Archive for June 2009
6 Website Redesign SEO Secrets Your Developer May Not Know
June 23, 2009 | 
Author 6 Website Redesign SEO Secrets Your Developer May Not KnowBy Jill Whalen (c) 2009 At the end of the year, many businesses start to think about redesigning their tired old website to breathe some new life into it. You may even be in the midst of a website redesign right now. If so, the first thing is to make sure you hire a design and development company that knows how to build the infrastructure of the website in a search engine crawler–friendly manner. Beyond that, you need to address a number of additional SEO tactics before you get too deep into your redesign. The reason you need to keep SEO front and center during this time is twofold: so that you do not lose your previous traffic, but also so that you can gain additional targeted search engine visitors when the new site goes live. Here are 6 SEO redesign secrets your developer may not know…ignore them at your peril!1. Creating Your SEO’d Site ArchitectureSearch engines look explicitly at how all your pages are linked together in order to determine their place within the site. Pages that are linked from every other page will be given more weight than those that are only linked from a few others. This is all considered a form of internal link popularity, or in Google language, internal PageRank.Recommendation: During your redesign, don’t bury too deeply within the site any content that was previously bringing targeted search engine traffic. Ensure that any informational content that will be focused on the more competitive keyword phrases (for example, product and service pages) is high up in your site hierarchy.In addition, all content contained in a specific category should be cross-linked via some sort of sub-navigation within that section.2. Categorization and Avoiding Duplicate ContentWhen people are seeking information from a search engine, they usually have a question, a problem, or a need for specific information. The search queries they use at Google and the other engines reflect this. The more ways you can categorize your content for the various target markets you serve, the better.Recommendation: Be sure that all top-level pages answer the potential searcher’s (your potential customers’) questions, and that it’s clear that your products and services can solve their problem. In addition, you also have to ensure that regardless of how someone found any piece of content on your site, they always end up at the same URL to avoid PageRank splitting and duplicate content issues.For example, if a specific product can be classified as both a product and a service, it makes sense that it might be listed under both categories. However, the page (URL) that the potential customer eventually lands on, regardless of which category they started in, should always be the same. 3. New Content Management System and Changing URLSIf URLs must change in the redesign due to a new content management system or back-end coding, search engines may take some time to index the new URLs as well as give them the same weighting they gave the previous URLs due to URL age factors.Recommendation: It’s critical to 301-redirect all old URLs to their relative counterpart within the newly designed website. This will pass the link popularity of the old URLs to the new ones quickly, as well as ensure that site visitors don’t receive 404-not-found errors.This will be easier if the new URL naming is similar to the old one, because you can use automated methods. If URLs must change completely with no correlation to the names of the old URLs, and hand-redirects are required, you’ll want to at least redirect all the top-level pages, as well as those that you’re sure receive keyword traffic from search engines. But, ideally, every URL should be redirected if at all possible. 4. Coding of Navigation MenusLinks contained within the navigation of your website should be coded in a search engine–friendly manner so that they are visible and crawlable. Some DHTML and Flash menus are invisible to search engines, which causes the pages linked within them to not receive the internal link popularity they should receive.Recommendation: Make sure all navigational menus are coded with CSS that is visible to search engines. In addition, avoid drop-down box links as the main form of navigation (CSS mouseovers are fine). You’ll also want to ensure that all content can be reached by hard-coded links – don’t force the user to go through any kind of search box menu because those are traditionally search engine unfriendly.5. Custom HTML ElementsWhile some level of automation for titles, metas, headers, URLs, and alt attributes for images can be helpful, it’s critical that your new website’s content management system allow you to create custom descriptions for these as well.Recommendation: Make sure the content management system has fields for custom title tags, meta descriptions, heading tags, etc. There should be no limit to the number of characters allowed in these fields either, because every page may need a different number of words and characters.6. Session IDs and Other Tracking LinksIt’s best not to use session IDs to track visitors, but if your system must use them, you’ll only need to feed the “clean” URLs to the search engine spiders – otherwise, they may get caught in an infinite loop, indexing the same content under multiple URLs.You’ll also want to avoid any sort of campaign tracking links appended to URLs because these can split your link popularity by causing your content to be indexed under multiple URLs.Recommendation: If this type of tracking is inherent in your system, use the canonical link element to maintain one URL for every page of content.Don’t be surprised if your developer isn’t happy to receive some of these “secrets.” He or she may feel that their authority is being usurped or their creativity is being hindered. Just remember that it’s your website that you’re paying them to create in a way that will make you the most money possible. Let your developer know up-front that these things are non-negotiable. If they tell you that they can’t do any of the above, start looking around for a new developer – ASAP!While there will always be a few unexpected bugs to work out when your site goes live, you won’t have to be afraid of losing your search engine visitors as long as you know what you’re doing. We’ve successfully helped many companies through this transition without any glitches. At the end of the process, there’s nothing like the feeling of having your beautiful new website launched. But more than that, there’s great comfort in knowing that the people looking for what you provide will continue to be able to easily find you in the search engines. About The AuthorJill Whalen, CEO of High Rankings and co-founder of SEMNE, has been performing SEO services since 1995. Jill is the host of the High Rankings Advisor newsletter and the High Rankings SEO forum.
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Where’s Social Media Headed?
