Recently, Apogee Search’s team of do-gooders returned to the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas (CAFB) for more volunteering and food processing fun. CAFB relies on the kindness and strong backs of their volunteers to fulfill their mission of nourishing the hungry people of Texas and leading the community in ending hunger. Currently, they provide food and grocery products to more than 350 partner agencies in 21 Central Texas counties.

Once again, the enthusiastic and grateful CAFB employees and other volunteers made us feel welcomed and essential. Previously, we worked in the 60,000 square foot warehouse sorting and processing canned goods, and on another occasion, non-essential items such as toys, makeup, and cleansers. On this particular afternoon, we had the opportunity to learn something new and processed a South Beach Dieter’s nightmare, bread and pastries. It was an enjoyable experience to sort through the varieties of delectable desserts and bread products at the CAFB, knowing that each item contributes to helping to feed the hungry in Central Texas.

At the end of our 3 hour shift, we processed 4,586 pounds of food, which translates into 3,669 meals for those in need. We hope that those in need enjoy eating the delicious baked goods as much as we enjoyed processing them.

Is the content on your site linkable?  Does it need to be beefed up?  Do you deserve to be ranked on the first page?  No, yes, no?  We’ll use Austin Restaurant Week to illustrate the idea behind creating sumptuous, linkable content to garner incoming links.  Google is hungry and you need to feed it.

First, what is Austin Restaurant Week? Between September 13th- 16th and September 20th – 23rd, those fortunate enough to be in Austin can visit a number of fine dining establishments to feast on a delicious menu set at an affordable fixed price, between $25 – $35.  Call in a reservation to ensure you and your significant other a seat and eat up (if you’re looking for a date idea, I think this fits the bill perfectly)!

Second, how does this have anything to do with SEO and beefy content?  Rewind to last night.  I’m sitting in my living room nearly comatose from the pizza and football I’ve gorged myself on for the past few hours.  Of course, my mind’s nose picks up the scent of Austin Restaurant Week and I head to the website.  I click the links of two places I’ve not been to, Roaring Fork and Green Pastures Restaurant, and notice links to their respective menus:

• Roaring Fork Menu
• The Green Pastures Menu

Now, like I said, I’ve never been to the Roaring Fork and am making no assumptions about the quality of their dining. As a matter of fact, I’ve heard nothing but good things. When I mentioned this blog idea to a co-worker, she said, “Roaring Fork is one of my favs.”

However, looking at these two menus, which one has you salivating?  Which one has beefier content?  Which menu would you rather link to?  Which menu provides the most information about their offerings?  I think the information provided in the Green Pastures Restaurant menu makes their food sound much more enticing – they didn’t even dress up the language with adjectives – and I’d be more inclined to link to their menu.

If I or a search engine only had the information provided by the menus, and could look at the popularity of each by way of incoming links, to determine the most relevant menu for a search term such as “austin fine dining” or “austin restaurants,” then who would likely rank in first position?

The same idea should drive your analysis of the content on your own site:  if someone came across my site, would the information I’m providing them about “Software Development Life Cycle” be enough for them to link back to my site?  If I visit a competitor’s website and notice they’re providing beefier content that likely attracts incoming links, then why should I be ranked ahead of them?

To summarize, be honest about the quality and/or quantity of the content on your site:  Is it informative?  Should more be added?  But not simply added to attain a mythical keyword density.  Is it linkable?  Smoked salmon or The Upland Game Plate: Quail, Quail and Some More Quail?  Serve your visitors with healthy portions of information.

And, in case you’re wondering, I’ll be making a trip to The Melting Pot tonight.

Brands influence purchases; there is really no argument about that. The art of advertising has paired a brand with a single adjective since the ads moved beyond basic product descriptions. For example: Coca-Cola=Classic, Gatorade=Quench, and Volvo=Safety. In today’s market, Google=Search and Bing=Decide. What would happen if brands were to disappear and only the bare bones, no glitz or glamour services and products were left behind? Michael Kordahi has provided the public with just that, a way to compare search results without the big three’s branding.

What is BlindSearch?
Kordahi has taken the famous Coke v Pepsi blind taste test and applied it to modern day technology. The introduction of BlindSearch has given Internet users the ability to search for results from Google, Bing, and Yahoo! without any branding or layout.

