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August 31, 2005
Useful and Useless SEO Forums
People sometimes ask whether I (or we as a company) spend time contributing to SEO-specific forums. In fact, a few of the SEO directories to which we belong imply that regular contribution to such forums is a factor in whether a company is accepted into the directory. We have no specific corporate policy about contributing - it's pretty much left up to the individual, which seems to work fine.
But don't infer that we don't follow the good forums. It's fairly common water-cooler chatter to hear "Wow, can you believe what [insert online personality] said at WMW today?"
Following is a list of forums that I find particularly useful, both in researching specific SEO phenomena, as well as keeping a pulse of the industry in general.
But if you're looking for a complementary list of "useless" forums, you won't find it here. Truth is, they're all useless -- sometimes. A useless forum is one that lets its threads devolve into bullying, unhelpful shouting matches that take the thread in a different course than was originally intended. There are a few consistent attitudes that bury any potential help a forum thread can give:
1. It happened to me, so it's universal. Many forum posters are way too quick to assign causality to specific techniques. They changed their h2 to an h1, and the next day, they shot up the page! Was it the heading change, or the new pages crawled the week before, or the new incoming links recognized three weeks prior?
2. I haven't noticed it, so it's a myth. Sort of the inverse of #1. Typical of the ongoing debate about the existence of the [google sandbox].
3. Why would you do that? It's frustrating to read a thread that begins with the question, "Will tactic [x] work?", followed by incessant questioning of the posters motives. Just answer the question.
* Note: I once followed a forum thread that debated whether as an industry, we should embrace the anglicized plural "forums" or the more latinesque "fora." Some impressive arguments on both sides, all of which roused the old copy editor in me.
Posted by erik at 09:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 30, 2005
The Thing Don't Ring!
A few weeks ago, Verizon Superpages announced Pay-for-Call (marketing slogan: "If the phone doesn't ring, you don't pay a thing!"). Well, the thing won't ring. It was going to roll out in September, but that's tomorrow. The story is "We're looking at November. Definitely December. December's looking good." :-)
So we'll have to wait a bit on this. As soon as it's up, Verizon will let us know, and we'll look at it, and if it's appropriate to clients, we'll advise them about this.
Posted by brett at 04:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 29, 2005
Content spamming the search engines is just pathetic
I know I promised to follow up on my previous post on search engines using Meta Tags in their algorithms, but I just have to write about something else today instead.
I was doing some research in the Fastener vertical when I came across this site. The actual search on Google was for [cold forged wing nuts]. The first resulting website looked good, but the second site on the SERP (which could probably use a search engine friendly website redesign IMO) looked OK until I noticed the Description on Google's search result page didn't match any of the content on the actual web page itself. That is, until I discovered hundreds of stuffed keywords and keyword phrases that where invisible to the end-user.
Heres a good exercise for finding invisible text spam:
Go to the CMP Brass Screws & Fasteners website.
Now scroll down the page until you start to see nothing but white background.
Once you've reached the white section of the page, start from the left of the page and do a left click drag all the way down the page and to the right.
So, what did you see? I bet my entire Baseball card collection that you saw a whole bunch of text pop up that you didn't even know was there.
Don't these webmasters or website owners ever read Google's Webmaster Guidelines? Last I checked, Google and all other SE's for that matter don't like hidden text on web pages!!!
Sigh
Perhaps someday webmasters and website owners will actually read SE guidelines and maybe, just maybe, use Best Practices SEO techniques as their way of optimizing website assets. Until then, black hat techniques like invisible text spam will continue to plague search results indefinately.
Posted by sean at 04:21 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Much ado about Vlogs & Vlogging – (Featuring Rocketboom)
Well, now that blogging is becoming established I’m pleased to announce the next iteration called…….you guessed it, vlogging.
It comes in many different forms and if you do a search for it you will undoubtedly find a few, shall we say eclectic, vlogs. The best that I’ve seen so far is Rocketboom. It is a daily vlog with news and commentary that lasts about 2 to 3 minutes.
Vlogging’s definition is still up for grabs as chronicled in Wikipedia/Vlog. It will be interesting to see how this emerging communication tool evolves. It reminds me of podcasting in the sense that it provide and frequency free way for anyone to “broadcast� their content. And with the relatively new video search tools from Google etc. it will be interesting to see how or if these unique communiqués will tie into natural search results.
For me, I’m pretty sure that my face was made for blogging, not vlogging. So I’ll stick to blog posting for now.
Related Minutia: Along the same “next iteration of technology� vein check out this Engadget article from 1985.
If you have any cool tools and/or sites that you would like to submit for possible blog publishing please send it to me, or simply leave a comment.
V4
Posted by brent at 08:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 26, 2005
A Note About Query Syntax
The good thing about a blog post is that it packs so much information into a small package.
The bad thing about a blog post is that it packs so much information into a small package.
