Vote for the Best Search Engine Marketing Articles of 2008

January 29, 2009
Cast your vote online until February 2, 2009

Cast your vote online until Feb. 2, 2009

What the heck’s a SEMMY? To quote the website, “It’s an annual awards event honoring some of the best articles and blog posts from the search marketing industry, as voted by the industry. We have 200 authors nominated, representing 157 blogs/sites.”

The SEMMYS was developed by Matt McGee (blog), David Mihm (website) and LogoWorks (website).

SAMMYS Timeline

Don’t delay. Head on over to the SEMMYS website now and cast your votes because public voting ends February 2nd. Here’s the timeline:

  • January 28 –  Finalists announced; public voting begins
  • February 2 — Public voting closes
  • February 4 –  Winners announced

Nomination Categories

Nominations are included in each of the following categories.

I’ m sure we will see a lot of SAMMYS chatter online over the next week. Be sure to Digg, StumbleUpon, Tweet, Blog or whatever it is you do to encourage voting. And congratulations to all of the nominees.

Filed Under: Search Engine Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Options to Get Your Clients to the Top of Organic Search

January 28, 2009

man-on-mountainYour client wants to be on page one of Google’s organic search results. But you and your agency have not yet entered the wonderful world of search. What should you do? Here are 5 options for obtaining top organic search results.

Optimize the client’s website for search engines – Otherwise known as search engine optimization or SEO. Requires making changes to a website’s code, design and content to follow the search engines’ recommendations for SEO best practices. The good news is that search engine optimization done well usually delivers long-term organic results. And you own the site, you have complete control over it and the content is exclusive to the company. However, the cons with search engine optimization are that you must make changes to your website, which is not necessarily inexpensive or painless. And SEO can take six to 12 months to see the organic results. But perhaps the biggest barrier for an agency is that SEO requires specific expertise and experience. Agencies without experience with website SEO should find an SEO consultant to hire or to bring in as a partner. To learn more about optimizing a website, read this article.

Launch a company blog — There are plenty of blogging platforms, even free ones like the one used for Search Matters from WordPress. Most are extremely easy to use for the non-technical and have many search engine optimization features built in. However, be prepared to write and publish often, and to invest time to market your blog. It takes about six to nine months at the least to build the authority of the blog to the point of realizing seo benefits. But the long-term benefits of a blog are great. Here’s an article to help you get started with a blog.

Add the company to online directory listings – There are countless online directories for companies. These range from online yellow pages, business listings, and map listings to industry, product or geography specific directories, and more. Advantages for directories are that they do not require special expertise, many listings are free, and most only require a one-time submission. But, the challenge with directory listings is that you are usually along side your competition fighting for attention. And, you are limited to just the company name. To get rid of ads on the page or to get above your competition, you will have to pay for a premium listing. Although it is a good idea to make sure your client is listed in the major online directories and targeted directories, it is not necessarily a long-term strategy to get your client to the top of organic search – with the exception perhaps of the company name. You may read more about directory submission here.

Submit articles to online sites – Also known as article submission or article marketing. You write articles around the topics of your business integrating targeted keywords and submit them for publishing on various article sites. It is important to publish articles with quality content, providing educational information. The biggest sin of article marketing is just writing a sales pitch. Article submission allows you to extend your message across the internet as well as search engines without making changes to the company website. It helps the company build itself as an authority in the industry. However, some of the article sites review articles prior to publishing and deny those deemed to not meet their article standards. And like blogging, there is time involved in writing the articles as well as the submission process. Here is an article that further discusses the benefits of article submission.

Become an Ecordia Reseller Partner – Ecordia is the proverbial “all of the above” option for agencies because it combines the search engine optimization best practices and advantages of websites, blogs, directories and articles. At its core it is a super-charged directory of  landing pages. It is a non-technical way for agencies to publish content  for its clients onto pages custom styled according to the client’s brand identity. Ecordia integrates a keyword research tool and an automatic SEO analysis for the content. So you’ll know prior to publishing how optimized the content is, and what you can do to improve the findability of the page. Simply put, Google loves Ecordia pages. To learn more about Ecordia, visit the website.

These are just a few of the ideas for search engine optimization. It really is becoming easier than ever before for the non-technical to conquer the top of mount Google.

Filed Under: Ecordia Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

December Search Volume by Search Engine

January 19, 2009

comScore (website) tracks the volume of searches in the United States each month. Following are their findings for December 2008, compared to November 2008.