BlindSearch provides the results in three side by side columns with a voting button at the top of each. Each column represents results from Google, Bing, and Yahoo! The user is able to vote on the column which most closely matches their desired results. After voting, the buttons are replaced with the search engine logos to reveal which search engine’s results most closely matched your search. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t anything brand new. There are other search engine comparison sites out there. However, I found this one to be particularly blog worthy since the results are listed side by side rather than tabbed as in Zuula (not to mention a fun little test).

Why I’m writing about it
BlindSearch isn’t really a big deal per say. It is just a fun, quick way to see what search engine may be better for you without having a hundred experts telling you which one you should use. On the plus side, BlindSearch helps in beating out some lazy tendencies when doing deeper web research. Additionally, even if at a base level, it may be a helpful nudge to some users in considering other search alternatives in their every day routines.

Discrepancies
In no way is BlindSearch a statistical tool that will be the end all be all of the search engine supremacy argument. Even if it was 100% effective, it could render the same results as the Coke v Pepsi test, in which Pepsi was more generally liked but Coke was still the dominating force in sales.

The first to clarify BlindSearch’s discrepancies is Kordahi with a clear disclaimer on the BlindSearch homepage.

“The system has many flaws that I know about already, the primary one of interest is the lack of localisation. So, all searches are going through the US as US searches. The other deficiency worth noting is that there is much missing from the actual experience of using these search engines eg, image thumbnails, suggestions, refine queries, etc.”

There are other arguments that can be made against the accuracy, relevancy, and even importance of this experiment.

First, it could be that modern search engines are already too much alike in terms of results. Search engines have begun to emulate the leaders, taking what is effective and applying it to their own engines.

A simple comparison could be described with handbags. Designer handbags are extremely popular, high end stores carry these high end bags. In order to provide an alternative, lower end stores emulate the designs, colors, and patterns and sell similar bags for a cheaper price. After a bit of time, knockoff purses are released that are identical to the high end originals and if done correctly, can rarely be told apart. Basically, the best was emulated, and now, even the competitors have a similar product.

A second argument is shown when viewing the top ten results. The list shows a fairly generic breath of search. None of the ten results show any type of long tail searches and therefore do not really replicate normal search. This could be in part to lazy testing and a desire to get a result as quickly as possible to “test” a user’s search engine preference. It could also be in part to the limited amount of data, only 600,000 queries to date.

Lastly, BlindSearch is a sort of site where users would try to get off the wall results and test the boundaries/parameters. The site is small and the audience is certainly a select sample.

The results
Kordahi released the following results with roughly 8 weeks of data:
Google: 41%, Bing: 31%, Yahoo: 28%

Disclaimer
Although an employee of Microsoft, Kordahi makes it abundantly clear that this project is not initiated by or affiliated with Microsoft.

The dust has begun to settle in the Microsoft/Yahoo! deal that took place last week. Now we can finally begin to see what it really means… or can we? This specific topic can be broken down and analyzed in a million different ways. The implications on SEO, ad space, search engine market share, user interface changes, budget constraints, layoffs, and the list goes on and on. For my sake, and for your sake, let us cut through the fat and see what this new deal means at a foundational level, cut and dry.

So… What just happened?
On July 29th, 4:55am Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo!, posted on the Yahoo! blog that they had just signed a major search deal with Microsoft. The deal entailed that Yahoo! will be giving up their search technology, paid listings and organic listings, and lease Microsoft’s as of 2010. If everything goes as planned, a full transition will happen by 2012. Yahoo! will continue running their Premium Search throughout this new deal.

Running search technology is costly, and rather than own it, Yahoo! felt it was an economical decision to lease Microsoft’s and concentrate on what they do best, be a portal. Essentially, by leasing search, Yahoo! is able to optimize what Bartz refers to as “properties” such as news, sports, finance, email, and messaging.

This approach has already caused some confusion. It is important to realize that although Bing will be running the back end of search for Yahoo!, the results will still be dressed up as Yahoo’s results. The only real difference is that the bottom of the results will say “Powered by Bing” or something along the same lines. It will be interesting to see how this is going to affect local search since both Yahoo! and Bing have their own Local pages.