Sometimes in our haste to convey information quickly and efficiently, we fail to mention things that would be helpful to our audience. One of these is the way we denote a search query.
Based on an excellent recommendation from Google's Matt Cutts, SEO Speedwagon will denote queries like this:
If a post talks about a query for [blue widgets], we're talking about typing
blue widgets
into a search box - with no quotes or brackets. The brackets in our narrative only serve to denote the exact text used in the query. If we talk about a search for ["consolidated matrix corp."], we're talking about typing
"consolidated matrix corp."
into a search box - including the quotation marks. Again, everything inside the brackets - but not the brackets themselves - is what goes in the search box. Using or not using the quotation marks in a query makes a big difference in the results you'll see, and we'll certainly have more to say about that in the future, but for now, we just want to make sure our readers are informed about the way we use the query syntax.
Posted by erik at 05:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
SEO Ponderings: To H1 or Not To H1
The SEO Roundtable blog recently shared views from various SEO companies about using H1 tags in your text copy as an organic SEO technique. The idea is that search engines give more "weight" to text inside an H1 tag.
Of course, SEO company sentiments were mixed. Some SEOs roasted the H1's impotence. Others sung the H1's praises.
On our list of best practice SEO techniques, using H1 tags within text copy does not exactly make the SEO can of whoopass list. However, it is still on our official list of lower priority techniques. Here's an illustration of how we feel about lower priority SEO techniques like H1 tags:
Let's say that both you and your competitor have a web page optimized for the same exact keyword phrase. Let's also say that in the eyes of the search engine scorekeepers, it's a Mexican standoff...an undeniable tie. Ok, that's probably not going to happen, but bear with me.
Now, let's say that the only difference in your page and your competitor's page is that your text content includes appropriate H1 tags used in conjunction with your keyword phrase. Is it possible that the use of this lower priority SEO technique could bump your page higher than your competitor's page? In my opinion, yes.
Don't completely write off lower priority SEO techniques. Especially for your highly competitive keyword phrases where you need to bring your "A Game" when up against your competitor's similarly optimized page(s).
Posted by doug at 10:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 25, 2005
Local SEO/PPC
From the SES tradeshow, we saw how the large search companies are moving into local search. So, to keep up, I upgraded my cellphone yesterday to one that has a built-in web browser. I'll start working with the various versions of Google for wireless devices to learn how to build PPC campaigns that can be found by mobile users. A year ago, even three months ago, I would not have thought of Verizon as a significant player in the PPC market. But with the push to take over the Yellow Pages and local marketing, Verizon has a good chance to get a large market.
Posted by brett at 12:44 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
So you think Meta tags are dead, eh?
I've heard and read that many SEO's and site owners feel writing meta tags is an exercise in futility. Is it really? Last I checked (which was about five minutes ago) Google is pulling meta descriptions quite a bit, especially for sites that lack good supporting content but have a good description within their meta description tag.
Here's a good exercise:
Go to Google and type in the keyword phrase [Nordstrom]. What you will find is, of course, Nordstrom.com sitting in the number one slot on the SERP. If you look at the description that appears for their listing on Google and reference their HTML code, you will notice the description matches their meta description perfectly and is clearly not anywhere to be found contextually on Nordstrom's homepage.
Another good example to try at Google is to check for the keyword phrase [yamaha motorcycles]. Once again, the most relevant site, Yamaha Motor, comes up in the number one slot. Here’s a site that has a lot of Flash elements and has virtually no supporting copy on the page itself. If you reference Google’s description on the SERP and compare it to the meta description, everything matches up.
DO NOT ignore the meta tags, especially the description tag! If you’re a site owner or have clients with little to no supporting copy on web pages, use Flash, etc., you want to make sure the engines will display the appropriate message when people such as myself are actively searching for your products, services, etc. The best way to ensure this is to have a clear and precise meta description.
Next time I post, I will be writing on meta keywords tags and will have more examples of SE’s using both Meta Keywords and Meta Description tags.
Posted by sean at 08:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 24, 2005
The Quest for Quality Content (Just Got Tougher)
I do a lot of Technorati searches; I'm always impressed by the speed at which it crawls and indexes blog content.
For some searches on big brands, I'd seen some interesting similarities crop up: search results showing pages that were not duplicated, exactly, but so similar as to pique my interest. I traced them all back to one spot, the Blogger profile of Dan Hollings, which appears to be the hub of one of the most ... well, prolific content generation systems available.
I found Dan again later, this time leaving an article-length comment at Matt Cutts' blog. In it, Dan discusses his 100 Blogger blogs, "each with a core topical theme, but yet, each is targeted and personalized to a target audience."
Dan has created a blogging content creation system called Blog-Zilla. Far from the bottom-feeding tactics of content scraping and copyright violation, Blog-Zilla enables you to, among other things,
Never steal content, instead generate your own and let Blog-zilla hatch unlimited variations all with your blog's target audience in mind. (maybe you should read that again!)
