Today is SEM Synergy’s 100th episode anniversary and we celebrated live on the air! It was exhilarating and exciting and rewarding and fun and people were hanging in the chat room and Bruce was answering questions on air and people called in to the show and there was so much love going around I think I’m still on cloud nine!

Breathe, Virginia…

Seriously, thanks to friends and listeners for all the kudos and support, and thanks for listening to the show because that’s what makes it worth doing!

If you tuned in to the show today, you heard Bruce, Susan and I talking about how Rhea Drysdale (who you may know as co-founder of Outspoken Media or from her frequent SEM conference speaking gigs or as next week’s SEM Synergy guest!) defended “SEO” from being trademarked.

CC BY-SA 2.0 SEO trademark denied!

When the SEO community learned of Rhea’s story, they immediately snapped into action to donate the out-of-pocket legal costs that had piled on Rhea and Jonathan Hochman, another trademark opposer. You can find a recap of the full story (among other juicy delicious news and articles) in yesterday’s SEO Newsletter.

While we’d like to think that such an undeserved trademark claim to a common term like SEO would never have gone through, nobody knows what could have happened if Rhea and the opposition hadn’t acted when and how they did.

The issue now is that this trademark application is not the first of its kind, and it won’t be the last. (Here’s a trademark application for SEO that’s currently in the queue!) Anyone else think it would be ridiculous to watch this happen again? How can we be sure someone will come to our rescue next time?

Some have proposed that SEMPO, the industry’s professional organization, should take up the cause. Bruce, who sits on organization’s board of directors, explained on the show today that he’ll be bringing the issue up with the board to see what might be possible. I think we can all agree that it’s time to ensure SEO is treated as a generic term in the public domain, so it seems it’s time for some legal advice.

From a little sleuthing I found this Wikipedia entry (sophisticated, I know) on public domain for trademarks:

Terms can be deemed “generic” in two ways. First, any potential mark can be deemed “generic” by a trademark registry, that refuses to register it. In this instance, the term has no secondary meaning that helps consumers identify the source of the product; the term serves no function as a “mark”. Second, a mark, already in use, may be deemed generic by a court or registry after the mark is challenged as generic—this is known as “genericide”. In this instance, the term previously had a secondary meaning, but lost its source-identifying function.

I’d think that the second option would only be applicable if “SEO” was already a trademark, which it’s not. So that leaves us with the first option, which is to trust that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office won’t let anymore of these applications though. And if the USPTO opens the doors to another, it may come down to another individual reaching into their personal pocket to champion the security of SEO once again.

Let’s not let that happen again. At the very least, can we agree to rally around the issue if it ever comes back up? Can we promise not to let another individual tackle the issue alone? And of course I’ve gotta ask, any trademark lawyers in the house?

How Can SEOs Avoid More Trademark Trouble? — SEM Synergy Extras was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

Moderator: Vanessa Fox, Contributing Editor, Search Engine Land

Speakers:

Patrick Bennett, Co-Founder, BLVD Status
Maile Ohye, Senior Developer Programs Engineer, Google Inc.
Ralf Schwoebel, CEO, Tradebit, Inc.
Brian Ussery, Director of SEO Technology, Search Discovery Inc.

Maile’s first. Here’s her agenda:

• Need for speed
• Faster on the frontend: for little or no money down
• Available tools
• Performance and ranking
• 3 steps to success
• Looking ahead: performance and SEO

Need for Speed: Increased Conversions

Side-by side testing of an optimized site vs. the original version. They found a faster site resulted in higher conversions and higher volume for average conversion. Delays under half a second reduces a visitor’s average searches/day even after the delay is removed.

Good News: Faster on a Budget

The Performance Golden Rule: 80-90 percent of the end-user response time is spent on the front end. Start there.

Tools: Site Performance

It’s a lab tool. It will tell you how long it took on average for a page to load. It tells you how slow it is in comparison to other sites. It will tell you average load times for specific pages, as well as specific clues to make it faster.

Available Google Tools: Page Speed

It’s a Firebug plugin to use on any URL. It prioritizes ways to speed up your site.

Established truths about ranking:

• We aim to give users the best search experience possible
• Ranking is a nuanced process, over 200 signals
• Google is always innovating and conducting experiments

As of today, performance is not a factor in organic ranking. If performance becomes a signal, we expect to notify webmasters. But, hint: Google is pushing the importance of speed.

3 Steps to a Faster Site

1. Check out site performance in Webmaster Tools
2. Install Page Speed
3. Explore! Check out tools like YSlow, WebPagetest.org, hang out in the “make the Web Faster” forum

A faster site is proven to increase conversions, pages views and time on site while lowering bounce rate and operating costs. That’s measurable SEO value. Check out more at google.com/speed. She closes saying, “So you understand that speed is a priority. Good luck making the Web faster!”

Next Patrick takes the podium. Is site monitoring part of your SEO budget? Search for “website uptime monitor” and the tools can help you identify speed problems on your site.

