Keywords Articles by SEO Speedwagon

May 21, 2008

The Ineluctable Organic Moment Gets a Big, Big Update

This is from much earlier in this fleeting year, admittedly, but with most focusing on the average words per search query increase angle of the story, I wanted to make sure and dig out a fine morsel from the very mouth of Google that may have been lost had I not:

14% of Google clicks come from paid search and 86% of clicks are organic.

True in court it may only qualify as hearsay, having come from the Google mouth of Avinash Kaushik to the ear of beu blog before finally being transcribed into print; yet, as you may remember from my earlier quest for a documented source behind that most mythical of numbers in all of SEM, the percentage of overall searchers clicking on an organic, rather than paid, search result, hearsay here surely now trumps unattributed there.

And the alleged statement is said to have come from Google's Analytics Evangelist, folks, so I think we are getting closer...

The Ineluctable Organic Moment Gets a Big, Big Update
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April 24, 2008

Foundational SEO: Branching Out With Best Practices Keyword Research

In a recent interview with Top SEOs , I was asked a question about the continuously changing SEO environment.

I replied, "I believe there are some foundational things about Search Engine Optimization that have not changed much over the last 10 years. Staying true to some of these core, foundational concepts of best practices SEO has played a significant role in the success of Intrapromote."

I encountered a very good example of this while reviewing one of our client campaigns.

We have an ecommerce client with a robust store offering a little over 500 products. With a list of specific product names in hand, I tasked our keyword research experts to dig deep into keyword research to see how people are currently searching for all 500 of their products.

When I say "dig deeper", I often use the word picture with clients of keyword research being like a large tree. Comprehensive keyword research starts at the base of the tree with broad keywords, then considers every single major branch of the tree and (here's the comprehensive part) every single large, medium and small branch connected to these major branches.

Our specific search behavior questions in this case:

1. Are search engine users searching for variations of these product names?
2. If so, what are these variations and what is the potential of driving additional traffic to the client's site by targeting these variations?

The end result of our comprehensive keyword research? Going down every major and minor tree branch revealed exactly 224 variations of the 500 product names being used at search engines. We estimate that these 224 variations account for over 2,000 user searches every single day at search engines. Since traffic is what we're after, each of these variations have now become new targets for our SEO, Link Building, and Social Media Marketing efforts for this client.

So, done correctly and regularly, comprehensive keyword research is a great example of a foundational SEO activity that has not changed very much. We even found that for one major brand utilizing various cartridge add-ons, search engine users don't search for "[product name] cartridges", they search for "[product name] software". Good to know that inquiring Googlers may be headed to a competitors site if our client's site is not optimized and performing well for variations of this product name along with "software".

Bottom line reminders:

1. A cardinal sin of keyword research is to not look for every possible variation of your product names.
2. Never, ever assume how people search for your products or services.

Foundational SEO: Branching Out With Best Practices Keyword Research
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March 04, 2008

SEO Success Factors

I was recently asked about the success factors of an SEO campaign. There are many, but let's take a look at three of what we consider the most important success factors:

1) Knowledge Is Power

It's very important for us to know what prior SEO activities have been conducted on a site. This can make or break the campaign. On a few occasions, our team of site analyzers have uncovered controversial techniques that even our client didn't know had been performed!

It's also very important for us to have access and learn from your web site analytics data. SEO is about getting the right people to your site from search engines. Your analytics data prior to SEO and after SEO is a constant gauge to see if your SEO company is traffic-focused, not just placement-focused.

Finally, the knowledge of understanding how your target audience is searching for your offerings allows an SEO best practices firm to shoot for the bullseye where visitors convert, not the outer rings of the target where visitors are "just browsing". Since the early days of SEO, this has not changed.

2) Link Popularity

With the significant weighting of link popularity in Google's algorithm, there are very few sites that can ignore link building. Now crucial to your site's success at major search engines is the continual effort of adding quality, relevant third party links to your site. Trust me, most of your competitors are doing just that.

3) Flexibility To Site Changes

We always make sure to take the temperature of potential clients as to their flexibility to make changes to their site that will make the site more search-engine-friendly. If you are considering SEO, I would suggest you rate your flexibility to site changes on a scale of 1-10. Bottom line, if you are below a 5, you may want to consider Paid Search along with Natural SEO.

SEO Success Factors
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January 28, 2008

Keyword Research as a Predictor of Sales

Here's a short but important note about relying on keyword demand to predict general industry sales trends or successes.

Sometimes, keyword demand is a fairly accurate reflector (or predictor) of interest and/or sales:

Stats: According to this game industry blog, here are the respective console sales for 2007:
Wii: 6.29M units
Xbox: 4.29M units
PS2: 3.97M units
PS3: 2.56M units

And sometimes it is not:

While this chart might correspond roughly to the sales of player units (578,000 HD DVD and 370,000 Blu-ray machines will be sold by the end of [2007]"), one would be advised against picking a format "winner" from this chart (see this or many other articles like it). Most of the technorati (small "t") realize that a PS3 console also comes with a built-in Blu-ray player, so those searching for [blu-ray] are only a fraction of those searching for Blu-ray. If that makes sense.

Disc sales tell a story different from the sales of hardware units. PC World says "Blu-ray Disc movie titles outsold HD DVD in the United States by a nearly 2-to1 margin last year, according to sales figures from Home Media Research."