Coopetition
Microsoft’s massive attack on Google really launched with the release of Bing. As mentioned in previous blog posts, I believe that Bing will be gnawing away at smaller search engine’s market share but will have a tough time taking on Google. The lease of their search technology to Yahoo! is yet another strategy to gain some ground, hence, Coopetition (Cooperation + Competition). Although Yahoo! and Bing are technically competing, they are joining forces to take on the powerhouse we know as Google. Think of it as a David v. Goliath situation where Yahoo! is the rock that Microsoft is throwing. As Bartz put it, the new deal will lead to better competition “Competition equals innovation. But with one player dominating 70% of search, that field has been pretty lopsided. This transaction will create a healthy competitor that’ll keep everyone on their toes.” It is certain that both Microsoft and Yahoo! believe that if they hope to succeed, they must work together.

Google
Make no mistake of it, although Google has not radically changed their user interface or rubbed new features in our faces, they are still making headway. Just like Yahoo!, they offer applications that simplify every day life and constantly improve them through the use of Google Labs. Just recently, they removed the Beta label from their AdWords service, improved their “Show More Results” link, and launched a traditional advertising campaign to promote their apps. The latter of the three is a blatant response to Microsoft’s Bing campaign. Although we are not used to seeing Google use traditional forms of advertising, this clearly shows that Google is willing to adapt and mix it up to keep what is theirs.

What’s Next?
Microsoft is throwing everything but the kitchen sink at Google. In Microsoft’s defense, they are actually making some headway. However, overthrowing a competitor who holds 70% of the market share is no simple task, especially when that competitor is continually evolving in subtle but effective fashion. We can eternally dwell into the depth of this new deal and analyze every aspect of it. The bottom line is that Microsoft is following an aggressive attack plan on Google. As the two companies already established on Wednesday, they have “options” which means that many details are still to be determined. It truly is an unpredictable outcome. There are speculations and heavily weighted odds but one should never rule out any outcome. The tortoise has beaten the hare, the mouse has scared the elephant, and it’s possible that Bing could defeat Google.

For more information on the Microsoft Yahoo! deal visit:
www.choicevalueinnovation.com

My last post explored the possible differences between Bing’s new algorithm and Google, affirming some commonly cited variances and discovering others that had little or no evidence. Though there were some confirmed differences between the way Bing and Google determine the rankings of natural results, they would probably have little impact on search engine optimization tactics for two reasons:

1. Bing algorithm is likely to change soon, so any gains from, for example, changing URLs to include keywords could be reversed in the near future.
2. Bing does not account for enough traffic to shift focus from optimizing for Google’s algorithm.

Bing’s new algorithm has limited effects on day-to-day SEO; however, the new features of Bing’s search engine results pages (SERPs) have a clear impact on organic search strategy.

New functions like Best Match, Document Preview, and Quick Tabs provide additional spaces where sites should aim appear. Updates of old features, like Local and Shopping, mean that the some of the processes have changed from MSN and Live search. The following sections discuss new and updated features as well as the changes to online strategy that will help leverage these features.

Quick Tabs & Categorized Results

What they are: Quick Tabs (pictured to the left) are the handful of links at the top left corner of a SERP, where categorized results appear for very broad searches to break them up into more niche queries. The same longer-tail searches often appear in both places, but Quick Tabs include both these longer-tail searches and links to specific Bing services (such as Images, News, Shopping, and Videos).

Strategy: Use these spaces for discovering new keywords to target. Take note of the Quick Tabs that show up for your broadest keywords (those with the most search volume), these Bing services and deeper pages may be traffic-driving positions. For example, a Bing search for “electric wheelchairs” brings up only one Quick Tab, Videos. Assuming that 1-3% of users searching that phrase look for videos, a site that sells electric wheelchairs can gain extra visitors simply by creating a YouTube video.

 
Best Match

What it is: When Bing has an extremely high confidence rate (for example, on a search for “Sears”), it will return one result at the top of the page with the text “Best match.” A best match also gets 8 links to deeper sites in the page and an internal search form. Local companies can get it too, but not all of them–Cavender’s, a western wear store, gets a best match, whereas Amy’s Ice Creams does not.

Strategy: Be sure your URL and Title Tags contain your company name – it is unlikely that a best match will ever return for a non-branded term like “hammers.” Include the company name in the Alt tag of the header image or logo that appears on every page. Add an internal search to your page and make sure your sub-pages are both prominently listed in the main navigation and given higher priority in your XML sitemap. Lastly, if your site is a local brick-and-mortar, ensure that Bing knows your physical address by creating a local listing (and, of course, associating your URL with this listing).

