In its simplest terms, siloing is a site architecture technique used to split the focus of a site into multiple themes. The goal behind siloing is to create a site that ranks well for both its common and more-targeted keywords....
Search Engine Marketing allows you to track details only dreamt of in traditional marketing channels; traffic sources, visitor paths, conversion/leads per ad, Cost per acquisition – per ad campaign; even per search term! exact ROI per campaign, and much more. After analyzing these details, you can then modify your ads to best harness the highest performing campaigns....
According to recent press release by ComScore, overall internet usage increased 10% from Dec. '05 to '06. Also includes information on top web destinations and category growth trends....
Are there shiesters in the search marketing world? Yep. Are their shiesters in EVERY businesses? Yep. Thus, you have to do what you'd do for any big project hire you're about to make. Research. Use common sense....
What we're not particularly good at is stepping back and looking at the big picture. The how's and why's of search, and most importantly, the who's. While this is true across the search space, it's most apparent with the organic optimizers. Virtually no one in the SEO world has given a hoot about messaging, user experience or intent. It's all about crawling your way to top spot....
Ever wonder just what you as a client and your SEO firm as a service provider have the right to expect from each other? You're not the only one. As such, Stoney deGeyter has put together a comprehensive list of "billable rights" for both SEM providers and SEM clients....
It doesn't take much to get the SEO industry from driving straight to Kooksville with their conspiracy theories and predictions of doom and destruction. After Google blogged about their algorithm change to combat Googlebombing, some in the SEO community came up with the theory that this will allow people to Googlebomb other websites out of top positions. That's not going to happen....
Most business owners and managers don’t understand how to create a truly unique selling proposition (USP). There are specific criteria to consider in order to get your message across clearly and succinctly....
In this article, I’ll introduce you to the four most underrated pages on -- or not on -- your web site. These are the pages you’ve likely underrated, not realizing their ability to accomplish those two important goals: acquiring traffic, and converting it to customers....
It's common to look back upon the past year and reflect upon all that has changed through twelve short months. For an industry as dynamic as that of search engine marketing -- that's certainly true. While I'm a few weeks late on my own schedule, I still wanted to share what I saw as the five most influential changes of 2006 for those in the SEM game....
What exactly are keyword research tools good for? They are great for finding the keyword phrases that people are actually searching for when they would be looking for your products or services at the search engines....
As best I can figure it, the search marketing world has gotten so internally focused that they're losing the ability to look at things from the traditional business perspective. They're finding things that work (and work extraordinarily well) within the realm of their own businesses and they're having a hard time understanding why those same tactics aren't going to translate to success for most of the folks looking to them for advice....
Repeatedly my sales and consulting staff find themselves explaining that using duplicate content can and will negatively affect search engine rankings and it is heartbreaking to see clients having to rebuild rankings due to such a simple mistake. As a result, I felt it was time to write this article and hopefully dispel many misled website owners....
Someone asked me my definition of success recently and I responded: Life, Health and Happiness. Life and health are easily determined, but happiness is pretty darn vague, and I deliberately answered that way. What makes me happy?...
What people say about you online can make or break you in the business world. Companies realize this and some firms are starting to offer online reputation management services. But what happens when an online reputation management service puts itself in a position for a little criticism of it's own?...
A web persona is a profile that represents your target audience based on calculated averages of your customer's buying processes, personality and demographics. By understanding the goals and patterns of their audience, companies can create archetypes to help create services to satisfy a specific, highly-targeted group....
Do you sell a product or service on your web site? Forget e-commerce - that's too literal. What I'm asking is: do you sell your business online in hopes of enticing customers or clients to buy, sign-up, contact you, or register?...
The Internet is having a direct, highly beneficial impact on the environment. It is, in turn having an impact on the resource driven economy of British Columbia....
There’s another controversy stirring in the SEM blogosphere, and this one is revolving around the very future of organic optimization, the yin to the paid yang of search. While this debate rears its head with predictable regularity every few years, there’s a different flavor to this one....
Google has made some recent changes to its AdSense policy that has web publishers concerned. While some changes are minor - their referral program, using images next to ad units, AdSense for search, and copyright material - the item that has publishers concerned has to do with their Competitive Ads and Services Policy. Namely Google is trying to keep ads, whether competing contextual or not, from mimicking their own layout and style so as to not create confusion. This may have many web publishers making changes to their sites to keep from violating AdSense terms and conditions....