What are some hints in analytics? Certain KPIs can shed light on bottlenecks:

• Visits
• Page views
• Bounce rate
• Time on site

Create a custom report to watch performance KPIs. They’re good indicators of whether or not the site is functioning properly.

What’s the ROI?

• Lower bounce rates
• Higher number page views
• Higher time on site
• More user interaction = more conversions
• More spider interaction = higher indexability

YSlow

This tool gives a performance grade to a site and lists important components that are in play.

Okay, my site is slow. Where should I start? It’s important to have a good host.

• Create a benchmark
• New server?
• Server-side caching
• Fewer HTTP requests
• Gzip compression
• JavaScript and CSS as external files
• Image compression

CSS Sprites: Create one image that holds all of your CSS background images, buttons, etc. This means a lot fewer HTTP requests.

When should I stop?

• Continually make this a priority.
• User the tools weekly to find bottlenecks.
• Never stop optimizing.
• Can we make this standard?

Ralf steps up next. He’s coming from an e-commerce background.

Focus on speed when SEO is done. Speed influences ranking.

Using Open Source Tools

• Search: Sphinx (or Lecene)
• Cache: Memcache and Squid
• Code: XCache for PHP

Embrace the Squid

• www.squid-cache.org: free proxy for Lin/Win
• Easy to setup, powerful, stable, scalable, fast

Divide and conquer: put the statistics into cache, lower server load.

Go Global

• Local delivery from the closest hub
• Load balancing included, also fail-over

Conclusion

• A fistful of dollars gives you
• A global content distribution network
• Increased speed = higher conversions
• A security layer between your site and hackers
• A fail-over solution to sleep better
• Less load on your main servers

Brian is next. Consumers expect a page to load in 2 seconds or less. Speed is not in analytics, so what do you do? Use the Webmaster Tools Maile talked about. The more data points there are, the more accurate it is.

Speed 2010

• Split the initial payload into 2 parts: 1) necessary to render the page and 2) not necessary to render page
• Prevent scripts from blocking other downloads
• Order resources for load efficiency
• Avoid placing inline scripts between CSS and other resources
• Use a cookie free domain for serving static content.
• Compact CSS, place it in <head: and remove unused CSS.
• With images, use the appropriate optimized format. Specify dimensions, don’t scale images in (X)HTML
• Use a Favicon with expiration to avoid 404s
• Use Google Page Speed to optimize images
• Strip whitespace
• Minimize redirects and remove dead links to avoid wasteful requests

The Need For Speed: Google Says It Matters was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

Moderator: Vanessa Fox, Contributing Editor, Search Engine Land

Speakers:

Sean Carlos, CEO, Antezeta Web Marketing
Richard Chavez, SEO Director, iCrossing
Maile Ohye, Senior Developer Programs Engineer, Google Inc.
Jonah Stein, Founder, ItsTheROI

Jonah just asked if any livebloggers were in the audience and I raised my hand. I’m being rewarded with his slides! Yay!

Maile’s up first with the lay of the land.

Agenda:

• Understand domains and URL structure
• Learn options for paginated content
• Use standard encodings in URLs
• Set preferences in webmaster tools
• Roll like a winner

Domain Names

Geotargeting priorites with Google:

• ccTLD, like .fr, .co.uk, will automatically be geo-targeted to the appropriate region
• webmaster tools manual geo-targeting with gTLD (if set)
• words for sub-domain or subdirectory
• requires about a week to take effect

Neither are really preferred for the Google index. They work equally well. It just depends how you want to service your customers.

Server Location

Magic signals (can override some of the above) one example is if they’ve extracted a physical address from your home page, then they might over write the other settings, but this is extremely rare

The next slide is crazy but she says they’re going to have a blog post on the Google Webmaster Blog that explains it all in detail:

Next is some jazz…

Paginated Content

Existing “view all” pages can have a rel=”canonical” from paginated URLs:

• All linking properties, etc., to “View All”
• Only “View All” displayed in SERPs
• Consider user experience
• Test load time

Next is parameters. Google advocates standard encodings, which means name/value pairs. Create algorithmically easily understood name/value pairs for dynamic URLs. Duplicates can be detected this way. The crawling is done more efficiently if they understand you can throw out the parameter. On the other side of the same coin, avoid maverick encodings. They are difficult to detect the similarity and that means duplicates will be crawled.

Set your parameter preferences in Webmaster Tools. You definitely don’t want to do it wrong because you could tell Google to ignore something important.

Roll Like a Winner: An Example

January 3, 2010

Web site with standard encodings:

• Eligible for URL parameter tool
• Compatible with crawling algorithms

Google is aware of 1,587,811 URLs on the site

Google attempted to crawl 885,482 URLs

On January 4, 2010

The webmaster set their preferred parameters in Webmaster Tools. After this configuration, Google was aware of 887,203 URLs, not 1.5 million. They attempted to crawl 799,000ish. That means crawl coverage is at 90 percent versus the 56 percent from previously.