Using trending charts to estimate sheer search volume is a pretty sure bet. But be careful about drawing conclusions about popularity and intent out of those raw numbers.

Keyword Research as a Predictor of Sales
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November 15, 2007

Tagging The Site Organic

We spend a great deal of time on site structural issues with our clients, and one of the first things we usually do with a new client is try and transition them from thinking of SEO as a page-level concern to more of a holistic, organic discipline, one where we must try and understand the site architecture in its interdependent relationship between the whole and its parts. After all, organic is ultimately the moniker that won the day.

Almost invariably the large sites that we recognize are not living up to their potential are what we call top-heavy architecturally, in that the TLD so dominates all things search that even the main folder levels are all but invisible, let alone deeper, longer-tail-rich pages. As we explain the phenomenon we often find ourselves referring to blog structure, and how we might borrow some of the structural characteristics of a blog in discovering how to flatten out the top-heavy site. There are reasons blogs are so eminently crawlable.

One of those reasons is tagging, and I was pleased this morning to find a fellow tag-appreciator in Stephan Spencer, explaining his tag appreciation more eloquently than I have yet seen done to date:

Tagging isn't just a tool for usability (even though it's typically mostly thought of in those terms), it's also a powerful weapon for search engine optimization. That's because tagging allows you to rejig your internal hierarchical linking structure, flowing the link juice more strategically throughout your site. And because those links are textual and keyword-rich, a tag cloud is far superior in terms of SEO to the traditional graphical navigation bar.

Bravo, Stephan. Long live tag conjunction!

Tagging The Site Organic
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October 19, 2007

Using Yahoo Search Assist for Keyword Research

In addition to using "typical" keyword research tools like WordTracker and Keyword Discovery, I frequently pop in to Google Suggest because I appreciate the quick interface and I like the "from the horse's mouth" approach to spotting keyword trends. While Google never really comes out and says it, I think it's defensible to suggest that the listings are ordered based on popularity. Here's a look at a Google Suggest query for [sports]:

A couple weeks ago, Yahoo announced Yahoo Search Assist, a tool similar to Google Suggest that helps refine and suggest queries based on what other people are searching for. Here is the resulting screen for a Yahoo Search Assist query for [sports]:

You should immediately see a critical difference in how the engines serve the suggestions. Google Suggest displays only those terms that begin with your search term.

Yahoo Search Assist shows terms and phrase that include your terms anywhere in the query. That's a huge improvement, and I hope Google Suggest takes a cue from that feature.

Both Google Suggest and Yahoo Search Assist contain a feature worth noting, and it can throw you if you're not paying attention. Typically, once you complete a word, that word disappears from the list of suggestions, because (I assume) the engine believes you're thinking beyond that single word. Here's a good example. At Yahoo, as you type the word vacation, you see the word vacations in the list of suggested queries:

But as soon as you completely type vacations, that term disappears from the list of suggestions:

As I said before, the same thing happens at Google. So if you typed too quickly, you might think the term "vacations" isn't popular. But nothing is further from the truth. So if you're doing quick, impromptu keyword research at either Google Suggest or Yahoo Search Assist, type slowly, because a lot can happen between keystrokes.

Using Yahoo Search Assist for Keyword Research
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August 21, 2007

Microsoft Talking Points Parroted: Day II

Article or Press Release?:

It's always seemed strange to look for information on a brand, and to see it appear both in the organic search results and at or near the top of the paid listings. Why spend money on a brand term that's going to deliver a top five organic result for the same query anyway?

If this sounds eerily similar to what many Wagon Riders thought yesterday was a lede of questionable intelligence, then your parotid attention may have kept you from swallowing full gulp. For those caught in the act of mastication, though, it's good to know that the above meme is being pushed by Atlas, owned by Microsoft, neither of which are owned or own or like Google, beneficiary of the great majority of the branded ad spend currently under PR assault.

Here at The Wagon we get the same strange feeling the Talking Point pushes in the quote above when we fix our eyes on a graph like the below:

With search behavior like that, why in the world would you want your brand to appear more than once, let alone a single time, in the same screen space above the fold? Good advice from the originator of democracy of screen space.

Microsoft Talking Points Parroted: Day II
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August 20, 2007

New SEM Industry Term Coined: Disposable Clicks

We sure did have fun with this Quote of the Month while taking The Wagon for a spin this morning. From the magazine that takes itself so seriously it demands all caps, ADWEEK, we are treated to this breathless lede:

New research by Microsoft suggests a big chunk of search ad spending is wasted because advertisers pay top dollar for high ad placements clicked by consumers who are en route to their sites anyway. Listings tied to such "branded" keywords, typically a company's name or products, eat up about half of search budgets, Atlas estimates.

Wasted, indeed. Heard while The Wagon pulled up to fill itself up with coffee:

It's like saying Applebee's doesn't need specific signage or identifiable markings on its building to show out-of-towners where it is, because people are going to go there for dinner anyway. That is exactly how stupid this is.

Isn't this also an argument against any brand advertising of any kind?

