Which search engine do you use when you turn to the Internet to find something? Well, my first guess would be Google, followed by Yahoo, then Bing (formerly MSN Windows Live). Maybe you use more than one depending on the type of content that you are trying to find, but no matter which search engine you use what’s more important is which one that your customers are using to find your website. Besides, no matter which search engine you or your customers use, you are bound to notice some changes upcoming in 2011.
Google announced that it will be adding ‘real time search’ to certain search page results. Real time search is not a new concept as and has been around for sometime now, but with the recent explosion of sites like Twitter and Facebook, Google is trying to improve their algorithm in order to improve this technology. Real time search would include things like status updates from Facebook and recent tweets from Twitter. Not every search query would trigger real time search results, but popular or hot topics and trends would be something that causes real time search information to be included in your search queries.
This is yet another reason why you and your business need to have Twitter and Facebook pages. If you don’t, your competitors will. Other than social media starting to make a bigger impact on search engine results, another new ranking factor being talked about is page speed. Have you ever been on a website that takes forever to download? Sure we all have and it’s pretty annoying. Well, Google also feels the same way and they are talking about the speed of web pages being a new factor in ranking. If two sites have equally beneficial information, but one loads twice as fast, then the faster website is going to rank higher. It just makes sense.
If your website has a lot of graphics or videos that take a while to buffer, then you need to re-think your design. If you have a site that is plagued by these kinds of inefficiencies then you definitely must do something to cut down on the file sizes of your pictures and videos. Even without Google adding that into their algorithm, it’s just good business sense to provide your visitors with a quality site that is easy to browse and quick to download. When designing and building a website you should always think like a user or web visitor.