It’s a good start; however, this is only part of the equation.  A key factor is missing, which is how many internet searchers are typing those particular queries into search engines.  It is imperative that, before beginning any kind of search optimization, you find out what queries people are using to search for your type of product or service.

For example, you may think that “keyword research” is a great keyword.  If you dig deeper, you would find that “keyword tool” and “google keyword” are relevant keywords which are actually searched more often in Google.  Depending on the context, these may be better keywords to optimize for.

It’s the small step of gathering that intelligence which will make all the difference to your search optimization.  It is surprisingly quick, easy and free to gather all of the information you need to make informed keyword selections.  Here are six steps to keyword success:

• 1.  Brainstorm keyword ideas and themes: Use your knowledge of industry jargon and key terms to create a basic list.  Include everything you can think of that is relevant to your product or service.
• 2.  Use a keyword tool: Take your brainstorming a step further and gather intelligence.  The best keyword tool, in my opinion, is the free Google Keyword Tool.  While other search engines exist, most SEO efforts are going to be focussed on Google search results.  Where better a place to gather keyword intelligence than Google itself?
• 3.  Build out a list: Spend some time with the Google keyword tool and build a list of every conceivable keyword combination that has search volume.
• 4.  Do a ranking scan: Find out how you are currently ranking in the Google SERP’s for the most relevant keywords in your keyword list.
• 5.  Look at your analytics: Log in to your Google analytics account and take a close look at what keywords your organic search traffic is coming from currently.
• 6.  Analyze your keywords: Once you’ve gathered intelligence on your keywords, sit back and look for opportunities.   For example, is there a keyword in your list where you are currently ranked 15th, that is already bringing decent traffic to your website and has big search volume (i.e. big traffic potential)?  That’s probably a keyword you should target.

Keyword selection should be based on more than just what sounds good.  It should also be based on search volume (i.e. traffic potential), current rankings and current traffic volume.  Finally, of course, your keywords should always be as relevant as possible to the content of the page that you are optimizing.  For, all of the non-relevant traffic you can get will not bring you results of it does not convert.

Much more information is available on keyword research.  Check out these excellent articles:

http://www.copyblogger.com/keyword-research/
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/rewriting-the-beginners-guide-part-v-keyword-research
http://searchengineland.com/eight-keyword-research-mistakes-that-are-costing-you-money-14002

Post from: NVI Blog - Professional, technical, and a little bit twisted.

Well, the day after my session, I met Dave Coleman, the Director of Marketing for Spreed Inc. Spreed is a company that develops mobile apps for online publishers so that the can reach mobile users with their content and advertising. In fact, Spreed is already working with some major newspapers, such as the Globe & Mail, for whom they are serving up 7.5-10 million page views a month.

So it looks like if any part of my presentation was dreamt up, it was the part where I thought my idea was original. Newspapers are already using the mobile web to find new sources of ad revenues, and if the numbers are any indication, it’s working just fine.

iPhone Version

Post from: NVI Blog - Professional, technical, and a little bit twisted.

iPhone Version

FlightCentre.ca helps users put together vacation packages, including cheap flights, adventure tours, hotel bookings, and just about everything else you need to plan a holiday. Something else that makes them stand-out from other travel sites is that they have more than 160 brick & mortar shops throughout British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia, meaning that customers can actually walk into a real store and meet with an actual travel agent.

Post from: NVI Blog - Professional, technical, and a little bit twisted.

I sat in on a session by Saleem Khan at Podcamp Toronto 2010.  Saleem Khan is a Toronto-based journalist working independently for major international and Canadian media outlets.  He blogs at saleemkhan.com.

His session covered the best ethics and professional behaviour practices used by established journalistic and how they relate to the blogging community.  Saleem made the audience aware that this session was a carbon-copy of his session last year at Podcamp Toronto, and is therefore does not offer new insight (unless, of course, you weren’t at his session last year!).

Saleem began by asking the audience what their impressions are of established media outlets, such as the CBC, BBC, the New York Times, etc.  A wide variety of responses were given.  He then proceeded to show some statistics revealing that large, established online media outlets remain as the dominant source of news information for the general public.  The reason, most likely, is credibility - people will go to their trusted sources.

