Digital Marketing Contest 2012

Google+ Gets a New Look!

2012-04-15T22:56:00.003-07:00

In its drive to revamp all its products, Google has now given a facelift to its ambitious social platform Google+. The new Google+ was introduced yesterday and the new design aims at a ‘seamless social experience’.
The main feature highlights are:

A customizable side bar
There are ‘conversation cards’ now. This is the new format of your discussion stream and facilitates a better view of an ongoing conversation.
Want to know what’s is going on in a conversation, head to the "activity drawer" of the ‘conversation cards’
Your timeline will have full bleed photos.
Hangouts have additional features like rotating billboard of cool Hangouts

As Google has been quoted, “Today's Google+ update extends beyond navigation, the stream and hangouts. For instance: there's a new Explore page that shows what's interesting and trending across the network. And a new profile with much bigger photos. And a new chat list that puts your friends front and center. And a whole lot more.”

The new Google+ has a dedicated Hangouts page where you will have better opportunities to make that connect, with invitations and rotating billboard of your favorite hangouts, with tips and other essential info and fun stuff.

Source: http://www.pagetrafficbuzz.com/google/13468/

Timing Your SEO Efforts to Rank During Traffic Peaks & Spikes

2012-04-13T23:36:00.000-07:00

Some keywords have seasonal trending, search volume life-cycles, and hype spikes. When you need to rank during the peak of these trends, organic ranking requires you to do most of your work before the peak.
Riding the waves of search volume hype is hard, but it can also be very rewarding. Knowing when to exactly time your search engine optimization (SEO) effort provides a huge lead over your competitors, so how is it done effectively?

Predictable Search Volume Peaks

Sudden peaks in search volumes are more predictable than you might think. Each year has the same seasons and holidays. New products will be launched in many industries.
Sports games are bound to have winners and even certain accidents are bound to happen … again. The exact details can still be an unknown, but you can prepare your prompt reaction for when they do occur.
A great example of a predictable life-cycle occurs when a new mobile phone is introduced. A mobile phone is launched and after about 5 months it is bound to be replaced by its successor.
The search volume peak can often be found in the first month of sales, so before regular links take effect you’ve already missed the hype. There is however a strategy that provides the right ranking at the right time.

The Right Ranking at the Right Time

Before the peak you should focus on gaining as many links as possible to keep the lead during the most important part of the life-cycle. High ranking itself asserts your authority on the subject and when you’re one of the first to have good information on a new mobile phone, for example, you’ll be cited and linked by all early adopters.
During the peak you need to reap the benefits of all these links, so that is when your commercial message should be the one ranking.
After the peak and during the aftermath most other commercial websites would have done their regular link building and you’re likely to be outranked by then. Luckily you’re already focusing on the next hype to keep ahead of the masses.

Timing Your Effort

Certain types of links take some time to ripen and take effect. Others affect ranking almost immediately; however, the affect wears off after a short time. Effectively combining all of them requires a well though through strategy, which is best described with a mobile phone example.

With the first rumors of a new mobile phone model being launched, create a page with its supposed name and some info on the rumors.
When its name becomes more certain create something easily spread through social media like a desired features poll. These links will provide a short lived ranking spike that is needed for the next phase.
When it is officially announced, be one of the first to have a press release and reuse the already ranking URL for that message. Update the page whenever needed so both insiders and enthusiasts will start following and linking the page that therefore keeps on ranking.
Reuse the same URL for the first preview of the new phone model and you can always move the old content to a different URL when needed. Again, the high ranking asserts your authority and the preview will be intensely linked to as well.
Reuse the same URL again and again for news, pre-registration and eventually having it available for sale.

Here is where our extreme link acquisition efforts can stop for now. Most of the ranking will remain for the two most important months of sales.
Once the device is no longer a priority, you can even change its URL and redirect all remaining link value to a successor with (probably) a partial keyword match. This provides a much needed head start for new hypes within existing themes.

SEO for Hypes

Always be monitoring and predicting new great hypes in your industry. Monitor social media, look for insider information to be the first to know about new terminology. Map out earlier similar hypes to see how these have spread across the internet during their entire life-cycle.
Devise linkable messages for each phase of the life-cycle and accumulate all that link value close together or on the same URL.

Reuse partial relevance for future hypes and ranking for more generic keywords.

And … always be prepared for future hypes!

Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2167539/Timing-Your-SEO-Efforts-to-Rank-During-Traffic-Peaks-Spikes

SEO: Build Relationships, Not Links

2012-04-13T23:30:00.001-07:00

When the Internet was new, it was difficult to find interesting and relevant websites. Link building was easy in those days. It was often just a matter of letting webmasters know that your site existed and they could link to it. Things have changed in the last couple of decades.
Webmasters today are jaded. They’re bombarded with requests for links, offers to receive hundreds of links for one low price, and comment spam, among other things. Approaching a blogger or site owner today with a request for a link is akin to walking up to a stranger and asking for $50. You might get lucky, but chances are you won’t even get a reply.
The concept of link building — manually identifying and contacting individual webmasters to request a link — is all but obsolete. In this new social era of Internet marketing, to get a link you’ll need to build a relationship.
Relationship building as part of search engine optimization is a difficult concept for ecommerce sites to understand. Imagine a Facebook thread that included three back-and-forth replies from a relevant and influential blogger. If your primary goal is building links, that Facebook thread is gold as a relationship builder.

Links: Give to Get

Yes, search marketers seek links and social mentions. But successful link builders today are able to put that personal need to rack up links aside and act more altruistically, knowing that you have to give more than you receive. Think about being at a party where everyone is trying to avoid that loud-mouthed jerk that only talks about himself. The same concept applies to online relationship building. Take a good look at your link requests, your social media activity, and your blogging. Is it all about your brand and the benefits your products bring to the rest of us? Your brand may be that loud mouth at the party.
To build relationships online requires seeking out others with similar passions or questions or problems. Ask for their opinions. Compliment their points of view. Answer their questions. Like or retweet or +1 their updates. Like in the physical world, people online want to be appreciated and respected for their opinions. And just like in the physical world, friendships flourish when both people give freely of their knowledge and respect.
But, and this is important, only participate if your participation is sincere. As a human, it’s easy to know when we feel something sincerely. But what does a brand feel sincerely about? Anyone participating in link building or social media for a brand needs to be able to personify that brand, to step into the brand’s persona and act on its behalf.

Finding Friends

Sometimes the hardest part is just finding the relevant and influential people with which to build relationships. A quick Google search on a topic reveals some of the better ranking and theoretically more influential bloggers in a given space. For example, a site selling landscaping products might want to reach out to gardening and landscaping blogs. Googling “gardening blog” or “gardening intitle:blog” would return many relevant blogs to review for friendship possibilities.
Look for blogs with relevant comments. Those bloggers with an active audience are more likely to be influential. Look for blogs that also have active Facebook, Twitter or Google+ profiles, beyond just syndicating their blog posts. If they use social media as another way to engage their audience as opposed to a bullhorn for their blog content, that’s a good sign that they are savvy enough to understand the benefit of relevant online relationships.

