Ever since I started blogging I have noticed that Yahoo! has provided abnormally low number of search engines referrals to my blog. Over the last 4 months, the number of Yahoo! referrals in relation to all search engine referrals to my blog has been 2% whereas Google's share is over 80%. So why is Yahoo! so low...
Last week in San Jose I found myself reminding people over and over that a good social media campaign focused more on reaching your target audience than it did on reaching "a lot of people." Sites like Digg, Facebook and YouTube get a lot of press, but they may not be the best outlet for your company's viral campaign....
While I was live blogging the search engine strategy sessions last week I was often in a hurry to find links to each presenter's website. Come to find out it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. In some cases I was able to find a speaker's company name fairly easily with a quick Google search. But other times I was left actually guessing to make sure I got the right company....
Does your business market offline as well as online? Do you take your offline marketing campaigns into account when deciding what terms to target for search engine optimization? If not, you might want to think again......
The domaining industry now is like SEO back in 2000 when I started learning search. There is still plenty of opportunity to jump in, learn the ropes, and make spectacular profits. Hopefully, most SEO´s now know that the intrinsic value of a domain name can far exceed the slight search engine benefit accrued from having the targeted keyword present in it....
Back link analysis processes have become the foundation for my content creation and link building efforts these days. This post is an outline of my methods for the more creative SEOs out there - the article marketers and bloggers seeking to build powerful, business sustaining links - who have perhaps overlooked some crucial publishers and communities to target with awesome content....
What happens when a company asks users to spend a great deal of time filling out a "customer experience" survey, but fails to offer anything up in return?...
One of the most interesting presentations at Search Engine Strategies was presented by Bill Macaitis, VP Online Marketing at Fox Interactive. Bill Macaitis provided a list of 20 ways to push SEO projects past existing in house/client related barriers. Below is Bill's list and I have also added descriptions as I saw fit....
Continuing the discussion of the alleged reputation problem for SEOs. It's not just about what SEOs do. As long as clients insist on handing over their money to unscrupulous or incompetent consultants just because those consultants tell them what they want to hear, they have little room to complain when the results they get are less than satisfactory....
There's been talk lately about the supposed "reputation problem" for the SEO industry. So what do you think? Do site optimizers have a bad reputation? If so, where did it come from? And what can be done about it? In Part One, we look at it from the SEOs' perspective....
Studies show that online shoppers conduct more than half a dozen searches before making a purchase. That means a shopper may visit your site once, twice, or even six times using various search terms before deciding what (and where) they want to buy. If you're the type of web site that sells a product stocked on dozens or even thousands of other sites, how can you compete? Well, price is a factor, but customer experience plays an important role as well....
The Internet has been overtaken by pastels, Web sites are designed using advanced Ajax techniques, navigation is never consistent, and drop down menus are making it harder to navigate a Web site without the use of a mouse. The Internet may be a lot more appealing visually, but it is harder to navigate, especially for Internet users classified as disabled....
Lately I have noticed more and more writers stating that search engine optimization (SEO) is no longer as important for online success. This spin may make sense to those writers (and their financial goals) as they try to push industry cash flow away from SEO but I disagree wholeheartedly and throughout this posting I will explain why....
Blockbuster figured out how to leverage their offline properties for their online rental service, namely the local Blockbuster Video store. Instead of putting your movie back in the mail to be shipped back, you can now take your movie, which you received in the mail, directly to the local Blockbuster store....
It was just earlier this week when Yahoo came out with blended search, similar to what Google and Ask have recently done. Now they've gone a step further by updating Yahoo Local. Yahoo can arguably be considered the better local engine already, although this looks like another step in the right direction....
Over the past few years, the Internet has increasingly become a participatory social network where user-generated content is just as important as traditional advertising messages. This means your articles, blog posts, videos, podcasts, and other comments on the Web are now critical sources of information about your company, your products and services. This phenomenon has given consumers a voice and weakened the power formerly held by advertising media....
What would you say if I told you that your website design is costing you sales, prospects, and brand visibility? If you are a savvy marketer – and I'm sure that you are – you would want to address the problem immediately; after all, your company's website should be helping you make money, not lose it....
The web analytics implementation process can often be a long and grueling process which includes numerous resources and environments. When you're trying to focus on items such as accurately trying to integrate with a CMS or ecommerce solutions, forgetting the little things can often occur. Here are a few items worth double checking before you declare the implementation 100% complete......