Bloggers will often want their blog to be a reflection of their personality, whereas large media outlets are uniform - they are cultural institutions that people respond to.  Saleem says that bloggers should aim somewhere in the middle by adopting some of the practices of large media outlets.

A blogger must establish trust.  This is done by maintaining standards, including accurate information and correct spelling and grammar.  When an error is made, offer your correction publicly - this does not damage trust but enhances it.  Be clear about how you work, and about your activities.  Be fair in words and in deeds - people can instinctively feel when you are not.  Think - set rules and structures and plan ahead so that, when an inevitable conflict occurs, you are prepared to address it.  Always be ethical, and always know how to handle ethical conflicts.

Finally, he says, be calm and professional and use the lessons in courtesy and politeness that your mom taught you.  If you are looking for more information and training, the BBC has a free online college of journalism (note: available only from a UK IP address) to help guide bloggers in issues that established media organizations have been dealing with - and learning from - for years.

Post from: NVI Blog - Professional, technical, and a little bit twisted.

I sat in on a session by Zoe Siskos at Podcamp Toronto 2010.  Zoe Siskos is a Manager of Influencer Relations at Syncapse.  She runs her blog at mediumandthemessage.com.

Her session was a very brief look at infometrics, and why one can use so much more than a pie chart to represent data.

Zoe begins by saying that she doesn’t have a problem with pie charts themselves, but with the rampant abuse of pie charts.  She gives an example of a pie chart used in a mainstream US media outlet showing a pie chart representing the popularity of presidential candidates during the last campaign.  She says it’s hard to take pie charts seriously these days because “they usually make you feel high.”

She says that we gather large amounts of data, gain valuable insight and then find boring and unsophisticated ways of displaying all of that information.  Our brains like to put information into categories.  Good infographics should be an accurate visual representation of the data, combining words and visuals into one to stimulate that side of our brain and engage us.  Engage your clients, she says, the same way you would engage their customers.

Zoe proceeds on to show a number of classic examples of successful historical infographics, the earliest recorded being Egyptian heiroglyphics, and another being the periodic table of elements.

She says that creating a good infograph combines both science and art, and takes an open mind and a different way of seeing things.  There are five key points to consider:

• Know your objective.  Make sure your starting point is your focal point.
• Know your information, whether it be spatial, graphical, emotional, etc.
• Know your audience.
• Know what others are doing, and learn and be inspired by them.
• Know your friends and turn to them for feedback.  They’ll help you keep things simple and to point out things you may have missed.

Choose the graphic best suited to your information, she says, and stay inspired and passionate about what you do.  Create.

Post from: NVI Blog - Professional, technical, and a little bit twisted.

I sat in on a session by Kim Vallee at Podcamp Toronto 2010.  Kim Vallee is known to some as the Martha Stewart of Quebec.  She runs a ’stylish living’ community at athome.kimvallee.com and a social media blog at ontheweb.kimvallee.com.

Her session covered some of the aspects to think about when planning, building and maintaining an online community within a niche, based on her experience building a community on top of her existing ’stylish living’ blog.  The following post is an overview of her session.

There are a number of questions to ask yourself when building a blog, such as:

• Why am I building my community?
• What will be on my community site?
• How will I build my community site?

The most important question to ask yourself is why you want to build a community site.  “Everyone talks about a community site,” Kim says, “but it is a means, not a goal.”  She adds that the reason she is developing an online community over her blog “is for growth.  As a blogger it is harder to grow your traffic” now that there is more competition among bloggers, as well as with the massively increasing interest in social networking websites like Facebook.

Go beyond the blog, she says.  Having a community allows you to structure content and filter information.  A blog is just text, while a community is interactive.  She compares a blog to a toilet paper roll, in that your blog posts are rolled out and eventually vanish.  There is something missing in the blog structure: a content-rich community is stronger and also opens doors, allowing you to deliver content in a way in which revenue can be generated.

