SEO Newsletter | Volume 67 | May 15, 2009

BruceClay.com

In this issue:

FEATURE:
How to Write a Strong Call to Action

BACK TO BASICS:
XML Sitemaps Defined, Part Two:
Building Google Specific XML Sitemaps

THE USUAL: Coverage of this month's
hot topics, shuffles, sound bytes, shindigs, attaboys
and word on the wire.

Search Engine Optimization All-In-One for Dummies Published

Bruce Clay, Inc. partnered with For Dummies Publications to produce the all-in-one desk reference guide for SEO. The Search Engine Optimization All-In-One For Dummies by Bruce Clay and Susan Esparza is now available for $39.95 from major booksellers. Price discounts vary depending on the seller, but the book comes with a free $25 AdWords coupon. The Search Engine Optimization All-In-One For Dummies is a desk reference guide for SEO, but also includes tips on international search marketing, Web design, analytics and pay-per-click.

Search Engine Optimization All-In-One For Dummies is 746 pages long and contains 10 separate books on the ins and outs of search engine optimization. With books on keywords, content management, linking and international SEO, one will be sure to find what they need within the pages of this book. The all-in-one desk reference is intended for those wanting to do search engine optimization themselves, providing many tips and hints necessary to optimize and operate in today's online market. But it is also a useful tool for any professional SEO out there needing any extra help. The Search Engine Optimization All-In-One For Dummies is currently available on Amazon.com, Borders.com and BarnesandNoble.com, so be sure to grab a copy today.

FEATURE: How to Write a Strong Call to Action

Search ad, article, landing page — no matter where your copy is, a strong call to action improves the chance that a reader will go ahead and act. Writing an effective call to action requires that you pay attention to several things. The message has to be easy to find in the info-overload environment so common today. The writer has to connect with the audience's mind set. She needs to be clear about what it is the reader should do. And she has to use language that convinces the reader that it's the right thing to do.

Sound complicated? If you can remember that a great call to action makes a reader stop what he's doing and take the action you want, then you can remember the secrets to writing a winning call to action. In other words, if your call to action will STOP your reader in his tracks, then it's simple, tailored, obvious and persuasive.

BACK TO BASICS: XML Sitemaps Defined, Part Two: Building Google Specific XML Sitemaps

In our previous article, we focused on the difference between traditional HTML site maps and XML Sitemaps and established that both serve valuable purposes in your search engine marketing strategy. Google has taken XML Sitemaps a step further and developed protocols for specialized XML Sitemaps for news, mobile, code, video and geographic content. These special protocols can seem daunting at first, so we're going to break them down and explain what each are, whether your site needs them and how to build them if you do.

Hot Topics

On May 12, Google presented Searchology 2009. During the event, the second of its kind, the search engine announced and released a number of new search features. The first Searchology event was held in 2007 when Google announced the launch of Universal search. This year's presentation was similarly monumental in the way new features will expand the role and functionality of search. Coverage of the event and new features can be found across the Web.

Search Options

Search users will immediately see a change to their Web search results through Google Search Options. Perform a Google search and select "Show options…" below the search box on the results page. A myriad of new filtering and display options are now available. From the main SERP, filtering can be done for videos, forums, reviews and time periods. Result display can be enhanced with images from the page, more text, related searches, a timeline and the new Wonder Wheel as briefly described below.

Images from the Page

In Matt Cutts's Searchology recap, you can see a number of the new features in action, including images from the page. Notably, searching with images from the page reorders search results, presumably giving preference to pages with prominent images. This new feature highlights the ability of Engagement Objects™ to improve visibility.

More Text

Selecting the "More text" option displays a longer snippet for results. With this, site owners are given an additional opportunity to show relevant topics and keywords to users. Users gain the ability to better vet search results directly from the search page. This feature doesn't appear to modify the order of standard Web search results.

Wonder Wheel and Timeline

The timeline has been available for some time, showing up for select search results after coming out of Google Labs. Previously an experimental feature, the Wonder Wheel is a display option that visualizes relationships around a search phrase. Both features are now easily accessible for all queries through Search Options.

