If you produce content of any kind on the internet, chances are that visitors from Google are a relatively high percentage of your total visitors. For this reason it behooves you to be clear on how Google works, even if SEO isn’t your highest priority. A lot of the minutiae on the real inner workings of the most popular search engine are not publicly disclosed; they are also being tweaked constantly. Still, here’s an excellent graphic showing the process, from you creating a piece of content, to how it is indexed in Google, to a searcher doing query which returns a set of organic results (left side) and advertisements(right side and above the organic results). Remember: this will change, and it may not be entirely accurate even now.

Infographic by PPC Blog

Google has recently improved Webmaster tools. As I only stumbled across the changes myself I thought it might be useful to note them on Digital Media Minute. I don’t consider myself a ’stats junkie’ but I think a lot of people will find value in the detail that Google now gives you about just how well your site ranks in its index for the keywords that bring you visitors.

If you’re familiar with Webmaster tools you’ll know how you used to be able to see how much traffic you got from Google for a given keyword, relative to your other top keywords. This was expressed as a percentage of your overall search traffic, so you could discover that 4% of all visitors who arrived via Google came from people typing in the term “iPhone applications”. You would also find that longtail variants of the term like ‘cool iPhone apps’, etc. drew a percentage as well, and there was some value in knowing that Google accorded your site some authority to this general subject, of course. Also, I was often surprised what blog posts/queries drew visitors for me (though Analytics does a pretty good job of this in my opinion.) At any rate, knowing the importance of each keyword relative to other keywords on your site is nowhere near as interesting as knowing what Webmaster Tools will now tell you, which is how important a page or pages on your site are for a given search query, relative to the entire Google index, and other details too:

Most people probably realize that in a given month the SERP position of a site’s pages will vary, and that on a given day different Google data centers around the world might rank a page on your site in different positions. I was surprised that even on a given day (presumably due to geography) a page might be in position #2 for a term, all the way to the second page or beyond. Naturally in the course of a month placement for a page varies even more.

It’s fascinating stuff, even if–like me–you don’t obsess over SEO as you are doing posts and articles. If any Digital Media Minute readers have discovered more goodies in this Webmaster Tools redesign, or if you think I have misinterpreted anything in the new format, please let us know in the comments.

You may not be aware that anyone doing business in SEO, specifically selling search engine optimization services, was until very recently under threat from one Jason Gambert, who was attempting to trademark the term “SEO”. Yeah, no kidding.

Had his trademark application been approved by USPTO, his aim was to have SEOs be legally obliged to comply with the decrees of a “board of directors”, set up by ah, him, in a no-doubt-altruistic effort to bring some order to all this SEO chaos. Lay down some guidelines and whip these crazy SEOs into shape, and maybe charge them $199 for a certification. In Gambert’s words:

We will restrict businesses from selling the process of SEO as an “SEO” service if they do not meet the process approved by the SEO trademark requirements.

The reason this did not happen was because one person, Rhea Drysdale, then a 25-year-old with a contract job at a startup, took it upon herself to fight this in April, 2008. Nearly two years and $17,004.33 (of her money) later, the USPTO terminated the trademark application.

It’s not that guidelines and maybe even some sort of professional licensing or other form of sanctioning by a professional body isn’t a good idea, but to attempt it by trademarking the term SEO leaves one’s motives a little suspect, IMO!

Fascinating read, not too long so you can get back to scaling those SERPS!

So Bill Gates has a new blog, called The Gates Notes. Danny Sullivan at SearchEngineLand.com has some free SEO advice for Bill. This is pretty hard to believe. (At the moment, every page on his site has the same title tag…seriously)
It does read as superb intro advice for a beginner though.

The SEO diagnostic flowchart on slide two might be the best thing about this SEO problem troubleshooting slideshow from slideshare.net, which I took a little screenshot of for my own reference.
But don’t misread the flowchart like I did, seeing ‘check deeper’ as ‘check diaper’.
You may have taken a hit in the SERPs but rest assured, your diaper is probably fine.