Community sites allow those in a niche to have a “fighting chance” and provide value to advertisers, but you must go beyond banner ads and develops ways of delivering advertising in a way that provides value to the community and to advertisers.  It is key that advertising fits within the culture of the brand.

Some features to consider when building a community include member profiles (with features to encourage interaction, such as a feed on what has been happening in the community, who you’re friends are, etc), comment ratings (thumbs up, thumbs down, 5 stars, etc),  a “like” button on user generated content (a la Facebook) and contextual push information (like the ’suggestions area’ on the Facebook interface).

A community should  be self-engaging (such as in the way that the Craigslist community is self-moderated), which will allow you to operate your community with less employees, lower cost and will allow the community to be what your members want it to be.

When you ask yourself what should be on your community site, play on your strength, analyze what is popular and expand on what works.  Concentrate on differentiation, enhanced content and tools for readers.

When considering how you’ll build your community site, consider BuddyPress, which is a free, open-source Wordpress-based online community software solution.  Make sure that you have good programmers and a good budget.  You need a strong infrastructure to be successful.

Finally, think about what’s coming in the future.  Innovations and behaviour changes are always taking place - you need to experiment to see what works and to keep up with the trends.

Post from: NVI Blog - Professional, technical, and a little bit twisted.

Jérome Paradis kicked off PodCamp Toronto 2010 with an interesting presentation on the evolution and future of ecommerce. He discussed his vision for a  shopping interface which aggregates products and data from a multitude of online merchants. The goal being to provide a simple and standard process for the online shopper by bringing together data from many merchants.  Although ecommerce processes and how we shop online have not evolved too much in the past decade, Jérome thinks the future of ecommerce will eventually progress to a more social and user friendly landscape.

Semantic Commerce, a.k.a Ecommerce 3.0, will allow the shopper to:

1. Easily browse, find and compare products from different vendors on one simple interface

2. Store and re-call profile info, shipping address and payment data

3. Unify order history in one place

4. Offer heightened security as the user maintains control of their own data

5. Allows aggregated data to create a contextual shopping experience

From an online consumer’s perspective, this all sounds like a natural and interesting progression to buying online. The idea of having access to multiple vendors along with having my buying information and data centralized is very appealing. For the vendor, these types of applications would also have a variety of benefits, including new and important traffic sources. The challenge lies in successfully selling the concept to online retailers, convincing them re-organize their information and open up there databases with an API for third party developers.

His long term vision is for a simplified and enhanced online shopping experience, eventually available across all web enabled devices including traditional internet, mobile and TV. As of now, it is still just that, a vision.

In the short term, Jérome is working hard on a start up called Shwowp with co-founder Tara Hunt.  From his PodCamp session this morning,  not too much was revealed about Shwowp.  The speculation is that it will be an online collaborative which will marry the search and social aspects of the web for an augmented online shopping experience. Shwowp.com will certainly serve as another step in pushing this idea of Semantic Commerce forward.

Post from: NVI Blog - Professional, technical, and a little bit twisted.

Unfortunately, most people in the audience probably didn’t know all this, so Sifry managed to successfully land a jab at my industry with an unfortunate credibility and even more unfortunate misinformation. Hopefully I can help to change that impression, by first addressing why people might think that about SEO, then providing arguments for its clear value that even Dave Sifry can’t argue with.

I’d like to clarify that my work places me in a hybrid-role, a merged spot between social media and search engine optimization that finds balance between the two. They are not mutually exclusive, and work together quite nicely, in fact.

The Frauds

In every service there are charlatans. There are singing teachers who convince tuneless shriekers that they can improve, just as there are mechanics who break more than they fix. SEO is still relatively new, relatively unknown, and relatively expensive. These circumstances make it a nice breeding ground for snakery, but they hardly damn the actual process and work when it’s done right. The buyer must beware, of course, but the market is far from an intraversable minefield. I wrote an article on how to know if your SEO company knows what they’re talking about, that can hopefully help root out the unfortunate underbelly.

