SEO Tips & Tricks

May 2, 2008

Plugging Up Those Duplicate Content Holes

Is your site suffering from unfortunate duplicate content? Do you wake up at night in fear that your perfectly SEO'd pages will be filtered out of the SERPs? Have you suffered any of the following symptoms: Link dilution, ranking fragmentation, important page disappearing, rank checking-induced vomiting? If so, we can help!

Here are some of the common causes of duplicate content and how to best avoid them.

Plagiarism/Scraping

Accept it; most people are jerks. That means many folks out there will have no problem stealing your content and slapping it on their own site to place ads on it. It's up to you to protect your valuable content from these villains. The first step in protecting your site is to mark your territory. That includes using your brand name frequently within the content, sticking to absolute links, and hosting your images locally. People will likely steal your content anyway, but this will make it harder for them to do so and easier for you to spot.

You'll also want to be vigilant about protecting your content. There are plenty of ways to go about this. Copyscape is a good tool to use to go hunting or stolen passages or you can cut and paste a snippet of unique text and use it as a Google Alert. If you find someone has stolen your content and that it has caused Google to trigger a filter, either approach them about taking it down or consider changing your content so that it is no longer duplicated. It sounds like a pain, but it's often the easier recourse and is much better than having your pages filtered out of the index!

Parameter/URL Issues

Any time the search engines find the same page at multiple URLs, you have a duplicate content situation. For example, if you type in the three URLs below and they all bring up your home page, you have a problem.

• www.example.com
• www.example.com/index
• example.com

Your customers may be able to figure out what's going on, but the search engines will see three versions of the same page and pick for themselves which one gets to live in the index. You don't want Google or Yahoo making these very important site decisions for you. Figure out how you want people linking to you and stick to it. 301 the other versions of the page to the lucky URL you decided on.

Sites can also get themselves into trouble when they begin using ugly parameters to track their customers' movements through their site. Not only does this present a duplicate content issue because the engines can access the same page through multiple URLs, but it's also not particularly user-friendly. You also run the risk of skewing your analytics data if the parameter-filled URL gets indexed and users start using it to click through from the SERPs.

If you're going to put parameters in your URLs for tracking purposes, you have a few options. You can block that URL from being spidered by doing a mod_ rewrite or simply redirect it to the URL without the tracking parameter. If you do opt for the latter, make sure it doesn't mess up your ability to track. Sometimes things get buggy.

Multiple Site Issues/ Mirror Sites

Bruce Clay has offices in the United States, South Africa, the UK and beyond. To make sure the search engines recognize that these are different sites even though the content may be fairly similar, we're careful to create content specific to each country, as well as take care of all the technical aspects as well - like using country-specific TLDs, hosting the site in the country it's targeting, specifying that in our Webmaster Tools, etc. Matt Cutts has noted that site owners need not worry too much about duplicate content when it comes to different top level domains. Google is able to tell which site should rank and then filter the dupes.

Along the same lines, you want to be careful of mirror sites that simply republish the same content on multiple domains. For example, some sites have multiple domains like http://www.mydomain.com, http://www.my-domain.com, http://www.mymisspelleddomain.com that are all mirroring the same content. The solution would be to 301 redirect the duplicate domains to the main domain. This not only helps eliminate duplicate content issues, it also makes sure you're not wasting any link popularity.

Product Pages

Product pages are a goldmine for duplicate content because they've very often been built using a single template. This means they'll typically share the same basic description with just a few words altered to tell the customer that the shoe they're looking at also comes in red, black brown and blue, as well as in suede and patent leather. Your customers may love you for all of your available options, but the search engines are likely to get confused as to why you have virtually identical content on several pages of your site. Not that they'll penalize you for it. They'll simply "help" you by "filtering" all the extras.

You really have three options when it comes to this one.

1. Take on a massive project and write unique content for all of your product pages
2. Update your robots.txt so that only one product description (preferably the one that provides the most revenue) is crawled
3. Consolidate your product pages and use another method to show all the different styles and options. Perhaps using CSS or some other fancy hover-type creation.

Block Printer Pagers

It's good that provide printer-friendly pages for readers and customers looking to take your content with them, but there's absolutely no reason why the spiders should have to know about it. These pages may be super usable for your audience but they provide no links back to your site for the engines to follow and they're just going to diminish the apparent uniqueness of your content. Put these pages in their own folder and then disallow it in your robots.txt. It's that simple.

What other forms of duplicate content do you commonly come across?

Posted by Lisa Barone on 05/ 2/08 at 9:45 AM | Comments (1)

April 1, 2008

What To Look For When Hiring InHouse SEOs

Last week I wrote a post about What to Look For When Hiring Bloggers. That post got me thinking about what traits I’d look for if I wasn’t hiring a blogger, but instead someone to join my inhouse SEO team. What qualities are Must Haves and which are just Wants?

Hiring SEOs is tricky because the search engine optimization industry is a unique one. It’s one of the few fields where finding someone special takes more than just recruiting kids out of college and paying them enough to buy a fridge filled of beer and some ramen. There is no SEO major. There’s no Usability major. There are subjects just barely on the cusp of what we do for a living but there’s nothing with a skillset that perfect aligns to search engine optimization. So what do you look for? What are the traits that make a good SEO?

When coming up with traits SEOs should have I left off things like “prior experience in SEO”, “knowledge of the search engines” or “being the brother of Matt Cutts”. It’s not that these things aren’t important (especially that last one), but they’re all things that can be taught (okay, 2 out of 3). Just because someone knows what SEO stands for doesn’t mean he or she is any better qualified than the girl currently sitting in the marketing department who secretly has some mad technological savvy.

With that, here are the traits I’d look for if Bruce ever lost his mind and put me in charge of hiring our SEO team:

• Technical Acumen: Most of what it takes to be a good SEO can be taught in a few months (at least on a basic level), but it definitely doesn’t hurt to hire someone with some technical skills. For example, I know that no amount of search engine optimization training will make me an A-list SEO. I could probably do the basics, but to be honest, I’m pretty technological retarded. I can’t even change my settings in Outlook without calling IT. You don’t want to hire someone like me to run your inhouse search engine optimization department. You want someone who is familiar with FTP programs, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, ASP, etc. Someone who perhaps has a basic understanding of Web design, IT understandings and knows Internet business models. I can write you some kickass ad copy, but that’s about it.
• Analytical Mindset: Going along with being technologically skilled, you should also look for someone who is a bit mathy and analytical. Someone who can look at data sets without feeling lightheaded. As an SEO, you can’t be intimidated by numbers or conversion rates or other types of Web metrics. So much of search engine optimization is interpreting the information you already have and then making decisions off that. Gathering all the information collectors in the world won’t do you any good if you don’t have anyone who knows how to do something with those numbers.
• Mad Research Skills: I personally believe (like such as?) that in order to be a good SEO you have to be tirelessly curious and inquisitive. Much of search engine optimization is based on research, tracking down answers, and experimentation that either you have the mindset for it or you don’t. When I look at the amount of time our SEO Analysts spend trying things out and researching the pearls of wisdoms exposed by the search engines, it’s amazing they get any “real” work done.
• A Think Outside The Box-er: Hey, search engine optimization ain’t for dummies and it’s definitely not static. You need someone will be able to soak up the training you’re giving them and run with it. Someone who can read Larry and Sergey’s master plan and pick it apart. Someone who’s able to understand marketing practices and the bigger picture. People who exudes creativity and has that spark in their eye when you present them with a problem with no answer. A good hire will always be able to find that answer or at least spend a week not sleeping trying to find it. I credit the success of Bruce Clay’s SEO team to these people. Our SEO Analytics who don’t see the leaves off the tree, but instead imagine the leaves and somehow make it all come together to form a solid foundation. They’re awesome.
• Ethics: I hate to even go here, but I think it’s important. You have to hire someone who will respect what search engine optimization is all about and not fall prey to the “quick and easy” mentality. The worst thing you can do is hire someone, teach them about SEO, and then watch as their eyes get real big reading less than pure SEO blogs and they start “experimenting” with your site. If you’re going to spend the time teaching someone the principles of search engine optimization, you want to make sure they’re going to stay true to those and not, um, wander. You don’t want your site getting banned because they were overzealous.
• Optimizable: Above all, you want someone who you can train and who will fit inside your organization. It makes no difference how smart they are, how creative, how skilled if they can’t work within your group. Smart people incapable of working in a group setting do nothing but frustrate everyone.

Obviously there are plenty of other traits that can help make a great SEO, but I think these are some of the most important. Would it be nice to have someone who has experience in Web analytics? Sure, but you can train someone how to do that. Would it be nice to have someone who can write and craft really stellar landing pages and ad copy? Yes, but you can outsource that to other departments or teach basic writing skills. These are the traits that your hire is either going to have or be without. They’re what’s most important.

Remember when hiring that you probably won’t find all of them in one person, but as long as they’re common among your SEO team, I think you’re in pretty good shape.

Which traits for the perfect SEO did I miss?

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/ 1/08 at 5:32 PM | Comments (13)

March 27, 2008

We Do Need SEO Standards

Over at Search Engine Land, Jill Whalen writes that we don’t need industry standards and just like that my inner pit bull wakes up and starts mouthing the gate. It’s like a tic.

As you might imagine, I disagree with Jill. Taking a look around, I think we are absolutely at the point where it’s Do or Die time for SEO standards. We don’t need the perfect search engine optimization How To guide (though I’m sure Mahalo is working on that), but we do need to outline what SEO is and what it means to optimize a Web site. We need to establish best practices, what the risk is for abandoning them, and what all these different terms that we throw around actually mean.

Jill gave the following four reasons for why they industry does NOT need SEO standards:

1. There are too many ways of skinning the SEO cat.
2. We can’t even agree on the definition of search engine optimization.
3. There are already laws to protect people from SEO scam.
4. There’s no such thing as “cheating” in SEO.

That was her reasoning. Now I will destroy it. Muahaha. (Just kidding, Jill!)

Jill is right. There are many ways to do SEO. There are also many ways to cook a pork chop. Just because the same task can be accomplished and approached differently and with different flavors doesn’t mean that guidelines aren’t useful. I’m not saying that SEMPO or another such organization should get together and create the end-all, be-all recipe of how to perform SEO. That would be unrealistic and outdated before it was even finished. I’m saying we need basic guidelines for the search engine optimization process and to document what it is we actually do. It’s something we need for training, for protection and for credibility.

Jill noted that we all know that keywords are important to a search engine optimization campaign even if we can’t agree on how many instances of each term we need in our copy. The fact that keywords are needed to support our subject theme is the SEO rule, the number of instances is the secret sauce that SEOs can experiment and test out on their own. We’re not creating a cheat sheet; we’re creating guidelines.

