It’s common knowledge that a good Google ranking can make or break a business, so it’s no surprise that companies regularly get into a lather when they don’t get the results they believe they deserve.

The European Commission Competition Chief, Joaquin Almunia, is currently investigating the claims of three firms who claim that Google, far from sticking to the objective algorithms it is so well-known for basing its results on, is deliberately downgrading them.

The aggrieved companies are Foundem, a price comparison site, ejustice.fr, a French legal search engine, and – most interesting perhaps, given the rivalry between the two companies – Ciao, which is owned by Microsoft.

While we would agree that Google is not always blameless in its various activities, we’d be willing to bet that they will be found innocent on this one. Their algorithms are so complex that we could foresee a situation where sites were accidentally penalised, sure. Plus, Google does also automatically blacklist sites which adhere to any one of several practices it frowns upon, all of which fall under the banner of ‘black hat’ SEO. Might these sites have fallen foul of the sometimes labyrinthine guidelines?

Whatever the case, we’ve seen many a website owner who was convinced that Google had a personal grudge against his site. In every case, it turned out not to be so.

One of our many services for small businesses is checking that your site has nothing in place that might mitigate against your Google rankings. If you are thinking you have a lot in common with Foundem, ejustice and Ciao, why not give us a ring and we’ll see if we can get to the bottom of it for you.

Getting sites to the top of Google rankings is a serious business – so serious that it’s easy to forget that the company also has a fun side. This week, the BBC showed us a video and images of Google’s new offices in Zurich. Fancy making an entrance to your staff canteen? The slide from the second floor is just the thing. If that’s not quite your scene, there’s also a fireman’s pole.

As with the other Google offices around the world, a sense of fun, luxury and comfort pervades the offices. In return, of course, Google expects commitment and creativity – and it probably gets it. What other workplace is going to be worth leaving this for?.

We’ve all enjoyed poring over the details and dreaming of our very own phone booths made from repurposed ski-lift compartments. But in the meantime, we’ll get back to the hard work of optimising your website for Google.

Images taken from the BBC website, where you can also watch a video tour of the premises.

If you sell internationally, it’s definitely worth reading the technology section of the daily papers. For example, did you know that many websites, including Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, not to mention the all-important Google, are blocked in China?

That’s been the case for quite a while, but recent news stories have also alerted us to similar and less-predictable restrictions in Turkey and Pakistan. On the other hand, the Finnish government have apparently decreed that broadband Internet access is a human right, and are promising every citizen super-fast access by 2015. Currently, almost 100% of the population is already connected at a more normal speed.

Why is it worth knowing these things? Well, obviously, if you sell to Turkey, say, you won’t want to waste your efforts on a viral marketing campaign on YouTube. Similarly, there’s little point in optimising your Chinese web pages for Google. On the other hand, if many of your customers are from Scandinavia, you can have a lot of fun designing fairly weighty websites with as much video or Flash content as you like – it won’t clog up their capacious broadband.

Apart from anything else, it’s fascinating to see how each country restricts or enables access to the 20th century’s greatest invention – and your international strategy will be a whole lot more likely to bear fruit.

Microsoft’s search engine product Bing was a year old on Sunday. Setting aside the question of whether we’ve got any more used to its rather silly name (no), has it become a proper contender in Search during that time?

Well, according to Thinq, Bing has managed to grow Microsoft’s search share from eight to almost 13 per cent over the past year but has barely made a dent in Google’s dominant position. Microsoft’s gains have largely been at Yahoo’s expense.

Does this mean we can largely ignore Bing, and Yahoo for that matter, and optimise purely for Google? Absolutely not. 13% may not sound like much, but given the vast quantity of searches being conducted at any one moment, we’d be fools to let it go.

Don’t forget, too, that these figures relate purely to UK usage. OK, fine if you trade purely within these shores. If you don’t, be assured that Google’s dominance is by no means replicated across the world: in Japan, Yahoo has it. In China, Google has all but given up and Baidu is king. In the States, Bing is much more commonly used than it is here.

Many SEO firms will talk of Google as if it is the only search engine worth optimising for. It’s easily done, especially when the word ‘Google’, like ‘Hoover’, has become a verb describing the very act of searching. But the savvy optimiser will know that the best benefits in all search engines will be found by putting high-quality, relevant content on your web pages, signposting it clearly, and attracting decent links from the sites that matter. That way, no matter which search engine is dominant at any one time, you’ll be properly represented.

Google makes over 400 small changes to its search algorithm per year, on average, so why is the Search community all abuzz with the recent Mayday update? Simply, it seems, because many of them have seen their rankings suffer, especially when it comes to the ‘long-tail’ results we were talking about only last week.

As ever, Google is striving to make a better user experience: it seems that the losses will largely be felt by gargantuan e-commerce sites with thousands of automatically-generated pages and little content. Ultimately, that’s got to be good for the consumer – and good for you, the small business.

Matt Cutts, increasingly the voice of Google, especially when it comes to addressing concerned webmasters, toes the party line (as you can see in the video below): concentrate not on your rankings, but on being the authority for that product (or service, or topic). Add great content, that’s all you have to do. Admittedly, for a party line, it’s a pretty good one.

Vanessa Fox on Search Engine Land has some practical tips for those wishing to find out if the Mayday update has affected their sites for the better or worse – and what to do about it if it’s the latter.

It’s quite labour-intensive though, so if this is new ground for you, or you simply don’t have the time, we would be very happy to take it on for you. Just drop us a line.

Now here’s that video.

