About two weeks ago, Google completed an update of their algorithm and listings. While this is something they do every few months (you can see a great recap of when these updates have occurred in the past here: Google PageRank Updates) it still causes a massive shakeup in the SEO world every time. For me, this update was well worth paying attention to for a number of reasons.
1. Learn Page Rank changes
As I have mentioned in the past, the Page Rank that Google assigns to any given web page is often reflective of how important it is to Google and how highly it will rank in Google search results. When Google does one of these big updates, it often modifies the PR of different web sites and pages to reflect changes since the last update. Generally speaking, if you’ve increased traffic, backlinks and content by enough, PR will go up. In my case, I went from a PR3 to a PR2 – this decrease is probably due to the fact that it was not within the last three months, but the three months before that in which I wrote an article that got on the front page of digg, temporarily bringing me a huge increase in traffic and backlinks. I care when Google does an update because I can see how my site’s value has changed in Google’s eyes through change in PR.
2. See if SEO has been working
Search Engine Optimisation is tricky for me as it is often difficult to gauge results. I can optimise my text, no-follow the right links, and build backlinks to The Top Floor Flat, but generally speaking, it takes a few months to see any impact and it’s all but impossible to attribute any change in search engine rankings to any one action or event. When Google does an update, it’s a chance to see where rankings have improved, where they have fallen, and compare that to overall improvements in the site. For example, I’ve seen an increase in my ranking for the term “Reposado restaurant” – the Palo Alto restaurant I reviewed a while back.
3. Gauge competitor’s SEO
Google updates its algorithms across the board, not just for your site so of course you see how things are looking for all web players after the shakeout. Upon doing a search for your key search terms, are you seeing your competitors more often? Perhaps they’ve got a new SEO strategy and you need to make sure that you are staying up to date with your own SEO goals. Have the PRs of your competitors increased? Maybe they are getting more backlinks – take a look at who’s linking to them.
For anyone heavily involved in SEO, it’s difficult to miss a Google update (the Twitter and Blog chatter on the subject during the update was a clear indication of how important a subject it is) but for someone just learning about SEO who might not have seen an update before, as was the case for me, it might be easy to miss, or questionable why an update is so important. For me, seeing a change in page rank, a change in actual search listing results and the changes in my competitor’s SEO is an indication of whether or not I’m on the right track in my own SEO attempts. I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled in about three months for Google’s next major update. Want to learn more about Google? Check out this interesting interview with Google employees.
Happy Easter from London
13 Apr 2009
Happy Easter! In the UK, Good Friday and Easter Monday are official holidays so I’ve been enjoying the time off to get over a rather nasty cold that has been keeping me less than active the last few weeks. The cold hasn’t stopped me, however, from having a lovely Easter Sunday.
In the morning, Alex kindly invited me to join himself, his girlfriend, his mother and his prep school Latin teacher for their annual Easter tradition – brunch at the Brasserie in South Kensington followed by the Latin mass at the Brompton Oratory just around the corner. The Oratory is a Catholic church of nearly cathedral-like proportions and dominates the skyline in the area. After a lovely breakfast, we joined the hundreds of others heading to mass and managed to get seats right near the front. This turned out to be a bit of a problem for me when the service started. Some rather enthusiastic members of the clergy got a bit carried away with the amount of incense (I’d say slightly more than strictly necessary) and I had such a bad coughing fit I had to leave the building for a bit then spend most of the rest of the service standing at the side near the door. At least there were plenty of religious relics and people around for laying of hands should it have become necessary. As it turned out, what was really necessary was water and fresh air and hiding my embarrassment for the rest of the service.
Despite my lung’s lack of cooperation, it was a stunningly beautiful service. I had never seen a service done in this older style with the priest facing away from the congregation and the readings all done in Latin.
After church, I returned home to start cooking my own Easter meal. I had spent quite a bit more than was probably necessary for one person but was very excited for a bit of gourmet (and wanted a chance to try out what I have been told is the best butcher shop in London). The menu included a sirloin steak with thyme and red wine sauce, asparagus sauted in butter and garlic, French green beans and roasted baby potatoes. For dessert, I made a chocolate mousse served with strawberries and cream.
Amazingly, the entire meal went off without a hitch. Everything came out very tasty and which I certainly won’t be spending quite as much on the ingredients again, my kitchen multi-tasking and the lovely flavours have inspired me to try to get a bit more experimental in my cooking. Of course it helps when I have half an afternoon to prepare instead of coming back late in the evening after work.
Overall it was a wonderful Easter – I got to spend time with friends, attend a beautiful church service and eat a delicious Easter meal. What more could one ask for?
I had the opportunity today to meet up with another American expat here in London, the multi-talented Kate Matlock who is here doing a masters in design studies. She was great fun to talk to, and of course it’s always nice to spend time with another American while abroad. We had decided to meet up so that I could hear a bit more about a wonderful food-related event she is planning that sounds very exciting. I’m planning on having plenty of other opportunities to blog about Kate’s event however what really intrigued me was the way in which this event came about. One of her classes, she explained, had a professor who set a group project over the course of about two months which required the students to plan, develop, create, release, promote and make profitable a product, service or event.
Now, I am all for speed when it comes to startup projects. In fact, without it, and a drive that keeps things moving a breakneck pace, it’s easy to become bogged down with details, loose momentum or miss opportunities. But even at my most optimistic I doubt I even considered turning an idea into actual profit in six weeks (give or take). Kate and her classmates must have felt the same way. It’s an assignment that approximates an episode of The Apprentice – but without the professional design and concept team to put together an actual product.