Where’s Social Media Headed?By Nipa Shah (c) 2009 Barack Obama started using social media and the marketing gurus went “Oh my God, he’s a genius, now all we have to do is use his name to promote this and voila, clients will be lining up to buy social media marketing (SMM) services”. Well, it didn’t quite happen that way. And the wonderful case study that was “Presidential candidate Barack Obama” became a not-so-active name on various online portals including, Twitter, where from November 2008 to May 2009, his twitter update has had five posts. Yep, only five posts in six months. So what is happening in the Social Media world right now?Well, first of all, social media website use has exploded with millions of people using popular Web 2.0 applications such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and dozens of others. I personally “play” and “work” on many, but my favorites remain Twitter and Facebook. Celebrities and politicians seem to have found a way to pontificate one-way to their audiences. I say pontificate because most of these are rarely engaged in a two-way discussion, more times sending out their updates but not really engaging with others who may wish to interact with them. Politicians and celebrities across the globe have taken their messages to their fans and followers on Twitter and Facebook.However, millions of users and dozens of so-called SMM experts later, small businesses remain offline and are positively scared of using social media websites.The business owners I interact with when I’m speaking at an event or when I’m networking offline (yes I still do that) are concerned about using social media websites to promote themselves. They are worried about the lack of privacy and a misconception that they need to be technically savvy to use such websites as Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. These same business owners also mention lack of time and lack of trained “marketing” resources which prevent them from taking the social media marketing plunge.For marketers, social media marketing means a huge opportuníty. The opportuníty comes from being able to demonstrate actual results to end clients in the form of visibility and generated buzz. For small businesses who have taken the social media marketing plunge, it means visibility at low cost. For everybody, Social Media Marketing means; buzz, visibility, website traffic and leads, assuming SMM is executed properly.Social media marketing is here to stay and can bring tremendous value to those who know how to leverage it. From gaining new clients, to gaining visibility, branding, and credibility, not to mention leads, social media marketing is one activity that everybody needs to “find” time for and “create” a budget for. As an individual seeking a new job or as a business seeking new clients, here are some very basic yet very key strategies to keep in mind when embarking on the social media marketing journey:1. Reap what you sow: This saying applies very well to Social Media Marketing. If you don’t begin leveraging social media websites to promote yourself or your business and especially if your competition is, you’ll be left behind in the dust of their visibility & buzz.2. Make Time: Either make time for social media marketing for yourself / business OR find an expert who can do it for you. Not doing anything is not an option. Find a marketer who knows social networking.3. Land your next opportunity: Remember the impression you want to cultivate online. You wouldn’t go to a face-to-face networking meeting and complain “how tired you are”, “how sleepy you are” etc. Then don’t do it online either. Online networking has reached a new level and you need to show your “networking” savvy by creating an impression which will land you the next connection, a new client or whatever you seek.4. Don’t end up in jail or unemployed: If you don’t want to end up fired or end up in jail, be careful about what you say online. Professional behavior should be the norm (even for teenagers who don’t realize the impact of what they put out there on Facebook). Prospective employers, prospective clients, current clients, and anyone who wants to look you up, can and will. Once you’ve put something out there, it is out there forever.5. Frequency matters just as much as content: Blogging once a month or writing a tweet once every week or posting a FB status once every other day is not the way to grow your visibility. All marketing activities require frequency, consistency, and long-term effort. You wouldn’t expect one advertisement in the Detroit Free Press to generate leads immediately or ongoing. Similarly, marketing online requires consistent, frequent, and long-term effort.Again, remember, not doing anything is not an option.Just like email and voicemail, yes, those now archaic technologies that we don’t even think about; texting, Facebooking, Tweeting, blogging, and audio & video podcasting are all slowly becoming mainstream. Social media marketing is also fun, quick, and a cost-effective way to get visibility and it provides the ability to connect with anyone, anywhere in the world.Implement Social Media Marketing correctly and you’ll find that practice does make us perfect! About The AuthorNipa Shah is the founder and visionary who has shaped Jenesys Group, LLC and is known as an expert in the field of Marketing Online and Search Engine Optimization.
