If you are reading this to learn Google secrets, there aren’t any here.  If you are interested in learning about the flavor of the March, 2009 Google Meetup in Cambridge and some of the people I ran across, read on.

567 Massachusetts Avenue - The Enormous Room

Lovely space for a meetup.  Long room with plenty of comfy furniture.  Bar at the back along with three unisex washrooms.  One suggestion: next time, put a sign on the downstairs door so that everyone doesn’t go into the restaurant and then get redirected back outside and in the next door.

The Beginning

Adam Lasnik was introduced.  He revealed that there were at least another dozen Googlers in the room, including a small handful from Friend Connect.  The crowd was more webmasters, SEOs, SEMs and less marketers and PR folk than other meetings I attend.

It was great to see familiar faces like;

@robertcollins, @seosem, @repcor, @JoselinMan, @myimedia, @recklessstudio, @digiphile,

as well as a couple of people I had never met before, including;

@AdamPieniazek, @knowledgejockey, Vinesh Duggar

And I had the bonus of the always thrilling experience of meeting a twitter buddy for the first time in real life, @manfmNantucket I wish I could have talked to him more.

And @KarenRubin, who I recognized, but couldn’t place.  I finally tapped her on the shoulder and asked. Her posse of Hub Spot co-workers laughed and feared that her celebrity would be going to her head now.  A new acquaintance immediately asked for her autograph. It was hilarious.

Google Content

I listened, but heard nothing that was not already familiar or of vital importance to me.  The preparation was useful. They requested questions on the web and then let folks vote on the questions.  So, Adam had a kind of crowd sourced script for the Q&A in his hand.

Thankfully he also took questions from the audience.  I asked about Web Master Tools. I wanted to know what percentage of the backlinks Google knows about are listed in the console.  I was told that nearly all of them. They try to include all that they know about.

Many answers included the “we don’t pre-announce” products and services line.

Adam told us that Google is indexing most of Twitter pretty fast now.

Friend connect released their API.

Chrome is being developed for Linux and Mac, using dedicated teams to build from the ground up.

They are looking at the semantic web. Hmm.

A question from the web got a hearty laugh, “What’s the secret sauce to better rankings?” The standard Google answer was offered. “The answer is 42.”

Another great question, “whether using Google AdWords would help their website rankings?” Nope.

They held a Google Trivia quiz and offered up a bit of swag, including, 6 T-shirts and 2 coffee mugs.  The mugs were shiny, but not Chrome.

Conclusion

Good group of folks, including some who drove all the way from NY and NH.  Cambridge parking is hard, but there is a city lot directly behind the building.  The subway is across the street.

Googlers answered the questions that they could. This means nothing prospective and everything retrospective.  It was very helpful to put some human faces to the Google Borg.  The big elephant in the room was the common concern about Google aggregating information it gathers, personalizing it and knowing just too darn much about you and me.

I heard from @knowledgejockey who spoke with a Google lawyer in the room who told him that they can’t/don’t aggregate personal information.  Not sure he was convinced though. Tin foil hats on boys and girls.

Here is a challenge for future (MeetUp) event coordinators that support networking. Figure out a way to get people together so that they don’t have to yell at each other.  Please.  Is a bar / night club venue ideal for that? Is a meeting room better?

If Google has another meetup I will be inclined to think up some questions, pluck up my courage (so that I meet more new people rather than talking to people I already know) and attend.  Thanks Google.


A friend of mine on Twitter @cyandle sent me these questions to answer and post on my blog.  He is also posting the same interview on his blog, Regency Interactive so check his answers out too.


1. How long have you been working in website design and marketing and what attracted you to it?

JBS Partners started in 2002 providing website design and hosting services.  Thankfully the website business has grown as more services have been added to meet client demand.   The attraction to the work includes my interest in art and design, computer and technology as well as general business and Internet marketing.  These are all wrapped up in my website design and marketing business, which is pretty cool.


2. In your opinion, what’s the measure of a good SEO/PR/Blogging professional?

If you think about the design process for a new website, it moves along a design and development continuum.  The SEO work needs to start at the beginning so that the key word research can inform the information architecture, page structure and titles and content.  Clients are pleased when they start to see prospective clients hitting their website and filling out forms, even though we are still fine tuning or tweaking the not-quite-completed website.  Getting results out of the gate is a good measure.


3. Whose Blog do you read the Most?

Mine of course. Each article has to be drafted, written, proof read and then reread.  I used to read Aaron Wall’s SEOBook a lot and the SEOMoz blog.  These are good resources for general knowledge and industry trends.  Lately, I spend more time on IM and Twitter sharing and learning with others, which leads to reading a diverse range of blogs and websites across the Internet.


