Google’s Personalized Search – Big Changes To How Sites Can Rank

There’s a Buzz in SEO Circles About What Google’s New Changes Might Mean

On December 4th, Google made a big announcement about a switch to “personalized search” that didn’t really grab too much attention. But I am aware of this new search results development, and thought it worthy of mentioning.

Googe’s official name for personalized search is “Web History”. There are two options: Signed-Out Web History and Signed-In Web History.

Keeping my explanation short, “personalized search” means Google can now determine what your web surfing habits are and if you seem to favor certain sites over other sites, such as whether you consistently like to go to Overstock.com rather than Like.com, and starts to give Overstock a rankings boost. Or Target’s website instead of Wal-Mart’s. Somehow, someway (their secret) Google has the ability to memorize your web surfing habits. And mine, and anyone else’s. Thus, you will start seeing more of your “favorite most often visited websites” listed, perhaps for searches where those sites weren’t showing up before for you.

Before you get all worried about invasion of privacy issues, which has been a point of concern for many, Google offers us the ability to accept or refuse having personalized search results shown to us. Maybe you’ll feel better knowing that a person’s searching history is only kept for 180 days. Plus, you can delete that history at any time, but even if you don’t, it can’t actually be viewed by anyone other than Google. So Google claims privacy should not be a concern for us.

Also, in case you didn’t know, ALL the major search engines have recorded what you search on for many, many years. That’s just one of the many ways they determine ranking positions. Now Google is simply using the recorded data to further refine the results you can see.

Remember – you don’t have to choose to sign in to personalized search … but maybe a lot of your potential customers will.

How Could Personalized Search Affect Your Website Traffic, You Ask?

First, let’s talk basics. Personalized search will most likely affect ranking positions. Where ranking positions have sometimes been prone to vary depending upon which Google data center you live near (there are exceptions but I’m trying to keep this simple), now those sites one person favors might very well not rank the same for another person if both people search for exactly the same keyword phrase.

However, everything about this new ranking change isn’t set-in-cement. Such as … the website of a local bakery probably won’t be affected quite the same since a local bakery is just that … local and unique to the services offered. Or a local car mechanic, dry cleaners, etc.

So if you’ve been real proud of those top ranking positions you’ve held for quite awhile, you just might find you’re NOT holding a top ranking based upon the searching tendencies of the particular searcher in question. Follow me here? To further explain – your grandmother may not get the same results as you do because most likely the two of you search for quite different topics.

Is Google’s personalized search reason for those of us battling to gain top rankings, or to continue to keep our top rankings, to get all crazy and worried? Um, not really. Not in my estimation, nor in the estimation of many respected SEO gurus.

What Google’s new search option means is that we need to continue to utilize good solid optimization basics on each and every page of our site, being:

• Make sure your web pages are accessible (well thought out navigational structure and hierarchy).
• Utilize the keywords that searchers employ within your Title and meta tags, and content.
• Over-delivery quality, informative content that visitors to your site will find useful and valuable.
• Try to earn editorial links from good sources related to your niche.

So, when all is said and done with any shift or change in ranking algorithms, the core issues I just listed above are ones that haven’t gone by the wayside, nor probably ever will. I’ve preached those four key points to all my SEO clients over the years and will continue to do so. And though yes, sometimes gaining top rankings isn’t a easy slam-dunk, by sticking to those simple points most all of us will ultimately see our sites holding great ranking positions.

Google Should Rank My Website #1: My Keywords Are Targeted To The Content

Newbie Online Marketer Cries Competitor’s Keyword Ranking “Not Fair!”

How Can Non-Relevant Sites Out-Rank Your Keyword Focused Site?

I recently provided a complimentary 30-minute SEO consultation to an individual I’ll refer to as “NOM” (newbie online marketer), who is trying to build a website to promote his computer accessory product.

NOM is very much a newbie, and I certainly can understand his frustration with not knowing how to deal with HTML codes, navigation, best-practice linking structure and similar issues. NOM was doing his best at targeting the few keyword phrases that exactly matched the product he was promoting. He had a few pages of descriptive content that I can say certainly did a good job of explaining the product, how to use it, what it cost, and how to order it.

But one thing NOM was very unhappy about and just couldn’t understand, was how “junk sites”, those that had absolutely nothing even closely related to the keyword phrases they were ranking for, could out-rank his website which did indeed sell a very specific product that was 100% related to the keyword phrases in question.

In other words, how come NOM’s Google ranking for “super duper computer accessory” wasn’t even in the top 100 results, but spam sites were ranking in the top-ten?