New SEM Industry Term Coined: Disposable Clicks
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August 08, 2007

Download all query stats for this site (including subfolders)

I get the feeling that most people, even in our industry, using Google Webmaster Tools for themselves or a client aren't scrolling far enough on the Query Stats page to reach this link:

What you get if you click is rather unwieldy, sure, especially if you are dealing with a very large site, but the payoff is simply as large by the same degree. We are beginning to view it more and more here as a kind of matrix for how Google views your site architecturally, especially in light of GSI now having been moved to an undisclosed location. Actually, now that I've said it I'm a bit afraid it, too, will be taken away...

Download all query stats for this site (including subfolders)
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July 17, 2007

An Ampersand Gets More Results Than All Other Punctuation, Combined

This is one of those few demonstrably true things. Even though it might actually be more accurately described as a symbol, in our character-challenged world of SEO Title tags we are more likely to view it in the same manner we view the disappearing punctuation mark.

But Google knows it is a logogram, and treats it as such, differently from the mere punctuation it eschews.

Try each one of these searches yourself and tell me which one is the outlier: [!], [@], [(], [)], [-], [;], [:], [“], [‘], [,], [.], [?], [/]—and—[&]!

& is also so well respected as to have its own eponymous magazine. Now what punctuation can also claim that?

An Ampersand Gets More Results Than All Other Punctuation, Combined
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May 25, 2007

Keyword Research: Use Data -- and Your Head

We often run into contrdictory data when we use multiple tools for keyword research. Take the difference, for example, between predictions in Keyword Discovery and WordTracker.

KWD predicts that the term [ford f150] will be typed about 1665 times per day, while WordTracker predicts 1298. Actually, that's pretty close, considering that we sometimes see a factor of 5 or 10 between the two services. Take [cardiology], which weighs in with "predict" counts at 1485 (WT) and 209 (KWD).

So which one's right? That part's easy. Clearly, they're both way off. In my opinion, both services utilize a sample size so small that the level of extrapolation required to estimate a "predict" count sends the possible error percentage through the roof.

So does that mean I don't use them? Hardly. I use them both. But I also use my head.

WordTracker claims that the ratio of searches for [ipod nano] to [video ipod] is about 15:1, respectively. Keyword Discovery shows a ratio of about 17:1. To me, that's the critical factor. Across and within their respective samples, [ipod nano] is more frequently searched for by roughly the same margin. I don't need to know a valid daily prediction for this data to be helpful.

(While the two services surely do not agree on all term ratios like they did here, this was my first try. I didn't "shop around" plugging in terms until I found terms that showed similar ratios. Your mileage may vary, of course.)

Another thing to remember is sample location. If you're playing around with keyword tools and see that no one searches for [liquor stores cleveland] but plenty of people search for [liquor stores atlanta], don't necessarily believe that the northern Buckeyes have adopted a philosophy of temperance. (I think we all know that's not true.)

Be aware that sample data in keyword tools isn't always perfectly geographically distributed. In my experience, markets of similar sizes often have search patterns that are very similar -- with the exception of regionally specific keywords. In other words, you might very well find more people searching for [tanning beds] in Bismarck than in Scottsdale, since there's less natural sun in the Dakotas.

You get the point. While sometimes the information in keyword tools does qualify as "good news," I certainly wouldn't call it "gospel."

Keyword Research: Use Data -- and Your Head
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October 21, 2006

Search Query Oddity of the Week: October 16-20, 2006

This week's winner was sent in by Kevin Flynn:

Search Query: "princess caroline of monaco and hair loss"
Searches Per Day: 5

Comments: Caroline may need a consult from Rapunzel.

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What is the Search Query Oddity of the Week? Submit your entries to doug@intrapromote.com.

Search Query Oddity of the Week: October 16-20, 2006
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October 12, 2006

Search Query Oddity of the Week: October 9-13, 2006

This week's winner was sent in by Brent Sharp:

Search Query: "outplacement outsourcing"
Searches Per Day: 68

Comments: That kind of makes my brain hurt just thinking about it. Is this when a manager decides she wants to change an employee's job, so she hires an outside firm to break the bad news? Could there really be 68 spineless people a day interested in doing such a thing?

---

What is the Search Query Oddity of the Week? Submit your entries to doug@intrapromote.com.

Search Query Oddity of the Week: October 9-13, 2006
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October 05, 2006

Keyword Research with Keyword Discovery: A Few Tips

If you're smart, your SEO project begins with solid keyword research. We've subscribed to Wordtracker since (it seems like) the late '60s, but we've also subscribed to Keyword Discovery for about a year.

This post shares a few simple tips into how to interpret and maximize the data you get from Keyword Discovery.

Dealing with Strange Numbers in Results: Sometimes a term search results in some strange numbers. For example, in the following graphic, you'll note that a lot of people seem to search for odd terms, such as 10025 cotton shirts and discount women27s hanes t shirts.

You'll see odd results like this when hexadecimal codes aren't properly translated into their HTML symbol counterparts. On a hex-to-HTML chart, 25 correspondes to the % sign, and 27 is a single prime (more commonly used as an apostrophe). So the actual terms here are 100% cotton shirts and discount women's hanes t shirts.

If you run into some confusing instances, look at the table on a page like this one to convert hexadecimal codes to their actual HTML characters.

