How long does it take for your site to make an impact on the Google search results?

3 hours.

Last week’s little experiment optimising for the phrase SEO Lincolnshire Rutland gave some rather outstanding results. It has been a very interesting example of the efficiency of Google spidering.

The blog posting was ranking in third position in Google within three hours, and took top position within 24 hours.

As of today, just one week later, seven of the top 10 positions are occupied with various scrapings and permutations of the posting. An interesting technique for crowding out the competition. Although I’m not very happy about the scrapers.

Nevertheless, do NOT lose site of the fact this is not a great phrase to optimise for, nor is it a competitive phrase that requires a lot of hard work.

But I do have had other anecdotal reports from clients who see just how fast the Google results can change, including this lovely testimonial from Caricaturist Richard Ellis:

And many thanks to Guy Gregory who let me know just how quickly the blog posting was being picked up by Google.

It has been a busy summer over in GoogleLand, with a number of changes to report.

Google is no longer letting us know which of our web pages are in the Main Index, and which are relegated to the dreaded Supplemental Index.

Using the command “site:www.putyouraddresshere.co.uk” still shows you which pages Google indexes, but the Supplemental Results label has disappeared.

If you need a refresher about supplementals, take a look at my posting on Google Supplemental Results.

The Google blog explains the change as being due to improvements in crawling and indexing, leading to fresher and more comprehensive indexing.

What Google also explains is that there is still a Supplemental Index but the distinction between Main and Supplemental is narrowing. At this stage, the Supplemental Index may be about 3 months out of date, but Google are hoping to reduce that to just one month out of date.

There are calls to restore the Supplemental Results information in Webmaster Central, but we will just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, it is one less bit information for you to digest, or indeed obsess about!

Summer holidays are coming to an end, and I’ve got an exciting new line-up of training courses:

The new International Web Marketing course is for those of you wanting to learn how to use your website to compete on an international level.

Take a look at the Events section of the website to see the rest of the courses covering:

• Blogging and podcasting
• Getting found in Google
• Promoting your website on a shoestring
• The Internet: staying on the right side of the law

Lazy summer holidays on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay means plenty of time for … catching up on my Internet marketing reading.

This summer has provided a bumper crop of excellent books. My recommendations for you:

The New Rules of Marketing and PR provides an excellent practical overview of the opportunities offered by digital marketing. As a marketing technology geek, I don’t think the rules are very “new,” however my husband high jacked my copy and left it littered with post-it notes marking its clear and sensible ideas.

Actionable Web Analytics: Using data to make smart business decisions makes web statistics palatable. Internet marketing is really a numbers game, and if you want to improve the performance of your website, then you need to listen to what the stats are telling you.

The Long Tail: Why the future of business is selling more of less is described by the CEO of Google as “brilliant and timely.” Enough said.

Wikinomics: how mass collaboration changes everything will appeal to those readers who enjoy words like “paradigm” or “manifesto”. I’ve admired Don Tapscott’s writings since the 80’s when he wrote about Office Automation, and in this book he applies his knowledge economy thinking to the collaborative online world.

How hard can it be to rank number one in Google for the phrase Search engine optimisation (SEO) Lincolnshire Rutland?

I’ve stumbled across a big bold claim for ownership of the number one position for the key phrase “SEO Lincolnshire Rutland“. And having just returned refreshed from my summer holiday, I’m ready to rise to the challenge.

More accurately, in the spirit of August doldrums, I’ve decided to run a highly unscientific, juvenile little experiment. You might even want to play along, too.

This cheeky little blog posting serves as a test to see how high ranking, how quickly, and for how long, this blog postings ranks for the highly specific (or “long-tail”) phrase “SEO Lincolnshire Rutland.”

For those of you looking for a deeper underlying message to this experiment:

• Is this a worthwhile phrase to use in an SEO campaign? How many potential clients are searching for that obscure phrase? My initial keyword research shows pretty much nobody.
• Is there genuine competition for this phrase, or is it likely a simple campaign would get high rankings relatively easily?
• And most importantly, are highly specific results like this representative of the the kind of SEO positioning small businesses really need?

I’ll keep you posted of the results…