Seo Blog | Search Engine Marketing News

I usually don’t go on rants here, but this one has been brewing in my mind for a long time. A recent trip to the Apple store made it that much worse for me too. I was one of the suckers that got the iPhone way back in the day, and own the old school, non 3G one. The one thats a piece of crap now … right?

I hear the commercials about how the new iPhone 3G is half the price, and twice as fast and the only thing I can think of is how I got 100% screwed by Apple. I go into the stores and hear from the Apple “specialists” that I can sell my old iPhone for good money on eBay or Craigslist (average of 400 on eBay) and I even heard of a service that will make it even easier to swap your iPhone (just today).

I have a problem with all this, and wonder why more people don’t. I have to worry about going through all the trouble of getting all my stuff off the old iPhone, make sure its clean and clear, go to drop off spots, figure out the shipping, worry about getting screwed or scammed on eBay or Craigslist (WAY MORE HASSLE THEN I WANT TO DEAL WITH)… especially when I feel I should just be able to go into an Apple store and exchange it right there, and have them take care of the customers that were loyal to them from the beginning.

Besides the iPhone, I own an iPod shuffle, two Mac books, a powerbook, and am about to buy an iMac so I am starting to feel like Apples little bitch with things like this going on with the iPhone. I feel like they should take care of me, let me bring in my iPhone … clear it out for me, get all the files moved over and upgrade me for free - and NOT have to pay 10 bucks more for the unlimited data plan. I mean … COME ON!!!

I just keep thinking about how I paid twice as much for an iPhone that is twice as slow as the new 3G ones and Apple just keeps laughing at suckkers like me (all the way to the bank) that keep doing it and making them even more money. Ok this was a rant, and there is nothing I can do about it, and will probably go and upgrade because the old iPhone is incredibly slow and horrible, but I do feel better now!

So… are you?

According to Urban Dictionary Googlecentric means having a view of the world centered around Google and Googling. In the example given it said that “My wife doesn’t belief that ____ exists because it wasn’t available on Google. She is Googlecentric.”

Of course so far I haven’t really searched for something that existed that I haven’t found on Google. I do believe though that if I sit down to think about it I WILL find something not on Google…or rather I will not find that something in Google.

Anyway the question came to my mind without really knowing that there was already a definition of the term. I was just thinking about how most SEOs are too focused on Google. I have posted the importance of not neglecting to optimise for other search engines before (back when Ask hadn’t changed their strategy yet) and I though that I should reiterate the importance now. I guess we really all know why it is important to give other search engines at least some attention but then again it is good to be reminded every now and then. So here’s a short list on why we shouldn’t be focused on Google alone.

1. Other search engines bring traffic too - I guess this is the most important reason. No traffic should be discounted. So even if you don’t really strive to be on the top of other search engine’s SERPs you should at least make sure that you are indexed there!
2. Just in case scenarios - You should be visible in other search engines for days (rather seconds/minutes) when Google goes down. It may be just a few minutes but not being in other SERPs means automatically saying bye to the few/many users who didn’t bother to wait for Google to go up and simply used another search engine.
3. Targeting specific types of users - While Ask may no longer be a full blown search engine you can bet that if your primary target users are married women then you should make sure you do well in Ask’s SERPs, after all that is their target market too. This doesn’t only apply to ask. Check out the conversion/retention rates of the traffic the different search engines bring although Google will definitely bring more traffic bounce rates may be the highest there. If you find that retention/conversion rates from a certain traffic source (not just search engines) are pretty good then put a bit more effort to ensure that you place well in that search engine’s SERPs.

Microsoft has offered to buy the search engine company Yahoo for £22.4bn ($44.6bn) in cash and shares.

The offer, contained in a letter to Yahoo’s board, is 62% above Yahoo’s closing share price on Thursday. Yahoo cut its revenue forecasts earlier this week and said it would have to spend an additional $300m this year trying to revive the company. It has been struggling in recent years to compete with Google, which has also been a competitor to Microsoft.

“This consolidates the marketplace down to Google versus Microsoft. These two companies will be going head to head.”

In the search industry, this is hardly a surprise. But even combining referrals from Yahoo and Microsoft, they are still virtually insignificant compared to the amount of traffic sent to most websites by Google. It was just a matter of time before Microsoft took this action, but this alone won’t be the answer to challenge the dominance of Google as the number 1 search engine, no matter how much many would like it to.