The index selection increased by thousands. Likely fewer filtered results and more unique content.

Next up is Richard.

Load Balanced Hosting – What and Why

What: Load-balanced hosting enables site traffic to be distributed to a site that is hosted on more than one redundant server.

Why: Sites that generate high amounts of traffic often require advanced hosting solutions to maintain site stability. Overloading a server with large amounts of traffic can cause it crash.

SEO Challenges from Load-Balanced Hosting

In many instances you’ll see the server numbers displayed in the URL. The main issue with this is the duplicate content, which can impact rankings. End-users and bots should see the same version of the URL at all times.

Ghosting URLs

Always displaying the same sub-domain to all audiences. Some options:

• Enable the hosting system to always display the same server name no matter where the user / bot is directed.
• URL rewrite proxy of the sub-domain to the root www1, 2 or 3 rewrites/ displays to www. This can happen at the load-balancer level vs. server level
• 301 redirect to www or preferred version
• Hardware/TCP round robin. Load balancing performed at the TCP/IP address level

Pros:

Displays the preferred URL to all audiences

One execution

Cons:

Requires complex technology implementation

Can be difficult to retro-fit

Search Engine Tag Protocol

Leverage the rel=”canonical” tag to direct bots to preferred version. This is easy to implement and is supported by all major search engines. However, it’s not guaranteed. It can take a long time to implement and sometimes link equity from duplicate URLs doesn’t always pass.

Search engine webmaster tools can relieve a lot of the technical implementation. When you do this you must also have the removal command in the robots.txt file.

Key Takeaways

• Avoid SEO performance issues by solving for duplicate content at the sub-domain level
• Create an identical experience for bots and consumers
• Start early! Plan for any modifications to a new load-balancing platform early to avoid costly retrofitting
• Leverage shared search engine protocols to reactively solve for sub-domain duplicate content
• Leverage search engine webmaster tools to expedite and minimize the cost of implementation

Next is Sean. The domestic US market is mostly where are clients are. But in Google, the English speaking world stretches from New Zealand to the UK. There are considerations for organizing multilingual and multinational web site content. The two dimensions are language and technology. Ways to organize content, in Sean’s preferred order:

1. top level domains (TLDs)
2. sub-domains
3. directories (folders) on the Web server
4. URL parameters (not recommended)
5. Chance (a.k.a. no organization – not recommended)

Considerations driving a domain/URL strategy

Search engines try to guess the intended market a site is trying to reach. They’ll figure this out with country codes or server IP for generic domains.

Influence of incoming links: search engines will likely consider the “location” of sites providing incoming links when ranking a page for a particular market

Users scan search result URLs

Multiple studies have noted users scan URLs when deciding which result to select. Users probably prefer their country specific domain in search results.

Last the pros and cons of each solution:

Jonah is next with pagination decisions you should not ignore.  There are going to be some assumptions up front:

• PageRank means SOMETHING
• Higher PR is better within domain
• PR0 is better than graybar
• Graybar PR  ~ supplemental index
• Not index, not going to rank

PageRank doesn’t flow out of a page equally. It flows to the links that Google thinks the page likes most. Where the links are placed and where they’re in the page does matter.

Pagination can fail and here are some examples. Yahoo! results will drop PageRank from page one to page 2.

GreatSchools.org Case Study

They do unbiased school ratings for public and charter schools. They did recently change from .net to .org but it doesn’t seem to have screwed anything up. They have a geo-driven hierarchy and pagination of browse pages. In 2009 they had 10 entries per page and the pattern was a odd shaped drop around the 37 page mark. Then they moved to 25 entries per page and there’s a pretty clean step down graph. By sorting the results differently you can see that most PageRank was being passed closest to the browse page.

There’s an alternative way to push PageRank through a site. Hierarchical distribution with links in footer.

Takeaways

• Use unique titles on pagination pages
• Avoid using parameters for pagination
• Less links per page means the links are more valuable
• Hierarchical distribution works
• Internal Links only pass 2-3 deep
• Multiple sitemaps makes diagnostics easier

Jonah’s made his presentation on pagination available to all!

Vanessa asks Maile a question about AJAX crawling, which just launched yesterday. Check it out on Google Code.

Dealing With Domain Names, URLs, Parameters & All That Jazz – Technical SEO Tactics was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

Sitelinks in Google search are handy, shiny and new. But what can they do for you? For the answer, you’ve come to the right place.

Speakers:

Jerry Dischler, Senior Product Manager, Google Inc.
Vanessa Fox, Contributing Editor, Search Engine Land
Ariel Sumeruk, Head Business Intelligence, Clicks2Customers

Jerry from Google is going to talk about the ad side and organic side of Sitelinks. Organic will be covered first.

What are Sitelinks?