4. What’s your best “SEO secret” or blogging tactic?

No secrets here. Transparency and openness are the rule.  For some reason clients and SEO’s think that there is a silver bullet answer out there somewhere.  Some of these folks think that there is a lot of mystery.  Although there are a lot of moving parts, it is not a mystery.  The search engines are trying as hard as they can to think like humans.  My advice is to engage, participate and join in the conversation.  Write, comment, tweet, blog, interview and experiment.


5. Search engine algorithms are getting smarter, and a lot of people predict Organic SEO services will become obsolete. How do you plan to adapt?

My experience with clients suggests that they will continue to value and appreciate the blend of search and marketing advice that allows them to compete successfully in the market place.  That will never be obsolete.  There will continue to be best practices as well common practices that should be avoided.  We help our clients navigate these choices.


6. Please Describe the biggest challenge you face in your current job.

There are a couple of challenges, neither of which is insurmountable.  One is educating the prospective customer.  A lot of effort is required to explain abstract services to allow the value to be understood and then appreciated.

The next challenge is maintaining the momentum of a project.  Clients get distracted and project delays are introduced despite a genuine interest in the final results. I have even had clients tell me that they need to be nagged.  Calendar software is my friend.


7. Do you have any advice for someone who is interested in SEO, but doesn’t have a background in it, on how to get started in this field?

Read. You will quickly discern the garbage from the prize information.  Do.  There is no experience like experience.  Design, program, blog do these things and experiment.  Test, test, test, break things, fix them and break them again.  Make connections with knowledgeable people that will guide you and help you find the answers that you need.  Work for yourself or for an agency and then switch.  Understand both sides of that market.  Lastly, build your own properties to generate income.


8. If you could rank for any keyword phrase you don’t currently rank for, what would it be?

One could make a lot of money ranking for Viagra or similar terms, but I would be happy to rank for
boston website design or small business websites


9. Assuming you had never gone into website design and SEO, what would you be doing now?

Well, I was a systems administrator for a large mutual fund company and than a start-up, so I would likely still be involved with computers, networks, operating systems, domain name servers and the like.  And hopefully be in some type of customer facing role. I enjoy intermediating between people and computers.

If there was a departure with the past, I would likely be even more involved with Social Media tools (Twitter, WordPress, Linkedin, FaceBook, Flickr etc.) and helping clients understand and benefit of the new rules of marketing.


10. What’s Your Favorite professional sports team and why?

Living in Boston it feels quite natural to be a big Red Sox fan. I became a fan in 2004.  Before that the newspaper sports section was of no interest what-so-ever.  Now, I enjoy keeping up with baseball.  I have since learned that my grandfather was a Red Sox fan.  For some reason the other New England sports teams have not caught my interest, although I will watch play-offs.
Well that’s the end of our interview.

Thank you to @MelaniePhung for writing the questions for everyone.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter (@fairminder) !

Nick Gerner gave an enthusiastic presentation, Tuesday night at SEMNE in Providence RI, about the underpinnings of search technology and SEOMoz’s new LinkScape tool.

Here is a simple example to illustrate a fundamental point:

1) Search Engineers - they create the search algorithms

2) Search Algorithms - are constructed to provide the searcher with relevant search results

3) Relevant User information - the Search Engines hope to provide relevant results to you

Now, off to the side are the search marketers with a decision to make as to where they focus their attention to improve a website’s search results.  The choices are listed above, 1,2 or 3.  Which do you choose?

1) Search Engineers.  Never met one.  I assume that they must be pretty tight lipped in order to keep their jobs.  Not an easy target.

2) Search Algorithms. Again, never met one.  I assume that they don’t even have lips. Not an easy target.  Now you can setup a test bed with hundreds of domains, scrutinize Google patents or read celebrity SEO bloggers and gather information that may have been relevant.

You can never be certain of every detail and the details definitely change as sure as the sun will rise the next day.  The search engineers constantly improve the search algorithyms to provide more relevant information to searchers. It’s certainly a moving target.

3) Relevant User search results.  I am one who seeks relevant search results.  I have met other people who use search engines seeking relevant results.  Maybe this is a sensible place to focus my attention for the long term.

Technical or Fundamental SEO

If you choose #2, you are called a Technical SEO

If you choose #3, you are called a Fundamental SEO

If you are a Fundamental SEO and focus on the user, you will by default have pretty good aim on the algorithm as well.  Seems reasonable and sounds like the Fundamental SEO’s have a bit of a short cut.

How do you approach your SEO?

I gratefully accepted an open invitation for lunch from the folks at High Rankings. Why?

1. They know SEO really well
2. I like their style
3. My schedule was open
4. Travel distance is not an issue
5. I might learn something
6. Curious who they hoped would attend
7. Needed to find out what this is all about

Who was there?