The Google Ethics

There are searches every month for “ethical search engine optimization”. This has nothing to do with anything humanitarian, philanthropic, or criminal, but with an adherence to guidelines as defined by Google, guidelines designed with their own business model in mind. This has had a polarizing effect, and has brought a special kind of morality into the industry perception. All marketing is laced with marketing dubiousness, of course, but “ethical SEO” has taken things a step further, sullying overall impressions with thoughts of “unethical practices” that site owners might now think they have to worry about.

Even if a case was made for Google-defined SEO ethics to be reasonable, this shouldn’t take away from what Google considers ethical. My impression is that the distinction isn’t always understood clearly by the public, and so perceptions of the craft have been unjustly poisoned.

Undisputable SEO

There are numerous basic search engine optimization strategies that an optimizer can help with, and to dismiss them in dismissing the industry on the whole is straight up foolhardy.

Sifry tied off his point about SEO by basically saying that all you really need to do is create great content, and the rest will happen naturally. This oversimplifies not only SEO on the whole, but even the content creation aspect of SEO.

So, you want to create content. What should you create? SEOs can research topics using keywords that are highly searched, for which there is current insufficient content ranking in Google already, or for content which produces more revenue in programs like Google AdSense, if you swing that way. All else being equal, why wouldn’t you consider aspects like these? They can have a large effect on your traffic numbers, and in no way compromise the integrity of your site. Search engine optimization helps to guide and add strategy to your content creation.

Also, are you sure Google can even read and index your content? Many well-wishing site owners are unaware of important on-page optimization criteria for which Google encourages optimization. Things like page titles, meta descriptions, and proper use of headings are easy to overlook and worthwhile to fix, making it clear to search engines what your content is about. Robots.txt files can unwittingly de-index your whole site, if you’re not careful. Not to fear-monger, but there is just a lot of optimization work that doesn’t just appear naturally, and can actually significantly impact search traffic on your site.

I can go on with more super clean tactics that just make sense (having crawlable URLs, being strategic about keywords when someone’s offering to link to you, using a proper SEO oriented 404 page, and heck, extremely keyword-oriented pay-per-click advertising), but you get the idea. Google has a system, and not every site on the internet is equally fit to succeed within that system. SEOs are facilitators. If you think there’s any value in anything to do with Google at all, optimizers are useful.

A Rejection of Search Engine Traffic

So, the only other area in which someone could conceivably attack SEO is whether there is significant return to be gained from the effort. Far more than other online marketing strategies (and perennially in social media), SEO gives extremely measurable return, and has an accessible set of useful metrics.

Anyone who has really gotten their feet wet with e-commerce knows that purchasers like using Google, and that a searcher’s intent can very easily lead to sales. It’s some of the most qualified traffic out there, and there’s a lot of it across the world’s niches. Being aware of this fact and responding to it can be extremely rewarding, as many of the world’s most successful online entrepreneurs have learned.

This doesn’t have to work against “conversation” style social media sales and successes, and in fact is a nice lead in. Not only does the qualified traffic help build the community, but even presence on social media sites can be improved with search engine optimization strategies.

The Future of SEO Perceptions

As the general public becomes more aware of the SEO and its value, I can only expect that perceptions will shift to somewhere nice and trusting. There are good people out there doing good SEO work, and buyers made too wary will be missing out.

Post from: NVI Blog - Professional, technical, and a little bit twisted.

What’s particularly interesting about Jiyan’s websites is how they might bear on Google Caffeine, which is being rolled out this year. As Jim Boykin pointed out, more diverse content such as a press releases seems to factor in more importantly with the new search algorithm. So Jiyan’s insights here might be of interest.

iPhone Version

Post from: NVI Blog - Professional, technical, and a little bit twisted.

This is my 90 second video prediction. It’s about how in 2010, we’re probably going to see an all-out war in the mobile space. It’s not going to be a mobile advertising war, however. It’s going to be a way between companies that make mobile operating systems — i.e. Apple, Google, and RIM.

In any case, if you like my prediction, I hope you vote for me. And if you don’t, I encourage you to submit your own video — they seem to have extended the submission deadline until January 8th.

Post from: NVI Blog - Professional, technical, and a little bit twisted.