Sitelinks help users navigate your site. Our system analyzes link structure of your site to find shortcuts that will help save users time. One line Sitelinks and two-column Sitelinks are both delivered.

Two-column Sitelinks are showed when they believe the result is the most authoritative for a particular query. One line Sitelinks show when they believe the result is highly relevant but not necessarily authoritative for a particular query.

Tips to get better Sitelinks

• First and foremost, create a site that is well-structured and easy for users to navigate.
• Use meaningful page titles
• Pay attention to anchor text throughout your site
• Avoid boilerplate and repeated text
• Also consider headers and other content on each page

If there’s consistency across titles, anchor text, navigation, etc., that’s a good signal for Sitelinks.

Turning Off Sitelinks

You can block Sitelinks for up to 90 days via Webmaster Tools. If less than 3 unblocked Sitelinks, no Sitelinks will appear for your site.

Breadcrumbs

This was rolled out more recently and is related to Sitelinks.

• In place of the normal URL is a site hierarchy that shows where the result fits.
• Each level of the hierarchy is a clickable link
• Must have a clear site hierarchy and visible, linked breadcrumbs on your site for breadcrumbs to show.

Now for the paid side.

What are Ad Sitelinks?

Ad Sitelinks is a new feature of AdWords that allows you to attract more users and move them further down the purchase funnel by providing additional links to content deeper within your sites. They’ll accept 10 links from you but will only show 4, based on the query. They show these ads Sitelinks for navigational results.

Choosing Ad Sitelinks

• User segmentation: Ad Sitelinks can help you segment your user before they ever reach your site.
• Brand segmentation: Your core brand may have several sub-brands. You can highlight those segments and leverage your core brand.
• Most Valuable Pages (MVPs): Ad Sitelinks can let you direct traffic to the most popular pages

Writing Link Text

• Clear calls to action: If you are directing users to pages with actionable content, make those actions clear in the ad text.
• Briefer is better: Users are more likely to click on short, clear links than longer, more descriptive links.
• Use landing page language: Prominently display the language from your link on the associated landing page so users are more likely to stay on the page and explore their options.

Ariel takes the podium next. Ad Sitelinks are managed as a campaign-level setting. He’d like to see Google consider moving it into a group-level setting.

• Google doesn’t provide you with a separate report on Sitelink performance.
• There is no info on how many times Sitelinks get triggered.
• Click costs get assigned to keywords generating impressions in the usual manner.

How to get specific performance metrics?

• We provide unique IDs to all the Sitelinks
• This enables us to monitor which and how many clicks each Sitelink got
• We then link the information back to the originating group through the adcopyid
• We analyze the stats for groups between the first and last Sitelink occurrence

Clicks on Sitelinks are a small percentage of total traffic to triggering groups (2 percent to 10 percent in their experience). About 6 percent of clicks on related ad copy were on Sitelink. This doesn’t mean that 6 percent of clicks happen on a Sitelink when it actually shows. It is likely to be more as Sitelinks do not always show. This means the observed increase in CTR could be due to higher visibility of the ad as a whole.

Do Sitelinks affect shopping behavior?

We compared the percentage of sales happening in Department A before and after the introduction of Sitelinks on brand terms.

There are 2 comparisons:

1. Year on year of the same period
2. A comparison to the 6 weeks prior to the introduction of a site

Brand terms: contribution to total revenue by departments for which Sitelinks were added (YoY comparison over same period)

Before Sitelinks: 55.96 percent

After Sitelinks: 64.41 percent

Conclusion

Useful for running tests on brand terms: these are more likely to be eligible for Sitelinks

Could be used to push competitors further down the page: increase above the fold dominance

Also pushes own natural search results down, which is problematic if you rank poorly

Check out their blog at www.clicks2customers.com/c2cblog for more info as they share it.

Supercharging Your Descriptions With Sitelinks was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

Growing up, I always thought of my dad as Mr. Tech, spending a Saturday afternoon fiddling to fix the vacuum cleaner or hooking up new gear for the family sound system.

I’d later hear stories of him attending a technical institute to learn the inner workings of the VCR. The punch line of the story is that he spent the last $400 in the newlyweds’ bank account to register for the class, dismantled their VCR like some eager clockmaker, and then artfully put the pieces of the VCR back together… as a trash pile.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/57855544@N00/ CC BY 2.0

Twenty years later and I’m his go-to girl for anything done on a computer or online. My e-mail address is his e-mail address. While on trips he asks me to look up locations with the help of my magic square (read: iPhone). And more than once he’s asked me to buy his concert tickets online because Ticketmaster has forsaken him and his brick-and-mortar brood.

He was the first guy on the block to get a laser disc player and he’ll be the last guy on earth to sign up for Netflix. How is it that a once technically adventurous man became such a technophobe?

The answer to that question has had me terrified for years. Understanding how technology dependent my business and personal worlds are today, I know I’ll be trying to keep up with the increasingly fast pace of technology for the rest of my life. In the interests of not getting left behind, I’m trying to condition myself to have the stamina required of technology in the 21st century.