He's right. Maybe you should read that again. "Unlimited variations." Here's an example of those variations. First, a paragraph from this post at the "Internet Marketing Tips for Lexxus" blog:
I recently checked the "gender stats" available from the Direct Sales Association, 79.9% of people in "direct sales" are female. Do the math and the boys total a paltry 20.1%. Many of the women in our industry (and customers we seek) are current or future moms. It seems natural that a new term has come on the scene: Mompreneurism.
Now here, fresh from Blog-Zilla's fiery belly, is the corresponding paragraph from this post at the "Internet Marketing Tips for Multi-level Marketing" blog:
Based on statistics available from the Direct Sales Association, 79.9% of people in "direct sales" are female. Guess what that means? Yes, the guys total a paltry 20.1%. Many of the women in our industry (and customers we seek) are current or future moms. Just when we thought the dictionary had all the words we needed a new term has come on the scene: Mompreneurism.
Make these subtle variations - 100 or more times - and ping a hundred blog engines, and imagine the results.
In his comment to the Cutts blog, Dan admits that
... because each lesson or tip I post has common elements, there is some overlap. My test indicate posts are between 25% to 75% different from blog to blog to blog and all content is author originated.
I did not major in math, but I know that "25% to 75% different," coindicentally, also means "25% to 75% identical."
Dan also asks Matt to "make note I’m not specifically blogging for search engine rankings," shortly after dropping four links into his comment post.
As far as editorializing, I don't know where to begin - so maybe I shouldn't. This isn't about "outing" Dan; with an 800-word comment to a Matt Cutts blog, he's pretty good at outing himself. I just believe that despite Blog-Zilla's claims of wanting foremost to help people reach niche audiences, this is the type of content creation that engines are working night and day to avoid.
Posted by erik at 08:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Scraping of My Success
After hard work, your titles, tags, text, and hypertext agree your site is about your keywords. The search engines notice the agreement, and your performance begins to improve. As the site continues to climb, you start practicing your Rocky moment atop the stairs. You can even hear the music.
You begin to notice many more backward links than just the ones you have requested. Great, but far too many look exactly the same. You want links, but do you want or deserve them from this questionable benefactor? As you continue your ascent, your impending moment feels more like Rocky III. Now you only hear Burgess Meredith yelling at you.
You are getting a boost from scrapers who want relevance for your keywords. They display scraped meta content from sites performing well for the keywords, along with much more prominently placed PPC or other products. This formula is applied to many pages over many domains, each including a keyword-rich text link pointing to your site. You have done nothing wrong, but you are benefiting from the game.
We see this all the time, enough to know that the text links impact search engine relevance. The scrapers either do not realize they are giving this impact away or they do not care. What can they be getting in return? These pages are clearly speaking to search engines, but what response are they getting? How are they benefiting?
We have bold theories softly backed by our substantiation disclaimer. Keep watching the wagon.
Posted by tom at 01:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 23, 2005
Google IM + VoIP?
Lots of rumors today about a possible Instant Messanger (IM) tool from Google to be released tomorrow. It may also include VoIP (talk live from computer-to-computer anywhere in the world.) This will compete with Yahoo IM, Skype, Vonage, etc. Let's see if (or how) Google inserts ads into the tool.
Posted by brett at 02:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 22, 2005
More on the Additional Links for Top Google Results
Our resident smart fellow Erik first alerted Speedwagon a few weeks ago to the new horizontal stack for top results the equally smart people at Google are testing, and since then I have been eyeing client logs to try and find whether this matters, one way or another.
All of us, black and white hat alike, know that the top result yields highest click. What we have yet to learn, however, is how beholden this is to anything beyond Title and Description (which we have seen up and lower the volume, respectively, at especially pitched rates of increase and decrease the higher the result gets above the fold, crowned at the top).
My extremely unscientific observations of client web logs where the horizontal stack is obtaining for given top results in this far too brief to be relevant period (have we achieved sufficient level of disclaimer yet for me to make an unsubstantiated claim?) have frankly startled me thus far. An unscientific manner of explaining the delta would be to say the two extra lines in Google make one hell of a difference. We're still in potential anomaly territory so no numbers from me here today, just an early weather report that in this case the vertical length of a top result in Google does seem to matter, and matter quite a bit, in spite of what Dr. Phil may have been telling us all these years.
Look for substantiation here in the future as the time spectrum we are dealing with widens or, if we have completely jumped the gun and misjudged, just look for the subject completely to disappear from the blog altogether.
Posted by john at 12:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Web Search Tools and High Gas Prices
Happy Monday! Gas is $2.75 a gallon! Yippee!!!!