Offerings that Benefit Your Brand

So far I’ve discussed sincerity and reciprocity in relationships. As ecommerce professionals, though, we also have revenue goals to meet. Fortunately, there are ways to give more than you receive that also benefit your brand. Finding creative ways to offer content that will likely also benefit your brand is the key to link building in the social era.
Guest blogging is an excellent way to offer something of value to a blog friend, and is likely to earn a link in return. Many bloggers reach a point where they’re tired of trying to find something interesting to say day after day. If you can offer a fresh perspective without sounding self-serving, the request will likely be met with enthusiasm. Before offering a guest blog post, though, be sure that the relationship is far enough along that you would feel comfortable entertaining a similar offer from that online friend.
Infographics are the current link building craze, and with good reason. Readers love the sound bite approach to consuming information in a world that bombards them with information constantly. Infographics can also be used as a relationship builder, or as a temporary exclusive for a special — and especially influential — online friend. Offer them the opportunity to publish the infographic before any other blog.
Interviews are another way to build relationships and introduce interesting media to your ecommerce site. Many bloggers or site owners or other professionals would be flattered by a request for an interview. Record the interview as a podcast or a video conference and it becomes a valuable addition to your site as well as a piece of content the interviewee is likely to link to and promote to his own network of fans as well.

Summary

There is no easy solution to link building today. Any way you approach it requires creativity, relationship skills, perseverance and a healthy dose of luck. The best link builders know that it’s worth it to keep trying with a handful of very influential experts in an industry than to give in to the pressure to build a larger quantity of low-quality links.

Source: http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3478-SEO-Build-Relationships-Not-Links

SEMPO Hyderabad Meetup 2012 – SEO and Search Marketing Event

2012-04-02T05:55:00.000-07:00

SEMPO Hyderabad 2012 - Evolution of Digital Marketing and Optimization

SEMPO Hyderabad Meetup is a day long event aimed at bringing together the best minds from the Digital Marketing space to talk about online advertising, including optimization and marketing issues. This event will feature a few technical sessions and a panel discussion, and aims to explore the present state and evolution of Digital Marketing and Optimization.

When & Where?

The event is scheduled on the 19th of April 2012 in Hyderabad, and will be held in Cognizant Hyderabad.

KRIDA Auditorium,
Cognizant Technology Solutions,
4th Floor, Phase 2, DLF Towers,
Gachibowli, Hyderabad,
Andhra Pradesh,
India

For more details, please contact Venkat Reddy (0 98482 92850)

Who is organizing ths meetup?

This meetup is organized by SEMPO India Chapter.

About SEMPO

SEMPO is the largest nonprofit trade organization in the world serving the search and digital marketing industry and marketing professionals engaged in it. SEMPO provides a foundation for industry growth by building stronger relationships, fostering awareness, providing education, promoting the industry. SEMPO also encourages generating research, and creating a better understanding of search and its role in marketing.
SEMPO’s activities are primarily centered on Education and Awareness. To support its educational mission, SEMPO offers an extensive library of resources, research and articles. SEMPO caters to outreach activities such as Webinars and local education/networking events facilitating its education mission. To drive Awareness of the value of search and digital marketing, and how to maximize its potential in a marketing mix, SEMPO funds outreach activities, events, and press. SEMPO’s research studies help to quantify the value of Search Marketing and track the industry trends.

Speakers & Agenda
SEMPO Hyderabad 2012 will feature knowledgeable and awe-inspiring speakers who are thought leaders in their respective industries.In addition the event will also have eminent speakers to address wide variety of topics on digital marketing. The enlightening speechs will include message on: how to improve the effectiveness of your website, advertising opportunities, social search, reputation management and industry trends.

Cost – SEMPO Hyderabad 2012

Free entry for SEMPO.org members.

For non-members, Rs.400 per person. It’s a door donation to meet the expenses towards lunch and logistics.

For more details – visit SEMPO Hyderabad website- http://www.sempo.in/hyderabad2012

Google ends Chrome search rank penalty period

2012-03-25T18:41:00.000-07:00

Google this month released Chrome from the penalty box and reinstated the browser's PageRank after a 60-day self-imposed sentence over a rule-breaking marketing campaign.

At some point during March, Google lifted the penalty it had imposed on Chrome the first week of January, when it demoted the search ranking of the browser's download page, www.google.com/chrome. It's unclear when Google restored the browser's search rank; SearchEngineLand first reported the punishment's expiration on March 16.

The decision to reduce Chrome's PageRank -- the rating Google assigns to sites based on how many other sites link to them -- came after SEO Book and SearchEngineLand revealed a marketing campaign that paid bloggers to create generic posts that linked to a video touting Chrome to small businesses.

Google forbids sponsored links, and the company has aggressively punished violators in the past.

On Jan. 4, Matt Cutts, who heads the Google team responsible for monitoring linking rules, announced that the Chrome download site's PageRank would be downgraded and kept there for at least 60 days.
Google demoted the download page's search ranking to 0, the lowest-possible score in PageRank's 0-10 range.

On March 24, several PageRank tools put the Chrome download page at 7.

Computerworld confirmed the improved PageRank by running searches using words such as "browser." That term now pulls a results page with Chrome in the third spot on the first page. During the penalty period, Chrome's download site was pushed all the way down to the sixth result on the fifth page.

Mozilla's Firefox remains the top result of a search using "browser."

Although Web metrics company Net Applications blamed the punishment for the largest-ever decline in Chrome's usage share during January, numbers from Irish measurement firm StatCounter told a different story.

According to StatCounter, Chrome's share continued to climb during the penalty period, increasing by 1.1 percentage points in January, 1.4 points in February and 1 point so far this month. The gains were very much in line with StatCounter's tracking of Chrome increases during 2011, which averaged just over 1 percentage point each month.

StatCounter current has Chrome at a 30.8% share, second only to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Meanwhile, Net Applications put Chrome's global share at 18.9%.

Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9225526/Google_ends_Chrome_search_rank_penalty_period

How Google ‘Handles’ SEO: My Beef With Matt Cutts

2012-03-25T18:32:00.000-07:00

I’m sure that most of you know or have heard of Matt Cutts at Google. For those who don’t, Cutts is the head of the web Spam team at Google. That is to say, Cutts works diligently to ensure that Google’s search results are “good” and he polices efforts by folks who try to (overtly) manipulate Google’s results through overly aggressive search engine optimization (SEO) tactics.

I want to say upfront that Cutts is a nice guy. Sincerely. That’s not me trying to get in his “good graces.” Cutts helps, in many ways, to guide folks in the proper way to market their websites, and goes out of his way to provide helpful information.

Matt provides information via his blog, provides insight via the GoogleWebmasterHelp channel on YouTube, his Twitter feed, countless conferences, and too many other channels for me to list here. I have no freaking clue how this guy does all of this and manages to have a life.

