5 Steps That Will Make Your Site Immune to Algorithm Changes

Are you alarmed about the recent Google algorithm changes?

Here’s the deal in a nutshell – follow the rules and you won’t have to worry about algorithm changes and updates. 99% of the time they only affect websites that are trying to get rankings by cheating in one way or another, or that are so poorly designed and optimized that they seem spammy to search engines.

It pays to do things the right way. Follow these 5 steps and you won’t have to worry about changing algorithms:

1. Build a site that is valuable for visitors
   
   Check your navigation, content, photos, forms and landing pages


2. Ensure that your code is search engine friendly
   
   Review your titles, descriptions, content, alt tags and contextual links


3. Make it easy for visitors to convert
   
   Make certain your phone number is easy to find, contact form works, your shopping cart works smoothly to completion, your download links aren’t broken


4. Build links the right way
   
   Write meaningful articles that are interesting to read and add value, then syndicate them for keyword links as well as encouraging potential customers to visitor your site


5. Post to your blog on a regular basis
   
   Keep it fresh and interesting with valuable information for the reader, and avoid sales pitches

This can be a considerable amount of work, but if you’re serious about your business you’ll do it. If you’re not SEO savvy, hire someone who is. You want a website that is the best it can be – ranking well in search engines and converting visitors to sales.

© Kay Frenzer-Zeeh - visit SEO Diva for more great content.

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3 Things to Make the Collapsible DIV SEO Friendly

There are situations where a website needs to place a lot of additional text on a webpage, but it interferes with the visual designs & potentially user-experience. So, whaddya do?

For example, what if you want to include a video transcript on your video webpage, or place a list of UPC codes on an ecommerce site, it could be a very large amount of text.

How can you elegantly place the additional text on the page without messing up the user experience, and/or appearing spammy?

The answer is to create collapsible content that exists on a page that is still crawlable to the search engine spiders. But, if you use AJAX, can it still be SEO friendly?

One might wonder if the collapsible DIV is search engine friendly since it is in Javascript. However, it can still be crawled by making jQuery SEO friendly.

Google is able to read Javascript onclick textlinks.

If you’re defaulting to visible for the spiders, but hidding the DIV via javascript for normal users, that seems similar to cloaking. Is it considered Black Hat SEO because the content is hidden? Isn’t it intentionally differing the appearance for the search engines?

I wouldn’t consider this Black Hat SEO because you are showing the copy on the page without having to go to another page or even refreshing the page. The copy in the include file is being displayed on the page it is intended for when a user chooses for the full copy to be displayed.

White hat all the way!

I found a good example using the jquery framework.

It is spiderable. I used a Search Engine Spider Simulator to check:

Here are 3 things to remember to insure your collapsible DIVs are Search Engine Friendly:

1. Make sure your page is configured with all of your DIVS expanded when JavaScript is disabled.


2. Make sure all the divs and the text is on the page–and not called from an external file.


3. Make sure the header line is visible, otherwise you might be considered as hiding text.

Share and Enjoy:

Related posts:

1. Revisiting Javascript Onclick Textlinks


2. How to Handle Tag Pages


3. 404 Page Error Handling

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Coming soon: make your phone your wallet

(cross-posted to Official Google Blog and Google Commerce Blog)



Today in our New York City office, along with Citi, MasterCard, First Data and Sprint, we gave a demo of Google Wallet, an app that will make your phone your wallet. You’ll be able to tap, pay and save using your phone and near field communication (NFC). We’re field testing Google Wallet now and plan to release it soon.

Google Wallet is a key part of our ongoing effort to improve shopping for both businesses and consumers. It’s aimed at making it easier for you to pay for and save on the goods you want, while giving merchants more ways to offer coupons and loyalty programs to customers, as well as bridging the gap between online and offline commerce.

Because Google Wallet is a mobile app, it will do more than a regular wallet ever could. You'll be able to store your credit cards, offers, loyalty cards and gift cards, but without the bulk. When you tap to pay, your phone will also automatically redeem offers and earn loyalty points for you. Someday, even things like boarding passes, tickets, ID and keys could be stored in Google Wallet.

At first, Google Wallet will support both Citi MasterCard and a Google Prepaid Card, which you’ll be able to fund with almost any payment card. From the outset, you’ll be able to tap your phone to pay wherever MasterCard PayPass is accepted. Google Wallet will also sync your Google Offers, which you’ll be able to redeem via NFC at participating SingleTap™ merchants, or by showing the barcode as you check out. Many merchants are working to integrate their offers and loyalty programs with Google Wallet.

With Google Wallet, we’re building an open commerce ecosystem, and we’re planning to develop APIs that will enable integration with numerous partners. In the beginning, Google Wallet will be compatible with Nexus S 4G by Google, available on Sprint. Over time, we plan on expanding support to more phones.

To learn more please visit our Google Wallet website at www.google.com/wallet.

This is just the start of what has already been a great adventure towards the future of mobile shopping. We’re incredibly excited and hope you are, too.

Posted by Rob von Behren and Jonathan Wall, Founding Engineers on Google Wallet

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