Nope, still doesn’t make paying high gas prices feel any better. Well, like everyone else I’m feeling the pinch of high gas prices. Lucky for me I bought a 15 mpg SUV last winter. I just love filling it up nowadays. Man!, even sarcasm doesn’t help. The only thing that would help is better gas prices.
Well I haven’t found a web tool that changes gas prices, that would be WAY COOL, and I’d either be in jail or a billionaire, not sure which way that one would go. But I digress, I have found a Cool Web Tool called GasBuddy which helps all of us poor saps try to find the best price for gas in our local area. Now, It doesn’t cover every area, but it hits the major, and some minor, metropolitan areas.
Well, at least now I can calculate if its worth the drive to get the cheaper gas. If nothing else I get the satisfaction of knowing that I’m paying a fair, no……reasonable, no……….well at least I have the feeling of being in control of what I pay for gas. And if that’s all I can get, I guess I’ll have to take it.
If you have any cool tools and/or sites that you would like to submit for possible blog publishing please send it to me, or simply leave a comment.
Posted by brent at 09:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 19, 2005
Ode to the Keywords Tag
SEO friends, is there a more maligned element of optimization than this dear tag from the past, the old friend we used to begin and end our work with in those fleeting early days with nary a self-reflexive concern about whether what we were doing was ultimately, wholly, completely and utterly useless?
Let me know if you are able to eschew this detail now with a clear conscience. I, for one, whether it be borne of some neurotic nostalgic fixation or an unwiilingness to admit to myself that some things do, indeed, change, cannot.
Yes, I still implement the oft mocked old tag even though I know that for all such actions are worth I may as well be writing them in the sand. Yet still, I will not forgo the keywords tag for the same type of reason I feel impelled to avoid the path of a black cat or don't entirely feel comfortable when strangers invite me to sit with them at the Ouija board.
For me, taking the time to code this tag will always be my offering to the SEO gods. I feel if I leave that space glaringly blank they will think I have forgotten my roots, no longer respect them, and no longer have time for them. Still I am with you, I say to them with each keyword I lovingly insert in the tag, I have not forgotten our industry's youth. Yea, I even offer you both lower and upper cases. I am none too proud.
And if you skeptics would examine the Google patent application closely you might find the often overlooked reverance quotient, which left unchecked for a page can sometimes make the difference between landing above or below the fold.
Posted by john at 04:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Stormy Weather
Google rolled out their new bid tool. Expect "strong fluctuations" and "system issues" for a week or so. The fluctuations arise from the hundreds of thousands of keywords that suddenly turned on, plus advertisers who are suddenly paying attention to their accts. Bids are fluctuating, as they increase their bids. We've also found bugs in the system. Ads in strong campaigns aren't showing; ad tools are reporting incorrect numbers or results, and so on. As I spot these (and can replicate the errors), I've been sending bug reports to Google's engineers.
Posted by brett at 03:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 18, 2005
The Difference Between Boy Dogs and Girl Dogs
My sons are a bit too old for books by Dr. Seuss and P.D. Eastman. But occasionally for fun, we pull one off the shelf and read it just for fun. We call it Retro Night.
Along with Seuss and Eastman, another Retro Night favorite is the potty training cliffhanger "No More Diapers". The boys always crack up when the little bear is finally awarded his "big boy pants". Come on, you remember that. It was a big deal!
But I digress. As a Dad, I'm allowed to do that when it comes to my boys.
P.D. Eastman Knows SEO
One night last week, the classic Retro Night book of choice was P.D. Eastman's "Go, Dog. Go! ". If you remember this story from your childhood, your first thought is probably the end of the story when the dogs, after going (Go, Dogs. Go!) and stopping (Stop, Dogs. Stop!) for roughly 60 pages, finally make it to their final destination - a raucous, tree-top dog party.
What does any of this have to do with SEO? Is mention of the dog party a lead into more thoughts on the Google Dance? That's tempting, but I won't go there.
If you're familiar with "Go, Dog. Go!" and are an SEO company like us, you may see where I'm going with this. Remember the Boy Dog and Girl Dog who meet and chat four times during the tale (pun intended)? The exchange always begins:
What a loaded question! In many households, Girl Dogs asking Boy Dogs about hats or other fashion-related items are quickly met with "Yes" or variations: "Very nice", "Looks good honey", and even "Perfect!"
But you can trust Eastman's Boy Dog to always tell the truth. Just like search engines when search engine optimizers bring their hats for the engines to review. Like the Girl Dog in "Go, Dog. Go!", we sometimes hear:
How about that for rude?
What's Wrong With Your Hat?
The search engine may not like your first hat and that's okay.
Is something missing from your hat?
Is your hat controversial?
Are you trying to get too fancy with your hat?
Is your hat too "cookie-cutter"?
Is your hat bloated with too much stuffing?
Do you have lots of well respected friends who recommend your hat?
