The Denver SEO Company » Denver SEO

How to Take Advantage of Google’s new Instant Preview Search Results

Zack Katz — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 19:27:39 +0000

Google has once again taken a cue from Bing

Google recently has added a bunch of features to their search engine: live results, keyboard navigation using directional arrows, and a completely re-vamped interface. Today, Google rolled out Instant Previews – a feature that involves Google taking a snapshot of the website. Instant Previews result in — according to Google — 5% more user satisfaction in the search results they get.

While Bing doesn’t feature image snapshots, they do have a pop-out box with additional text. Google has consistently augmented their “eye candy” since Bing launched.

Google doesn’t close lightboxes in the Instant Previews.

If you’re trying to show someone a message when they view the Instant Preview, showing a lightbox with an image in it might work. The Instant Previews are 302 x 405px, so the ratio is 1.34. If you were to create a large image that was larger than your content and had a ratio of 1.34, you may be able to display something unique to Google users.

Non-standard indexing rate

Google does not generate the screenshots live; they seem to be generated when crawling the website, which makes sense. Google’s Instant Preview of a Twitter page corresponds to the “Latest Results from…” scroller results. If it’s not updated in Google’s index, the image will not be updated.

For local SEO, consider adding a banner with local images

If you’re trying to reach an audience that is looking for a local result and not some spammy directory, consider adding images of the area. This may includes pictures of Denver skyline, the mountains, etc.

Denver SEO Image Results Are Back

Zack Katz — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:24:18 +0000

Recently, in Google search results…

Last summer, Google was testing many new technologies that are now a regular part of search results, such as Google Profiles. They had been very aggressive in adding video and images into results as well. This meant that in addition to the ten links, there were video, image, map and profile results that were all in the mix.

Google then backed away from so aggressively integrating those results into search results, and has been slowly refining and redefining their layout.

Changed the width of the results so that instead of 100% browser width, results now have a maximum width. Many people believe that this is to increase click-through rates for the sponsored results.
Added real-time search results (“Latest results from…”) from Twitter and news websites after they brokered a deal to access Twitter data
Added weather, sports results, and other “factual” results above organic results
Increased the width of the “OneBox”

There have been many changes over the past year, and many more will come.

Images return in “Denver SEO” search results

Google shows images for the search Denver SEO...is that what users are wanting?

During that span of time last year, images were shown for the query “Denver SEO,” but since then have disappeared. Now, they are back, and given a prominent location in the search results (currently between position 3 and 4).When a user searches for Denver SEO, why would they want an image? The only explanation I can think of is that SEOs may be clicking on their own image results to artificially give weight and relevance to something that I believe isn’t hugely relevant.

What’s even more interesting is that some of the images don’t even have alt text or title attributes that Google would read to know what the image is about. Thus, Google is simply inferring that the images are relevant based on the surrounding content and the name of the image file itself.

Analysis of shown images

The first two images shown are from the same page and are right next to each other on the page. They have the same alt text, and virtually the same title attribute.

The next image is from the Katz Web Services website and has alt and title attributes.

The fourth image is from HighPoint SEO and has relevant alt and title attributes.

The last image has no alt or title tag, and is from New Media Denver.

What is the take-away?

I believe the moral of the story is that alt and title tags help get images properly indexed by Google, but that surrounding content and image file names are most important.

What are your thoughts?

Local Denver SEO – Make Sure You’re Bing Ready

Zack Katz — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:13:45 +0000

Denver SEO for Bing.com

With the announcement today that Microsoft is going to be taking over Yahoo!’s search business, Microsoft’s Bing (Previously Live.com) has become even a stronger challenger to Google. It’s important to be focusing search engine optimization not only on Google, but also on Bing.

Here are two starting ways to make sure your website is all ready for Bing becoming a major player:

1. Keep track of Bing’s crawling of your website

Just as Google has Webmaster Tools, Bing has Webmaster Central. Bing’s Webmaster Central finds some different issues that are not always caught in Google. Fixing these issues will help your site’s ranking.

Make sure your website is validated and you have submitted a sitemap.
Check to see if your site has any Crawl Issues (broken links, etc.). If your site does, you will want to redirect the broken links back to the correct page, or your home page.

2. Add your business to Bing Maps and SEO the listing

Bing Maps is like Google Local, and is becoming a true competitor.

Make sure your Denver business has a map listing on Bing by submitting your business. They will send a post card to verify ownership, and once that has been completed, your listing will be shown on the map.
- Add your specialities in the box provided. Here’s a great place to put keywords that you think people might search for when trying to find your business or industry.
Add your business to a custom collection (like my Denver SEO collection), to help people better find your business and related businesses you think are relevant.