And as much as I sympathize with Jill’s hesitancy to push for a set of common definitions for SEO, good GOD do we need them. I know the process is going to be majorly not fun and that there will be lots of closed door fighting (bring popcorn!), but without standard definitions we’re all just making this up as we go along and trying to get square spammy techniques to fit inside a round white hat hole. It’s also necessary for newbies just entering the game and for the poor inhouse folks who have to explain and justify things to scary balding men in suits. I don’t need to know the history of cloaking. I just need a basic definition of what it is and examples of it in its most white and most black forms.

Jill’s last two points of contention are that there are already laws in place to protect people from SEO scams and that there’s really no such thing as “cheating” in search optimization to begin with. Back, pit bull, back!

As far as there being “laws” out there to protect people from wheelin’ and dealin’ SEOs, I think that’s up for debate. Yes, there is legislation out there that will make sure contracts are lived up to and that fraud doesn’t occur, but we need to educate people so that they are aware of when they’re being scammed. I suspect most site owners don’t even know that the SEO “professional” who is buying them links and engaging in shady SEO practices is potentially putting them, their site, and their company at risk. And that is scamming them. That is what a SEO standards can help accomplish. It’s about making the entire process transparent, without revealing each firm's specific secret sauce.

When it comes to the SEO cheating argument, I think Jill needs to understand that the best practices and standards we’d be creating aren’t meant for the black hats. I’m not trying to bring anyone over to the light here. What I’m interested in is helping upcoming search marketers learn the ropes and to give them the tools they need to learn to do things right from the very start. We’re creating standards so the next generations of search marketers get a head start and have more than just SEO blogs and forums to learn from. We’re trying to cut back on the amount of disinformation.

And I think it is up to us to police our industry, just like it’s up to us to be good citizens in the town we live in and speak up when we see something that isn’t right.

Obviously, I don’t think it’s my job to “out” people buying links or those using spammy techniques, but as a member of the search engine optimization industry, and a representative for a company known for doing it “right”, I think it’s my responsibility to educate. That is a stance Bruce Clay, Inc. has always taken. It’s why we have our SEO Code of Ethics and started our SEO training and Advanced Certification programs.

For search engine optimization to become a legitimate industry, we need to start treating ourselves as one. Ian McAnerin actually brought up a great point during the Is It Time For Search Marketing Standards panel reminding us that search engine optimization is a form of advertising. It’s not a matter of should it be regulated, advertising MUST be regulated. If we don’t do it, someone else is going to come in and do it for us. I’d rather see us create our own guidebook.

Think of SEO has a baby startup. In the early days, it’s okay when you’re stealing money out of petty cash to pay the rent and maybe not following all those OSHA laws you know you’re responsible for. But as you start increasing your employee count and becoming “legit”, those things start to matter more. You start to become responsible for making sure your organization is playing by the rules. It’s the same thing for SEO.

For us to grow, we have to adopt the official standards that are going to give us the credibility and protection that this industry needs.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 03/27/08 at 4:36 PM | Comments (28)

February 20, 2008

Instilling Fear In Site Owners

I’m always a little concerned when I head out into the SEO forums and find people talking about absolutes and how doing X will tank your search engine optimization rankings. It’s even more concerning when such threads get picked up and broadcasted.

Over at Search Engine Roundtable today, Tamar Weinberg comments on a thread going on over at WebmasterWorld where the topic at hand is whether it’s a good idea (from a search engine perspective) for site owners to edit their Web content. Based on excerpts from the thread and Tamar’s own insight, it seems like the popular opinion is no, site owners should not edit their pages for fear of tarnishing already established rankings. Instead, just pile on new pages. Everyone loves new content!

See, now that makes me nervous. And it makes me even more nervous that newbie SEOs will stumble across that thread or Tamar’s post and now be afraid to touch their Web site in fear of tanking their rankings. We have to get people out of this fear element when it comes to search engine optimization. SEO is not supposed to be scary. Okay, maybe the blackhats are scary, but that’s it.

I agree with Tamar and other forum members that adding fresh pages to your Web site is beneficial to your search engine optimization goals. You want to be seen as a subject matter expert, and one of the best ways to do that is by creating authoritative content that brands yourself as a resource to your users. However, let’s not turn our Web site in a museum for legacy Web pages that we’re afraid to touch. The goal is to get quality traffic, not to collect dust.

Take a look at your site and your analytics. If your home page and important landing pages are ranking well for your keywords and are still relevant and up-to-date, then don’t touch them. Freeze those pages and work on improving the others. But if the information needs to be updated, your keyword objective changes, or you think the page can simply be improved in general, don’t just leave those pages to die out on their own. Edit them.

Let’s be honest here. Are we going to rewrite our entire web_rank page (the one that ranks for search engine optimization) from scratch? No, probably not. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t touched it in the last 10 years either. As your competition changes, so do things like optimum keyword densities and page requirements. You have to tweak pages to stay current and keep meeting the search engines requirements for relevancy.

As Tedster points out in the forums, if your page is highly dependant on on-page search engine optimization factors, then any substantial changes may affect your rankings. However, chances are your stronger pages are also ranking due to off-page SEO factors like incoming anchor text and backlinks. As long as you’re not changing the focus of the page and discrediting those links, you should be okay.

Often these “Don’t Do X Or Lose Rankings!” threads instill unnecessary fear into site owners, which in the end, hurts their site. If you never change the content on your site, how are you going know if your conversion rate is as high as it can be? Why would the spiders continue to visit and respider your site if the content is the same each time they visit? What if you think of a better, clearer way to word that call to action? What if you find a new keyword that you think would greatly increase your overall revenue? Are you really going to sit on it because you’re afraid of doing damage? Not acting as a result of fear is no way to live or to run a search engine optimization campaign. Your site is your baby, it’s okay for you to fuss with it.

But fuss with a purpose. When it comes to content, it’s quality over quantity. Adding copy that won't convert and doesn’t help to strengthen your brand or explain your services won’t help you.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 02/20/08 at 12:16 PM | Comments (1)

February 4, 2008

Search Engine Optimization For Your Flash Site

There was as question over at DigitalPoint asking whether or not it’s possible to optimize a Web site that is entirely Flash. The answer is yes, I just wouldn’t recommend it.

The search engines have made some pretty impressive strides when it comes to indexing Flash elements, the problem is they’re still not perfect. While they can pick out links and text, they can’t yet put it into context. It’s a bit like having a conversation with your 3-year-old nephew, or trying to engage Susan. They hear the words; they just don’t know how to process them. But search engine optimization issues aside, designing your site entirely in Flash isn’t even good from a user perspective.

Think about the sites you visit and how you interact with them. Do you enjoy landing on sites solely constructed in Flash? Sites that often make you sit through a 2 minutes video before entering, sites with “clever” navigation that only a 3-year-old can use, sites with lots of things floating around? I don’t. It takes away from the content, and that’s the last thing you want to do. I’m definitely the type that unless I’m really invested in your content, I’m not going to waste my time trying to click on the funny button at the precise angle needed just to get to a new screen. I’m going to go somewhere else.

When it comes to Flash, it’s best to think of it as a complement and not a replacement to a good HTML site. Incorporate Flash elements, but save your need to dazzle people with bullshit for your offline relationships.

If you are going to use Flash on your site, realize that you’ll also have to create HTML elements for everything you’re representing in Flash. Typically, we recommend designing your navigation, home page and important site pages in HTML. These are the mainstays that must be easily accessible both from a user and a search engine optimization standpoint. I should point out the obvious and say, yes, I realize that the Bruce Clay site uses Flash navigation. However, if you’ll notice, we also include text links at the bottom for each of our silos. And even though we have a Flash site map that I think is pretty sweet, we’ve also included a basic HTML version that is easily spiderable. Being somewhat well-versed in search engine optimization, we’ve decided to cover things from every angle. :)

If you are going to create a Flash version of your Web site, make sure that the content you’re rendering in Flash also appears within a noscript tag, otherwise the search engines won’t be able to spider it. Doing this gives both the search engines and your users access to content and will either show the Flash version or the non-Flash version based on whose visiting. If you would like to have Flash, and add content that is visible to the user, you can do that too. Generally, the population of noscript sections of the site have been done by reading the XML that also populates the content into the Flash. This is the preferred way as it guarantees that what is rendered in the noscript tags is the same as what is being rendered in Flash.

While you’re playing with your nonscript tags, don’t forget to include keyword-rich Meta and Title tags. And we shouldn’t even have to say this, but please don’t try and show the engines content that isn’t actually presented in the Flash files. This is bad and a great way to get yourself into a bunch of trouble.

The most important thing to remember when designing your site is that your visitors are there because they want to learn about you. Often too much Flash turns people off and will send them elsewhere.

Moral of the story: Flash elements, not a Flash site. Got it?

[There are 7 Days left to enter the Bruce Clay SEO Contest to put yourself in the running for a free trip to SES NY, as well as a free pass to Bruce Clay’s SEOToolSet and Advanced Certification courses. Don’t miss out! Get your submission in today!]

Posted by Lisa Barone on 02/ 4/08 at 9:05 AM | Comments (3)

January 23, 2008

Google Penalties, Keeping Customers & Finding Your Muse

Aaron Solves The Position 6 Penalty

Way back in December we started hearing talk of a “position 6 penalty” that looked to be punishing sites that normally ranked in the first two positions by banishing them all the way down to position 6. There didn’t appear to be many similarities between the sites affected, just that they once held very high rankings for their keywords. Aaron Wall commented early this year that he believed the penalty had something to do with phrase relationships where the links coming into a site were considered by Google to be too tightly aligned with the anchor text used. Matt Cutts denied such a rumor but it seemed that there were a lot of reports of the same thing for it to be totally false.

Well, despite Matt’s denials Aaron is back discussing the situation today in his post How I Got My Google Ranking #6 Filter Removed. It basically sounds like he was able to regain rankings by lowering the amount of SEO on this site. If that’s the case, there’s been plenty of threads about how sometimes Google seems to punish sites that are over-optimized. Could the position 6 penalty be just another sign of that? Take a look at Aaron’s post and decide.

Retain Customers, Make More Money

The Consumerist confirms what we already know telling us that it’s more profitable to keep an old customer (pdf) than to go find new ones. A bunch of really smart Harvard researchers discovered that by decreasing the number of customers you drive away by 5 percent, you can 35-95 percent more profit. The pretty chart below illustrates the fluctuations that occur between industries. People selling credit cards take note:

Didn’t I just rant the other day about the importance of customer service? Maybe it’s time to change the way we do business. Acquiring new customers is expensive and an unstable investment. I mean, who knows is that customer will stick around long enough to be profitable? Stop focusing all your efforts on the selling and work to strengthen the relationships you have with customers who have already put their faith in you. Happy customers are more likely to refer friends, spend larger sums of money with you, and typically use fewer resources. And really, it’s just a better way to do business.