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SEOBOOK’s Aaron Wall, in what will likely be a hot post around the social news and bookmarking universe, serves up candid and insightful thinking on the long term competitive advantage of classic search engine optimization vs. pay per click. His writing style is hungry and tone passionate. Aaron’s got his Mojo on in this delightfully self-effacing comparison of SEO & PPC’s long-term value.

Wall writes, “This is why I like SEO so much more than PPC. Most people are too lazy to spend years researching their topic, years building a brand, years building links, and years building social and customer relationships. We are afraid of failure, afraid of success, and afraid that we are investing too much in one place. But, if someone sees me ranking in the organic results they can’t just clone it unless they know SEO well, and are committed for the long haul.”

Many A-list SEOs have weighed in to the dialog regarding the Tao of SEO and PPC in tandem and separately. For additional perspective read “PPC vs. Organic,” David Naylor, Lee Odden’s classic 2006 “The Lame PPC and SEO Debate,” and sugerrae’s recent rant, “The Lazy SEO vs. The Lazy Monetizer.” In a street level video interview, Rand Fishkin discusses using PPC to test organic concepts, PPC vs. SEO in China, and other useful concepts.

I have finally found some time to make some changes to the blog. So lets get rid of those sitewide blogroll / links that seem to come with a lot of the ‘out of the box’ WP themes available.

Before -

<h3>Links</h3>
<ul class=”list”>
<?php get_links(-1, ‘<li>’, ‘</li>’, ‘ - ‘); ?>
</ul>

After -

< ?php
if ( is_home() )
{
?>
<h3>Links</h3>
<ul class=”list”>
<?php
get_links(-1,’<li>’, ‘</li>’, ‘ - ‘);
?>
</ul>
<?php
}
?>

Done.

Interesting article over at Conversation Marketing about bidding on your own brand name. The post throws up some good arguments, but like all things in life one rule simple does not fit all. Aswell as reasons to bid on your own brand there are equally very good arguments against bidding on brand and it really depends on the business circumstances as to whether it makes sense for you.

When bidding on brand one thing you should always do is track brand performance separately from your non brand campaigns.

There are some agencies who will encourage you to bid against your brand and then proceed to lump it all into one to make the overall figures of your campaign appear far more successful than they actually are; effectively hiding the poorer performance of non brand campaigns.

Things to consider when bidding against your own brand -

1) Other Advertisers
2) Organic Placement
3) Brand Volume
4) Affiliates

1. Other Advertisers - Are there any other adverts displaying against your brand? If there are other advertisers appearing against your brand then I would advise to bid against your brand no matter where you are placed organically. This increases your exposure or shelf space so to speak. If you have a trademark, submit an application to Google to stop other advertisers appearing against your brand in the UK. For US advertisers this works a little differently, you can’t trademark protect keywords, only the use of your trademark within adtext. So those targetting the US will have to maintain a degree of vigilance in monitoring the SERPS if at the time of checking their were no other advertisers.

2. Organic Placement - Where are you placed organically? You should be in the very top position for your brand unless you have an extremely generic or competitive brand name (or a new site!). If you are not top then you should bid against your brand to avoid losing any visitors. If you are top organically and there are no advertisers bidding against your brand then it makes sense to save your money and not bid against your brand. You should however take into consideration point number 4.

3. Brand Volume - How much volume do you get to your brand?. If your brand volume is quite low then cost will be equally small. However, if you are a large brand, bare in mind that you could get a serious amount of your volume going through the PPC advert obviously at a cost. In theory the larger brands should be able to afford this, but it still might be better spent elsewhere.

4. Affiliates - You should have terms and conditions in place to limit affiliates from bidding against brand anyway, whether that’s paid or organically. Obviously if you don’t have affiliates this will not be a problem, but those that do need to consider affiliates because bidding against your own brand can act as protection, especially in the US where you cannot trademark the use of keywords.

Conclusion

In general if you have no other advertisers displaying adverts against your brand name and you are placed at the top organically, then you should not bid against brand. There is no need to pay extra when the difference in clicks from a top organic placement against aggregate clicks via an organic top placement with a PPC advert are generally fairly small. I have seen the research which shows increases, but I have also seen many instances where you are simply paying a cost with no extra benefit.

Although average CPC’s on branded keywords in these circumstances are also very small, if you are a large brand then actually this can equate to a significant amount of volume. Some brands can incurr costs into the thousands each month as an example.