There were definitely some interesting characters in the room. In fact we discovered that one fellow diner and I have a mutual friend and colleague. Hi Jeff.

Three of us work for ourselves, two with clients. Another guest recently was hired. All live within an hour’s drive of the High Rankings office. A relevant crowd, but I will leave it to Jill and Pauline to say how relevant.

What was discussed?

The current and past careers of each guest, speaking at conferences, Twitter, increase in local clients, domaining and some helpful advice on an upcoming project for my business. Nope, no great secrets. A lot of understanding SEO has to do with actually dispelling false information.

Would I go again?

Yes. And I would be more prepared with challenging questions, even if I had to solicit questions from my friends on Twitter.

True or False High Rankings SEO Quiz?

The High Rankings SEO Quiz

1. Need to submit your URL to the search engines
2. Frequent spidering helps rankings
3. PPC ads will help organic rankings
4. Sites are banned if they buy links
5. Must use a specific keyword density
6. Should have 250 words on each page
7. Duplicate content will get your site penalized
8. Validated code will rank better
9. #1 Rankings always lead to increased traffic and sales
10. Rankings will drop if you stop paying your SEO company

Answer if you get the first one right, you get them all right.

You may be in a position to dramatically increase the effectiveness of inbound links to your web site in a few minutes by editing the .htaccess (Hypertext Access) file and specifying your URL.

Canonicalization is the process by which the search engines choose the best URL when there are several choices.

Several choices look like this:

http://www.domain.com
http://domain.com
http://domain.com/index.html
http://www.domain.com/index.html
http://domain.com/index.php
http://www.domain.com/index.php
https://www.domain.com
https://domain.com
https://domain.com/index.html
https://www.domain.com/index.html
https://domain.com/index.php
https://www.domain.com/index.php

Multiple URLs and duplicate content

The search engines see these all as unique URL’s. But, they also have the same content on them. So, you could be dividing and diminishing your link love and presenting duplicate content, which search engines penalize.

Canonicalization to the rescue

What if we could get everyone to link to just one URL and get the search engines to see just one URL? This would gather up the power of all the links and focus them on “one web site” rather than many and eliminate the duplicate content problem.

Modify the .htaccess file

For those using Apache, the answer is .htaccess file and mod_rewrite.

Sample text to include in the .htaccess file

Directoryindex index.php index.shtml index.html index.htm
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^index.html index.php
RewriteRule ^([0-9A-Za-z_-]+).html index.php?page=$1
RewriteRule ^([0-9A-Za-z_-]+)/([0-9A-Za-z_-]+).html index.php?page=$1&subpage=$2

With Rewriterule on applied to non www

http://jbspartners.com —> www.jbspartners.com
www.jbspartners.com —> www.jbspartners.com - no action required.

With Rewriterule off

www.domainname.com —> www.domainname.com
http://domainname.com —> http://domainname.com

Multiple unique domain names can be eliminated by using the .htaccess file to canonicalize your URL’s. This eliminates the duplicate content problem and gathers up all of the inbound links pointed at your Home page and redirects them to one URL. This is awesome stuff!

More information

Hard core documentation from Apache
Google’s Matt Cutts offers his advice about canonicalization
Chris Hooley explains canonicalization

The picture above was created using Google Maps, zoomed in to individual buildings that are the shape of letters. Click on the image to visit the web site for the full effect. Pretty cool! Created by GeoGreetings.

Local search is geographically focused and growing

When a search is performed using local search the search results are limited to a geographical area, often a town or 20 miles from your address, for example.

Local search is expected to grow 80% between the years 2005 and 2009, according to Borrell Associates.

How can you position yourself to benefit from this growth? Increase your local presence on the Internet.

Grow your local search presence

Here are the first steps that I recently took.

I found a handful of directories that offer free listings. These directories allowed me to list my company information and a link to my web site; and one even let me add my logo.

Benefits of local directory listings

With each additional listing my company’s presence on the web grows. This provides another link at my web site and another way for customers to find me.

Local search directory suggestions

Below are links to the web sites that I used.

Google takes this a couple of steps further. Not only can you create a listing, you can also create a free advertisement and a free coupon which are presented on Google Maps.

Below is a linkable image of a local search on Google Maps for “domain name registration winchester ma”.

This is an example of how the Google Ad shows up in Google Maps search results.

In conclusion

Local search will continue growing in popularity.

Utilize the power of local search

We advise our clients to expand their local Internet presence by obtaining listings in local directories and local search engines.

JBS Partners can help

If you are presented with the opportunity to list in a local directory, but are unsure about the quality of the directory, send me an email and I will be happy to review the directory and share what I find with you.