NOM’s comment, which is the reason I thought I’d share this with those of you who are brand new to online marketing and the reality of how Google determines ranking positions was this:

“I am going to package up my product and send it off to the owners of Google and tell them in a letter that I should be #1 for my keyword phrase ’super duper computer accessory’! I actually make and sell a super duper computer accessory. Those others sites don’t! How come they rank so highly? They’re nothing but spam sites!”

Send your product with a letter to the owners of Google and demand a #1 ranking?

No offense to NOM, but it was very hard for me to not break out laughing. (And if this individual is reading this, please … I mean absolutely NO disrespect by my comments nor by this post. I think your belief about rankings is not that unusual for beginners, and others can learn by your statement, and my reply.)

I replied that rankings were NOT, unfortunately, handled in that manner. That if sending a letter and your product to the big chiefs at Google was all that was necessary, well … maybe the organic search results would possibly be skewed more in the favor of “legitimate” websites. But yes, sometimes it just doesn’t seem fair at all as to how Google ranks one site above another!

So if you are brand spankin’ new to internet marketing, and you are trying to learn (figure out) what “search engine ranking” is all about, here is a very very simplified way to understand it for now:

• Your organic search engine ranking has to do with the relevancy of the content on your web page and to the keyword phrase you have used to base that page of content on.
• The total number of web pages on your site containing quality content is taken into consideration.
• The age of your website is taken into consideration.
• The number of other quality, theme related websites that have a link on their site that points to your website helps your ranking position.
• Your attention to basic on-page SEO techniques is of great importance. To learn more, please get a copy of my free guide “The SEO Edge” and discover how to write effective Title and Description tags, and content.

But here’s the kicker to everything I’ve just listed, and back to what NOM was angrily complaining about … somehow, junky spammy sites can rank above legitimate, quality sites. There can be umpteen reasons for this, of which I wouldn’t be able to answer unless I dug in and started to research each non-relevant website to the keyword phrase in question.

However, without writing a novel on this very subject, which trust me, one could easily do, I can tell you this. No matter how “unfair” keyword ranking positions may be, I’ll bet you good money-$$ that ultimately those sites that right now rank well for keyword phrases which they really ought not to …they will drop-drop-drop down in rankings and soon will be non-existent ranking-wise for all intent purposes.

As my dear Grandma Sadie used to say a lot, “Patience is a virtue.” And sometimes, in the search engine rankings wars … patience truly is a virtue! But in the end our content rich, keyword targeted sites will rank well.

Keyword Ranking Woes? Should You Edit Your Content For A New Keyword Phrase?

A Simple Tweak Using a Better Keyword Phrase Can Often Do Wonders

You know, I am sometimes neglectful of not checking up on keyword rankings for one of my older websites that does quite well for its niche. Because there are so many pages, and so many different targeted keyword phrases being used, I usually keep an eye on the ones that are responsible for the highest volumes of traffic.

I trust that the “lesser” trafficked pages are hanging in there and doing their job of faithfully bringing in the smaller groups of traffic that are also very important. Due to competition, or due to the relative low search volumes of those keywords, I knew right off the bat that those pages weren’t going to be top-ten ranking stars.

And that’s OK. Every website or blog out there, if it contains lots of pages or posts of content, has many of these types of low ranking pages. But lower performing keywords do perform a great service … they provide good trickles of visitors that, when added up, bring in a nice CHUNK of traffic each month.

Those keywords do get “found” by searchers, and if you’ve provided quality, keyword focused content on the page, then you’ll more than likely have satisfied the searcher’s desire for the information they were looking for. And just maybe they’ll continue to nose around your site. So … you and I need to love the less-searched-for keyword phrases, too.

But Sometimes You Find a Grand Opportunity to Make a Simple Keyword Tweak

DOH! What was I thinking way back when? Sometimes, even for a professional SEO consultant, yes sometimes you realize that a keyword phrase you utilized to optimize a page and which you thought was the right one to use, turns out to not be the best choice.

There can be many reasons as to why a specific term looks good to use and then upon review many months, or even years later, things have changed and it is missing the mark. Well, this proved to be the case last night while I was doing research for a new eBook I am planning on writing.

While doing research with the helpful Wordtracker keyword researching tool, I came upon a keyword phrase that just jumped right out at me. It was exactly the term that related to a page of content on my site AND I saw some impressive estimated search results with very very low competition!

A lightbulb went on. I remembered I had a page on my website that I seemed to remember optimizing for this exact keyword. Yet I knew it wasn’t bringing me much traffic each month. So … off I went to see how it was ranking.