So the article Your Job: How to Stay Personally Relevant … Now and in the Future by marketing and PR blogger Steve Kayser got my attention last week. Steve presents a handy little acronym to remember the elements of relevance today:

Risk.
Experiment.
Listen & Learn.
Engage.
Value.
Attitude of Gratitude.
No to Negativity.
Time.

These characteristics of the cutting edge work for both the professional and personal spheres, though Steve approaches it from a personal level while I’ll look at business applications. So let’s take a look at these element, with an eye for how these lessons help us to grow in our professional SEO lives.

Risk and Experimentation

Risk is a necessary part of search engine optimization because it goes hand in hand with experimentation. Considering that Google and the other major engines aren’t handing over their algos any time soon, testing and practical research is the foundation of all SEO knowledge. At the same time, Google tells webmasters not to do anything with the sole intention of boosting rankings.

By that definition, SEO experimentation involves an inherent but necessary risk. Be smart about the risks you take — saving radical or irreversible tests for domains safe for burning — but never stifle your sense of curiosity and hypothesizing. Gain every competitive advantage that’s available by taking a risk to experiment.

Listen & Learn and Engage

While part of any SEO’s knowledge is gained from personal experience, the recommendations of search engine representatives, the expertise of SEO authorities, and the experiments of trusted community members plays a part as well. SEOs with an interest in staying up-to-date will actively engage the community to hear and learn the latest tactics and theories for how to market a site with the resources available.

Bruce Clay, Inc.’s SEOToolSet Training course is, IMHO, one of the best opportunities for search marketing learning and community engagement. This year the standard course and advanced certification course will be presented nearly every month in Simi Valley and once a quarter in Long Island, so reserve your seat today.

Attitude of Gratitude and No to Negativity

Trying to hit a moving target can feel frustratingly futile at times, but if you actively embrace positivity and reject negativity you’ll be in a much better position to stay lithe and nimble in the search space.

Similarly, members of the community often solicit input in the form of surveys, requests for contributions, and other feedback mechanisms. If you’re gaining knowledge from the community, do your best to give back as well. Participate and use your network to spread the word as well — because we all stand to gain from a culture of openness and support.

Value and Time

I switched up the order of our acronym a bit to group these two elements together. Time is money, money is value, and there’s nothing quite as valuable as time. As Steve writes, “Time. It’s free. Yet priceless. Infinite – but there’s never enough of it.” Don’t undervalue your time and experience, and ration your time wisely, giving ample and necessary time to practical research, on-site optimization, reading, community engagement, and so on. The recipe for SEO success truly lies in keeping relevant.

Relevance: Good for SEO, Good for YOU was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

You’re a forward-thinker, a fast learner, and driven like a ‘Vette. Odds are you’ve got big plans for the year ahead. Whether you’re an in-house SEO thinking of new ways for your company to squeeze out search engine real estate or a consultant targeting potential new niches, you’ve got a strategy in mind for success in 2010.

Just out of curiosity… what’s your plan?

I don’t mean to be nosey, pinky swear. But while strategizing my own 2010, I realized it’d be helpful to hear from others in the search marketing industry to get an idea of where priorities lie. Maybe some readers would find it helpful as well.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/redvers/ / CC BY 2.0

Not that this is an easy question to answer. Internet marketing, like a complex machine, is made of any number of wheels and cogs, all connected and working together. However, as with anything requiring our time and attention, degrees of priority are required to maintain any semblance of sanity.

We all deserve to keep our sanity, right? So how about it? How devoted are you to the following Internet marketing initiatives in 2010? Is it mission-critical to integrate video across your site? Will creating a mobile-friendly site be your do or die? Is it cross-platform social media engagement or bust? When it comes to your time and effort, how vital are these pieces of the Internet marketing pie?

Of course anything can change at any time, but from the perspective you have today, how do you rank these Internet marketing initiatives’ relative importance for your holistic SEO strategy in the new year?

If the tactic doesn’t apply to you or your business, select N/A. If the tactic has already been completed and will not be revisited in 2010, select N/A.

If there’s a tactic that figures prominently into your 2010 Internet marketing strategy that isn’t included on the list, it’d be awesome if you could drop it in the comments. And a note in the comments about your reasons for rating something high or low would be above and beyond nifty.

Reader Survey: What’s Your SEO Priority in 2010? was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

On the SEM Synergy podcast today, Bruce Clay gave listeners an overview of his predictions for what’s to come this year in search. I look forward to Bruce’s fully laid out predictions in his article in the upcoming SEOToolSet Newsletter because I happen to like the hair-raising goosebumps that manifest as a reaction to Bruce’s eerie knack for telling the future.

