SEM Blog

Social Media for Publishers

noreply@blogger.com (Michael B.) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:10:00 +0000

The publishing industry is going through a tremendous transformation. The once traditional mediums used to obtain news and information are losing readers' attention to newer and faster mediums brought forward by technological innovation. Newspapers and magazines are being usurped by mobile devices such as laptops, netbooks, smartphones and e-readers. As internet connections and wi-fi become more easily available to the masses the accessibility of real-time information becomes the norm. The maturation of the internet has given us a new platform for creating and sharing real-time information at little to no cost. This launching pad is known as Social Media. No longer does one have to become versed in the studies of journalism to produce relevant and sought after communications. Large news agencies and publishers now face competition from bloggers and social media users. Publishers are left with the decision to join the race or get left behind. So, as a publisher, how do you take advantage of what social media has to offer? Publishers have two distinct advantages: a strong brand and lots of fresh content. These are two items both readers and search engines seek. Every new article created should be posted on a social media site. For example, this is extremely quick and simple to do on Twitter. Just tweet the title of the article and include the URL where the article resides on your website. This is a no brainer for both b-to-b and b-to-c publishers. Wondering how to find people to follow your tweets? Use Twitter Search. Search for the topics your publishing company writes about. You'll get results back of all the people that have tweeted about that topic. Start by following those people. Many of them will follow you back. Get interactive with the people you are following. If someone tweets about a topic you've written a great article about, send them an @reply to check out the article. Be sure to include the URL. Social Media is here and is becoming more powerful everyday. Take advantage and use it to expand your reach and readership.

5 Tools to Build an SEO Keyword List

noreply@blogger.com (Michael B.) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:26:00 +0000

Building your SEO keyword list is arguably the most important step of search engine optimization. Selecting the right keywords can help give you a tremendous boost in qualified visitors to your web site. The wrong keyword list however may result in attracting visitors to your site that are not interested in your products or services. In this post we will list 5 research tools to help you discover the keywords that can lure your target audience to your site.

Wordtracker: A keyword research database that provides data of how many daily searches a keyword phrase receives and how many web pages compete for that phrase. Cost as of this writing: Offered as a Free Trial, Annual Subscription of $329 or Monthly Subscription of $59.
Keyword Discovery: A keyword research tool that offers statistics from all major search engines worldwide. Services include keyword research, spelling mistake research, seasonal search trends, keyword density analysis and domain research. Cost as of this writing: Offered as a Free Trial, $69.95/month ($599.40/year) for the Standard Edition or $199.95/month ($1,895.00/year) for the Professional Edition.
Insights for Search: A Google product that allows you to compare search volume patterns of keywords according to selected categories, geographic locations and seasonal time frames. Cost as of this writing: Free.
Search-based Keyword Tool: Another Google product that offers keyword ideas based on actual Google search queries. Cost as of this writing: Free.
Competitors’ Web sites: Okay, this might not be an actual tool but it is certainly a great place to look for keywords related to your products and services. Check out the Meta title, description and keyword tags of the competition. This can often lead to new insights and ideas for your keyword list; and, it’s free.

Arming yourself with the right tools is instrumental in researching and building a relevant keyword list for your company. Check out the ones above and see which best suit your needs.

SEO Competitive Analysis Search Engine Tips

noreply@blogger.com (Michael B.) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 17:14:00 +0000

An essential part of any SEO analysis should include an analysis of the competition. It's important to discover not only how much competition there is for individual keyword phrases but also how the web sites of main competitors fare in the overall landscape. Using Google, Yahoo and Bing themselves are great places to start simple, quick and free research on keywords and competitors. As an example, let's say we want to discover what the overall competition is for the keyword "books"; and, our two main competitors are Amazon and Barnes & Noble. A search for "books" on Google reveals in the upper right-hand corner of the SERP that there are a total of 1,030,000,000 results. This means over 1 billion web pages are competing for the keyword "books". To say that's a lot of competition would be an understatement. Now let's take a look at our main competitors. To discover how many web pages they have indexed for the keyword "books" we type in the queries "site:www.amazon.com/ books" and "site:www.barnesandnoble.com/ books" into the search box respectively. It is important to note here the space between the slash and the term books. Leaving out the space would signify looking for URLs that begin with domain/books. Including the space signifies looking for all web pages of a domain that are indexed for the keyword books. Reviewing the results we discover Amazon has 113 million web pages indexed for the keyword books and Barnes & Noble has 8.79 million pages indexed for the same keyword. If you're planning on building a new site to sell books you have a lot of work ahead of you. Next we want to determine how many incoming links both Amazon and Barnes & Noble each have for the keyword "books". This time we enter the queries "link:www.amazon.com/ books" and "link:www.barnesandnoble.com/ books" into the search box again remembering to leave a space between the slash and books. These separate search queries reveal Amazon receives 73.5 million incoming links related to the keyword books and Barnes & Noble receives just under 1 million incoming links related to the same term. To conclude, whether you are an SEO needing to put together an SEO analysis for a client's site or you are conducting research for your own web site these simple and quick search engine tips can help you discover important information regarding keywords and the competition while preserving your budget.

Welcome to the New SEM Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Michael B.) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:56:00 +0000

Welcome to the new SEM blog by Clicks 'n Visits. Here you'll find the latest search engine marketing news and tips from the experienced SEM professionals at Clicks 'n Visits. We'll discuss issues related to pay per click advertising, search engine optimization and web design for conversion optimization. The internet world changes fast, and it's important to keep up with the latest and greatest to not get left behind. We're always open for discussion; so, if there are any specific topics related to search marketing you'd like to hear about please feel free to let us know. We'd be happy to share our experiences, thoughts and insights on the issues that matter most to you. Thanks for stopping by and we look forward to your next visit.