Asking yourself questions like these will help when it comes to hearing what you want to hear from the "Boy Dog". If you do things right, you'll relate to the Girl Dog when after bringing three different hats to the Boy Dog for approval, on her final try, she pleads:
The Boy Dog doesn't hesitate when he barks:
My boys always smile after that line.
Me too.
(Full book text: "Go, Dog. Go!")
Posted by doug at 05:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I’ll Look to Link, If Looking Linking Moves
Place linking information on your site. If somebody is pleased with your service or product, they very well might want to link to your site. Think of it as the tip jar in the local deli. It is an opportunity for your customers to show appreciation. No harm if they choose not to fill the jar, but at least you gave them the option.
Link Building is not just a campaign. Requests, arrangements, or payments do not have to occur in order to build links. You have resources available to you of which you should take advantage. You have colleagues, customers, and contacts – they have websites. Let them know how to link to your site.
Your site needs external links in order to perform well. This makes a more aggressive pursuit of links a necessity, but this should not stunt your natural progression of links. Do not overlook existing traffic to this end. Casual placement of the tip jar transforms any and all visitors into potential external links.
No harm if they choose not to fill the jar, but at least you gave them the option.
Posted by tom at 12:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 17, 2005
Yahoo Gives Coke a Second Chance
I recently discussed how Google gives Coca-Cola a pass by offering the top four SERP slots to the exact same content, for the simple query [coke].
To prove I'm not picking on Google, I wanted to show how the other big engines treat the same query, and it's Yahoo's turn. To be honest, I expected similar results from Yahoo, but they surprised me with an interesting twist.
Through the first three results of a search for [coke], things are going fine. coca-cola.com, then the Coke Music site, followed by Diet Coke. No real surprises. But then we hit the fourth result. Notice anything familiar about it?
![Yahoo result for [coke] query](http://seoblog.intrapromote.com/coke-y-serp.JPG)
You should. It's exactly the same as the first result. Exactly the same. Same title, same description (taken from the Yahoo Directory, which misspells the company name, of all things), same Yahoo Directory category, and the same destination site.
This is surely a glitch, one I haven't seen before (with little or big brands, for that matter). I won't speculate on the cause without further investigation, but I'm quite eager to try to reproduce this effect with other queries, and I'm very curious about how it affects clickthrough.
Coke, if you want to share some clickthrough data with me, I'm all ears. And I promise not to refer to you as Coco-Cola.
Posted by erik at 06:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
What Happened to Optimized Online Publicity and PR?
It seems like all you hear about these days is link building, link building, link building. Of course link building is a critical component to rank higher for specific words and phrases via keyword-rich links to web pages. But what ever happened to leveraging optimized online publicity for a similar impact for link building & beyond? Lately, it seems like companies have neglected optimized online publicity.
Online publicity should DEFINITELY be used as not only a link building component but for other reasons as well. Intrapromote knows that using optimized online publicity with immersed anchored phrases in the article(s) can have a direct impact on rankings for specific phrases but there's more.
Other benefits of optimized online publicity are many. For one, optimized online publicity can and most likely will assist a company in generating buzz about a brand, service, or product. Just think about having the ability to earmark a solid angle and write up a piece about your product, service, etc., and get that article distributed via distribution channels targeting your affinity base. The sweet thing is the article will potentially rank well on the search engines for specific phrases in its own right and will indefinitely remain as an archived item on other websites. In addition, a well-written article can drive quality traffic to a company website via immersed hyperlinks within the article, drive traffic from sources other than just the search engines, and create followup article potential with editors in the US and/or around the world.
Here at Intrapromote, we know that SEO, PPC, and Link Building are all important factors to creating quality traffic channels to website owners from the search engines. Let’s not forget that well-written, optimized online publicity can also directly impact SEO efforts and reach beyond the search engines to an affinity base online and in some cases, offline.
Posted by sean at 09:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 16, 2005
Coca-Cola and Breaks for Big Brands
While the relevancy of engines like Google and Yahoo goes more or less unnoticed by most people, gripes often surface among hardcore webmasters and SEO types.
Often, they say, big brands get some breaks that the little guys don't. Whether it's coincidence or an algorithm in action, only a few people know for certain. But here's an example.
A Google query for [coke] offers three different domains in the top four results: www.coca-cola.com, www.cocacola.com, and www.coke.com. Now it's not surprising that several domains from the same organization come up. The same happens with all types of big brands, such as [ford], [honda], [microsoft], ... you name it. That's the benefit of a large, global footprint.
What differentiates the [coke] result is that all three domains have mirrored content. Clicking any of these results takes you to the same Flash file. You won't find too many small-ish brands that can pull that off - not for long, anyway.
The first thing that most SEOs would tell a company like Coke is to consolidate their URLs into one, probably using a 301 to point the two lesser sites into the domain with the largest index and IBL (inbound link) count. But with results like this, why should Coke listen?
