The Comscore Search Market Rankings data for the US in March had few surprises:

Google Sites led the U.S. core search market in March with 65.1 percent of the searches conducted, followed by Yahoo! Sites (16.9 percent), and Microsoft Sites (11.7 percent). Ask Network captured 3.8 percent of the search market, followed by AOL LLC with 2.5 percent.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was something we rarely think about and that was the rate of growth  of searches as shown in the following table.

Yes search is growing at seven percent between the two months.  Facebook has a remarkable growth but that is only part of the growth that all the search engines are seeing.

It may well be that a disproportionate part of this growth is coming from the mobile web.  After all Google has now adopted as a slogan, Mobile First.

That explains why Google is now putting much more emphasis on this sector.  As a signal of this, it is now renaming the Google Local Business Center and making it part of Google Places.

One out of five searches on Google are related to location, and we want to make sure that businesses are able to be found and put their best foot forward. We’re excited to announce Google Places today, as it’s just the beginning of what’s to come from our efforts to make Google more local.

Google is also offering customized QR codes that are unique to an individual business and can be placed on business cards or other marketing materials.  Customers can scan them with certain smart phones to be taken directly to the mobile version of the Place Page for that business.

As Greg Sterling comments, this should be seen as the opening of a new push by Google into the local market, bringing closer together its SMB promotional and consumer assets and cementing a local “brand” around “Places.”  The figures are certainly impressive:

• More than 4 million business listings on Google claimed by business owners (using the Local Business Center, now Google Places)
• Nearly 2 million listings have been claimed in the United States
• There are 50 million Place Pages
• Place Pages are viewed millions of times each day
• Google has mailed out Favorite Places window decals to around 200,000 businesses around the United States

Expect to see more and more of this emphasis as time passes.  The mobile sector has much greater potential than the existing PC world and Google is determined to get the lion’s share.

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Post from: StayGoLinks

Google Places Is Where It Is At

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Perhaps the title reminds you of that old cartoon labeled, Look Mom No Hands, where the young boy bravely rides his bicycle with both hands in the air.  In some versions there is a follow-up where he proclaims, Look Mom No Teeth.

This post may possibly represent the same kind of risky behavior. It stems from that outside-in view that we are now applying to websites.   Frequent readers of this blog may not notice any difference.  The blog Home page has always included only a single post and this post looks exactly the same.  The only way of spotting the difference is by looking at the address field at the top of your browser.  Although you may have followed a link to the domain, http://www.staygolinks.com/, you will note that the link displayed there is now the permalink for this particular single post. For quick reference, we will call this the LMNHP approach, not to be confused with the Lucknow Muzaffarpur National Highway Project.

Why a Home Page causes problems

Not having a Home Page brings a number of advantages.  If you write a particularly good blog post, it will often perform well in keyword listings.  This is helped because Google factors in the recency of new web pages by giving them a higher ranking in the search engine results page (SERP).  What you may have noticed if you did a keyword search to spot new blog posts, is that often the first entry shown by Google is the Home page of the blog rather than the specific blog post.  As further blog posts when written push that particular blog post off the Home Page, then a keyword search will some time later show the correct blog entry as the appropriate entry rather than the blog Home Page.

Part of the reason for this is that the blog Home page has many back links or inlinks pointing to it which causes it to outrank new blog posts which have very few links. This after all is the fundamental principle of the Google search algorithm.  The Home page has the highest PageRank and other web pages have lower values.  Indeed if they are very recent, they may not even have a value assigned.

The advantages of no Home page

This blog has now changed the balance by immediately redirecting visitors who visit the website to a web page which shows only the latest blog entry.  This is a permanent 301 redirection, which should ensure that any inlink to this web page are correctly assigned to it rather than to the website as a whole.

You may wonder why there should be a permanent redirection when this latest post will only be on the front page for a little while, perhaps days or even hours.  The thinking here is that for a little while the most important web page on the website is the latest blog entry.  It will be assigned back links, some of which are intended for that particular blog post, rather than for the website as a whole.  Indeed for a blog this is probably true in the majority of cases.  Once the latest post has become a previous post, then it may receive additional back links from other sources as normally happens.

Finding a No Home Page solution

Knowing what I wanted to do, i.e. not have a homepage, I decided to bounce my crazy idea off two of my fellow Cre8asite Forums moderators, Donna Fontenot and Pierre Far.  Pierre who is a wizard in these matters in a trans-Atlantic chat session, rapidly came up with a solution.  He suggested that the best way was to modify the front end of the index.php file in my blog theme.  His solution worked like a charm.  It is shown in the image below.  The new code surrounded by the yellow rectangle is inserted within the first instruction in the index.php file.