Have You Gone MADD?

Over at Copyblogger Jonathan Morrow talks about MADD: A Writing Disorder That Stifles Your Creativity and helps writers determine if they have it. Symptoms include careless spellings and grammatical mistakes, blogging without a point, doing anything to avoid writing and others. Oh dear.

Hi. My name is Lisa and I have MADD aka Muse Attention Deficit Disorder.

Luckily for me, Jonathan offers up some “cures” for the disease that I will soon be working into my blogging diet. I can’t help but wonder if SEOs and Internet marketers have their own version of MADD. If they spend so much time looking at on-page SEO elements and trying to master everything social media that they’re boring their muse to death and dimming the fire that used to guide them. If you’re feeling a bit run down, I’d encourage you to give Jonathan’s article a read and adapt it to your own needs. That Feeding Your Muse one is pretty important. Sometimes we all have to step outside our box and ourselves to get back on track.

Fun Finds

Tamar says social media is not only about social media sites and you should listen to her. Tamar is a social media princess.

It’s National Pie Day! Go treat yourself with a little sinful indulgence.

Read through Rebecca Kelley’s post entitled Your Users Aren’t Intuitive, Which Is Why Your Forms Need To Be and then check out Pat Sexton’s comment in response. Water. All over the keyboard. Thanks, Pat.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 01/23/08 at 4:10 PM | Comments (1)

January 10, 2008

4 Reasons Your Mobile Web Site Sucks

After a nice (and apologetic) email from my Verizon Wireless representative, I ended up getting that Voyager for Christmas after all. And let me just tell you, searching the mobile Web on my phone has never been easier or more fun. Not surprisingly, I find myself using it far more than any of the other Web-enabled phones I’ve had, mostly because the bigger screen makes it considerably more usable, and the antenna on the side, which I’m not sure actually does anything, placates me into thinking things are running faster.

But my time spent browsing and searching on the go has shown me that not everyone is taking mobile as seriously as I am. Here are some of the most common mistakes I’m finding in my travels that I think every business should work to avoid.

Impossible Navigation (aka The Barnes & Noble Example)

Whether you create a mobile-specific version of your Web site or just optimize the site you’re already running for a mobile browser, your goal is for that site to be usable. That makes sense, right? You want users to be able to find the information they’re looking for in the shortest amount of time. Well, clearly no one told Barnes & Noble that.

Like most hip kids do these days, I spent Saturday night hidden in a corner of Barnes & Noble, book and coffee in hand. I was enjoying my little secret nook but was curious what time the store closed. Because I avoid talking to actual people unless absolutely necessary, I whipped out my Voyager and headed to the Barnes & Noble site to see what time the store closed.

Oh heavens.

Trying to locate a store from my phone was as painful as engaging in conversation with Susan. I was eventually able to maneuver my way around but it was incredibly clumsy and took at least 4 minutes. That’s way more time than I care to spend trying to decipher the mess you’ve created for me. I was almost tempted just to get up and just ask a real person. Almost.

I don’t care what extra stuff you put on your mobile site, but make sure you have the content that users will be specifically searching for high up on the page. I’m talking about things like a phone number (preferably click to call), a Google map, operating hours, and a link to help them locate a store. If they’re searching for you on their mobile phone, they probably have a very specific reason—they’re trying to find out where the hell you’re located and if you’ll still be open by the time they get to you. Help them answer that question.

You Don’t Exist (aka The Subway Example)

It’s 2008 and you’ve already been introduced to the iPhone. You should know by now how important it is for you to have a mobile presence. If I search for you and you’re not there, shame on you!

I can’t tell you how many businesses I’ve searched for using Verizon’s Superpages and have come up empty handed. I did a search for Subway just the other day and do you know what came up? Nothing. I could have gone to the Subway Web site, I’m sure, but I didn’t. I chose to do a search, which I’m sure is how many people use the Web. And when I looked for Subway, not only was I informed that it wasn’t listed, but I was even asked if I perhaps meant Quiznos, KFC or Dairy Queen, because those establishments, as sub par as they may be, had the smarts to register their business information with Superpages. Hmm, maybe I will go to Quiznos instead. Or Dairy Queen. Dairy Queen has ice cream!

The most important rule for the mobile Web is to be there! Ensure your customers can find you by creating complete and accurate profiles in Google Local, Yahoo, Ask, Superpages, etc. And make sure you know which mobile carriers pull from which directories. Again, when users are searching locally and from their mobile phone, they’re doing some with intent. Don’t get in your own way.

You Make Things As Complicated As Possible (aka the ESPN example)

I’ve often had the need to check sport scores while on the go or out at dinner with someone who is incredibly boring. I don’t do it everyday, but I do it enough to have ESPN set as one of my bookmarks. And do you know what the URL is for the mobile ESPN Web site?

This: http://mobileapp.espn.go.com/wireless/espn/redesign/index

Are you kidding me? Are you trying to make it as difficult as you can for you customers to find you? Who is going to type that into their address bar? Um, no one. I’m sure there is a perfectly good explanation why their site is not m.espn.com or mobile.espn.com, but surely there is a more succinct URL they could have chosen. Because of ESPN’s misstep, I’m much more likely to use the Sports shortcut that Verizon offers me. It’s easily accessible and always full of Tom Brady knowledge. In fact, on New Years Eve, when someone asked me how old Tom Brady was, I was able to pull that information up for them in a split second. He’s 30, you know.

If you can register m.yourdomain.com, do it. It’s far easier for users to remember, type and call upon than some 40 character mess.

You Send Me Into List & Information Overload (aka The Yahoo Mobile Example)

I asked Susan if there were any mobile Web sites that just jumped out at her as being annoying and Yahoo’s mobile site was at the top of her list. [It's a long list. --Susan] I was surprised to hear that given all the good things I’ve read about them but I decided to check it out.

Oh goodness, it’s like list heaven over there. Users are expected to scroll for ages and ages. I’m not as opposed to this site as Susan is. I agree that it’s kind of hard to manage, but to Yahoo’s credit, they were able to get all the important links (Yahoo, My Yahoo, Mail) and search box up above the fold. It’s just that then they threw everything they have to offer below it. A lot of that stuff users will never, ever need.

I also think it’s a mistake to throw all that Yahoo Go information under the fold. It’s not getting the attention it deserves down there and it’s probably just frustrating users who have to wait for a giant page to load. Why not just make it a link in the top navigation and lets users access it if they want it? If you’re not sure how your content is displaying, try accessing via mobile simulators like Google or Skweezer. You may be surprised at what you find.

So, that’s some of the stuff that gets me hitting the back button on my phone. What about you?

Posted by Lisa Barone on 01/10/08 at 4:51 PM | Comments (1)

January 8, 2008

Yahoo Go, Google TV & Traditional SEO

Yahoo Improves, Opens Up Mobile Platform

Yahoo used the CES show going on in Vegas this week to announce that they’ll be revamping and relaunching their mobile Go application. Once the new version hits, third party developers will be able to create their own widgets to run inside the platform. Hmm, competing with Android much? Definitely! TechCrunch reports that a software development kit will be released within the next few weeks and that eBay, MySpace and MTV have already created their own Yahoo Go applications. Sweet.

Besides just the new and improved widgets, the updated version of Yahoo Go is also said to feature an improved user interface that will simplify the browsing experience, better shortcuts, a brand new personalized home page to display emails, calendar notifications, etc, and display ads. Yey ads!

Overall, good for Yahoo. I’ve never used the Yahoo Go platform myself, but major props to them for playing on their strengths, opening it up to outside software engineers, and encouraging mobile users to download the software and live their mobile lives in Yahoo. I may just go try it out.

Google TV Sets Are On Their Way!

News broke today that Google had partnered with TV maker Matushita to develop an HDTV set that comes complete with a direct link to YouTube and Picasa. Wow! Because that’s what the people want—an immediate connection to YouTube’s catalog of poorly constructed videos and their online photo gallery. Wait, that’s not what you want? Yeah, me neither.

I’m still trying to figure out the value for Google here. I suppose Matushita gets to tout that its TVs come with direct Google (!), but where does Google win? They already know what shows you’re watching thanks to their partnership with the Dish Network. Is this really going to give them any new information? I don’t get it. Feel free to heal me of my stupidity in the comments.

Make New Friends, But Keep The Old

A fun Cre8asite forums thread asks if new and shiner is better. The thread itself talks mostly about software and design issues but, as with all things, I prefer to bring it back to search engine optimization (that is what we do here, you know). It’s a good reminder that even though we’re encouraging clients to engage in social media and looking to blended search, it doesn’t mean it’s time to stop practicing traditional search engine optimization. It’s always going to be important that businesses create a site that is usable, properly siloed, targets the proper terms, etc.

Just because social media and its ilk are this year’s shiny new baby, doesn’t mean it should be the only member of your family (I’m stretching that analogy, aren’t I?). Properly SEOing your site ensures that you’re ranking for the terms that are important to you, that you’re able to meet all of your business objectives, that you’re not dependant upon costly PPC, and that you keep your conversions costs as low as possible. There’s a reason search engine optimization has been around and growing for 10+ years. It’s because it works, so don’t forget about it.

Fun Finds

WebProNews posted a great interview with Product Manager of Live Search Webmaster Tools Jeremiah Andrick. The interview is filled with fun information and the editing job by WebProNews is hilarious. Also, Mike McDonald is sporting a cowboy hat and letting the Kentucky accent fly. What more could you ask for?

WebMetricsGuru talks about the stress of blogging and its tendency to turn people into micro-celebrities, whether they want to be or not.

Jeff Quipp shared some good tips to avoid foggy blogging. I’m not sure what “foggy blogging” is exactly, but his tips are pretty useful. :)

Posted by Lisa Barone on 01/ 8/08 at 5:24 PM | Comments (3)

December 12, 2007

Practical Tips To Lift Your Conversion Rate

Hey, guys! I didn’t get nearly enough liveblogging last week, so I thought I’d sit in on this morning’s (or afternoon, depending on where you live) MarketingSherpa Landing Page Handbook seminar. Something about sitting in on the Multivariate Testing and Conversion Tweaking session last week has me dreaming about landing pages. And chocolate. However, the chocolate dreaming is a pretty natural occurrence for me. I don’t think it had anything to do with last week’s session.

Okay, enough of my rambling, we’re starting.

With us today are Marketo VP of Marketing John Miller, MarketingSherpa Research Director Stefan Tornquist and MarketingSherpa Senior Analyst Tim McAtee. We’re going to be covering findings from MarketingSherpa’s recently updated Landing Page Handbook.

