prospective customers a fast way to view the menu on the business website. Such deli owner may rather link a prospect to a photo on the display case. Consumers who explore this applicable information will find it easier to make decision as a result of the information they accessed.

The enhanced business listings discussed above are simple and clear-cut techniques for businesses to highlight information that could be already be existing on their websites or Place Pages, and to link with keen, locally-based prospective clients or customers. At the time your listing is displayed in your Google.com search results, the improvement will also show up along side with it. The improvements do not negatively impact the ranking of the LBC listings; undoubtedly, we point out the aspects of the search result that are sponsored.

It is anticipated that this feature will be quite helpful to those who own businesses as well as users. To this effect, a close monitoring has begun on this feature and necessary changes will be put in place soon. Depending on the first results, it can be extended to more areas.

The Meaning of Breadcrumbs

This is a term used for referring to the hierarchy of site navigation links put up in a progressive order, for more detailed specifications as well as for gaining more links and hence an increased possibility for sales. Of late, Google has been showing breadcrumbs on its search result pages, for some websites.

Significance of Breadcrumbs for Your Website

Of course, if Google shows breadcrumbs for your website, it means that you essentially possess additional links on the Google’s result page. There is a link attached to each page in the breadcrumbs line.

When your online site is listed alongside the breadcrumbs in the results, there is a higher possibility that the web surfer will get directed to the specific page on your website; this guarantees more sales.

Techniques for displaying Breadcrumbs on Google’s Result Pages

Those who desire that Google displays breadcrumbs for their websites will necessarily have to make a preparation for it by using bread crump navigation on the pages of their websites. This also implies that you must have a group of enclosed links on your website, and these links must show your website hierarchy.

It appears that Google is still having breadcrumbs under the testing phase. Based on the matter related to delimiters that are best suited for breadcrumb navigation, suggestions are that links could be delimited with these symbols:

1. >

2. - (hyphen)

3. »

However, since all the instances on Google pages use the greater sign as the delimiter, it is suggestive that the > symbol is the best to go with.

Based on the size of your website, it would be a wise decision to use breadcrumbs. This makes it quite easy for visitors to move around your website and also for them not to forget where they are on your website. Bear in mind that breadcrumbs are not just sufficient enough to get you listed in Google’s search results. It is also necessary to include suitable keywords on your website and to gather enough quality inbound links.

Real-time search launched in Japan and Russia

An instance of the rising importance of real-time search is the recently experienced earthquake in California. Real-time content was seen in search results just a few seconds following the quake. Hence, extending this functionality to other parts of the world has assumed greater importance. Real-time search was launched recently with the introduction of Russian and Japanese. This functionality will be globally circulated and more countries will be included in its ambit.

Real-time and MySpace

Speaking about real-time news, MySpace content has been recently added to the Google real-time search. At the moment, you can take advantage of the collection of news, blog posts as well as photos that MySpace users have opted to publish to the entire globe. All the updates are categorized to show the most applicable newest results, of which many are merely few seconds old.

Generally, real-time search is made up of over one billion documents and processes millions of changes on a daily basis. Google has said that it is quite an honor on their side to offer this enhancement as an ever useful tool. To locate the MySpace updates in Google’s real-time mode, you will have to click on the show options, and subsequently click updates.

MySpace: Example Search

As a result of feedback from users and webmasters, the site has been greatly enhanced for better images search. In essence, the operator for Google image search has been greatly enhanced. Earlier, the operator filtering was based on the image URL – rather than the URL of web pages linking to the images. Presently, the operator will process your search across websites that include images, regardless of where the images are hosted. This eliminates much noise from your results and offers you better control over the item you are searching for.

Developments that help you search about the latest events

It is quite obvious that you are very keen in getting more information about the latest events. So are the entire global communities. High flow of search traffic has greatly risen as individuals from every location watch for latest news on the hottest event of the day. You can explore Google Trends to view what is of utmost interest at the given moment.

What impact does this have on the position of your web pages in Google’s search results?

