Google has enacted a number of changes in recent weeks, including alterations to its algorithms, a much-publicized streamlining of its privacy policy and a new development for Google Plus. Some information and insights from our Los Angeles SEO firm regarding these changes:

Google Plus Changes

When it launched Search Plus Your World release earlier this month, Google designed it to be the next step in determining what is relevant to personalized search queries, based on the idea that people’s search results are greatly influenced by their circles of friends. So, with Google Search Plus Your World, your friends’ online experiences are more relevant to your personal search results than links, domain authority – or, it seems, anything else. This new development is vastly different from what most people understood about the perceived relevancy of public web search results. The fallout from this is that if you aren’t happy with the relevancy of your personalized search results in Google Search Plus Your World, it’s the fault of your friends on Google Plus. If this sounds unappealing, don’t worry; according to Search Engine Watch (who also described the additional changes to Google Plus), Google knows this and is still working out the bugs.

Google Privacy Policy

You’d have to engage in a lifestyle where Google isn’t necessary (which is a little like living under a rock) not to be aware of the recent changes to the Google privacy policy. From leading search blogs to news reports to notifications on Google platforms themselves, the secret is out – and that’s the way Google wants it. Accused of a lack of transparency in the past, the company now wants its audience to be clear on the changes to the Google privacy policy.

The most significant changes may not necessarily be the small changes, but the fact that these small changes are components of one larger change – the change to over 60 different privacy policies across Google territories, which are now replaced by one single policy. The theme of the change, which will be enacted on March 1, 2012 is “One policy, one Google experience.”

According to Search Engine Journal, the new change will allow Google to collect data across all of their products and further customize your web experience:

For example, if you spent the last hour searching for information about the New England Patriots, the next time you visit YouTube, there’s a good chance you will get recommendations for videos featuring Tom Brady. In addition, Google will be able to use the extra data to customize suggested search queries, display more relevant ads (i.e. Super Bowl tickets), and alter the search results to match your intent.

Google claims that the effort is aimed at providing a more personalized search experience, with ads that are more relevant to the user. However, privacy advocates are more than a little concerned, as Google will now be capable of collecting information from some mobile phone users and using their data to “personalize” their experience on all Google accounts they hold, whether on that same mobile or their PC. There are personal profile issues at stake as well.

One thing Google wants users to remember? Google representative Betsy Masiello reminded users in a recent blog post that users don’t have to be logged in to use many of Google’s products, including search and YouTube. No data is collected when a user is not logged in. In short, don’t be logged into any Google account if you would like your search history to remain private.

Google Panda 3.2

Google has confirmed reports of a Panda update, with a data refresh of the Google Panda algorithm about a week ago. According to Search Engine Land, there have been no algorithm changes, yet some webmasters have seen changes to their rankings – some good, some bad. Most of that is likely attributed to updates to the sites that should or should not have been touched by Panda in its early stages. This simple data refresh is being coined Google Panda 3.2. For those who were adversely affected by the original Google Panda, it may be good news. For those who weren’t, it may be wise to keep an eye on your rankings.

Changes to Google=Controversy

No stranger to controversy, Google is already experiencing backlash from these changes, in the form of criticism from ordinary users and search engine experts alike. In addition to raising the aforementioned privacy concerns, some are making the point that Google has already failed as a search engine in terms of providing relevancy. Case in point: Google Rick Santorum. Whether or not you’re a fan, ask yourself: Is that what most users who enter his name into a search engine are looking for? Most likely not, but its even worse when one considers this: according to a recent Search Engine Land post, Google’s universal search shows an irrelevant video result for a spammy SEO firm attempting to capitalize on the Santorum controversy, on the first page!

With that in mind, will changes to Google Panda and the privacy policy prevent users from experiencing irrelevant search results? People in the spotlight, or anyone who stands to be googled with relative frequency, should probably hope so. Today, the most infamous example is the above-mentioned Presidential candidate. Tomorrow, it may be someone else. For the sake of everyone who is, or aims to be, a highly searched on public figure, the search community should hope that Google can achieve this “more relevant search experience” goal ASAP; this Los Angeles SEO provider certain does.

For those who aim to be big hitters on social media, this may be something of a wakeup call. Today, being a social media big wig means more than having a few thousand Facebook friends.

Instead, it means that you compete with guys like Chris Brogan, president of Human Business Works and a speaker on the Fortune 500 circuit, who has around 122,000 identifiable Twitter followers with a few thousand being added each week. Even on newbie social media site Google+, Brogan has already amassed a whopping 67,000 followers (unlike many users, who signed up but didn’t know where to start).