Document Preview

What it is: Document Previews appear when a user mouses over a listing, then mouses over the orange circle that pops up to the right of the listing. It pulls information (usually body copy) from the page to populate this window. SEO must now ensure that the information coming up in the pop up window is both informative and engaging – that is, it will both let the users know exactly what to expect (to minimize unqualified traffic) and entice users to click on the link (to draw in qualified traffic). The above example, Nike, failed to do so.

Strategy: Determine the specific content that Bing is pulling from your site to populate its Document Preview. It could be as complicated as text within a Flash file or even text within a deeper page, but is most likely from the beginning of a CSS division, or <DIV> for the coding-inclined. Bing seems to like short paragraphs and bulleted lists. Modify this text to be, again, both informative and engaging.

Instant Answers (Update)

What it is: Like Google, Bing provides very specific information on the search results for certain types of search queries (i.e., currency conversion on Google or flight information on Bing). Bing’s instant answers capabilities are vastly improved from those of MSN and Live Search, providing these types of results for a much wider range of queries.

Strategy: Although appearing in the Instant Answers could potentially drive traffic and increase brand recognition, becoming one of these partners is most likely outside of the scope of SEO and probably involves direct communication with Microsoft programmers. An e-commerce or otherwise primarily commercial site has very little chance of becoming a source of information for Instant Answers. Sites that serve as informational databases on a given topic could, however, enter some sort of partnership with Bing in which they are the sole provider of a type of data. Comstock, for example, gives Bing its quotes for stock ticker searches, American Telephone & Telegraph provides information about area codes, and FlightStats enables Bing’s instant answers for flight information.

Bing Local Listings (Update)

What it is: Also an update from an MSN and Live Search feature, Bing Local Listings change the way information about businesses are presented and improves review aggregation. Bits of reviews are categorized by keyword, as seen in the example above. For example, Bing pulls comments regarding wait times from reviews on sites like Yelp and provides aggregated ratings for wait times at restaurants. Users first fill out basic information about their business, which will be used to check whether the business is already in Bing’s database, before they add photos, videos, hours, and other information. Much like Google, users can then assign categories (up to 6) that will be used to help determine what type of business is being submitted (unlike Google, custom categories cannot be created). A snail mail piece with a verification code will be sent, and listings usually update within a few days of verification.

Strategy: The main change in strategy here is that the Webmaster Center no longer provides the link to submit a local business. That form is now at this URL. It is not linked to any of Bing’s main pages, so some users who have used this feature in the past may now have trouble finding it. Also, the new keyword categorization of portions of reviews from sites like Yelp means that the wording of reviews is very important. For example, a user mentioning a short wait time would increase the average rating for that metric on the listing pictured above. Lastly, Microsoft has initiated a partnership with Yellow Pages local listings so paid sponsors are listed above normal listings. Paid local listings link directly to the business’s page on YellowPages.com.

Bing Shopping (Update)

What it is: Bing, like Google, can return e-commerce results along with regular organic listings. The results lead to a landing page that shows various products related to a search term with pictures, descriptions, prices, and links to retailers. However, two weeks before the release of Bing (May 15, 2009), Microsoft ended its Live Search Product Upload feature. Therefore, adding products is no longer a user-end process for Bing (but it still is for Google, which uses Google Base).

Strategy: Since Microsoft has assumed the responsibility of uploading product information to its search engine, it is also no longer a free service. One must contact a Microsoft sales representative to discuss being added to this section of the site, which is apparently based on a CPC bidding model. During this process, a site owner can also decide to participate in Bing’s Cashback program. Looking at the proportion of Cashback offers to total retailers on Bing Shopping; it looks like Microsoft salespeople are enthusiastically pitching the Cashback partnership. The strategy for being listed in Bing Shopping has shifted from previously being arguably related to SEO to now PPC.

It is anything but a secret that today’s consumers rely heavily on the use of their smartphones to accomplish previously desktop dominated tasks. It can even be argued that the ease of use of mobile devices has overthrown its desktop counterpart as the weapon of choice for solving every day quandaries. The growing use of mobile smartphones has not been overlooked by Google and on Wednesday June 24th they made their search engine presence known once again with the beta release of Google AdSense for Mobile iPhone and Android Applications.

The release and refinement to come of this new and necessary form of reaching consumers impacts each party differently as well as provides new opportunities. Hitting users on the go with relative advertisements provides consumers with suggestions based on location and query while giving advertisers a healthy dose of impressions, if executed correctly.