Finding the Demand Trend: Early on, in the Analyze pane, you could get a nifty graph of the last 12 months' demand for a specific word or phrase. I was blown away when I noticed that the feature seemed to disappear. Thankfully, it didn't; it was merely relocated. Now, to find the demand graph, you need to click the specific number of results in the Searches column in the Research pane immediately after you hit the Search button. For example, in the graphic above, you'd click the number that I've highlighted in pink. Following is a sample demand graph for a specific phrase:

This data isn't always perfect. For example, the spike in April looks a little suspect, or it might correspond to a large TV ad campaign or other offline project. But if you trust your data, we feel the best time to make changes to your pages or test some optimization is during the beginning of a lull - so that you can have time to refine your changes before the next seasonal growth spurt hits.

Negative Filters: You can filter out terms from the search box to save time. For example, if you're looking for terms related to social or business networking in Los Angeles, you might enter the following string at the search box:
los angeles networking -computer -computers -it
Currently, you can filter out up to five terms. After that, if you need to delete additional veins, I recommend exporting to Excel and doing additional custom sorts to find the irrelevant terms.

Plurals: KD doesn't yet handle plural forms well. For example, if you search for terms with computer, you'll need to do a similar search for the same terms with computers as well. According to the KD support forum, they're working on it.

Flushing a Project: Depending on how you allocate your projects, you might (as I did) find yourself taking forever to delete the contents of a permanent project, 100 keywords at a time (the program's max). I don't know why it took me so long to figure out, but a much smarter way of working is to simply delete the project and immediately create a new project with the same name.

The growth of Keyword Discovery has (in my opinion) forced WordTracker to make some improvements of its own. In a followup post, I'll discuss some of Wordtracker's latest enhancements.

Keyword Research with Keyword Discovery: A Few Tips
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September 26, 2006

Hear Ye, Hear Ye: Announcing The “Search Query Oddity of the Week�

Here at Intrapromote, the latest search behavior is very important to us and our clients. When I say “search behavior�, I’m referring to how people use search engines to search for client sites and their offerings. To do this, we have to be on top of all the different search queries, or keywords and phrases, people use when seeking out our clients’ sites.

We have clients with a list of 100 relevant keywords and phrases. We have clients with a list of 10,000 relevant keywords and phrases.

Many of our clients are surprised at some of the ways people search for their products, services, and site offerings. Some are quite different than they expect and often, some keywords and phrases are either much more popular or much less popular than expected. We even find some new clients have had their sites previously optimized for paticular keywords or phrases that we determine no one actually uses. Woops!

Since we are constantly researching the latest search behavior, we run across some real doozies – keywords or phrases that are shocking, gross, puzzling, and often LOLFOF (laugh out loud, fall on floor) funny. Makes for some interesting water cooler talk around here!

So, we’ve decided, it’s about time we started sharing some of these interesting search queries with our readers.

Starting next week, each of our staff will nominate one search query. We also welcome all our readers to submit oddities coming from their keyword research or search behavior tools. We will then decide which is crowned the Search Query Oddity of the Week. If one of our readers comes out on top, they will be rewarded with a link here on SEO Speedwagon. Finally, a new category will be added in our left column where each week’s winner will be archived for eternity.

This should be fun. Ready? Go.

---

Entry rules:
1. Keep ‘em clean please, this is a PG-rated blog.
2. Send entries to doug@intrapromote.com.
3. Mention the keyword research tool used.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye: Announcing The “Search Query Oddity of the Week�
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September 12, 2006

Google Webmaster Tools Uncovers Missed Site Opportunities

We have many clients whom we’ve helped create and submit sitemaps to Google through Google Webmaster Tools.

Simply put, a Google sitemap is a special file that resides on your server that enables you to tell Google what pages are present on your site. Once this is done, you can login to Google’s Webmaster Tools console and manage your sitemap as well as view statistics and error information about your site.

Some of the most valuable data provided by Google is under the Statistics and Query Stats tab.



Here you’ll find:

Top Search Queries – this data shows the top search queries for your site within Google’s placement results. In other words, the most popular queries where you have some presence at Google. These are highly searched-for keywords and phrases where your site shows up in Google’s natural search results. Think of this as a VISIBILITY indicator.

Top Search Query Clicks – this data shows the top search queries that sent traffic to your site. In other words, these are the most popular queries for which people actually clicked over to your site. Your site is getting clicks from these specific keywords and phrases. Think of this as a TRAFFIC indicator.

Along with the data above, Google also provides the Average Top Position of your site which is the highest position any page from your site ranked for that particular query.

While this data took us a while to digest and analyze, over the last few months we’ve been able to create some very helpful reports for clients. The secret to this data is not necessarily the data within the two groups of data above, but rather in comparing both sets of data.

For example, if a search query appears in both groups, this means the search query is both highly searched and found at Google (visibility of your site is good) AND the query is also getting clicked on (traffic is flowing from Google to your site). You may find that these queries are very important queries to your site, while others may not be. A few of our clients have been surprised by some unexpected search queries that their site is highly visible for and is also getting traffic from! The ideal situation, and a good indicator of SEO performance, in this example is to find some or all of your major keywords and phrases in this group. For us at Intrapromote, this would allow us to meet our first and second goals in an SEO and Link Building campaign: Placements (visibility) and Clickthroughs (traffic).