We’re told that the data included in the handbook was gathered from surveys of 4,213 marketers, 3500+ consumers, lab tests and partners research, ‘best of’ research from 650+ third party organizations and 800+ Sherpa case studies.

What kinds of landing pages work best? Below is a screenshot of some of the top tests:

Tim and Stefan go through examples of the different types of landing page tests you can do.

1. Dynamic Search Copy: We’re shown a B2C example for a site selling music equipment. They adapted their search page to reiterate what users typed into the search box (“you searched for: Stratocaster guitar on Google”) and increased conversions 48 percent. It’s so simple but it orients the user back to their search. It tells them, “hey, this is relevant content for the search you conducted”.
2. Registration From Tests: Your marketing doesn’t end when someone gets to the form. So many organizations do a great job getting customers into the conversion funnel, but then they abandon them with a bad form. There is no golden rule for how many questions to put on a form. Sometimes it makes sense to have a lengthy form, for other business it doesn’t work well. The more complex the question, the greater degree of invalidity.

   When you ask people about budget or the number of employees in their organization, over 50 percent of people said they don’t give accurate answers. Most of the time it’s because they don’t know the information yet, not because they want to lie to you. If you require those questions you’ll get bad data and get more people abandoning the process.

   Stefans shares that 22 percent of those surveyed said they still have a “reset” button on their form sitting next to the “submit” button. There is no good reason to have this button! People will hit it accidentally, get frustrated, and then leave. You find this legacy programming a lot on B2B sites.

3. Creative Elements: As a creative rule of thumb, make eyeflow easier. Anything you can do to simplify and clarify a landing page will produce better results, unless you’re serving Asian countries.
• Eyeflow and Columns: Most people use 1-2 columns on email ads and search landing pages. You want as few columns as possible. The more columns you have, the harder it is for the human eye to consume your content. The panelists noted that landing pages coming from an email ad are typically simpler and easier to read than landing pages found via search. Often times what happens is that people who come from email ads are going to a very specific page that was designed to be a landing page. That’s not always the case with search. It’s not as coherent. What makes a landing page effective is its focus around a single topic.
• Eyeflow and Typeface: Conversions require more than hip graphics. Your designer may think white text on a black background works well, but your customers will be rubbing their eyes. Verdana 10pt is the most popular font/size combination on the Web even though it’s too small for most people over 40 to read. Make sure your text is black and hyperlinks are blue, otherwise people will have a hard time reading your copy.
• Eyeflow and Buttons: Don’t say “submit” say “add to shopping basket”. Don’t say “click here” say “click here to buy X”. The bigger the item is, the most likely it is to get clicked and to get eyeballs. If someone stands across the room and can’t read the button, it’s too small. You want it to be obvious what you want users to do.
4. Organic Search Landings Optimized: Most users (79 percent) who search organically end up on your interior pages, not your home page. You have to be aware of where people are coming into your site.
5. Redesign for Mobile: We’re shown the Secrets of Success home page to see how it looks on the PC Web vs. the Mobile Web. Who’s on the mobile Web? The corporate executives who are taking the time they spend in airports and in limos and putting it towards work use. They’re looking through their shortlist of vendors and accessing the sites from their mobile phone. If you make it hard for them to view your site, they’re going to lose interest and move on to one of your competitors. You don’t need to have a mobile campaign, but you do need to worry that your key audience can make sense of your page on mobile devices.

If you can do nothing else, budget for analytics and testing:

• 48 percent of those surveyed say they don’t do any A/B testing.
• 40 percent only test at launch and leave forever.
• 16 percent don’t share test results with agency.

And the scariest data point of them all: 18 percent of those surveyed said that no one even knows their landing page results. Yikes.

Tip: Measure landing pages based on final KPIs, not interim clicks. They mention the SEOmoz landing page contest and how they went about finding their new Premium Service landing page. Found that the long, scroll forever page got less clicks but higher conversions. You have to look at the second stage metrics.

From here, Stefan and Tim take a look at some user-submitted landing pages and basically pick them apart. I’ll share the important stuff that may be applicable your site.

• Test your landing pages, but don’t over test. Having too many test versions means it will take a long time to get anything even remotely looking like accurate results.
• Don’t pass a lead to sales before it’s ready. Manage your leads:
• Score leads so you know who’s ready for sales
• Nurture leads that aren’t yet ready.
• Hand leads to sales at the right time, with value-added information.
• Modify programs as new requirements are found.
• Don’t use a lot of extraneous navigation. You don’t want to distract people from the primary action.
• Place important content, including your action items, above the fold.
• Include multiple points of contact.
• Lay off the long URLs.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 12/12/07 at 12:23 PM | Comments (3)

December 4, 2007

Universal and Personal Search – This Changes Everything

Whew, okay, lunch over. And by lunch, I mean mad scramble to write up the morning sessions. Not that it mattered since I couldn't post them. Also, what's up with the press room not having wifi? How am I supposed to prove that I'm worth anything? (Quiet, Lisa.)

Next up is an awesome panel of speakers: Gordon Hotchkiss,Enquiro Search Solutions; Bill Slawski, KeyRelevance; and Greg Boser, WebGuerrilla LLC. Moderator Jake Baillie will be keeping them in line as they dig into the topic of blended search. (I know the title says Universal but that's a Google product and I like to at least pretend the other engines matter to SEOs. You can stop laughing.)

Gord Hotchkiss is up first with a look at the user's perspective. He begins with the Golden Triangle--the famous eye-tracking study that shows if you aren't number one, you aren't anywhere. The biggest variant is how relevant the top ads are.

When you add universal search, things change quite dramatically. "Chunking" took place instead. You notice something is different. You notice images before you recognize text so you start your scan at where the picture is, then the text next to it to see if it is relevant. Very seldom do you scan one result and then click. Instead, you look down, look up and then scan across. It's an E shaped scan instead of an F shape scan.

Within half a second, there is a difference between the universal and regular. Images get more attention and then the result next to the image. Two seconds in, the attention is still on the result with the image.

Images create boundaries on the page. You don't usually scan lower than wherever the image it. It created a mental "fence" and thus the hot spots appear above the image.

Switching over to personalization, does it work? They did a survey and tracked people researching the iPhone. Afterwards, they personalized the third, fourth and fifth results. Versus the non-personalized control search, they saw an increase in time spent, fixations and clickthroughs. Personalization gains attention and it will move scanning patterns.

When combined, the universal search with the image still gets first attention, then they move to the personalized result. What does it mean to the PPC side? The lowest listing became the hot spot. You're changing the focus away from the top of the page. Eventually the improvements will have to catch up on the paid side but they aren't there yet.

Personalized search scanning is much more diffuse than the non-personalized. Your search strategies have to change from query based to user based.

They have a webinar next week with a bunch of bright people. Register on their site.

Bill Slawski is up next for the webmaster's side. He's going to talk about the stuff behind the scenes. I'm ready to not understand anything.

3's of Universal and Personal Search
Search processes: crawl, index, & serves
Data Types: structures, semi-structured and unstructured
Query Types: informational transactional, navigational
Data collection: Users queries results
Data selection: users queries repositories
Profile building: searchers, site and queries
Profile types: implicit, explicit and contextual

Crawling and Extraction: Not just about keyword number but also about facts and information. Not just about individual words but going to be more about the whole context, parts of pages instead of word to page to document

Indexing: User information, web history, browsing information, feeds, more information from a broader base.

Serving: Aggregated user information may influence what you see. Like spelling corrections

Data Types: Structured Data-- it's database built. You see this a lot in local search. Usually a rigidly defined format, like a phone book.

Semi-structured data -- requires more work to figure out. Things like associating you with your phone number without explicitly saying so but you could be found in a directory.

Unstructured Data -- your information is contextually based. It's on your web site, perhaps but it isn't in the same kind of structured form as the first two kinds.

Most query types are informational in nature. You have to think about how people are looking for you and formulate keywords that way. Personalization can help figure out what a user means when they search for an ambiguous word (Java = programming, coffee, an island.)

A search engine can figure out that people who search for a certain type of thing, might also appear in other things. They might compare that one query returns the same sort of things as another query and then determine that they're related. Sites can build profiles too--category types, traffic volumes, good and services offered, keywords, locations. This information can come from ads shown, analytics, search tracking.

Profile creation methods--Explicit--filling out a form, specifically request alerts.

Implicit--serch engine derives information from search sessions, search and web browsing history, clicked ads

Contextual has more to do with the information other than what was entered--what time of day, what location, what your intention was.

Bill asks "Do any of you have ecommerce sites? Do you ever Google your customers after they buy something?" (Greg says "Stalker." I agree. Leave me alone, I gave you my money now go away.)

Choose your keywords before you make your videos and choose your images. Think about each of the three types of queries and strive to hit them all. Write for a search engine like it's a third grader. Make it really easy for a search engine to extract the data it needs.

Focus on the people who will you’re your products instead of the products themselves.

Greg Boser wraps it all up.

The biggest issue really has to do with the fact that there isn't even a consensus of what blended search should look like. Ask is much more about giving you lots of options and where and when and how. Google is more father knows best, it's still 10 things they're just slightly different 10 things.

Greg says Google needs to commit to it full fledged and just go for it. Give up the tabs and just let my use personalize it over time. Trying to figure out what made something pop up is nearly impossible because it's still so random.

He's been spending a lot of time at Ask because he thinks their approach is going to win out. Their results are kinda crap and their market share is too low right now but the UI is right one.

Go do Marissa Mayer's three favorite Universal searches on Google then go do them on Ask and see how much better it is.

Do searches in each vertical and learn how they work. The idea that you can just throw it up and will work isn't going to work. You need to play with it. Get into how each thing works. Use Ask to learn. When you use Ask, you'll get more non-typical results and you'll see what your competitors are doing better.

You can ruin your whole life obsessing over this mess that is Google Universal and Personalization.

In reality personalization isn't spying on me from afar. Greg points out that he does searches all the time that he doesn't click on. That doesn't make it a not successful search.

Gord: I 80% agree with you. Ask can afford to mess around with the interface because no one uses Ask. They built a type of search that works very for one type of search.

Greg goes off for a bit on Google lying about being a portal.

Q&A

Why is there an Ask ad on Google?

They bought it? No one seems to understand the question. Now we're fighting about whether or not every query is discover. No Greg, it isn't. I'm sorry.

Will we get used to personal/universal and then the Golden Triangle will return?

Gord: If its relevant to you, you're going to look at it, whether it's image or video or whatever, sponsored or not.

Follow up: Do you think users will look where the information is, not where the triangle is? Maybe the triangle is BS.

