Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Lazar Bošković
How does search machinery work under the hood? Can we influence its behavior? And what to do with the bunch of data that we receive from it? No, this article will not provide answers to all these questions. The place to get all this knowledge is at the largest – and free – 8th Annual Conference on Internet in Serbia – DIDS 2017, which will be held on 7 and 8 of March, organized by the Foundation “Serbian National Internet Domain Registry” (RNIDS). The slogan of this year’s DIDS is “Secrets of Internet search: Search, Find, Visit” – which also describes the three thematic blocks planned for the first day of the Conference, with the second day reserved for the traditional regional internet forum.
But in this article I will only try to guess what will be talked about at DIDS by Gary Illyes, webmaster trends analyst at Google Inc., Lazar Džamić, until recently chief of Google’s ZOO team for brand strategy in London, Ivan Rečević, Google Partners consultant and coach, and other participants of the Conference. And you will be able to check whether my assumptions are correct live, or via online transfer, as well as in the videos of the entire conference and from the reports on the site dids.rs. In the article below, we will take a walk through the three thematic blocks of DIDS.
From Google’s angle
Many don’t know that Google doesn’t give everyone the same search results. For example, if two people, one in Belgrade and the other in London, type exactly the same term into the search field – let’s say “Internet” – they will get quite different results. The person in Belgrade will get a list of sites that are mainly in Serbian and on the national .RS internet domain – companies in Serbia engaged in internet business – with Google’s localized map, Google’s localized ads, and a localized offer of similar searches. Oh, yes, and all that wrapped in Google’s local interface in the Serbian language. The person in London will also receive everything localized, but from the perspective of the United Kingdom. Why? Google wants to provide its users the maximum relevant information and logically assumes that someone searching from Belgrade (which Google knows very well) needs local Internet providers and all the local articles on the subject of “Internet”.
To be completely accurate, even if two people from Belgrade search the same term, it is possible that their search results will be, more or less, different. How? It all depends on which of them is logged into the Google’s services at the time of searching, because Google thus receives additional information about the user, their preferences, habits, browsing history, gender, age etc. And that’s not all. Even if they are not logged in, they might have stored “cookies” on their browser, and also relevant is which computer they are searching on, how it is set up and how it is connected. All in all, if you are excited because one of your sites is always on the first search page, don’t be lazy (before you go boasting around) – check all of this on someone else’s computer, located somewhere else.
The secret of Google’s search algorithm is probably the best guarded secret in the world, but some of the facts are well known and confirmed. The address of the Internet site, ie its domain, is the first piece of code that Google’s algorithm sees. If this is a local domain, in a local language and on local hosting, the website has a better chance of a better positioning in search results – for example, google.rs and all important world brands, which almost always have national internet domains for each country in which they operate.
Find me easy
How do visitors find out about a website? If we look at Google’s Analytics, we will see five possible channels through which visitors come to sites. First, there are direct visits that occur when a visitor directly types in an address in a web browser, or already has it stored in the browser history. The second channel is through organic searches, with everybody’s favorite free internet search results on Google, which largely depend on search engine optimization (SEO), primarily based on the optimization of site content. The third way is from social media, which bring a large number of visitors to sites through content sharing. The fourth channel is the arrival of visitors through reference, which is traffic that comes from websites that are not social networks. And the fifth is paid channels, through which traffic arrives because of paid advertising on the Internet.
Many suffer from the unrealistic desire to be on the first page of Google’s search. That is theoretically possible for every site, only not for all keywords, because a lot of money, time and SEO work is invested into many well-known keywords that everyone searches. For SEO beginners, it is worth remembering that for Google the title tag and description of the web page (meta description) are especially important, and both also appear in search results. Website content should also be interesting for visitors, as well as adapted to search machinery, which are not easy to reconcile. Success in the search results can be achieved by writing text that contains the key terms, properly formatted titles and subtitles in the text, and also through the optimization of illustrations and contributions, starting from a meaningful file name, image description (alt text), and the text below it (caption). Site loading speed is very important for SEO, so images must be properly processed (dimensions, compression, file type), the code needs to be optimized, the site cached and special attention should also be paid to geotargeting in webmaster tools.
Creative strategist Lazar Džamić will give a lecture entitled “How to get found in a world in which you are easily ignored”. Ads are no longer enough. For people to find you, you must be in front of their face when they need you, bringing them what they need. Modern marketing is “Moments Marketing”. It is now more than just search results. It’s about branded content as well. The lecture talks about that area, and those aspects of “feeding” the search engine.
Real examples of internet presence
The third block of DIDS is traditionally reserved for prominent sites on the national Internet domains .RS and .SRB. Representatives of eight local websites, portals and online projects will speak about their experiences and development paths. Successful websites on national Internet domains include the four finalists in last year’s RNIDS competition, “Real examples of internet presence”: alibris.rs, mojazubarka.co.rs, lespetits.rs and travelboutique.rs. There will also be a presentation of the site of the Belgrade Philharmonic, bgf.srb, which won a special mention from RNIDS at the award ceremony PC Press Top 50, as well as the sites gradnja.rs, superskola.rs, pricajmootome.rs and benchmark.rs.
In this way RNIDS promotes small businesses in Serbia, who are successful in their work, but also in their online activities, because they take advantage of the fact that websites aimed at the local, Serbian market, are given preferred status in search results if they carry the national .RS internet domain. Some of these experiences are already available through video testimonials and mini-interviews on naravno.rs.