It’s very tempting, sometimes, to have all the latest bells and whistles on your website. Everyone likes novelty, which is probably what led to the many sites that used to play music as soon as they started up, back in the last decade. Thankfully, that’s a trend that has largely now gone the way of the dodo, but, human nature being what it is, there is always something else to replace it. Heavy animations, videos, or just tricksy fonts – they can all add to a site’s “weight”, and you might not even notice it.

The chances are that you visit your own site often, and your browser will be caching certain elements to make them faster to load. What’s more, you almost certainly visit predominantly on the same browser and the same operating system, so you simply might not be aware that what takes a few seconds to load on your own set-up is taking an unacceptably long time on someone else’s.

If you market abroad, stop to think about the distance between your server and your customer’s machine. Not everyone has broadband, and, globally, there are many users who may be used to long page loading times, but still unwilling to wait for your snazzy animation to load.

Not long ago, Google announced that page speed had become one of the many factors in their increasingly-complex ranking algorithm. In other words, it’s no longer just a courtesy to your customers that your site loads quickly, but a real business imperative for those who rely on top search engine rankings. Fortunately, at Notting Hill Internet Services, our best practice policy means ensuring, among many other things, that your site is always as streamlined and efficient as can be. Why not follow the Google link given above, where you’ll find some tests you can do on your website – and if you find it lacking, give us a call.

Yesterday and on Monday we asked the question: Can small businesses compete with the big boys?

As we have already seen in the previous two posts, the big corporations have certainly cottoned on to the importance of online sales, and have the resources to corner the market when it comes to PPC, SEO, and, increasingly, social media. While there used to be areas in which a nifty small business could nip in and make quick wins, the landscape is now very different.

One area in which the small business still has dominance, though, is the local search. Many small businesses by their very nature can only service a narrow geographical area, and this limitation can become a benefit.

You might choose to optimise, for example, for the specific area of your town in which you operate. It is unlikely that the national and multi-national companies will have drilled down to that level, but you will scoop up all the searches of anyone looking for your type of business in your specific area.

Don’t forget Google’s increasing moves towards local search tied in with the user’s geographic location, too. We’ve discussed before how having an updated profile on Google Maps can pay big dividends, especially when it comes to users who are within a couple of miles of your business. Include photos, videos, and even special offers coupons, all at no cost to yourself, and see your local profile improve.

Then there’s the tailored, local use of social media. Increasingly, businesses are discovering locality-based cliques on Twitter which are easy to break into. No full-on marketing strategy is required: it’s enough simply to be available and communicative, and you’ll find your business becoming entrenched in users’ everyday perceptions of your town.

These are just a few ideas of how to think local, and beat the big boys at their own game. We’d be happy to tailor strategies for your own specific small business: just drop us a line or give us a call.

Yesterday, we asked the question Can small businesses compete with the big boys?. All this week, we’ll be looking at the subject in more depth.

A few years ago, a concept that has become known as the long tail gained currency, and was recognised as a viable way for niche businesses to make money online.

In a nutshell, the theory suggests that while big companies have the money to bid on major keywords such as ‘holidays’ and ‘car insurance’, there is just as much to be gained by the aggregate effects of optimising for many hundreds of less searched-for terms.

In other words, you may never afford top position for ‘holidays’ but you might find that you can perform well on searches such as ‘child-friendly lettings in Dorset’. And while the latter search might only bring you, say, three or four searches a month, put a whole lot of them together, and suddenly you are getting respectable traffic.

Unfortunately, as time has passed, the big businesses have cottoned on to the benefits of the long tail, too. The prime example is Amazon – utterly optimised for any search for any book title, and the other goods it now carries, too. Not only is their entire site structured to build SEO into every element; but also, they can afford the staff and the development to ensure that every new page is optimised to the hilt.

For a small businessperson, the website is almost always one of many responsibilities that come with managing a business. They certainly don’t have the time to monitor search engine positioning and add every long tail term they can think of to their site. The only way to capitalise on the long tail phenomenon is to outsource SEO, and it does make sense to do so (that’s something we can do; just drop us a line if you’re interested).

Success with the long tail will very much depend on your business, and who your current online competitors are. But it’s definitely worth looking in to – or asking us to do that for you.

It’s often said that the Internet is a level playing-field, where small businesses have every opportunity to compete with gargantuan multi-nationals.

Is that still the case? These days, almost all large companies understand the vital importance of a good web presence and search engine rankings – even it has taken some of the more traditional establishments a long time to come round.

Many will now employ dedicated SEO specialists to ensure that they are top of the page for the major search terms. They may also have in-house development teams, allowing them to take advantage of every latest technology – or even lead the way in forging their own new functionality.

The landscape today is very different from the early history of the Internet, when a little bit of online nous went a long way. This has left many small businesses, previously maintaining excellent rankings, floudering in the wake of the big boys. With a small workforce and limited time, how can they compete?

This week, we’ll be looking at how small businesses can vie with the online giants. You may not beat them, but you can stay afloat, with a little know-how, so keep reading for our best insights into surival for the small online business.

We mostly work with small businesses, and we mostly help them to optimise their sites for the major search engines, so we thought we’d share a link that many of you should find extremely useful.

Google keep a number of different blogs, each pertaining to a niche within its wider business, and one of these is purely for the small business person.

Recent posts have focussed on real-life stories from other entrepreneurs, examining how they used Google to boost business. Read how Google Apps, Google Places and Google Adwords have helped people just like you.

This blog, straight from the horse’s mouth, will fill you in on some of the many technologies we are able to harness for you and your business, and give us a firm basis for any discussions we may have. But don’t worry if it is all Dutch to you – we’ll be happy to explain, and help you make the right selections for your own website.