Rich Snippets

Much buzz has been made over the rich snippet feature. The enhancement displays additional data through Meta data from microformats. Rich snippets for reviews and people are currently supported, with more categories to be added in the future.

Google Squared

Google Squared has not been launched to the public, but it was announced during Searchology and may be released at the end of the month. The feature organizes results in spreadsheet format to add visual structure to their ever-growing database.

Shuffles

Many execs in the search engine industry are making a change to social media this month. Former AOL executive, Mike Jones, will become the COO of MySpace, while former Googler Douglas Bowman has taken a job at Twitter. Fellow Google employee Priti Choksi has moved to Facebook.

Former Yahoo Music exec Dave Goldberg has taken up residence at SurveyMonkey. Former Adobe exec Bryan Lamkin has headed on over to Yahoo. Meanwhile, Yahoo will cut another 600 to 700 jobs after a lackluster first quarter.

It has been announced that Oracle will be buying Sun Microsystems. Oracle and Sun announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun for about $7.4 billon. Meanwhile, Disney is buying what is reported to be a 30 percent stake in online video site Hulu. This means that full-length episodes of ABC shows will now be available alongside content from NBC and FOX.

Digg is ending its two-year exclusive ad-selling relationship with Microsoft a year earlier than what the deal was set for. Starting in July, Digg will be solely responsible for all custom ad deals, along with a large portion of its standard ad inventory.

Wolfram Alpha, a "computational knowledge engine", was previewed at the end of April. Its live public launch will be broadcast tonight, May 15, on Justin.tv. Google also entered the data visualization arena with its Public Data feature.

Sound Bytes

If you like what you've read in the SEO Newsletter, there's more Internet marketing expertise where that came from. Check out SEM Synergy every Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. Eastern and Noon Pacific on WebmasterRadio.fm. Bruce Clay and the other hosts discuss industry news, SEO tactics and marketing trends, while expert guests share their insights on methods, best practices and upcoming events. Check out the show schedule below for a look at recent shows and upcoming topics.

May 6 (Listen Now)	Local 10 Pack Results	Jordan Kasteler	Search Industry News
May 13 (Listen Now)	SEO All-In-One For Dummies	Christopher Hart	Competitive Analysis
May 20 (Coming Soon)	Wolfram Alpha	Barbara Baker	Google Challengers
May 27 (Coming Soon)	Link Building Tactics	Todd Malicoat	Link Building Secrets

Got something to say? Contact the SEM Synergy team and share your thoughts, comments and questions. You might even hear your question answered on the show.

Shindigs

eMetrics Summit London and SMX London are joining forces for the Search Marketing Expo May 18-19. For those in the U.S., SMX Advanced will take place in Seattle June 2-3. Use the discount code smx15bruceclay to receive 15 percent off the cost of registration.

Search Engine Strategies Toronto takes place June 8-10 while PubCon Europe will be in London on July 4.

Affiliate marketers can attend Affiliate Convention Denver June 17-21. Attendance for affiliate marketers is free. Also free, the e-commerce and affiliate marketing virtual conference eComXpo will be July 8-9.

Forrester Research is presenting a number of marketing and strategy workshops throughout May and June. Email, e-commerce, mobile and recession marketing are all featured topics in locations including Massachusetts, New York and California. PPC Classroom LIVE is happening in Las Vegas May 28-31. Search Engine Strategies presents basic to advanced SEM Training in New York City on June 16.

SEOToolSet Training courses are scheduled around the world. Next up:

June 9-11 (standard) in Long Island, NY
July 13-17 (standard and advanced) in Simi Valley, CA
July 21-23 (standard) in Cape Town, South Africa

Attaboys

Google and Yahoo both announced efforts to make analytics data more accessible. A Google Analytics API has been launched, allowing developers to use Google Analytics data in new and innovative ways. Yahoo updated its Web analytics tools with new demographic metrics and more in-depth conversion process data. The analytics suite is available to search and display advertisers with an account manager.