Impact of Synonyms on Google Rankings

Google has been constantly striving hard to show the best results for your search; to this end, it is very essential that Google’s algorithm recognizes the terms that are used in the search query. The crucial aspect of understanding the words is to recognize the synonyms.

Synonyms are words that are similar in meaning; for instance, ‘films’ is the synonym for ‘movies’. Those who are searching for ‘Tom Cruise films’ could possibly be also concerned with web pages that have the words ‘Tom Cruise movies’. The issue here is that some words can mean several things. The word ‘case’ can mean about five different things such as container, instance etc. For example, the term “glass box” can mean “glass case”; however, the box in “O.J Simpson box” is not synonymous to case. Google’s findings reveal that synonyms affect over 69% of web surfers’ searches across the over 100 languages that Google supports.

The change that has taken place

Google has enhanced the methodology used to identify synonyms. Their algorithm can now get about 20 possible meanings of a term such as “GM”. Google detects synonyms for the term “GM” to have other meanings such as George Mason, Gunners Mate, General Motors etc.

Google has also modified the manner in which synonyms are displayed. Search terms and their synonyms are showed in boldface in the search results. Also, the Web pages that have synonyms of the searched word are shown in the search results.

Is there any need of varying your web pages?

If your website has been optimized previously, it will be needless to change anything. Here are some reminders for you;

• Think of other possible words that others may use to describe your product rather than using the technical terms used in your business. For instance, do not only use “abodominoplasty”, also use “tummy tuck”. With reliable and readily available keyword research tools, you can find the best suited keyterms for your website.

• Get your various website pages optimized for different keywords; a well optimized website stands a better chance; it is a good idea to have a particular web page highly optimized for one keyphrase instead of relating to multiple keywords.

• Avoid stuffing one page with keyphrases; the fixing-in of keywords should be done to naturally fit in the content of your web page. Search for top 10 optimizers and they will assist you in discovering the exact place on your website where you ought to be using the keywords. Using different words or terms, the web surfing mass can find out the same thing on the web. Vary the ways and words you use in talking about your website and have a good number of your website pages well optimized.

How to reach the top and maintain your position

Webmasters can follow the below given tips to get their websites on top of the search engine results. These are the principles that can help achieve easy-indexing of your website by the search engines.

• If your website is equipped with META tags, inbound links and alternate texts on the images, then it can actually help your website achieve a rank that is quite high in the search engine results.
• The content of your website is also very crucial for ranking high on the search engine. The content should be highly optimized and unique. The selection of right keywords for the content of the website is also very important. Target the proper keywords for better results. More often than not, people use unrelated keywords or, dump the website with so many keywords that the content becomes irrelevant and the website loses its ranking.

How search engines rank the websites

The search engine crawlers or robots rank any website on two major factors. Although there are many ingrained intricacies involved in the ranking process, on a broad perspective there are two ways of tracking a website:

• The most common and popular means of tracking a website and ranking it depends upon its links. Both the inbound and outbound links are important. But the inbound links play a more important role. You can get quality inbound links if you go for Search Engine Submissions, Directory Submissions, Press Release Distribution, Blogs and Article Submissions. The quality inbound links from better or more reputed websites will increase the ranking of your website also.
• Content based tracking is the other method of ranking any website. Though it is a complex way of tracking, yet you must know that it depends on the META Tags. The uniqueness of the content as well as relevant use of keywords can also increase the indexing of the website.
• Beside these, the online modes of advertisement like banner ad placement, paid links and submissions and marketing through social media can also increase the ranking of your website.

Whatever be the method used, your prime aim should be to take your website to the top of the search engine results through legitimate and honest means. Once your website is on the top of the search engine results, you can be rest assured of getting extensive business and profit.

In simple terms, Googles real time results display the latest and most sought after links of network communities, for a particular keyword search. It is placed at the bottom of the search page.

Simple procedures that get your site references into Google’s real-time results

Although Google has not yet disclosed the criteria for choosing your tweet on real-time results, the below given factors do influence this process.

