This is a re-post of a recent article published on our study:

The analysis was done by manually reviewing the Google Analytics of roughly 50 websites, sampled across various industries while comparing the data to actual search engine ranks in Google for specific keywords that were important to those sites. It should also be noted that the websites themselves were also reviewed individually so that the items considered to be important factors in regards to their search engine placement could be weighed equally.

The study was conducted over 90 days, making up a broad identification of what really matters when it comes to search engine optimization, at least in the eyes of Google.

-          Basically Google wants to deliver users to the most relevant and reliable results. There aren’t any cheap tricks or solutions to really get around that. Once you are able to glimpse even a sample of how Google truly “thinks”, its apparent how they have designed their search engine to work for people, organically and naturally, not for web-bots and machines. – Jay Correia (CEO)

While DreamCo Design did not release the full composition of their study, they made it apparent that it all boils down to relevance and reliability while also denouncing ideas involving how social media influences search engine rankings.

The pie-chart which is part of this article breaks down the two major categories of search engine optimization. You can also view the chart on the web design company’s website simply by visitng their blog. They stated that of course this makes up a broad-view of known factors with many other items influencing rank not accounted for here. The major change DreamCo Design was able to identify was how important bounce-rate and time-on-the-page really seem to be in regards to how well one ranks.  It appears that Google allows users to really help influence the determination on how “relevant” something really is. If people stay on the site and click around a bit as compared to just leaving, that can make for a very measurable difference in the performance of a keyword.

They also emphasized that simply having Facebook, Twitter, and other Social Media profiles really offers little to no direct search engine optimization benefit at all. DreamCo Design stated that the benefits are more indirect.

They explained that if something is buzz-worthy and ends up on a lot of blogs, twitter, and facebook posts, chances are the website will get more traffic, and possibly more links, thus providing an indirect SEO benefit, but nothing direct.

Of course more exposure is always a good thing when it comes to marketing, just not necessarily search engine optimization.

          We talk a lot about web design and everything related to web design but there is something that hasn’t been hit yet. All websites on the internet are hosted somewhere by some hosting company. This is how a website is “stored” you could say. Without hosting, your website wouldn’t be on the internet. Hosting companies use a web server to provide this “space” for your website(s). Everyone needs hosting, whether or not you choose a good or bad hosting company is up to you. I’m going to give you some information about hosting that hopefully will help you decide for yourself which company best suits your needs.

          There are many different types of hosting companies out there. Some of them require a monthly or annual payment; some of them are free. The thing you should know about the hosting companies that are free in comparison to the ones that are not is that usually with a paid hosting company you’ll get more features. What features this may be can be discussed with the hosting company you plan on choosing. The second thing that sometimes happens with free hosting is that in exchange for this “freeness” they will connect pop-up ads to your website.

          You should know before shopping around for hosting, about how much disk space you are going to need. This is because it directly affects your price. Also one tip is to up the number just a little to allow room for growth of your website. The second thing that affects price for hosting is bandwidth. Bandwidth is basically the amount of traffic transmitted from a site. You can roughly estimate this by multiplying your page size by your number of views per month. If you are transferring more than fifty gigabytes a month then you might want to consider getting a dedicated server. A dedicated server is one that is used solely for one company/organization.

          If customer service and support is important to you then you’ll want to check on how well the service is for the hosting company you are thinking about choosing. Some hosting companies have very poor customer service based on which one you choose. On last little tip I have before you choose a hosting company is to get recommendations from others. Like I said before, every website is hosted somewhere so there is going to be a lot of feedback about many different hosting companies. Lastly, if you decide on a hosting company and it turns out that you really do not enjoy working with them, you can always switch. Many people switch hosting companies every day. Don’t be afraid to do what it best for you and your website. For more information on web hosting check us out at DreamCo Design – Web Hosting. For more information on other types of web design take a look at DreamCo Design – Web Design.