Perhaps the most “SEO-affecting� comparison of the two data sets is where search queries are highly visible (they are a Top Search Query) but they are not getting clicks (they are not a Top Search Query Click). We see these as potential missed opportunities IF the search query is highly relevant to your site.

For search queries where this occurs, you should ask yourself a few questions:

A. Is the keyword/phrase/query not ranking high enough on page #1 at Google to get clicks?

B. Why is the page returned by Google not getting clicks?

1. Is the page title and/or description on Google unappealing?
2. Are there on-page factors blocking higher placement?
3. What else can be done to push the page higher on page #1?

Google Webmaster Tools Uncovers Missed Site Opportunities
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August 29, 2006

Keywords In URLs - Not Just For Search Engines

Is it just me, or are you also paying more attention to the URL listed in search engine result pages?

Let's say you're searching for a new memory stick for your child's PSP. The top two results at Yahoo have equally compelling listings, however, the URLs displayed are:

www.seospeedwagon.com/psp_memory_stick.htm

and

www.seospeedwagon.com/store/Other_W0QQsacatZ21189QQsocmdZListingItemList

Which might you be more persuaded to click on?

Boy, that first one may be just what I'm looking for eh?

Apparently the first site refers to a PSP memory stick as "psp_memory_stick" whlie the second site calls it a "Other_W0QQsacatZ21189QQsocmdZListingItemList".

I think this is a good example of how URLs displayed in search engine results pages are becoming more and more valuable as CONTENT that may affect the clickability of the entire listing.

But what about you? How are the search engines displaying your URLs? How about the URLs of your competitors? Do they qualify as keyword-relevant or as keyword-jibberish?

I'm a firm believer in keyword-enhanced, logical URL structure because:

A. There is some (no one knows exactly how much) benefit in search engine performance when keywords are included in the names of your domain and/or pages.

B. From a usability (and common sense) aspect, a URL that displays my searched keyword or similar tells me a click will likely lead me where I want to go.

Keywords In URLs - Not Just For Search Engines
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August 22, 2006

When User Behavior Strays from Query Volume

It's important but often overlooked: User behavior is rarely as steady and predictable as keyword research might lead us to believe. Eye-tracking studies, statistics about SERP clicks ("the first result gets X% of all clicks"), etc. are helpful if you understand that they're aggregates and not absolutes.

If you rank in the top slot for two phrases, and one of them is three times more searched-for than the other, you might assume that, all things being equal, the more popular term will deliver three times the traffic.

That's rarely the case, especially when those two queries straddle the border between branded and non-branded.

Following are some examples that we've noticed in multiple industries, for multiple clients. The companies and queries are fictitious; it's the types of queries, however, that matter - [product type] vs. [brand + product type]. The raw numbers - queries per day and monthly traffic - are irrelevant. Instead, it's the ratios we're watching.

Note that in the first example, [conflators] is searched for about 4.5x as often as [merrick conflators] (despite the fact that in the conflator world, Merrick is tops). At Google, Merrick ranks #1 for both terms. Yet [merrick conflators] delivers about twice the traffic of [conflators]:

In our second example, Simonaire is well known in the flot scram industry, but probably not as well known as Merrick is in the conflator biz. Still, Simonaire ranks #1 for both [simonaire flot scrams] as well as [flot scrams]. The non-branded term has about 30 times the query volume, but again, delivers only about half the traffic of the branded term.

Note: The query volume figures were pulled from Keyword Discovery. Wordtracker data varies slightly but is similar.

The conclusions of this non-scientific study aren't so easily drawn, but here are some observations and speculations:

• The point of this analysis is not to dissuade brands from going after single-word product queries. They should, however, realize that the percentage of clicks they receive from a top slot might not be what they expect.
• These results imply that people searching for [conflators] are not very far along the information cycle yet and might actually want to avoid a specific brand at this stage in their research, opting instead for a comparison site, wiki-style information site, consumer-focused FAQ site, etc.
• It's tempting to tweak titles, descriptions, and content to try to appear more cross-brand informational and capture more of the [conflators] traffic. But I don't recommend doing it at the expense of your branded traffic, because click for click, I believe a branded click is more valuable than a non-branded click.
• The traffic from the product-only searches sticks around 50-60% of the duration of the branded visitors, and they view about 75% as many pages in a visit. So we're gaining mind share a few at a time, and we certainly don't mind that their first look at the industry comes from our clients.

When User Behavior Strays from Query Volume
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July 19, 2006

Google, Hoops and Hat Tricks

In doing some keyword research this morning, I was checking to see what Google considers to be synonyms of various sports-related keywords.

I frequently use the tilde (~) character in such searches to find ways to vary text but still keep the pages relevant for specific terms and concepts. Google has this to say about the tilde search on its search refinement page:

If you want to search not only for your search term but also for its synonyms, place the tilde sign ("~") immediately in front of your search term.

So I was a little surprised when I did a tilde search for [~nhl] to see that Google considers NBA synonymous with NHL:

I expected to see National Hockey League, and Sports didn't surprise me. But NBA? That's a stretch. (Strangely, searching for [~nba] doesn't return NHL as a synonym, as you might expect.)

I did more tilde searches for abbreviated sports leagues, such as [~mlb], [~wnba], [~nfl], and a few others. In all cases, Google typically returned as synonyms the full name of the league or another related term - but no surprises.