But, somehow he does, and somehow he manages to be smiling, every…single…time…that I see him. So, kudos to him.

With that said, here comes my “beef”... At SXSW, Cutts was quoted as saying (emphasis mine):

"We try to make the GoogleBot smarter, try to make our relevance more adaptive, so that if people don't do SEO we handle that. And we are also looking at the people who abuse it, who put too many keywords on a page, exchange way too many links, or whatever else they are doing to go beyond what you normally expect. We have several engineers on my team working on this right now."

Notice that bolded sentence?

This may lead folks to begin the charge of “SEO is dead," once again. I really hope not, because this won't cause SEO to flatline.

At the same event, Cutts also said that Google is trying to “level the playing field” from those who are excessive in their methods of trying to optimize their websites versus those websites who should be rewarded by creating quality content.

That’s my main point.

At the end of the day, companies need to produce quality content to have a presence in the search engines. Part of SEO is helping companies understand what kind of content needs to be produced and how that content needs to be promoted.

Often, this content needs to come in the form of actual pages on a company’s corporate website. If you provide certain services, you could make a pretty convincing argument that you should have a page on your site for each specific service that you provide, so that your website is seen as relevant for that keyword/service. Simple enough.

Sometimes, you may find keywords that your company would like to be associated with, but targeting these on a “service” page doesn’t make sense. Perhaps it’s a search query in which someone is seeking advice. Often, you can target these keywords via a blog. If you could write a post that provides resourceful information for your target audience, and showcases your thought-leadership, it’s a win-win. You’re providing information that is helpful to your audience, and you’re providing content which would be relevant for the search engines to rank.

It goes deeper than that, though.

Some “content” isn't textual. Sometimes you need to optimize image files. Sometimes, optimizing your videos can gain you a relatively quick presence in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Sometimes, SEO is a matter of helping companies do better with their local/map listings. Sometimes, companies need help with optimizing their shopping feeds. Sometimes PR (press release) efforts need strategic and tactical help, so that they gain as much presence as they can in the SERPs, as well as social channels (has anyone talked about how social is becoming more engrained in SEO efforts?).

SEO isn't dead. And Cutts may actually want to update his comment, in this instance, so that folks know. Google can’t replace SEO.

Perhaps I’m taking this out of context. But Google still needs SEO to push forward the message that companies need to produce quality content, make that content accessible, and promote that content, so that it can earn the right to have a presence in the major search engines.

Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2163423/How-Google-Handles-SEO-My-Beef-With-Matt-Cutts

On-Page SEO Factors: Which Ones Have the Most Impact on Rankings?

2012-03-21T18:40:00.000-07:00

Even though SEO is a synergy of different practices, not all of them are equally important for higher rankings. And, because SEO’s are normally pressed-for-time individuals, it’s essential for them to know what SEO tasks should be their priority.

Speaking of on-page and off-page SEO (many SEO’s also consider keyword research a separate aspect), I’d like to say that, quite often, on-page SEO does not get the attention it should. This is because, in general, it takes less time than link building and often plays second fiddle to off-page SEO when an emergency rankings boost is required.

However, there are certain on-page SEO factors, leveraging which can work miracles for your site, and it’s important to know how much impact each of them carries. So, let’s talk about these factors.

Lay a Foundation for Higher Rankings

Any construction work begins with laying a foundation for the future building. Likewise, on-page SEO begins with creating a certain carcass for the site’s content. What’s important SEO-wise is that this carcass gets ‘A’ grades from the search engines. In other words, search engines should find it easily crawlable and non-confusing.

Here are the checkpoints that should be covered when running an on-page SEO audit. They are arranged starting with the most important ones:

of utmost importance highly important very important

quite important of minimum importance.

Use the above information to understand how important the follow factors below are.

HTTP response code errors

A reliable hosting provider is crucial to your website’s success in the SERPs. If the server your site is hosted on is often unavailable or takes a long time to respond, the search engines won’t hold much for your Web resource.
Not to mention that, if your site is unavailable, the users will simply not be able to access it. Therefore, we consider this factor to be of utmost importance.

Site speed

It’s all about the user experience these days, and the search engines have gotten even pickier when it comes to site speed. Over a year ago, Google confirmed that site load speed was an important ranking factor.

Internal links pointing to the page

When the webpages of your site are interlinked, it helps both users and the search engines navigate it. Internal links with appropriate anchor texts have a big impact on a page’s position in the SERPs. However, be careful not to overdo – your internal links should look natural to the search engines.

Correct rel=”canonical” Use

Canonical tags help one eliminate duplicate content WITHIN their own site. Let’s say you have several versions of your URL indexed (for instance, www.example.com, example.com and www.example.com/home.htlm), in which case Google may treat them as different pages with duplicate content on them. So, using the rel=”canonical” attribute would solve the problem.

Absence of Broken Links

Search engine bots crawl not only the page they arrive at, but the links they find on it. If any of those links are broken, the overall impression of your page is spoiled.
At the same time, it’s understandable that you can barely be responsible for what is happening on third-party sites you provide links to. Hence, it’s not a HUGE ranking factor in the eyes of the search engines, even though a fairly important one. The best practice would be to check your site for broken links from time to time.

Perfect HTML Code

Although the quality of your markup is not an insanely important factor, sloppy HTML code does diminish your chances to rank higher in the search engines. It’s best to make sure there are no errors on your webpages using the W3C HTML and markup validator. Besides, there are on-page SEO tools (like our WebSite Auditor) that come with a built-in markup validator as well.

Valid CSS

Just like perfect HTML, valid CSS is not a must, but rather an additional asset to one’s recipe for successful SEO. Besides, you’d want to pay more attention to your CSS if you’re optimizing for the mobile Web and using special mobile style sheets for mobile users.
And, as W3C offers a CSS validation service as well, you can use it to check for CSS errors and warnings.
Now we are talking CONTENT
Once the infrastructure for your site’s content has been taken care of, it’s time to optimize the content. A site’s content sends the search engines certain signals, using which they determine how relevant the site is for a particular query.
The more signals there are and the stronger they are, the more likely a search engine is to deem your site relevant. However, too strong of a signal could be suspicious, right? So, keep that in mind.
In respect to content, what matters for rankings is:
Keyword-related factors

Keyword in URL

Everybody in the SEO industry knows that exact match domains tend to perform extremely well in the SERPs. If so, why doesn’t everyone just buy a domain name that also happens to be their keyword and hit Google’s top?
Well, there certain cons here. First, the desired domain name is often taken. Second, for branding purposes, it is better to go for a brand name as your domain name. And, third, we believe that the impact that exact match domain names have on rankings will most likely decrease in the future.