Throughout the entire evolution of the modern corporate structure, there always has been an inherent conflict between the Sales & Marketing departments. Sales & Marketing fight over many things (budget, organizational recognition, etc.) but their core battles tend to revolve around issues that touch the lead generation process....
For some reason business owners forget that closing a deal means asking for the sale. Yet, how do you ask for a sum of cash that remains undisclosed to the prospect? Even if the goal of your site is to just elicit inquiries, an absence of critical information deters impatient users with pent up desire for some simple, honest information about the product or service they are looking for....
Last Wednesday Eric Enge put together a great article called "An Introduction to SEO Best Practices" for Search Engine Watch's Search Day subscribers. In the article Eric boils SEO down to four crucial components....
A good business knows their customer acquisition cost (CAC). Based on that, it wouldn't be hard to come up with a financial incentive that puts you ahead of the game and to offer it to your customers so that they can do your marketing for you....
Ross Dunn answers reader questions on repetitious catalog text, finding your back links in Google and understanding the differences between Google data centers and Google.com....
Is blog optimization part of search marketing? Absolutely! Blogs are web site content management systems with additional functionality such as comments, trackbacks and RSS. Blogs are really no different than web sites....
Investment into the stock market and PPC marketing has a lot of similarities. By drawing these comparisons this article sheds some light on the expectations of a well-managed PPC campaign and provides solutions to effectively managing your PPC "portfolio"....
Some experts report that click fraud accounts for as much as 20 percent of the PPC clicks, while others estimate the fraud rate at 14 percent. Google claims estimates are overblown and asserts that click-fraud auditing firms use methodologies that inflate click fraud rates. Regardless of who's right, publishers have reported a drop in AdSense revenues due to a mistrust of PPC advertising....
If you're like me, that frugality carries over into just about all areas of your life, including searching for an SEO company. But one thing that bargain shoppers tend to find out the hard way is that sometimes the best deal isn't always the best deal. In fact, the bargain often turns out to cost you more in the long run....
What were you doing the day after Christmas? If you were like many folks, you were online. According to Nielsen//NetRatings online shopping for the day after Christmas rose 35% over 2005....
General search engines rely strongly on the popularity theory that rewards sites with authoritative inbound links. Website popularity and keyword relevancy (among other variables) help determine rankings. However, general Internet search engines were not designed to be used as business tools....
Find out why you sometimes need to act fast to take advantage of "big time" incoming links. You know the ones I mean...when you score a front page listing on Digg, or when Yahoo! features you as an "expert" link next to a story or when the Washington Post gives you a little link loving....
"I know half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted. I just don't know which half". Daniel Jupp, the founder and managing director of PPC management consultancy Top Position, looks at how search portals monitor click fraud and how you can avoid becoming a statistic......
I notice you always promote both KeywordDiscovery and WordTracker. I am trying to decide which one to subscribe to. Do you have a preference? I noticed that KeywordDiscovery promotes the fact they use data going back at least 12 months, which I guess is good if you have a seasonal business pattern....
There’s been a lot of speculation lately about the future of Matt Cutts. A few of Cutts’ posts and a recent interview have dropped the odd hint that the world of Google and the world of Mr. Cutts may not always be one and the same. While this is certainly noteworthy on many levels, it’s only one symptom of a much bigger issue, and one that will change the search landscape dramatically....
With SEO Copywriting, not only do you have to write expert content that will appeal to your reader, but you also have to make it appeal to the search engines. This includes using targeted keywords to effectively deliver your message. Not sure how to do that? Well then, keep reading!...
As sophisticated businesses and marketing agencies embrace the world of Internet Marketing, Search Engine Marketers are being asked to deliver a level of strategy and value never before expected. With the bar raised, we must now focus on targeted business goals to prove ROI....
Last month, we talked at length about how online search triggers offline sales and the mechanics of latent search buying. We brought you up to date on the state of ecommerce and talked about preparing for the holiday season. Then we promised to let you know how paid search compares to organic listings when it comes to conversions....
Advertisers are realizing that there's good money to be made from the blog reading public. The problem is, they've also realized that that same public is learning to tune out the ads that run along side good content. The solution? Pay the bloggers to write the ads into the text of their blog posts....