So who knows more about hockey than Canada? Logic would then suggest that google.ca would fix this American error - right? Almost. While google.ca still shows NBA in its results for [~nhl], NBA.com appears at number 2 instead of number 1, where google.com puts it.

Google, Hoops and Hat Tricks
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February 23, 2006

Join Bode Miller in a Temporary Relocation

Much like his ability to dominate Alpine Skiing, Bode’s website has been temporarily redirected. Bode may prompt you to join him at www.joinbode.com, but this is not where you will find him.

Although it is not the intention of the 302, big brands use it to combine catchy-name appeal with trusted-site value.

Google shows an attractive first result for [Join Bode] with “join bode� throughout, and because Google believes the redirection is temporary, it shows the Join Bode domain name. Click on the result and you are taken to a page at Nike boasting a Nike-like PageRank.

Now Nike could not have predicted Bode’s performance -- of course, that did not stop them from signing him, designing his site, shooting his commercials, and airing them – but let’s pretend that Bode Miller’s Torino performance was good enough to garner more than 40 searches per day for [Join Bode]. Nike and Bode would still just have one good result for one keyword phrase, and way too much room for stolen traffic. If they used the actual Join Bode domain then discussed and linked to it at Nike, they could have had the top 4 results for [Join Bode], and much better results for other Bode searches. Instead, they have a no link presence and no Nike mention. If you think flashing a web address constitutes search engine marketing, see Erik’s post about domain deafness.

If Nike did not want to concern themselves with search results, they should have hidden them like NBC does for [Bode Miller], which grabs 1400 searches per day. The second result is only slightly visible above the fold because the first result has no description.

Fortunately for Nike, all will blame Join Bode’s sub-par performance on Bode.

Join Bode Miller in a Temporary Relocation
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February 16, 2006

Atop Brokeback Mountain

If you need help inserting a joke here, . . .

I must admit that I devised the linking structure for IMDb (that should be read as “I have absolutely nothing to do with IMDb, but I love the site�). The site is incredibly helpful to its visitors in terms of quickly tracking down important (some people might read that as “trivial�) information about your favorite movies, and its linking structure is more than helpful when it comes to ranking well in search engines.

It is no surprise who is atop [Brokeback Mountain], a phrase currently searched for more than 27,000 times per day. IMDb adds movies to its database as quickly as possible, and thereafter generates internal links from all involved parties ranging from star to assistant dialect coach. Each link -about 200 for Brokeback, which is not a large budget movie by an means- includes the movie name in its text and comes from a page filled with unique content. If that were not enough, other features like Movie News, Now Playing, and Awards keep the content and internal links coming.

2 Thoughts in closing:

Your internal linking structure has the power to propel your Link Building campaign.

and

IMDb, I'll never quit you!

Atop Brokeback Mountain
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January 18, 2006

New Search Engine Market Share, Popular Search Terms Announced

Via Search Engine Watch, we find that Nielsen//Netratings has just released (PDF) November tallies for search engine market share and most popular search terms, as of November 2005. Without further ado:

Search Engine Market Share, November 2005

Engine	Share %	Total Searches (x1000)
Google	46.3	2,365,998
Yahoo	25.4	1,194,519
MSN	11.4	583,304
AOL	6.9	350,899
MyWay	2.5	129,555
Ask Jeeves	2.3	119,679
Earthlink	.6	32,172
Dogpile	.6	31,563
Netscape	.6	30,434
iWon	.5	27,670

source: Nielsen//NetRatings MegaView Search, January 2006

My initial thoughts here are that while the top three engines more or less maintained their share, Google's growing involvement with and potential influence over AOL could do real damage to Y and M and cause fewer and fewer people to believe it's still anyone's game. (And believing may be all it takes, as John suggested on Monday.)

In addition to the search engine market share numbers, N//N also released the top 10 search terms for November:

Top Search Queries for November, 2005 (US)

Search Term	Total Queries
"ebay"	13,871,000
"google"	13,301,000
"yahoo"	7,997,000
"mapquest"	7,431,000
"yahoo.com"	6,528,000
"pogo.com"	4,062,000
"walmart"	3,688,000
"ask jeeves"	3,389,000
"msn"	3,166,000
"ebay.com"	3,125,000

source: Nielsen//NetRatings MegaView Search, January 2006

I guess I shouldn't always be so shocked at the number of people who use the Search box to type full or partial URLs.

Ken Cassar, chief analyst for Nielsen//NetRatings, had an interesting analysis of this segment (my emphasis added):

"There are two types of online searchers that type a Web site’s URL into a search engine rather than into the browser’s address bar: Those inexperienced enough not to appreciate the difference between the two, and those that are so experienced they have become habituated to using the search engine as their portal to the Internet.

Try as I might, I'm not sure I will ever buy the last part of that. It's like saying that I'm pushing my car down the street because I'm too savvy to drive it. I believe that truly savvy users have come to view the browser - not the search engine - as the portal to the Internet.

But Cassar ends with a note we can all live with:

Whether this behavior is driven by ignorance or savvy, the end result is the same: The search engine is the focal point of the online experience for Internet users across the spectrum.

Amen to that.

