February 24, 2009

SEW Experts: International SEO Challenges and Tips

Search engine optimization for multi-national companies' Web sites comes with its own set of challenges and pitfalls. In today's organic search engine optimization column, "International SEO Challenges and Tips," Mark Jackson shares a few challenges that companies with an international Web presence face, and some advice for how to create an optimal Web presence that can do well in international search engines.

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Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

February 17, 2009

SEW Experts: Ignorance: The Trouble with People Who Claim SEO is Snake Oil

URL structure makes a difference in SEO, but it's just one of many things! Ignorant columnists making false claims about topics they don't understand are bogus! In today's organic search engine optimization column, "Ignorance: The Trouble with People Who Claim SEO is Snake Oil," Mark Jackson asks if writing an "interesting" and "provocative" column about SEO means facts are optional.

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Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

February 10, 2009

SEW Experts: Give SEO Time!

As an ethical SEO consultant, sometimes it's best to turn down some SEO projects, especially when the client has unrealistic expectations of the time and money necessary to succeed in a competitive market. In today's organic search engine optimization column, "Give SEO Time!," Mark Jackson reminds us that it's best to be clear with clients about the time it will take for them to see SEO results.

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January 6, 2009

SEW Experts: There's No Shortcut to Good SEO...Or Is There?

If search engines want all SEOs to operate in an ethical manner, they should show us that they're penalizing the Web sites that abuse their guidelines, and reward those who follow their guidelines. In today's organic search engine optimization column, "There's No Shortcut to Good SEO...Or Is There?," Mark Jackson explains that anything less makes it hard to justify following the rules.

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December 9, 2008

SEW Experts: Is it Too Late for Holiday Search Traffic?

Holiday phrases like "Christmas" show up in Google's universal search results, so there still may be an opportunity to show up. In today's organic search engine optimization column, "Is it Too Late for Holiday Search Traffic?," Mark Jackson says that for other competitive keyword phrases, you'd be better off targeting New Year's, or even Valentine's Day.

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November 25, 2008

SEW Experts: Keyword Research for Search Engine Optimization

All your SEO efforts will be in vain if you haven't spent enough time focused on which keywords you want to target, don't understand their worth, and don't understand the competitive landscape associated with trying to rank/get traffic from these keywords. In today's organic search engine optimization column, "Keyword Research for Search Engine Optimization," Mark Jackson shares some keyword research advice.

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November 18, 2008

SEW Experts: SEO Dreams are Made of This

Many major companies continue to make mistakes with their Web sites that hurt their search engine rankings. They target pages in the wrong way, or don't craft their pages in a way to prevent searchers from leaving their site after the first page. In today's enterprise search marketing column, "SEO Dreams are Made of This," Aaron Shear says it's time for some SEO dreaming.

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November 11, 2008

SEW Experts: Google AdWords Quality Score -- That's Old-School for SEO

Google's rules for improving Quality Score of AdWords ads will sound familiar to anyone who's been doing SEO. In today's natural search column, "Google AdWords Quality Score -- That's Old-School for SEO," Mark Jackson explains that by optimizing your Web site for organic search, and building out a bunch of pages for each keyword that you're honestly interested in targeting, you'll likely end up improving your Quality Scores as well.

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October 28, 2008

SEW Experts: The Ghosts of SEO Past and Future

When banner ads first came out, there was hardly enough inventory to satisfy advertisers' needs. Paid search and search engine optimization changed all that. In today's search engine optimization column, "The Ghosts of SEO Past and Future," Mark Jackson points out that SEO, too, has changed radically in the last decade.

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October 24, 2008

SEW Experts: SEO During E-Commerce Application Development

E-commerce applications for Web sites can take thousands of hours to build, and require patience and determination on the part of the organization. As with large-scale Web site designs and redesigns, putting search engine optimization off until after the fact can be a costly mistake. In today's Search Marketing Crossfire column, "SEO During E-Commerce Application Development," Chris Boggs and Frank Watson look at what it takes to make an application SEO-friendly vs. optimized.

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October 21, 2008

SEW Experts: Implementation is the Name of the Game

Implementation is a critical part of the search engine optimization process. This is where we actually make the recommended changes to the Web site.In today's organic SEO column, "Implementation is the Name of the Game," Mark Jackson explains that it's also where way too many SEO projects go wrong.

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October 7, 2008

SEW Experts: Google's Algorithm is Shifting

Google seems to be moving toward an algorithm based more on "site quality" and user behavior. Links are still key, but there are many other factors to consider. In today's enterprise search marketing column, "Google's Algorithm is Shifting," Aaron Shear asks if your site is ready to rank using the new factors?

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Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: What You Need to Know Before Committing to SEO

Rushing into a search engine optimization initiative without properly planning your SEO strategy is setting yourself up for failure. In today's natural search column, "What You Need to Know Before Committing to SEO," Mark Jackson explains that to enjoy the fruits that SEO can provide your site, you need to be well organized and develop a plan.

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September 23, 2008

SEW Experts: Who Audits the Auditor?

There are some individuals and companies who will provide SEO audits. But some of these folks look at this as an opportunity for them to earn new business or referral checks. So how do you get an honest opinion on whether your SEO efforts have a passing grade? In today's organic search engine optimization column, "Who Audits the Auditor?," Mark Jackson offers some guidance on getting an honest assessment of your site's SEO activities.

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Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: Worried About the Economy? Why Not Try SEO?

Many companies that have been focusing on search advertising are finding their budgets starting to be squeezed by the recent economic downturn. It may be time to pay more attention to SEO. In today's enterprise search marketing column, "Worried About the Economy? Why Not Try SEO?," Aaron Shear shows that search engine optimization doesn't require a huge investment, but it can offer large rewards.

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Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 9, 2008

SEW Experts: Ready to Finally Try SEO?

Is your enterprise taking the first steps toward search engine optimization? In today's enterprise search marketing column, "Ready to Finally Try SEO?," Aaron Shear explains how the decisions you make now about building an in-house team or outsourcing some or all of your SEO program will either make your life much easier, or lead to problems that will drive you out of your mind.

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Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 2, 2008

SEW Experts: How Much Are You Spending on SEO?

Organic search results get many more clicks than the paid search results. And, due to the nature of SEO, you're not limited to a certain "budget." So why aren't more companies spending big bucks on SEO? In today's organic search engine optimization column, "How Much Are You Spending on SEO?," Mark Jackson examines some of the reasons for the gap between the benefits of search engine optimization and its share of marketing budgets.

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Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 29, 2008

SEW Experts: There's No Secret Recipe to SEO

Some marketers are looking for a secret, step-by-step recipe to SEO success. But while a general framework is necessary to be effective, the search engine optimization process must be adaptable. In today's SEM agency issues column, "There's No Secret Recipe to SEO," William Flaiz shares some tips for guiding you down the path to SEO success.

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Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 26, 2008

SEW Experts: SEO Success -- Guess What...Content Works!

You've heard it before, but that doesn't make it any less true: content is king. In today's natural search column, "SEO Success -- Guess What...Content Works!," Mark Jackson notes that while fixing problems and implementing some search engine-friendly practices can have an immediate effect on a site's search engine rankings, but for long-term improvement, no search engine optimization technique works better than creating quality content.

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Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 15, 2008

SEW Experts: The Evolution of SEO

We've seen a natural progression from back rooms to boardrooms -- from the basement to the mainstream. SEO has not simply shed its dubious roots; it has become a legitimate, reputable component of a proper client marketing mix. In today's SEM agency issues column, "The Evolution of SEO," William Flaiz outlines the continuing growth of search marketing.

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Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 2, 2008

Google Updates SEO Recommendations Article

Google has updated its article entitled, "What's an SEO? Does Google recommend working with companies that offer to make my site Google-friendly?" Included in the update are the benefits of SEO as well as guidelines when choosing an SEO company or consultant.

The benefits mentioned in the article are:

• Reviewing and providing recommendations on your site content or structure
• Technical advice on website development: for example, hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript
• Content development
• Managing online business development campaigns
• Keyword research
• SEO training

Google also offers up 6 questions to ask a potential SEO vendor, but back in March, our own Marty Weintraub posted 48 questions you should consider when signing up for search marketing services. And earlier today, Aaron Shear discussed upsells agencies use to keep clients on board.

