As of today, however, Google Plus has taken it even further by now including your personal photos, friends photos, etc into the SERP’s. It initially shows personal image results that are relevant to your search, but when you click on “Show Personal Results”, whoa Nelly.  It shows you the image results you had seen previously, along with all relevant content posted from friends and family that contain that keyword term that you searched for.

Now while this is all neat ans fancy, what implications does this have for SEO? Let’s ask some questions and assume answers.

Will sites that relied on image results take a hit on that first SERP?

If you look at what’s happening now, the end result is Yes.  Stock photo communities stand to lose quite a bit when that first page real estate they once had is now replaced by a person’s personal images. While it’s understood that there would have to be a relevant term that matched a personal photo for their images to be pushed out, the possibility still exists and will be worth watching.

Even in our example below, you can see that the image results show three rows of our personal images before displaying images on other sites even without clicking for personal results. A cause for alarm for photographers and stock photo companies.

How will it affect the first page results?

A lot. A Google search for the term “SEO Experts” gave us two results on the first page because we were logged into our Google account.  The other notable thing is that the SERP’s were then increased from 10 spots to 11 when you’re logged in, which doesn’t count shopping or image results.  Log out and perform the same search and not only is it less real estate, but the results are back down to 10. The increase to 11 slots was most definitely to account for the personalized entries, but if you notice, THREE of the entries on the “logged in” page are not present on the “logged out” version.  Which begs to question, was adding 1 slot enough?

It’s designed to make it personal right out of the gate without even clicking on personal results, but people not involved with SEO or how Google makes those decisions may make incorrect assumptions based on those results. And we can’t think of many people that don’t have a Google account in some form or fashion for Gmail, Google+, Reader or something else.  And if they are, they’ll get a whole new SERP and not even know why. We’re waiting for the uninitiated to start bragging about how they’re on the first page of Google. While it’s an anomaly that’s nothing new, it’s even more prevalent now.

Will it be harder to get on the first page of Google now?

The short answer is No, but as time progresses and more people sign on to Google’s various services, the answer inevitably becomes Yes.  Especially since in our random tests, 30% to as much as 50% of the results on the “logged in” version aren’t present when compared to the “logged out” version.

That means at minimum, there’s a 30% less chance that your business won’t be on that first page if a person is logged into their Google account.  Or if you’re a “glass half full” type of person, a 30% chance that you will be on that page when the person logs out. But just how many folks do you think that will be at the rate Google is pushing their services?

And we’re sure there are tons more questions that need to be answered, but for now, this opens the doors for all types of questions for SEO professionals. While the changes are positive for the user, it makes the front page real estate even more difficult to master and as more people begin to utilize the Google+ service, the less probability that a new site will be able to crack that top 11.

Needless to say there’s a lot of positive things that will come of it, not to mention that Google will most certainly utilize your personal information even more to push relevant ads to you, steer you first to content residing on Google, or very simply making mad money off of you and all under the guise of “a personal experience”. You read that fine print when you signed up for Google services, right?

But the real question is figuring out how you, as a small business owner, can capitalize on these changes. That’s not an electrical fire you’re smelling. That’s your brain on Google+.

Let’s say that you’ve got a nice wedding cake bakery that makes wedding cakes. The site has never really ranked well, but you don’t know why.  So you start doing keyword research to find out what people are searching for related to weddings. You find wedding favors, wedding songs, wedding planning tips, wedding consultants, and the list goes on.  You decide to make a page that contains a list of the the most popular wedding songs on your site. Your thought process is that a bride will click through to see what the most popular wedding songs are and then see your services and buy a cake.

The trend continues as you then open a little side store attached to your website to start selling wedding favors. Again with the same thought process in mind that you’ll get that residual business or worse case scenario get affiliate sales from selling wedding favors.  The next thing you know, you’re ranking worse than you were before.  ”How can this be?! I added more relevant content!” Unfortunately, you just muddied up your website and made things worse for yourself.

