Even with the public testing and feedback there is still some mystery surrounding how far this new indexing system will go- will it be limited to search, or will it be applied across all of the Google online structure? For, now we don’t have those answers but we do know what Caffeine is and how it will change (or not change) your search results. 

Google has stressed the fact that most users (i.e regular users) won’t notice any major differences- even though these changes are major (MAJOR). In fact, Caffeine basically is  a complete and total re-write of Google’s indexing system. The motivation behind these changes is to give the searcher, — power or regular, —  a much better overall search experience. Caffeine will give you faster, more accurate, and more comprehensive results- at least those are the goals. 

If you go to www2.sandbox.google.com and give Caffeine a spin (like I did)  you will notice some of these goals have already been met. I entered “Nehmedia” (of course) as my search term and my results returned within .05 seconds- I also tested this on Decaf Google (aka www.google.com) and my results were returned in .08 seconds. I also tried a more frequently searched term “Shoes;” Caffeine returned the results in .18 seconds and Decaf Google returned my results in .23. Conclusion: Caffeine is faster than the Google we use today. 

Another interesting aspect of Google Caffeine is that this new indexing system is going to make your time from launch to index much quicker,.Meaning: the time between when you submit a document to be indexed and the time it is made searchable should be much shorter- which is pretty fantastic for those of us in SEO.

Also very important to note from the SEO standpoint is that it seems (to me at least) that a lot more emphasis is going to be put on keywords. The top results have the exact words you searched for and in the order you searched them in.

More emphasis is also put on recent activity and content. When I searched my name on Caffeine, the Facebook results were at the top. In Decaf Google, the top results were a mix of articles containing my name. I can only deduce from this that websites with more recent activity are pushed to the top of the results. This could have a huge impact on SEO; if we want our clients websites to be highly ranked we are going to need to regularly add content or make changes to the site. Caffeine will also return more search results than normal Google so your search becomes more comprehensive- they are making it very hard not to find what you are looking for. News is changing as well. Caffeine focuses on real-time updates and has set in place an algorithm to make sure that as news is updated, so are you. 

Many people have been wondering what set Caffeine into motion and a lot of whispers (and yells in some cases) have been speculating that it was the recent Yahoo-Microsoft merger. Not so, says Matt Cutts (and he would know). In fact, according to Cutts, Caffeine has been in the works for months and the timing is coincidence.

I believe him. It would have been nothing short of a miracle for engineers and technologists to have created this as a reaction to BingHoo (or whatever you want to call it) and have it up and ready for testing so quickly. Pretty impossible, even for Google. Nevertheless, it is competition- and fierce competition at that. Even if it wasn’t meant as an answer to the merger, it is an answer to it. 

For regular searchers, Caffeine won’t mean too much of a difference in results. As Cutts said, the changes are “primarily under the hood”.  Google will still return relevant results- just faster and more comprehensive results. Power searchers and those in the “know” will notice some significant changes though, and SEO needs to take note of them because it will effect our methods and strategies.

Matt Cutts blog: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

As search engine algorithms become more advanced and people are less and less able to function without an internet connection, SEO has to become more sophisticated. We can’t completely rely on the “old faithful” strategies. Of course, optimized keywords, valuable content, PPC (Pay-Per-Click), and linking are all still vital for a successful website- but they aren’t alone anymore. A focused marketing strategy is quickly becoming one of the most crucial aspects of creating and launching a successful website.

Hence, SEOM- Search Engine Optimization Marketing. What I mean to say by this is that using traditional methods of SEO are no longer enough. These days a strategic marketing plan is going to be the difference between a site some people visit and a site that is well-known. A couple things to keep in mind when formulating a marketing plan for a website…

* Audience- What is the audience you are trying to attract? What type of keywords does that audience respond to? This is where your SEO keyword tools come into play. They will help you decide on keywords and give you the statistics on those keywords including the all-important search volume information (if there is no search volume, there are no searchers, and you need a new idea for a website). It is vital to think about your audience, if you create a site without keeping them in mind then you might as well have not created a site at all. Remember, even if you rank number one on a search engine doesn’t mean that searchers will like your site, and if they don’t, they will move on to whomever is number two.