Online advertising solution DoubleClick unveiled Network Builder, a product that lets publishers build and manage a partner's ad network. MySpace has opened up its local business review service, MySpace Local, to the public.

Several mobile marketing developments took place this month. Residents of Washington D.C. will be the first in the U.S. able to access free digital TV broadcasts on mobile devices. Google Product Search went mobile and is now available on Android phones and the iPhone. Android developers can look forward to the improvements and refinements to Android 1.5 SDK, also known as the Cupcake update.

In March, online video site Hulu moved up the ranks to become the third most popular video property. It was led by Fox Interactive Media with Google sites at number one. Also that month, Yahoo sites ranked as the top display ad publisher, followed by Fox Interactive Media and Facebook.

A new search engine, Hoongle, was launched that uses Google search results while donating resources to the UN World Food Program for every search performed. And this month we learned that both Yahoo and Google hire goats to mow their lawns.

Word on the Wire

It appears that MSNbot 2.0 may have been disregarding robots.txt and no index Meta tags. In the UK, Ask.com has resurrected Jeeves the butler after research showed the character had 83 percent brand awareness.

The FTC is bearing down on companies that track user info and behavior online, declaring that self-regulation has not yet been effective.

In a victory for network neutrality advocates, Time Warner Cable has put on hold its plans to implement consumption-based tier pricing.

A study in the UK suggests that only five to seven percent of social network users are likely to join brand-sponsored groups or communities.

Google rolled out a new feature called Google Me which allows users to set up a profile that shows up in Google search results.

Google and YouTube accounts are now being linked. New YouTube users will have their Google accounts automatically linked, while old users can link their existing accounts. Google Video has been redesigned so that users can watch videos from the search results page. Now, videos can only be uploaded through YouTube and no longer through Google Video.

YouTube is notifying content producers that they should not include ads in their videos without YouTube's permission. Meanwhile, YouTube now features videos from ad partners without indicating them as such. This has raised questions over YouTube's transparency.

The South Korean government is dissatisfied with Google's decision to turn off comments and video uploads on YouTube Korea. In response to a South Korea law that would require Google to collect the names and resident numbers of commenters and people who upload videos, Google opted to disable the service altogether.

Some sharp SEOs noticed that Google's updated referrer string includes ranking data; however, the search engine may not support this data in the future.

Danny Sullivan sorted out whether or not PageRank passes from domains that have been purchased, acquired or expired.

While it has long been allowed in the U.S., Google will let advertisers bid on trademark terms in a number of countries, including the UK. An alliance of search marketers, Alliance Against Bait and Click (AABC), has formed to rally against search ads that target competitors' brand names.

News reports continue to circulate about how close Yahoo and Microsoft are to coming to a search advertising deal.

Beginning June 15, Google will allow advertisers to include trademark brand terms in ad text. Only retailers that sell those brands and impartial review sites are affected by this new policy.

If you have any questions or comments on any of the articles above or if you would like to suggest topics for future search engine optimization articles, please contact us at Bruce Clay, Inc.

Search Engine Optimization SEO Training Courses in California

Search Engine Optimization SEO Training Courses in New York

FEATURE: How to Write a Strong Call to Action

by Virginia Nussey, May 15, 2009

Sound complicated? If you can remember that a great call to action makes a reader stop what he's doing and take the action you want, then you can remember the secrets to writing a winning call to action. In other words, if your call to action will STOP your reader in his tracks, then it's simple, tailored, obvious and persuasive.

Make It Simple

In the commotion of our modern world, a good call to action will cut through the noise because it's direct and clear. Cut out the guess work. Make sure the message is easy to understand. Use language that's not complicated and get straight to the point. A reader may be skimming your content or jumping between it and other tasks. When she comes back to your page or finishes scanning the text, a strong call to action will jump out to her because it's easy and simple. It doesn't require a second read through to understand and she knows the point of the message right away.