Greg: It's trained behavior. The SERPs have been the same since 1996. Maybe it'll revert back, maybe we'll learn something new. Sometimes the best solution is hurry up and wait.

I've been seeing a lot more related search lately. Do you have any comments?

Greg: That's back to the arrogance again. Going to page 2 is a failure for Google. You can't do personalization and not get my input. Yahoo's doing it too, they're suggesting it as you type.

Gord: I think it goes back to the Ask philosophy of we're going to give you options right away whereas Google is more incremental.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 12/ 4/07 at 5:15 PM | Comments (0)

October 24, 2007

Can Link Bait Mature? Yes, It Has To

The question over at the Cre8asite Forums is can linkbait mature? Yes, it can. It has to.

Today, social media is our little baby. It’s full of promise and potential, shiny and superficial. It’s great for getting lots of cooing and oohs and aahs, but so far getting it to actually convert is hit or miss. And even when you can attract the eyeballs, often they’re the wrong eyeballs. Like real babies, social media is exciting and lots of fun at first, but after awhile it starts to stink and you’re ready to trade it in for something else. Like a puppy, perhaps.

In order for social media to grow and develop into a fierce toddler (and keep its place in your house of marketing tricks), the types of link bait techniques we’re seeing must evolve. It has to lose its tendency to focus on the vapid, and mature into a sticky Internet marketing tactic that search marketers can use to increases conversions and user engagement.

And I think that it will.

Everything that we’re seeing in terms of link bait and social media today represents the ground floor of what’s to come. Things are going to get smarter and more creative. They have to. I mean, “old” standards like Top 10 and crafty How To lists are becoming less and less effective at getting your audience’s attention. They’re played out. They’re boring. And that’s okay, because they were really never that good of a social media marketing campaign to begin with.

The link bait attempts we’re inundated with today are typically geared at the lowest common denominator. It’s about appeasing the Digg/Reddit crowd and trying to get 10,000 visitors to your site in an hour. And while I will agree that its super fun to watch your traffic spike, that kind of attempt at links isn’t going to leave you with much. At the end of the day you’re going to end up with the same empty feeling you felt after all your one night stands in college. It’s time to grow up and find a more targeted approach at life, love and links.

And I think that evolution is already occurring. During last week’s Linkbaiting panel at SMX Social Media, Rebecca Kelley stressed the importance of doing your homework and applying actual research to your social media marketing strategy. Knowing what kinds of content do well on which kinds of site, knowing what your industry responds to, and seeing what’s already been done. When we talk to clients or SEO training students about establishing themselves as a subject matter expert, we often talk about some of the things Rebecca mentioned. Only we’ve never called it linkbaiting; we call it a link magnet.

The different between a link magnet and linkbait is how targeted it is. Successful linkbaiting will get you massive amount of traffic that often won't convert. Creating a successful link magnet will help you stand out in your field and increase your visibility to the segment of people that are important to you. It’s about creating a valuable resource. That’s the maturation of link bait. It’s less about the baiting and more about creating quality, link worthy content. The kind of stuff that is also likely to help you in the new era of blended search, as well.

The key to creating a great link magnet is research. When we talk to people about creating an effective link magnet, we often advise them to take a look at their industry. What tools do they use every day to do their job? Better yet, what’s that one thing you always complain about not having? What magical tool or resource or mashup or page do you think would make your life or job easier? Why don’t you go ahead and make your life easier and create it? And then share it with everyone else.

For us, the greatest in-house example of this has always been Bruce’s Search Engine Relationship Chart. Bruce created it to help himself get a visual understanding of how the search engines work. He spent the time to create something that was uniquely valuable and when he perfected it, he decided to share it with the entire search marketing industry. It was created as an educational resource and has continued to be a link magnet for us. It wasn’t a Top 10 list or a video of Susan falling down the stairs (though that would be awesome); it was link worthy content that continues to valuable years after it was initially created.

And that’s what this whole link bait is going to have to mature into in order for it to be successful. It’s not about reaching the front page of Digg and attracting a massive amount of eyeballs, it’s about attracting the right eyeballs. That’s the only way social media marketing will be able to achieve the kind of long-term success and viability search marketers are looking for.

What do you call grown up link bait? You call it a link magnet.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 10/24/07 at 11:49 AM | Comments (4)

October 22, 2007

Weekend Update

How was your weekend?

Mine was super awesome. On Friday, I met Boyz II Men, there were pumpkins and pumpkin bread on Saturday and on Sunday, my Red Sox earned a spot in the World Series. Can you say huzzah?

But now it’s Monday and it’s time to revisit all that search engine optimization stuff. Let’s do it.

Google News Facebook Application

There’s a Google News Facebook application. Do you know what they call it when the two gods of the Internet join forces to give you free stuff? They call that “awesome”.

According to Google, once added, the Google News beta application will allow Facebook users to choose from a bunch of pre-selected topics (Entertainment, Technology, World News, etc), identify some keywords, and then browse and share stories with their friends. Depending on how many categories you choose, you’ll typically get between 1-3 stories per topic. It’s basically a Google Alert plugged directly into your Facebook profile.

I’ll never use the application but I do find it interesting that Google is now developing official applications to work inside Facebook. They do seem to be bumping up their socialness lately, don’t they? I wonder what we’re going to see next? Will Google relaunch Orkut as is rumored or will we instead see more pairing of the Google and Facebook awesomeness? You’ll have to stay tuned to find it if the two Web powerhouses combine their powers for good or for evil. I’m sure it will all be in our Facebook News Feeds in no time.

WebmasterWorld Members Bothered by New Ask Commercials

Over at Search Engine Roundtable, Barry Schwartz tells us that some members feel that Ask’s “Instant Getification” commercials are taking a shot at Google. Personally, I don’t think they are. They’re simply showing you that the experience you get from using Ask’s blended search outfit is considerably richer than the ‘10 blue links’ you get from the other engines. At least one WebmasterWorld member, however, disagrees with me. Member Rj87uk thinks Google “would have something to say” about these commercials.

What are they going to say? That the Ask commercials are right and perfectly illustrate the kind of search experience you get from Ask.com? They’re not saying anything untrue and they’re really not picking on Google. Just a white label search engine. Users will interrupt that engine as being whatever engine it is that they currently search on.

Props to Ask.com for releasing some awesome new commercials. I’m sure you’ve seen them. After all, they’re everywhere!

Jakob Nielsen: First Two Words Most Important in Headlines

Passive voice is the key to writing good headlines, according to Jakob Nielsen, who says because users scan Web content in an F-pattern., those first two words of a paragraph are absolutely vital. Get rid of those filler words and hurry up and tell readers the most important things up front.

I suppose that makes sense, considering that most users are scanning your pages and not actually read them. Jakob argues that the first 2 words of your page title could be the highest-impact ROI-boosting design decision you make for your site. Yowsa, no pressure now. This is why I often ask Susan to help me write my titles. I still haven’t mastered that skill.

On a similar note, you should also read Matt Bailey’s post on Content v. Creative – Where does the Customer Count? It’s a very good read.

Fun Finds

In case you don’t live on the West Coast and haven’t yet been hit by a newspaper, California is on fire, causing much of the state to smell like a giant fire pit and my lungs and eyes to be coated in ash. (There was also that branch the Santa Ana winds put through my bedroom window, but we won’t even go there.) If you’re looking for some eerie pictures of what’s been going on over here, Danny has them over at Daggle.

Social Media Explorer offers up 8 Things Conference Officials Don’t Advertise. My favorite was number 8:

“No matter how comfortable the chairs, your butt will be numb.

There’s a lot for the conference organizers to cram into a day. Count on breaks that are too short, sessions that are too long and chairs that make you Google “sciatica.”

So true.

BlogHerald tells us that b5media will be hosting an additional teaching day at BlogWorld & New Media Expo next month in Vegas. I’ll be doing some liveblogging at the event so I am super psyched about this.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 10/22/07 at 12:44 PM | Comments (6)

October 15, 2007

Weekend Update

Hi friends. I broke my knee this weekend, but enough about me, let’s get to some great news finds, shall we?

The World Before Blogs…

First, something deep for you to ponder.

Heh.

What if all SEOs went underground?

Over at SEO Scoop, Donna asks: “If SEO bloggers and SEO forums disappeared (or went into deep privacy mode), would that be a good thing or a bad thing?”

Personally, I think it would be a very bad thing. While I understand that, after all the infighting and name calling lately, the idea of going underground and “hiding” is somewhat appealing, however, I really think it would do more harm than good.

The search marketing and search engine optimization industries have been strengthened by the number of intelligent voices participating in the conversation. We’ve all learned more, and therefore contributed more, as a result of how willing search marketers are to jump into the conversation and help one another out. We’ve caused the search engines to stay on their toes “or else”. Sure, sometimes there’s fighting and secret spilling, but as a whole, I think everyone benefits when search marketers are willing to share information and help educate those just starting out. It’s kind of what makes us unique. I’d hate for us to lose that.

And as Donna points out in her post, even if the current lot of search engine optimization bloggers decided to take their ball and go home, all it would do is leave room for new, perhaps less experienced search marketers to take their place. If the experts leave, it’s not going to stop the flow of information, it’s just going to spread the flow of inaccurate information. That doesn’t serve anyone.

The New York Times Stuffs Reader Comments In Your Face

Oh, dear. Did I just say that? What I meant to say was that The New York Times has officially put reader comments on the front page. Um, huzzah? Right. [Didn't the NYT learn from USA Today's mistake? --Susan] They must not read our blog.

The Silicon Valley Insider gave the NYT a “hats off” for the recent addition, but as you can probably deduce, I’m not such a fan.

Here’s my problem: The NYT has a very specific audience. Typically fairly educated people who are coming to the site to get facts they can trust. They want the news, international and domestic; they’re not coming for social commentary or public debate. But when you put comments on the front page, that’s what they’re getting. You’re devaluing the stories themselves and turning the front page of your respected news site into the office water cooler.

If you want to allow users to insert their comments on news stories, then that’s your decision. But let those comments reside on an individual story page. Don’t go broadcasting them on your news site’s home page.

The fact is reader comments don’t belong on the front page of the NYT site just like they wouldn’t publish the Letters to the Editor section on the front page of their newspaper. It’s about respecting why people are on your site and giving them what they’re looking for. Are your readers curious to know that Al Gore won a Nobel Piece Prize? Sure. Are they interested to know that “William” thinks it’s nothing more than a “left wing triumph”? Definitely not.

Have You Read Your SEO Newsletter Today?

It’s our favorite time of the month! The time when we insert a shameless plug for all of you to scurry over to your inboxes and check out the latest edition of the SEO Newsletter. Look excited!