If in your theme, you use a home.php file rather than having the index.php file produce the Home page, then the code should be inserted there.

There would seem to be no downsides on this LMNHP approach and the upside is that rather than creating a homepage with a high PageRank, you spread out those PageRank contributions over individual blog posts as they are created. 

If anyone has concerns about this approach, then it would be most useful to have them mentioned in comments here.  Equally if you feel there are distinct advantages to this approach, then your contributions would be most appreciated

Update

This approach seems to be performing well in the SERPs and producing higher search engine rankings.

Post from: StayGoLinks

Look Mom No Home Page LMNHP

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As the Wall Street Journal tells us, for two years, Milo has tried to Put Store Stock Online.  That’s not the dog, but the company, Milo.com, named after him.

When you’re on the go, it is a whole lot easier if the Internet can tell you whether the stuff you are looking for is available at stores nearby.  Milo.com, in Palo Alto, CA., has been setting up a database for two years that knows what products are in stores near you and whether they’re in stock.

It’s an obvious need so it’s not surprising that the universal provider of all information has now decided to tackle this tough problem.

Google launched its service with inventory data from just five retail outlets — Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and West Elm (the last three of which are all owned by Williams-Sonoma). They’ll undoubtedly expand that list, and are taking volunteers from businesses that want to join in the program.

Milo has signed up 49 retail chains, covering 48,000 stores and 2 million products. Beyond brands like Best Buy and Sears, which have open systems that let any outside programmers tap into their inventory database, they’ve managed to sign up some big names, including Target, Nordstrom, Macy’s and J.C. Penny.

As Google explains, all you need to do is look for the blue dots.

If you’re searching for a product that is sold by participating retailers, you can just look for the blue dots in the search results to see if it’s available in a local store. If you see a blue dot, you can tap on the adjacent “In stock nearby” link, and you’ll be taken to the seller’s page where you’ll see whether the item is “In Stock” or has “Limited Availability” near you. You’ll also see how far away the stores are from you — as long as you’ve enabled My Location or manually specified your location.

It works with any iPhone, Palm WebOS phone, or any Android-powered device in the US.  Search with Google.com in your mobile browser, tap on the “more” link, and then select “Shopping.” Or you can check the “Shopping results” section in Universal Search results when you search on Google.com.

Google is now looking for retailers who would like to participate in the program. Provided your Local Business Center data is up to date, and your Product Search data is in great shape, then you can ask to be considered. 

The real question is whether Google can provide good information like this when data quality really is not easily scaleable.  Perhaps it’s better handled by a vertical portal like Milo.com.  After all even Google must focus its efforts if it is to do a good job for all its stakeholders.

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Post from: StayGoLinks

Google Nearby Stock Information

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On a day where I’ve twice written about Google’s new strategy, Mobile First, I was struck by the innovation displayed in an e-mail message I received from Vitaliy Levit, Co-Founder of Recess Mobile.

They have just launched a text message paging tool that fits right into this new Mobile Web world.  Of course many restaurant goers have their cell phones with them so that gives many new opportunities.

Let’s say you walk into a restaurant on a busy Saturday night and instead of the hostess handing you a flashing buzzer pager, you just provide your cell phone number and the restaurant sends you a text when your table is ready. This allows you to browse nearby stores and do some shopping while you wait.  At the same time this saves restaurants thousands of dollars each year because they don’t have to replace those expensive pagers.

All a restaurant needs is a $200 iPod Touch and an internet connection and they have a full-blown restaurant paging system sending texts to any cell phone.  For more info, check out the Recess Paging System website.

I find that a truly creative application and is typical of what we will be seeing increasingly on the Web (Mobile of course).

Post from: StayGoLinks

Line-ups no longer with the Mobile Web

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This blog started out with the tagline, the Mobile Web from a Desktop perspective.  Many assumed that tweaking the web pages on standard websites would make them suitable for smart phones surfing on the mobile Web.  Progressively that has become less and less tenable.  Nevertheless many seem to assume that the real Internet space is that visited via a desktop PC.

There are a number of factors that mean that it is only a matter of time until the Mobile Web becomes the predominant cyber-space.  Consider a few of them:

• People are increasingly ‘on the go’
• Small is beautiful
• Small is cheaper
• Cloud computing puts the software ‘out there’ and only a simple input/output device is needed
• Speech technology can overcome the extreme challenge of those tiny keypads

If you don’t find those arguments compelling, then perhaps you need to study the behavior and attitude of those who can accelerate the pace of change.  On that, the headline says it all.

Google Adopts a New Strategy: Mobile First

At the Mobile World Congress tradeshow, Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced that more of his company’s focus is now on smartphones than on desktops. He summed this up with a new motto: “Mobile First“.