Keeping the call to action simple is not a recommendation that writers talk down to their audience or try to meet some lowest common denominator. The people who will read your copy are smart — and very busy. By making your call to action clear and easy to read, you're doing your reader a favor by saving her time and a measure of mental exhaustion. When she's swamped by work, when her attention is being divided among countless responsibilities, anything that makes life even a little easier is appreciated.

Make It Tailored

The best call to action will fit the reader's interests and their place in the conversion cycle. The first step is to get into the mind of your ideal audience, your market, the people who want what you got. Who is your customer and what motivates him? What is he looking for and how can you help? If you can speak to that demographic in the language they speak, your call to action will ring as relevant and genuine.

Once you're matching your copy to the audience's interests, you also want to tailor your call to action to their place in the conversion cycle. So if you're writing for an ecommerce site, you have to think about what part of the buying cycle you're writing for. Is the reader just becoming aware of your product? Is he gathering info or comparing different products? Maybe he's ready to buy? Depending on his intentions and what he's looking for on your page, your call to action will be different. If he's never heard of your product before, you may entice him to learn more. If he's checking out his options, you could ask him to compare products. If he's got his wallet out, he's looking for the cue to buy now!

Make It Obvious

Copywriters are good at painting flowery mental pictures with their words. And that's awesome! But not for a call to action. A strong call to action will make it extremely clear what it is you want the reader to do. Go ahead and lay out exactly what she should do, how she can do it and that she should do it right now. Forgo the metaphors, the pleasantries and maybe even the value proposition — save that for the rest of the copy. In the call to action, just give it to her straight; "click to buy now" may be just right!

At this point, the collective gasp of usability professionals and search engine optimizers is noted. Where's the descriptive, scannable, keyword-rich anchor text? Of course usability and search engine optimization should be factors in every decision you make when it comes to the text content of a page, ad or article. But crafting the most effective call to action is also a factor that should be considered. Studies have shown that links that say "click here" test better than links that don't. Most people don't mind doing things when they're explicitly told. Including several descriptors may be appropriate, but be careful not to bury the most vital part — a.k.a. the "do this now!" message.

Make It Persuasive

A call to action is an ideal time to use your powers of persuasion. Throughout the copy you probably included reasons why doing so-and-so will benefit the reader. Distill that message into your call to action as well. "Read this white paper and never wonder again!" "Get this product and fix that problem!" Keep in mind the reader's motivation for reading your message to begin with, and play to those needs and desires. Explain how doing what you want him to do will make his life a little easier. Use language that's urgent and active, and use concrete details to help the reader picture himself taking that action.

The reader may also be convinced to take action through special offers, upgrades or time limits. If a deal will expire, if prices are going up soon, if he can get a free trial or a bonus gift if he orders now, it could mean the difference between a conversion and a consideration. More offers that might seal the deal include introductory periods, online-exclusives, upgrades and free supplies or accessories. And again, use language that implies action now. "Let us know when you're ready" won't cut it. "Call now for a free gift with purchase" stands a much better chance to convert.

Life is hectic and demanding. Everyone could use some help to relieve some of the burden. Good products and services are made available every day with the hopes that they can make things a little easier. Similarly, the copywriting that tells people about those products and services has a chance to lessen the load as well. Both the reader and the copywriter benefit from a strong call to action: the reader may find a solution to a problem and the copywriter may help their employer get that conversion. But to deliver that message to its intended audience, a simple, tailored, obvious and persuasive call to action must lead the way.

BACK TO BASICS: XML Sitemaps Defined

Part Two: Building Google Specific XML Sitemaps

By Susan Esparza, May 15, 2009

News Sitemaps

News organizations often are feeding out multiple stories during the day. A traditional RSS feed is a good way to get this content out to multiple sources, but if you want to feed content directly into Google News, consider building and maintaining a News Sitemap.

