What is PageRank and How Can You Use PageRank in Your Link Building?

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Matthew Barby

As Wikipedia has probably already told you that PageRank was named after Larry Page, the co-founder of Google. It may also have told you that it is a ranking scale that takes into account the amount of inbound links that a webpage has, as well as the amount of outbound links there are coming from the webpage. From this, a webpage’s PageRank is determined. The PageRank equation can be expressed as shown below:

This equation basically shows that when another webpage links back to the webpage in question (u), that page’s total PageRank is divided by the total number of outbound links on the page. This is then the amount of PageRank that is transferred over to page ‘u’ (often reffered to as ‘link juice’). The equation then gets the sum of all of the PageRank that is being transferred to page ‘u’ from the set of webpages that link to it (B_u). This then makes up the total PageRank for the webpage ‘u’.

Hopefully that hasn’t confused you too much because, in essence, it is a fairly simple idea, however; PageRank isn’t the ‘be all and end all’ of link building. Not only that but Google keeps these figures very closely hidden, so it is extremely hard to find out your exact PageRank. Google does, however, periodically post an inkling into what kind of PageRank a webpage as through the Google Toolbar PageRank (TBPR), which is ranked between 1 and 10 (10 being the best).

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Getting the best of Google’s search results

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Matthew Barby

We all want to rank well within Google’s search engine listings and get our websites to the top of the rankings for as many keywords as possible, but from the point-of-view of a user, how can you get the most relevant search results?

There are many different tips and tricks that can be used to get very specific results and flush out all of the unwanted results to only give you the most relevant and up-to-date information. A lot of users don’t take advantage of the use of the different search operators that can be used and many users don’t even know about them so we have detailed a few of them below:

The Minus Sign (-)

Using the minus sign (-) as a prefix to a keyword that you type will remove any results from the listings that are related to this word. For example, if we were to type ‘SEO Birmingham -wowinternet’ then this would show all the results for SEO Birmingham without our website showing in the listings. This can be really handy when returning large amounts of data with a very open subject.

Specific Website Searching

If you would like to search for results only within a certain website then you can use the ‘site:’ operator to do this. For example, if you wanted to only find pages on web design within our website then you would search: ‘web design site:www.wowinternet.co.uk’. This can be extremely useful when looking for something specific to do with a certain company or site.

You can also search for certain types of websites using this same method, for example, if you were looking for results from educational or government bodies you could use ‘site:edu’ or ‘site:gov’ and it will only bring results from sites that have .gov or .edu domains.

File Type Specific Searching

One of the most useful search operators is the ‘filetype:’ operator that allows you to specify exactly what type of file you want to return in the search results, whether it be a PDF, HTML, PHP, DOC, etc. For example, if you wanted to find a PDF report that is about SEO then you could do the following search: ‘seo filetype:pdf’.

Using Multiple Operators

By incorporating a range of different operators you are able to create very specific and advanced search criteria. An example of a very advanced search query would be:

‘facebook page site:www.wowinternet.co.uk filetype:html’

This would search for all HTML pages on our website that are related to Facebook pages; the results are shown below:

As you can see, using these little tips, you can get some really specific results so try it out and hopefully this will help you out!

New Wow website on its way!

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Matthew Barby

Here in the Wow Internet office we are deep into development of our new website which we are hoping to have up and running by the end of this month (fingers crossed!). After our current site doing us proud during the time its been running, we felt that it was time to breath fresh life into our online presence.

We are going to be introducing a new section into the website that was be our ‘knowledge base’ area that is going to give some free and useful tips about search engine optimisation (SEO) and social media, as well as ways in which you are able to develop a well structured online strategy that will help leave your competitors in your dust.

As well as this we are going to start doing some video blogs (so you will be graced with my ugly mug every now and then) and we will be creating monthly white papers that will be available for download on the website as PDFs.

There is going to be more multimedia content on the new website and we will also be making some additions to the SEO packages that we are offering so be sure to check it out to get the latest information on what we’re up to!

How Relevant is Google’s New Search?

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Matthew Barby

Many users of Google, ourselves included, were very excited to here of Google’s integrated social searching options that have recently been implemented. In fact, we wrote a blog not long about it and we were eager to see what it was like and were very positive about its’ introduction. Now what we have started to ask is exactly how relevant the search results that we are getting really are?

One of the most noticeable facets of the new search is the bias toward Google+. Now, you might be saying that they are well within their right to do this as it is there product and they have every right to promote it. On the other hand, Google dominates the search engine market and equates for over 80% of all searches made on the web, therefore, if they are placing higher importance on all of their products over any competition then isn’t this a bit monopolistic?

We have seen many cases of companies having action taken against them for pushing products upon their customers unfairly and Microsoft is a prime example with their Internet Explorer web browser. So what is there to stop Google to have such action taken upon them.

There has been quite a few bits of bad publicity surrounding Google recently with their dubious Adwords campaigns and many other companies and users not being happy with the new search options, so we wouldn’t be surprised if Google starts to lose some of its immaculate image over the coming months.

The most important thing for any user, no matter what they use Google’s search engine for is to be able to have the most relevant search results appear for whatever they are searching for. We understand what the search engine giant was trying to achieve by integrating social searches but in reality, it just isn’t working. Maybe we are being a bit too critical at the moment and maybe Google will come good (as they normally do!) but until then we will have to bear the frustration a little longer before we think about moving to Microsoft’s Bing!

The Myths of SEO Uncovered

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Matthew Barby

There are many myths associated with SEO and so called ‘instant ways’ to get to the first page of Google, most of this advice is given by the many ‘SEO experts’ that seem to appear all over the web on a daily basis. The first bit of advice that we would give anyone reading up on SEO is to take everything with a pinch of salt, because unless it comes directly from Google then it is hard to trust the validity of the information you are receiving.