New Search Engine Market Share, Popular Search Terms Announced
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January 10, 2006

The Case for Long-term SEO

A few weeks ago, Doug posted about long term SEO and the benefits to companies that are committed to it.

Colin Christofferson of Optimize the Enterprise responded:

One thing that we struggle with here is trying to understand if we are staying "ahead of the curve." Essentially, if we did nothing else, search traffic to our site would grow simply because the web and search are growing. We want to know if we are outpacing that, and it is often difficult to report on.

He followed up with his own post that furthered the question:

I want to be able to measure my impact relative to the web as a whole. Search referral growth of 30% year-over-year seems great, unless the growth of search usage has jumped by 70% web-wide! It is important that we actually gain new mind and market share through search.

All very good points, worthy of some follow-up. Honestly addressing Colin's comments forces us to ask a few important questions:

• What is the growth rate of the internet overall, and of search engine use in particular?
• If I optimized a site and did absolutely nothing afterward, wouldn't I achieve natural growth on pace with the growth of the internet and search engine usage?
• How do we tell if our growth is outpacing our industry's?

To answer the questions, we need to look at some statistics. Wherever possible, I used the range of 2000-2005 as the comparison points.

• From 2000-2005, worldwide internet "usage" grew about 170%. (As you can imagine, the numbers vary wildly by continent, but I want to work with averages.)
• In 2000, search engines were responsible for about 7% of site referrals.
• Today, the average percentage of search-based traffic is quite difficult to determine. Our clients run the gamut, from about 15% to over 80%, depending on their vertical market and additional on- and offline marketing efforts. (Note: If 100% of your traffic comes from search engines month after month, you have a problem, and you ought to know why.)

So Colin's thoughts are panning out. Year over year, we have steady increase in the percentage of each country's population that uses the internet. On top of that, a greater and greater percentage of that user base turns to search each year to find what they're looking for.

So even if you stop optimizing, should your search traffic grow at a rate similar to the pace of the Internet, and more accurately, at the rate of search engine use? In a vacuum, perhaps. But there's one more important number we need to look at:

• Based on domain registrations (.com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, and edu), the number of actual web sites from 2000-2005 increased by about 364% (roughly 10M to 46M domains). So while many more users are out there, and many more of them are using search to find sites, the sheer number of sites competing for those eyes has increased greatly too.
  

(The standard disclaimers apply: Many of those are probably parked. Many are garbage sites. Etc. But you see where I'm going.)

Sites like Apple will never have trouble with traffic growth for queries like [ipod]. But few of us, including what we consider some big, big names, have a computational grip on our markets (and our resellers) like Apple does. So that leaves the "rest of us." How do we know if we're out performing our industry? Here are some possible ways.

• Watch your list of referring keywords. The total number of referring phrases should grow each month. But don't expect this to happen unless you focus on creating new content regularly, and you ensure that it's easily crawled and indexed. If your traffic grows with the "same old" set of keywords each month, that's probably a sign of simply rising with the tide of new users.
• Watch the sites within your industry. Are your competitors showing up on more and more results pages? Are there "new kids on the block" that seem to have come out of nowhere who are taking some of your traffic, yet you still see growth? Chances are you need to work harder.
• I've never been totally convinced that the Alexa toolbar is accurate for monitoring one site's traffic, but I think it can be fairly useful for watching the relative growth of a group of sites. How have you fared against your top five competitors over the last 6 months?

To test this global thesis fairly, we'd need to compare two identical sites - one that stays static, and one that regularly adds content, pursues relevant links, and breaks down crawling obstacles. Anything you do to your site ideally knocks you out of the first group, so Colin is right - it's very difficult to report on.

To all this, I should add that in some markets, you shouldn't even expect industry-average growth to continue of you stop optimizing. We see plenty of sites that were kings and queens of their respective counties after optimizing a few years ago, who have seen raw search numbers steadily decline since. They're not even staying flat. And that's happening in more and more verticals all the time.

So stay on top of your SEO game. People are still coming online and searching in numbers too great to ignore, and it's up to you to make sure your growth outpaces theirs.

And thanks, Colin, for thought-provoking questions.

The Case for Long-term SEO
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January 06, 2006

A Bite More on the Long Tail, Laddy

Our resident SEO Bard Erik has an excellent piece of keyword category distinction you don't want to miss, especially if you don't hate being able to tell whether or not a given phrase is likely to convert. I know some of us are intent on absolutely never figuring that one out.

Have heart. The Bard explains:

The tail of insurance keywords might include something like "nevada minimum collision coverage amount." Generally, people who bother to narrow a query so specifically are more likely to "act," which, depending on the industry, means make a purchase, download a file, click to read more information, and so on.

You also may want to consider your most recent public gastronomic adventure. Now, tell true: when ordering, which more than any other time, really, indicates a definitive intention to buy, are you much more likely to request:

an unspecified, vague meat product

-or-

a peppercorn fillet, medium rare (if you are so inclined)

And so The Long Tail. If always you only picture yourself sitting, looking up from your menu, and proclaiming "I would like..." followed by the phrase at hand, you've got a very good chance of determining where you are in the "curve" Erik The SEO Bard so cogently coins.

And only 3 days into the new year!

A Bite More on the Long Tail, Laddy
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January 03, 2006

How Strong is Your Keyword Torso?