There is a lot that goes into developing good content for websites, and there are a lot of schools of thought into how to develop text that is "just right" for search engines and customers alike. We've heard all the arguments about content before. "People don't read, they just look at the pretty pictures." "Lots of text is needed for SEO." "Not everybody skims text, some like to read word for word." "Not everybody reads word for word, some like to skim and scan." On the surface these appear to be quite contradictory points, but they are not. In fact,...
A couple weeks ago I talked about surveys and how to use the information they provide in your link building efforts. I didn't really think too much about reversing the concept until this popped up in my Bloglines......
The purpose of my writing this article is to attempt to show others the value of what we´ve accomplished and hopefully encourage like-minded SEM´s in other communities to form their own local organizations. Dallas / Fort Worth, New York, and New England are the only regions that I know about that seem to be doing what we´re doing in Portland....
My previous article about using Wikipedia ethically was based on an excellent article published at Search Engine Land called "SEO Tips & Tactics from a Wikipedia Insider" written by a Wikipedia Administrator with the pseudonym Durova. Since my posting I received a few comments on the posting that were obviously from people who felt very strongly that Wikipedia, and in particular Durova, had serious issues with ethics....
Generally speaking, the more optimized content you have on your site targeting a specific keyword, the more likely it is that you will be viewed as relevant by the search engines for that keyword. Similarly, the more inbound links you have going into your site, the more likely it is that your site will rank well....
Are you considering changing your file names, or even registering a whole new domain, in an effort to get "keyword-rich" URLs? Before you migrate to these new web page addresses, let's take a quick look at some of the considerations you should keep in mind before making a move....
PPC Assurance gathers data telling you when and how visitors arrive at a landing page or website from any given ad in a PPC campaign. Offering a granular examination of all paid-click referral traffic, PPC Assurance finds and reports irregularities in your click stream or any deviance from the parameters set at the start or during the paid advertising campaign....
If you've been anywhere in the SEM/SEO-sphere over the past month, you've probably heard of Danny Sullivan's latest venture, the social news/community site "Sphinn." It’s sort of a Digg clone, but specifically for search marketing topics....
It's arguably the premise of local search, and a comScore study with Yahoo gives some interesting insight to the "search online, buy offline" behavior. They examined five major retailers, including JC Penney, national department and apparel stores, and a major office supplies outlet....
Behavioral Targeting is the ability to target users based on their behavior on your website (this is one form known as on-site targeting). The concept of behavioral/on site targeting is exactly how business should be done: offer a customized solution to your end users so that they are truly engaged with your website....
Recently, many prominent members of the SEO community that I follow and respect all started talking about Facebook simultaneously which told me that I was missing out on an important conversation that I needed to hear and participate in. So, I went back to Facebook, created my page and I now see its enormous potential....
In mid July we mentioned that Google's Gmail was doing some A/B testing to help drive more Gmail registrations. During the test we noticed at least 5 or 6 different types of messaging to help lure new users to sign up. The messaging include phrases such as "Start Fresh," "Sign up for Gmail," "Pick a Name," etc...However we believe the test must be pretty close to completion as we have noticed "Pick a Name" with a dark blue background appearing fairly consistently....
SEO in 2007 means dealing with a number of organizational challenges. Overcoming these challenges will help your organization's online presence and in turn will have a positive impact on lead generation for your business. In the end, an effective SEO campaign can be so rewarding that it in fact pays for itself and then some…...
Google is now (and has been for some time) collecting data on individual users, and they are assuming that users will trust them with this data to "Do No Evil," as their famous slogan goes. Only time will tell whether the trust is well-placed, or if people are willing to trust search engines with this type of data at all....
It's important to recognize that there is no such thing as broad match. Let me say that again: There is no such thing as broad match! Broad match is actually expanded match....
Recently I connected with WebTrends' Director of Product Marketing Matt Langie in order to get some more insight on version 2 of their Marketing Lab product. In the latest version, WebTrends introduced two new additions, WebTrends Score and WebTrends Visitor Intelligence. WebTrends Score allows you to assign a score to different visitor interactions on your site and WebTrends Visitor Intelligence takes the 'engagement score' (as well as visitor behavior) and allows you to deliver customized website experiences to your visitors. Here's how it went.......
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