And don't blame Coke or label them "spammers." They're simply covering their online bases. Registered no later than 1997, each of these three domains has been around far longer than Google, so owning the above-the-fold area for a brand search isn't necessarily their motivation.
In my next post, I'll discuss how Yahoo treats the same query. Foreshadow alert: It surprises even me.
Posted by erik at 04:08 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 15, 2005
Introduction - My First Post To The Blog - A Few Things To Talk About
Hello everyone and welcome to SEO Speedwagon blog. I am James Gunn and I have been with Intrapromote for the past five years. I'll be posting here on the blog every week or two. I look forward to discussing many different topics related to search engine optimization with the "SEO Gearheads" as well as those who are new to the industry.
SEO Before the Site
I would like to start off today by mentioning the fact that I really feel some of the best SEO gains can be achieved before the site is constructed. With good planning, design and easy usability built in, your site is already headed in the right direction when it goes live.
That was easy to say, but takes a lot more time and effort to implement. It is, at times, a frustrating process when trying to combine a search engine friendly design strategy with the newest and greatest content management systems and their ability to make your life so much easier when maintaining your site.
We couldn't possibly get into every aspect of Search Engine Friendly Design in just this one blog post. If you are thinking about launching a site and would like to learn some of the fundamentals involved in the process. I would suggest doing some research on the topic. A very good place to start may be our good friend, Shari Thurow's book, titled Search Engine Visibility. I highly recommend this book as an excellent resource on the subject.
Sandbox. Aging Filter. Different Names, Same Result
Since we are on the subject of good reads. Scottie Claiborne recently wrote an article discussing the "sandbox" and how it may be confused with the "aging filter". This article brings up another important issue site owners may face when launching a new site and hoping for great results in Google soon after going live. Not to mention all that effort put into making those new Link-Building-Buddies (LBB). Hey, at least you made a lot of new friends and managed to meet a lot of very interesting people, right? ;-)
The "aging filter" definitely appears to be an attempt by Google to try and stay one step ahead of the link-spammers. I can't say I disagree with Google's attempt to do this. I do agree with Scottie when she says "If you are launching new sites for clients, make sure you set the expectation that it is likely to be 7-8 months before the site achieves any real results in Google." Her full article can be viewed @ Google's Aging Delay for New Domains, and yes, I highly recommend it.
Who Are You... Really?
Of course, how can we talk about the basics of SEO without bringing up the relevancy issue. The problems facing new site owners and their indexability in the search engines can be present at times and rather annoying to try and deal with, but are generally minimal.
One hurdle that can't be overcome though is the fact that non-relevant content is going to get you nowhere. Figure out your target audience, their search patterns (through research), associated traffic and how that relates to your conversion goals.
The end result of that process will be your targeted keyphrases. Now that you know what you should rank high for in the search engines. Set out to make your pages/site content and title tags relevant for those keyphrases.
If you go into the process knowing what your users are looking for, you can provide the proper content in a presentation those valuable users will prefer. Understanding search patterns can lead to more direct conversion paths and increase the likelihood of a high conversion rate (impacting your bottom line and ROI).
By doing this you are also helping the search engines determine who you are, how relevant you are, and where to place your site in their SERP's, Afterall, search engines are only looking to provide the most useful data they can to their users. If you determine that on your end before they have a chance to... it makes their job a lot easier.
"If it works for your users, it's good for the search engines" - Where have you heard that before? Of course, a bunch of us wrote a song about it... want to hear it?
Sure, basic stuff, but crucial. Our own VP, Erik Dafforn has an interesting article discussing the construction of Title Tags and the importance they play in making your content unique and relevant. Oh yeah... and I highly recommend it: Terrific Title Tag Tips
Links
Did I mention relevant links?
Happy Trails, Amigos!
James Gunn | Senior Campaign Director
I n t r a p r o m o t e | http://www.intrapromote.com
Search Agency for the World's Biggest Brands
Posted by james at 05:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Cool Web Tools
Ahhhhh, childhood games. What fond memories. I’m not sure if is has to do with my recent delay in an airport and all the time it gave me to think, or the free drinks they gave away on the plane when we finally departed, but nonetheless my memories have been jogged lately with the discovery of 20 Questions online.
The simple game that mercifully passed away the hours in the car on the proverbial family vacation, or drove you insane on said trip, is back and with a vengeance.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this particular game is that it is a learning game. It compiles all of our attempts to fool it and it “learns� from them. This basic attempt at artificial intelligence is very intriguing as well as confounding. (It guessed my first attempts at it in 16 questions).
Well whether it’s a game or the beginning of the end for us all as depicted in the 1983 classic movie WarGames I’ll let you be the judge. As for me I’m still just trying to stump the computer.
If you have any cool tools and/or sites that you would like to submit for possible blog publishing please send it to me, or simply leave a comment.