As tired as I am of 2005 retrospectives and 2006 prognostications, I feel obligated to name 2006 the "Year of the Keyword Torso." Yes, I am sober.

Your industry has a "curve" of keywords. At the head of the curve are the most frequently searched-for terms. If you're in the insurance game, a few of your head terms are "insurance," "insurance quote," and "health insurance."

We often call these types of terms "trophy searches" because they're great for the ego, but in most cases, the effort in achieving them is much greater than the payoff. If you sell property and casualty insurance in West Virginia, how many of the "insurance quote" searchers are looking for your product?

At the other end of the curve is the "long tail." From a web analytics perspective, the tail gained a lot of exposure in 2005, even though people like Jill Whalen have been pushing it for years.

The tail of insurance keywords might include something like "nevada minimum collision coverage amount." Generally, people who bother to narrow a query so specifically are more likely to "act," which, depending on the industry, means make a purchase, download a file, click to read more information, and so on.

But between the ill-informed search for the head and the rough, ongoing (but worthwhile) search for the tail, don't forget the torso. (Note: Some people call it the "body" of the curve, but I consider the entire curve the "body," not just the middle section.) Torso searches are characterized by a query length somewhere between the head and tail, and by people looking for resources on a particular topic. They probably aren't ready to make a purchase today; instead, they're looking for an authoritative resource. If you satisfy their needs, they'll come back, eventually with credit card in hand.

Your industry knowledge - and your ability to communicate it - will make or break your chances for targeting the torso.

A torso term for insurance would be something like "child health insurance" or "what is whole life insurance." People searching for those phrases have no doubts that they'll be able to buy online. But for now, they probably want information and don't want a hard sell. Does your content show them what they're looking for? Do you have enough articles, fact sheets, and hard-to-find information that they will consider you a credible industry resource? If not, don't expect them to come back when they're ready to purchase.

To sum it up, success in capturing the keyword torso assumes three major things about you and your site:

1. You are creating original, helpful content regularly and often.
2. You are creating original, helpful content regularly and often.
3. You are creating original, helpful content regularly and often.

Smart bloggers have already figured this out. They're hitting the torso with their blog category pages. The number of articles in the category archive of a prolific blog is constantly fresh, constantly growing, and laser-targeted to a people with particular interests. And that, in 2006, is going to be important.

How Strong is Your Keyword Torso?
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December 16, 2005

Search Engine Traffic Growing - Big Time!

Peter Gabriel's 1986 hit "Big Time" has a line in the first verse:

"I'm gonna watch it growing - Big Time!"

I doubt Peter was thinking about search engine traffic when he wrote "Big Time". But I think of this song and lyric often. Especially as we close out another year and take time to compare search traffic numbers historically for many of our clients. After all, a significant portion of SEO's bottom line is getting target audience visitors to your site from Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.

I want to tip my cap today to companies that have embraced search engine optimization for the long term. Too many companies take a half-hearted attempt at SEO ("Just have the web guy throw some keywords in there"). I've also seen companies with sites that change frequently, that think a one-time SEO project is all they need.

Here are 7 common characteristics of companies big and small that have committed to ongoing site optimization and are reaping the reward of steadily increasing search traffic:

1. They understand the search behavior of their target audience. They know exactly how potential customers are using search engines to seek out their products and services. They understand that search behavior can be dynamic...yes, they even know how their target audience searches during different times of the year!

2. They are flexible with their site content. They will even add a content-rich page to their site if an important keyword phrase is identified and there is no existing page on the site focused on that phrase.

3. They understand that it's easier and smarter to optimize a new page on their site during the development process, not afterward.

4. They have web analytics programs that provide search engine referrer data so they always know exactly how many visitors find their site through each search engine.

5. They understand the importance and necessity of having high quality incoming links from other sites.

6. Their copywriters effectively balance the "voice" of the site with search behavior intelligence. Their "art" isn't a higher priority than allowing people to find and visit their site.

7. Their search traffic over the long term contines to grow and grow and grow...

If I can take some liberty with Peter's closing lyric:

"My search traffic is getting bigger!
Big Time!
And my bank account!
Big Time!"

Is your search traffic growing big time? Are you a company like the one described above? In my next post, look for some nitty gritty historical search traffic data from such a company.

Search Engine Traffic Growing - Big Time!
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December 06, 2005

To Tag or Not To Tag Your Vegetables

Coming on the heels of the much ballyhooed Tivo announcement that ads will now be searchable, it was titillating to follow David Berkowitz's prognostication of where this would all spill.

In the second-to-penultimate paragraph of this erotic thriller we reach what has to be a climax for all in our industry:

Searching within a map, a PDF, and even a PC desktop was much more cumbersome only a few years back. A former iCrossing colleague, Sara Holoubek, often illustrated the imminent pervasiveness of the Internet by noting how computers will one day be commonly built into refrigerators. By that example, searching the contents of your kitchen from a refrigerator-based console is hardly far-fetched (and given the difficulty I had finding ingredients when baking a kugel last weekend, it's a development I'd welcome).

The cold water splashed on this rock and roll search fantasy? I suspect spam will be a problem.

To Tag or Not To Tag Your Vegetables
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August 26, 2005

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).

SEO Ponderings: To H1 or Not To H1
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