And if you have a website that has already done something similar, you now have to figure out how to dig your way out and get back in Google’s good graces. Whenever you consider adding more content to your website, you should always first consider what type of impact this will have on your site’s relevance. Weddings are a very broad topic in general and in a saturated market, you end up being your own worst enemy.

In the above example, adding wedding favors to a wedding cake website makes your website becomes less relevant for wedding cakes. To make the matter worse, you not only will continue to fail to rank for wedding cakes, but now you’ll fail for wedding favors as well.  And while you might think that adding more wedding related items will make you more relevant for weddings such as wedding invitations or wedding dresses, you thin out your site’s focus instead of excelling at wedding cakes.  It’s the only thing you do and you should focus on your expertise on that.

If you want to add more content, make sure that it’s directly relevant to wedding cakes.  For instance, maybe you consider a section of available wedding cake toppers, so that even if they don’t buy a cake from you because they’re across the country, you may still sell them a wedding cake topper and still be able to maintain your wedding cake relevance. Everything you add to the site should be directly related to cakes.

If you’re already stuck in the mud with a website that has thousands of pages that are all thinly related in the same type of scenario, there are ways out.  You either have to restructure your website and properly silo it or totally kill it and reuse the information in a logical relevant manner.  If it’s not relevant with cakes, it has to go.  The only way that a convolution of thinly-related topics works is if you’re in a non-competitive industry that isn’t represented on the web.

So it may be time to pull a sitemap (you can get those free you know) and take inventory of what you have out there. Keyword research plays an integral part of deciding what direction may be best for your site based on keyword intent and what terms people are using to find you.

The topic came up again over the weekend as covered by the lovely Vanessa Fox about how major retailer JCPenney broke those rules and had enjoyed top rankings on Google for pretty much everything they sold and in turn had a very prosperous holiday shopping season.  JCPenney is not a small company and were certainly not prospering “in the shadows”.   They were caught because of a New York Times article where the writer hired an SEO company to find out just how JCPenney performed its SEO magic. The writer found that JCPenney had been buying links, supposedly inadvertently through their SEO firm, on literally thousands of websites and most of which weren’t even relevant to JCPenney.  When the Times questioned Google’s Matt Cutts about the issue, he released a very short, “Google’s algorithms had started to work.  Manual action also taken.”   The result was JCPenney’s rankings taking a major plummet, but Twitter came alive with questions about why it took a New York Times investigation and a tap on Google’s shoulder for them to notice this had been going on.  Vanessa’s article covers it in more detail here and it’s a great read, but it raises important concerns to all legitimate SEO experts.

SEO professionals have had enough.  We all have had those clients that are in competitive fields and experience this first hand.  We see a clients’ competitor sit at the top of Google rankings that are only there from beating the system. We see them buy links, appear on hundreds of irrelevant sites (some even pornographic) and they win the battle.  Meanwhile, we have to tell our clients, “I can’t do that.  You need to consider the penalties. If you get caught, you could be removed from Google’s index.  They’ll eventually get caught. You’ll see….“  and then months later, even years later, they’re never caught.  They just continue to prosper and our clients go elsewhere. Most of the time to black hat SEO hobbyists that give them what they want.  Top rankings via whatever means necessary.  If clients are smart, they will steer clear away from this type of activity, but the question truly is, when will Google figure out how to spot this?

Someone explain why Google ignores legitimate SEO professionals pleas?  The graphic below is from the aforementioned post that showed how many links JCPenney had from month to month.  Why can’t Google see this activity and why don’t they act on it?  As mentioned before, JCPenney is not a small company, and they still don’t get caught unless something like this occurs.  Maybe Google can explain to us how they don’t see this activity below?  Google’s algorithm brags that it analyzes 10,000 ranking factors to determine positioning. Is this not one of them?  There’s not one SEO professional that hasn’t struggled getting a client to rank following the rules while we watched their competitors flourish by breaking them.  All we had to do is use SEO Elite to see the origin of their links. Does Google not have something similar?  Do we have to tattle-tale on sites for them to get caught?  It’s time for this hole to be patched and thankfully it takes an embarrassing slip like this to bring it back to light.