Optimized text (OT) is first and foremost marketing copy for the website. Each optimized page must be written with the client's products or services in mind. They are not general information pages, but pages designed to provide the visitor with the information they seek which compels them to take the desired action....
West coast search marketer Todd Mintz offers up a creative search marketing related adaptation of Max Ehrmann’s famous poem Desiderata....
Our web site has been around for many years and we are switching over to a content management system coded in JSP, but with extensions ending in .do as opposed to what we currently have, .asp. We have hundreds of pages dynamically code-driven from our database in .asp and I’m worried that when we switch over to the .do extension we will lose placement in the search engines....
I often try to explain to small business owners that although it may seem like big business has the advantage when it comes to marketing online, sometimes, the advantage lies with the little guy. Small businesses with limited budgets have to make every dollar count. In a weird way, that gives them an advantage over their larger competitors....
The ignorance of the Wikipedia community in regards to SEO is, well, interesting. There is an internal debate as to whether or not Matt Cutts is noteworthy for his own Wikipedia page. Huh? Really?...
The US Census Bureau has just released their new statistical abstract, and according to them, here's how the average adult or teen will spend their time in 2007. I tallied up my time on the Internet, actively using it, and found I averaged about 4 hours a day. That means I spend almost 2 months on the Internet in a year....
PPC (pay-per-click) advertising has been a great way to almost instantly start an online marketing campaign and get immediate returns. Recently, however larger companies seem to be cutting back on their PPC spending. Last week MarketWatch posted a story about PPC costs and why businesses are looking for greener pastures....
I was once asked why I would want to take a vacation in January – after all, with the long holiday (Christmas) weekend, I should already be relaxed. My reply... "You don't have kids, do you?" Thanks to the Internet, this year was wonderfully different....
It's hard to read a search engine marketing blog these days without spotting the term "link bait" somewhere. It's even harder to have a conversation with a search marketing professional without hearing it. In fact, link bait was one of the phrases I heard most often among speakers and attendees at the last Search Engine Strategies conference. That leaves many marketers and many site owners scratching their heads asking themselves if they need to start focusing on link baiting or if this is just another passing fad....
Another New Years has come and gone and over the past few weeks search industry professionals have been releasing their search market predictions for 2007. I have steered clear of reading them because it is time for me to write down StepForth's predictions and the last thing I want to worry about is duplication....
Matt Bailey from SiteLogic has compared the process of making sales to SEO in a post entitled "10 Ways That SEO (Website Marketing) is Like Sales." He explains that his sales experience has shaped his philosophy of SEO and website marketing. It is definitely worth a read. read on for a few excerpts as well as link to entire post....
When you create content, titles, and descriptions for your products and product lines, what descriptive words do you use? What descriptive words do your potential customers use? Have you even taken the time to think about it, or better yet, find out?...
I've always thought of SEO as a long-term process. More of a perpetual process, really. SEO firms (not to be confused with SEO consultants) tend to provide one of two different types of service. For the most part, they can be defined as "long-term" SEO and "short-term" SEO....
The blog world isn't fair. While bloggers have a wonderful way of ferreting out the truth when someone's being less than honest, they also have a way of occasionally placing blame where blame doesn't belong. Case in point? This week's fuss over Microsoft and Edelman, their public relations firm....
Are you currently seeking employment? Looking for a new profession? Considering a career change? Then a job in the field of Search Engine Marketing should be at the top of your list....
Unfortunately, most resolution lists read like a Martha-Meets-Oprah-Make-Your-Life-Really-Special instruction sheet. I’ve prepared a different kind of list, one that’s pure octane and 100% sugar free—with nary a saccharine euphemism in sight. The politically correct should step aside. The rest of you should strap yourself in and keep your mouth closed—there’s gonna be some dirt flying....
I have a client whose web site has been created in Cold Fusion. To me it seems only logical that they will have problems with rankings because of this. I have always assumed that search engine spiders read only "live site code." Is this true?...
Tim is a pretty quiet guy. In fact, many readers of this column probably don’t know who Tim is. Tim is the head of Yahoo’s Anti Spam patrol, so he’s a bit like the Matt Cutts of Yahoo. But not quite. In an industry notorious for flocking the algorithmic cops at the major engines Tim Converse can walk through most shows unscathed and unrecognized....
Matt McGee has a great post over on his Small Business SEM blog titled, The #1 SEO and Marketing Tactic for 2007: Trust. Keep reading to find out more......
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