Archive: SEM

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 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...


Google Places – Google Local Business Listing

Last Updated by Michelle Sullivan

Get your business on Google Places

Google Places

In the previous post Has Your Website Search Ranking Dropped Lately? we briefly mentioned search localization emphasizing the fact that today’s search engines tend to give more priority to local search results over general search results. A search term like “London pizza” on Google UK will give pizza restaurants based in London more priority over the rest as Google displays a map with highlighted London-based pizza stores at the top of the search results. To take advantages of this change and trend in search, you can and should list or claim your business with Google Places.

If Google Places has already had your business information in its database, you’ll need to claim your listing. If it has not, you’ll need to add your business info. Either way, you’ll benefit from getting your business listed on Google Places – Google Local Business listing.  Read more...

Google Places Benefits

  • Your business can be listed in Google local business directory and displayed from or for local searches

How Search Engines Work

Last Updated by Man Tran

How Search Engines Read and Index Web Pages

Search engine image

This article is to provide you with the very first steps of making your website VISIBLE for search engines that is to understand how search engines work. Understanding how search engines work should happen before any SEO [Search engine optimization] works, and even before the website is created.

About search engines:

Search engines use web robots or web crawlers/ web spiders, which are programs traversing the website automatically, to index the web content to their database. Search engine’s job is to provide people with the information that is as close to what they searched for [known as search terms, keywords, key terms] as possible, no matter what form the requested information is in text, image, or video.  Read more...