When hiring an SEO agency, it's always important to know enough SEO to make sure your vendor is pursuing the best practices. Google's article is a good place to start and of course, stay tuned to Search Engine Watch for news and tips in the SEO industry.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

June 23, 2008

Matt Cutts Shares 5 SEO Tips with USA Today

USA Today recently asked Google's Matt Cutts for tips to help sites rank in their search engine. Cutts offered up 5 tips plus a word of advice in implementing the tips. Here they are:

1. Spotlight your search term on the page. If you want to be found for your keyword, make sure that term is on the page you want to rank. The term should be at the top as well as peppered throughout your copy.
2. Fill in your "tags." The two most important tags are Title and Description b/c that's what is displayed on the search results.
3. Get other sites to "link" back to you. This is one of the most important of the 100 factors Google considers when ranking sites
4. Create a blog and post often. This can help you get links.
5. Register for free tools. Cutts recommends using the tools at google.com/webmaster, as well as creating a text-based sitemap www.xml-sitemaps.com, and adding your business to Google's Local Business center (google.com/local/add)

And that word of advice? Don't overdo it. In other words, don't stuff your pages full of keywords.

What do you think of Cutts' advice? Leave a comment!

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (49)

June 19, 2008

SEW Experts: SEO Educational Standards: the Aftermath

Most people agree that there should be some kinds of educational standards for SEO in place for various reasons. In today's SEM.EDU column, "SEO Educational Standards: the Aftermath," Ron Jones explains that the big questions surround how those standards would be created, implemented, and if or how they would be enforced.

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Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 6, 2008

SEW Experts: Keywords Without Ego

It's hard to believe that some marketers will measure success by the improvement of a popular keyword. In today's SEM Agency Issues column, "Keywords Without Ego," William Flaiz explains that high search frequency does not necessarily denote a great keyword, and ranking for a popular term does not a successful campaign make. While search positions give project managers a nice, clean number to report to their CEO, there's more to SEO than just ranking for ego terms.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 5, 2008

SEW Experts: Do We Need Educational Standards for Learning SEO? - Part 2

Do SEO standards help or hinder a neophyte looking for education? Does setting standards give away industry secrets? Where do we draw the line between guidelines and policing? In today's SEM.EDU column, "Do We Need Educational Standards for Learning SEO? - Part 2," Ron Jones shows that the idea of creating standards for learning SEO raises many questions, and leads to much debate.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 3, 2008

SEW Experts: When Top Keywords Suddenly Vanish

If one of your top keyword phrases suddenly drops out of the SERPs, do you know what you'll do to fix it? In today's Enterprise Search Marketing column, "When Top Keywords Suddenly Vanish," Aaron Shear shows you that, while the cause may be nothing that you control, there are several things you should be looking at to make sure a change that was made somewhere in your organization didn't cause the problem.

» Full story  

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: Google PageRank isn't the Same as Ranking in Google

Many webmasters are obsessed with the PageRank Google assigns their site. But why? They don't understand that there are at least 100 or more factors that make up the Google algorithm -- and most likely a lot more than that. In today's Organic Search Engine Optimization column, "Google PageRank isn't the Same as Ranking in Google," Mark Jackson explains that a higher PageRank number doesn't necessarily mean better rankings.

» Full story  

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEW Experts: 3 CEOs with 3 Strategies for SEO Success

It's 3 a.m. and your employees are safe and asleep. But Wall Street analysts are calling and they want to know your search engine marketing strategy. Who do you want answering the phone? In today's Search Engine WarGames column, "3 CEOs with 3 Strategies for SEO Success," Kevin Heisler looks at three companies with varying degrees of digital presence: La-Z-Boy, D&B, and UTI. Each CEO took time during recent earnings calls to discuss their digital strategies with Wall Street analysts.

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Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 27, 2008

SEW Experts: It Pays to Link Consistently

You have control over the internal links on your site, so be sure you're taking advantage of that when creating them. In today's Organic Search Engine Optimization column, "It Pays to Link Consistently," Mark Jackson takes a look at ways to improve your Web site's consistency in internal linking and the use of your domain name, which can make a big difference in your site's organic search engine rankings.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 20, 2008

SEW Experts: WebMD CEO Fights Off Google Health Virus with SEO

CEOs need to invest in search engine optimization. Perhaps no company knows that better than WebMD. In today's Search Engine WarGames column, "WebMD CEO Fights Off Google Health Virus with SEO," Kevin Heisler looks at ways WebMD is using SEO to drive traffic to their site, and to lessen the additional pressure from the launch of Google Health.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 13, 2008

SEW Experts: Don't Hire a Butcher to do a Baker's Job

There are a few firms that I might believe do a good job of both Web design and SEO. Most Web design companies have no business claiming to "do" SEO. In today's Organic Search Engine Optimization column, "Don't Hire a Butcher to do a Baker's Job," Mark Jackson explains why Web designers and IT teams that claim to be handling SEO are probably not doing enough for your site.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 12, 2008

Avoid Extreme Makeovers During the Optimization Process

Whether you're optimizing a page for the first time or tweaking a page to improve your rankings, it can be tempting to give a page an extreme makeover. From title tags to keyword selection and density to link building, sometimes an SEO may feel the pull to change it all in the hopes of getting a quick return.

But making a bunch of changes all at once is not a prudent process. When multiple changes are made simultaneously, it's difficult to know what is contributing to any changes (declines or increases) in rankings.

Instead, try focusing on one change at at time. So what should your first change be? It can vary from keyword to keyword. Using SEO tools can help you perform competitive intelligence to figure out which metric is most likely to have the greatest impact for a given keyword, as well as analyze your site for strengths and weaknesses within those metrics.

Have an optimization tip to share? Think I'm completely off-base? Leave a comment and show us how it's done!

Related Reading: SEM Tools of the Experts SEO Tools Bonanza from SEOValley & SEO Book

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

May 6, 2008

SEW Experts: Conducting a Redirect Audit on Your Web Site - Part 2

Knowing which pages on your site are returning errors, and which ones are being redirected can help you pinpoint issues to address. In today's Organic Search Engine Optimization column, "Conducting a Redirect Audit on Your Web Site - Part 2," Mark Jackson shows how performing a redirect audit can help you get to the bottom of those problems.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

May 2, 2008

SEW Experts: Top 5 Non-SEO Ways to Increase Your Search Rankings

Contrary to what some search marketers may think, marketing is not all about search. In today's SEM Crossfire column, "Top 5 Non-SEO Ways to Increase Your Search Rankings," Chris Boggs explains that by branching out into other areas, like usability and PR, you can increase the effectiveness of your search efforts.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

April 8, 2008

SEW Experts: How to Tell if Your Domain is Banned

Oftentimes it is difficult to tell whether a domain name is banned or penalized by a search engine. Or perhaps the domain name is neither banned, nor penalized. It could be, you just managed to screw up your site. In today's Organic Search Engine Optimization column, "How to Tell if Your Domain is Banned in a Search Engine," Mark Jackson shows you how to find the answer.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

March 19, 2008

Calacanis on SEO, Redux

Jason Calacanis, the controversial CEO of social search site Mahalo.com, will give the afternoon keynote today at Search Engine Strategies New York. We'll have to wait until then to hear what pearls of wisdom he has to share with the SEO community (which, by the way, he believes is made up of 90 percent "snake oil salesmen."). In today's SearchDay, "Q&A with Jason Calacanis, Founder & CEO, Mahalo.com," we caught up with Jason to ask him about the future of the Internet, social media, and SEO.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:19 AM | Permalink

March 12, 2008

Should search marketers include audio (podcast) optimization in their tactical toolkits

Amanda Watlington answers my questions about optimizing podcasts

Why should we be thinking about using audio and podcasts?

Universal search and the inclusion of audio and video content into the main search pages is an opportunity for marketers to expand and use a powerful highly personal medium. That being said; however, marketers should not just include audio just to have audio, but should look for appropriate opportunities to include audio into their online marketing.

What kind of content could a company produce in audio?