Keyword in Page Title

Unlike in the case with domain names, it’s much easier to stick your keyword in a page title. Just make sure that your titles also look natural, since real people are going to see them in the search results. For example, out of the two page titles

Holiday Gifts New York|Gifts Brooklyn|Free Delivery|Gifts
Holiday Gifts for All Occasions – Brooklyn New York – Free Delivery

The second one is definitely more attractive.

Keywords in Internal Anchor Texts

As I said earlier, internal linking is important for higher rankings. However, simply linking to your landing page from other pages of your site won’t do much. To attain the desired effect, use your keywords in the anchor texts. Also, make them [anchor texts] vary. Links with identical anchors will look unnatural to the search engines and may be ignored.

Keyword in H1 Text

H1 is an HTML tag normally used to mark headings. When your keywords stand in H1 tags, they carry more weight, so to say, and have a bigger effect on your site rankings.

Keyword in Image Alt Text

Image alt text is what gets displayed instead of your image when it cannot be loaded, or when certain functions responsible for rendering images are disabled in a person’s browser. If image alt texts reflect the rest of your page’s semantics, this sends the search engines a signal that your page is relevant to the search query, and they rank it higher.

Keyword Frequency (body text)

Needless to say, you keywords should be present in your page copy as well. However, the exact number of keywords that helps you achieve top rankings would depend on the niche, the search engine, etc. So, there is no ideal keyword density that’ll work for any site.
The general rules that apply here are: it’s best to use your keywords more towards the beginning of your page and to avoid keyword stuffing.

Keyword in Bold/Italic

Keywords in bold/italic do have a bit more significance in the eyes of the search engines, but, please, remember that the user comes first and use formatting wisely.

Keyword in Meta Description

If your meta description contains keywords irrelevant to the overall theme of your webpage, this will do little to improve your rankings, and the search engine may even choose not to display the description you specify.
However, if your meta description is semantically in line with the rest of the page’s content, this can give your site rankings a boost.
Content quality-related factors

Content Uniqueness

Did you know that, if you copy content from another site on the Web and post it on a webpage, the page may not even turn up in the search results? Google sometimes treats pages with identical content as versions of one and the same page, determines which one of them appears to be the most trustworthy and filters out the rest of the pages from its search results.
So, if you’re striving for higher rankings, the content on your page must be as unique as possible.

Content Freshness

In general, the more often you update your content, the better. Fresh content is especially important for Web 2.0 sites, news portals, etc. Besides, many SEO professionals say that, in the future, the query deserves freshness (QDF) mechanism in Google’s algorithm will be triggered more and more often, so, fresh content will become even more important.

The Amount of Content Above the Fold

In the light of the recent Google’s algo update, having sufficient content ‘above the fold’ becomes more important than ever. ‘Above the fold’ is the part of the page users see immediately upon arriving at your site, without having to scroll down. Hence, make sure that enough meaningful content is right away visible.

Content Density (thin content)

The overall content density of your site is also important. Google’s Panda update series targeted websites with ‘thin content’, among other things. Well, looks like owners of minimalist sites now have something to ponder.

The use of Visual Content

The search engines also look at whether you’re using any visual aids, such as images or videos on your website. It’s not a crucial on-page SEO factor, but still can win you a tiny fraction of Google’s affection, since it serves to indicate that your site is more likely to provide a decent user experience.

Conclusion

If not done properly, on-page SEO can really become a stumbling stone for your site on its way to Google’s top. Hence, it is just as important to take care of it as it is to do link building.

And, when performing on-page SEO, identify your priorities to save yourself time and move your site up the ladder of success with minimum effort. The above provided list of on-page SEO factor will help you do just that.

Source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/on-page-seo-factors-which-ones-have-the-most-impact-on-rankings/40926/

Google Points Out 5 Common SEO Mistakes [VIDEO]

2012-03-20T18:58:00.000-07:00

It appears that Google may now be getting deeper into the business of helping SEO’s if a video posted yesterday to the Webmaster Central Blog is any indication. It’s not Matt Cutts this time either, it’s the new Google video SEO star, Maile Ohye developer programs tech lead. The following video points out 5 common mistakes and 6 ideas for effective SEO moving forward. The level of the video is set at beginner to intermediate.

What is interesting is this type of advice coming from data while one well known SEO, Wil Reynolds, had written over at the SEOmoz bemoaning the fact that despite SEO’s following Google’s pleas to do certain things to rank better the rewards often go to those who are avoiding the real work to get rankings. …it’s that the “Good Guys” of SEO, the people who do the things like building great content and community are being made into two faced liars every day by Google. Every day we tell our clients to build good content and Google will reward them we know that it’s a white lie most times, because the other side of that coin is and ALSO build anchor text links so you can actually rank well, because community building is not enough of a factor yet. Ouch. Google sets the bar for the beginner to intermediate SEO to generate and attract buzz while creating fresh and relevant content but a real world and very experienced practitioner of the SEO arts says that it’s not enough to be effective. Why does Google have this issue still today? It’s nice that Google is taking this whole transparency thing seriously but being transparent and telling the complete truth may not always mean the same thing to the search giant and that’s too bad. How do you feel about Google’s observations and recommendations from the video? Are they enough? Is Google really making “good guy” SEO worth your effort? We would love to hear your opinion.

How and Where Does SEO Fit Into Digital Marketing in 2012?

2012-03-19T18:28:00.000-07:00

SEO as a marketing discipline is going through a growing pain of sorts. There's been a lot of talk lately about the terminology we use in the industry to describe our work, notably "The Brand of SEO and the Trend of Inbound Marketing" and "The Industry Case For and Against SEO."

It's an important debate to have, and no doubt, will be a continual discussion within the industry. But more importantly, it makes me ask questions about what role SEO should play today.
SEO remains a very important channel. Increasingly, public relations teams, social media managers, and brand managers are thinking strategically about SEO when they run their campaigns. Search as a marketing vehicle has steadily risen in demand.

Search also happens to be one of the most efficient, ROI-focused, and measureable channels in the history of marketing.

We all know SEO is important. But what specifically should we be using SEO for in 2012? What are the big areas of opportunity, what's changed, and what's stayed the same?

Search Attribution: Giving Proper Credit

In most attribution studies, the tendency is to undervalue SEO. It's a complex problem, to be sure, but can be "thin sliced" by simply looking at the macro data.

My colleague Mark Ballard's analysis of the retail industry has shown that 63 percent of all search orders had a single touch of either PPC or SEO and just 10 percent of all search orders had both a PPC and SEO touch.

Startling data. But what does it mean?

Please read the above link to get a deeper look at this, but the key thing to remember is that brand and non-brand segments behave very differently. We often refer to brand search as "navigational," being that the searcher is actively looking for a specific entity. In distinction, we refer to non-brand search as "competitive," being that the searcher isn't specifying a brand and is instead looking at a category, product, or piece of information.

The bottom line is that competitive search is where you want to play. Navigational search results are often credited in aggregate with competitive results, clouding the picture. While we most often encounter this on the paid side, we see marketers making the same mistakes on the organic side. Competitive, non-branded SEO is what it's all about, and where the focus of your ROI should be placed.

