Put the Web to Work

The world according to Google has changed once again, and it can impact your website rankings in a positive or negative way.     Google is now using an algorithm that will crawl the mobile version of your website first to rank it for search terms.   They want to provide mobile users (think smart phone or tablet) the best results possible.   Mobile users are now the majority of internet users, and this is Google’s way of helping them find what they are looking for. 1.       So what does that mean for my website? In the past, Google has used an algorithm (think math formula) to crawl the internet to find the desktop versions of your website and make a ranking decision based upon hundreds of different ranking factors.  Now it's going mobile first.   If you do not have a mobile version of your website or your website is not built with a “responsive design”, then your rankings could be negatively affected. ...

Google uses approximately 200 different factors to determine where a website should rank. A discussion of all 200 factors would be incredibly long and complex, so our website design company in central Missouri is taking a closer look at five specific factors that can influence search engine rankings. Keep reading to learn more about these five factors and how we can help you optimize your site to rank well organically according to these factors. 1. Content In the past, Google relied heavily on keywords to determine where a site should rank. However, people began abusing this by "stuffing" random keywords into their website to get it to rank for practically any search term - including ones that weren't necessarily relevant to their industry. In response, Google changed their ranking strategy to be strongly influenced by the content on the pages of the website. This is why it is so important to have strong copy (interspersed with key search terms) on the pages of you...

"You haven't failed until you blame someone else." That's always been one of my favorite quotes and something I try to live by. So, I better rephrase the title of this article. It should be: "How I Nearly Destroyed My 12-Year Old Business ... By Making It Dependent on Google." MSW Interactive Designs is now a 17-year old business. I have waited five years to write about this one so that I would have a success story to share. And trust me, this isn't an easy thing to admit, let alone write about and share with the world. Rewind to very early in 2011. MSW Interactive was a 12-year old successful small web design and hosting company, with a nice secondary niche in the wedding marketing featuring wedding portals in 26 cities across the USA and an online retail store called WhereBridesGo.com . Our wedding portals dominated page one of Google, and our WhereBridesGo.com retail site consistently ranked in the top three listings of page one nationall...

Tips, Tricks & Lessons Learned for Google Success Search engine optimization involves more than just your website. Your entire online presence can have an affect on where Google ranks your website. Good social media and blogging can also drive traffic to your business website. Compelling images and valuable content keep the customer engaged longer. Let's dig a little deeper into the Google algorithm and take a look at some other SEO factors. SEO is not a quick fix.  Results in search engine ranking take time. Keep in mind that your competition is trying to rank too.  If someone guarantees you a #1 ranking, run away, fast! The Google algorithm is evolving and ever changing. There are so many factors involved, and no one knows what ALL of them are. Some factors matter now, some mattered yesterday. Some may matter tomorrow and some may matter more than others. In addition, some of the factors that may matter to Bing, don't matter to Google and vice versa. Domain F...