Of course, Facebook is still relevant for those who want to be titans of social media marketing. For Mari Smith, a social media speaker and author, it means having 60,000 friends. Twitter is still a bigger draw, though, with 77,000 identifiable people following Mari’s tweets.

While these may seem like mere numbers, they actually translate into real social media influence. Some calculations revealed that Brogan has social media influence that is over 3,000 times more powerful than that of the average Twitter user, and Mari’s reach (aka “social pull”) is 1,800 times greater than that of the average Twitter user.

Now, these may seem like daunting goals to achieve, but they are possible – just not on your own. To attain social pull of this caliber, an individual or business must have the help of a social media agency or full time social media marketing strategist. After all, you need to earn a living while you’re out there pulling your weight! Try investigating your social media agency options before setting big goals for your social media marketing efforts. You may find that an expert can help you draw up a goal-reaching plan that is practical and attainable.

Does your website’s design communicate professionalism with every click? In many cases, small business owners are unsure. Consider the following factors when evaluating the professionalism of your website:

Navigation: Having a website that gets people lost is no longer considered a status symbol. Users are more tech-savvy than ever, but they’re more impatient than ever too. No one wants to click more than three buttons to get to the page they’re looking for (really, two is the standard), so every destination on your website should be no more than two clicks away.

Graphics: If your graphics were designed by an amateur, chances are your website visitors notice this. Plus, many businesses keep the same graphics on their sites for several years; today, this is a big no-no. Looking like you haven’t changed or kept up with the times is a turn off for users, so update your graphics every two years (in fact, it’s a good idea to do a total website facelift about that often).

Content: If you’re involved in a highly specialized industry, then people expect you to communicate your message clearly. It may not be fair, but it comes with the territory of marketing your business. Hiring a content writer or a web development firm that offers content writing is the best way to be certain your content is clear, concise and free from distracting grammatical errors.

Crest Media is a Ventura web design company that can help you evaluate your website’s professionalism and improve upon it if necessary. We know how to design sites that are easily navigable, add graphics that are attractive and eye-catching, and write content that is engaging and effective. To see our impressive portfolio, obtain a quote for your web design project or ask specific web design questions, contact Crest Media today.

If there’s one thing our Los Angeles SEO firm has noticed, it’s that search engine optimization has grown up – a lot. Of course, that’s not to say that bad SEO is eradicated from the landscape, but thanks to efforts like Google Panda and the learning curve of the web population, SEO in 2012 looks to be less about fooling people into reading your web page, and more about engaging them along the way.

With that premise in mind, we present you with some key SEO strategies for 2012:

Simplify code: “KISS” is an acronym that definitely applies to the web development community. By keeping code simple, you’re keeping it honest. And the new age of SEO is all about honesty. By following best practices and getting as close to validated markup as possible, you can make it easier for spiders to crawl your site – and by validating HTML and CSS, you can minimize crawl errors. By naming your header div “header” (what a concept!), you can make it easier on Google, Yahoo! and Bing to locate it when a user searches for keywords in your header title. The natural result of these steps is a more authoritative site in the eyes of the search engines.

Streamline web design: Right now, there’s more reverence than ever for Apple products – and not just for the obvious reason. Some of us are truly in awe at the efficient simplicity of their design, navigation and functions. If there’s one takeaway there, it’s that technology should never be too complex for the end user. Websites should have clean, vertical internal linking, menus should be easily navigable (two clicks maximum for any page destination), and unnecessary categories should be eliminated (content from those pages can always be moved to a similar category). That brings us to the next element of your SEO strategy – content.

Boost content effectiveness: This is done by encouraging engagement and adding value, with goals that include (for example) community building. How is website authority built these days? The most effective SEO companies do it with traffic and good link building, yes – but more importantly, they are now also doing it by writing content that lends itself to social media sharing. The goal should be to build a sense of community when writing your content, by earning trust and fostering relationships with users. Forget sales for awhile, and focus on a more user-centric goal when writing content. Who was it that said “friendship first”?

As a California SEO company that prides itself on building relationships with clients, Crest Media understands that our clients’ websites have to earn the trust of consumers. That’s why we not only recommend, but follow these SEO strategies for 2012 when we develop outstanding websites for our valued clientele.

About a month ago, we learned that Twitter was in the process of partnering with Japanese social network Mixi to beat out Facebook in Japan. It may work, it may not, but it raises questions regarding what companies – even small businesses, in some cases – can do to use social media for competing internationally.

It also shows us that an international marketing plan shouldn’t merely include Facebook. Facebook is a great marketing tool in the U.S., but is not necessarily a one-size-fits-all social media marketing solution in other countries. What are some foreign social networks worth exploring for American-based businesses looking to compete internationally? Consider the following:

• Mixi (Japan)
• Orkut (Brazil)
• (VKontakte) Russia.
• Qzone and RenRen (China)

And, the list will likely continue to grow. For those who do business in India, there may be other social networks emerging in that nation if Facebook refuses to filter content at the request of the Indian government. With Facebook being essentially outlawed in China, citizens could continue developing more social networks. The possibilities are endless.

