I always tell my clients, "If you aren't going to update your blog often, don't have one. Having stale posts can make you look bad."

Hmm...  I need to take my own advice.  :)

Life has been crazy busy for me due to my son's health issues and still trying to run a business. I feel guilty spending any time on my own projects when I have a To Do list a mile long for my clients, so my blog is taking the backseat for now. 

I have been trying to at least post on Facebook every once in a while, so if you don't see anything new here, head over to https://www.facebook.com/designduck for recent news and tips. 

I promise... I will return with a vengeance some day. Hopefully sooner than later... 

1. Google is now more likely to use words from actual page content over words in a header or menu. Use your keywords often in the content of your website.
2. Google is beginning to depreciate values of anchor text (is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink) within inbound links. Stop spending time coming up with variations of keywords in anchor text. Concentrate on calls to action.
3. Those searching for applications on google.com will begin to see more info about each app (reviews, ratings, offers, cost, date published, OS required, etc). If you are marketing an app make sure this info is listed and accurate.
4. Google has added "new signals" to tell you whether a page is original of not. They will not reveal what those signals are, but over time you will see less duplicate content in searches. Publish your own content.
5. Google will not show many search results from one website (or host crowding). This ensures a fair and balanced search result page.
6. Changes have been made to ensure that pages that only "partially" match the search are shown less.
7. Google improved it's handling of date-based search results and will feature fresh results in the organic search results. Bottom line... publish new content often.