Posted by brent at 09:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 14, 2005
SES: Summaries of the Presentations
Search Engine Journal.com sent a group of people to SES and they wrote summaries of nearly every presentation at SES.
Posted by brett at 07:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 12, 2005
Deconstructing The Google Dance
As a veteran of Google Dances I-IV, I often find myself trying to explicate them as a metaphorical whole, a series of signposts signalling either something about myself if I am in a particularly self-indulgent mood or, if not, some TRUTH writ large about our industry.
Google Dance I, as soon as there was a Google Dance II to weight against, became a debutante ball, but a bit more complicated than that trite allusion would suggest; SEO's were the ugly, unpopular, unconnected, unwashed stinking horde shocked to be invited to a ball let alone have one thrown in their honor, and then awed that anyone would show up at it. I think many of us suspected it would end up like Peter Brady's famous none-too-attended birthday party.
By Google Dances II & III, though, our industry quickly moved from self-loathing to a narcisistic expectation not only of parties in our honor, but also an assumption that we be given gifts too while entering, in media res, and while exiting. Indeed, at III we even mark the birth of the party logo, a sure indicator of the official gravitas of any doing.
So what does IV tell us about ourselves? That we are fabulous in a post-apocalyptic manner with a twist of techno, of course, thrown in, replete with the Red Dawn outdoor movie theater vibe that you get when you throw a few mammoth outdoor screens atop a rave-like gathering. I don't know what that portends for me or the industry, but at least we are popular now.
And get invited to cool parties.
Posted by john at 12:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 11, 2005
SEOs Wang Chung Tonight
Have you ever seen a web site that has a link to their SEO company's site in the navigation of each page? I was speaking with someone today about just this - SEO companies that require or as a trade off for discounted services, attempt to promote themselves and increase their own incoming links in this way.
It reminds me of a lame music advertising fad from the 80's.
Depending on your age, you may or may not remember this, but there was a brief pop music advertising fad in the 80's to mention your band's name somewhere during a potential hit song. The thinking seemed to be, if the song was a huge hit, then thousands of people every day would be singing the name of your band. Who could ask for more than that?
There's a very good chance that you were an active participant in this ad fad. Perhaps the most blatant 80's group to try this was Wang Chung, whose "Everybody Have Fun Tonight", near the end, adds vainly "Everybody Wang Chung Tonight!"
Soon after, the Swedish pop/rock band Roxette at the end of their hit "Joyride" boldy exclaim, "Roxette!" (Do you know of other examples? Click on the Comments link below.)
Creative? Perhaps.
Tacky? Indeed.
Short term fad? Absolutely. (Can you imagine U2's "With or Without You" ending with a smug "With or Without U2"?)
The good news for our industry is that most SEOs are growing up and, like this brief time in the 80's, are seeing in advance that what may work temporarily will not work in the long run.
Can you name Wang Chung's next big hit after "Everybody Have Fun Tonight?"
Exactly.
Posted by doug at 11:55 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Link Request Rule # 2 – Absolutely, Positively Never Speak Appositively
We focus on poorly crafted link requests, only in part, to replenish our better than thou air. Our goal is, more importantly, to better shape our own requests. So thanks to our readers for forwarding such material, and also thanks to the sacrificial lamb who send their link exchange requests to Intrapromote .
Absolutely, Positively Never Speak Appositively
The exception to this rule is when you positively want to convince the recipient that you are not speaking directly to him or her. “I was visiting your site, X, and I thought you might want to link to my site, Y.� Doesn’t that just feel formulaic? If you receive hundreds of link request a week, it definitely should.
If I saw you at the Sox game and wanted to tell you that I enjoyed eating at your restaurant, what would I say to you?
Hey, I ate at your restaurant, X, and have found it similar to my tastes, Y.
Or
Hey, I ate at X and thought it was great!
One of these statements is what I would say in the given situation. The other is what my robot proxy would hopefully say in that same situation. You see, I would leave the appositives in just to make sure that the recipient understands what I think I would have said in a similar situation. In the long run, I find it much easier and much more worthwhile to just go to the Sox game myself.
Posted by tom at 10:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 10, 2005
Nike, Google, and the DMOZ Description
In scoping out a site redesign, a client asked me to take a look at a Google query for "Nike" - specifically to determine how Google was creating this descriptive text:
Apparel, shoes and accessories.
This client is pretty search-savvy, so I assumed he'd checked the Nike meta data, and he had. Nike sets a cookie, does a quick script-based geo-sniff test, then passes the user on to a page named main.html. Neither the root page nor main.html has meta description or keywords tags (or any crawlable text, for that matter), so he was stumped about where the description was coming from.