Bruce is in good company in sharing his expectations for what’s to come over the next 12 months. If you’re able to keep up with many of the blogs in the SEO industry, you’ve noticed the usual, annual influx of posts with an eye toward trends of the future.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/houseofsims/ CC BY 2.0

For today’s SEM Synergy Extras I’ve rounded up prediction posts from some of the most respected experts on SEO. And be sure to tune in to January’s newsletter (subscribe with the form in the blog sidebar!) for Bruce Clay’s predictions.

John Battelle’s Predictions 2010

John Battelle’s predictions go back as far as 2004! This year John expects to witness the beginning of the end when it comes to American dominance on the Web. He also sees Google’s corporate strategy shifting focus from search engine to software brand. John anticipates privacy advocates making noise around social media and advertising. Meanwhile, he expects traditional search results to miss the mark as queries become more complicated, and he sees Bing usurping Yahoo!’s market share. And in 2010, John thinks advertising spend online will rise sharply.

Rand Fishkin’s 8 Predictions for SEO in 2010

SEOmoz’s Rand Fishkin laid out his eight predictions for the new year. Citing what appears to be an unfinished product, Rand sees Google squashing its real-time search results. He also sees Google integrating Twitter into the way it considers the link graph, and he says Google’s personalization of search results will be a permanent fixture going forward. Following approval of the Bing and Yahoo! search partnership, Rand expects Bing-Yahoo! to settle around 20 percent of search traffic, with Google picking up 80 percent. According to Rand, SEO spend will rise sharply in 2010, a year during which conversion optimization will receive more attention.

eMarketer’s Trends to Watch — All of eMarketer’s 2010 Predictions

eMarketer expects big changes on the way this year. Marketers will expect the star of 2009, social media, to meet higher standards of management and measurement in the new year. As more marketers take advantage of users’ personal data to target ads, they’ll also offer greater transparency about the data being collected and ways to remove personal data. Search results are expected to become more influenced by the social sphere, and marketers will start paying more attention to the power of professional online video content. Mobile ad spending will get a boost throughout the new year, including an increase in location- and social-aware mobile apps.

Ian Lurie’s 11 Internet Marketing Trends to Ignore in 2010

Bucking the trend, blogger of Conversation Marketing, Ian Lurie, offers up the posited trends of 2010 that will actually end in an uneventful fizzle. Ian goes against the grain in predicting mobile advertising won’t find success for a few more years. He expects Yahoo! and Bing to march toward their final deathbed this year. Real-time search received much attention at the end of last year, but Ian thinks the problems posed by real-time search are too big to fix. And he finally puts to rest Google’s old motto “don’t be evil”, replacing it with “don’t be evil in public” or “don’t be evil unless it’s random”.

Last Exit’s Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2010: Flash, Crowdsourcing, Info-Art

Mentioned by the hosts on today’s podcast, this post lays out trends recognized by Internet services company Last Exit. Long-awaited and anticipated, mobile e-commerce will finally get its legs this year. The company expects to see social networks being integrated across the Web rather than concentrated on individual platforms. The emerging do-it-yourself culture will continue to grow with an increase in Web-driven, open-source offerings. And information graphics and data visualization, which were very popular in 2009, will become even more popular in 2010.

SEM Synergy Extras — How Predictable: Internet Marketers Peer through the Crystal Ball was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

When holiday cheer is in the air, I get in this state of mind where I hear jingle bells everywhere and the whole world is aglitter with tinsel. I have this constant stream of carols looping through my head and an urge to flavor everything with peppermint. But the holidays aren’t always a happy time for all.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jelene/ CC BY 2.0

The holidays are billed as a time of love and togetherness, which is great fun if you have someone to share it with. But when we’re reminded that others don’t have someone to share life and love with, we remember that the holidays are also about giving. As we remember all the things we have to be thankful for, we’re reminded that the world is full of people in need.

One of the simplest but most heartfelt gifts one can give, all year round, is a smile.

Now, if this was your reaction:

What do you mean, “Give a smile”? I’m an Internet marketer, not a GAP model! *

Not to worry. As it turns out, smiling has a lot in common with something with which you’re very familiar: search engine optimization!

Introduce Yourself Warmly

Before you whip out those pearly whites or that SEO strategy, think about your audience. Any introduction should be geared to the audience, whether it’s formal or casual, what the relationship might be going forward, and what’s expected of both sides. Search results are often the introduction platform between a searcher and a Web site. A site should make a great first impression by meeting the visitor’s needs, answering their questions, and leading them to the information they’re looking for with as little trouble as possible.

Which leads us to the next point…

Organize the Right Way

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dotbenjamin/ CC BY-SA 2.0

A smile and an SEO campaign should both be structured correctly. Someone offering a smile has to be aware of what kind of smile they’re giving (goofy, toothy smile? purse-lipped, toothless smile? relaxed, laugh-filled smile?) so that it matches the occasion. You wouldn’t want to laugh at someone when they’re hoping for gentle optimism? Likewise, an SEO campaign should seek to organize the site in the best way for users and search engines. Siloed, or theme-based, logical site architecture will act as a strong support for the themes of the site, at the same time making it easier for users to traverse the site.

