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Posted on January 3, 2007
An Excellent List of Must Read Search Marketing Blogs
BY JENNIFER EUBANKS
Today, to help kick off the new year, Lee Odden over at his Online Marketing Blog has posted an OPML file containing over 250 "must read blogs" dealing with the subjects of search engines, SEO, online PR, and social media.
This list will undoubtedly prove useful for anyone looking to start tracking the latest online marketing buzz or simply to augment their own lists with a few hidden gems. I'm not telling you to download the OPML simply because our Capture the Conversation blog made the list (although it did), but because by providing this list, Lee has made a great contribution to the online community.
If you find the list to be overwhelming in terms of information overload, you can take Lee's suggestion and import the file and then weed out blogs that aren't as relevant for you. It's a whole lot easier to filter out what you don't want than it is to search for some of the lesser-known blogs on these topics.
Posted on November 20, 2006
8 Tips to Increase Visibility
BY BEN CASTELLI
Lately I have really been digging the WebProNews Video Blog and their interviews with some of the top minds in search marketing. It is always nice to put a face and personality to industry mavens and decision makers from leading companies. They recently captured Mike Murray's keynote at the What's Working Now conference, where Mike revealed a great list of SEO tips to improve search engine rankings. With recent studies showing "that roughly 70% of businesses fail to optimize their web presence for natural search engines", implementing the below tactics (or hiring someone to do it for you) will help put you ahead of your competition:
- Having a keyword in your domain is critical, but don't overload it. (We also like to incorporate keywords in each page url when possible.)
- The age of the site is very important to the search engine algorithms. Older is better, unless you are a new site that can generate a lot of buzz.
- Consistent and simple source code is important so search bots can easily crawl through your site, grab a few keywords and index them.
- A good amount of quality content is very important, especially for new sites without a lot of inbound links.
- Make sure you have good copy on your homepage. A lot of companies just want cool looking graphics but having quality content and keywords on the homepage is critical.
- Look at page cache trends and know when Google last cached your site so when you make SEO changes you can monitor the results.
- Experiment with title tags, place keywords toward the beginning of title tag, then the company name, then try without the company name and see what happens to your rankings.
- The meta description formula - 1 or 2 keywords + company name + a sentence on why you are so great = all you need.
While much of the above list deals with on-page SEO techniques, it is important to include off page SEO as well, such a link building. In fact, there is currently a lot of debate around the importance of inbound links versus website content. The consensus seems to be that with the current search engine algorithms, quality inbound links are equal or more important in determining rankings. A good article marketing strategy is a great way to help generate these important links.
Posted on September 26, 2006
Syndicating Press Room - The 9th Free Thing Every Site Should Do
BY JAMES CLARK
Seth Godin's recent post on the "The 8 Free Things Every Site Should Do" reminded me once again of one the least expensive (free) and most efficient ways to keep your web site current and the search engines happy - the Syndicating Press Room.
In our experience working with companies trying to improve their web site experience, we find that only about 10 percent of their website gets updated on a frequent basis, and a majority of the time those updates are made in the press room area.
So one of the first recommendations we make is to get that press room working for them. Crank up the RSS feed and start syndicating. You can't expect people to remember to periodically come to your website and scan through the pages to see if there's any new information. And it would be naive if you think your press contacts are habitually combing your press room for new info.
Since a syndicating press room is built on a blog platform, every time new information is posted into the press room, it syndicates through an RSS feed which pings the search engines and notifying feed subscribers of new content. So it serves a dual purpose of driving search visibility and notifying your followers of new content.
There have been instances of "pure bliss response" when our clients have let their press contacts know that they now have an RSS feed and will take them off the email distribution list. Making your press contacts happy and keeping them current goes a long way.
Now, to say that this is free, is assuming that you have the skill sets internally to design and develop the syndicating press room on a blog platform. If you're seeking a do-it-yourself approach we recommend MovableType and WordPress as blog platforms.
What does a syndicating press room look like? Here are some samples of news rooms we have customized on blog platforms:
http://www.quistfinancial.com/press-room/
http://www.organicnewsroom.com/
http://www.tensorcomm.com/press-room/
http://www.smartsearchmarketing.com/news/
Posted on September 21, 2006
Advanced Searching with Google
BY BEN CASTELLI
Google offers a number of ways to enhance your search by adding special query words, called advanced operators, to your search query. Advanced operators modify the search or tell Google to do a totally different type of search. Two advanced operators that are worth checking out are [link:] and [cache:]. Placing [link:] in front of a webpage url in the search box will tell you the number of webpages that have links to the specified page. For example, here are the results from the search query: [link:www.room214.com]
As you can see, Google has indexed 49 pages with links to the Room 214 homepage. This is a great way to gauge ongoing SEO, SMO (Social Media Optimization) and link building efforts. However, this is only showing the number of incoming links indexed by Google so you will want to consult other search engines for the most accurate number.
Another interesting alternate query type is the [cache:] query. Using this query will show the version of the webpage that Google has saved in its cache. You will also see the cache crawl date, which gives you the last date the Googlebot has crawled your site and indexed your latest content. Even if a webpage has not changed, Google will still show you the date that it checked your page for new content. Here is what the [cache:www.room214.com] results look like:
This can be handy when a website is lost due to computer failure, or if a co-worker happens to overwrite recent updates you made to a website. More details can be found on the Google Webmaster Central Blog.
If you want to get really fancy, check out all of the alternate query types in the Google Help Center.
Posted on August 29, 2006
Keyword Infighting
BY BEN CASTELLI
One of the more common SEO problems we see with our client's websites is that they target the same keyword phrase on multiple pages. Many people think that the more a keyword in placed on a website, the better the organic search results - wrong. SEOmoz recently referred to this as "Keyword Self-Cannibalization", an appropriate term I think. They broke down 3 major issues with targeting the same keyword phrase on multiple pages:
- Forces the search engines to choose which page is the most "authoritative" or relevant to that subject on your site.
- Creates additional competition for rankings - you're vying against yourself for position in the SERPs.
- Dilutes the potential ranking ability of a single phrase by spreading link power, keyword targeting, and anchor text on your site across multiple pages.
Speaking of keywords, an interesting new service called HitTail was recently brought to my attention. This free service (for low to medium traffic sites) tracks every search hit that leads to your site and then pulls out the keywords. The underperforming, or long tail, keywords are given to you as suggestions to incorporate in your editorial content, such as blogs. The idea is that the collective demand for the less popular keywords (the long tail) can exceed the most popular terms added together. By using these under performing keywords, you can help out your natural search results and bring more qualified traffic to your site. These less competitive long tail keywords could also be very beneficial to a PPC campaign and likely result in a higher click through rate, lower cost per click, and more pre-qualified traffic.