Not a lot of people know that Google sometimes pulls Open Directory Project (DMOZ) descriptions to use as descriptive text on results pages (and when I say sometimes, there's little predictability about it. More on this later.) In Nike's case, they seemed to luck into a nice, minimalist description that appears to have been written by an actual DMOZ editor. I doubt that anyone in Nike's e-Marketing wing is capable of such restraint.
So Nike got lucky here. Flash home page with immediate redirect to another full-Flash page, no meta data, but good descriptive snippet. The moral here? Check your DMOZ description in the off-chance that Google will use it to describe your site. And if you don't like your current description, request a change. Getting an existing description changed often happens much faster than getting your site accepted in the first place, provided you use your head and request something sensible.
Posted by erik at 12:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 08, 2005
SES: Updates
I attended sessions mostly about numbers: User behavior (Enquiro spoke, with lots of followup details) and SE market shares (Google is twice as big as Yahoo. Yahoo is losing mkt share. MSN is slowly deflating. AOL is in a death spiral. Sell your AOL stock.)
The Future: Local advertising is 20% ($100B) of the US $500B ad mkt, yet only online local ads are only $4B. Lots of opportunity, esp. at the cost of Yellow Pages, newspapers, and radio. Instead of global SEO/PPC, we may see more specific SEO/PPC.
More Future: Microsoft Vista Longhorn (the next MS OS). Coming in maybe (maybe) a year. Remember the Netscape Browser Wars? (Which incidentally, started ten years ago today, Aug. 8th, 1995, when NS IPOed.) MS killed NS by embedding the IE browser into the OS, so everything in the OS became webified. Here we go again. MS will attack Google by adding search to everything in the OS. Yahoo gets 73% of its SE traffic from its portal (in other words, people start at the Yahoo site, and from there, go to Yahoo Search). MSN gets 61% of its traffic from its portal. Thus if MS adds MS Search to the OS, they could get a substantial default user stream.
The main SEs have flattened in growth; they see future growth in various specialized, vertical, local, and personalized search tools. So we'll see an explosion of such tools (such as housingmaps.com, etc.) This means mkt fragmentation.
I have more notes; I'll write those up later.
Posted by brett at 07:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Cool Web Tools
As the lone “non-SEO expert� on staff, I pondered what I could contribute to our blog subscribers. I quickly realized that if I were not apart of Intrapromote I would be curious as to what cool tools and/or sites they come across? So I decided to dedicate the majority of my posts to giving you an insider's view of Intrapromote and what we find during our daily combing of the web.
Side by Side Search Results:
Have you ever found yourself toggling back and forth between search results for Google and Yahoo to see how your results look? Well, as you might imagine we are constantly looking at results from both engines and have found a little tool that helps us immensely. The tool is called Twingine, and proves immensely useful by providing side by side search results from Google and Yahoo.
Well, I hope you enjoy this little tool that we’ve come across and I look forward to sharing more with you in the coming weeks!
If you have any cool tools and/or sites that you would like to submit for possible blog publishing please send it to me, or simply leave a comment.
Posted by brent at 10:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Top Google Results Earn Additional Links
More and more Google searches are turning up results in which the top result offers additional site links beyond the main URL. Noticed again recently at SERoundtable, this isn't entirely new; Google has been playing with it off for about a month.
The new style of results don't show up for every search. So far, in searches I've done, they are most likely to show up for searches of large brands (provided the brand doesn't have an immediate redirect or a page made entirely of Flash elements) as well as larger, more competitive keywords. Here's an example shot, a search for "adidas":
The additional links are inside the red box above. I noted the Flash/redirect restriction because it appears the new links are pulled directly from the front page of the site, either from anchor text, link titles, or ALT tag text. Yet another vote for a clean, text-based home page and judicious use of anchor text.
Also note the horizontal layout of the links. During the first iteration of this trial, the links were stacked vertically; in his original post, Barry Schwartz referred to users specifically complaining that the vertical stack lowered too many other resulting sites below the fold.
And finally, More results from www.adidas.com is nothing more than a link to a simple site: command.
So the top spot on the Google SERP, under the right circumstances, now means more potential clicks than before. We'll be on the lookout for the potential effect this has on clickthrough.
Posted by erik at 09:15 AM | Comments (0)
Open for Business
Intrapromote's SEO Blog is officially open for business. It's a cliche, but pardon us while we work out some technical issues, look & feel items, and so on. We've been gearing up and posting sporadically for several weeks, but today marks the beginning of our official posting schedule.
I'll soon make sure that all necessary subscription info is placed in the margin, but for now, here's the XML file necessary to subscribe via most RSS/Blog readers:
http://seoblog.intrapromote.com/index.xml
We want to welcome clients, friends, and colleagues, and invite your comments, criticisms, and participation. We want this blog to be more than a simple rehash of industry news. In short, where many industry blogs give you X, we want you to know what X means to you, how to react to it, and whether you even need to worry about it. Help us make sure we meet those goals.