Metrics that Matter to a Good SEO Company
Metrics that Matter to a Good SEO CompanyBy Scott Buresh (c) 2009 “I want to be number one on Google for (insert hyper-competitive keyphrase here).”It’s usually the first thing we hear in terms of search engine optimization – a company wants to be in that coveted top spot on Google, Yahoo!, Ask, and MSN. No matter the industry or specialty, when companies approach us with their desired goals for an SEO campaign, it’s usually all about improving their rankings and positions…and often nothing else. Yes, achieving first page rankings or top spots on the search engines is an incredibly desirable accomplishment to many companies who want immediate and noticeable results. But with such a considerable investment in an SEO campaign, you’d think companies in need of search engine optimization services would also be concerned with their overall ROI, especially in light of the current economy. Vastly improved (or even #1) rankings are rather easy to achieve in an SEO campaign, even by a novice search engine optimization company. I once wrote an article demonstrating that top rankings were simple – and proved it by optimizing the article for the phrase “Leprechaun Repellent .” To this day, that article, on various sites, takes up nine of the top ten spots on Google for the ridiculous phrase. The obvious question, then, is what those rankings ultimately accomplish. And so we peel back the layers of the onion until we get there.The First Layer – RankingsRankings, rankings, rankings. This is by far the most popular metric for any SEO campaign. Occasionally, a search engine optimization company may not be concerned with your bottom line because it can offer guarantees and focus exclusively on achieving this goal (even though, as in the ‘Leprechaun’ example above, it’s really not getting you anywhere significant in the long run).Rankings by themselves mean little, and the problem with companies obsessed over rankings is that it doesn’t demonstrate the usefulness of search engine optimization. For a company website, high rankings are great (and impressive for an SEO campaign), but they are just the first layer of the onion. As any good search engine optimization company will demonstrate, our goal is (and yours should be) to bring and/or improve the levels of high quality traffic to your website, meaning visitors who come to your website via a search are already reasonably interested in your products or services.The Second Layer – Search-Engine Referred TrafficIncreasing search-referred traffic is not a perfect metric because, if visitors are not converting on your website, there’s not a big value proposition to be had. Alone, the metric relies heavily on the right keyphrase selection by your search engine optimization company during the beginning phases of your SEO campaign.Say that a farming supply company who wanted to be number one on Google for “affordable farming equipment” decided to try a different tactic while attempting to improve its search-engine referred traffic. If the website had been optimized for ‘Britney Spears,’ for example, traffic levels would undoubtedly be high (if the site ranked well for the term – admittedly a huge challenge), but few visitors would be converting, and business, in turn, would be far from booming. Visitors will jump ship immediately and serve as an immediate reminder of the negative impact that poor phrase selection by your search engine optimization company can have on your long-term ROI.The Third Layer – Take RateEssentially, the take rate refers to the number or percentage of search-referred visitors showing interest in your products or demos (your POA or Point-of-Action). The take rate merely signifies a visitor who demonstrates an interest in your POA, for example, by clicking on a “Contact Us” link. The data you’re gauging here is simply overall interest, since not all of the visitors will follow through and actually convert.Fortunately, there are ways to improve your take rate during the SEO campaign – making the point-of-action blatant and clear on every page is usually the most effective (but overlooked) method. Collaborating with your search engine optimization company to make certain that the primary POA on your website is indeed the most desirable action that a visitor can take is of paramount importance.The Fourth Layer – ConversionStrictly speaking, “Conversion” is the percentage of visitors to your website that actually follow through with your POA. Once your search engine optimization company has helped you improve your take rate, you should work on getting more of those people to actually convert. Is your form too long? Do you show a prominent privacy policy promising not to use or sell personal data? Is it a quick, easy process or do people have to jump through hoops? A good search engine optimization company will be able to help you to identify the elements that are serving as barriers to conversion. The Fifth Layer – Offsite MetricsIf a client allows it, we like to get involved in the nitty-gritty of offsite metrics as part of the SEO campaign. Though the usual search engine optimization company doesn’t go this far into the process, this area alone proves invaluable to demonstrating your ROI.By analyzing offline metrics on a granular level, your search engine optimization company can examine and report on your average dollar sale for search-referred traffic, the average dollar value of each search-referred lead, the average lifetime value of each search-referred lead, and much, much more.A software system is usually required to report the data acquired during your SEO campaign; we use Salesforce, a leading CRM (customer relationship management) solution that can be implemented to track these statistics for you. Though it requires diligence to analyze (as well as follow leads from cradle to grave), your company can analyze which engines attracted the most visitors, which keyphrases were the most profitable, the value of customers, and retention levels.More than RankingsAll layers of the onion, so to speak, are important to an SEO campaign, but the closer you get to the actual dollar return, the more accurate your assessment of success or failure will be. Rankings alone are no indication of success. For that matter, neither is search-referred traffic if the visitors don’t take an action on the site that can lead to a sale. And when the lead finally comes in, there is no way to track the value unless you follow up with offline metrics to determine exactly how much leads from your website are worth.These are all base metrics – many campaigns are much more involved and use thousands of different data points. But if you are new to the conversion/ROI game and are thinking about hiring a search engine optimization company, make sure that its goal is to be attuned to your bottom line.(C) 2009 Medium Blue About The AuthorScott Buresh is the CEO of Medium Blue Search Engine Marketing, which was named the number one organic search engine optimization company in the world in 2006 and 2007 by PromotionWorld. Scott has contributed content to many publications including The Complete Guide to Google Advertising (Atlantic, 2008) and Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004), MarketingProfs, ZDNet, WebProNews, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. Medium Blue serves local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, DS Waters, and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Visit MediumBlue.com to request a custom SEO guarantee based on your goals and your data.
Why Social Bookmarking?