This time around we’ll get you updated on how our SEO contest winner is doing, issue the next installment in our siloing series, and of course, keep you up-to-date on all the dirt happening in the search sphere.

Fun Finds

In case you’re like me and wake up in a cold sweat every night because you miss the awesomeness that is Ze Frank, here’s a quick Ze fix. First, some highlights from his recent panel at the Forrester Consumer forum, and second, a fun little diddy on social media. Life just isn’t the same without Ze. Sigh.

Vanessa Fox discovered that her Twitter account comes with default Scoble. It’s just too scary for words.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 10/15/07 at 4:07 PM | Comments (0)

September 25, 2007

7 Site Usability Mistakes That Bug Me

Hi, my name is Lisa and I have a problem. During the day I work for a pretty cool search engine optimization company, but you see, eventually I go home. And when I do, I turn into a regular searcher. I have needs and I’m looking to your Web site to help me fill them. Some of you are doing a great job (I heart you), but there’s a bunch of site owners who are letting me down.

For whatever reason, I’ve been doing a lot more searching lately than usual and I’m finding a lot of great stuff. I’ve been seeing an impressive number of sites that clearly understand what search engine optimization is and why being well-branded on the Web is important. But somehow, these same sites are still committing all sorts of usability and design faux pas. I’d like them to stop.

Here are some of the common usability mistakes that bug me and that you should absolutely avoid making on your site:

1. Your Site Content Isn’t Written For the Web

My lease is almost up on my apartment and I’m trying to find a new apartment complex that sucks just a little bit less than the one Swat, Jack-Jack and I are currently living in. I decided to consult the Web site for The Acorn, a local classifieds publication, for assistance. Here’s what their rental listings page offered me:

You see what they just did there? Instead of creating a usable Web-version of their content, they decided to just scan what they already had in print. Nice.

Are you kidding me? If you want to know why sites like Craigslist and Facebook are ruling marketplace listings, it’s because they know how to make their content usable. Scanning your content and placing it on your Web site, does not a Web presence make. The Acorn is losing out on potential new subscribers doing things the way they are. Either you’re going to have a Web site or your not. There’s no middle ground.

Dear Acorn, please fix this. Also, consider renaming. Thanks.

2. Confusing Navigation/ I Can’t Use It

Here is one of the apartment complexes I was considering:

Click through and try navigating through the site using Firefox. Tricky, eh? Sure, sometimes you get lucky and you can actually click on something, but most of the time, the home page (which, BTW, has the ugliest URL ever) renders completely unusable. Bad.

Oh, and don’t even get me started on all the empty white space they’re not taking advantage of.

3. You Talk To Me without Asking

There is one thing that will send me running from your Web site without fail: if I land on it and you immediately start talking to/singing at me without my permission, for no reason.

I didn’t think sites still did this, then I visited The Bangles Web site (shut up, they were playing at a local fair recently) and was forced to listen to their “Web site Greeting”. In case you were curious (I wasn’t), their “greeting” is basically just a recording of the ladies talking over one another. As soon as I heard it, I was so totally gone. Don’t force users to interact with the media you have on your site. Audio and video features should always be opt in, not opt out.

4. Your Site Is Designed Entirely In Flash

I get it, you like Flash and making your Web site pretty. That’s great, but guess what, I don’t. And your users may not either. Some of them may not even be able to access it. That’s a great way to alienate a whole bunch of people.

It bothers me when most sites opt to do this, but it really bothered me that the Marines chose to. I’m on the Marines’ Web site because I want information; there’s even a good chance that I may be somewhat frantic when I get there. Make it easy for me to find out what I need to know. There’s a very good chance that I’m not going to want to see a movie or look at an endless line of staged pictures. Anticipate these needs.

Also, unless there’s an HTML-complement to it, your site map should not be designed in Flash. Marines, please change that.

5. You Use Tiny, Tiny Product Photos or None At All!

Searchers and shoppers are known for being visually oriented. If you’re a manufacturer or ecommerce site, you need to be including product photos on your site to help guide users. But just as important as having photos at all, is having usable photos. Don’t just stick users with the thumbnail. Give them some way of zooming in or clicking through to a larger secondary image.

Customers want to see what they’re getting before they agree to buy. I want to be able to zoom in and see actual apartment floor plans. I want to see the trim on that jacket. Bigger photos allow for more detail and allow users to trust that you’re going to give them what you’re promising.

Think about it: Would you buy a product without being able to see it first? I wouldn’t.

6. Not Changing the Color of Visited Links

You’d think that in 2007 this would be pretty obvious, but surprise, it’s not. Good, user-friendly, accessible Web sites tell their users where they are, where they’ve been and where’s left to go. They don’t keep them in an endless cycle of “did I click on this yet?”

Realize that your users aren’t traversing your Web site in a straight line. They bounce around until they find what they’re looking for. They may not realize that they’ve clicked on the same link 5 times until they’ve clicked on it time number 6. If you’ve ever been in this situation, you know how frustrating it is. Make it easy for users to tell where they’ve been by differentiating the link color. It just makes everyone’s life easier.

7. You Immediately Break My Trust

I’m not going to lie, when I’m on your Web site, I’m judging you. Big time. If you make me register before I can even access your site, I’m going to assume you have something to hide and I’m going to leave.

If your site is filled with typos, I’m going to assume you’d take the same care with my order that you did with your copywriting. See ya!

If your Title tag reads “Welcome To My Site”, you type in ALL CAPS, or you’re still rocking the frame, I’m going to assume know that you’re stuck in the ‘90s and decide not to do business with you.

Site usability and site design matter. Search engine optimization and good rankings are important, but they don’t mean a thing if you’re turning users off as soon as they click through to your site. Take the time to really examine your site and see where it needs work. Is the message you’re sending the one you intended to send out? Do users enjoy interacting with your site? Or are you bugging them?

Posted by Lisa Barone on 09/25/07 at 3:27 PM | Comments (18)

September 17, 2007

Click Here For More Information...On Something

Over at Copyblogger, Brian Clark is arguing that Google has made people retarded (yikes!) and brainwashed them into using poor, action-less, wordy anchor text. Basically, he says that instead of using anchor text to tell users exactly what they want them to do (“click here”, “read more”, etc), today’s Internet marketers are trying to please the Google gods with their keyword use and confusing readers in the process.

Brian explains his frustration:

Another reader once chastised me for wasting anchor text with the words “click here,” even though my primary goal for the link was to get people to click (shocking, I know). This is when I first realized that Google is truly making people retarded. Somehow, this person no longer saw links as navigation for actual people to use; they only exist to pass on “juice” according to an algorithm that no one fully understands

Brian’s main argument seems to be that site owners will always get better results if they tell users exactly what they want them to do. If you want them to “click here”, then tell them that. Brian’s opinion is supported by some interesting data from MarketingSherpa that found using terms like “click here”, “read more” and “continue to article” actually improve clickthrough rates as much as 8.53 percent.

Well, fine. Data is very nice, especially when it says what you want it to. However, I still don’t buy it. In my humble blogger opinion, there is absolutely no substitute for keyword-rich anchor text.

The truth is, using descriptive anchor text tells the search engines and your readers what the page you’re linking to is about. Both groups use it as a way to build relevance for key terms. It has nothing to do with inflating rankings or “tricking” the engines, using keywords in your anchor text is common sense and it’s probably one of the most important factors in your entire Internet marketing campaign. Unless the site you’re linking to is about “click here”, there is no reason to be using that as your anchor text.

I think the problem is that some people seem to associate the term “keywords” with “keyword-stuffing” or “spamming”. They hear about how important keywords are to search engine optimization and they think that’s their only use. But that’s not the case. Sure, keywords are important to your SEO efforts, but they’re also what users are looking for while navigating your site. If your internal links are keyword-rich, then they’re able to see that your site is relevant to their needs and they’ll be more inclined to click through to the rest of your site. If they can’t determine that in 15 seconds or less, well, then they are so totally gone.

This may be hard for the copywriters out there to hear, but not every visitor on your site is actually reading your perfectly-written content. Some, maybe even many, are just scanning your page looking for the terms they’re interested in. A link that reads “click here for more information” isn’t going to grab them because they didn’t read the paragraph above it. More information on what? They don’t know because you didn’t tell them. If the links uses descriptive anchor text like “Boxer Puppy Information” or “Puppy Adoption”, then that skimmer is going to find that link and click through.

Simply put, descriptive anchor text aids site usability. It tells visitors what’s on the other side of that hyperlink. It lets them know that if they click on the link at the bottom of your page they’ll be taken to a site or a page that discusses [X]. Using “click here” as your anchor text is like searching the Internet using Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button. Seriously, someone give me a flashlight and a map and tell me where I’m going.

And what about the search engines? If you don’t include keyword-rich anchor text, how are they going to know what that page you’re linking to is about? They’re just going to assume you’re about clicking or reading, things that probably have nothing to do with that site or page. Help the engines out by using terms that help build subject matter relevance.

No one is debating the value of using call-to-action words. It’s very important that site owners help lead users through their sites. But there’s a middle ground between stuffing your anchor text with keywords (bad) and assigning “click here” to every link on your site (also bad). And not to be a jerk, but if I see you’re using “click here” for each link on your site, I’m going to assume you don’t know what you’re doing.

The good news is you don’t have to choose. You can present a call-to-action without losing out on a valuable opportunity to insert keywords. The simple “click here” can be rewritten to read “click here for cute puppy photos”, with “puppy photos” acting as the link. Action words and key terms can be combined to create a stronger punch.

If people get a little anchor text-obsessed it’s because it’s extremely important. It only takes a few seconds to rewrite that anchor text so that it best serves the users and engines. Why waste a valuable opportunity to be descriptive with keywords when you don’t have to?

Posted by Lisa Barone on 09/17/07 at 3:35 PM | Comments (6)

August 21, 2007

Podcast & Audio Search Optimization

Okay, fun people, it’s time for this morning’s Podcast & Audio Search Optimization panel with moderator Detlev Johnson and speakers Daron Babin (WebmasterRadio), Amanda Watlington (Searching for Profit) and Rick Klau (Google). You ready?

Detlev starts things off saying that, through the years, audio has been very difficult for the search engines to index and make accessible to users. HTML is simple but trying to decipher what is in an audio file is difficult. There are some speech recognition software programs out there, but even those aren’t very good.

To be fair, he also adds that audio files themselves can be marked up with things the search engines could use to return relevant audio search but for the most part, search marketers have failed to do that. Bad, search marketers, bad. Detlev says that now is the time to start doing that.

First up is Daron Babin.