As Americans, we tend to think of Facebook as the only social media that really matters. Really, how much more successful are these networks than Facebook in their home countries? One good example concerns the Google-owned network Orkut. Average visitors to Orkut spent 4.3 hours on the site in June 2011, while Brazilian visitors to Facebook spent an average of 1.6 hours in the same month.

To attain optimal social media marketing results, those marketing their businesses internationally will need to identify the top networks in each market and develop plans to adapt to the way those consumers behave online. That’s not an easy feat, but a good social media agency can help. Many firms are getting on the international social media marketing train; if your business is expanding to foreign markets, you may wish to jump on as well.

If small businesses had to choose only one marketing channel to use, which one would it be? According to a poll taken by a respected marketing analysis and lead generation company, it would be search engine optimization.

The “Merchant Confidence Survey” from Merchant Circle asked 2,500 small businesses throughout the United States: “If you had to put all your marketing time and budget into only one channel, what would it be?” Then, the choices were:

• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Paid search marketing (pay-per-click or sponsored ad campaigns)
• Mobile web marketing
• Social media
• Traditional media (definition below)

It comes as no surprise to our Los Angeles SEO company that SEO won out, with over 30% of respondents choosing it as the only form of marketing they would choose. The results of the entire survey were as follows:

• Search engine optimization 32.9%
• Traditional media 19.7%
• None of the above 17.9%
• Social media 16%
• Paid search marketing 9.8%
• Mobile web marketing 3.7%

Another notable point was how high “traditional media” ranked, with traditional media being defined as newspapers, yellow pages, direct mail, traditional radio and television commercials. If SEO companies and online marketers can glean anything from that, it’s that SEO is almost twice as popular as traditional media advertising – but the other aspects of new media marketing still have a ways to go. If you’re seeking a California SEO company that understands how to capture your corner of the market, contact Crest Media today.

So, when was the last time you re-designed your website? Admit it: It’s been awhile. For businesses that took a little longer to construct a web presence, that’s understandable; after all, you’re here, aren’t you? But if it’s been two years (which equals about a decade in “web years”) or more since your website received a fresh new face, it’s time. It’s high time.

Web-savvy consumers know when a website looks outdated, and industry research shows that it matters to them. In fact, web design matters enough for them to go somewhere else to find the product or service you offer – specifically, to a business with a website that doesn’t look flimsy or antiquated. It may seem superficial, but that’s the way it works these days.

As an established LA, Orange County and Inland Empire web design firm with dozens of website re-designs under its belt, Crest Media can put that fresh face on your site today. If you’ve worked with independent designers in the past, that’s great – but we can offer you something more. We have access to advanced web developer tools that many independent web designers don’t. Plus, we can offer you all the bells and whistles your site needs to stand out from the competition, like:

• Flash animation
• Streaming video
• Virtual tours
• Blogs
• White papers
• Shopping carts

If we didn’t list the feature you’re looking for, ask us about it! Contact Crest Media, an Orange County and Inland Empire website design firm that has the expertise you need. We will gladly answer your web design questions, listen to your web design needs and share our impressive portfolio with you.

Bloggers are often tempted to automatically delete every unfavorable comment that comes their way, but there are some reasons to embrace mean comments on your blog. As an experienced Los Angeles social media agency that manages blogs for small business owners, we present the following reasons to accept and keep mean blog comments:

1. Comments make your blog look more authentic.

Have you ever looked at customer reviews on Yelp or another online review forum, and wondered if that long string of glowing reviews was really planted there by the owner/his employees/his family/his friends? Of course you have! And the same is true for those who read your blog. When every comment is positive, every time and all the time, readers are bound to question the authenticity of those comments at some point. An unfavorable comment here and there can only help reinforce the idea that your blog is the real deal.

2. Feedback can give you a wake up call.

If someone points out a discrepancy in your facts, don’t despair; they could be right, and if they are you may want to thank them for pointing out your mistake so you can fix it. Or, they could be that nudge you need to do a little extra fact checking. Just like all areas of life, there are times when a blog commenter is there to give you a much needed wake up call.

3. Comments help you face problems head on and demonstrate your commitment to your audience.

Throughout the social media agency community, “Address the issue publicly and privately” has become the best practices response to bad customer reviews. The same is true for your blog. If your blog is an extension of your business and a place for people to discuss your product or services, send the offended commenter a private message with your apologies for whatever the problem was and offer him or her something nice. Then, address the matter publicly in the comments as well. It can actually give you a boost by showing the audience your commitment to customer service.