Why Social Bookmarking?By Tinu AbayomiPaul (c) 2009 Someone sent me the question “Why Social Bookmarking? “ And I thought to myself: “Um. Why not?”Since I’m not really sure what they meant by that, I’m going to assume that this person mean “Why should I use social bookmarking in my business?” – with a full understanding of all the risks associated with “assuming”.I figure that if you’re reading this, you have that question, or a similar one.There are three reasons:1 – More links2 – More traffic3 – More credibilityMore links are always a good thing.Think of links as the road traffic that moves through the web. If there are no roads to where your business “lives” online, namely your website, it’s far less likely that the visitors you want will end up getting to you.That’s true whether you’re talking about search engines or links from other sites. Search engines use a mysterious cross between the number and quality of links to your site in their determination of whether you should be number one or number 701 for your desired keyword.In addition, the “nicer” the road, the more traffíc will flow through it – think of an authority site linking to your site as a highway that leads directly to your site, and one from a reciprocal link or link exchange scheme as a back street in a sketchy neighborhood full of potholes.Improved traffic, also good.From social bookmarking, this traffic is often targeted. Through tagging, the description someone writes, or the title they assigned to your link, the person who discovers the submitted link on a social bookmarking site knows exactly where they’re going, and why they’re interested in getting there.It’s like seeing the cover of a magazine on a rack. That’s what pulls them in, they see a headline – and to get to the story they are compelled to take another action.The more credibility thing is a bit harder to explain, so we’ll go with another analogy.Let’s say I made a movie and I thought it was fantastic. If I hadn’t met you before, and I tell you, “hey, I made a kick-ass movie, come see it!” – you may come see it, you may not. It depends more on how much time you have and if you’re interested in that kind of movie, or even how nice of a person you are, than my opinion.Why?Because I’m the one who made it, so you can’t know whether to trust my opinion, at least in relation to how much YOU might like it. Of course I think it’s great, but I have no way of knowing whether you will.Now, if you knew me and my taste, and how alike our tastes are, you may be a bit more inclined. So if I’m, say, Michael Bay, and you liked my last movie, and my new movie is on the same type of thing, you might go see it based on the trailer alone. You know you’re taking a gamble but it’s a safe bet.Now watch this.Your best buddy, the one who likes all the same things you like, the one you hang out with and trust the most, calls you on the phone and says:”I’ve just seen the best movie I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I have to see it again. When are you free, I’ll come pick you up.”The only thing that could make that deal sweeter is if your friend has also said “My treat.” At least as far as recommendations go, the person who knows what you like the most is likely to be the person whose advice you’ll follow. If you know that friend, and that person has similar tastes, or at least knows what you like, you’re more likely to see the movie.My sister and I have similar tastes in movies, but I’m a little more patient with beginnings and endings and like more indie-fare. Yet, no matter how many times I have suggested we watch a movie together that she ends up not liking as much, if I rave about a movie, she’ll at least give it a chance.Now, let’s take that back to social bookmarking. Imagine you can find hundreds of people, all over the world, with tastes similar to yours, sharing information you wouldn’t find yourself.Or maybe you can just connect faster and more frequently for suggestions from people you already know. Wouldn’t you be more likely to follow their suggestions than some stranger?That’s the power of social bookmarking. It’s put a technology behind word of mouth sharing of web sites that anyone can use.And they do.Now all you have to do is learn how to be the person or company everybody is spreading the word about. Which is another conversation altogether. About The AuthorHow do you promote your local business using online tools? I’m answering this and related questions every day – if you’ve got one come by and ask away! I know. That rhymed. You can come give me a hard time about it at AskTinu.com – yo habla sarcasm.
New Search Engines – Can Anyone Beat Google?
New Search Engines – Can Anyone Beat Google?By Titus Hoskins (c) 2009 Can any new search engine beat Google, probably not, mainly because Google isn’t going anywhere but up. It is the dominant search engine with around 72 percent of U.S. online searches and its percentages are much higher in other parts of the world. (Source: Hitwise) However, there are some serious new competitors that may just take a bite out of Google’s rosy search numbers. Never know, one or several of them, may just give Google a run for those all important search engine dollars. Recently, there has been a whole army of new search engines debuting on the web. If you’re a full-time online marketer like me, you really have to keep your eyes open to what is happening on the web, especially relating to search engines which deliver most of your quality traffic. Also keep in mind, this piece may be fairly biased since Google is directly or indirectly responsible for around 80% of my online revenue, so any opinions may be slanted in Google’s favor, not that they need any favors from me or anyone. But as an online marketer you have to try to remain objective and examine all angles in regards to these new search engines. Despite this, in marketing and webmaster circles, everyone will know even if you have the number one ranking for a certain keyword in all three major engines Google, Yahoo! and MSN – Google supplies the most traffic, hands down.Despite its obvious dominance, Google is still basically the new kid on the block. We have to remember, there have been many search engines before Google and there will be many more search engines after Google. Every entity has its day and then hands the torch along to whatever comes next. It’s one of those subtle facts of life we all learn eventually.Everybody has their day – empires, countries, leaders, companies… or even search engines. Are Google’s days as top dog really numbered? Probably not in the immediate future, but there are some new kids on the block that could definitely kick some