Knowing that about two-thirds of all search orders had a single touch (in retail, the focus of our analysis), it becomes clear that while SEO and PPC integration are essential, the two channels also need to stand on their own two feet. Companies must do both disciplines well, then share learnings cross-channel to inform each respective campaign. With so much independence of traffic, this data also validates other studies we've done on PPC and SEO that showed little cannibalization.

What Really Matters With Mobile SEO

Google has a history of being flaky about mobile SEO, so it was refreshing this week when Bing came out with a strong recommendation for responsive design (a single URL to serve all content, mobile, or web). The problem is that answer is not ideal. The best approach to mobile is a hybrid model that caters content delivery to the specific needs of the user. In some cases, having dedicated, mobile-specific sites and content is the right thing to do.

Regardless of the technical approach, what's important with mobile is how it impacts the bottom line. And our data has shown that mobile devices have vastly different conversion rates.

While the Kindle Fire has jumped to third place in terms of overall tablet traffic (closely tied with Android), it still represents a tiny fraction of marketshare compared to the iPad's 88 percent. More importantly, however, is that conversion metrics by device show the iPad far out-performing any other tablet device (and the iPad is very competitive with desktop in this category). The Kindle Fire performs poorly for a tablet, with a conversion rate roughly 76 percent lower than the iPad.

Depending on your users and target market, the iPad may be the device to focus on. That simplifies technology decisions, at least until things change, which might be a while.

Social and the Link Graph

All signs (so far) point to Google failing to create meaningful adoption in Google+. There, I said it.
"Social is not a product. Social are people, and those people are on Facebook."

The truth distilled clearly by this ex-Googler's daughter when he showed her Google+.

Sure, his perspective is clouded by his new alliance with Microsoft. But boy is it telling, and surely adds to the mounting negative views out there from very influential folks.

Not helping is the latest data from Pew Internet, which is also compelling: two-thirds of searchers view personalized results as a bad thing.

While Google hasn't struggled with reach - now boasting over 90 million Google+ users - it has struggled with adoption and engagement. The average time a Google+ user spends on the site: about three minutes per month. The average time a user spends on Facebook: over six hours.

Google is desperate to create a social graph (it's now calling Google+ a "layer") that will augment, or maybe someday even replace, the link graph and PageRank model. Google seeks to understand not just content, but also relationships, people, authors, authorities, and influencers. It wants the PageRank of people!

The problem is, Facebook already has this data, and to a lesser extent, so does Twitter. Google+ is late to the party. Instead of creating adoption through innovation and embracing what users want, or even partnering, it is cramming Search Plus Your World down users' throats.

Here's the irony: having said all that, having a Google+ brand page is today an absolute requirement. When someone "circles" your brand page in Google+, that can dramatically change the SERP and their results (in your brand's favor). The same is true for personal accounts and authors.

Google+ has become a mandate within Google. Therefore, it's become a mandate for SEO.

Conclusion

Search (and the web more generally) is going toward HTML5 and microformats. Author profiles and other rich snippets are already appearing in competitive SERPs and new schemas are popping up all the time. Fancy HTML5 annotations now help with SEO pagination and international region targeting.
Then there's Panda, which above all else puts the focus on user metrics. Do what you can do to engage users, to lure them into clicking on your organic result, and to keep them on your site and give them a reason to come back.

We've entered a new era of SEO, and no matter what we choose to call it, it's an exciting place to be.

Source: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2159888/seo-fit-digital-marketing-2012

New TLDs, not Really Good for a Ranking Boost, says Google!

2012-03-18T22:21:00.001-07:00

Matt Cutts on his Google+ page wrote that new TLDs will not help the raking of the websites.
He said, “I don’t expect a new TLD to get any kind of initial preference over .com, and I wouldn’t bet on that happening in the long-term either.”

This came as the response to a claim in markingmag.com.au, where the CEO of a Domain Registrar said that new TLD web addresses will be given priority by Google as over .com.

Here is what Matt exactly wrote, “I read a post by someone offering new top-level domain (TLDs). They made this claim: "Will a new TLD web address automatically be favoured by Google over a .com equivalent? Quite simply, yes it will."

Sorry, but that's just not true, and as an engineer in the search quality team at Google, I feel the need to debunk this misconception. Google has a lot of experience in returning relevant web pages, regardless of the top-level domain (TLD). Google will attempt to rank new TLDs appropriately, but I don't expect a new TLD to get any kind of initial preference over .com, and I wouldn't bet on that happening in the long-term either. If you want to register an entirely new TLD for other reasons, that's your choice, but you shouldn't register a TLD in the mistaken belief that you'll get some sort of boost in search engine rankings.”

Are You Using the Right Keywords On Your Site? A Simple Three-Rule Test

2012-03-18T19:19:00.000-07:00

Keyword research is important to online marketing efforts. But even more important than that is the keywords you select for your SEO and PPC efforts. Of course, you cannot select what you have not researched, but finding keywords generally isn’t the problem. There are tons of keyword tools available that will help you do that.
The question is, what do you do with your keyword lists once you’ve compiled them?
Just as there is no shortage of good keyword tools, there is also no shortage of metrics that you can use to determine the value of any given keyword. A few that tend to top our keyword selections lists are:

Search volume: How many searches per day or month are being performed for each phrase. The higher the volume, the greater the opportunity to drive traffic to your site.
Search competition: How many sites are displayed when performing a search using a keyword.
Title competition: How many sites are displayed when performing a search for the keyword only in title tags.
Direct Competition: Whether a specific competitor ranks for any particular keyword.
KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index): A score based on how often a keyword is searched balanced against keyword competition.

Each of these metrics provides valuable insight, but they ultimately should not be used in selecting keywords. Stats like these can tell us what is happening with the keywords, but it can’t tell us why. And unless you know why something is, it’s impossible to make a smart decision about it.
Here is what the stats don’t tell us:

Search volume: How many of these searches are actually relevant? Will the searcher find what their search intended on your site?
Search competition: Are the sites ranking for these keywords legitimate competition? Are they truly optimized sites?
Title competition: Are these competitors that cannot be defeated? How many of them will be easy to topple?
Direct Competition: Do you know if your competitors are getting any value from ranking for these keywords?
KEI: Does a competitive score mean you shouldn’t try to rank for the keyword? Is there long-term value in trying?