News Sitemaps are very similar to regular XML Sitemaps but they include a second namespace for the news schema. Google provides an example of this:

<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
        xmlns:news="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-news/0.9">

In order to ensure that your News Sitemap will be accepted, you'll need to take care of a few precautions first when it comes to formatting your URLs and Sitemaps:

Verify your site. If you haven't verified your site in Google Webmaster Tools, you can't submit URLs for that site. However, you only need to verify the domain, sub-domains can be submitted together. For example, sports.dallasnews.com, and entertainment.dallasnews.com, politics.dallasnews.com can all be submitted in the same News Sitemap.
Drop off any session IDs. Session IDs in the URL can lead to duplicate content and may result in your pages not being indexed.
Keep it current. Any URL older than three days should be taken out of the Sitemap. Format your URLs to comply with the W3C format. Google will use that to determine if the article is recent enough for inclusion. Here's Google's example of an article publication date tag:
```
<news:publication_date> 2006-08-14T03:30:00Z </news:publication_date>
```
Keep it concise. A News Sitemap can have no more than 1000 URLs. If you have more than 1000 URLs, you'll need to generate multiple Sitemaps.
Make it readable. Readable means that both your server and Google will be able to read it. Google cannot read some ASCII characters or other special characters. Submitting a sitemap with these errors will result in an error message.

Each entry in the Sitemap can also include a comma-separated list of keywords describing the content of the article. Considering making the keywords match the current Google News categories to give them a better idea of where the article belongs. The code example below (courtesy Google) demonstrates what an XML Sitemap with just one news article listing would look like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84" xmlns:news="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-news/0.9">
   <url>
      <loc>http://example.com/article123.html</loc>
      <news:news>
         <news:publication_date> 2006-08-14T03:30:00Z </news:publication_date>
         <news:keywords>Business, Mergers, Acquisitions</news:keywords>         
      </news:news>
   </url>
</urlset>

Mobile Sitemaps

Every year for the last several years has been declared the year of mobile Web. And while it seems that the true mobile revolution is still in the future, savvy web marketers will be getting ready for it now. Don't leave your company playing catch up when the revolution comes.

Mobile Sitemaps are very similar to regular XML Sitemaps but they use a specific tag and namespace requirement to identify mobile content. Feeding a Mobile Sitemap to Google will enable your mobile site to be found and indexed in Google's Mobile Search Index. While mobile browser are becoming more sophisticated and require less tailoring of their formats, it's still a good idea to remember that your customers will be browsing on a very small screen, usually while on the go.

Build your Mobile Sitemap as you would your regular XML Sitemap and include only mobile pages in it. Never mix types of content in your specialty Sitemaps; they will just be ignored. Right now the protocol recognizes four types of content: non-mobile (which include most types of files), XHTML mobile profiles, WML and cHTML so program carefully.

This sample piece of code from Google shows what a Mobile Sitemap file would look like with just one entry included.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
 <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
  xmlns:mobile="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-mobile/1.0">
    <url>
        <loc>http://mobile.example.com/article100.html</loc>
        <mobile:mobile/>
    </url>
</urlset>

Code Search Sitemaps

Code Search Sitemaps are a relatively new function from Google. Code Search Sitemaps allow you to include code on your Web site in the Google Code Search function. This type of Sitemap protocol is targeted towards Web sites that host public source code. This means that you can find function definitions or sample code from sites that host publicly accessible Code. This a useful tool for any IT department, but only use one of these for your site if you want your code to be accessible for a Google Code Search.

A Code Search Sitemap is like a regular Sitemap, but it has some Code Search-specific information. You can submit them like a regular XML Sitemap, but it’s not recommended that you use the Sitemap Generator to create one. Google has outlined the accepted formats as the following:

Suffix	Archive Type
.tar	tarfile (Tape Archive)
.tar.z	tarfile compressed with “compress”
.tar.gz	tarfile compressed with gzip
.tgz	tarfile compressed with gzip
.tar.bz2	tarfile compressed with bzip2
.tbz	tarfile compressed with bzip2
.tbz2	tarfile compressed with bzip2
.zip	Zip archive

You should use the suffix value to create your Code Search Sitemap.