A recent blog posting by Google VP of product management Susan Wojcicki reads, “[A]dvertisers are looking for ways to reach potential customers when they are engaged with mobile content, and application developers are looking for ways to show the best ads to their users,”

Advantages for Marketers:
At a glance, the benefits of being able to target consumers not only when they are at their home computers but also anytime they use their smartphones for web queries appear to be straight forward and quite simple. However, the benefits of this advancement provide advertisers with a snowball effect. Expanding an advertising campaign to full html smartphones gives advertisers an advantage that was previously unavailable, targeting their audience by keyword and geography while they are on the move.

Advertisers want to be able to reach consumers when they become engaged with mobile content. The growth of shops like iTunes app store, show an abundance of opportunities for qualified traffic since consumers are specifically searching for a subject matter. Providing advertisers with one more medium to reach consumers brings forth the potential to tap into more qualified leads. In turn, advertiser can experience increased click through rate and gain more impressions based on location.

Google’s Adsense for Mobile Marketers information page goes on to describe their own take on marketer benefits in which they focus on five main points:

• Use the new platform, keep a familiar process
  Google’s AdSense for Mobile Applications offers marketers the familiar AdWords interface, goal tracking with Google Analytics, and the banner ad format.

• Reach customers on the go to maximize your ROI
  Mobile Internet users are often close to the point of sale, and high-end device users are some of the most engaged targets.

• Join the innovation of apps
  Ad placements are all above the fold, so advertisers have steady interactions with users in the apps they use every day.

• Send traffic where you want
  Send traffic to mobile or web landing pages, or promote your own apps by sending clicks directly to the iTunes App Store or Android Market.

• Deliver to your target audience
  Target specific applications, locations, categories, or keywords to reach your target audience.

…as well as Developers/Consumers:
Marketers are not the only party that is in line to benefit from Google’s new release. Developers and website owners are able to make a few easy bucks by merely putting Adsense on a marketer’s service. Additionally, consumers will benefit from seeing relevant advertisements based on their location and query much like they do at home.

Current Results:
Only two weeks have passed since the clearly beta release of Google has left me continually scratching my head. As described by Advertising Age, links with certain titles such as “University of Kentucky” directs users “to a Hewlett Packard page with information about student discounts for HP computers,” leaving users at pages that are not only irrelevant but also not mobile friendly OR flash enabled (neither iPhone or Google’s Android supports Flash).

Additionally, it appears as though many marketers are not aware that they are getting impressions via mobile devices. Google’s service is currently running in conjunction with PC web unless the marketer opts out of mobile advertising. As a result, some marketers are paying for double the clicks. According to Google spokesman Eric Obenzinger, marketers received a letter last year indicating the change and the ability to opt out.

Summation:
We are no strangers to Google’s constant efforts to be the first to develop new web advances. Although it has problems, I believe that AdSense Mobile will work out all of its kinks and target consumers as efficiently as its desktop counterpart once it is out of beta. The only problem with that is figuring out when Google will move past beta testing, whether it is five plus years (Gmail) or fourteen weeks (Chrome Browser).

To apply for beta programming visit
http://www.google.com/ads/mobileapps/

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced yesterday that Lifestyle Lift, a cosmetic surgery company providing “facial-firming procedures,” will pay $300,000 in penalties and costs for publishing false reviews of the company and its procedures on the Internet. The company must also cease posting fake reviews and testimonials online and clearly disclose Internet content for which they are responsible.

Lifestyle Lift felt that negative online feedback had hurt its reputation, so the company launched an aggressive in-house brand management campaign. Employees were instructed to pose as satisfied customers on message boards and forums and to criticize or attempt to remove posts that were critical of Lifestyle Lift. The company also created several blogs and websites on which employees posted positive reviews. The sites did not disclose that they were run by Lifestyle Lift. (Examples of the reviews can be downloaded at http://www.oag.state.ny.us/bureaus/internet_bureau/pdfs/LifestyleLiftStories.pdf.)

The Lifestyle Lift settlement is the first case in the United States to address the issue of companies posing as consumers and posting false reviews of products or services, also known as “astroturfing.” This practice is an extreme tactic avoided by Apogee Search and (I hope) other reputable search marketers, but the Lifestyle Lift case has important implications for less aggressive brand management and search engine optimization campaigns.

• Don’t forget advertising laws and regulations. Search marketing campaigns gone wrong can have consequences more dire and expensive than search engine penalties. Most companies are very aware that they must keep Federal Trade Commission, state, and local regulations in mind when advertising through traditional media, but some forget that advertising online is no different. Keep regulations in mind and be aware of what you can and cannot say when creating campaigns and messaging, particularly if your company does not have a legal department to review marketing materials.