The beauty of audio is that it is highly adaptable. What to include in audio content is a challenge of the imagination. It is very easy to lapse into the trap that the audio content must look like a radio show. This may not the best use of audio for the business. For example, consider all of the options for use of audio that a museum or historical site might have. The offering might include information for planning a visit to museum, specialized audio content promoting a current show or visiting collection or information on new additions to the collection, regular interviews with curators with an educational spin, and any number of downloadable personalized tours. These are not necessarily radio shows, but they are valuable audio content.

For publicly-held businesses, any of the information presented to the public on the business' performance is of interest to listeners who are time-challenged and may want to listen to the information on their own time, not just when the conference call is held. The site owner may want to make sure that all of this information can be found via search.

Magazines and content sites can make use of audio by having their authors read their articles into podcasts. Here is an example of a podcast that I recorded of an article that I wrote on universal search for the UK publication InCirculation. This audio expands the searchable footprint for the article and offers potential readers the advantage of being able to listen to the article not just have to read it. As you see, the uses are quite varied.

Is it difficult and/or expensive to produce audio content?

Developing audio content requires careful planning and execution, but it does not have to be expensive. The audio file for the InCirculation article required that I sit down with my audio recorder and create the audio file. This meant finding a quiet place, having my introduction pre-scripted and then reading the article into my portable recorder. I personally do not use my computer to record. The fan in the computer adds noise that I do not want. I use a digital recorder. It can hardly get simpler. When I first started working with audio, I used the telephone for audio blogging via HipCast

It is important to focus on the content. Expensive and elaborate production will not dress up weak content. On the other hand, I have listened to poor quality recordings where you could hear microphones being moved and participants shuffling papers and found it very distracting. Professional sounding, clear audio is very important. The focus should be on getting the message across.

Do you have to use text with the audio content so it can be found?

Making audio content sing in search is really a matter of understanding both the users and the search engines. The more information provided to the user and the search engine, the more likely the user is to both find the audio and listen to it. I strongly urge would-be podcasters to make a number of decisions before launching any audio efforts. These include deciding whether they are developing a podshow with the potential of multiple episodes or a single unique podcast. If it is a show, the show should have its own page so that it can be SEO'd and then each episode should have a page of text for it, an episode landing page. This allows the SEO to highlight the unique content of each episode. This gives a broader footprint and one that lets users find the show either by its name of by the content. In my presentation at SES NewYork, I will be highlighting a number of the other decisions that should be made to ensure that listeners can find the podcast.

Are show notes just a ‘nice to have' or are they essential for SEO?

They are integral part of the SEO. They are not just nice to have. How extensive the show notes are is a matter of personal choice. The show notes let the site owner promote the audio on the page. Show notes can range from a brief abstract to a complete transcription. A transcription of the audio file can also be placed in the audio file itself via the ID3 tags.

Where do the tags go?

The tags are part of the audio file. They are pre-pended to the audio itself and must be added with an audio tag editor. There are number of ID3 tag editors available, some for free. The audio should be tagged during the editing process. I will be going into quite a lot of detail on tagging the audio file during my presentation.

For a total newbie, what is the 123 of audio optimization?

Here is the 123 of audio optimization. * Create the sound file * Edit the ID3 tags during the sound editing process (this can either be done by the audio editor or later with a tag editor) * Create or update the show page to reflect the new audio file * Create a landing page for the audio file. This means including a player for the audio. * Promote the audio.

Please elaborate on promoting and distributing audio content?

Assuming that you have content that is interesting and that users find it on a search engine – this is the goal isn't it? – a listener will want to read your summary, the abstract, then be enticed to listen to the audio directly from their computer or download it for future listening. This is just one scenario, a desirable one, but not the only scenario.

The real goal of most podshows is to have the listener subscribe to the show and download the episodes on a regular basis. RSS is the medium for this distribution. Not only does it let you notify subscribers to your feed that you have a new episode, but the RSS feed is also the medium for notifying podcast directories and search engines about new episodes.

The session at SES New York will cover a lot more on the why and how of audio search optimization, including using RSS to increase reach.

Posted by at 2:44 PM | Permalink

March 11, 2008

SEW Experts: Creating Synergy in Your SEO Efforts

There's not one single thing that can make your Web page show up in the top of the search results. But there are several little things that can. In today's Organic Search Engine Optimization column, "Creating Synergy in Your SEO Efforts," Mark Jackson explains that by making sure a few key components are working together, the synergy between your optimization efforts can help you get page-one results.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

March 7, 2008

How to Go Beyond Linkbait : SES NYC

SES NYC is fast approaching. My session with Chris Boggs and Lee Odden titled Beyond Linkbait will cover some interesting ideas.

I spoke to Chris today to get his take on the idea of going beyond linkbait.

One topic he's covering is reciprocal links - good or bad? If done properly, they can still be a good SEO tactic, says Chris. They need to happen naturally and be relevant. He has some great ideas on how to make these links work for SEO and offers examples of what a bad reciprocal link and a good reciprocal link would be.

Chris plans to share a case study about creating content for YouTube or other social media sites that is not intended to produce links directly. "We built a peice of content around a game on a client's site with the intention of building buzz and getting bloggers to write it about it and then link to the client's site where the game is hosted," explained Chris.

They've had over 25 000 views on YouTube and a flood of links and traffic to the client's site.

Sounds like a hard act to follow!

My case study is about The Bounce Test videos and how we took this content and turned it into a serious women's health issue backed by research that got coverage from influential bloggers and mainstream media sites.

See you in New York on the 20th March .

Posted by at 5:28 PM | Permalink

February 29, 2008

SEW Experts: Standards for SEO and SEM: The Time is Now

The question comes up often in search marketing circles: Is now the time for search engine marketing standards? In today's SEM Crossfire column, "Standards for SEO and SEM: The Time is Now," Chris Boggs outlines a proposal for standards that define common tactics and assign them a risk level to help search marketers make wise decisions about the most appropriate search marketing plan for their situation.

Do you agree with Chris? Please share your thoughts on establishing SEO standards at the Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

February 15, 2008

SEW Experts: The Great Nofollow Link Debate of '08

What started as a way to stop comment spam three years ago has turned into one of the most controversial topics in search. In today's SEM Crossfire column, "The Great Nofollow Link Debate of '08," Chris Boggs discusses the evolution of the "nofollow" attribute and its impact on SEO and link building.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

February 12, 2008

SEW Experts: High Performance SEO Requires Fast Load Times

Many large companies assume that site speed isn't very important to the overall user experience, but they'd be wrong. In today's Big Biz column, "High Performance SEO Requires Fast Load Times," Aaron Shear explains that slow load times, compounded by other network issues, can both create a horrible user experience and impact organic search rankings.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: SEO Outsourcing: Don't! Until You Read This

One basic rule in life: it's difficult to buy things you don't understand. SEO can be difficult to understand, especially for marketing folks who'd rather put the search budget into PPC campaigns, which are easier to understand and buy.In today's au Natural column, "SEO Outsourcing: Don't! Until You Read This," Mark Jackson discusses the basics everyone should be asking during the RFP (request for proposal) stage, and offers a free SEO RFP template.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

February 11, 2008

CNN Wants News Mojo From the People

CNN wants news mojo from the people -- and will soon launch iReport.com for citizen journalists.

News sharing is a natural next step, because people already send far more videos and images than CNN could ever show online or on air. According to MediaWeek, CNN uses only 10 percent of all contributions through its current iReport functionality.

Today when you upload video to the CNN site, your content is thoroughly vetted. With this News “You Tube” service, both terrific and terrible videos will get shared there.

Susan Grant, EVP of CNN News Services, welcomes all the noise. CNN will allow all content to be shared, but remove objectionable items when they feel it's necessary.

Unfortunately, CNN won't get the most mojo! They decided to launch a new iReport destination, and even spent $750k to secure two domain names. There could be many reasons for doing this, but traffic didn't enter into this decision.

From a search marketing perspective, it's baffling that CNN isn't able to leverage their brand, authority, link love and traffic within the mother domain. My sympathies are extended to CNN's online marketers and techies, who are figuring out all possible ways to optimize this new destination. It's a lot more work.

To me, it would be far better if CNN tried to create a nice, big searchable world of professional and user-generated news content. If CNN really wants mojo, then they should open up directly to people -- at least on a branded CNN sub-domain. Take a calculated risk here.