• Testing- if you think you have an amazing idea for a website but aren’t sure if it will be popular then test it out. This is where PPC (Pay-Per-Click) can come in handy- if you have the funds. Create a few PPC ads describing your potential site and launch them. If you find your ads are getting loads of clicks, then chances are your potential website will be popular as well. If not, then maybe re-think your idea. 
• PPC can be a really great way of finding out what types of sites people are interested in visiting and what sites they aren’t. Try a couple different ads to see which earns the most clicks. A note of warning: yes,PPC is awesome and helpful, but it is also expensive. So keep an eye on your daily budgets and when you have enough data to draw a conclusion, consider trying for organic optimization on the keywords that are working for you. 
•  Competitive Analysis- Who else is occupying the space you want? How well do they do it? Are you trying to push your way into a space where there isn’t any room? For example, maybe you have a brilliant idea for a new search engine… well, that’s gonna be an uphill climb! Google owns (I mean OWNS) that space, and if something cataclysmic happened and they no longer ruled then Yahoo, Bing, Ask.com, and many others are queued up to take the top spot.
• You absolutely have to consider your competitors. If you want to compete in a space that already has a household name, then you might want to consider another idea. On the other hand, if you have a creative or niche idea for a site then it is probably worth proceeding. You just need to have put in the research and analysis into your competitor sites so your website can beat them not only at the ranking but also at popularity. Any decent marketer worth his pricey suit would tell you that in order to compete you have to know the market inside and out- and the same is true online. 

SEO works really well. SEO works better when paired with a focused marketing strategy. It isn’t all about rank (and it truly pains me to say that); it is also about what your audience likes and responds to. You might be the best-optimized site on the internet, but if searchers don’t like your site, they won’t visit and you will have a top ranked mess on your hands. At the end of the day, it’s about getting searchers to come and stay on your site, and that takes a solid marketing strategy.

A little known SEO fact: Many search engine optimizers operate under the idea that no one is ever going to read website content. Quite a shocking revelation considering how often we stress the importance of quality content. It might seem like we are battling windmills we believe to be giants by working so arduously to create meaningful, keyword-focused, valuable content that we don’t believe anyone will read, yet, there is a certain genius to it. Let me explain. Yes, content is extremely important- excellent content is vital because search engines read it and it is a significant aspect of ranking. When bots crawl your site they are looking for keywords and content- and you will be ranked accordingly. If you have no content on your site, you don’t have a hope of generating traffic. If anything, search engine optimizers aren’t being foolish, we are being realistic. We know that content is non-negotiable for search engines and even though we don’t always think people are reading it, quality content is vital for people as well. Even though most people rush through a wesbite, find what they need and rush out, it is still important to have plenty of valuable and informative content for those users who actually want to read it.  It can be so easy for an SEO copywriter to  write only for search engines- it is a habit we all fall into time and again, but we can’t forget that the Internet is for people, not search engines.  This is why your page structure is important, you need to balance the need for  quality content that some visitors want with other visitors need for fast navigation. Hence the use of bold type and large buttons amongst text. You can direct hurried visitors attention towards what it is they are most likely looking for without sacrificing what search engines (and some people) like- which is content.

These are just the realities of SEO, you need solid content but you can’t expect every bit of it to be read by anything other than a bot. Even with that reality to consider you also have to be mindful of who the Internet was created for- man not machine. Bascially what I’m trying to get across is that even though you might not expect anyone to read your content other than a search engine you should still be writing for people- because at the end of the day people are what drive the Internet, not search engines. Does it matter what color the L is in the Google logo? No, what matters is that Google provides valuable content that people find helpful and informative- don’t forget this (even if you forget their color scheme.)

 What does this mean for Facebook and FriendFeed users? Well, for the time being it doesn’t mean anything. Both companies are still working out the long-term details. According to Co-Founder Bret Taylor, FriendFeed will continue to operate normally and the API will remain the same. A more interesting question might be, what does this mean for Twitter? Facebook has been contemplating the best way to compete against this real-time news update titan, and it seems they have found it in FriendFeed. Incorporating FriendFeed’s excellent real-time updates into Facebook means hefty competition for Twitter. Since becoming popular, Twitter has had only one competitive edge over Facebook: their real-time news update capabilities. With the addition of FriendFeed to Facebook, Twitter may have lost their one up.

