Think local

All politics is local, well what about the internet? Isn't it just a quivering mass of computers splayed all over the world uncaring of what's happening in your local suburb, town or location? Do search engines really think in terms of where you are on the planet when they offer you search results ?

The big and really important answer is yes, they do !

Google for example recently upgraded it's search results to very heavily feature, when appropriate, results that are physically close to you. For example, if you search for "shoe store" do you want a store in Iceland or one around the corner? Around the corner of course. There are subtle variations to this of course. If you search for 'shoe news' (it's possible) you might actually want to know what's happening around the world rather than next door. The challenge for Google is deciding when you want local or worldwide.

What this means to you or your business is that you had better have your web presence clearly specifying your locality. This can be done via content on your site etc but best of all, by your Google places listing.

You do have one don't you ? If not and you're not sure how to proceed, get in touch and we can quickly help.

How important are search engines?

Search engines are lovely cuddly little creatures who really just want to make people happy. The question is of course, which people? The answer is not you and I, they want to make themselves happy. This is not unheard of, search engines are after all commercial enterprises. Of course it works for us as search engine users because they make themselves happy by making us happy by giving us search results that satisfy our needs. A search engine’s success depends on our satisfaction. It tries to guess what we want. So what ! you say. What does this mean when designing a web site. Well it means a great deal. Never be fooled by a website designer into thinking you must try to trick the search engines, that you must build mainly for the search engines. Build and design your site for people. If you do that you will meet the needs of the search engines and remember this group ? Your customers.

Google is so powerful, so omnipresent that the call is starting to be heard now for some kind of regulation. In an online world, surely when an entity has so much control over our lives and the success and failure of millions of businesses, some protection should be in place. Many people will remember the ongoing calls for Microsoft to be controlled as it seemed to have too much power over our lives and in my opinion it did. It is also my opinion that controlling Google or any other powerful search provider may be necessary some day in some way but not yet. It is the secret nature of the way Google ranks websites that makes it so useful. If search professionals were able to analyse the search ranking methods in detail, we would very soon be back in the world of seeing only porn and poker at the top of every result. Now this would be a backwards step, don’t you agree?