Since Google rolled out the Panda changes there has being numerous updates effecting website rankings. In my opinion all the updates have had a positive effect on website quality. Spammy sites have been relegated and good quality sites have moved up the rankings in the SERP results. What’s not to like?

Google has decided to get personal with the introduction of recommended content Via Google+ appearing in search results. Google says it wants is search engine to “understand not only content, but also people and relationships. Google wants to achieve this by bringing out three new features:

1. Personal Results, which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts—both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page;

2. Profiles in Search, both in autocomplete and results, which enable you to immediately find people you’re close to or might be interested in following; and,

3. People and Pages, which help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks. Because behind most every query is a community.

For more reading on this see the Google blog post. 

If you are running a SME and your customer base is localised then there are a couple of things that you can do to reach those customers.

We all know by this stage that Content is King. Google eats up content like a Sunday morning fry up and the quality of the content is reflected in the Google SERPs. Google’s latest blog is also giving an indication that the “freshness” of the content is also a search signal.