Looking at keywords in terms of volume or difficulty is a good measure for setting expectations in terms of time and budget it will take to get your site ranked. Looking at whether your competitors rank for that phrase only tells you whether your competitors rank for a phrase. For all you know they have performed zero keyword research, or went after a phrase because someone else did. That’s not a good signal by itself.
The problem with looking at any of the signals and data above is it does not tell you anything about searcher intent or whether you can convert those keywords into sales. It’s good data to have, but not the data you need to make good keyword selection decisions.
To do that, you need to apply this simple three-rule test for keyword selection:

Is the keyword relevant to your target audience? There are a lot of keywords that are seemingly relevant, but when you look closer at visitor intent, you find that the searcher is looking for something different entirely. Not even all “industry relevant” keywords will be relevant to your products or services in particular. Be sure to analyze visitor intent for each of your keywords. Unfortunately, the only tool that can do that is your brain.
Will the keyword deliver traffic? This question cannot be answered until the question above is. Not all traffic is the same, so you need to make sure it’s targeted traffic. Don’t let high search volume bias you. Even low volume keywords can deliver a fantastic amount of targeted traffic when combined with other long-tail phrases.
Will the traffic sent by the keyword convert? You can take your best guess here, but only time and analytics will tell. Every keyword you invest any significant amount of time in optimizing for SEO or PPC should be able to convert your visitors into customers. Spend more time investing in keywords with higher conversion rates.

The simplified version of this three-rule test is: Relevancy, Traffic and Conversions. Every good keyword should be able to satisfy each of these satisfactorily. If they are lacking anywhere, then the value of the keyword will also be lacking.
You can select relevant keywords that drive traffic, but if you can’t convert them, maybe it’s not as relevant as you thought. You can select relevant traffic that converts, but if the traffic isn’t there. Conversions will be sparse. If you select high-volume keywords that occasionally convert, but without the relevance, the conversion rates will be low and your effort will be high. Not a good mix for productivity!
There may be some wiggle-room between each keyword, but ultimately, you only want to select keywords that will deliver performance on all three levels. If not, then you may just be wasting your time! The best keywords are keywords that you have determined to be relevant and have tested to get results. Nothing else really matters.

Source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/are-you-using-the-right-keywords-on-your-site-a-simple-three-rule-test/40971/

The Next Wave Of Google Algorithm Changes

2012-03-18T19:15:00.000-07:00

It sounds like Google’s algorithm is going to change again, and while I don’t believe in chasing the algorithm, I do find the impacts on our industry interesting, but even more so the impact it has on user behavior. The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of changes to Google to get people to stay on site longer to compete against Facebook may actually be a bad strategy for Google and more importantly bad for people. The article implies Google is slowly moving to an answer engine to compete against Siri, and becoming more semantic in nature. While I think for the end user this may be a great idea, it may actually hurt Google financially and it will be interesting to see how this evolves.
So how might this impact Google’s wallet? In the simplest terms Google’s revenue comes from clicks. The way the WSJ talks about these changes to the user experience, Google will provide more content that requires less clicking. Surfacing content to searches, if clicks decrease revenue decreases.

A Primary Source of Revenue

Google’s revenue stream today comes from the hunt and peck approach of clicking links and then validating if the page or content is relevant by the user. The argument in favor of this working out in the long run is that most searches are not actually transactional in nature, and therefore probably don’t have relevant ads showing up on them. While Google says they want to be able to push more relevant ads, the truth is they still make money on non-relevant ones as well, but they only get money if they get clicks.
So what does this mean to you the search strategist? This means from a paid perspective you may see an increase in CPC. Why? Because the competition for clicks will still be as high as before, but the number of available clicks will likely be decreasing. This also means that anyone that employs a top of the funnel strategy where they try and win customers in the discovery or research phase of their purchase cycle are likely to see some drops in traffic. Even more challenging is that Google will now control the message to the consumer instead of leaving it the variety of sites to earn the trust of the user that may actually offer more diversification than Google’s classifications will.
Here’s an example scenario. Say I searched for “things to do in Toronto”. Google’s results may include:

A list of recommended hotels.
The top 5 attractions
The population
The geographic size
Other facts about the city.

The hotel list doesn’t really change from local results, but the top 5 attractions, what impact does this have on tourism? Instead of getting a link to a page that may be able to cover a great variety of events, and attractions, we’re now stuck with Google’s Top 5 list. Whether we realize it or not Google is slowly turning our lives into lists, and if you’re not on the list you’re not relevant.
This is why there was a boom in local search when this was introduced. There will be a boom again as it becomes clearer what types of lists Google will focus on. How about entertainment? Or restaurants? Or events? How much of a coincidence that most of these things also have clear schema’s developed?

The Impact to Your World

We know changes to the algorithm also have real world impact as there are countless stories of complaints every time the algorithm changes. Users trust Google so implicitly they don’t question if Google still deserves that trust. As Google gets better at recommending answers and things to do, will users actually get dumber? Will users become more homogeneous? Google already starts to suggest what you should search for as you type, and now they display the results.
Even if Google says they see 20% of searches as new and unique, what volume actually makes up the short head? Further is the head growing? Or are there specific categories of searches that are growing and easily classified? I assume we’ll know as we start to see these search results show up.

Why is it a Bad Thing for Google to Keep Users on Their Site?

It means users aren’t exploring the bigger world. Today a search and a click through can result in a new set of questions, or you can be delighted by clicking a link and not getting what you thought you wanted; but reading about something unexpected that triggers a different search instead. While I don’t think Google is going to impact what users do over night and society as a whole, the fact is Google and more importantly search and the way it impacts our lives can dramatically change what and how we think and learn. If you spend time on Facebook it’s because you want to read about friends, play games or share things about yourself. If I spend more time on Google it’s because I need answers, and while I want them to be as relevant as possible, I don’t mind when Google’s wrong at times, that’s part of the fun of Googling, but I do look forward to the next round of complaints from our industry as Google changes the rules again.

Source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/the-next-wave-of-google-algorithm-changes/41490/

15 Social Media Wordpress Plugins for 2012

2012-03-17T18:28:00.000-07:00

Social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter have motivated businesses and corporations all over to take advantage of the sheer volume of users on these social media websites. Here is a list of plugins for Wordpress, that should help your social media efforts!

