So Google Chrome has now been available for download for a number of months now, so you’re maybe thinking that isn’t particularly new information. However, what a lot of people don’t realise is that there is a 3 stage process to a Beta release:
Stable
Developer
Final Beta
The latest version of Chrome is supposed to be considerably faster than it’s predecessor, it’s unique user interface is now packed with additional features. One of the features I thought was particularly nice was the ability to view tabs of pages side by side. This is great when I’m in the office and I’m working from a single monitor, or using my laptop as it allows me to view multiple pages simultaneously, and relatively easily.
After taking a quick look on YouTube we found loads of videos where users had screen captured their experiences with Chrome, and demonstrated some of the nicer features. Here is a video showing a few of them:
Whereas I don’t think Chrome will be my primary browser just yet, it’s showing a lot of potential and is slowly catching up with Firefox (for me personally - not worldwide!) in terms of it’s likeability. The latest version of Chrome is available for download (for free), so if you haven’t tried or heard of it yet, give it a try. Additionally, if you have an older version of Chrome make sure you update to the latest version. A lot of bugs have been ironed out, and the speed improvements are a big plus.
White hat SEO is a term used to describe search engine optimisation techniques. Techniques are considered as ‘white hat’ or ‘ethical SEO‘ if they adhere to guidelines provided by the Search Engines. Most SEO companies will claim that they use only ethical or white hat techniques.
In contrast to white hat techniques, there is what is known as ‘black hat’ SEO. This refers to techniques for optimising your site that aren’t within the search engine guidelines. These techniques are often used to deceive or trick the search engine robots by doing things such as hiding text, using door way pages, using hidden links etc. Black hat SEO techniques are popular with spam websites, and can generate traffic in the short term. However, long term if you are seen to be using black hat techniques you will be penalised or banned from the search engine index completely.
‘Grey hat’ SEO is also a term that exists. This is when it isn’t clear if a technique is white hat or black hat, but is probably best avoided if possible. If you are unsure if you have are using black hat techniques, you should get a professional SEO company or SEO consultant to review your site.
SERP is an acronym for the term ’search engine result page’. A SERP refers to the results pages shown by a search engine such as Google on entering a keyword or phrase (or query). For example, if you enter the keyword ‘news’ in Google, the first website at the top of the SERP would most likely be the BBC website if searching on Google.co.uk
Multiple pages are also referred to as SERPs. For example, it could be used in a sentence such as:
“After checking the site to see how it ranked for it’s chosen keywords, it was in the top 10 in all the SERPs.”
Between the months of February 2008 and February 2009, Facebook has seen an increase in over double the amount of traffic. Throughout the world, Facebook sees an unbelieveable increase of 5 million new members every 7 days! Facebook also received 36.03% of all US social networking web traffic, showing nearly a 5% increase on the previous month. This also means Facebook is slowly catching up with MySpace who dropped from 57.08% to 52.21%.
Many are putting the success of Facebook down to it’s applications such as Twitter. Twitter are now announcing a new beta version of their software that will further integrate Facebook functionality, which many believe is going to accelerate it’s growth even more.
When it comes to business, the best method of receiving new clients has always been through a word of mouth recommendation. Eventually it maybe the case where social media actually replaces the standard method of searching, as search engines simply categorise websites based on indexing data and algorithms and then associate their value and relevance. Now no matter how good the programming, surely this will no substitute for a human recommendation? A human analysis can be so much more detailed than an automated process, so it seems this really could be a very real possibility. The only reason Google does not use human analysis is because it would simply be impossible to do it manually on such a large scale.
Currently a lot of online marketers are having success with driving lots of traffic to websites from Social Media sites, the trick however is converting this traffic into sales. It is now possible to create business and company profiles in Facebook, LinkedIn etc enabling users to network their company in much the same way they do with their personal profiles. Some believe however that the growth of social media will be short lived, and that eventually the phenomenon will pop when it reaches its critical mass. From experience however, if that were to happen I don’t think it would not disappear entirely, it would simply evolve just as the dot com businesses did. Either way, we will be watching the progress with some interest over the next months.
There has always been a dislike for Flash for many SEO companies over the years. In many cases, most SEO companies will recommend against the use of all rich media, or changing it in such a way that you actually lose the impact of the original design.
At Elevator SEO, we understand the importance of Flash and Rich Media in a website. It serves a different purpose to standard HTML and CSS pages, and we employ a number of techniques and methods to make sure that it is accessible as possible to the Search Engine Robots to allow the content to be indexed.
In order to help people optimise their Flash sites for search engines, and to encourage developers and designers not to be put off by the burden of SEO, Adobe has launched a new Search Engine Optimization and Technology Centre. The purpose of the site is:
“Ensuring that search engines can crawl and index your rich Internet applications (RIAs)—so that your content can be found by others—is of critical importance to building and maintaining an online presence. While Adobe and the leading search engines are making significant strides in making SWF content more searchable, you can take additional steps now to improve your search ranking positions further. The SEO Technology Center helps explain what the challenges are and provides practical steps, examples, and best practices that you can follow to overcome them.”
This is yet another turning point for Flash and SEO. In the future we hope it will be possible to maintain the look, design and interaction of your Flash websites without having to sacrifice the benefits of SEO.
We offer a free SEO website analysis report for everyone who would like to know more. Simple provide few details including your name, email and domain. Once verified we will analyse your site and send you a PDF of your report. Click for your Free Analysis