This merger is very much a meeting of like-minds. Facebook and FriendFeed have very similar ideas about social media and both companies are going to benefit from this integration. Facebook will be gaining real-time news update technology, not to mention the kind-of-a-big-deal ex-Googlers known as the Co-Founders of FriendFeed, some of whom are responsible for Gmail and Google Maps. FriendFeed will be gaining 250 million users worldwide- and that is nothing to shrug at. 

For now, Facebook and FriendFeed users will have to wait to see what changes this means for them. Considering how much overlap there is between the two social media sites, it might be a while before they decide on exactly how to integrate for the long-term; nevertheless, Twitter is most definitely on high alert.

 Official Facebook Press Release

Because long-tail keywords are so specific and geared toward a small group of searchers, you have a much much better chance of being the top-ranked website for those terms. Achieving the top rank for a keyword gives you a major advantage over your competitors. Most people click on the first site that comes up in search- and if that site is yours- then you have the best chance of making a searcher a customer. Another benefit of long-tail keywords is the specificity of the term, because it is so targeted the searcher was most likely looking for exactly what you offer. Take a clothing boutique for example. While the owners of the site might be tempted to only target keywords such as “dresses” or “designer jeans,” it will likely be difficult for their site to compete with large internet retailers for search visibility on those terms. On the other hand, if the owners of the boutique target long-tail keywords such as ” Zac Posen cocktail dress”  or ” Dark denim skinny leg jeans” then they are much more likely not only to rank highly but also to receive visits to their site from customers actually looking to purchase what they are offering. Long-tail keywords are much more likely to convert into a sale than short-tail due to the specific nature of the term. 

Since you will be targeting such detailed terms, you will have to create more pages to cover all the different variations. In general, search engines (read Google) are rather fond of websites with many pages due to the fact these websites are more likely to be reputable and knowledgeable. They give the search engine spiders plenty to read and rank, and search engines like that. It never hurts a website to employ methods that search engines respond well to and they respond very well to long-tail keywords.

In the end, it’s a matter or high search volumes without conversion/sales (short-tail keywords), or lower search volumes that translate into revenue (long-tail keywords). I’ll have the revenue, please.

There are some who would have you believe that all top ranked sites cheat in order to be number one. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Websites with top ranking are at the top because they employ expert SEO companies that use Search Optimization Software. They have optimized keywords, and quality content- that is why they are highly ranked. Be this as it may, there are still plenty of people trying to cheat the system. Some use masked keywords to achieve a (very) short term ranking. Masked keywords are words that you have incorporated into your website that don’t actually have any relevance to what the site is actually about. Some instances of this are using celebrity names, political events, or top news headlines in order to lure people to your site. This will probably work for a very short while, but all those customers visiting the site weren’t actually looking for it in the first place and were only attracted to it because of misleading keywords- they will leave your site immediately and never return. However, losing face with customers will be the least of your worries, because when a Search Engine discovers you have been cheating them, they will ban your site from all search, permanently.

Another popular method of scamming (and it is a scam) Search Engines is using noscript tags to hide content that the customer doesn’t see but the Search Engines do. Noscript tags are supposed to be used for alternate content in the event your site content doesn’t appear or a script is not executed. Instead of properly using noscript tags some websites fill them with high ranking keywords/content that has absolutely nothing to do with their site. The Search Engines spiderbots read this content and assign the site a high rank- at first- it doesn’t take long for the bots to recognize the farce and immediately erase the website from memory. Let me stress there is no coming back from this, no excuse in the world will save you from being banned. If you cheat a Search Engine, they will enforce the harshest of consequences- without asking questions.

The lesson? Do not even attempt to fool a Search Engine. You won’t ever be able to outsmart them and the repercussions could be devastating to your business.

Once you have made those decisions its all just a matter of working it into the content of your site, right? Wrong.  You have to be careful here, using these keywords is incredibly important but incorporating them in a meaningful and logical way is essential. If a Search Engine (especially if that Search Engine is Google) believes that your site is “keyword stuffing” – meaning you are using keywords that are not relevant to your site or that you are using relevant keywords that are repeated too often in a nonsensical way throughout your site,then those Search Engines will take you completely off the grid and all that keyword research was for naught. There are many components that go into creating a successful and highly ranked website but choosing the right keywords can take you pretty far down the road. The lesson? Don’t listen to the words you’ve heard, listen to the words that rank.