Build from There

If a smile is like SEO, then a handshake is like link building, and a hug is like social media, and a pat on the back is like affiliate marketing, and you get the idea. Take your introduction and run with it to develop a strong relationship. Develop a holistic Internet marketing strategy that builds a continuing relationship with visitors, using all tools at your disposal. But don’t forget to keep sending out the smiles.

* I was just kidding about the whole “Internet marketers don’t smile” thing. I was just looking for a clever transition. You know you all have beautiful smiles! So use them!

How SEO is Like a Smile was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

Let me just let you in on a little story I like to call my life in search this week.

For real.

On top of editing and posting the fire hose of liveblog posts and photos coming out of SES Chicago (so much info it’ll make your head explode!), I’ve been flailing to stay above water just to keep up with the changes Google has announced this week.

Since entering the search marketing industry, I’ve often felt like Lucy at the chocolate factory. Wrapping those drops of cocoa heaven in their tidy little packaging, I thought I was getting a handle on the search industry news cycle and was covering announcements as they rolled down the conveyer belt. Thing is, they just dialed up the speed.

So naturally, my logical initial reaction to this information overload is to freak the flip out.

Like myself, businesses are asking a series of important questions:

How is search changing? What does that mean for my Web site? What do I need to do now? And how does Google expect regular businesses to keep up with this madness?!

So what’d Lucy do when faced with the daunting conveyer belt that wouldn’t quit? She stuffed the chocolates in her mouth — where they went on to undergo serious digesting. I’ve had a chance to process and analyze Google’s new features with the help of a few of my favorite BCI SEOs. Now I’ll try to distill the info of highest import and make the business implications of these changes clear.

Google Expands Personalization to All Searchers

Just the Facts

A week ago Google began personalizing search results for all users. Previously, signed-in users were offered personalized search results based on Web history. Now signed-out users will also get custom search results based on the last 180 days of search activity. Google will receive this Web history through a cookie in the user’s browser.

Customized results will be indicated by the “View customizations” link that appears on the top right corner of the results page. Through this link the user is able to turn off customization and view their compiled Web history.

Analyzing Business Implications

Personalization customizes results based on the preferences a user has previously shown. That means that a user is influencing their future results in part based on the sites they’ve visited through search. In this way, there’s a chance that personalized search results can create a system that rewards incumbents, which are likely big name brands.

However, in reality, the negative effects of this should be small. First of all, Google has a limit of two results from a single domain. Secondly, Google will be looking out for this sort of problem and will seek to minimize it. And last, and perhaps most significantly, unique, long-tail queries make up the bulk of queries every month, and a scant few results for those queries are even in the ballpark.

Previous testing on the effects of Google’s Web history personalization suggests that only minor changes occur. Personalized results usually were seen in a re-ranking of the top ten results rather than a totally different set of top ten results. Also, the top three to four results rarely saw shake-ups. The majority of shifts occurred within positions five through ten. And while ranking shifts were definitely identified when personalization occurred, it occurred almost as often when personalization was turned off.

Rather than worrying about how to avoid the effects of personalization, a sound SEO strategy is to adhere to SEO best practices, publish high quality content, and to promote that content around the Web.

Google Releases New Mobile Search Features

Just the Facts

On Monday, Google held an event in Mountain View to showcase some of its upcoming search technology. The two major announcements were the launch of real-time search results (covered in the section below) and the experimental release of new features for mobile search.

Search by voice, search by location and search by sight are the three features Google’s VP of engineering expanded upon at the event and in a follow-up blog post.

Search by voice lets users speak queries to Google and immediately receive search results using the Google Mobile App for the iPhone, Blackberry, and Android devices. This feature originally launched a year ago, but this week Google announced additional language support and its vision of a real-time translator.

Search by location is new feature on Google Maps for Android devices that helps users answer the question “What’s nearby?” After the user selects a location on the map, Google will return a list of places of interest, including restaurants and stores. In the future Google expects to begin delivering “What’s Nearby” results with local product inventory as well.

Search by sight is accessible through the Google Goggles application for Android devices. It lets users submit photos to Google and receive information about the subject in the image, whether it’s a landmark, a book, a place, a logo, or a work of art.

Analyzing Business Implications

What it comes down to is this. People are searching on the go more and more, and Google is providing some incredible tools for them to do so with greater speed and ease. For businesses that means you’ll want to continue to optimize your presence online so these search-savvy users will find you when they’re looking in your neighborhood.

When search by location for products is released, it may be well worth the effort to include your full product inventory on your site. And optimizing your listing for Google Maps and local search is now, as always, an absolute must.

Google Launches Real-Time Search

Just the Facts

The other big announcement at Google’s event this week was the launch of real-time search results. Within the regular search results, users will now see a scrolling box of real-time results for relevant queries. Blog posts, breaking news and Twitter results are among the most frequent results delivered in real-time, along with results from Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku, and Identi.ca.