But after we chatted for a while about the concept she and her team had created, the enthusiasm with which she was met by experts in the field and the goals she had set and met already over such a short span of time, I’m beginning to wonder if the professor might not have been on to something. The problem doesn’t seem to be time, necessarily, for Kate and her group, but in coming up with an idea that catches the imaginations of those around them enough to make people drop what they’re doing and get involved. Whether that involvement is signing up for a website, buying a product in a store or, in Kate’s case, giving an impromptu lecture on what raw foods can keep you healthy, the key seems to be getting people involved with something they can be passionate about.
I would love to organise an event based on the idea that it is possible to take a concept to profit in 6-8 weeks. Small teams could brainstorm, assign internal roles and compare contact books beforehand but all work on the actual product, service or event would fall within that two month window. Difficult? Unlikely? Of course. But, as Kate is hoping to prove for a grade, for fun and for profit – certainly possible.
Finding WordPress Plugins
10 Apr 2009When I have some time to spare between work and running around Europe, I like to work on minor improvements to my blog such as my blog design, blog SEO and blog plugins. Most of the things I change are either tiny cosmetic updates or back end and not things that I would expect my readers to notice. The elements I most enjoy updating, however, are my blog plugins. A plugin is a bit of code that you can upload to a blog in order to add additional features. For readers who have been around for a while, they might remember the “send me a text message” tool in the sidebar (which I had to remove due to spam messages) – that was a plugin. Other plugins can add photo galleries, allow readers to rate and vote on their favourite posts, generate random quotes or make sure your post’s title is search engine optimisied. There are literally thousands of fun little widgets and tools and add ons that other coders have created for bloggers like me to use.
What impresses me most is the variety of options and the people who take the time to make them. While in many cases, bloggers with a solid technical background create plugins to solve problems that they have encountered and then share them with the blogger community, in other cases, people just enjoy making the plugins for others. I’ve even paid for a plugin when it solved a very tricky problem that I had no other way to work around.
If you have a WordPress blog, take a look at some of these directories of great plugins below.
The Official WordPress Plugin Directory
WordPress Plugins and Other Projects by Planetozh
21 of the Best Plugins for New Blogs
8 WordPress Plugins for Page Management
It’s easy to get carried away with plugins on a blog – and there are some pretty ridiculous plugin options as well. The best way to ensure that your blog doesn’t become over run is to think of what you like to see on other blogs. Is it important to you to see random quotes of the day elsewhere on the net? If so, go for it. If not, maybe give that plugin a skip. Also think about what your blog is trying to convey. If you’re aiming to be the next Mashable-style tech blog, then having a rotating picture of a lolcat on your sidebar might not be the best option, no matter how much it makes you laugh. Sometimes the best plugins of all are the ones that no one necessarily sees but that add great value to your blog overall.
What are your favourite plugins? What frustrates you about your blog that you have been looking for a plugin to fix?
Holland Park Heaven
8 Apr 2009We’ve been enjoying an unseasonable bout of good weather complete with gloriously sunny weekends, a distinct lack of rain and the inkling that it will be properly warm in a few short weeks. Last Saturday I took advantage of the weather to take a stroll through the nearby Holland Park as part of my ongoing efforts to explore the neighbourhood. I couldn’t have picked a better place for my outting and spent a happy few hours exploring Holland Park.
I had been in the park once before, at the end of the summer. I had originally been tempted into the park to inquire about their evening opera performances which take place at a beautiful open air opera house in the centre of the park but had unfortunately missed the last scheduled date. Despite the lack of performance, I spent some time wandering the paths and was immediately impressed. Upon my return this weekend, I wondered why it took me so long to get back.
Holland Park was absolutely packed with visitors enjoying the sun but the diversity of the park’s offerings meant that people were comfortably spread out through the grounds. There are a number of different areas. The entrance I used led into a long, shaded walk along a series of sports fields but at the end of the path, the real charm of the park becomes apparent. One direction leads to the opera house, the Orangery – a small art gallery showcasing local work, the Ice House – the park cafe, and the most incredible flower gardens and promenade. Although the roses won’t be in bloom for a while, the majority of the beds were absolutely alive with colours and full of daffodils, tulips and greenery. The promenade which leads between the Ice House and the Orangery has one wall covered with a mural depicting men, women and children enjoying the park in Victorian style clothing.
However should one turn the other direction from the top of the entrance path, mini trails lead to short shaded walks that loop around the park. Throughout my walk, I kept coming across hidden patches of grass where couples were picnicking, secluded benches, and amazingly beautiful flower beds. The trails looped back towards the centre of the park with the tended flower gardens, Ice House and Orangery but not before passing by two playgrounds for toddlers and children and possibly the best secret of Holland Park, the Kyoto Gardens, complete with Zen sensibility in planning, Koi fish and, on the day I happened to visit, a set of enthusiastic anime fans in impressively complete costumes doing a photoshoot.
I’ve already made tentitive plans for a Holland Park picnic later this week in the hopes I can enjoy the spring flowers again in the nice weather. Regardless, now that I have the opportunity, I’ll certainly return for the summer opera series and to enjoy the wonderful little park hidden away in my side of London.
Meaghan Fitzgerald is a marketer and entrepreneur building and growing consumer and gaming products and experiences. A Silicon Valley native, she started her first company, DormWise, in 2006 which she later sold in 2009. Meaghan spent 7 years in London in early stage consumer startups, two years at Xbox as a product marketer for Minecraft, and is currently the head of product marketing for VR experiences at Facebook and Oculus. Meaghan writes here about business, technology, gaming, and marketing. She has been named a top