Flexo Facebook Manager: this handy little plugin allows you to integrate Facebook into your web site. This means that not only will people be reading your materials, but they will also have the ability to share it on Facebook, as well as use their facebook accounts through your website! This gives you way more movement in your site. Share your custom fan pages. Created by: flexo studio
Google+ Page Badge: this plugin gives you the ability to have a widget on the side of your page which will give people access to their Google+ accounts. What does this mean? This means that when they click this, all of their friends and contacts on Google+ will also see your blog, which means that you get lots more traffic! The more people you have coming, the more chances you have of having a company advertise with you. Handy huh? Created by: bkmacdaddy
Social Connect Widget: this plugin gives you a widget that you can place on your page. This widget has links to all of the most popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter. This means that not only are there new backlinks to your web site, but you also have more people visiting your site! Created by: Scrybes WordPress Hosting
Storify: this plugin allows you to embed a storify story into your posts. This, again, means that you now have more links to high traffic social media websites. This improves your SEO, which in turn gives you a higher rating with search engines, and more opportunities for traffic to see your page. Created by: Storify
Facebook Likebox Slider: Facebook is one of the most searched for items on the web. This plugin gives your website Facebook headers, faces, and streams. This means that when people search for Facebook, your web page will come up more often, and you'll have lots of people seeing your page more! Here come the advertisers! Created by: ARScode
Garee's Flickr Feed: a handy little plugin that allows you to embed and integrate pictures from your Flickr account into your blog. This means that you have more connections and links to other sites, specifically Flickr, which gives you increased SEO and more through traffic from Flickr. Created by: garee
Facebook Comments: this replaces the typical Wordpress comments with Facebook comments. People who visit your site will be able to leave comments on your blog through Facebook. This helps you by giving more people easier access to your site. This means that they will visit it more, and, once again, it creates links to Facebook. SEO increases. Created by: AndersonMaki
Pinterest Pinboard Widget: apparently there is yet another social media site called Pinterest. This plugin gives you access to a widget that you can use to create pinboards on your blog page. This helps you to make your web page look more fancy and sophisticated, and brings in more people. Created by: codefish
PressAboutUs: this widget gives reviews and the latest news about your web page, on your web page. It is a great way to get information about how your page is doing and what you can do to improve it. Also will help people to know if your page is worth visiting. Make it worth visiting! Created by: Yauhen Pacheuski
EZ Texting SMS Notifications: this is a really cool plugin for the die hard blog fan. It gives your viewers the chance to sign up to be notified by text message on their phone whenever you post or blog about something new! This means that you can keep fans easier, and helps your “cool factor.” Created by: eztexting
Kindle This: this plugin is very unique: it allows one of your web pages on your blog to be converted into Kindle pages. This means that your pictures and links won't appear properly, but you could potentially get a lot more viewers if you expand your blog to Kindle as well! Created by: Keith P. Graham
SpaceFace and the Rest: an interesting plugin that gives you the ability to link Facebook, YouTube and MySpace all at once to your blog. This can be great as you can post your blogs not just on your site, but on three highly successful media pages as well. Lots of new traffic for you! Created by: jozik
Social Author Bio: this plugin gives you the ability to write a short bio about yourself on your page. Right below the bio will be links of your choice to social media websites such as Facebook and Google+. This will help people to know you better, and give them the opportunity to share your post with millions of users! Created by: nickpowers
WordPress Social Login: this plugin allows people to log in to Wordpress using their favourite social networking site and gives them the ability to leave comments and view the blogs. This means that it gives them much easier access to view your page, which means more traffic, which means increased chances of advertisers! Yay! Created by: miled
Social Sharing Toolkit: another plugin that allows you to share your Facebook and other social media web sites through your blog and web site. Increased traffic and SEO are your reward.

Source: http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2012/03/16/15-social-media-wordpress-plugins-for-2012/

Blog Writing Best Practices for SEO

2012-03-16T19:42:00.000-07:00

As an SEO company one of the more frequent questions we get from our clients is how they should be managing and writing their blog. We have decided to publish a Best Practices for Blog Writing post.

Unique Quality Content. When it comes to search engines, content is king. They value good quality content and give it much greater consideration in the rankings. Avoid copying and pasting other content that you find on the internet unless you are quoting a publication. If there are some similar points that you want make, it would be best to rewrite the content into your own words.
Be Engaging. If you write engaging content your readers will want to keep coming back. Not only will they want to come back, but they will also be more willing to share what you write with their friends.
Social Tools. Incorporating social sharing tools such as Addthis.com or Sharethis.com into your blog posts will provide easy options for your readers to share information with their friends. The search engines analyze social signals to determine which companies or websites people like as well as who is legitimate. They have incorporated those signals into their algorithms.
Length of Posts. Search engines do care about how many words a blog post has. They are looking for content with substance even though the length of a post isn’t a true gauge of that. I would recommend somewhere between 250-600 words. Just keep in mind that you shouldn’t be writing content just to meet a word quota. Quality content is always king.
Comments. I always recommend allowing comments. You want to stay connected to your readers. You also get an SEO benefit from the comment content being added to the page. Search Engines like it when pages are updated. Make sure you moderate often and have a comment spam solution in place.
Spelling and Grammar. The search engines pay close attention to spelling and grammar. There are several low quality websites that outsource their writing needs to content shops that just churn out low quality content. Sniffing out and devaluing that low quality content was and is one of the primary objectives for the Google Panda Updates.
Linking Strategies. When you are writing your posts don’t forget to look for opportunities to link to other content within your website. It is even better if you have the opportunity to link back to that content with a keyword phrase that you are trying to rank for on the linked page. It is also okay to link outside of your website if they are an authoritative source on the topic of your post. Obviously you won’t receive as much of a benefit as you would if you were linking to your own website, but the post could get some trust points with the search engines if they are quality sources. As for how many links you would have in a given post, I would try and limit that to 1-2 links per 200 words.
Tagging. After you have written your blog post, title, description, and keywords, you also generally have the option to set tags. Tags can be used for categorization by the search engines, but probably don’t hold much weight. Content will be the ultimate guide for their algorithms. When you tag try and keep the tags limited to ideas, concepts, locations, events, and product names. Don’t overuse tags either. I wouldn’t use more than 10 tags to categorize a blog post. In the vast majority of instances I will use 4 or less.

Source: http://www.highervisibility.com/blog/blog-writing-best-practices-for-seo/

Google’s Over SEO Optimization Penalty

2012-03-16T19:28:00.000-07:00

If you haven’t already heard, Google’s Matt Cutts and Bing’s Duane Forrester recently did a SXSW session with Danny Sullivan where they addressed questions from the audience. About 1/3 of the way into the audio though, Matt let slip a comment about an upcoming rankings change designed to target “Over Optimization” in an attempt to level the SEO playing field.

You can Listen to the audio here.

About 1/3 of the way in Matt says this:

What about the people optimizing really hard and doing a lot of SEO. We don’t normally pre-announce changes but there is something we are working in the last few months and hope to release it in the next months or few weeks. We are trying to level the playing field a bit. All those people doing, for lack of a better word, over optimization or overly SEO – versus those making great content and great site. We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect. We have several engineers on my team working on this right now.

So what exactly is this new change?

Truthfully, nobody knows quite yet. Many are expecting Cutts to shed more light on this at SMX Advanced this summer however it’s quite likely that the change will happen well before then (if it hasn’t already happened.)
There’s a lot of speculation on the various SEO forums about what’s involved, and if I had to venture my own guess I’d say it probably has to do with ranking factor correlation. I know that’s broad but there’s several directions Google could go with this.
Matt mentions too many keywords on a page, but I would assume that Google is already pretty good at detecting things like keyword stuffing and extreme link building so there’s probably slighty more to it. But what?
I’ve written about my theory of sustainable SEO before, and if you’re coming to SMX Toronto I’ll be speaking about it in depth so I won’t go too much into it here. Basically, Google’s top priority is making sure search results are useful to the user. True SEO success comes when your site adopts that same goal. If you’re focusing on making your site add more value for users and doing so in a way that’s easily crawlable and shareable you should have no problems with this change. Sadly, many of us often forego usefulness in favor of quick results. That’s probably what this change is designed to catch.
So what could it be looking for? Well, remember when I said correlation? One thing they might be doing is comparing various ranking factors. If your site is gaining tons of links but nobody’s sharing it or tweeting about it then that’s probably not natural and might be a signal. That’s my guess.