Posted by at 10:40 PM | Permalink

February 5, 2008

SEW Experts: Don't Waste Money on a So-Called SEO Specialist?

A publication sent to American Express small business cardholders suggests that SEO is a waste of money. In today's au Natural column, "Don't Waste Money on a So-Called SEO Specialist," Mark Jackson once again comes to SEO's defense.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

January 29, 2008

SEW Experts: SEO Millionaire: Who Wants to Be One? - Part 2

Last week, we challenged SEOs to identify which of the big three travel sites has a canonical issue? In today's au Natural column, "SEO Millionaire: Who Wants to Be One? - Part 2," Mark Jackson provides the answer, and responds to voluminous reader response.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

January 15, 2008

SEW Experts: Google Universal Search Makes SEO More Powerful

Universal Search, a.k.a. blended search, is changing the SEO game. In today's au Natural column, "Google Universal Search Makes SEO More Powerful," Mark Jackson warns that search marketers need to understand universal search before their competitors do. Universal or blended search will be the SERP of the future.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

January 8, 2008

SEW Experts: There is no Guaranteed Search Engine Ranking

If a company ever finds a way to guarantee organic search engine rankings, that company will undoubtedly go public and have a market cap approaching that of Google's. In today's au Natural column, "Yes, Virgin SEO, There is no Guaranteed Search Engine Ranking," Mark Jackson explains that while selling organic SEO efforts to the executive team can be tough, you can help them understand how this process works and how much it will cost. But you've also got to tell them that results can't be guaranteed.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

January 4, 2008

SEW Experts: New Search Engine Trends, Old SEO Troubles in 2007

With advances such a universal search and the explosion of social media, 2007 was quite a landmark year for search marketers. For all of its breakthroughs, a few bad habits still remain from years past. In today's Outsourced column, "New Search Engine Trends, Old SEO Troubles in 2007," William Flaiz reminds us that it's the human component that matters most, and clients are finally beginning to understand the value of SEO.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

January 2, 2008

Presidential Candidates in Need of SEO Help

The Range Online Media SEO team completed an audit of the political candidates' sites, and found glaring holes in search strategy on virtually all of the sites of major candidates and minor players on both sides of the aisle. In today's SearchDay, "SEO for President," Range's Herndon Hasty breaks down the biggest search-related issues on the candidates' sites.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:22 AM | Permalink

December 21, 2007

SEW Experts: How to Market SEO to Humans

How do you explain your job to the people you meet at a holiday party? In today's Outsourced column, "How to Market SEO to Humans," William Flaiz reminds us that search engine optimization is a marketing discipline at heart, relying on the same principles as traditional marketing practices. While the medium may be unfamiliar, the process can be broken down easily for the unacquainted.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 19, 2007

SEW Experts: Large Enterprise SEO: Content Development

SEO for Large Enterprises means content development on a massive scale. In today's By the Numbers column, "Large Enterprise SEO: Content Development," Eric Enge explains that the motivation for addressing the challenges goes beyond duplicate content and poor quality pages.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 18, 2007

Matt Cutts Video on ALT attributes

Matt Cutts has posted a new video about ALT tags in images. In it, Matt outlines the basics about how ALT tags should be used, and why they are helpful.

Matt starts the video with a picture of Amy Cutts (his cat) and a ball of yarn on a whiteboard. Matt then points out that search engine crawlers can't recognize the content of the image, and therefore have no way of understanding it what it is. To make matters worse, standard file names for the image are often something like "DCIMG42,JPG". This also provides no help to the crawler.

If we look more closely at a typical IMG statement, it might look something like this:

<img class="photo" src="http://www.example.com/images/dcimg42.jpg" />

Again, no help for the crawler there. SO what can you do? Matt recommends the use of the ALT atribute in the IMG statement. With this modification, your image statement might look like this:

<img class="photo" src="http://www.example.com/images/dcimg42.jpg" alt="Matt's cat, Emmy Cutts, with some yarn" />

So now we are providing the crawler with some help. The alt tag in the example provided by Matt is 7 words long, and this is an OK length. Matt notes that if you start getting up to 20 to 25 words, that your ALT attributes are getting overly long. Also, you want to avoid spammy looking ALT attributes, e.g., "cat cat cat feline cat fur ...".

You can take this a little further and use the TITLE attribute, or name your file something helpful as well. This would provide more reinforcement for the crawler regarding the content of the images. However, according to Matt, just implemeting the ALT attribute is enough in most cases. Ultimately, the bottom line is that you should use the ALT attribute on ALL of your images.

Posted by at 9:52 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: SEO Conversion Testing: Advanced Search Engine Optimization

The C-level executive doesn't often get involved in A/B Web site optimization decisions. It's a tactic better left to SEOs, Web site analytics gurus, and statisticians. What do you do, then, when the CxO asks you to explain how you do A/B conversion testing for an e-commerce site, for example? In today's Big Biz column, "SEO Conversion Testing: Advanced Search Engine Optimization," Aaron Shear shares the number one SEO challenge during holiday shopping season: explaining to senior management how complex it is to do A/B testing of SEO strategies for large enterprise mega-sites.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 12, 2007

SEW Experts: SEO Hell, a CMS Production

Large scale Web sites with a content management system (CMS) face different SEO problems than smaller Web sites. In today's By the Numbers column, "SEO Hell, a CMS Production," Eric Enge explains that while CMS developers' knowledge of SEO has improved, serious SEO issues resulting from CMS software still need to be addressed.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 10, 2007

It's All in the Links

Matt Cutts did a blog post bright and early this morning (just after midnight) about subdomains and subdirectories. Matt clarifies the definition of each:

Just as a reminder, in a URL such as subdomain.example.com/subdirectory/ , the subdomain is “subdomain” and the subdirectory is “subdirectory” (also sometimes called a folder).

Matt goes onto say that it really does not make much difference to Google which you choose for your site. He also explains that setting up a subdomain is generally a bit harder than setting of a subdirectory. Matt tends to lean toward using a subdirectory over a subdomain as well (as do I).

Here are a few extra points I'd like to make about the way these things work:

1. From a ranking perspective it truly makes no difference. It's all in the links (had to get the title in there somehow). If you have a subdomain (content.yourdomain.com) that is linked to by the main domain (www.yourdomain.com), and you also have a subdirectory (www.youdomain.com/content) that is linked to by your domain in exactly the same way, the crawler treatment, and the indexing and ranking of the two will basically be identical.

2. That said, I do think that there is a slightly greater risk that a subdomain will be treated as a separate site by Google. While this risk is fairly low, I don't think there is zero risk. I say this because it is entirely conceivable that the subdomain is not operated and managed by the same people who operate and manage the main domain.

This risk is probably greater for smaller sites not yet trusted as much by Google. Bottom line: if you have a relatively new site, steer away from subdomains and stick with subfolders. No need to complicate your life after all.

3. For larger more well established sites, I don't think there is any risk of this being an issue. Using subdomains or subfolders is a matter of choice. I've worked with massive media companies that have large families of large sites that use subdomains heavily.

Subdomains can provide a preferable way to organize the site, particularly when dealing with highly varied topics or channels of delivery (e.g. video, mobile, etc.). This is especially true if the nature of the content or channels makes it more likely people will link to it directly.

Summary

Ultimately, I think the key point is the first one. How you link to your subdomain or subfolder guides the behavior of the crawler. There is no magic juice that accrues to either method, and using a subdomain does not make it more likely you'll get multiple listings in the search results.

Posted by at 9:50 AM | Permalink

December 7, 2007

SEW Experts: Wherefore Art Thou SEO?

