They’re calling it the Google Page Rank Massacre: Google has, for the third time this month, been tweaking Page Ranks (PR) which has resulted in a lower Page Rank for many websites, including my own….

First, can I preface this discussion by saying I’m not a Page Rank junkie, and that I acknowledge Page Rank is not an indicator of how well your site is going to rank in the Search Engine Results Page (SERPS).

But it is an interesting search marketing metric, and Google’s re-calculations are an indicator of what’s going on with its search ranking algorithm.

There’s alot of speculation, but the consensus appears to be:

1. The reduction in Page Rank is part of Google’s campaign against paid links and advertisement links. We may be talking cheap and nasty sites, but we’re also talking reputable sites, like the business magazine Forbes and the Washington Post both falling from PR7 to PR5.

2. More interestingly from my point of view, there is speculation that Google is slapping the Internet Marketing industry. I’m keeping good company; my fall from PR5 to PR4 is on par with both Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Guide falling from PR7 to PR4 (ouch).

I’d be very interested to hear of anybody else’s change in Page Rank; I’ve seen two clients have their PR go up. The Page Rank update appears to still be in progress, so keep an eye out…

I’m pleased to say that I am now a Google AdWords Qualified Professional.

Having passed the Google AdWords exam with flying colours, and having demonstrated a track record of building and managing AdWords campaigns over a 90 day period, I’m now truly certifiable.

This means Google knows I’m competent to provide Pay Per Click (PPC) AdWords marketing and consultancy services.

I have to say the exam was quite rigorous, and it assessed knowledge of:

• AdWords Policies
• Ad Distribution
• Keyword Matching
• Site Targeting
• Keyword Performance
• ROI and Conversion Tracking
• Advanced Conversion Tracking
• Cross-Channel Conversion Tracking
• Driving Improvements with Analytics Data
• Keywords, Ad Text and Ad Groups Optimisation

If you are interested in some help in setting up a Google AdWords campaign, then get in touch (and I can offer you a free £50 voucher towards your first campaign that I set up for you!)

Free web tools are always a popular topic – whether you are planning a new site, or just tweaking your existing site.

Here’s a round up of some of my favourite free web tools:

Keyword research tools help you to discover the best phrases for both SEO and PPC campaigns. I have previously reviewed and recommend SEO Book’s Keyword Research Tool.

Research your competition using the Google Toolbar and Alexa Toolbar. For those Firefox users amongst us, I strongly recommend SearchStatus toolbar. And don’t forget to research your competitors in DMOZ to see what categories they have indexed themselves in.

Promote your branding or logo with a favicon, that little icon that appears when I bookmark your site, or when your address appears in a browser. Try using Dynamic Drive’s Favicon Generator.

What colours are safe to use in a web browser? Your Pantone colour might not display safely, so use Lynda’s Browser Safe Colour palette when planning your website design.

Do you have a sitemap? You can use the free XML Sitemap Generator to scan through all the pages of your website, and create either an HTML or XML sitemap, no charge.

Is your website bloated and overweight? How long does it take your website to load? Websiteoptimization.com’s free speed test will analyse your site, and tell you how specific ways to improve your site.

Have you done a check of the quality of your website code? Or better yet, check the quality of the web designers quoting for your shiny new website? W3C’s quality assurance tools will validate your HTML, look for broken web links, as well as check out your cascading style sheets (CSS).

How well do you write? Check out how hard it is to read your web copy using this Readability Testing Tool. And whilst you’re at it, check out whether you are using your keyphrases in your copy using a keyword density analyser.

iwebtools has a great collection of tools, including a spider simulator, Page Rank predictor, bank link checker and loads more

And last but no means least, take full advantage of Google’s free tools:

• Google Analytics provide high quality, free statistics
• Google’s Webmaster Central is a toolbox full of statistics and diagnostics
• Google Alerts is a great way to spy on your competition, or manage your own reputation
• Google Checkout is offering free credit card processing til 2008
• Google Mashups lets you plot your own data on a Google map
• Get all those essential Google toys in the Google Pack: toolbars, Google Earth, Picassa….

I’m sure you have other free utilities, let me know!

Date: 9th October 2007

Time: 09:30 – 16:45

“Really insightful, achievable tips and brilliant delivery. Better than expected … fills a gap between marketing and technology. Inspirational.”

“Far exceeded what I expected. Has made me confront areas I was procrastinating about ie text. All of it has been such a clear and informative course. Breadth was extraordinary. Genius, concise and clear.”

What the Course is About
This practical one-day workshop is for artists and arts organisations who already have a website, have one in development, or are thinking about creating one. It will demonstrate how to generate consistently high levels of the right kind of traffic to your website, employing simple and low-cost promotional techniques, and how to make sure that visitors to your website can get what they want and enjoy the experience.
Level
Beginner to intermediate
Course Outline
Using real examples, including participants’ own websites, the course will cover the following topics:

• Techniques for optimising your website for search engines
• How to design your website to get the ‘most desired response’
• Tried and tested techniques for your website health checks
• A look at recent developments, including blogging, podcasts, online press releases, MySpace/social networks
• How to do email marketing and easy steps for publishing an email newsletter
  We will cover the following five topics:
• Techniques for optimising your website for search engines
• How to design your website to get the ‘most desired response’
• Tried and tested techniques for your website health checks
• Easy steps for publishing an email newsletter
• How to do email marketing
  Learning Outcomes
  At the end of the day you will have ideas, information and techniques to help you improve your website, and the basis for an internet marketing action plan which you can apply to your own organisation.

Learn more about the course, and book your place here

I’ll be running my next Search Engine Optimisation Training course on 8 November.

This one day course is ideal if you have taken the first steps optimising your website, and want to learn more.

It will be a fast moving update on what’s new in search engine optimisation, including:

• inbound linking strategies
• blogging
• localisation
• Web 2.0
• keyword analysis and tools

Full details are available on the SEO course flyer (PDF).

Just drop me an email to book your place.