https://www.followthismonkey.com/the-future-of-internet-marketing-seattle-seo-network/

Clever idea!

I wonder if it would be considered as ‘buying links’ by Google.

Google are testing a new feature which shows a preview of the full page content when hovering over the link. It also highlights (using an orange box) the section on the page where the string which was searched for appears. Nice feature… (click to see full size image)

Here is the full trailer…

In fact, Google have in the past made it clear that they want to build their own social graph and use that to improve search results.  The announcement made by Google yesterday may well be a real boost for building their own social graph, and a blow for the Facebook ‘Like’ button (which has been around for about 1 year now).

What is +1?

Fundamentally it is a similar concept to the now familiar Facebook Like and Twitter Tweet buttons.  It enables users to easily, with 1 click (assuming they are signed in with a Google account) vote their support for a particular webpage. 

For now, the button is only available for SOME users and only within the Google search results list…

Voting for a particular page can be done with a single click on the +1 icon next to the page title. 

Users will then be shown pages which have been voted up by their social network (based on a Google account connected to others by Gmail, Google Reader and other services)…

Eventually Google +1 will also be available to add on to websites (as the Facebook ‘like’ and Twitter ‘tweet’ buttons are today)…

This video provides a nice summary of +1…

So what?

Facebook and Twitter buttons are already widely adopted, so will  people bother to add another (Google ‘+1’) button to their sites?

In short – YES.  At least I believe so.

Google have actually been quite clever here.  They have used their greatest asset (search) and targeted a desire of every single website manager in the world (to increase traffic from Google). 

Yes it’s true that +1 is ANOTHER voting button on top of the already widely adopted implementations from Twitter, Facebook and others.  Yes it’s true that for website users to use the +1 button they will need to sign up for ANOTHER account, on top of their Facebook and Twitter accounts.  But Google +1 does offer something unique which website owners do not get with the Facebook and Twitter buttons…

From launch, it is clear that use of the +1 button will enhance Google search results by highlighting pages which have been voted by a users social network.  However, it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that Google will at some point start to use those votes as ranking signals as well.  +1 votes will most likely become a necessary factor for website managers to monitor for improving their Google referrals (as Facebook ‘likes’ are becoming for Bing.com referrals today).

In fact, perhaps +1 will at some point replace PageRank?!  Even if it doesn’t I suspect that the ‘fear’ of it will prompt many site owners to adopt the Google +1 button as soon as they can.

Whilst the content of the post itself is extremely useful for SEO, that was not actually what got me excited.  What I loved about this post was the way that someone was able to ask a random question about products from three different companies, and within just 1 day have it answered by the founders of each of those companies!

I also very much respected Rand’s first answer which provided incredibly open customer feedback information (good and bad) about his own products. 

Rand and SEOMOZ create a great set of products, show open respect for their ‘competitors’ and are seemingly completely open and constructively critical about their own work on a regular basis.  In a word of Quora, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogs with open comment boxes, etc… this type of relationship with the online community makes a lot of sense to me. 

Whilst I have a lot of respect for the skills sales people have, I can’t say that I respect the tendency many have for avoiding discussions about negative customer feedback, or worst the habit of criticizing competitor products just purely because they are competition.  I think that Rand and many other successful people in the evolving world of online communities would agree with me. 

• Rand knows his company makes great products
• Rand knows that his respectful and honest reply in the Quora post would result in equally respectful and honest replies
• Rand knows that deliberately avoiding a mention of negative product feedback would simply result in someone else mentioning it in the replies
• Rand knows that criticizing a competitor (even in a politically correct way) will simple result in retaliation from the competitor, their affiliates or just someone who didn’t like the tone of Rand’s message

Gone are the days when the only ‘customer testimonials’ are those which a company has chosen to publish on it’s site.  Gone are the days when the only way of getting your complaint heard was to threaten with some kind of publicity stunt. 

Oh and by the way, the only was I discovered this post was because Quora knows I am interested in SEO, so it made me aware of the discussion in my news feed.  So GONE are the days where someone who wants to start a discussion has to proactively go out and find people who are interested in participating!