With this rule, Google developers are now creating versions of new services for smartphones before creating ones to run on PCs.

In his opinion, the key reason for this is the importance of cloud computing, where applications and data are handled by the Internet.

Google is a leading proponent of cloud computing. Its Android operating system for smartphones depends heavily on always-on, high-speed wireless data connections, since many of its more advanced features are handled in the cloud, such as speech recognition.

I believe it’s the time for us all to smell that coffee.  It’s certainly on the go.

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Post from: StayGoLinks

Desktop PCs from a Mobile Perspective

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As might have been expected, mobile device screens keep getting smaller even though desktop monitor screens get bigger.  That paradox is one that is difficult to avoid.  Mobile devices are becoming ever more popular and must be highly transportable.  That gives you two problems

• The keyboard
• The screen

The keyboard is an easy one to resolve since voice control can provide an ideal input method.  Indeed smart phones are designed to handle voices so what could be better.

The screen is an entirely different problem.  It might appear that mobile web pages must be small.  However desktop screens show what the user really wants.  Much more information and much more interactivity with a higher content of a whole variety of multimedia experiences.

What could be the answer?  Perhaps the words of that Peter Gabriel song may give a clue, In Your Eyes.

If you consider that difficult to believe, consider the words of an informed spectator of the digital world.  Robert X. Cringely suggests that the solution is Pictures in Our Heads.  He too sees a huge growth for mobile devices since the purchasing cycle is rapid and new technology comes along very fast.  Reluctantly he accepts the voice control approach to inputting data as we struggle with an ever diminishing keyboard.

Where he opens up a whole new way of thinking is when it comes to that mobile screen.

We’re at the point right now where primitive single-pixel displays can be built into contact lenses.  They act as user interfaces for experimental devices like automatic insulin pumps.  This already exists.  A patch of carbon nanotubes on your arm continuously monitor blood glucose levels, driving a pump that keeps your insulin supply right where it should be.  Any problem with the pump or the levels is shown by a red dot that appears in your field of view courtesy of that contact lens.  The data connection between pump and eyeball is wireless. The power to run that display is wireless too, since the contact lens display scavenges RF energy out of the air to run, courtesy of that mobile phone on your belt and that WiFi access point on the ceiling.

While that display is a single pixel today, we can pretty easily predict at what point it could be the equivalent of HDTV.  Except I don’t expect we’ll ever get there. 

Shortly we will communicate with our devices, I predict, through our thoughts.  By 2029 (and probably a lot sooner) we’ll think our input and see pictures in our heads.

In other words, we avoid the need for mechanical devices between our neural circuits and our smart devices.  Both ways communication will occur directly from your brain waves to the Internet via wireless transmissions.  Only twenty years to get there but perhaps that is a very feasible scenario.

Post from: StayGoLinks

Mobile Device Screen Resolution – here’s looking at you

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An item on The Street reports that Google Plans Its Own Android Phone.

In what is likely to be seen as disruptive to the wireless status quo, Google is working with a smartphone manufacturer to have a Google-branded phone available this year through retailers and not through telcos, according to Northeast Securities analyst Ashok Kumar, who has talked to Google’s design partners about the plan.

This move would fulfill Google’s pledge to bring a new generation of open-standard mobile Internet devices to consumers. Traditional carriers keep tight controls over the features and applications that are allowed on phones. On the other hand, Google will presumably offer a device that lets users determine the functions.

This could be a low cost ‘terminal’ giving access to a whole cloud-computing environment supported by the major players such as Google. That would certainly seem to be the Google strategy.

If talk of the Google phone plan is true, the entrance of a unlocked, low-cost, Web-friendly touchscreen device will probably undercut other Android phone efforts by players like Motorola, Samsung and Dell. Motorola’s entire turnaround strategy is based on the Android operating system. The company is expected to announce a ultra-thin Droid phone at Verizon next month.

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Post from: StayGoLinks

A Real Google Phone

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High performance delivered is a slogan that Accenture has made famous. It is a powerful reminder of how businesses can achieve success. The thinking can be applied to any business function: that includes websites.

When you hear the words high performance, your mind may immediately switch to images of glossy automobiles with highly tuned engines. In some ways a website can be similar to that glossy automobile. In both cases high-performance means doing what is necessary to ensure the vehicle will perform as well as it can. With both that only has meaning when there is a clear objective to be achieved. In the case of the automobile it may be high speed. In the case of the website it probably has something to do with how visitors appreciate and interact with the website.

Efficiency in meeting website objectives

High-performance is a question of efficiency. Only when you have scales to measure performance can you begin to tune it for even better performance results. For a time it was customary to do website reviews. As we pointed out in the previous post, with greater knowledge, people are now requesting website audits. As with any audit, this gives concrete results that measure what has been achieved and suggest what improvement can be targeted.