sand in the face of Google and stir things up, we might even see a few serious squabbles here and there.In a recent article on CNN, by John D. Sutter, entitled “New Search Engines Aspire To Supplement Google” the author examines some recent new search engines. The author discusses: Twine, Hakia, Searchme, Cuil, Kosmix, Wolfram Alpha, Topsy, TweetMeme and OneRiot. Each of these are different, making your web search more personal, more visual, or connecting your search to new social networks like FaceBook and Twitter.Some experts say Wolfram Alpha is the most likely candidate to give Google some serious competition because Wolfram can do something Google can’t; it can create information rather than just reading/presenting content already on the web. Will it present a solid threat to Google’s dominance?Perhaps, a more fitting sparring partner will come from an old rival with very deep, deep pockets. We are talking about the new search engine from Microsoft called Bing, which is very similar to Google in many ways, yet different. Bing’s results are very similar to Google in a lot of ways, yet Bing serves up the results in a very pleasing arrangement, with a nice preview button for each listing and giving you related searches and your search history on the left hand side. Only time will tell if everyone would rather be binging instead of googling. To Bing or not to Bing, that is the question? There’s a very informative article on Bing by Farhad Manjoo on Slate entitled: “Beware Google: Microsoft’s New Search Engine Isn’t Half-bad.” Just Bing or Google to find it! I personally like this search engine much better than MSN mainly because the home page of Bing is very appealing and only has the search box on it so you’re not distracted with other news listings like on MSN and Yahoo! One of the main reasons for Google’s success, besides the superior search results, has been its simplicity. Keep it simple and you may just be able to compete.Then again, this is a bit of a biased judgment, since many of my own keywords and sites rank high in Bing; some even higher than they are listed in Google. I routinely monitor countless keyword phrases in all the search engines and lately Google has been favoring big Brand Name listings on their first page results. We are also seeing more Product Listings (Old Froogle), more video and more news listings… competition for Google’s first page has become multi-layered and extremely competitive. What’s a poor small online marketer to do when Google goes corporate?Actually, Bing is not my favorite search engine of the new ones forcing their way into the spotlight.For me, the one that shows the most promise and may give Google some competition is Searchme, which is a visual search (much like the iTunes interface) where you can shuffle through screenshots of webpages instead of a list of links. Searchme, which touts itself as the first multimedia search engine, has been around for a few years but is not widely known to web users. Performing a search on Searchme with a 24 inch monitor and 64-bit Windows is a hundred times more enjoyable than using Google Search or Bing for that matter. It is a hundred times faster than Google mainly because you can generally find your information without clicking through to the sites displayed. Searchme is truly an eye opener but can it give Google some serious competition. The jury is still out, but I believe over time as web users upgrade their computers, operating systems, and their graphics… Searchme will be more accessible to more web users. Who knows, with the right backing and marketing, any of these search engines, especially Searchme and Bing could blossom into a formidable opponent even for the mighty Google.Here’s why: Human Nature!Whether we admit it or not, most of us (Humans) are lazy, we want the fastest and easiest route to solving any question or problem. Searchme gives us the answer much quicker than Google and in a much nicer way. Mainly because we are also visual creatures, given the choice between receiving pages of text and viewing images of sites/answers, most of us will take the visual route – we will choose TV over radio, music videos over records… video enhanced content over just plain static HTML. As the web turns into more of an interactive multimedia operation; visual search will always win out over text search any day of the year.Most humans also have a need for speed. In our fast paced life styles, we all want a speedy solution to our problems. Search is no different, we want quick answers now, we want instant solutions and immediate gratification. Nature of the beast. If Searchme, Bing or any of the other search engines becomes faster than Google at giving the right answer, then it’s a whole new ballgame.Google must obviously know there are challenges to its search engine dominance. Otherwise, why would they be offering many new features in their SERPs; we are seeing more images and videos. Plus, Google has just introduced the “show options” link at the top of their SERPs, which presents their search results in many different ways. They even have introduced the “Wonder Wheel” as another viewing option, which gives a whole new way of using Google’s search results.Google’s Achilles’ Heel may just be the thing that gives it all its revenue: text ads. There may be a backlash on all those Google ads littered across the web, especially among the younger computer savvy crowd using such sites like the Google owned YouTube, where Google has nearly obliterated the videos with its ads. Everyone dislikes advertising, no matter what form it takes.However, any news of Google’s demise will be greatly exaggerated, because Google, like any smart company with tons of resources, has kept morphing and changing with the times, quickly adapting to new features as our usage of the web keeps changing. Google has perfected the art of staying one step ahead of the competition. This is one champion that won’t go down without a fight to the finish. Top dogs rarely do.If they ever present a serious challenge to Google, Searchme, Bing or any of the above search engines, will have a formidable opponent in the opposing corner, one that has gained almost insurmountable prestige and brand recognition globally. Any major battle will instantly have a “David vs Goliath” scenario attached to it. And we all know how that one played out! About The AuthorThe author is a full-time online marketer who has numerous niche sites. These 10 SEO Tactics Bring Me Over 2000 Visitors Daily: SEO Tips. To learn more Internet Marketing Tactics try: Marketing Tools .Copyright (c) 2009 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.
The Google Shuffle?