So why would you listen to us, you might ask? That’s a fair point, but one reason at least is that we have been in the SEO game for a long time now and have experienced the many different emotions (or should I say, frustrations!) that SEO brings. One thing that we have learnt is that if something seems too good to be true… then it often is.

What we are going to go through here is just a few of the common misconceptions that are often linked to SEO and this will definitely help save you a bit of time and effort:

Getting as many keywords as possible into your webpages:

Getting keywords into your content is obviously an important part of your SEO efforts, however, there is a fine line between getting in all your keywords and then just simply keyword stuffing. Think about how it looks to your customers before just ‘how many keywords can I get in this text’ as it can leave your website looking very unprofessional. For example, if we were to have on our homepage:

“Welcome to Wow Internet, we are an SEO Birmingham company in Birmingham providing SEO across all of Birmingham. If you are looking for SEO services in Birmingham then check us out!”

Now, with the above text, yes we would be getting a load of keywords in, but on the other hand, it looks utterly ridiculous! Also, if we carried on in this manor then Google would down rank our website for keyword stuffing and as well as that, our customers would see the website as looking very unprofessional.

Buying links for your website will get you to the top of Google:

This myth is often one that is short lived and can have a tragic effect on your website. Some websites that have purchased links online can see a rise in their search results listings of a page or two but then all of a sudden you will vanish of the face of Google. It will be a quick realisation that Google has clicked on to what you have done and black-listed your website. Just remember that Google has extremely advanced systems that detect this and it is not really worth risking all the effort of your SEO for a so called ‘quick fix’.

Hyper-linking all of your keywords in your website:

If you have placed a few of your keywords within your website and have them hyperlinked to other pages in the website then this can provide minor helps toward your SEO as long as the links are relevant. However, one thing to remember is that if your keyword was, for example, ‘SEO’, and you had this in the page multiple times, Google will only recognise the first hyperlink from ‘SEO’ and ignore the rest so don’t waste your time hyperlinking each instance of the same word as it has no effect.

Hopefully we have cleared up a few myths for you which should save you some time. Come back to the blog for more helpful tips!

Google Search Plus, a New Personalised Experience

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Matthew Barby

Google has announced that it will be adding a whole new feature to their search engine that looks like it could have a huge effect on the way that we that we interact with Google and find the results that we want.

The Google search plus will now incorporate your social circles into the results that you see, for example, if you were trying to find an SEO company and searched the term ‘SEO company’ into Google, you would get all of the standard results plus you will now see any particular websites that your friends have interacted with or ‘+1′d’ so that you can have a much more personalised experience.

Google said in their blog: “Say you’re looking for a vacation destination. You can of course search the web, but what if you want to learn from the experiences your friends have had on their vacations? Just as in real life, your friends’ experiences are often so much more meaningful to you than impersonal content on the web.”

The search engine giant has added three major features to the new searching system which are; personal results (as seen in the above image), profiles in search, and people and pages.

The ‘profiles in search’ will now allow you to search for a friend’s name in the search box and it will provide you with personalised search results related to their interests and give a link to their social accounts.

The ‘people and pages’ feature will show up results in a separate section on the results page that resemble that of the PPC ads to the right hand side of the result listings. For example, if you searched for ‘football’ you will get a section that contains football clubs and professional footballers’ Google+ profiles and pages so that you can instantly discover new people to interact with.

The changes that have been made haven’t been openly welcomed by all though, and ex-Google employee and now Twitter general council, Alex Macgillivray said in one of his tweets that it was a ”bad day for the Internet,” and went on to comment, “having been there, I can imagine the dissension at Google to search being warped this way.”

Starting your Company Blog: Top Tips

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Matthew Barby

So the new year has arrived and you are thinking of putting a fresh spin on your website. Well, what better way to do it than to start up your company blog and engage your customers and bring in whole new customers. But just how exactly do you go about it and what do you right about? This is where we can help…

Blogging should be a major part of any website’s search engine optimisation and general online strategy as it offers an invaluable way of sharing information to the users of your website and finding an informal way to actively interact with them. Not only that but if you look across many of your competitors website’s then you will see that there is a high likelihood that they are already active members within the ‘blogosphere’.The first thing that you need to decide is what to write about. This should be something related to you website and it is important to keep a consistent theme to your blog so that users with an interest in a specific subject can subscribe and follow it regularly. For example, there’s no point writing about cats one day then the next about the weekend’s football results. At Wow Internet, we are web design and SEO specialists therefore we try to write about these types of topics to hopefully engage you, the reader, and so that you can take away some helpful tips in the process.

It is definitely worth having a look at other blogs online; for example, the Google blog is a great source of information about the online world, also the likes of SEOmoz have a fantastic blog which we regularly follow here and offers expert advice about all aspects of online activities. By looking at the structure and the way in which they are written will give you an inkling on how to approach your own.

One of the other big tips that we will give you is to get straight to the point and don’t write huge amounts of text as people can find this quite daunting. Personally, I like to read blogs of no more than 550 words as its nice and quick to read and you can get exactly what you want from it without having to dedicate a huge amount of time to it.

The last tip that we would give is to not just use your blog to stuff in a load of your keywords because readers can see right through it (not to mention the search engines) so before you publish anything, ask yourself, would I read this? If the question is yes then you’re on the right track.

Once you have finally got your blog up and running then try to get the word out by submitting it to blog networks such as Blogwogo. Take a look at this article about blog networks for a bit more information on them.

Hopefully you now have everything to start your own blog and interact with your users on a whole new level. Let us know how you get on!