When it comes to the web speed is always an advantage. Faster computers, faster chips, faster servers and faster connections are all about doing things faster. Speed is a measure of productivity, these days, and for Google part of how it sees your website’s ability to enhance the end-user experience.

For those who may be new to this post Google is about two things: quality in search (which it pursues assiduously) and quality in the end-user experience which it has started to pursue with a series of measures which include Google Instant, improvements in Google Instant functionality and new Chrome Browser functionalities like its recent ability to bring speech to search.

The speed at which your webpage performs and the speed at which it loads are now two metrics which Google uses to assess just how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ your website is from an end-user point of view. Fast websites (as you might have guessed) are deemed to be better because they do not make the end-user have to wait for everything to load while slow ones are not so good and will have their Google rankings docked as a result.

Here we get into two questions: How can you test your site speed to see if it really is at its optimum? And what do you do next?

Online Site Speed Test Tool

Google has provided an online site speed test tool which allows you to input your URL and get an assessment of the speed at which your site loads in the browser. More than that it also has specific suggestions which are designed to help make your site faster.

These usually include suggestions about setting cache expiry dates (which help sites load faster) for static graphic items on your website, suggestions to set up CSS Sprites and optimize images. Unless your website is breaking some pretty basic design rules you will find that most of the suggestions made by the Google Site Speed Test Tool fall into the province of advanced SEO which means that you will most likely have to go to your web developers for a little assistance.

The Google Site Speed Test Tool grades website speed out of 100. If you are not in the high 60s in terms of percentage then you really cannot afford to ignore it and any money spent will be worth it in terms of improvements in your Google ranking. If your website performs in the high 70s and 80s there is still room for improvement but it is not that critical and you can afford to put it on your list of things to do for a later date.

Fail to rise above the 55% mark for speed however and you have a major problem on your hands which you really need to address now.

To understand the issue it is important we look at SEO as it was practised before the 2011 Google Panda Update. Up to, the beginning of 2010 webmasters focused on the need to get their websites indexed as thoroughly as possible on the understanding that the more pages of a website were indexed the more keywords would be in the Google Index for that website and the higher were the chances of those keywords begin to work so that both main and long-tail keywords bring in traffic.

It was a sound strategy which had not much changed since 2007 and Google’s Florida update. Google began to change all of this with the introduction of Google Caffeine which was a real game-changer when it comes to the way Google Indexes the web. More than just another algorithm upgrade Google Caffeine was a total change of the Google search operation, introducing, almost, real-time search.

The emphasis at Google also changed. From the pre-Caffeine concept of Google indexing a website’s relevant pages Google changed tack to indexing everything as thoroughly as possible. This meant that webmasters no longer needed to try as hard to get Google to index every page of their websites and, suddenly, the number of pages of a website which were indexed by Google was not longer an indication of its SEO status.

Simply put, Google now indexes everything, as often as possible.

What Google also does however, with increasing sensitivity since the Google Caffeine update and with intent since the Google Panda Update is also look at quality. The quality content of your website is now more important than ever before and it is important to avoid having a website which gives off signals which may mark it as being a spam website.

One welcome change from this is that the battle for a website’s PageRank which would see the Homepage rank well and subsequent pages have either lower or no PageRank which would then lead to all sorts of cross-linking strategies in order to increase that PageRank is now gone. If your site achieves a specific PageRank (PR) in Google’s update of the public side of PageRank then that is spread evenly across the entire site including new pages you introduce.

In a way this makes perfect sense. Google has shifted its focus from ranking individual pages to ranking websites as a whole. It now uses authority and trust to assess a website and puts the onus on the website owner to make sure that every page on it is of value otherwise the website will lose PageRank (PR) in the new update. This means that a couple of bad pages or some overlooked duplicate content is enough to cost you a point or two on your PageRank.

What Does This Mean for Webmasters Optimizing their Websites in 2011?

Google’s change from looking at individual pages within a website to beginning to assess websites as a whole is subtle but has significant impact. It puts pressure on the webmaster to work hard to make sure their website is totally relevant, that out of date pages are no longer indexed and that pages which do not get much traffic are dropped.