The Google Shuffle?By Jonathan Anthony & Kyle Krenbrink (c) 2009 Webmasters and SEO gurus have been scratching their heads for a few weeks now trying to figure out what has been happening to Google’s SERP rankings. After scouring blogs and forums for the last few days, it would seem that there is no real consensus. In fact, it seems that no one is willing to even speculate much as to what is happening. To date there has not been any official word from Google. We all know that Google does not announce their algorithm updates, much to the chagrin of webmasters everywhere. The buzz recently on several blogs and from our own data demonstrates significant changes in PageRank and wild fluctuations in websites SERP. The last big news we did hear from Google was the June 16th 2009 announcement from Matt Cutts blog on PageRank sculpting where he discussed changes to how Google treats link juice when there are nofollow links. But that’s another blog topic altogether so if you like you can read the full post here: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ pagerank-sculpting/ so it may be that the nofollow·attribute has been rendered useless for sculpting PageRank. But then, PR sculpting was never really the intended function behind nofollow; it was merely convenient side effect. All that Google employee, John Mu cared to say when answering a customer’s inquiry as to why his site had suddenly dropped in PR with no apparent cause was:“Hi RadoslavYou have a nice-looking site 
. As far as I can tell, it looks like the change in Toolbar PageRank for your site is only due to some technical quirk and not something that you need to worry about.CheersJohn“Barry Schwartz (AKA “Rustybrick”) then pointedly asks:”John, is the PR ‘Technical Quirk’ somewhat widespread?“There was no further reply from Google. The post is available at the Google Webmaster Help forum.Unfortunately, when a person’s website goes south in rankings for no apparent reason, people do notice and do worry about it. So unless Google opens up a bit we are left scratching our heads as usual, trying to figure out what is going on.The following thread gives another vote to the possibility that Google is replacing PageRank value with site trust and/or domain authority: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/020335.html. This is also one of many threads where users are expressing frustration and beginning to consider trying the new alternative to Google, Bing. Watch your back Google.There have been some major experiments this year from Google that were relatively short lived and those are fine. We all expect to see the occasional wild results for a weekend every few months along with quarterly PageRank updates. The June PR update was enough of a surprise coming so close on the heels of an update late in May: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/020273.html. The update itself is not too shocking. What is interesting is that this is happening so soon after Google’s last update and the fact that garbage results and rapid ranking changes have been coming steadily for weeks now. It’s about time Google lets things settle down before more people get the bright idea to give Bing a try.Here are some direct comments from the forum members at webmasterworld.com:http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3943981-4-30.htm“It has been my observation “followgreg” (a username) when the SERP’s get like what you describe above this is what [Google] wants to happen so the Review team and Matt’s team can put the necessary data in place that will deal with what your describing. It is easier to review a site when they are on page 1 versus page 200 and [Google] knows what filters were relaxed that would allow for the “New” 1st page ranking to pop up. I myself don’t see the polluted SERP’s as your describing but then again I am not in every sector and can only look at the nitches I am working under.” http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3943981-2-30.htm “and right now it looks like all sets of the results include some trivial and penalized and junk .edu pages rising into the top 50, along with some long-neglected good ones. This used to happen all the time with updates — shuffle things up, the poop rises, then it gets flushed, and things settle down. We haven’t had an update in that format in a long time, but it seems clear we are in the middle of whatever is changing and not the end.”We can analyze the SERP’s, collect all the data we can find, and listen to all of the “buzz” we like, but at the end of the day we are still at the mercy of the “Big G”. It is not unusual for Google to conduct their more aggressive algorithm changes at this time of year, but it is unusual to see so much experimentation so close together taking so long. With there being no official word coming from Google, it’s hard to do more than speculate on the changes that we can observe. We all certainly hope that things stabilize soon and we’ll continue monitoring changes in the rankings.But until Google decides to straighten things out can anyone say “Pay-per-click”? I knew you could…So how does the widely varied public opinion on the matter line up with search results?I am willing to make an educated guess that Google is experimenting with website trust and authority in their algorithm (and perhaps plenty more). However, as complaints from the forums echo Google’s search results seem to be rather bi-polar these last few weeks.We have well established sites being outranked by new sites and by sites with very few backlinks. Also by sites using black hat techniques and unfortunately we see some established and often very trustworthy white hat websites simply dissappearing from the rankings altogether. At the same time we have literally day old Craigslist posts ranking in the top results. Some .edu and .gov sites have flown to the top while others have plummetted. How often do you see day old pages rank near the top for competitive search terms? If “trust” has that much of an effect on a new page’s rankings it’s likely that “trusted” sites will dominate the rankings with every new page of content flooding out the competition and reducing their ability to gain trust. I hope the minds at Google have their sober thinking caps on and not their beer hats. But so far there seems to be little consistant rhyme or reason since we have some trusted sites dissappearing and others dominating in the SERP’s.Luckily we had some old SERP analysis notes from June where we had a close look at one of our clients top 5 competitors for their targeted search term on Google. We decided to compare each against the current search results since Google’s latest “technical quirk”. Here’s the rundown according to Yahoo’s api and our analysis:Former #1 website – PR 4 landing page, PR 5 root domain.1700+ external inbound links, 800+ internal backlinks. Almost one thousand of these backlinks are from a handful of what appear to be allied sites. A significant number are from various blogs. Strong root domain with almost 5k external inbound links. Now ranking at #2.Former #2 website – PR 6 landing page, PR 7 root domain.Less than 100 external inbound links, over 15k internal backlinks. Root domain has 140k+ external inbound links and 16k+ internal backlinks. Very strong root domain and what should be a high trust name. Much of the page’s ranking comes from the internal backlinks from the root domain and other pages on the site. Now ranking at #5.Former #3 website – PR 4 landing page, PR 7 root domain.5k+ external inbound links, less than 100 internal backlinks. Root domain has 130k+ external inbound links and 16k+ internal backlinks. Not only is this an extremely strong domain, its brand is a household name across North America. Not only would I trust this site based on its name and reputation, but I would say the incoming links are as organic as they come. Strangely this website no longer ranks anywhere in the top 300 results.About The AuthorJonathan Anthony and Kyle Krenbrink work for Beanstalk Search Engine Optimization, Inc. Beanstalk offers performance-based SEO services and provides up-to-date information on the SEO realm through their SEO blog and articles.