Analyzing Business Implications

The real-time search update in Google is a double-edged sword of sorts. On the one hand it could lead to an online reputation nightmare as your brand could be blasted in the search results with relative ease. Non-real-time results go through an algorithm that requires that social proof in the form of links prove the value of results. Real-time results aren’t held to such a strict standard. The possibility to spam search results and publish high-visibility brand bashing both seem to come with the territory.

To protect against this, a business must engage in active brand monitoring so they’re alerted to any negative content as it shows up online. A fast response time to an unfolding reputation crisis can help diminish the effect when compared to a snow-balling reputation disaster.

On the flip side of the coin, real-time search has its business advantages, too. Just as enemies can use real-time search as a tool for evil, a business can use the tool for good. Instead of waiting for a bot to come by, crawl the content and index it, real-time results can show up for searchers instantly. Take advantage of real-time search by fostering a stream of positive press in real time.

Google Caffeine Coming in January

Just the Facts

This is probably a good time to mention the Caffeine update. Caffeine is Google’s next-generation architecture, which Google says will increase the size of the search engine’s index and improve the engine’s indexing speed, accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Today the Caffeine technology is working on a single Google data center. Google will be rolling Caffeine out in full come January 2010. According to Google, the “new infrastructure sits ‘under the hood’ of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results.”

Analyzing Business Implications

In anticipation of the upcoming Caffeine update, SEOs are hypothesizing what kinds of changes will be coming to SERPs next month. Google had briefly made a testing sandbox available to developers and SEOs. According to one company’s tests, users saw far fewer results returned, faster load times and some shifts in rankings from the third page of results and beyond.

One explanation for the decreased number of results is an elimination of spam — which is a good thing for businesses publishing quality content on their site as it eliminates competitors using unfair tactics to rank. And the fact that major ranking changes were only seen on the third page and on suggests that businesses have little to be concerned about when it comes to their best converting queries.

The wisest course of action at this point is to continue implementing SEO best practices and a strong content strategy that highlights the expertness and value of your business. You may also want to take a baseline of your metrics today, including rankings, traffic, and conversion data. By taking a baseline before the Caffeine update is live, you’ll be able to notice any major fluctuations following the update. If you do see changes of concern, you can then try to identify patterns and focus your SEO efforts going forward.

Now that we know all about Google’s updates this week, what are the chances they let up on that conveyer belt? All this chocolate’s given me a stomach ache.

All You Need to Know About Google’s New Feature Updates was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

The monthly SEO Newsletter will be blazing its way into inboxes tomorrow. It’s so stuffed with the last month’s news, it’s safe to say you could have been Rip Van Winkle the past few weeks and none would be the wiser after your reading of November’s SEO Newsletter.

For a preview of what’s to come, check out some excerpts from this month’s articles.

Siloing – How to Theme a Web Site for Clear Subject Relevance

Siloing is a way of arranging a Web site’s contents according to themes, which facilitates search engine optimization. Search engines catalog information logically by subject, which allows them to easily find and return the most relevant Web sites for any user’s search query. The more organized your site contents are, the clearer your site’s subject relevance becomes to search engines as well as to users.

The term “siloing” is accepted SEO-industry jargon now, based on the idea of agricultural silos. Farmers, of course, have to keep different grains in separate silos. If barley, oats and wheat were all mixed together, the mixture would lose its value and no longer be sellable as anything other than just generic “grains.”

Similarly, a Web site’s contents must be clearly categorized into themes in order for a search engine to know what it specifically contains. You can achieve clear subject relevance and the best SEO benefit by siloing your site contents.

Focusing SEO Efforts with Server Log Data

The ability to track a consumer’s interactions with a brand or business from initial exposure to completed conversion is one of the most exciting and useful developments to happen to commerce since the advent of the Internet itself. Finally, business owners are able to see, in records generated straight from the source as they happen, what’s working or not working with customers visiting a Web site.

One of the most basic sources of this data is a Web server log. Analyzing the data stored within a Web server log provides a business owner or Web site optimizer with an educational resource about the behavior of visitors to the site.

By knowing the most popular pages, products or resources on the site, an SEO can devote time to bettering these profitable areas. By identifying stumbling blocks or less popular areas of a site, an SEO can manage their time when improving these resource drains of the site. By understanding current interactions on the site there can be improvement of future interactions and experiences.

If you’d like to subscribe to the SEO Newsletter, head over to that handy “Subscribe to our SEO Newsletter” field in the right-hand sidebar of this page and prepare to witness a search industry newsletter of epic proportions! Mwahahaha!!

(So I might have caught a strain of sleep-deprived crazy syndrome after working on the newsletter this weekend, but I pinky swear, it’s a keeper.)

Achieving Strong Themes through Silos and Data Mining Server Logs in the SEO Newsletter was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.