1. Do not post contents that look like spam because Google scrutinizes the quality of contents posted on your blog post, tweet, etc.
2. If a twitter assumes high authority and attains huge fan following, Google appears to create profiles of real-time results for such users that are re-tweeted.
3. Quite interestingly, it has been found that Google identifies spammers by the quality of their messages as well as the followers.

Data so collected will be used by Google to evaluate an “Update Rank” for each user.

Invest quality time in Google’s real-time results

The real-time results that Google displays has a few problems. It does not appear for all search terms and quickly replaces one result with another. This characteristic feature doesn’t allow for lasting real-time results on Google. It is hence a better and wiser option to invest time and money on getting to the top of regular Google search results. The higher you rank on Google’s regular search results, the more will be your website’s targeted visitors. This helps increase your revenue.

Honest is the best policy

The real-time results does enhance Google’s portfolio, but it seems to be problematic in the long run. It is quite unlikely that high authority posters will sell links in their tweets. A stark reality is that, the veracity of a posted message cannot be ascertained by Google on time. The recent report of the death of actress Natalie Portman on Google real-time results is a glaring example of the damaging effects of displaying wrong information. When it comes to business, the damage could be multi-fold.

Make honest effort to be found in a natural way to your social media posts. Cheating the system could get you blacklisted. Add keywords that converge targeted visitors to your site. Offer interesting and fresh content on your website every week so that people talk and tweet about it. This will ensure that you get to the Top 10 results of Google’s search pages.

The changes that will be brought to Google’s next index – Google Caffeine

The expected changes that will affect the ranking of websites include:

• The speed of the website : The speed with which a website loads will play a vital role in determining its ranking on a search engine. The websites which take longer to load will be left behind by websites that open quickly. With high speed comes higher Google ranking.
• Bad links : If the website has too many broken links or links from spammers then it is bound to have a lower ranking. These two factors will be major yardsticks in the ranking process. A bad neighborhood or too many known spammer links can actually have negative impact on the search engine.
• Quality does matter : The Google Caffeine will rank a webpage according to its quality of content. The content should be highly optimized and the navigation of the website must be easy with good inbound links.
• Social bookmarking : Social bookmarks will also have a positive impact on the ranking of the websites. If the website has more social bookmarks, then it is assured to attain a higher rank on the search engines.

What you can do for a higher ranking of your website on Google Caffeine

Knowing that there might be changes in the ranking criteria for the websites when Google Caffeine is released, the following tips can undoubtedly put your website on top of the search engines.

• Spam free website : Make sure that your website doesn’t contain any spam and in case there is any spammer website that puts its link on your page, remove it at the earliest. Ensure that nothing on your website represents a spam like camouflaged text or image links etc.
• Website design : Design of your website becomes significant with the Google Caffeine. Make sure that the font color of the text matter stands out clearly from the background. The website should avoid having fully automated linking systems as it may be considered as spam and could lead the way to losing your ranking.
• Easy navigation : Your website should have easy parsing by the search engine spiders so as to make the navigation easy and clear. This will help the website in achieving a better ranking.
• Inbound links : Link building will continue to remain important even after the Google Caffeine is introduced. You must therefore focus on quality links that will improve the ranking of your website. Getting good links from social networking sites will increase the page rank of any website and hence you must focus on that.

Some of the best ways to get good links to your website

There are very crucial features that need be addressed while building links to your website.

Your website should be your brand ambassador. You have to constantly maintain the high quality, which in turn will invite quality links to your site.

Advertise your website as much as you can through press releases, product reviews, blogs, etc. This will make your website visible to maximum people. You can also participate in the live chats at appropriate forums. Once your website is recognized by people, they will link their site to yours.

The social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook can contribute a lot in connecting to the prospective buyers. Therefore, it is important to link your websites with social networking sites. Another good way is to have links of your website in your social networking profile.

A blog or forum on your website can increase your visibility and recognition in the relevant section. You can also publish your expert views and suggestions about your niche market and industry which will increase your links.

What is to be avoided

The first and foremost thing is that your website should not try and cheat the search engines. Don’t allow any suspicious data or information on your website.

Never go to automated link providers or link farms to get links to your website. Your website may get penalized for link manipulation.