. As far as I can tell, it looks like the change in Toolbar PageRank for your site is only due to some technical quirk and not something that you need to worry about.CheersJohn“Barry Schwartz (AKA “Rustybrick”) then pointedly asks:”John, is the PR ‘Technical Quirk’ somewhat widespread?“There was no further reply from Google. The post is available at the Google Webmaster Help forum.Unfortunately, when a person’s website goes south in rankings for no apparent reason, people do notice and do worry about it. So unless Google opens up a bit we are left scratching our heads as usual, trying to figure out what is going on.The following thread gives another vote to the possibility that Google is replacing PageRank value with site trust and/or domain authority: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/020335.html. This is also one of many threads where users are expressing frustration and beginning to consider trying the new alternative to Google, Bing. Watch your back Google.There have been some major experiments this year from Google that were relatively short lived and those are fine. We all expect to see the occasional wild results for a weekend every few months along with quarterly PageRank updates. The June PR update was enough of a surprise coming so close on the heels of an update late in May: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/020273.html. The update itself is not too shocking. What is interesting is that this is happening so soon after Google’s last update and the fact that garbage results and rapid ranking changes have been coming steadily for weeks now. It’s about time Google lets things settle down before more people get the bright idea to give Bing a try.Here are some direct comments from the forum members at webmasterworld.com:http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3943981-4-30.htm“It has been my observation “followgreg” (a username) when the SERP’s get like what you describe above this is what [Google] wants to happen so the Review team and Matt’s team can put the necessary data in place that will deal with what your describing. It is easier to review a site when they are on page 1 versus page 200 and [Google] knows what filters were relaxed that would allow for the “New” 1st page ranking to pop up. I myself don’t see the polluted SERP’s as your describing but then again I am not in every sector and can only look at the nitches I am working under.” http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3943981-2-30.htm “and right now it looks like all sets of the results include some trivial and penalized and junk .edu pages rising into the top 50, along with some long-neglected good ones. This used to happen all the time with updates — shuffle things up, the poop rises, then it gets flushed, and things settle down. We haven’t had an update in that format in a long time, but it seems clear we are in the middle of whatever is changing and not the end.”We can analyze the SERP’s, collect all the data we can find, and listen to all of the “buzz” we like, but at the end of the day we are still at the mercy of the “Big G”. It is not unusual for Google to conduct their more aggressive algorithm changes at this time of year, but it is unusual to see so much experimentation so close together taking so long. With there being no official word coming from Google, it’s hard to do more than speculate on the changes that we can observe. We all certainly hope that things stabilize soon and we’ll continue monitoring changes in the rankings.But until Google decides to straighten things out can anyone say “Pay-per-click”? I knew you could…So how does the widely varied public opinion on the matter line up with search results?I am willing to make an educated guess that Google is experimenting with website trust and authority in their algorithm (and perhaps plenty more). However, as complaints from the forums echo Google’s search results seem to be rather bi-polar these last few weeks.We have well established sites being outranked by new sites and by sites with very few backlinks. Also by sites using black hat techniques and unfortunately we see some established and often very trustworthy white hat websites simply dissappearing from the rankings altogether. At the same time we have literally day old Craigslist posts ranking in the top results. Some .edu and .gov sites have flown to the top while others have plummetted. How often do you see day old pages rank near the top for competitive search terms? If “trust” has that much of an effect on a new page’s rankings it’s likely that “trusted” sites will dominate the rankings with every new page of content flooding out the competition and reducing their ability to gain trust. I hope the minds at Google have their sober thinking caps on and not their beer hats. But so far there seems to be little consistant rhyme or reason since we have some trusted sites dissappearing and others dominating in the SERP’s.Luckily we had some old SERP analysis notes from June where we had a close look at one of our clients top 5 competitors for their targeted search term on Google. We decided to compare each against the current search results since Google’s latest “technical quirk”. Here’s the rundown according to Yahoo’s api and our analysis:Former #1 website – PR 4 landing page, PR 5 root domain.1700+ external inbound links, 800+ internal backlinks. Almost one thousand of these backlinks are from a handful of what appear to be allied sites. A significant number are from various blogs. Strong root domain with almost 5k external inbound links. Now ranking at #2.Former #2 website – PR 6 landing page, PR 7 root domain.Less than 100 external inbound links, over 15k internal backlinks. Root domain has 140k+ external inbound links and 16k+ internal backlinks. Very strong root domain and what should be a high trust name. Much of the page’s ranking comes from the internal backlinks from the root domain and other pages on the site. Now ranking at #5.Former #3 website – PR 4 landing page, PR 7 root domain.5k+ external inbound links, less than 100 internal backlinks. Root domain has 130k+ external inbound links and 16k+ internal backlinks. Not only is this an extremely strong domain, its brand is a household name across North America. Not only would I trust this site based on its name and reputation, but I would say the incoming links are as organic as they come. Strangely this website no longer ranks anywhere in the top 300 results.About The AuthorJonathan Anthony and Kyle Krenbrink work for Beanstalk Search Engine Optimization, Inc. Beanstalk offers performance-based SEO services and provides up-to-date information on the SEO realm through their SEO blog and articles. How Much Face-Time Does Your Website Need?