While many SEO professionals have screamed that this is going to kill SEO and make it irrelevant, there is a second school of thought that it will begin to even the playing field.  For every bigger player at the top of the search engines for broader terms, there are thousands of smaller players that rank well for more specific terms.

This addition by Google not only helps the searcher consider terms that they may not have thought of,  but it also helps them to possibly discover a smaller player.  For instance, in the example above, someone searching for SEO may not have considered searching for SEO tools or SEO software.  They may have simply planned on typing in “SEO” and hoping for the best.

This Google offering not only helps the person searching discover other searching options that are based on what people are actually searching for, but also provides them with more terms that will allow them to discover some smaller players that don’t rank for broader terms.

While sites ranking for broader terms will certainly cry foul because they see it as a distraction to the searcher, this change will help to reduce bandwidth for Google by helping searchers find what they want quicker and begin to level the playing field for smaller players.

While this change is fantastic to searchers, it will also increase revenue for Google because players who previously ignored the longer tail terms will have to rethink their SEM strategy to include those smaller traffic terms if they themselves aren’t ranking for those longer tail terms.  SEM professionals may want to keep their eye on sudden spikes on campaigns that once were dormant that all of sudden start seeing life.

Either way, Google Instant appears to be good for everyone.

If you have a hundred pages that talk about Barbie dolls, you would expect to rank well for those related terms. But if those hundred pages are spread out, scattered, and buried among hundreds of other pages that are not related to Barbie dolls, your pages won’t see the light of day in the rankings compared to even someone who only has 10 pages that are well organized in a Barbie doll area and all neatly tied and linked together.

Take a look at this graphic below that is a representation of what a good silo’ed site would look like;

In this example we have a kids site, which silos down to a toys area and a fashion area separately.  Then each of those areas silos down into even more specific areas (girls and boys, etc.).  This may seem like an obvious setup, but in companies where the lines may appear to be blurred, you can miss it.  For instance if you have a heating and air company, you would be wise to keep your heating services pages away from cooling services pages.   Even though it’s very common to see them together, they have very distinctive sets of keywords.  Heating has furnaces, heating, etc. and cooling will have air conditioning, freon, cooling, a/c, etc.  Keep them separate so that you can build up those areas with the respective keywords. Keeping them together muddies up the relevancy of the pages and dilutes your page strength. Just like in the above example, boys and girls pants could share a page but boys don’t wear capris. Stop diluting your message.

I’ve personally worked on sites that have had this problem and when you get into thousands of pages that are all a convoluted mess, it’s extremely difficult to fix and if there are other forces involved that refuse to organize the site the way it needs to be, it’s very frustrating since rankings are few and far between. If you’re in this position, you can slightly overcome it by doing what’s called Virtual Siloing where even if the content isn’t actually residing in neatly crafted directories, you can still present them and link them in that way. It’s second fiddle to directory siloing where not only is the linking structure that way, but also the site directories.

The last thing to note about silos is the interlinking patterns. For instance, in the example above, avoid linking the “Dress Up” page to the “Boys Toys” areas or even worse, another branch of the silo like the “Kid’s Fashion” branch. Cross link to pages on the same level and in the same branch. But if they’re not really relevant just avoid it since it’s not really necessary (like linking video games to trucks, for instance. Same branch, but not really relevant).

If you do decide to cross link branches, make sure that it’s somehow relevant and that it links to the broadest relevant silo possible.  In the example above, if you were to link the “Dress Up” area under “Girl’s Toys” to actual “Girl’s clothes” on your site (a stretch I know), link to the “Girl’s Clothes” area and not to the “Girls pants” or “Girl’s Shirts” area.  Go as broad as you can and stay relevant.

Apply this linking strategy externally also. If you find a kid’s clothing site that’s willing to link to you, have them link directly to the Kid’s Fashion branch page and NOT directly to your home page.  If it’s a boy’s clothing site, have them link to the Boys Clothes branch and not Kid’s Fashion since that also includes a Girl’s Clothes branch that stems off of it which isn’t relevant.