With so many so-called search professionals on the market today, it's easy to pick one that's inept -- or even unscrupulous. So where are all the honest SEOs? In today's Outsourced column, "Wherefore Art Thou SEO?," William Flaiz discusses what to look for in an effective and ethical SEO.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

November 28, 2007

SEO Is Not a One-Time Event

Too often, companies "approve" SEO only to treat it as a one-time hit, or a short-term project. Months or years later, when they asked someone else to "do" SEO for them, it is discovered that the company had laid none of the basic foundation for SEO, and it is clear that even the implementation was done incorrectly. Unfortunately, no follow-up or long-term measurement plan is in place that would catch this. In today's SearchDay, "SEO Expectations and Commitments," Steve Haar offers some guidelines for those who approve SEO to know what to expect, and what's expected of them.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:06 AM | Permalink

November 27, 2007

SEW Experts: SEO for New Web Site Launch

The first step in any SEO initiative for new sites is to set realistic expectations and goals. In today's au Natural column, "SEO for New Web Site Launch," Mark Jackson shares SEO tips and tricks for brand new Web sites.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

November 20, 2007

SEW Experts: On Page vs. Off Page SEO

Off-page SEO factors are getting all the attention these days. But good, old-fashioned, on-page factors are also vital for every SEO project. In today's au Natural column, "On Page vs. Off Page SEO," Mark Jackson discusses a few cases where on-page SEO is most appropriate, and others where off-page SEO tactics will get the most bang for your buck.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

November 16, 2007

The 10 Most Common SEO Mistakes

There are surely hundreds of different ways that people can mess up their sites. Based on our experience from working with scores of clients, here are the 9 most common problems that we find:

1. Broken information architecture - These are sites that fail to map the nature of the information they are providing into an understandable hierarchy. Bad for users and search engines.
2. Poor site usability - Results in poor conversion rates, poor lifetime value per visitor, and a less attraactive site for linking to.
3. Mismanaged internal link juice - Some sites allocate their link juice poorly, resulting in not enough of it going to their most important pages.
4. Content getting buried over time - A surprising number of sites that create huge amounts of content use publishing systems that buries stuff over time. Such a lost opportunity. People and crawlers are looking for this stuff, don't hide it!
5. Bad redirects - Why is is that every engineer who does not have a background in SEO defaults to using a 302 redirect? OK, that's probably unfair (you might even say ignorant), but it sure seems that way at times.
6. Poor titles and headers - Keyword tools are wonderful weapons. These are valuable for far more than SEO. Keyword tools tell you what language people use when referring to your products and services. Even in a world without web sites, this is something you would want to know. Then you need to make sure you have pages and content that addresses the major topic areas that relate to your business.
7. Insufficient content - No content (or tools) means no links means no traffic. It's that simple. What unique value are you offering a visitor to your web site? Why would someone link to your site?
8. Duplicate content - It's unbelievable how much duplicate content that some sites create. It's a common killer, and it's a very big factor in poor page rank management.
9. All flash site - Very, very pretty, but not a great experience for a crawler. This does not mean you can't have an (almost) all Flash site. Just make sure you offer text link navigation options and use a technique like Scalable Inman Flash Replacement (sIFR) to tell the crawler what is in the movie.
10. Same meta description (and keywords) on every page - These elements are included in duplicate content filter checks by the search engines. And, of course, the meta description is important because it often gets used as the description that the search engine uses for your web page, so make sure it describes the unique info to be found on that page.

We have run into many other problems along the way, of course, but these are the most common offenders. What other common SEO mistakes do you see? Discuss this over in the SEW forums.

Posted by at 10:34 AM | Permalink

November 6, 2007

SEW Experts: SEO for Brand Reputation Management

Do a Google search for "walmart" and you'll notice the top results include a few sites that aren't exactly favorable to the Wal-Mart brand. In today's au Natural column, "SEO for Brand Reputation Management," Mark Jackson discusses some things that Wal-Mart is doing right and some things that they may want to do better to fix their online reputation.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: SEO for Start-ups and VCs

There are few venture capital firms that really understand the importance of SEO, and few resources devoted to supporting it. In today's Big Biz column, "SEO for Start-ups and VCs," Aaron Shear suggest ways for startups to reconsider how they're investing VC money to build their business.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

October 9, 2007

SEW Experts: How to Avoid Hiring a Bad SEO

Do you know the tell tale signs of an inept search engine optimizer or SEO company trying to pull a fast one? In today's au Natural column, "How to Avoid Hiring a Bad SEO," Mark Jackson offers some tips to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

October 2, 2007

SEW Experts: Top 10 Reasons You Must Do SEO

Many have claimed "SEO is Dead." In today's au Natural column, "Top 10 Reasons You Must Do SEO," Mark Jackson offers the final five reasons why that just ain't so.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

September 25, 2007

SEW Experts: Top 10 Reasons SEO Rocks: "SEO is Dead" Is Dead

Many have claimed "SEO Is Dead." In today's au Natural column, "Top 10 Reasons SEO Rocks: "SEO is Dead" Is Dead," Mark Jackson gives the first half of his list detailing why that's not the case, and why SEO remains alive and well.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

September 24, 2007

Interview of Usability Guru Jakob Nielsen

I recently had the privilege of sitting down and speaking with Jakob Nielsen. Known as one of the foremost usability gurus in the world, Jakob showed me that he also has a keen understanding of SEO. As the world of web marketing matures, it will be increasingly obvious that you can't do long term SEO without considering usability at the same time.

One of the most interesting aspects of this is the use of keyword research tools. SEOs routinely use these tools to find the highest volume keywords people use related to the site they are currently working on. Often, we think of this as a purely mathematical numbers game. We see the highest volume keywords, and related words, and put them in the title tag, a header at the top of the page, and work some references into the text on the page.

Sounds like a straight forward concept. However, there is far more to it than that. The reason why some keywords are more popular than others is because those keywords reflect the most common way users think about their topic matter.

Placing these intelligently on the page does far, far more than just help you get search volume. It also tells the user that they have arrived at the right place to get what they want. Ultimately, keyword research should be more than an SEO exercise - it needs to be a usability exercise as well.

Once you have the keywords you are interested in, you can place them, and related words in key elements of the page. You can also provide your copy writers with general guidelines for how to produce copy for the page.

I always prefer to give the writers high level instruction, rather than trying to micro manage keywords into their text. Ultimately, telling them that the article is about "Circular Red Widgets", and how they are better than "Square Blue Widgets", is about all the instruction you should provide.

Then let them write a solid piece of quality content. The article quality will drive conversions, in addition to links and search engine traffic, making it a win-win-win situation.

Posted by at 9:00 AM | Permalink

September 6, 2007

Usability and SEO. Which comes First?

There is an incredibly strong link between Usability and SEO. First, you have to start with the knowledge that the business of the search engines is enhanced by having the most relevant results in their index (the ones that do in fact answer the user's question quickly), and this means that usability matters to them. Therefore it is in their strategic interest to develop an understanding of a site's usability.

There are many ways that the search engines can collect basic usability data. For example, do users bookmark your site at major sites such as del.icio.us? Do you have a high bounce rate (people who view only one page, or who don't stay long on the site)? These are just a couple of basic things that a search engine can look at to measure usability.

Second, usabilty is a key factor in driving the acquisition of high value links. Trying to get a major university or a government site to link to yours? What do they see when they come to the page you are trying to get them to link to? Do they understand it right away? Or does it confuse them?

At an architectural level, having a clean site hierarchy and an easily understood navigation structure also benefits both usability and SEO. This means things like a logically thought through hierarchy that matches up with the nature of the content you are providing in an easy to understand way. It means having a consistent global navigation structure, and a breadcrumb bar.

There are many great resources on usability. For example, there is Jakob Nielsen's usetit.com and Kim Krause Berg's Cre8PC that delve into the specifics of good usability then I will attempt to do here.

What I want to emphasize here is one key point: Usability comes first, and SEO comes second. Don't get me wrong, I am not short selling SEO here. I think it's incredibly important (well, OK, it's a key part of how I make my living). But when you are looking at a new site design, or are re-evaluating an existing site, you need to start with some basic questions. Here are some examples:

1. What is the purpose of the site? There are many good answers to this, such as generate leads, sell products, reduce support costs, or sell advertising. Understanding the answer to this question is where it all starts. Fulfilling this purpose can be thought of as a conversion.
2. What types of visitors do you want to attract to the site? Who are the people you can bring to your site that might convert, either in the short term or the long term? For many sites, there are many distinct groups of visitors. They can be divided into groups such as repeat visitors and first time visitors, visitors from different geographies, shoppers and researchers, etc.
3. For each group of visitors, think about the types of information and products and services they want to see on your site. What would make it useful to them? What are their goals, and how can you help them meet them?
4. For each group of visitors, now that you know what they are looking for, what will their experience be like when they arrive at your site? Will they know where to find what they are looking for? Or will it they arrive at your site, be one click away from converting, and simply leave because they don't see what they are looking for?