Quora is just on example of how online communication and reputation has changed/is changing.  If you haven’t already, get on top of it now.  I will be paying a lot more attention to the site after this experience.

Just in case you are still wondering whether the SEO post is worth your attention, here are the tools it mentions and compares…

• SEOMOZ
• Raven SEO
• Hubspot
• In less detail…
  • SEO Book
  • Buzzstream
  • Ontolo

Check it out

So negative reviews from your customers on comparison sites could be directly impacting your search referrals from Google.

The full video is available to watch here…

Meta tag refreshes can be used to ‘redirect’ users from one page to another.  The code is placed in the head section of a page and looks something like this…

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="5; URL=https://support.microsoft.com/newpage.html">

This example code will wait 5 seconds, and then redirect the user to https://support.microsoft.com/newpage.html.  The delay time can be used to display a notification to the user informing them that they are being redirected.

Whilst I had previously thought that these types of redirects were not as effective as 301 redirects for informing search engines that a page has moved, it turns out that as long as the delay time is low (0 or a few seconds), then the redirect code is considered the same as a server side 301 redirect code (i.e. the link juice will be passed to the new URL).  Longer delays may not be considered the same.

This is valuable news for anyone who…

1. Has difficulties creating server side redirects for their content
2. Would like to make it clear to users that they are being redirected (by displayed a short message first)

Author: Chris Moore is a program manager from Microsoft working on Search Engine Optimisation.  Follow him on Twitter

A big thanks to Court Crawford, our gifted User Experience Lead at Microsoft for inspiring this post.

The 3 click rule…

…is simple…
Never require your users to go through more than 3 clicks to complete a task
The theory being that on average most users will give up after 3 clicks (presumably closing the browser, navigating to another site or simply walking away from the computer).

But is this really still true today?  In the current online world of dynamic HTML 5 powered websites, Flash/Silverlight plugins, endless ‘Related content’ paths and rich media engaging web experiences, users expect to be guided through a website to complete their task, using multi-step processes which customise content and options as selections are made.

In fact, this post from uie.com suggest that the 3 click rule is simply a myth (not sure if this has always been the case, or rather a reflection of evolving typical web behaviour).  Their research actually suggests that hardly anyone gives up after 3 clicks…

And that a larger number of clicks does not negatively effect user satisfaction…

Please view the full post for a full write up of the research

Replacing it with the 1 click rule…

This post on Grundyhome.com provides the ‘1 click rule’ as an alternative…

Every click or interaction should take the user closer to their goal while eliminating as much of the non-destination as possible.

and the corollary:

Avoid any interaction that eliminates the user’s intended goal.

So keeping the user ‘on side’ by making it clear how the requested action benefits their intended goal, removes any need to limit the inputs and effort required to complete a task.  So long as the user knows where they are going, and as long as they are reassured of how each step gets them closer, they will stay on the path.

But don’t forget the SEO impact

But no matter how well designed your website is for your users to meet the 1 click rule, you also need to consider the SEO impact when considering the click depth of your site.

As mentioned in a recent blog post inspired by SEOMOZ, it is important to flatten your site structure effectively to ensure that important pages are 1 click away from high ranking pages (e.g. your homepage), and that other pages are 2, 3, 4, etc.. clicks away depending on the importance of the pages and the size of your site. 

As per the ‘1 click rule’, having lots of goal focussing steps for your users is a good thing.  Having 23 (as an example) pages for a user workflow indexed by search engines is probably NOT a good thing! A smart website design will ensure that the search engine entry pages for user tasks are optimised and close (in terms of clicks) to the homepage.  The lower level pages which the users click through to complete a task, can use a solution such as the canonical tag, or on-page code (Javascript, Flash, Silverlight, HTML 5, etc…) to provide the users with a rich, interactive and multi click experience, whilst still ensuring that only a single strong ranking page is indexed by search engines.

Author: Chris Moore is a program manager from Microsoft working on Search Engine Optimisation.  Follow him on Twitter