Is anyone out there listening to podcasts? Daron says you better believe it. They’re listening in droves. There are a lot of people listening. If you’re creating compelling content you’re going to find that people are going to listen. Basically, I think what he’s trying to tell us is that people are listening to podcasts. :)

Before you jump into podcasting, here are some things to consider before you decide if this is a good investment for you:

• Production time – It’s costly. Don’t think it’s not. It’s human manpower.
• Cost of Production
• Equipment (recording, compression)
• Encoding is a pain in the proverbial…
• Analytics – Whose come close?
• Bandwidth

People are listening (I think Daron gets a cookie each time he says that) so make sure the content is compelling. Don’t ramble into a microphone. You need to talk about real specifics. Listeners do not want to know your dietary strengths or weaknesses. They don’t need to know about the dog needing to be neutered. They want to be educated or entertained. Engage listeners but get to the content. That’s why they are there.

Prepare for growth. Think about the expenses you’ll incur when you go popular. Daron recommends securing a sound host or Content Delivery Network and working a deal. He says that without someone who can handle load, distribution will be an issue and there will be unhappy users. Unhappy users aren’t users for long.

You must establish a complete understanding with your host or DND what type of reporting you’ll be able to see.

Transcribe everything. It’s the equity in your organic fortuitous display of originality. Originality with passion = downloads.

To optimize content, look at how you write and deploy your text for your media files. Ensure proper on-the-page criteria, as no engine can complain about finding new, original, and very relevant content. Give thought to categories before you create the content. Optimize your ID3 tags.

Get to your numbers. As a podcaster with prospects for investors, advertising dollars and the potential to drive feed revenue, you should make every effort to make sure your analytics is as dead on as possible. He recommends using Feedburner and using their system to quickly go in and optimize your feed and get an idea of your number.
Break up large media files into targeted, small bites.

There are a lot of people exploring podcasting. The people in this room are not on the bleeding edge (drat). If you want to make a dent against any of the big boys, then you have to get out there and think smart now. Optimize for what you’re building.

Next is Amanda Watlington.

Why should marketers podcast?

• Creates direct communication channel with prospects and customers.
• Extends reach through emotional connection with target market.
• Adds new media outlets to extend reach. Podcasts offer marketers audiences unavailable via regulated broadcast radio.
• Use short sponsorships to integrate advertising for broad-based content.
• Facilitates marketing communications.
• Humanize relations with the public.

The negatives of podcasting: Podcasting requires a level of transparency (that’s a negative?). The content is less formal with shorter turnaround than traditional communications. There are less controls and ownership. It requires an ongoing commitment and content development. There’s a loss of control associated with distribution and use.

There is an absolutely compelling reason for search marketers to start podcasting – Universal Search. Google is working podcasts into its main index. Your results in the SERP should lead to a targeted, keyword-rich landing page.

Questions to ask yourself before you begin podcasting:

• Is it going to be a one of or a podshow with multiple episodes?
• What is going to be the name of your show?
• Make sure the show name is not already in use.
• Show name and episodes names.
• Each will need its own Title and Description.
• Carefully write your titles and descriptions for your show and episode before you launch
• To transcribe or just abstract the show contents.
• Develop a keyword list for the show and determine how you will brand it – by the host or the show name.
• Write the audio tag information carefully in advance.
• Get album art ready.
• Review iTunes categories to find the right fit.
• Be prepared to edit the audio tags yourself for each episode.
• Download and test tag editors .
• Build your infrastructure in advance of creating the audio so that you can rapidly mount your show.

ID3 tags are metadata for MP3, 4, WMA, etc. The maximum tag size is 256 megabytes and maximum frame size is 16 megabytes. There are 39 predefined frames including copyright, content type, dates, and content information, and space for files such as pictures. They can also carry lyrics and the complete transcription of text.

The fields that you MUST optimize for are the title, the album (name of your podcast), the artist (not of the host), the year, the track, genre and comments.

When you optimize the sound file give it a unique name. Try using a shortened name + a date or episode number. This is important for users and for directories.

Optimize your Web pages. If you’re pushing it into a blog have a separate feed for your podcast. Be prepared to have a separate page for every episode. Amanda says she looks at them as tickets in the search engine lottery. Make sure the page has subscription information.

Also optimize your landing pages. Use a separate landing page for audio content to limit the possibility of broken links. Include a play for those who want to listen online. Include an abstract. Use basic search engine optimization methodologies.

Create and validate your feeds. Use Podifer, Feedburner, etc. Once created, submit your feeds. Track and monitor submissions. Amanda users a spreadsheet to keep track of where she’s submitted her podcasts.

Promote online audio beyond the search engines.

• In summary, five types
• Optimize the audio file
• Building landing pages
• Build accurate, effective RSS feeds
• Submit and promote broadly
• Watch the space

Last up is Rich Klau.

Rich works with Feedburner, which in case you don’t remember was acquired by Google in June.

The podcast aggregator market is changing quickly. Web-based aggregators are capturing a lot of market share. Social networks are also becoming a place to consume and distribute podcasts. Like Amanda said, Meta data is essential for discovery.

Consumption of podcasts feeds happens over a dizzying array of applications. He looked at just one podcast that runs through Feedburner and the top four services consuming this podcast were iTunes, Google Reader, My Yahoo! and Miro, which make up 75 percent of the audience. The rest of the share is amazingly fragmented. People are using many, many different aggregators. As a marketer you have to know what services users are using to find your content.

Syndication is embedded everywhere. Directories drive a lot of attention to podcasts. Publishers who do podcasts typically have Web sites. Don’t think of them as separate products.

Podcasts on social network: Last week NPR launched a Facebook application that allows users to embed the NPR player onto their FB page. It’s exposing people to podcasts who didn’t know what they were before.

Avoid exposing code and using acronyms. People don’t know what it means and it's scary. Present simple pages that make your content easily digestible. Add iTunes/Meida RSS extensions. If you are using iTunes, read Apple’s technical specifications. It will tell you important things like paying attention to the feed metadata, not abusing keywords (they’ll only pay attention to the first 12), properly categorizing your podcasts and using the iTunes summary tag.

Submit your podcast to all services and directories. Enable “pingshot” to ensure timely content updates. Ping Yaho, iTunes, Odeo, Bloglines, etc. Enable Feedburner’s Awareness API (eh, I don’t know about that last one).

Posted by Lisa Barone on 08/21/07 at 12:15 PM | Comments (0)

August 9, 2007

Understanding the Keyword Density Curve

A question popped up over at LED Digest yesterday asking if there is a perfect keyword density. Okay, so I was originally going to be all snarky and comment that, no, there is no magic number for how many times you use a keyword on a given page. Why would that have any affect on search engine optimization at all? But then I realized I’ve already used up my allotted percentage of snark this week so instead I’ll just be helpful.

Yes, dear friend, keyword densities do matter. They actually matter quite a lot.

The LED Digest subscriber didn’t just want to know if they mattered (otherwise this would be a really short entry), he specifically asked what the perfect keyword density is for any given page and what is the maximum/minimum a search marketer should try and achieve.

Well, if he’s looking for a number, we can’t give him one. While it would be super great if there was magical number for how many times you had to use a keyword to rank for it (37!), there isn’t. And how could there be? Imagine someone came out and said in order to rank for the phrase [huzzah] you have to use it 4 times on your 250-word page. Then everyone in the free world would be filling their pages up with exactly 4 huzzahs. How would that help Google to understand what page is the most expert? It wouldn’t. Search engine optimization will never be even remotely that easy.

How many times you must use a keyword in order to rank for it is going to depend on a million different factors. One of the obvious is how competitive the term is. If you want to rank for a total left-field term like “puppydogsareawesome” then you may only need to throw it up in the title in order to rank for it. However, if you want to rank for something more competitive like “car” or “SEO” or just plain “puppy”, then it’s going to take a much more concentrated effort, consisting of many, many, bundles of pages all focused on that one term.

Bruce is currently in Australia for SEO Training, but if he were here, he would tell you that keyword density is like a bell curve. The ideal keyword density will never be a static number and your goal isn’t necessarily to get to the peak of the curve. Most sites will find themselves falling either over or below the optimum mark. True keyword density goals will always be determined by the index as a whole. Your job is to be “least imperfect” and get your site closer to the engines' ‘optimum’ mark than your competition. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but each of your keywords is going to have a different optimum density, and so will each search engines. I know, it’s annoying, but every search engine touts a different optimum keyword density level and will give terms a different level of importance based on where they appear on the page.

Isn’t search engine optimization fun? Totally!

If you’re an SEOToolSet subscriber we make finding the optimum keyword density level for your targeted terms considerably easier thanks to two of our SEO Tools: the Single and Multi Page Keyword Density Analyzers. While both are top notch at measuring your site against your top ten competitors, the Single Page KDA is best suited to help you get your page competitive and then the Multi-page KDA will step in to help you take over fine tuning your pages to take those top positions.

If you’re not an SEOToolSet subscriber you can still get all this information, it’s just considerably more time consuming. We recommend you study your competitors’ sites and get an idea of how many times they’re using the terms in order to rank for them. How are they using them? Where are they putting them? What other kinds of related terms are they using? It’s all part of the puzzle.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 08/ 9/07 at 5:40 PM | Comments (2)

August 7, 2007

Google Hack: Finding Supplemental Results

Guest Entry by Mike Terry, SEO Analyst for Bruce Clay, Inc.

Like everyone else in the SEO community, we’ve been scrambling to deal with the recent blow of having supplemental results unlabeled and intermixed with the regular search results. We believe we’ve found a solution.

Even before Google stopped labeling supplemental results, it was useful to automate the process of finding and viewing them. If you had a very large site, it was nice not having to wade through several--or several dozen--SERPs just to find the supplemental pages. To that end, a small collection of obscure search command lines had been gathered by the community to filter out primary index entries and leave only pure, unadulterated supplemental results. The most popular of these was:

site:domain.com *** -asdfgh

… or variations which essentially did the same thing, such as:

site:domain.com *** -view

As we reported last month, however, this supplemental search results command line was disabled by Google. It’s fun to note that in the comments at that post just a month ago, folks were basically saying, “So they took away an undocumented command. You can still find supplemental results with a regular search. What’s the big deal?”

The big deal is that it was a portent. Soon all traces of supplemental results would be expunged from Google’s interface.

Aside from above, other syntaxes that once worked, but have since been purged include:

site:domain.com ~s
site:domain.com/&
site:domain.com * -asdf

With our old tools broken, we set to work finding alternatives. It didn’t take long. We hacked away, and eventually BC SEO Analyst Darren Slatten hit upon the magic incantation. Let’s build it up step-by-step (Note: Client www.finemoments.com used in examples by permission.):

1. Primary and Supplemental results mixed:

site:finemoments.com/boybabybirthannouncements/ (39 results)

2. Primary results only:

site:finemoments.com/boybabybirthannouncements/* (3 results)

3. Supplemental results only:

-site:finemoments.com/boybabybirthannouncements/* +site:finemoments.com/boybabybirthannouncements/ (36 results)

For the last, you’ll probably have to click on the link to show omitted results.

