"Today, Google announced a change to its search algorithm that the company says will impact 35% of Web searches. The change builds on top of its previous “Caffeine” update in order to deliver more up-to-date and relevant search results, specifically those in areas where freshness matters. This includes things like recent events, hot topics, current reviews and breaking news items." - According to Tech Crunch.

The Caffeine update was focused on site speed and user experience. A slow loading website is a bad user experience. Google wants searchers to get to the information they are after as quickly as possible. A better total user experience means happy searchers who will continue to use Google.

Who will this latest update effect?

This latest update appears to focus on recognizing keywords that are news oriented where results that are more recent are more up to date and should be more relevant to the user. Therefore the latest update will surely effect news related sites, and event based SEO, like the Seattle Interactive Conference I'm currently at. For search terms where recency of information is not a relevance or quality factor like Seattle Plumber or Banana nut muffin recipe will not be effected. That being said creating freshness on your site or page is ALWAYS important and recommended, as it's just good marketing.

What can you do?

Here are some strategies for ensuring your website is not negatively effected and instead is actually positively effected:

1. Utilize a content management system - I am still amazed by the number of small and large business alike you cannot update the content on their site themselves.
2. Update your blog - If you have a blog, write regularly (note to self  )
3. Feed your blog into your homepage, and product and services page. 
4. For each of your "Top Content Pages" in Google Analytics get creative, how can you make them more engaging and a better resource?
5. Update your published meta when you make updates to your pages so that Google knows you've updated your page/site.
6. Enable customers to leave reviews - what's better than having your site visitors keep your site fresh? And remember if your scared what they'll say, remember they're gonna say it somewhere, at least you'll have be able to moderate it on your site. It's kind of like, if your kids are gonna party, which they will, maybe it should be at your house where you can ensure it's done safely... I know it's a stretch for many of you but it is this non conventional thinking that will really enable you to garner much greater informaiton about your users than those who run away from their customers.
7. Leverage Social Media - If you or your fans are constantly updating your social media profiles add social media widgets to get your feed into the pages of your site.  

If you're a Bonsai Media Group client, do not worry your site already leverages many of the above and if there is an opportunity to add any we will get right on it for you. 

Google Vs. Facebook: Converting Visitors

Which is more valuable? a Facebook vistor or Google Visitor?

Accourind to a Chitika study of 70 million  impressions, " Google does a "much better job" at driving traffic and making sure it converts."

While Google Adwords (PPC) Click Through Rates can be roughly 2% compared to .3% for contextual advertising (ie facebook), Search cannot drive the number of impressions contextual advertising can. Therefore if your goal is brand awareness related you may consider focusing more on Facebook. If you're focus is on Clicks and Conversions you may want to focus on Search. Remember Adwords or PPC advertising CTR's are typically 2% the #1 organic ranked site can get CTR's of up to 42%! PPC = good, organic SEO = Better! when it comes to clicks, visitors and conversions.

Thanks for checking in!

Through the city and over the Rockies to Grandmother's house I went...

I went to Denver to hang out with my Grandma, catch up and see what crazy things she's been up to. My Grandma is 78 years old and just as sprite as ever. Whenever I visit Grandma I try to help her with her computer and all of her gadgets. This weekend I got to hook grandma up with some new technologies that were a natural fit for her life. 

Grandma told me about her recent trip to Boston with both of my Aunts and my cousin Nicole. They had a great time of course but grandma told me how she didn't get to take all of the pictures she wanted to take because her camera was full. Grandma also had an issue with her CD burner and couldn't share pictures with everyone. Since I've started using cloud storage like ZumoDrive and DropBox I realized I hardly every, if ever, use a CDRs or even a flash drive. So here's what we hooked grandma up with to solve her technology troubles:

1. We got an Eye-Fi Wireless Memory Card for her Camera. Why you ask? The Eye-Fi Card solves the issue of not getting her old pictures off of her camera and freeing up space to take more. The Eye-Fi Wireless Card transfers the pictures on the card directly to the computer over her secure wireless network at her house. All she has to do is come home after taking pics and turn her camera on and her pics are carried through the air and organized on to her computer. 
2. Drop Box - I told Grandma, no more CDRs. CDRs lose quality over time, they're prone to damage and they're not great for the environment. Enter DropBox. With DropBox grandma can put the pictures she wants to share into a folder on DropBox, right click the folder and share that folder with whomever she wants by sending them an email with a link where they can download the pics... Pretty slick. 
3. Skype - Finally, since Grandma does travel a lot and my cousin Luke is in India, I'm in Seattle, My sister is in Oakland, another cousin Portland etc etc Grandma needs an easy way to talk to us all. With Skype we can video chat and make goofy faces at each other. 

It was a good weekend, and I love my super tech savvy Grandma. I even explained what Search Engine Optimization is and she totally got it! (insert tear)

Until next time. 

That's right I said it. This blog post is going to show you the BEST way to integrate video into a web site and I'll tell you why.

Everyone knows Video is a great tool on a web site. Nobody reads on the web and video keeps visitors attention and most importantly ON YOUR WEB SITE.  But Video files are large and slow down the speed of your web site. But not any more!  We've developed a creative way of adding video to your web site that doens't load the video until the user clicks on the video AND adds a view to your youtube video AND speeds up your sites' loading speed.

Without Further introduction:

The BEST way to integrate video into your web site!

Dislike

At Bonsai we really are postive happy people, but every once in a while we see things we dislike online and in the "real world" (Yes it exists). On some sites online, you're only able to "like" things (cough cough facebook, excuse me), but doesn't the skeptic, negative nancy in you want to dislike it and tell the whole world.  Well now you can. Introducing dislike stickers!

Comes in a large (6" x 2") and small (1" x 3.5") sticker size.

Buy your dislike stickers here:

http://dislikestickers.bigcartel.com/

How to dislike online:

We've also created a Dislike Facebook Group so you can dislike anything you want on FB.

1. Join Facebook Group here.
2. Type @dislike in any comment or post you dislike.

Yes, it's that easy.