The larger the website, the messier this gets, but once you get it under control, your rankings will move up the charts quickly and you’ll continue to get more powerful the longer you keep this practice moving forward and stay true to it.

SEOMoz (http://www.seomoz.org)
Cost: Varies. The pro level can be acquired for only $79 per year and that’s ridiculously cheap for what you get.
What You Get: Tons of tools like Linkscape, Ranking tools, a couple questions a month answered directly from an SEO professional, updates, monthly online meetings walking you through handling things like social media and other hot topics, free invites to networking sessions all over the world (mostly U.S.) and tons more.

SearchEngineLand (http://searchengineland.com/)
Cost: $149 per year for premium membership (WELL worth it)
What you get: Well most importantly, if you plan to attend an SMX conference in the coming year, you’ll get your money back immediately plus some. By far, the best and most informative SEO conference you will ever, ever go to. Typically takes place in Seattle, New York, London, and other places. The site is extremely user friendly and is updated very frequently meaning multiple times daily. Lots of great news like search engine changes, scams, etc. This one is at the top of my list and one of my favorites.

SearchEngineNews (http://www.searchenginenews.com)
Cost: 6 months for a measly $97 or a year for $144
What you get: A monthly newsletter that talks about current changes that are going on with the search engines. I’d hold off on this one until you get more comfortable with what you’re doing and get everything in place. Once you do, then try this out. They also provide the top 10 directories to submit to, top article places, etc. So try it for 6 months and if it works for you, great.

WebProNews (http://www.webpronews.com/)
Cost: Free
What you get: While there are some paid avenues you can tread down, most of the information supplied is ad-supported and there’s a lot of it. Their emails alone contain a ridiculous amount of up to date SEO information. It’s worth your time and may actually give you too much, which is this side of awesome.

There are a TON of tools and good bit of which are free and some that cost a little bit of money, but they will be invaluable to you. Here are the ones that I use religiously and that you’ll probably want to use also to accomplish great results. You can obviously do it without these specific tools, but these will make your journey so much easier. I’ll break this down into “must haves” and “should haves”. I highly suggest downloading the “must haves” before you even start the SEO journey.

The Absolute MUST HAVES. Don’t even bother unless you have these.

Google Webmaster Tools
(http://www.google.com/webmasters)
Cost: Free
If you’re not using this tool, then you should be shot and hung. All that’s required is that you actually own the site. You verify your ownership by adding a meta tag or uploading a page to the root directory and then you have access to a wealth of information. Everything from broken links, title tag issues, backlinks and more. It’s only shortcoming is lack of competitive analysis, but it’s all here and it’s all FREE.

Google Analytics
(http://www.google.com/analytics/)
Cost: Free
If you don’t know what it is or how to use it, you are beyond help. If you don’t, then just pretend you do and go there. You sign up for free, put a code block into your web pages and then you have a ridiculous amount of data at your disposal. Traffic patterns, what keywords you’re being found on, e-commerce, where they’re leaving from, what keywords they’re finding you with and tons more. There is some setup involved in this, but it’s worth it and an absolute imperative tool for you to use and again, it’s free.

Good Keywords
(http://www.goodkeywords.com)
Cost: Free
This program is limited, but it spits out some amazing keyword suggestions. The program is free, which is even better. You type in a basic keyword you’re interested in and it displays a laundry list of alternate keywords from Yahoo and others.

Google Website Optimizer
(http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer)
Cost: Free
This is also another tool that you can use to split test pages so that you can try out two different versions of a page to see which one performs better. Free.

Yahoo Site Explorer
(https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/)
Cost: Free
If you want to research a competitors inbound links or even your own, you must use Yahoo’s Site Explorer over Google’s. Google simply does not want to give up everything because it doesn’t want you to know exactly everything it sees, so it only offers you a piece of the puzzle. Yahoo on the other hand will give it all to you. Forget the whole “Google rules” train of thought and leave it at the door. Yahoo’s Site Explorer is one of the most important free tools to have at your disposal. Click the link, bookmark it and plan to use it often.