These are some of the most basic questions that every site owner needs to consider. Advanced companies do usability design and analysis, including live usablity testing with real users on their sites. Some companies get more sophisticated still, and incorporate the use of eye tracking gear, to really get down to the nitty gritty details of how people see their web pages.

While you may not be in a position to take your pursuit of usability quite that far (although you should if you can), you need to be thinking about it. Getting tons of search engine visitors and a low rate of conversion will not help you much. In addition, if the search engines have their way, a low rate of conversions (then sites in comparable markets) will also lead them to lower the amount of traffic they send you.

Posted by at 8:36 AM | Permalink

September 4, 2007

SEW Experts: Optimizing Pages for New and Improved Search Engine Users

In today's au Natural column, "Optimizing Pages for New and Improved Search Engine Users," Mark Jackson takes a look at changes in the way people search, discussing updated methods for reaching today's search-engine-savvy users.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

August 21, 2007

SEW Experts: Which Hat Should I Wear?

In today's au Natural column, "Which Hat Should I Wear?," Mark Jackson looks at various considerations for determining which type of SEO may be best suited for your needs.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

August 15, 2007

Retailers Not Paying Enough Attention to SEO

A new study from Oneupweb finds that the Top 100 retailers are not paying enough attention to SEO for their Web sites. In today's SearchDay, "Retailers' SEO Efforts Found Lacking," we examine the results of the study, which finds:

• 20 percent of retailers' sites were well-optimized
• 20 percent of retailers' sites were moderately optimized
• 34 percent of retailers' sites were nominally optimized
• 26 percent of retailers' sites were not optimized at all

"A lot of big brands are relying on the strength of their name. They're not necessarily suffering now, but the market is extremely volatile, and it's not certain how much longer they can hang on just doing that," says Oneupweb's Tim Kauffold.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:27 PM | Permalink

August 13, 2007

Open Those Gates Already

How search-engine friendly are the Top 100 U.S. newspapers on the web? Not enough. Almost a third are are fully gated, with 26 requiring sign-ups to access all content freely and three requiring paid subscriptions (see recent Bivings study). Unfortunately, these gates typically prevent search engines from finding news too.

Of course, some papers like the NYTimes.com have organic search under control. VP Marshall Simmonds has enabled crawling of gated content, so Google and Yahoo make their pages available. When visitors arrive at paid pages like archives, they see abstracts first. Last week, there were rumors about dismantling the paid TimesSelect service. If that happens, the well-regarded columnists would have no trouble attracting more traffic and interest.

However, I'm betting that most of the remaining newspapers with sign-ups aren't up to snuff. Are they enabling search engines to crawl their content and pages? Are they creating appropriate site maps and topic indices? Not that I can easily see. Even if visitors have to log in, these newsworthy resources should be indexed and searched today.

Still I have to ask: why are so many papers requiring sign-ups anyway? That commonplace "we need to profile our visitors for advertisers" answer seems a little lame these days. Instead look at some free metrics, check out specific interests from click streams, and see what new search queries emerge. These sources seem better than self-reported, incomplete data from visitors who just want access, now.

Meanwhile, the largest online newspapers accelerate their efforts to open gates. Publishers with paid access are about to risk current revenue because they project more traffic and revenue downstream. Analyst Henry Blodget thinks it's a winner for NYTimes.com and WSJ.com to run free, if the AOL transition tells them anything. Meanwhile, Pearson continues to mull all FT.com options, in their competitive ad battle with the Journal.

Sure, these largest papers have the advantages of size, resources and online authority. They don't present an apples-to-apples comparison with the local papers. Still their recent willingness to consider risks should send a strong message to their counterparts. While the Top 100 papers have distinct challenges, they are able to attract local and thus highly valuable visitors. It's worth a little time and effort to think about search optimization.

Are any webmasters or developers reading this posting? Start by opening access to the search engines, please. Let the robots in, but make sure there's a "noarchive" metatag if you have gates. Try some site mapping, to expose more hierarchy and content to the crawlers. Check out the forums, and ask specific questions there.

The Top 100 papers are investing in so many areas, including content, video and even user-generated elements. It's the least they can do, to return to a few SEO basics: attract more visitors and spur online growth.

Posted by at 1:20 AM | Permalink

August 10, 2007

Matt Cutts Shares SEO Tips for Bloggers

Matt Cutts, the Google engineer and public face of the search engine's spam-fighting team, has posted some SEO tips for bloggers that he first shared in a WordCamp 2007 presentation last month.

He's posted his presentation deck, a link to a video and transcript, and links to write-ups of the sessions, so you could conceivably spend the rest of the day today just consuming Matt's words of wisdom in various forms.

He also clarifyies the reported news that underscores are now the same as dashes to Google: If you read Stephan Spencer's write-up, he says that underscores are the same as dashes to Google now, and I didn't quite say that in the talk. I said that we had someone looking at that now. So I wouldn't consider it a completely done deal at this point. But note that I also said if you'd already made your site with underscores, it probably wasn't worth trying to migrate all your urls over to dashes. If you're starting fresh, I'd still pick dashes.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:30 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Don't Be An SEO Alien

In today's In-House column, "Don't Be An SEO Alien," Rob Kerry has some practical advice for in-house SEOs, and it doesn't have to do with following Best Practices.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

July 31, 2007

SEW Experts: Avoiding Cookie Cutter SEO

In today's au Natural column, "Avoiding Cookie Cutter SEO," Mark Jackson explains why no two Web sites are created equal.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

July 17, 2007

SEW Experts: Creating Synergy in Your SEO Efforts

In today's au Natural column, "Creating Synergy in Your SEO Efforts ," Mark Jackson discusses the key components of successful SEO, showing you how on-site optimization efforts work together to accomplish a common goal.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

July 5, 2007

Did They Really "Give It Up"?

The long-awaited live-blogged session from SMX Advanced, "Give It Up," where search marketers were meant to share their insider tricks, has now been published after a one-month embargo. You can find a recap of the session at Search Engine Roundtable, Bruce Clay Blog and Marketing Pilgrim.

It seems the juicier secrets were kept hidden, due to the presence of a certain spam-fighting search engineer, but there are still a few gems in there that people might not know about.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:24 PM | Permalink

Internal Link Structure Optimization

Jim Boykin has a nice post about Optimizing Your Internal Link Structure. In addition to providing background on how page rank flows from page to page, Jim outlines the basics on how you should prioritize which pages should get the most attention.

Keeping in mind that your site as a whole only has a finite amount of page rank, you need to decide how to focus it. In essence take you most important keywords, make sure you have pages for those, and give them the most internal link love. If like most sites, your home page has the most page rank, link to your most important pages from there, or even consider giving them a site wide link from your site.

By clearly communicating what you believe your most important pages are, the search engine will do a better job for you in ranking those pages. Note that this is likely something you would want to do with your users too (i.e. steer them to your most important pages). Whenever you find yourself doing something that is good for both users and search engines, like optimizing your internal link structure, you are truly in the sweet spot of SEO.

Posted by at 10:18 AM | Permalink

July 3, 2007

SEW Experts: 7 Questions for Conducting an SEO Site Review

In today's au Natural column, "7 Questions for Conducting an SEO Site Review," Mark Jackson offers tips for performing a professional site review and invites you to submit your own site for a complimentary review on SEW.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:36 AM | Permalink

June 26, 2007

SEW Experts: Five Fundamental Questions of Keyword Research

In today's au Natural column, "Five Fundamental Questions of Keyword Research," Mark Jackson reviews five fundamental questions to ask of your site when performing keyword research.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:01 AM | Permalink

June 12, 2007

Identifying a Google Penalty

Often when a site loses its search rankings suddenly, a webmaster may not know the cause. It could be that the site has been penalized by Google for questionable linking practices or on-site tactics, or it could be increased competition. To guide webmasters through the process, Rand Fishkin at SEOmoz has created a flowchart describing How to Handle a Google Penalty.