  For more information, see “FTC Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” and general information on “truth-in-advertising laws” at http://www.business.gov/business-law/advertising-law/truth-in-advertising/. Certain products and services, especially those related to health and medicine, may also be subject to additional regulations.

• Be transparent. Concealing your affiliation with a company during online marketing efforts can lead to a damaged reputation, embarrassment, and legal penalties in extreme cases like the Lifestyle Lift settlement. Some websites, particularly Q&A sites like Yahoo! Answers, may also ban you and/or your IP address if you frequently endorse a product or service without disclosure.

  Always mention that you represent the company that you are endorsing when requesting links, commenting on blog posts, or posting in forums. This disclosure may cause some of your posts or comments to be taken down, but in the end, you will avoid potential fraud allegations and resentment from visitors who learn of the dishonesty. Disclosure is especially important on microsites and blogs; make it obvious that your company has a hand in the website.

• Respond to negative feedback. Lifestyle Lift dealt with negative online feedback by trying to squash it. Instead, use negative feedback as an opportunity to communicate with your customers. Respond to negative posts on forums or blogs with apologies and attempts to rectify the situation (perhaps offer a gift card or advice for fixing a product). If these negative comments show up in search results, visitors will also see that your company cares enough to respond to dissatisfied customers. If your company has experienced a public relations nightmare and the Internet is flooded with negative comments, consider creating a microsite dedicated to telling your company’s side of the story (but remember to disclose that your company created the site!).

  Many companies are also using social media as an avenue for responding to negative feedback. Search Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets for negative comments about your company and respond directly to the posters with advice and/or offers of recompensation. Some companies have also setup Twitter accounts specifically for customer support questions. For examples of how some businesses are using Twitter to communicate with customers, see http://www.searchenginejournal.com/16-examples-of-huge-brands-using-twitter-for-business/7792/.

• Create listings but not reviews on review sites. Listings on sites that allow users to leave reviews can generate traffic and word-of-mouth about your business. These sites are most effective for B2C establishments with physical locations. Some of the most popular review sites are Yelp, Yahoo! Local, Google Local, and Citysearch.

  It is perfectly acceptable to list your business locations on these sites, but leave the reviews to the users. These websites can use IP addresses to determine if your company is reviewing itself, and this can lead to you being banned from the site. Also, if users realize that your employees are reviewing the company, this can lead to more damaging press than a negative review.

• Ensure that everyone knows what can and cannot be said. Make sure that employees who might post online about the company know the rules of your marketing message. Reinforce that everyone should disclose their affiliation with the company when posting comments online. Employees may even want to refrain from leaving comments on review sites to avoid potential problems.

In this week’s edition of SEO Odds & Ends, I’m shifting gears into the nonprofit SEO space. I came across Liberty Hill Foundation’s website and found their slogan to be impressive–”30 Years of Change, Not Charity.” As a fan of participating in change instead of throwing money at problems, this spoke to me and I thought I’d help out.

First off, there is a great resource online for any nonprofit out there–a charity version of SEO Book. With 25 chapters, I must admit I haven’t combed through it all, but if you have the time, it gives a lot of great SEO information tailored to nonprofits.

As with many nonprofits, marketing in general gets put on the back burner, because money could be better spent on making things happen rather than getting a shiny website, right? That seems to be the case with Liberty Hill, as well. Here are the top tips I’d start with for their site:

1. Create a specific page for each of the organization’s issues. 
             
   • Even if it seems that the issues cross over a lot, create each page to be as different as possible, and then link between similar pages. A well-optimized site involves giving the search engines a single page for each idea your organization (and website) represents.
   • For Liberty Hill, initiatives related to developing a green economy and promoting environmental justice are extremely important. There are multiple pages about this, including the 2009 Environmental Agenda “Turn Green to Gold”, a donor page explaining what Environmental Justice is, and finally, a grant seekers page describes the funds available.
   • To organize the site a bit more from a search engine perspective, first, organize the group’s initiatives into a category such as “Liberty Hill Issues,” then add specific pages with descriptive content for Environmental Justice, Gay/Lesbian Rights, etc., third, add links on the Environmental Justice page to the Donors, Grant Seekers, and Media/Press pages devoted to this topic.
2. Pick keywords for each issue your organization represents, and optimize your tags for those terms. 
   • Using the Google Adwords keyword tool, you can find the approximate search volume for terms related to your organization’s issues.
   • For the Environmental Justice issue, there isn’t much search volume for many terms beyond “California Environmental Justice” and “Los Angeles Environmental Justice.” Therefore, creating a title tag using this code would probably be be the best option:

     <title>Environmental Justice | Los Angeles, California
     | Liberty Hill Foundation</title>

   • On the Liberty Hill Blog, there are several stories about undocumented students and the hardships they face–keywords such as “Scholarships For Undocumented Students” and “Undocumented Students in California” would be good options to target on the primary site.
3. Use variations of your keywords within the content on each page of your site.
   • Often adding a city name plus the primary keywords for a page is a good start.
   • Within the content of the page, use variations of this broad term by starting with “Environmental Justice” and adding the following words: “solution(s),” “project(s),” “action,” “group.” Always focus on making the content readable and relevant to your readers, optimization is a second priority.
   • On the current site, the Environmental Justice Fund is introduced this way:
     
     

     Liberty Hill is pleased to announce our new grantmaking program, the Fund for Change…Liberty Hill will hold two webinars and four community workshops across Los Angeles to introduce our new grantmaking program. 

   • An optimized phrase from an SEO perspective would be:
     

     Liberty Hill is pleased to announce our new Environmental Justice project, the Fund for Change…Liberty Hill will hold two webinars and four community workshops in conjunction with various Los Angeles Environmental Justice groups to announce our new grantmaking program. 

4. Ask for links from your donors and grant recipients!           
   • The single most valuable thing for a website to have in order to have better visibility in the search engines is links! Get more links! This, of course, can be an extremely time consuming process, hence its inclusion at the bottom of this list.
   • Request optimized links– include the keyword assigned to that issue in the text of the link. For example, “Thanks to Liberty Hill Foundation, and specifically their gay and lesbian rights grant initiatives, for supporting the Cara a Cara Latino AIDS Project,” or in the ALT attribute of an image link: “Liberty Hill Foundation Logo, great resource for environmental justice information in Los Angeles.”
   • When donors inquire about giving money or resources, mention to them that simply adding a link to the Liberty Hill Foundation from a donor company’s website, the donor’s personal blog, or even their Facebook page would help you out. Ask them to link to the particular issue on Liberty Hill’s website that is of interest to them, as oppposed to the homepage.
   • Require that recipients of grants mention the Liberty Hill Foundation website through a post or a link of some sort! If they’ve received $20,000, a link from their site to the grant site shouldn’t be a major effort for them.

SEO is an ongoing process–do what you can when redesigning a website or when there are specks of free time, but don’t ignore it entirely! A little bit of effort each week (or month!) is better than none.

If you have specific questions for your nonprofit, please ask them in the comments below.

The release of Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine, was accompanied by much commotion among SEO specialists. The early public release shook up the day-to-day lives of search marketers – all of a sudden, one of the familiar “big three” got a facelift.

Much of the uproar was focused on the marketing surrounding Bing, its share of the search market, or its new features. Very few authoritative sites made observations specifically about how the release would affect SEO. Microsoft’s own whitepaper Bing for Webmasters most directly addressed how to optimize for Bing by basically saying to optimize as one normally does:

“Best of all, the type of SEO work and tasks webmasters need to perform to be successful in Bing haven’t changed—all of the skills and knowledge that webmasters have invested in previously applies fully today with Bing.”

Some bloggers noticed variations between Google’s SERPs and Bing’s SERPs and used that to guess about algorithmic differences between the two sites. While these initial studies were pseudo-scientific at best, they at least noted a difference and tried to identify which ranking factors were more important for a given search engine.

The purpose of this post is to examine these initial observations in the light of current Bing discussion. Some of these factors have been confirmed or at least affirmed by outside sources; others were either wrong to begin with, or had such little significance that they were unnoticed by other SEO specialists.