Item 3 does what we want. What it lacks in brevity it makes up for in workingness. It contains a “plus” (+) command and a “minus” (-) command. (The plus is technically superfluous; it’s just there for labeling.)

The plus command in 3 retrieves all documents prefixed by the specified URL fragment, including primary and supplemental content. The minus command in 3 retrieves all documents in the primary index, but doesn’t check the supplemental. This is crucially different from the behavior shown when combining some other special search commands and operators with the site: command.

After retrieving both sets, the plus set is filtered by comparison to the minus set and we’re left with only supplemental results.

Incidentally, if you try to use 2 above to just view the primary results, but Google finds “too few” primary results, it will show you a couple supplemental results. I haven’t verified how much is “too few”. It’s probably one of 0, 1, or 2, but I’ll leave finding the exact number as an exercise for the reader. If you suspect you have very few primary results, you can of course compare the results of 2’s command to the supplemental results (3’s command) and see if there are any matches. If so, you know 2’s results are not “legitimate”.

Here at Bruce Clay, we’re not one-trick ponies. We’ve developed other methods for identifying supplemental entries and mutually verified the results with each other. Unfortunately, we’re afraid Google will block these command lines, which forces us to hold in reserve some of our better techniques. Perhaps that’s not such a bad thing. After all, we must keep some secrets, mustn’t we?

Posted by Guest Author on 08/ 7/07 at 11:49 AM | Comments (5)

July 24, 2007

Search Engine Optimization Tricks for WordPress

If you missed Matt Cutts performance at San Francisco’s WordCamp 2007, you should totally kick yourself because it was awesome. And yes, it was a performance and believe me, the WordCampers Ate. It. Up.

Matt was on hand Saturday afternoon to give some whitehat search engine optimization tips for bloggers. I joked with him during lunch (cause we’re like, totally friends now) that there would only be a handful of people in his session because no one knew what search engine optimization was, but I was wrong. The room was packed and Matt was arguably Day 1’s MVP because he was both informative and hysterically adorable.

The tip shared by Matt that’s getting the biggest amount of coverage was the news that Google is very close to being able to interpret underscores as word separators the way hyphens have been in the past. This should make SEOs and bloggers alike very excited because it means the benefit of their keyword-rich URLs won’t be negated when their blog software automatically inserts underscores and not hyphens. This is also smart for Google because it should go a long way to strengthening their blog search, which at the moment is good, but not quite as good as Technorati.

Matt gave several other WordPress and blogging-related search engine optimization tricks, including:

• Don’t put your blog at the root page of your domain. What if down the line you want to do something else besides a blog? Also, people will typically link to your main page and to your main blog page so it’s a good way to gain extra links.
• Name your directory “blog” not “Wordpress”.
• Use category names that are good keywords.
• Use Stephan Spencer’s SEO Title plug-in which swaps the name of your blog with the name of your post to make your keywords more prevalent.
• If you want any hope of getting your blog into Google News, make sure there are multiple authors. Hey, that reminds me, have you seen our new Authors Page? It’s pretty, except that I look psychotic in my photo.
• The type of file extension used in your URL won't affect your rankings, unless it’s “exe”. If each one of your blog entries is its own program, you likely have a problem.

In terms of including question marks or hash marks in your URL, Matt noted that Google will truncate the URL at the hash marks and that question marks typically signify a dynamic URL. Matt claims that dynamic URLs are treated the same as static URLs.

Beyond just the tips, Matt also discussed some optimization stuff that was really just common sense. In terms of keywords, Matt advised doing keyword research and/or thinking about the keywords users are most likely to use before writing (duh), naturally working in keyword synonyms to make yourself more well-rounded (Use this knowledge only for good, never for evil, pleads Matt), and using ALT tags on all forms of media content. This includes not only images, but video, audio and other forms as well. This is only going to get more important.

Matt says if you’re not sure if you should do a podcast or vidcast, head over to the site hotornot.com and submit your photo. If you’re a 7 or above, do a video. If you’re a 6 or below, stick to podcasts. Heh, nice.

Also noteworthy was that somehow during the session PageRank and Google’s supplemental index was brought into the conversation. (See, Matt, it’s not just us optimization folk who are obsessed). I giggled but Matt told the blogging audience that supplemental results are determined mainly by PageRank. The only way to get them out of the index is so get them more links. There may or may not have been some cringing by me when he said this. I don’t think Matt noticed, nor did my fellow WordCampers.

To create an optimization-friendly blog, bloggers should also:

• Make sure your site is crawlable.
• Make post creation dates easy to find. Anyone remember Sicko?
• If you’re worried that adding the date with put more slashes into your URL, don’t worry. Matt says this isn’t a problem for Google.
• Check your blog on a cell phone/iPhone, as more and more users are going to be looking at your site this way.
• Use full text RSS feeds to get loyal users. Partial feeds get more page views, but not as much love.
• Your blog should do standard pings.

Matt ended the session noting that Google really wants to be a reflection of the Web. The best thing you can do for your site and ensure that Google knows about you is to get noticed. Create compelling content and users and Google will find out about your blog naturally. Create fun tools (LOLcat builder), controversy (Dvorak!), mention Robert Scoble (hiss!) or go the linkbait route and sell your mustache on eBay (Oh, Dax…).

Matt offered a lot of great blog optimization tips, but for me, the good thing about WordPress and most other blogging software is that it’s really search engine optimization friendly right out of the box. I’ve played around with a lot of blog software over the years, WP included, and it does a good job of handling most of the technical things for you. All you have to do is provide compelling keyword-rich content in a way that people want to read and link to. That’s not so hard, right?

Okay, ducking now.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 07/24/07 at 4:33 PM | Comments (12)

July 18, 2007

Search Engine Optimization: Do It Yourself or Farm It Out?

There’s an interesting debate coming around as of late. Stoney deGeyter asked over at Search Engine Land Can Small Business Really Afford SEO?, while over at LED Digest Michael Linehan argues whether the widespread “do-everything” ethos affecting business owners is actually hurting them in the long run.

For both questions, I really think it’s about your ability to budget both your time and your money.

To hit on Stoney’s question, the great thing about search engine optimization and the bigger pie of Internet marketing is that, yes, small businesses can absolutely afford it because campaigns are scalable. It’s about doing what you can when you can.

SEOToolSet training is in session in California this week and while I’ve been banned from the room (Bruce doesn’t like it when I scare attendees), my guess is that there are more than a handful small business owners and DIYers in attendance. Actually, I know there are because this is the month our SEO Contest winners are attending. (Hi Keri; hi Cavan.)

One thing we’ll notice during training is that sometimes site owners’ eyes get really big when they start hearing about all the ways they can improve their search engine rankings. They’ll pick up something from Bruce or they’re out there reading blogs and forums and they want to do everything and incorporate all the latest optimization tricks and techniques into their campaign immediately. While we can all appreciate the enthusiasm, sometimes the way to get to the top and improve your Web site is through small, consistent changes. First worry about becoming competitive, and then try the other stuff to pick up those last remaining spots. You don’t have to be everything at all once. In fact, most times you can’t.

The advantage of being a small business owner is that there is a lot you can do yourself. You can submit your site to the local engines, you can research your competitors, there’s likely less code to worry about and optimize, and you can blog and implement new site changes without having to jump through the same hoops the bigger dogs do. I’m not saying SEO is easier for smaller sites, but it is often less complicated.

As Stoney notes, the trick to a low-cost search engine optimization campaign is in campaign efficiency. You want to get the most reward for the least amount of work. Part of doing that involves asking yourself if you’re the best person to be implementing those changes or if your time (and money) is better spent farming it out. Remember, even though you’re doing the work yourself, you’re still using your time to do it.

I agree with Michael’s sentiment below:

“Trying to do everything may be just shooting yourself in the foot. What's the use of saving $1,000 if it took $3,000 worth of your time to do so? And what is the use of saving that $1,000 if you make only a few thousand dollars worth of profit from your work - when a specialist maybe could have made you $100,000.”

At some point in the life of your site, I think it becomes more cost effective to farm out your search engine optimization campaign. Once your site grows to a certain size there are simply too many keywords, too many competitors, too much code, too many pages, and just “too much” for you to focus on without neglecting your core business. You have a job, why are you trying to take on another one? We usually find that hiring an SEO team to keep an eye on and maintain your optimization campaign can help you to take your campaign to the next level and see greater improvements to your site.

But only if you hire the right SEO company.

Bruce made a special appearance on the LED Digest thread to issue a buyer beware when hiring an optimization company.

“It is not as easy as one would think to find a qualified SEO. the cheaper you want it, the cheaper you get it. And like it or not, sometimes you simply must do it yourself to get it done. Micromanagement of SEO by an amateur is not effective, I agree, but neither is hiring the wrong SEO firm. BTW, it is far cheaper to do it right with the right SEO, than to use 2 or more stumbling SEO's, or to do it yourself (the original premise of the post).”

For me, Bruce really nails it with that last line. (I know; Bruce is so totally excited that I have validated his opinion). Hiring an SEO is often cheaper and more effective than running a campaign yourself, but only if you hire someone who knows what they’re doing. And that’s not as easy as you think.

Site owners often get into a cycle of hiring bad SEOs who simply throw money away until the client is finally wise enough to know what’s going on. Whatever optimization company you decide to hire, you have to research them first. Stay up to date on the blogs and search news so that you can use the information you gain to question potential SEOs on their knowledge. If you know the language, it leaves you much better suited to weed out the fakes and find the gem.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 07/18/07 at 10:08 AM | Comments (1)

July 11, 2007

How Did You Learn About Search Engine Optimization?

Todd Mintz questioned a handful of SEMpdx speakers asking: What is the best way for a newbie to learn search engine marketing?

Not surprisingly, the answers most popular was to learn about search engine optimization was through independent research, reading blogs, participating in forums and attending training courses specifically geared towards optimization – the standard search marketer’s diet.

What’s always interested me about search engine optimization is that though everyone’s typically coming from different backgrounds -- computer programming, marketing, Mathematics, IT, Journalism (represent!) -- we’ve all been forced to learn the same way, mostly through reading and seeking our information on our own.

I remember when I started at Bruce Clay, Inc. a year and a half ago. I spent my first day reading the SEOToolSet manual. Let me tell you, though it’s now a valuable resource for me and something I can turn to in times of trouble, back then it may as well have been written in Japanese. Equipped with just a Journalism degree, I understood nothing.

Once I was through with that and my brain was ade