A Code Search Sitemap uses the XML Sitemap protocol, with the additional Code Search-specific tags as defined below in this sample. A Code Search Sitemap entry using Code Search-specific tags looks something like this:

<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
        xmlns:codesearch="http://www.google.com/codesearch/schemas/sitemap/1.0">
<url>
   <loc>http://mysite.org/download/myfile.c</loc>
   <codesearch:codesearch>
       <codesearch:filetype>C</codesearch:filetype>
       <codesearch:license>LGPL</codesearch:license>
   </codesearch:codesearch>
</url>

<url>
   <loc>http://mysite.org/download/myproject.tgz</loc>
   <codesearch:codesearch>
       <codesearch:filetype>archive</codesearch:filetype>
       <codesearch:license>Apache</codesearch:license>
       <codesearch:packagemap>packagemap.xml</codesearch:packagemap>
   </codesearch:codesearch>
</url>
</urlset>

Each URL in a Code Search Sitemap can point to an archive file or a code file.

Video Sitemaps

The integration of video content and other Engagement Objects™ into your site's content is a necessary and important factor to search engine marketing success. The indexing and ranking of video files provides a strong opportunity for gaining greater traffic and mindshare in the search results.

Video Sitemaps are built using the Media RSS protocol (mRSS) which allows a great deal of information about the videos to be passed to Google and helps them identify the content and relevancy of the videos to various search queries.

Building your Video Sitemap can be done using the XML Sitemaps protocol so long as it also includes the notation that identifies it as video content:

<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
        xmlns:video="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1">

Other video specific tags provide further indexing information. Some key information provided by a Video Sitemap includes:

The location of the video (where it can be watched by a user)
The titles and description of each video
How long the video is
The location of a thumbnail image for the video that can be shown in SERPs
The location of an embeddable version of the video

Here is a sample of a Video Sitemap entry using video-specific tags:

<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
        xmlns:video="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1">
<url> 
  <loc>http://www.example.com/videos/some_video_landing_page.html</loc>
    <video:video>     
      <video:content_loc>http://www.site.com/video123.flv</video:content_loc>
      <video:player_loc allow_embed="yes">http://www.site.com/videoplayer.swf?video=123</video:player_loc>
      <video:thumbnail_loc>http://www.example.com/thumbs/123.jpg</video:thumbnail_loc>
      <video:title>Grilling steaks for summer</video:title>  
      <video:description>Get perfectly done steaks every time</video:description>
      <video:rating>4.2</video:rating>
      <video:view_count>12345</video:view_count>
      <video:publication_date>2007-11-05T19:20:30+08:00.</video:publication_date>
      <video:expiration_date>2009-11-05T19:20:30+08:00.</video:expiration_date>
      <video:tag>steak</video:tag>
      <video:tag>meat</video:tag>
      <video:tag>summer</video:tag>
      <video:category>Grilling</video:category>
      <video:family_friendly>yes</video:family_friendly>
      <video:expiration_date>2009-11-05T19:20:30+08:00</video:expiration_date>
      <video:duration>600</video:duration>
    </video:video>
</url>
</urlset>

Geo Sitemaps

Google Geo Sitemaps enable companies to publish content directly to Google Maps and Google Earth that is explicitly geographically located in nature. Geolocated content is a major advantage for any location based company. With the recent trend in Google algorithms to favor personalization over globalization, local searches are becoming more and more prominent in the search results.

Any company with multiple instances of location-based content would be wise to have a Geo Sitemap included in their feeds to Google. A pizza franchise could include all their restaurant locations, a travel company might want to mark-up popular travel destinations and packages.

As with all other XML Sitemaps, Google does not guarantee that they will add the information but they welcome the further information as a way to keep their index up to date.

If you're looking to build a Geo XML Sitemap then the first thing you're going to have to do is figure out which format you're going to be using. Google currently supports KML and GeoRSS formats, so focus on those two for now. They do plan to add support for more formats in the future.

Building an XML Sitemap for geospatial content is very similar to building a traditional XML Sitemap. You'll need to be sure to add attribution tags, as those will show in the Google results for your content. Optimize those tags and then post your content to the Web. Create a Sitemap file as you would normally do and post that file in the root of your Web site.