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Maybe you’ve heard some of the buzz lately… Google has introduced a new feature – GOOGLE INSTANT.  In case you haven’t seen it already, here’s the deal…

Here’s a normal Google search page:

Nothing special here, right?  Well, that is until I start to type – then something really interesting happens.  As soon as I type ONE LETTER, the page changes and I start to get search results.  Google guesses what I am about to type in, and returns an ever changing search result with each and every letter typed.

For example, for me, I type in the word “fort”.  Here’s what happened automatically:

Based upon my four keystrokes, Google guessed that I wanted information about Fort Wayne.  I didn’t hit enter or return.  The search results just appeared instantly (hence the clever name, huh?).

So, besides being cool and fun, what does this mean for you and I?

1. Search continues to get personal – increasingly more and more often there is no single Google result for a particular search.  If I lived in Fort Worth, Texas, do you think Google would still suggest Fort Wayne, IN when I type the word Fort?  Do you think it would show results for Fort Wayne?  Of course not.  It would show results for Fort Worth, Texas.  Search results increasingly vary.  They change based on your location, your history, your likes, your dislikes – all of which Google often knows about you.
2. Search Engine Optimization is changing –  Typically Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about getting a particular site to appear high on Google for a particular search term.  But, if everybody gets a different result on Google how can I possibly optimize?  Increasingly this is the problem presented in SEO.  While there are still many terms that don’t aren’t very dynamic (meaning they return the same results regardless), I believe that this will continue to change.  Simply put there is no longer a Google first page result.  When asked – “Does your site appear on page 1 of Google for term X”, the answer will be – “It depends” – it depends on where you live, what your history is, what you like and don’t like…
3. The Number of Search Terms will Decrease – While I’m not totally sure about this, I think that Google Instant will help push us all to the middle.  When Google gives us results, I think we’ll start to suffice – thinking that the results we see are “GOOD ENOUGH”.  We’ll click on something that comes up and hope for the best.  Rather than crafting a very specific search term, we’ll start typing, see some general results and click – hoping for the best.  Again, while I’m not sure about the result here, this could very easily mean that niche companies get pushed more and more to the sidelines while the bigger players simply grow bigger.

   For example, if I type in the letters “ORG” I instantly get the results for organic gardening.  But perhaps I was hoping to find “ORGANIC TOMATO FERTILIZER” – but, when Organic Gardening comes up, I think that  it is close enough and I click.  While I might find something of use, the problem is that the niche players can easily get squeezed out.

One last thing.  Looking for some keyboard shortcuts for using Google Instant – Gina Tripani at Fast Company has a great Google Instant guide – http://www.fastcompany.com/1687662/google-instant-how-to-use

What do you think?  Is Google Instant a big deal or just a shiny trinket?  Leave a comment and let me know.

The topic of Search Engine Optimization (SEO for short) is one of huge interest.  In short, it is the process of getting a web site to rank higher in search engine results.  Particularly, it is focused on getting a particular site to appear high in google.

Here at EH Design & Consulting, we’ve been working with many companies on the process of SEO.  And, I thought it would be interesting to give a case study of sorts – AN IN PROGRESS story.

Just recently, we started working with the Family Care Center.  The Family Care Center is a Christian Counseling organization located on the North East side of Fort Wayne.  The Executive Director of the center, Denny Howard, contacted us at EH Design & Consulting, hoping to get his web site to appear higher in google search results.

So, we began the process of working with him.  Here are some of the steps we followed and some of the preliminary results:

STEP 1: Identify Keywords

Often times, this can be the most difficult part of the journey – deciding on exactly what you expect and want people to type in to find you.

For Family Care Center, we came up with the following terms:

• Christian Counseling Fort Wayne
• Marriage Counseling Fort Wayne
• Christian Counselor Fort Wayne
• Marriage Counselor Fort Wayne

Originally, the client had include the word “OF’ and “IN” – i.e Christian Counseling IN fort Wayne / Christian Counseling OF Fort Wayne.

But, we realized the these words are commonly called STOP WORDS – meaning that Google almost always ignores these words (there are a few exceptions).

After deciding on these terms, we did a little more research and learned the the terms “Christian Counseling Fort Wayne” and “Marriage Counseling Fort Wayne” we much more commonly used terms on Google.  Together, there are over 300 searches a month for these two terms.  While not a huge audience on a national scale, to be able to capture even a majority of these searches would be a huge win for Family Care Center.

STEP 2: Benchmark Current Rankings

After having identified some of the critical keywords for Family Care Center, our next step was to evaluate their current search engine rankings.  Typically, we try to create benchmarks on three major search engines:

• Google – with approximately 85% of the search engine market
• Bing – with approximately 4% of the search engine market
• Yahoo – with approximately 7% of the search engine market

We created some benchmarks for Family Care Center.  In this particular it wasn’t difficult.  Family Care Center did not appear in the top 10 pages on any of the three search engines.

So, our benchmarks were that Family Care Center’s site was non-existant on the search engines.  Nowhere to go but up, right?

STEP 3: On Page Changes

Now that e have keywords addressed and have benchmarked our current standings, it is time to make some changes.   The first step in this case was to begin with “on page” changes.

This involves updating things such at the TITLE tag (what appears in the blue bar for Internet Explorer), META tags, H1 tags, etc.

These are changes you can see.  Changes to content.

So, for Family Care Center – we updated all the title to be keyword rich titles – unique titles that included all their keywords.

In addition, we went through each page and added keyword rich H1 tags, Meta tags (stuff you don’t see and not terribly important – but still worth the time).

Also, we went through images and checked things such as ALT tags and TITLE tags to make sure they were keyword rich as well.

STEP 4: Create Links

After making updates to on page items, the next phase of Search Engine Optimization involves creating links to the Family Care’s web site.  Google sees every incoming link as a “vote” from that website that Family Care’s site is “important”.  The important you are, the higher you appear.

For Family Care Center, we submitted them to numerous directories, created links on our own site, added links on facebook, google local, and other places.  This phase is often (and in this case is) an ongoing phase.  New links are created on a regular basis.

STEP 5: Wait 20-30 Days and Evaluate

Once on page factors are updated and links have been created, it’s now time to wait for Google (and others) to re-index and then evaluate.

In Family Care’s case, we waited about 20 days and then did a new evaluation (just a week ago).

The new results were MUCH more impressive:

• Google – bottom of page 1 (Number 10)
• Bing – top of page 1 (Number 3)
• Yahoo – top of page 1 (Number 1)

Not a bad result

STEP 6: Repeat

The sixth and final step is to repeat.  We do further on page updates (tweak our titles, update images, rename directories to be more SEO friendly), create more incoming links, etc.

After all this SEO, the real question becomes – can we measure the payoff?  DO we have new leads, new contacts, new appointments, etc.?

Interested, want to know more?  CONTACT US at EH Design & Consulting to learn more.