Would this spend not be better funelled back into the paid or organic search campaign?. That said, you will need to monitor your brand within the SERPS, in terms of other advertisers and affiliates especially if you do not have a trademark or are based in the US.

A Happy Medium

There are mediums to be had when bidding on brand. If you are concerned that you are losing out on some misspellings of brand or long tail brand related queries then you can use embedded match to show for the queries you want to.

This allows you to bid broad on your core brand keyword(s) and negatively match out exact (or phrase) match keywords where you are sure you rank organically in top positions. So you can run search query reports (and use log data) to negatively match out further queries you identify where you rank in the top position and believe you would be incurring cost for no reason. Alternatively you could just bid using exact match where you believe you need to show your ad. The Adwords example from the help centre explains embedded match

The first part: Why It Is Important To Choose The Right SEO Company

The search for the right SEO company begins with what you want to look for. Do you want a company that follows black hat SEO tactics and gets your website to the first page and then gets it banned for the rest of life or you want a company that implements legitimate SEO methods and achieves for you long-lasting higher rankings. I’ll safely assume you’ll go for the latter option. So let’s see

How you can find the right SEO company

• Don’t contact an SEO company that sends you spam: If you receive unsolicited overtures from an SEO company you can make out easily on the list of priorities for them the ethical practices appear at the bottom. If they are so callous and ignorant about their own business, how can you expect them to treat your business with respect?
• Take your budget and priorities into account: Some SEO companies are very expensive, some are very cheap, and some are just about affordable: it all depends on what’s your budget and how much you can afford to pay for particular SEO services. The right SEO company should not just fit the bill but it should also not cause you financial and business constraints.
• Do proper research: Once you’ve come across a seemingly suitable SEO company you should do some research on them on Google. See how they have performed or whether they have some negative feedback from their previous customers. You can also ask for references and contact people who might have written testimonials for the SEO company. Ask for a list of websites they have optimised for the client-asked keywords. Remember that your research is very crucial because your SEO company’s efforts are going to decide how successful your online business is going to be.
• Ask them what SEO practices they follow: Do they talk about putting invisible text on your website? Do they advise you to stuff keywords on your pages? Do they tell you that all your content should exist for the sole purpose of drawing traffic from search engines? Do they offer thousands of link-exchange opportunities? Do they recommend doorway pages? All these tactics are really bad for your SEO, and you should stay clear of such offers and companies making such offers. The right SEO company knows what’s right and what’s right in SEO and sticks to that. The right company will never make blind promises. In fact the right SEO company doesn’t promise you guaranteed top search engine rankings; it promises you a completely SEO friendly website.
• What sort of traffic does the SEO company talk about: You don’t want just any traffic on your website; you want traffic that converts, you want those people coming to your website who would like to do business with you, you want to generate qualified leads. The right SEO company perfectly understands this. It knows that 100 targeted visitors are far better than 10000 untargeted visitors.

Keep these things in perspective while looking for an SEO company and there is a great chance that you’ll find the right SEO company for your website.

Different Search Engine Optimisation tools hold different meanings for different web masters and bloggers, and it is really difficult to compile a list of “the best SEO tools”. Still, most of the SEO requirements are generic in nature, for instance, your typical Search Engine Optimisation campaign entails:

• Optimised source code
• Keyword analysis
• SEO-optimised content
• Meta tags analysis
• Search engine submissions and monitoring
• Getting quality back links

I’ll be listing here the best SEO tools you can use to handle the Search Engine Optimisation tasks mentioned above.

Source code validation

From the SEO perspective it is very important to have clean, validated markup. The two online tools that help you write validated markup are:

• The W3C Markup Validation Service
• WDG HTML Validator

Keyword analysis

It is very critical to know what are the right keywords for you. Getting tons of traffic for wrong keywords can prove to be a costly affair both in terms of lost business and bandwidth costs. Here are some tools you can use to find out what are the right tools for you:

• KeywordDiscovery.com Keyword Research Tool
• Keyword Suggestion Tool
• Overture Keyword Tool
• WordTracker Keyword Service
• Google AdWords Keyword Tool
• SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool

Search Engine Optimised content

Although it is very hard to find a tool that writes optimised content for you, you can use some tools to gauge the keyword density of your content. Here are a few online tools that can help you check your keyword density.