Probable Algo Differences

1. Keywords in URL
   This factor has often been discussed as a difference between Yahoo! and Google ranking algorithms. But sound research that compares SERPs on a large scale found that including keywords in the URL is almost definitely a bigger factor for Bing than it is for Google, returning more pages with the search term in the URL 92% of the time.
2. Domain Age
   This factor was found by the oft-cited initial post to be the most glaring difference between Bing and Google’s organic results. More scientific tests by Tim at SEOwizz affirmed that, at least among the three search terms he tested, the age of the site was a more important ranking factor for Bing than it is for Google.
3. Textual Content
   This factor is almost definitely more important for Bing than Google because the Bing for Webmasters whitepaper says that Bing scrapes information from Flash only if there is no other content to show for the description. Unlike Google, it seems that Bing does not consider the contents of Flash files when ranking sites – it is only to find a description if no other content is available. Thus, it is important for Flash-heavy sites to write textual content in both meta tags and body content so users will get a description (and a summary, if using Bing’s Quick Preview function).

Commonly Cited (but not confirmed) Algo Differences
The contents of this blog post have been repeated without attribution, creating a sort of false knowledge that these factors are different for Bing than they are for Google. The problem is that even the original post lacks any sources or verifiable research. Without verifiable research or at least similar observations by other search professionals, these commonly cited algorithmic differences are much less likely to be true than the ones above:

1. Outbound Links
   According to the original post at Vedainformatics.com, even Google places importance on links out to other websites – if Site A links to a reputable site, Google will consider Site A more reputable than before. It is actually a very hotly debated topic, with no conclusive evidence of outbound links having an effect on rankings. With this in mind, I find it hard to believe when this post explains that Bing’s algorithm considers this factor even more than Google’s.
2. Title Tag
   Vedainformatics.com also said that the title tag was of higher importance for Bing, but the SEOwizz studies concluded that there is little difference – in fact, Google seemed to weight title tags more than Bing in those examples.
3. Title Tags of Other Pages
   The site also says that Bing places more importance on the title tags of inbound and outbound links than Google. Again, the unequivocal declaration that outbound links are important to search engine reduces this statement’s credibility. Like the other statements, this one is not backed by any research and has not been mentioned by any other sources.

Keep in mind that Bing is constantly updating minor features of the site. Bing program manager Brett Yount stated on the community forums:

“We are making some fairly large changes to quite a bit of our backend — most of which I cannot go into right now. But stay tuned for a better experience.”

Also, Apogee Search’s contacts at Microsoft have hinted at a series of changes soon to come but remained quiet about the details. Any adjustment of Bing’s algorithm could occur in the next few weeks.

Look for Part II of this series, which will focus on Bing’s new features (rather than the algorithm) and their effect on search engine optimization.

Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with Alissa Ruehl, Manager of Website Effectiveness Consulting at Apogee Search, to discuss the best strategies for increasing conversion rates.

SEO and PPC efforts can drive qualified traffic to your website, but in order to justify the time, effort, and expense, the site must be able to convert that traffic into either a lead or a sale. Alissa explains that different websites experience different obstacles, such as building trust, brand recognition, or simply experiencing high abandonment rates, and therefore require different solutions for improving conversion rates.

The best place to start analyzing your conversion rate is to look at entry pages with the highest traffic, such as home pages or high ranking landing pages. Alissa believes that these pages are extremely important in forming the right first impression with any visitor or potential customer to your site. If visitors are only spending a brief amount of time on these pages and you are experiencing a high bounce rate, consider using bullet points, bolded text, and more compelling headlines that grab every visitors’ attention and gets your message across in a clear and concise manner. If an individual is spending a great deal of time on your website then leaves without completing any sort of action, consider adding more calls to action to guide them into the conversion process.

Alissa states that lead form optimization is also an effective way to increase conversion rates on your website. In order to increase the amount of lead forms that are submitted with complete and accurate information and avoid abandonment, it is important to ensure that your forms are simple to complete, establish more trust with individuals, and only ask for information that is necessary and beneficial in obtaining a lead. Improving the conversion rate for eCommerce lead forms is slightly more involved. The amount of steps required in an eCommerce website can make conversion optimization seem daunting. Alissa separates problems with eCommerce purchases into three buckets:

1. Customer’s ability to find the product they want
2. Process of adding products to the cart
3. Process of purchasing the product once in the cart

Web analytics data can help you identify which of these steps is causing problems. These common problems can be resolved by working the individual into a pipeline, increasing the persuasion on the pages, inserting more calls to action, and discarding unnecessary requests for information that may deter an individual from completing the process.

In general, analytics tools like Google Analytics can help you pinpoint problems, while usability analyses, best practices lists, and case studies can help you identify possible solutions. However, replicating a method that may have worked for someone else is not guaranteed to work for you. Testing different solution ideas is crucial for ensuring an improvement in conversion rates.