It also now puts quite a lot of pressure on the webmaster to maintain their site with fresh content and social media publicity strategy which includes social bookmarking in order to maintain their website’s relevancy in the Google Index.

Five New SEO Tactics for the Panda Update

All these changes spell out a few differences for SEO in 2011 which did not exist last year. The five new things you absolutely need to do this year are:

1. Monitor your website closely through Google Analytics and use Webmaster tools to remove any URLs from the Google Index which are now seen to be low quality.
2. Make sure you have strong on-page optimization on those pages you have in the Google Index. Its absence actually plays a pivotal role when it comes to website traffic.
3. Have a clearly understood internal linking strategy which is designed to increase the informative value of each page of content you use and create a mutual rise in value between inter-linking pages.
4. Develop a social network presence which includes social bookmarking and links coming back from social networks.
5. Employ your robots.txt file, sitemaps, 301 redirects and canonical urls in order to build what Google calls ‘strong signals’ to your relevant pages.

Is this enough for SEO in 2011?

SEO is always a function of time, energy and cost. In 2011 the number of metrics you need to keep an eye on as a new webmaster has definitely increased and the number of activities you have to engage in is also rising. There is never enough time or energy or money (usually) to cover every base.

This is why you need to have a clear SEO strategy in place which, in the long run, will give you exactly what you need in terms of your site’s position and ranking in Google’s search Index.

You’re busy, and SEO isn’t your only job, so we’re pretty sure you won’t be thrilled to hear this:

Your SEO campaign will incorporate a wide variety of tasks: writing and editing, usability and site architecture, coding, ad copy creation, landing page optimization, research, web analytics, and interpersonal communication for link building and social media. If you’re doing this all yourself, bravo! you’re just the sort of multitasking do-it-yourselfer who thrives in SEO. If your entire company can’t ride to lunch on the same motorcycle, we’re putting you in charge of coordinating the SEO team. Either way, once you’ve read this book, you’ll be the in-house SEO expert, so the responsibility for all these tasks ultimately falls on you.

Before you close this book forever and run for the antacid, let’s clarify a bit. We’re not saying that you have to be the one to code the website or set up the analytics software. We’re saying you need to know enough to be able to speak intelligently to the people who do these tasks. And here’s the hard part: you also need to convince them to spend some of their precious time working on your SEO Plan.

Why is it, after all, that organizing an SEO team is so hard? We have observed four common reasons:

• SEO requires effort from multiple departments and a variety of skills, such as marketing, sales, IT, public relations (PR), and creative/editorial.
• SEO is a relatively new discipline and doesn’t have established processes within the corporate system.
• Measuring return on investment (ROI) on SEO - especially the organic variety is no cakewalk, and predicting ROI in advance is even harder. 
• The SEO industry carries around a bit of a bad reputation—and some folks still think SEO is about tricking or spamming the search engines.

This chapter is here to guide you through the SEO crusade within your organization. There are some common patterns of resistance you might meet in each of the departments discussed here, and we’ll share with you the most effective ways to counteract them.

As with any team-building effort, building your SEO team will be an exercise in communication:

But remember this: they’re probably just as busy as you are, and that’s why we advocate a pace yourself approach. Don’t overwhelm your team with information just explain the SEO best practices that pertain to the task at hand.

We have worked in many situations in which team participation was less than ideal for an SEO campaign, and we know how this can reduce the campaign’s effectiveness. What happens when those carefully prepared page edits aren’t implemented, keywords aren’t incorporated into site rewrites, or a planned-for paid search budget never comes through?

What follows are some thoughts for keeping the enthusiasm going in all your departments.

Get Your Team on Board

Search engine optimization is truly a team effort. A great SEO campaign encompasses skills that nearly always surpass those of any individual: writing, marketing, research, programming, and, yes, even a bit of math. In this chapter, we guide you through the all important task of getting your team on board, from techies coding your website edits to customer service reps tracking offine sales.