How Much Face-Time Does Your Website Need?By Jerry Bader (c) 2009How much time does it take your website to deliver your marketing message? Assuming the site traffic you generate is the least bit interested in what you have to say, how much of what you’re saying do they remember, or more to the point, how much do they need to remember? Have you ever thought about, or even considered, how much face-time your website needs to be effective? It is probably the last thing many business website operators ever think about, let alone do anything about.The notion of ‘stickiness’ has been around for as long as the Web has been used as a commercial vehicle, and stickiness is a vital website ingredient. Developers, designers, and marketing experts are continuously coming up with ways to keep people on their clients’ websites. Many of these sticky methods do work and keep people on sites for hours, but are they effective; just because someone stays on your site for hours doesn’t necessarily mean they have any intention of doing business with you, especially if these so called sticky ingredients are implemented without any commercial purpose. Sticky Doesn’t Necessarily Mean EffectiveMany sticky concepts were developed for sites whose financial model was based on advertising, which makes sense; the longer people stay on a site the more chance they will see the ads presented, and the more likely they will click on one of them. But for sites that are in business to sell something and are not just advertising vehicles, stickiness takes on a whole different purpose.The challenge is to make what you have to say engaging so that it attracts attention, informative so that it explains the offering, AND entertaining so that it is retained in memory. We have a goal for each website or campaign we create, and that is to turn advertising into content, and content into an experience, a challenge for sure, but one that needs to be achieved if the client wants their site to be effective.Provide A Memorable Experience In An Appropriate Amount of TimeThink of website face-time like a restaurant thinks of the dining experience. A restaurant has only so many tables and can only accommodate so many quests at one tíme; so in order to maximize profíts, restaurants try to turnover the tables as many times as possible. The trick is to provide guests with a delicious meal, great service, and a memorable experience without rushing them, but also in a way that turns the table over in an appropriate amount of time; allowing the restaurant to maximize it’s seating capacity.Websites for the most part, don’t have the capacity problem, but the discipline of providing value, quality, and a memorable experience, in an appropriate amount of time is just as valid. Many complicated sticky site implementations take too long to unfold, and lack the purposeful payoff that makes them commercially effective.People have other things to do, and will only invest so much time on your site; therefore you better say what you have to say as efficiently and effectively as possible. Site information presented as bulleted points may seem efficient, but it sure isn’t effective due to its abbreviated nature and lack of psychological context; and sites with thousands of words of search engine optimized text may provide copious details, but if no one reads it, it isn’t very effective or efficient. So how much time is appropriate? How much time do you need to deliver your marketing message in a way that website visitors will remember it, and hopefully contact you? And what presentation method does the job both efficiently and effectively in that appropriate time frame?One Message One MinuteIt takes, discipline to focus on what makes you special, confidence in what you sell, and an understanding of how to deliver an effective website presentation.Every presentation you make on your website should only take about a minute or two to deliver. If you have six points to make create six separate presentations, each concentrating on one message. That way visitors can choose which specific concern they need clarified without boring them, or loosing their interest by covering things they aren’t interested in hearing.With a series of focused, entertaining presentations, you maintain interest, establish memory, and get them hooked on what you can do for them. As a result they will delve deeper by investigating the other presentations; and with each viewing they become more comfortable with what you do, more aware of what makes you special, and more confident in your ability to deliver what you promise.It’s all about establishing a memorable experience in an easy to understand, fast-paced digestible format that will be memorable and effective.Why Creating An Experience Is ImportantIf your visitors do not remember your website, than it won’t ever achieve its full marketing potential. Over and over we talk about the importance of making your site a memorable experience. To fully appreciate why making your site a memorable experience is so important, you have to understand a little of how the brain retains memories. Episodic MemoryThink of an event that has stayed with you for years and will probably stay with you forever. Perhaps it’s a life altering experience like the birth of your daughter, or maybe it’s an inconsequential incident that refuses to disappear from your memory. These kinds of experiences, or episodes, create what psychologists call Episodic Memory, memories that are associated with a specific experience. By delivering your marketing message in an entertaining, informative video presentation you create the episodic memory that is the essence of product or brand positioning.Semantic MemoryNow think of a strongly held opinion. Chances are that opinion was formed by some long forgotten experience. This is called Semantic Memory, a memory induced point-of-view formed by the brain’s processing of an experience where it retains the significance but buries the memory of the specific event. Consistent, continuous, ongoing marketing campaigns that focus on what makes you special have the long-term psychological effect of creating product preference even after the specific campaign details are forgotten.Putting It All TogetherFrom a marketing perspective, the opinions we hold and many of the products we purchase are the result of both episodic and semantic memory induced experiences. If your website doesn’t generate these kinds of memories, it is not fulfilling its potential as a marketing presentation vehicle.5 Ways To Connect To A Web AudienceIn order for your website to reach its maximum marketing potential, it must make an impression on your audience, and it must connect to those potential clients on multiple levels, emotional, psychological and rational. In order to communicate to website viewers on all three levels you must effectively employ all the presentation options available: layout, text, images, audio, and video.Some people learn best by reading, some by listening, and others by viewing. Each presentation element targets a different aspect of recognition and connects to the audience in different ways. By combining all five elements into a coherent presentation you relate to your viewers on multiple levels, each re-enforcing the other, creating a memorable experience. For an example of how all these elements work together to form an effective and efficient marketing presentation visit www.136words.com. About The AuthorJerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit www.mrpwebmedia.com, www.136words.com, and www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (905) 764-1246 end_of_the_skype_highlighting .