According to the Official Google Blog…

Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them. But in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking—a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries—and we wanted to let people know what’s going on. This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.

So, how did your websites do? Did you feel a “Google Slap” or did it help you?

For most of my own websites I saw a positive result increasing my sites one full PR point and I see other good coming from this.

Most of what I do is focused on helping local business owners who lately for the most part are benefiting from the changes Google is doing with the tweaking of their systems. Google Places pages showing up on page one for keywords in local niches is just one place that Google is helping.

Please post a comment below on how you think Google is doing.

My wife Leslie lead the crew at the registration table while my son Jared and I worked the video production side of things along with our friend Grant Conklin as our audio technician. We had several others helping at the sales table and other areas and they all did a wonderful job of helping over 250 attendees to have a great experience and learn more about how to build their own online businesses.

I was blessed to meet so many wonderful people including the speakers that Jeff had lined up along with his co-host Mark.  Many of the speakers taught about how they have built systems that incorporate products from Clickbank.com to earn them thousands of dollars of income each month. I’ve used Clickbank.com myself over the last few years as a place to find products that I can promote as well as purchase for myself.

It was interesting to go to my mailbox today and find my own monthly check from Clickbank.com. Even if it was not for the thousands that most of the conference speakers are getting it certainly was timely and a good reminder to follow along with what I learned this weekend to increase the size of this check.

Several of the speakers not only shared about Clickbank.com but also talked about how they make money by helping local business owners to drive traffic to their websites for leads and sales. This is a growing business opportunity for those of us who, like myself, work as online business consultants helping local business owners to get their businesses on page one in Google and other search engines and directories.

I’m trying to get caught up on my email now that I’m back home and found an interesting invitation to a live webinar this evening which focuses on a system that can help consultants like me to work with local businesses. You might have heard of this before because the concept is simple, you build websites and “rent” them to local business owners.

So why would a business like a dentist, home security company, lawn care or heating/cooling contractor want to RENT a website from you? When you build a website that Generates Leads for a Business Owner they will pay your hundreds and sometimes Thousands of dollars each month because you can provide them with new business that they are not getting from their own online efforts.

I said the concept is simple but accomplishing the task is not without a system.

What I learned at the Clickbank Masters USA conference this past weekend is… You need to build a System in order to build a solid online business that will bring in the income you want without eating up all your time trying to operate it.

This evening there is a free webinar that will show you a proven system for creating an income stream by helping local business owners. Time is short but you may still be able to reserve a virtual seat for this online webinar.

NOTE: This is a very little known but highly profitable method and the plan is to keep it that way. If you are interested, do it now, you are not gonna get another chance.

After you click the link below, use the form on the right hand side to RSVP.

RSVP LINK for Tonight’s Free Webinar

I hope to see you on there.

Oh, BTW. When you go there you will get Free access to a very cool tool for finding the best markets to offer your services to.

You see them and use them all the time.

A widget can be: buttons, dialog boxes, pop-up windows, selection boxes, toggle switches, forms, stock quotes, news, search boxes for Google, clocks, counters, games, feeds and many many more.

If you are a Word Press user, you hear the term widget all the time. A widget in Word Press allows you to add tools or content to the side bars of you blog. One caution however, you must make sure you have a widget enabled theme. If you read the specifications of a theme it will tell you if it is widget enabled. This article is not going to go into all the details here about installing and using widgets. You should go to this web site: http://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page to learn more.

Some people also get widgets and plugins confused when talking about their blogs. A widget is not a plugin and a plugin is not a widget. Think of it this way: a widget does something in your sidebar, a plugin affects your whole blog. So placing an auto responder sign up form in your side bar is done with a widget. A product such as “All In One SEO” is a plugin because it affects the SEO of your whole site.

If you go to this web page: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ and look on the left side column you will find many widgets and plugins with ratings from other Word Press users. If there is something you want to do to your blog you will find a widget or a plugin to do it.

Most bloggers use widgets, but there is a lot of discussion about if you should or not, how many, and of course which ones. This decision really comes down to what are you trying to do with your blog?

You have to think about form, function and who is your audience. If you have a blog that is giving investment advice then a widget that shows what the Dow and the Nasdaq is trading at is a good thing.

It’s really common sense. What fits with your blog objectives? However, you will see there are many options out there and it’s wise not to get too much going on in the side bars, because it can be very busy and distracting for your visitors and they may click away before you can communicate your message.

In the past, Search Engines were not as evolved as they are now. There are a number of constantly changing Algorithms now in place to determine whether you make the cut. Realistically, you would need a professional SEO company to optimize and maintain your Website properly if you want to follow all the Tech specks that Search Engines use, but to keep it simple, here are some basic SEO tips and questions to consider when building a Website:

1. Optimize the size of the web page to the fullest. Resizing the images to their correct dimensions and getting them reduced in file size as much as possible is important, because the more KB a Website has to load, the slower it is. Ideally, a visitor wants to get in to your Website and get the information that they came for as fast as possible. If the Website takes long to load, visitors will get discouraged and leave. Achieving a balance of a great design and a fast loading time is crucial to Search Engine success. There are a number of Websites that will test your loading time using different speeds. Usually these services are free. Do a search for one. It is definitely worth your time.

2. Too much optimization can hurt you.. Some elements are important to properly optimize a web page. An example of these include: Metatags with a well written Title, relevant strategically placed H1 and H2 Tags, ALT Tags, Comments, and obviously keyword rich content are to name a few. Key fact to keep in mind though, over doing it can actually hurt the Website. There needs to be a balance of real content and optimization. When unsure, less is always better.

3. Is the Website using web safe colors and fonts? Fonts and colors often make a web page more attractive. This becomes a problem when designers use fonts that are not available on the visitor’s computer. The font then defaults to the closest web safe font available. The result is often unpredictable and a visual mess. The same applies to colors. Colors look different on different monitors, and unless a web-safe color is used, it will vary on different monitors.

4. Is the content “Readable” by the Search Engines? To display the content exactly how the designers plan it, they often turn valuable content into images. Remember, Search Engines cannot read images. An ALT description can and should be used for images, but it does not substitute for great HTML content. If possible, always opt for using HTML content and ALWAYS, write the content for the readers, not the Search Engines.

5. Design with screen resolution in mind. Screen Resolution is a setting on individual computers that people set according to their preference. Screen resolutions can vary. Here are some common settings that people use: 640 x 480, 800 x 600, 1024 x 768, 1152 x 870. When designing a Website, you would want to stay somewhere in the middle of the range. If you must go beyond that, try to fit at least the important parts of your Website into that valuable space. The last thing you want the visitor to do is scroll horizontally to read your content.

There are a lot more intricacies to why a Website succeeds or fails out there, and different Search Engines are constantly evolving and changing their review criteria. If you speak to 10 different SEO professionals, they will most likely give you 10 different interpretations of what it takes to be a truly Search Engine friendly Website. Chances are they are all correct. It’s hard to keep up, but one thing seems to be a definite constant. Keep all the SEO pointers in mind from the start when designing a Website, and definitely design with your visitors in mind. You do that, and it will save you a lot of time and heartache later on, and the Search Engines will love you.