4. Comments show the audience that others are reading, too.

You want to show people that others read your blog, right? If so, keep those mean comments in there (unless they become the majority, but that’s an entirely different problem). Now, a note of caution: We’re not talking about keeping spammy, URL-planting comments of the “I just met my boyfriend on millionaireman4u.com” variety. Those comments do nothing to help you at all. We’re talking about comments that are relevant to the content of your blog and/or your business.

5. Interaction can help your faithful followers become more faithful.

If the majority of your audience is faithful to you, then an occasional bad comment may encourage them to rally to your defense. And who doesn’t love that?

If your web developer or SEO company tells you to delete bad blog comments, consider these points before proceeding. Our Los Angeles social media agency believes you may be doing yourself a favor by keeping them.

In December, Google announced that it was targeting copied sites and domain name parking services as part of its ongoing effort to clear out low quality content across the web. Although this may seem like an endless task, Google announced yet another change to its algorithm in order to carry out the mission more effectively.

The Google blog revealed, “Today we’re publishing another list of search improvements, beginning a monthly series where we’ll be sharing even more details about the algorithm and feature enhancements we make on a near-daily basis.” As part of the effort, a new “parked domain classifier” will be used to identify domain names that are live, but not currently in use – in other words, parked domains that exist only to create clicks and profits for their owners by serving up ads to visitors (ads that are rarely clicked on because savvy users don’t often find them valuable).

It’s been about three years since Google embarked on its first endeavors to “clean up” the Internet. In 2008, then-Google CEO Eric Schmidt told magazine executives that the Internet was a “cesspool” where false information thrives – and indicated that eventually, Google would aim to do something about it. Of course, the most significant portion of the effort thus far has been the implementation of Google Panda, launched this past February, which penalizes websites that duplicate their content throughout the web, use “bad” links and commit other search travesties.

Now, its most recent move will also target copied sites (sometimes called “scraper sites”) which were built with content stolen from other sites, often because an SEO company stole the content from one of its client’s national competitors. Regarding this, the Google Inside Search blog stated, “We added new signals to help us make better predictions about which of two similar web pages is the original one.” This will help ensure that the offending site will be the one that is penalized in search results, rather than the site that produced the content originally and is the innocent party.

These are good developments for our Los Angeles SEO clients, and California SEO clients as a whole. Anytime Google rewards producers of quality, original content, it can only benefit the businesses that populate the web community.

Learn more: Top Google Algorithm Changes of 2011, courtesy of HigherVisibility.com.

As a new year commences, we wanted to re-cap some of the most popular web development tools of 2011. Now, these products did not necessarily all debut over the past year; however, 2011 happened to be the year they made their mark on the website design industry:

jQuery and jQuery Mobile

jQuery, the popular JavaScript library, has even won over Microsoft; plus, it jumped in popularity in surveys from 2010 to 2011. For mobile development, an industry that itself got a boost in 2011, the introduction of jQuery Mobile 1.0 was a godsend.

Everybody loves pie, especially frustrated Web developers who need to cope with the shortcomings of older versions of Internet Explorer. You can’t fix the market and convince millions of people to upgrade to a more modern browser, but you can try to fix the browser.

CSS3 PIE

For web design professionals need of a way to make Internet Explorer a little more current, CSS3 PIE (“Progressive Internet Explorer”) was a valuable tool in 201. Although not quite at the 1.0 stage, PIE was in its fifth beta of 1.0 in September, with added IE9 support and several issue resolution features for IE6 through IE8.

Bootstrap

Twitter is the name of the game these days, so it should come as no surprise that its Bootstrap toolkit for rapid development of Web applications has shot up in popularity since debuting in August 2011. This CSS platform provides simple solutions for web developers, and can be used for prototyping or standardizations so that an organization can implement a uniform design across all of its sites and applications.

Google Chrome Developer Tools

Firefox is still popular, but the cat’s out of the bag: website design professionals love Google Chrome. One of the most obvious reasons why is Chrome Developer Tools. The tools enable a developer to do nearly anything, from editing HTML to viewing breakpoints in script, to performing debugging remotely. These development tools even offer an experimental API for those who want to take their site development to the next level.

PhoneGap

Mobile web developers, your time has come. There are many ways to write HTML5 applications and provide similar features to native applications on mobile devices, but PhoneGap seems to be the most currently popular solution. This mobile web development tool lets developers build an app once, then deploy to multiple platforms. It supports iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry and others. As an emerging name in mobile development, our Los Angeles web design company is interested in exploring PhoneGap further.

With so many incredible devtools breaking through in 2011, it seems that 2012 will be an even more exciting year for website design!