Chapter Contents

1. The Challenge of SEO Team Building
2. Marketing, Sales, and Public Relations
3. IT, Webmasters, and Programmers
4. Graphic Designers
5. Writers and Editors
6. Executives and Product Managers

Before you can implement Your SEO Plan, you need to develop a workable strategy. In this part, you’ll begin by getting your internal team on board and by identifying the various disciplines that are necessary for effective SEO. Next, you’ll spend a month performing the brainstorming, research, and assessment to point you in the right direction for your ongoing campaign:

Chapter 5 Get Your Team on Board
Chapter 6 Your One-Month Prep: Keywords, Priorities, and Goals

It’s not uncommon to hear that the reason a company built a website is “to have a website.” While we all love a bit of circular logic before breakfast, if you’re going to put a lot of time and money into promoting your website, it’s important to have a good idea of what it’s doing for you.

Most websites are built out of a combination of basic building blocks. Whether your site is an online store seeking sales; a personal blog seeking community connections; a political or religious outlet seeking to persuade, uplift, or inspire; a corporate brochure displaying branding identity and company information; or just about any other type of website you can imagine, it will likely include some or all of the following features or elements:

Corporate history, news, and press releases	Fun, games, or entertainment
Executive biographies	A strong brand identity
Product and service information	Art or craft portfolio
Online purchasing/donation	Educational materials
Support for existing customers, clients, and students	Information specifically for geographically local visitors
News and current events	Software or documents available for download
Articles, white papers	Media (pictures, audio, video) available for viewing/downloading
Religious, philosophical, or political content	Site map
Online lead generation forms	Site search function
Login for restricted information	Live help/live contact function
Instructions for making contact offline or via email	Ways for members of the community to connect with each other on the site (forums, bulletin boards, etc.)
Directions, hours of operation, etc., for brick-and-mortar location	Blog postings and reader comments
Links to other resources	Methods for your users to help promote your site (share on Facebook, Digg, etc.)
Customer testimonials or reviews	Table Cell

HTML Tables

Now, spend some time clicking around your website. you should be able to tell which of the features in the preceding list are included. How well is each component doing its job? For now, think in terms of presentation and functionality. (Is your product information up-to-date? Is your online store full of technical glitches? Are your forms asking the right questions?) Give each feature that you fnd a ranking of Excellent, Good, Fair, or Poor. Obviously, this isn’t going to be a scientifc processjust make your best estimate.

We get it: The fundamental goal of your business is to make money by selling a product or service. But let’s take a moment to def ne your goals in a little more detail.

Perhaps yours is a large company with branding as an important long-term goal. Maybe your company wants to make money with certain products but is willing to take a loss in other areas. Maybe you are starting up with investor backing and don’t need to turn a prof t for years. Perhaps your company’s branding and reputation is your top concern - you need to be perceived as high tech, or luxurious, or as the hippest in your competitive space. Or maybe you work for a nonprof t, with a goal to improve the world and inspire others to do the same. you may be working toward 2,000 small sales this year or be thrilled to get just 3 new clients. Whatever way you’re leaning, your business goals will affect your SEO campaign strategy.

For instance, consider the fictional situation of Jason, a founding partner at Babyfuzzkin, a company selling unique, high - end baby clothes. This business makes its money directly through online sales. It’s a small operation, so there is a limit to how many orders the business can handle. The Babyfuzzkin fantasy would be a steady fow of, say, 100 orders per month. But there is more to the story: The partners would love to get out of the direct fulf llment of orders and instead secure some contracts with big-name brick-and-mortar vendors.

In the case of Elizabeth, a marketing director at Elderpets, we have a different situation. Elderpets is a fctional nonproft organization that provides meals, walks, and veterinary care assistance to animals belonging to elderly and infrm owners. The company relies on fnancial contributions and volunteers to fulfll its mission. At Elderpets, their fantasy is to decrease the time and effort spent on fundraising activities, such as silent auctions and community dog washes, and begin attracting more contributions online, which would in turn allow them to help more pets in need. In addition, they are constantly looking for more volunteers.