Never get unrelated links or blog to your website. The unnecessary and unrelated blog comments and links will not help you in ay way. It will instead, lower your website ranking.

If you get too many links in a short span of time, your website will come under the search engine filters. Paid links or links from the spammers are to be avoided at any cost. Don’t let any spammer link to your site and do not ever put your link on any spammer’s website.

Paying attention to these few tips will get quality links to your website and will assist in climbing up the rungs of search engine rankings. Reciprocal link building may be the best option where you and your rival or competitor web-owners can exchange your links for more traffic.

Effectively using Google AdWords with the right settings for the right campaigns will undoubtedly ensure that your costs are reduced and sales are increased.

Relevance of the Long Tail Keywords

Long tail keywords consist of 4 or more words and are of a very specific nature. Studies have proved that the conversion rate of long tail keywords is higher than that of single word keywords.

Based on the recently conducted Hitwise study, it has been found that more than 18% of the searches contain five or more keywords.

Google has also confirmed that 20% of the queries received everyday on Google are either unique ones or are probably seen once in 90 days.

With improper Long Tail Keywords, you could end up spending more

Including all possible keywords in a campaign is not an easy task. A helpful and great option as recommended by Google would be to use a broad match for all of your keywords. A broad match keyword exploits unexpected, but relevant queries. Your advertisement thus appears not only with phrases containing your keywords and exact spelling, but also with keyword expansions that include synonyms, singular/plural forms and relevant variants of your keywords.

However, proper usage of a broad match is easier said than done. This is because of the countless unrelated searches that results due to the use of a broad match. You could end up paying more and getting meager returns. For example, if you have a product named “Cobra”, the word cobra would be used for searches related to the reptile variants of cobra, the vintage car or the body spray with similar name.

Enhance your conversion rate with Negative keywords

Negative keywords are included in Google AdWords campaigns to bypass searches containing these words. Your AdWords advertisement is not displayed if the negative keyword is present in a long tail keyword.

If for example, you include “-free” as a negative keyword in the Google AdWords campaigns, your advertisement is not displayed to those who are searching for free offers. This provides direction to your advertisements.

Negative keywords are also used to target advertisements at specific groups. An insurance broker could include “book” and “books” as negative keywords in his Google AdWords campaigns so as to avoid people who are searching for insurance based books.

It is hence quite essentially required that a well thought out broad match warrants the use of negative keywords, so as to could help attract potential customers. Negative keywords also wards off unwanted traffic and hence reduces the payments you would have had to make.

Google’s take on Twitter and Facebook

The SEO expert from Google Matt Cutts has explained the views of Google for accepting links from Twitter and Facebook. He says that Google doesn’t distinguish between the links from social networking platforms and other website. It rates all the links equally. Google believes that any link is good as long as it is creating traffic and the source is not very important. The reputability and the popularity of the link source matters more than the source itself. As Twitter and Facebook have immense fan following, any link from those places is bound to bring in traffic. The links from Facebook and Twitter are trustworthy and they will mostly not be a part of any link spam. The links from these two sources are treated exactly as Google would treat any other link from Wordpress, .gov or.edu sources.

Links from social networking platforms are different

The links that are received from the social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook may be treated at par with the links from other academic or government websites but there are some differences among these sites which should be kept in mind:

•  The social networking sites have profiles listed in them, many of which are not public. These private profiles can be visited and seen by only friends of the profile creator. Google can’t crawl these profiles and as such can’t assign PageRank to it. It needs to see the outgoing links to rank the page. Therefore, it is not possible to link the private profiles. As more than half of the profiles are non public, link building is a very cumbersome process and tough on Facebook.

•  Twitter has links but those links are no-follow links so there is not much profit from these links as they can’t influence the target link’s ranking in any search engine. Twitter has done this to avoid unnecessary links and search engine span. Due to the no-follow attribute, the links can’t be back linked and they become useless or void.

Though the links from Twitter and Facebook are rated highly by Google, yet they are not very suitable or conducive for link building and page ranking purposes. These links can be treated as educative links without profit.