Archive: Google

Create Interactive World Map with Mouseover Data for Your Website

Last Updated by Man Tran

How to add responsive & interactive world map on your website easily with Google GeoChart tool

A couple of months ago, my friend showed me a website featuring an interactive world map displaying the organization’s locations all over the world as well as their number of employees in each location. After a little of digging, I’ve found that it’s not hard to replicate such interactive world map on my site. At its core, the world map is powered by Google visualization tool, and all you need to do is do re-use their code and a little bit of tinkering to customize the map fit your purpose.

Note that this is not using the image map/hotspot — when you add a static image (of the map) and slice it into different region then add the mouseover code to create the effect.  Read more...


Search Ranking Dropped – Why & How to Be Visible Again

Last Updated by Man Tran

Possible reasons why your website search ranking changes over time or even overnight.

Search ranking sinking

This post was originally posted several years ago and was last updated in 2017.

Search engine algorithm

Times change, people change and so does search engine algorithm. If algorithm sounds like a big word to you, as it does to me, then consider it as a giant set of complex [mathematic] formula that search engines like Google, Yahoo! or Bing develop to decide which websites are more relevant to what people search, thus will be displayed at the top, compared to all the sites indexed in their database.  Read more...


Get Your Competitor’s Web Traffic Data

Last Updated by Man Tran

Different tools to help you with your competitive website data analysis

Get your competitor's web traffic data

This post was originally posted several years ago and was last updated in 2017

In an earlier post SWOT analysis for your website, I mentioned the four elements of your SWOT analysis include identifying your website strength (S), uncovering your its weaknesses (W), identifying opportunities (O) for the site and uncovering threats (T) against it. While a decent web analytics application like Google Analytics can help you get insight into your own website S and W elements, what and how can you know about your competitor’s web performance in order to make your SWOT analysis more complete? I emphasized “web performance” as opposed to other general information that you can obtain by browsing your competitors’ websites. Below are some tools to help you get some idea about your competitors’ website performance.  Read more...


Make Your Website Visible In Search

Last Updated by Man Tran

Simple but fundamental steps to make your website more search engine friendly and enhance its traffic and visibility.

Increase website traffic

This post was originally written several years ago and was last updated in 2016

Already knew about how search engines work, here are some simple but fundamental ways to make your site more visible with better ranking and more visibility.

If your site has ranked well in the past, but gradually or suddenly lost its ranking, then check out this post Search Ranking Dropped – Why & How to Be Visible Again.  Read more...


Google Updates and Your Search Ranking

Last Updated by Man Tran

Google Update, Search Engine Over-Optimization, Consequences and Remedies

Google Updates and Search Engine Overoptimization

There have been so many changes in Google search algorithm since the last time I wrote this article “Search Ranking Dropped – Why & How to Be Visible Again, which primarily discussed the changes in Google algorithm and their impact on site ranking and how to get your site visible in search again. The two most talked about and most recent changes in Google’s search algorithm are Google Panda and Google Penguin; both changes aimed to lower the ranking of (or to penalize, the way we talked about it) websites with low quality content or sites that don’t comply with the Google’s webmaster guidelines.  Read more...


Google Places “At a Glance” Wrong Description

Last Updated by Michelle Sullivan

Google displays wrong information under your Google Places “At a glance”? Find out why and how to fix it

Google Places - Wrong descriptive terms

Google Places has been around for quite some time. Since my first post about how to use Google Places to your local business advantage, there have been questions regarding the accuracy of the information displayed under the “At a Glance” section on the Google Places page. For many people/websites, the descriptive terms are insufficient; for others, they are inaccurate and sometimes to the point of providing incorrect information that the owners have never provided while listing their businesses on Google Places.  Read more...