IBP (Internet Business Promoter)
(http://www.Axandra.com)
Cost: Check site for current cost
I shouldn’t give away this secret, but I use this tool very heavily. It has keyword tools, web optimization tools, competition analysis and a very, very cool reporting feature that spits out 50 page reports in seconds showing analysis of what the top 10 competitors are doing and suggestions about how you can fix your site to be in line with what they’re doing. It’s amazing. One of my favorite tools on the list.

Now these are the Should Haves. These will make your life SO much easier.

SEO Elite
(http://www.seoelite.com/index2.htm)
This is by far the mack daddy of SEO tools to have in your arsenal if you’re expecting to make it up the charts. I have brought companies to the top of Google without using this tool and also with it. And I can tell you that using it makes the process not only easier but hundreds of times quicker. It will shorten your efforts by weeks if not months. It shows you everything from what your competitor is doing, what keywords you should use, how to structure your code, keyword ratios, IP addresses of inbound links, and the entire gamut. It’s amazing and will literally get you to the top of Google very quickly. Get it.

Wordtracker
(http://www.wordtracker.com)
Wordtracker has been around forever and while they do offer a free version of their keyword tool, the paid version offers a wealth of information that will simply blow you away. You’ll have such ridiculous insight into keyword conversions that you might actually get sick by the spinning array of data. It is worth every dime.

SEOBook
(http://www.seobook.com)
SEOBook is run by SEO mastermind Aaron Wall. You will find lots of free tools in the Tools area of their website that you can download and use with the Firefox browser. Dozens of plugins to make finding information about your competitors much easier. There are also free Rank Checkers so that you can track your progress as you go, find out whether or not your link partners are legitimately linking to you, etc. They also have a membership area as well that will give you a lot of extras and access to some very cool stuff.

PPC Web Spy
(http://www.ppcwebspy.com/)
This program is designed to basically spy on your competition while you’re browsing the web. It’s a plug-in for your browser that shows you the keywords that your competitors are focusing on in their Pay Per Click Campaigns which ultimately gives you an advantage to capitalize on words they’re probably missing. It literally will show you all of your competitors ad copy for Google AdWords. Their cost per click, their position, and even how much they’re spending. In reality, this is very covert and is really a crazy amount of information to be able to get. A very dangerous tool. To your competitors.

Ultimate Guide To WordPress Plugins
(http://www.ultimateguidetowordpressplugins.com)
If you plan on starting a blog using WordPress, you need this. It’s the major difference between a blog that gets a few views as opposed to hundreds a day outside of compelling content. Using the right plugins in WordPress is imperative to that effort. This little guide documents the plugins that you must have by all means necessary and others that will tweak the blog beyond anything you could imagine. And it’s cheap.

The “They’re Free, so you might as well get them” tools.

Keyword Pad
(http://www.goodkeywords.com/products/keywordpad/)
A pretty amazing piece of software that is also completely FREE and is literally beaming with greatness. Plug in the keyword you want and you get a treasure trove of long tail keywords that your competitors are most likely missing. Then you can take that list and tweak it out, multiply results and much more. It’s free.

WebTools Now
(http://www.webtoolsnow.com)
Another FREE program that does have a paid component for it, but it offers so much free content out of the gate, that it’s hard to ignore. You can get some pretty amazing information here from keyword research, code alteration, and some very valuable tips. And again, it’s free.

Google Keyword Research Tool
(https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal)
Google Adwords is imperative for anyone to use if you’re just starting online. This tool spits out arbitrary numbers, but it will tell you what keywords are the most competitive, which ones will eat you alive in click through cost, and what words no one is even bidding on. An invaluable FREE tool.

Google Trends
(http://www.google.com/trends)
If you’re curious as to what people are searching for right now and what’s the most popular? Look no further than Google Trends. A glimpse at the most common searches at that given time. You can then use this info to write blogs or articles that are guaranteed to snag traffic.