Enough about my guess though…

Source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/googles-over-seo-optmization-penalty/41517/

Top SEO Tips on Multilingual Keywords

2012-03-16T19:22:00.000-07:00

Achieving the perfect search engine optimization (SEO) strategy for any website can often feel nigh on impossible. With Google and many other search engines regularly changing their search algorithms, it’s a constant battle trying to attract the right web searchers to your website. Throw another language into the mix and making the most of your keywords can feel like climbing Mount Everest.

But if you learn to love it more than you hate it, and you follow a few simple tips on how to make your multilingual keywords work for you, you’re guaranteed to see results.
Whereas the English-speaking Internet is bursting at the seams with content, there’s plenty of multilingual web space up for grabs, giving your website less competition and more potential to be found in searches. With a whole host of reasons to go multilingual, here are some top tips on how to get started.

Understanding Multilingual Keywords

Regardless of what language your website is written in, keywords are the answer to getting it ranked highly on search engines. They are the vital link between what people are searching for and what is on your website, and whether your website ranks as relevant to a user’s search is based purely on the presence of your keywords.
Simply put, if you don’t have the key search words in your website, your website just won’t be found. Working keywords into your copy is the cheapest and most effective way to increase online presence. With the right keywords, you can dramatically increase your company’s online presence.

Choose The Perfect Keywords

How do you go about finding your multilingual keywords? You may already have a good selection of words in English and these are a great starting point.
Employ a translation agency or local professional to translate the terms; their input is worth every cent, as cultural insight and language skills will ensure your keywords match local searches.
You can also get a little more proactive. Use online tools, such as Google AdWords, to get a feel for how the local market is searching for your brand or product.
Remember though that people don’t search for things using corporate technical language. Instead they pick more day-to-day phrases – and this means that you should too. Try to Cherry-pick those keywords that have good search volumes and little competition.

Incorporate Your Keywords Into Your Website

Don’t go crazy and put keywords everywhere. Remember, less is more.
Most keywords – for example, your product name – will naturally crop up in website copy. But with the others a more subtle approach is required and the worst mistake you could make is to add keywords where they don’t belong.
Not only will you bore your readers and the content will lack natural flow, but the pages can be flagged-up by search engines as spam. A great tip is to apply the power of one; use them once in the article title, once in the description, once in bold, and once in italics. If it reads a little clunky, take it out and try it somewhere else.

Track Your Keyword Success

Once you’ve added the keywords, you can start to monitor their performance. Keyword trends can change pretty quickly, so tracking their success is just as important as using them.
Google Analytics is a great online tool for rating performance. Those that aren’t generating any customer traffic should be tweaked. Simply changing one word or shortening another, from automobile to auto for example, can see a dramatic peak in traffic.

Make Your Content Current

Search engines thrive on current information. Not only does topical content make your website a much more interesting page for your users, but it increases your SEO, as their contemporaneity naturally ranks higher. Blogs, Twitter feeds and news articles are great ways to incorporate new content and, more importantly, offer you a chance to build in your keywords. Relevant and current copy also shows an understanding of more locally important issues.

Use Search Engines Other Than Google

if you’re going multilingual is that there’s more than just Google. Although it is the most popular search engine worldwide, in some areas local competitors are dominant.
Baidu is the most commonly used search engine in China, for example, while Yandex is the market leader in Russia. Refine your SEO approach for each search engine. Use their data analysis tools (Baidu Keyword and YandexWordstat) to check your keywords.

Summary

With these simple tips, you can really maximize your website’s potential. In just a couple of months, you’ll soon see your rankings improve and the number of visitors increase.

Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2159910/Top-SEO-Tips-on-Multilingual-Keywords

Video Insights into SEO Pagination by Google!

2012-03-15T00:16:00.001-07:00

During the SMX East in September 2011, Google revealed their solution for pagination issues in SEO and search – view all & rel="next" and rel="prev".
This complex and technical topic has proved to be helpful for large sites with a lot of pagination. Google’s Maile Ohye posted a video about it on the Webmaster’s YouTube channel as an attempt to make it easily understandable.

Source: http://www.pagetrafficbuzz.com/video-insights-seo-pagination-google/13383/

Google's Search Quality Meeting on Tape for the First Time!

2012-03-14T23:53:00.002-07:00

Google has released an uncut snippet video of an internal search quality meeting. The footage is of a meeting held on the 1st of December last year, weekly "Quality Launch Review" meetings. As Google says, “We’ve done something new and special to give you another inside look at how search works. Today we’ve published, for the first time, a video with the uncut discussion of a proposed algorithm change (in this case, an upcoming change to our spell correction system). The language can be technical, so we've included annotations to provide some context for the discussion (and have a little fun!).”

The video shows a discussion among the search team leaders on a variety of topics and data they discuss before making many of the important changes to the algorithm. What do you think of this new attempt at transparency by Google? Do share your views.

Source: http://www.pagetrafficbuzz.com/googles-search-quality-meeting-tape-time/13381/

Bing And Google Gain Market Share While Yahoo Drops

2012-03-08T21:40:00.000-08:00

The comScore February search market share numbers are being exposed by the various financial and investment firms this evening. Bing continued to gain, while its partner Yahoo lost market share. Google was up compared to January and year over year.
Keeping in mind this isn’t yet the official comScore release, the following are the numbers for February:

Google: 66.4 percent (vs. 65.4 percent a year ago)
Bing: 15.3 percent (vs. 13.6 percent a year ago)
Yahoo: 13.8 percent (vs. 16.1 percent a year ago)
Ask: 3 percent (vs. 3.2 percent a year ago)
AOL: 1.5 percent (vs. 1.7 percent a year ago)

The combined search alliance share is now 29.1 percent, essentially flat and where it has been for many months. However Yahoo’s decline since last year at this time has been significant.
For comparison, here are the official comScore numbers from January, 2012:

The data above do not reflect mobile search market share, which accounts for between 15 percent and 30 percent of query volume in some categories. There, Google is almost totally dominant.
US mobile search market share

Source: StatCounter

Guest Blogging Strategies - Whiteboard Friday

2012-03-08T21:33:00.001-08:00

Guest blogging can be a great way to help build up your brand, earn recognition, and even get some great links back to your site. When guest blogging it's important to study your audience so that you can produce the best content possible. Exceptional content is often heavily shared and that has huge potential value for your site. In this week's Whiteboard Friday, we'll be covering a few guest blogging strategies that you can start using today.

Source: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/guest-blogging-strategies-whiteboard-friday

Internet Marketing Tree

2012-03-07T01:50:00.004-08:00