• Linkvendor KeyWord Density Tool
• Webconfs Keyword Density Checker
• SEOChat Keyword Density Tool

Meta tags analysis

Some say meta tags are important and some say they are no longer important. Well, why take chances. Properly using meta tags, using the right meta tags with right information in them, and using them in right manner doesn’t harm. The following tells help you analyse your meta tags.

• SEOChat Advanced Meta Tag Generator
• Web Master Toolkit Meta Tag Generator
• RankRequest Meta Tag Analyzer

Search engine submissions and monitoring

For search engine submissions and monitoring I think the best tool is hard work. Automated tools are not recommended to submit your website to various search engines and online directories. So for search engine submissions I think the best tool is you.

Link popularity

Link popularity has become a potent SEO tool. It’s always been around in the form of those thousands of link exchange programs but now the search engines have developed more sophisticated algorithms to measure genuine link popularity. Hence the web masters and bloggers take their link popularity campaigns very seriously. Here are some online tools you can use to track your link popularity.

• Submit Express Link Popularity Check
• Web Master Tool Link Popularity Check
• AddPro Link Popularity Check
• SEO Chat Link Popularity Check

This is going to be a constantly evolving list as I’ll be adding more links here as I come across them, so either bookmark this post or add it your favorite bookmarking website.

Also, if you have any SEO tools that you think I should check out and include in this list, please let me know.

Website Traffic Analysis

I don’t know how I missed Matt Cutts’ video on Webmaster Central Blog on removing your content from Google. Anyway it’s not too late to give a summary of the talk especially since it is very useful.

There are several options for removing your content from Google although not all options are very good. Dan, at Doublespark-SEO blog, recently discussed two options, robots.txt file and the nofollow attribute. To learn more about both options please read the posts there. The great thing about Matt Cutts’ talk is that I preferred the robots.txt method before, but now after listening to the talk, it simply makes sense to use the two methods he favored.

Best Options:

• .htaccess - Use this to password protect a directory. This method is really good for preventing a page/directory from being indexed since Google bot won’t even attempt to guess the password and so won’t even be able to crawl the page.
• URL Removal Tool - The URL removal tool in Google’s Webmaster console is the best option for removing pages that are already indexed. In case you make a mistake (like removing your entire domain) you can simply revoke it instead of having to email Google about the mistake.

Other options:

• robots.txt - An ok option but sometimes pages still get referenced by Google. Make sure the robots.txt file is error-free by testing it first using Webmaster Tools.
• noindex - Good but if Google sees a link to the page and does not crawl the page yet it might reference the link since it hasn’t read the noindex meta tag yet and so won’t know that the page shouldn’t be indexed. The page if crawled will not be indexed at all. However, MSN and Yahoo still references those pages.
• nofollow - Not a good option. Unless you can be sure that all links to the page has a nofollow tag, then bots can still still follow other links to the page and thus index the page that way.
• not linking to the page at all - Very poor option. Even if you don’t link to the page someone else might accidentally link to that page. Though a remote possibility, it can happen. Aside from that if someone surf’s the page and his referrer settings are on then the bot will be able to find the page through that.

Sometimes even after redesigning and optimising ones pages and they look pretty good statistics will show you that you still need to do some tweaking and that it isn’t really as optimised as you want it to be. This wouldn’t be a problem if you are merely going for one-time visitors but is a big problem if you want visitors to perform certain actions such as subscribing to your service of purchasing some item. This is an even bigger problem if, after your have “optimised the page” you run an ad campaign in order to get more traffic hoping to increase your site’s traffic. It is a problem because if you don’t realise that your page needs further optimisation you will be losing money on an ad campaign that leads to pages that do not really generate profit.

Rebecca of SEOmoz said it right when she wrote that “it’s imperative to know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em… If something is wrong with your campaign, sometimes the right thing to do is pause your ads and figure out what’s causing the problem, then make those changes and resume for testing.” Whatever your budget for your ad campaign is it is very important that you realise when it is time to suspend your campaign to do some necessary tweaking. This is also the reason why it is critical to continuously gather and analyse conversion data throughout the campaign process. After all, without the data you wouldn’t know if your site is doing well or not and if the money you are pouring on your PPC ads are worth it.

What this means for those running ad campaign is simple. You should…

1. make sure you use analytics tools to help you track conversion rates (This is easier, but not as easy as it sounds, with AdWords);
2. make sure you track your conversion rates/clickthrough rates for every step in the process (including the landing page, entire sign up process, referral page, etc.) to see which pages you need to optimise further; and
3. do usability testing to be able to address problematic pages.