A website is much more than just what people see in the first ten minutes exposure to it. Many factors are involved in delivering the best customer experience to website visitors. A big part in getting visitors to the site may be the search engine visibility the website has created. Once on the website the first impression is very important. Thereafter the visitor must find it easy to navigate around the website in order to get the information they are seeking. The content of the site must be such that visitors develop a sense of trust in the website owner. This in turn increases the probability that they will react positively to any call to action. For example some may choose to buy the product they were looking at.

How to choose a website designer

If a website must now be strong in all these different dimensions, this raises the question of how best to choose a website designer. Any website designer who is aware of all these different dimensions will no doubt illustrate their team’s multitalented abilities through their own websites.

If one is seeking an all-around website designer, what might their website showcase. A prime example of this is PrimeView who offer Arizona web design.

Their website features a number of skill sets which they feel are important.. The main ones are web design affecting the immediate impression of the website, Internet marketing, e-commerce where online purchases are involved and Arizona SEO.

This is not the case of being good at everything but master of none as you can check by visiting their cool before and after gallery.

As more people become frustrated by a nonperforming website and become aware of those who are operating high-performance websites, the shift will be on. Websites can achieve very strong results if they are only built with high performance in mind right from the start.

Post from: StayGoLinks

Designing High Performance Websites

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Website Reviews Or Audits

In the past I have expressed some skepticism about the free website reviews that are available.

Another aspect of this topic came to mind when I took part in a website audit online chat hosted by David Harry via his Huomah SEO Blog.  I suddenly realized that there is a world of difference between the words review and audit.

What is a review?

Most often the word review is used about art objects, like a play or a book.  It is usually one person’s opinion and clearly it is always subjective.

If you want a review of your website, it could be triggered by a simple question like, What do you think of my website?  The word review almost emphasizes that this should deal with how the website looks to the reviewer.

If you regard your website as a work of art, then such a review may be all that you are looking for.

Grading Websites

Many website owners need more.  They build their websites to achieve certain goals.  A review that indicates that the reviewer found the website attractive is not very helpful in measuring performance against goals.  Some people have therefore attempted to put some precision in this process by offering grades for websites.

For example Website Grader does attempt to measure how well a given site will appear in the search engine listings.  This particular blog seems to be rated quite highly by such a tool.

However the method of computing the score can be somewhat arbitrary and certainly Michael Gray has some major reservations about this process.  In addition it is not clear that such a grading tool will give the right list of actionable items to help improve the website.

What is an audit?

The word audit would seem to be a much better choice for a tool that can help point to ways of improving the website.  An audit is a disciplined monitoring process to identify how well a website is performing on the important factors involved in achieving the website’s objectives.

A good audit will cover all the important parameters of the website and provide measurements of the website’s position.  This allows a detailed list to be prepared of what actions are needed for full performance improvement.  The hard-nosed audit process is much more likely to be useful than the somewhat soft and fuzzy review.

SMM offers Website Mini-Audits

A full website audit can be extremely detailed and take a significant amount of time to complete.  However in some cases a more summary mini-audit may quickly identify important major factors that need correction.  It is for this reason that SMM offers a range of mini-audits to check out major problems when only limited budgets are available.

• Bonus Website Mini-Audit
• Basic Website Mini-Audit
• Rapid Website Mini-Audit

If you are concerned about your website and whether it is performing as well as it might, why not get in touch with us for which ever mini-audit will work for you.

Post from: StayGoLinks

Website Audits Replace Website Reviews

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Guy Kawasaki feels the need to apologize for his practice of repeating tweets since this goes against the spirit of the early days of Twitter. He has some interesting charts showing the effectiveness of repeating tweets. Given this, he is in no way repentant. We would do well to follow his example.

As he points out, Twitter now is a very different online space from what it was in the early days. Then one would send the word to a few friends on what was happening in your neck of the woods.

Now the Twitter-scape is a rushing torrent of tweets and it is very much a matter of hit-or-miss whether you will see the tweets of your friends when so much else is going on. Twitter continues to see exponential growth so this problem will get worse as time goes on.

Given this, we should all find Guy Kawasaki’s approach one that we can adopt without qualms. The tweets should of course be worth repeating and the repetition should not be too often nor for too long. However in a world that has got used to the multiple appearances of television ads, sometimes within minutes, repeated tweets should not be viewed askance. Indeed it will still be true that most people will not see any of them or possible one or two occurrences. That can hardly be described as overkill.

Post from: StayGoLinks

Guy Kawasaki Repeats Tweets: So Do It

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