It's based on his experience, as well as on conversations with Matt Cutts, which means its not an official Google document, but it does offer some useful guidance.

The process involves checking to see if your site is still indexed; if it ranks for its domain name; or if it ranks for unique terms in title tags. In each case, Fishkin offers a possible explanation other than a penalty and recommended course of action.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:22 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Web Site Architecture Structured for Success

In today's au Natural column, "Web Site Architecture Structured for Success," Mark Jackson reviews the benefits of creating a search engine friendly information architecture prior to Web site construction.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

May 23, 2007

Creating a Global SEO Strategy

Developing a global SEO strategy is not an easy undertaking – not by a long shot. However, if you have a worldwide presence, or plan to have one in the future, you should be thinking about SEO globally...and sooner rather than later. John Tawadros takes a look at what's involved in today's SearchDay, Is Your SEO Strategy Global?

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:45 PM | Permalink

May 22, 2007

Top Three SEO Mistakes

In the process of creating a presentation for catalog retailers at a DMA conference, SiteLogic's Matt Bailey has distilled the essence of SEO into three common things that businesses do wrong.

Here are his Top Three SEO Mistakes:

1. Branding comes before marketing tactics – On-page optimization is often at odds with brand decisions.
2. Call things what they are – Customers don't always search for branded terms; they use their own words to describe your product.
3. The basis of optimization is the customer experience – Optimizing pages for users will help you rank well in search engines.

Matt has posted his 48-page slide deck from the presentation, which is filled with more SEO basics like these.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:08 PM | Permalink

May 21, 2007

Chasing the Long Tail

When you pursue a competitive market you quickly find out how hard it is to rank for the highest volume terms. In education it's terms like "online degrees" and "nursing schools". In the mortgage space, it's terms like "mortgage" and "refinance". It's really hard to remove an entrenched competitor from high positions for these terms. First, they are making lots of money, and can afford to keep investing in staying there.

That's one of the beautiful things about the web, because looking at the real search terms entered by people really reveals something about the human mind. And, man, the human mind is all over the place. While a term like "refinance" is huge in search volume, the volume in related terms is much higher.

How big is this phenomena? At Google's Universal Search announcement, Udi Manber put up a slide that stated that 20% to 25% of the search queries Google sees every day are search queries it has never seen before. Let that sink in for a moment. To me, that number was startlingly large.

If we look a bit more deeply at how this plays out in a competitive market space, you will quickly see that in every market space on the web that there is this long tail phenomena. In conventional terms:

The sum of the searches on all the low volume terms = the sum of the traffic on all the high volume terms.

Better still, ranking for the low volume terms is often much easier to do. So you can get a ton of traffic to your site in a competitive market without ever ranking highly for the most important terms. This is why you see so many people talking about the long tail today. How do you chase the long tail? There are basically two ways to pursue the long tail:

1. Write in depth articles. This provides you access to long tail terms simply through the natural combination of words that the search engine will extract from your article. The scope of this is somewhat limited, of course, as there are so many word combinations that can be extracted from one article.

2. Implement lots of pages all targeted at different terms. The trick with this approach is to make the pages unique and different from each other, so they are not seen as spammy duplicate content.

The ideal world is to implement a site with thousand of pages, each with their own in depth article. However, this is not for the faint of heart. However, there are two major ways to go at achieving this goal:

1. User generated content. Social media sites that succeed in drawing an initial crowd have a strong potential to really take off, because the user generated content naturally creates a very strong long tail pull affect. It becomes a feeding frenzy, because more user generated content causes the site to rank for more long tail terms in the search engines, which drives more traffic, which drives more content.

   Of course, the trick here, is to create the initial buzz around the site.

2. Machine generated content. Tricky waters here. I am not talking about machine generating crappy sites. The user experience still must rule, if you plan to be in the game for the long term. But if you have the ability to access a variety of large databases in your market space, the opportunity exists to present that data and present analysis of that data that really does add value to the user.

Neither of these things are easy to do. But it can be a lonely experience (and a not very profitable one) to chase a highly competitive market any other way.

Posted by at 10:01 AM | Permalink

May 10, 2007

So...Should We, or Shouldn't We?

It seems that a debate has emerged about the importance of "the small stuff" in SEO. Over at Search Engine Land, Jill Whalen wrote a column, Don't Sweat the Small SEO Stuff, advising SEOs not to let worries over minor on-page details distract you from more important issues, or prevent you from doing anything at all.

Meanwhile, over at the Bruce Clay Blog, Lisa Barone has a differing opinion on the importance of the so-called minor details, in Sweat The Small Stuff: Search Engine Optimization Is In The Details.

Whalen says that small stuff can be a waste of time, if you're ignoring the big stuff, or letting worries over the small stuff paralyze you: It's critical to look at the big picture for your SEO campaign, as opposed to sweating the small SEO stuff.

The important things I'm talking about are stuff like the age, popularity, and authority of your site, as well as its usability and overall appeal to its target audience.

By the small stuff, I mean the picky details that paralyze people. Things like how many words or characters should be in a title tag. Or in what order those words should be placed. Or how many times a keyword phrase should be in the copy. Or how many keyword phrases any page can be optimized for. Or should commas be used in the Meta keyword tag. Or should file names have hyphens in them. Or should headlines use H1 tags (or H2 tags, or whatever).

Guess what? None of that stuff matters!

Whalen is not suggesting those small things should be ignored, but she is stressing the importance of addressing larger issues first, and then returning to the "small stuff" later on, if you choose to.

Barone agrees that the small stuff is not going to make or break a campaign, but she insists they are too important to forget about:

The details are important. If they play any part in the search engine's algorithm, they should be part of your search engine optimization campaign. Why? Because if you're ignoring them and your competition isn't, it puts you at a disadvantage. You can't afford that.

I'm going to say it again, mostly because I can: The details are important. The details are what give you that final push to overtake your competitors.

Barone subscribes to the school of thought that "anything worth doing is worth doing right," and points out that skipping the details leaves you with a good site, at best.

Obviously, both Whalen and Barone make good points, and they're not really disagreeing on all that much. They agree that things like age, popularity, and authority are more important to search engine rankings, and that fretting over the "small stuff" is not a productive way to spend your time.

The main difference in opinion comes down to whether the small stuff should be skipped over, or done with care while understanding they are not the most important things that need to be done.

I'm of the opinion that every incremental thing you can do to improve your site is worthwhile, even if it helps in a very small way. The important thing is to keep the effort required to do the small things in line with the potential return, and to prioritize your time to make sure the big stuff gets done first.

Should we, or shouldn't we, sweat the small stuff? Share your thoughts in the SEW Forums.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:36 PM | Permalink

May 7, 2007

Selling or Servicing?

Lee Odden recently interviewed Gord Hotchkiss, and the interview covered some interesting ground. In particular, Gord talked about how Google's moves towards personalization are going to affect SEO in the future. In response to Lee's question: "Will this finally force SEOs to focus on optimizing for users?", Gord said:

Yes, as I mentioned above. And that's why it's healthy. There's still a world of value SEO's can add by optimizing for users, and helping marketers understand how online viral linking can happen and, when it does, make sure that it's happening in a way conducive to being recognized by search engines. This makes SEO more complex, not less so, and as Danny Sullivan has said on a number of occasions, complexity is great job security. If you went to 100 sites at random, I would say 99 of them are not doing SEO right, or at least, not getting full value from it. And that includes a number of companies with in-house SEO staff. This is no knock on in-house SEO, it just means we all have to up our game, both in-house and external agencies.

I agree that this change is coming. I think it remains to be seen how quickly this change will come, and also just how much impact it will have on link building. If you already use a conservative approach to link building then it probably does not change anything for you at all on that score.

But let's break down this notion of "optimizing for users" a bit. I think we all need to ask ourselves what we think about when we are working on our web pages. Are we thinking about selling to our visitors? Or, servicing them? As soon as you decide that you are selling to them, you have begun heading for trouble.

Selling is an old concept that implies hard sell tactics. Hit them with the message. Make them feel urgency. Buy now! You will get an extra 10% off if you make the decision in the next 25 seconds!