I went right to Google, entered the term and looked and looked and found my page ranking #38. Not bad, but in my mind’s eye, not good. And I looked at the optimized Title and Description tags and hold on! What in the heck? I saw that what I had optimized the page for was not this wonderful, highly searched for and 100% relevant keyword phrase.

I was using this phrase as a modifier, but not as the primary phrase. That’s why I was ranking for it (see how utilizing a secondary keyword phrase in your content can allow for ranking for that term, too?) but not ranking very well.

So … run, run I went and carefully edited and SEOd my tags and the page’s content to reflect this great keyword phrase. It wasn’t hard to do, as quite honestly the page already was 100% about information that pertained perfectly to this great rediscovered keyword phrase.

It’s OK to Tweak Your Tags and Content if the Need Arises … Just Don’t Get Obsessive!

Clients ask me if it is going to be necessary to constantly edit to make improvements to their content if they would like to try for better rankings for certain keyword phrases. I tell them sometimes yes, but sometimes no. Making improvements to Title and meta tags, content and such is all part of the ongoing process of search engine optimization.

But … it isn’t always a good idea to be continually going back and tweaking or rewriting the pages on your site in order to try and get better rankings. There are a number of factors you must take into consideration before you might waste your time doing so. If these factors add up, then tweaking can be a good thing to do.

Hold on Claudia, did you just say “… might waste your time”? Yes I did and I’ll explain.

What I mean by this is that to my trained SEO consultant’s eye, I saw a huge opportunity just sitting there, waiting for me to step in to what I believe will ultimately be a top-ten ranking for this page. The reasons being: the top-twenty ranking pages were poorly optimized; some of them barely related to the keyword phrase; my site is already ranked as an authority site, thus has more ranking “weight”; this page contained the keyword phrase as a modifier, so the content was totally ready for the quick changes (no major rewrite necessary); and lastly, I know what I’m doing.

Under these circumstances, I’d be crazy NOT to tweak my page and go after a much better, highly trafficked term. It was worth my time to go back and tweak that page. Again, it wasn’t a MAJOR rewrite. It was a rather quick editing job.

If It’s Going to Require Almost a Total Rewrite of the Existing Copy … Write a New Page

But most times, it is more productive to write a NEW page of content that is 100% optimized for the term you’ve uncovered. Let the “older” page of content remain as is. Write a new page. Just make sure it isn’t too similar in the wording so as not to get penalized for duplicate content or this new page most likely will be ignored in the search engine rankings. Make sure you offer some new information not found on the older, but similar page.

So, now I’m going to sit back and wait to see if what I’ve done will have an impact on not only search engine rankings, but on increased visitor traffic.

I’m remaining hopeful that this small improvement, that only took about 30-minutes of my time, will bring me a very positive result now and for the long term traffic-wise.

Running a new keyword research report every now and then never hurts, as you never know how market trends, or searchers query choices can change. In my case, this was a situation where for whatever reason (way back when) I choose a keyword phrase over one that today proves to be better to target in every which way I look at it.

Fresh Content Can Help Maintain Stable Ranking Positions

Let’s Take Another Look at My Keyword Rankings

Time flies by and I realized I need to write an update to my rankings. In an effort to honestly show you that ethical SEO techniques really do make a difference, I have promised to actually expose one of my websites and some of the keywords that are responsible for bringing me quality targeted traffic.

So, in the last post of March 26th I was holding down the #1 and #2 positions for the keyword phrase: hypertufa recipes.

Good News! One month has gone by and I am still holding those same top spots.

I Make a Point to Continue to Add Fresh Content to My Websites

I have mentioned before that you can’t sit back after finally attaining top search engine positions, expecting your web pages to remain at the top forever. No siree! Depending upon the niche and each keyword you’ve targeted and its level of ranking difficulty/competitiveness, you may find your ranking(s) slipping over time, due to other competing websites and other factors as well.

Sometimes you can “sit back” because there really isn’t any online competition in your niche. You don’t need to come up with fresh content ideas on a regular basis. Lucky you! But this is not the norm. In almost all circumstances and niches, you just can’t get around the fact competition will undoubtedly be nipping at your heels some point in time.

Even if you experience a long stretch of stable top rankings, I still suggest you write a new new page of content every now and then to help add value for your site’s visitors and to help reinforce your ranking positions.

To that end, I DO practice what I preach, and I wrote another good solid page of information the other day, utilizing this keyword phrase. I don’t want to get nudged out of my great ranking positions by those other people down below me.

Interested in learning how to implement ethical SEO techniques on your website or blog? If you’ve not yet done so, please click here to download your FREE copy of my informative eBook “The SEO Edge”.

Not a bad deal if I say so myself!

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