Today's consumer is way too powerful for that approach, and they are getting smarter every day. Finding out what your competitor is doing can be accomplished in less than a minute. When consumers are looking for something in an area they are not familiar with, the web is a very powerful research tool. People can quickly check out 3 or 4 web sites to learn what they need to know, before making a buying decision.

How can you leverage that? By servicing them. Provide the best, and most accessible, information. Teach them what they need to know to become a smart buyer. Provide useful tools. Do a good job with this, and you will begin to build a relationship with that person, and trust. If they learn everything they need to know on your site, your chances of moving to the next step with them is greatly increased.

The same strategy applies to repeat buyers too. Make sure they have the tools they need to make their decision process easy too.

Whether you are selling leads, providing services, selling products, or whatever, it doesn't matter. The big winners will focus on servicing their users, not selling to them.

Posted by at 10:06 AM | Permalink

March 2, 2007

Personalization, SEO, and Web Marketing

Gord Hotchkiss recently interviewed Matt Cutts in a discussion that focused on personalization and the future of SEO. Kevin Newcomb also comments on this in Search Engine Watch. I also think that personalization will have a significant affect on SEO. I suspect that there will be many other methods implemented by Google to improve their results.

We need to bear in mind that they win (in fact, and search engine wins) by having the most relevant search results. More relevant search results equates to more search market share, and this equates to more advertising revenue. This means they will do everything they can to provide each user better search results, and personalization is a step in that direction.

It will indeed make things harder for people to implement weak content sites, and then use some linking scheme to get it ranked. Poor quality sites will be far more easily identified. Sites that offer a poor quality user experience will have trouble getting much traffic regardless of the linking scheme they may implement.

I don't believe that SEO is dead, but SEO in a vaccum will be dead at some point in the not too distant future. Smart SEOs have already begun moving towards a more holistic web marketing approach. One facet of this is the whole notion of Social Media Optimization, but there are other aspects including old fashioned PR and media relations.

This will be increasingly viewed as part of a bigger picture, that includes developing a matching content strategy. Your web marketing strategy will match up with a content plan with the needs of your prospective customers and your web promotional plan by necessity. It will be the best way to build your web business for the future. And I bet more and more SEOs will be calling themselves Web Marketers in the near future.

Posted by at 4:34 PM | Permalink

Cutts: The End is Near for Black Hat SEO

In an interview with Gord Hotchkiss published at Search Engine Land, Google's Matt Cutts all but sounds the death knell for black hat SEO, saying that the recent implementation of personalization of Google's search results should be seen as a "call to action" for SEOs that are focusing on reverse engineering search engine algorithms:

There's a fork in the road, and people can think hard about whether they're optimizing for users or whether they're optimizing primarily for search engines. And the sort of people who have been doing "new" SEO, or whatever you want to call it -- that's social media optimization, link bait, things that are interesting to people and attract word of mouth and buzz -- those sorts of sites naturally attract visitors, attract repeat visitors, attract backlinks, attract lots of discussion. Those sorts of sites are going to benefit as the world goes forward.

Cutts says that not all SEOs should worry, as long as their focus is on building good Web sites instead of trying to build sites to rank in a given algorithm:

I think the SEOs that adapt well to change and are optimizing for users are going to be in relatively good shape, because they're already trying to produce sites that are really pleasing and helpful to users. It's definitely the case that if all you care about is an algorithm, then the situation grows more complicated for you with personalization. But it's also an opportunity for people to take a fresh look at how they do SEO.

Hotchkiss also published a full transcript on his blog.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:43 AM | Permalink

February 28, 2007

SEO Is Easy...and Hard

Reduced to its simplest form, SEO is a four-step process: set some ground rules; get your site right; post some great content; and earn inbound links. Sounds easy, until you try to do it. PJ Fusco offers some tips for in-house search marketers on how to go about making it work in her latest ClickZ column, DIY SEO.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:30 AM | Permalink

February 27, 2007

SEO Mind Crime? More Anti-SEO Ignorance

UK marketing firm Warrington Web Works is the latest to declare that SEO is dead. Warrington's CEO Anthony Fallon is basing this statement on the fact that he was able to quickly rank for the entirely meaningless keyword "SEO Mind Crime." While Fallon's assertions that creating relevant content is important will not be disputed, it's been argued again and again that content alone is not enough, especially in competitive industries.

Fallon's "SEO Mind Crime" takes the example of an SEO firm that guaranteed a top ten position on Google for three years, asking £15,000 (US$29,000). As has been done many times in the past, a single example of a less-than ideal SEO contract is being held up as the norm, and tarnishing the entire industry.

I'm assuming we'll see the "SEO Mind Crime" rebuttal from the SEO community in 3...2...1...

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:34 AM | Permalink

February 19, 2007

The 301 Redirect Headache

Moving Web pages that have been indexed by search engines to a new URL via a 301 permanent redirect can cause serious dips in traffic once the search engines discover that the old page has moved. This is a headache that must be planned for whenever anyone considers changing the addresses of their Web pages, for whatever reason.

Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable last week highlighted a discussion at Google Groups in which Google's Adam Lasnik claimed that it only takes them a "couple of weeks for things to smooth out."

Unfortunately, although Google seems to be able to index pages within a few weeks, the past rankings for those pages are not updated in any time close to that, especially for competitive terms, without some additional effort. The primary method to speed this process seems to be gaining links from authority sites to the new URL, in a rapid fashion. Funny because that also seems to be the way out of what some call the fictional Google Sandbox.

The "trick" often used in order to try to lessen the severity of the old pages' loss of rankings is to employ a 302 redirect instead. This causes Google to keep the listing of the previous page within its index, and often in the same position within the rankings.

Some SEO's recommend using this tactic while "building up value" of the new pages through the form of new links that lead to the new URL. Although I have personally seen this work, I would recommend using 301s right away for all pages. It is nice to do this "off-season" if you are a seasonal kind of business, but unfortunately that isn't the case for every one.

I have always hoped to find a larger sample of case studies which show that Google can perform faster than what people consistently forecast as 3 months before original rankings are regained, if ever. Unfortunately, according to our engineers, the clients we have worked with have rarely seen this rapidity in bounce-back-ability. I asked Barry who agreed that 3 months was much closer to the norm.

So will Google allow users of the Webmaster Central portal to maybe jump line when it comes to regaining lost rankings due to URL rewrite or move? Will its algorithm ever speed this process out or will it stay like this to help avoid accidentally ranking pages which have considerable content changes.

Either way, moving to new URLs is something that will cause headaches no matter what, it seems. Everyone involved with the Web site should know that before the redirects are implemented, and other means of driving traffic to the pages should be considered as a top gap. These means include, but are not limited to the use of Paid Search, traditional marketing, as well as banner placement on well-trafficked sites.

Posted by Chris Boggs at 12:14 PM | Permalink

February 13, 2007

Beyond "Technical SEO"

I've said before that I believe a lot of the recent issues with SEO (see Jason Calacanis, Dave Pasternack) might be resolved if everyone could agree on what "SEO" means.

Both Calacanis and Pasternack agree that the effects of ethical SEO are good. They also agree that things like page design and site structure are good. Most SEOs would agree with those points as well. Where they disagree is whether those additional disciplines are part of SEO.

John Andrews today wrote about this issue today in a post called "The Secret Side of SEO." Andrews differentiates technical, on-page SEO from more strategic SEO tactics, which he calls "competitive webmastering."

"'Strategic SEO' is not SEO at all, but competitive webmastering, which uses SEO tactics. The same is true for 'optimized SEM' and the newer 'social media optimization.' They are tactics, which must be executed within a plan that has goals and objectives," he writes.

He also expands on a discussion with online marketer Natasha Robinson, who was having trouble explaining to an engineer that SEO is about more than just getting more pages indexed.

"If you are still working to get your client's sites fully indexed in Google (or worse, still paying an SEO 'firm' to get all of your pages indexed), I'm sorry to hear of your continued inability to get SEO and the web. It doesn't matter so much how many of your pages are indexed, but it matters which of your pages are indexed and whether or not they are indexed such that they appear in the right SERPs for your business objectives," Andrews writes.

Andrews finishes off the post with "6 Things Your SEO Firm May Not Have Told You," which is filled with tips on what is, and is not, important to include in your SEO/competitive webmastering strategy.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:55 PM | Permalink

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