December 2008 U.S. Core Search Rankings

Google Sites led the U.S. core search market in December with 63.5 percent of the searches conducted, unchanged from November, followed by Yahoo! Sites (20.5 percent), Microsoft Sites (8.3 percent), Ask Network (3.9 percent), and AOL LLC (3.8 percent). Visit the comScore website to see their full findings.

comScore Core Search Report*
December 2008 vs. November 2008
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch 2.0

Core Search Entity

Share of Searches (%)

Nov-08

Dec-08

Point Change

Dec-08 vs. Nov-08

Total Core Search

100.0

100.0

N/A

Google Sites

63.5

63.5

0.0

Yahoo! Sites

20.4

20.5

0.1

Microsoft Sites

8.3

8.3

0.0

Ask Network

4.0

3.9

-0.1

AOL LLC

3.8

3.8

0.0

* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

Filed Under: Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, etc. Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The Reasons for Agencies to Offer Organic Search are Growing

January 19, 2009

You can’t turn on the news these days without hearing at least one story about the economic conditions ─ bail outs, bankruptcies, cutbacks, layoffs and more. Marketing and advertising dollars are usually the first slashes made in the budget so it’s no surprise that industry analysts are projecting advertising spending in all categories to be down in 2009 ─ all areas except one: online advertising.

Online ad spending is expected to grow between 6 – 10%  in 2009. The largest category of online advertising is search, which is expected to comprise more than 47% of the ad spend online. Clearly, this creates an opportunity for agencies, but many advertising, public relations and interactive agencies have not yet jumped into organic search.

Ecordia White Paper: SEOIf you are one of those agencies, you’ll want to read the white paper titled“How to Grow Your Agency in the Downturn: SEO Answers the SOS.” Written specifically for owners and managers of advertising, public relations, interactive and marketing communications agencies, this white paper addresses the current market conditions for the advertising industry and shines the light on the opportunities with search engine optimization (SEO).

Topics covered include:

  • 2009 outlook for ad spending
  • analysts’ projections for growth in online spending
  • income potential of search
  • challenges agencies face in providing SEO services
  • proven, SEO platform developed just for agencies
  • historical similarities to the current agency environment

“How to Grow Your Agency in the Downturn: SEO Answers the SOS” is freely available for download on the Ecordia website at www.ecordia.com/soswhitepaper. It’s a must read for all agency professionals who are considering adding organic search to their service offerings. The reasons to do so are growing and with Ecordia, the barriers are shrinking.

Filed Under: Ecordia Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Next DFW SEM Meeting is Thursday, Jan. 15

January 12, 2009

dfwsemlogo-182x96Don’t miss the next meeting of the Dallas Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Association (website) this Thursday, January 15. Featured speaker is Brett Tabke, CEO and Founder of  WebmasterWorld (website) and chair of PubCon Conferences (website). Immediately following Brett’s presentation, several websites will be selected for an on-the-spot SEO review by DFW SEM members. It’s a great opportunity to gain valuable insight from DFW’s leading SEO professionals.

The meeting will be held at the Renaissance Hotel (map) in Richardson from 6:15 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Price is $10 for DFW SEM members and $30 for non-members.

The January DFW SEM meeting is sponsored by SEMPO (website) and Lead Maverick (website).

Filed Under: DFW SEM Tagged With: , , , , , ,

When it Comes to SEO, the Color of your Hat Matters

January 11, 2009
SEO White Hat

SEO White Hat

In movies set in the wild west, the good guys always wore white and the bad guys donned black. The same is true in the world of search engine optimization (SEO).

“Black hat SEO” is a term referring to unethical techniques employed to “trick” the search engines to rank a web page in a top spot of its organic search, despite its true relevance – or lack thereof. Examples of black hat techniques include:

  • doorway pages — website entry pages filled with keywords that are crawled by the search engine bots, but visitors are immediately redirected to the “real” entry page.
  • keyword stuffing — placing a lot of keywords on a web page rather than quality content.
  • invisible text — placing keywords on a page in the same color as the background so that the human visitor doesn’t see them, but the search engine bots do.

Although black hat SEO techniques may deliver top rankings in the short run, sites employing these run the risk of being penalized — or even banned — from the search engines.

“White hat SEO” refers to techniques used to aid search engines in understanding and ranking content based on adhering to SEO best practices. There are numerous things a website owner may do to improve a site’s SEO, but it all amounts to one thing: build a site that is very rich with quality content and people and the search engines will find the site. Google provides a lot of information about SEO best practices. Give it a read for an even better understanding of white hat SEO and you’ll be sure to have happy trails.

Happy Trails for the White Hat SEO

Happy Trails for the White Hat SEO

Filed Under: SEO Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

November Search Volume by Search Engine

January 10, 2009 Leave a Comment

comScore (website) tracks the volume of searches in the United States each month. Following are their findings for November 2008, compared to October 2008.

November 2008 U.S. Core Search Rankings

Google Sites led the U.S. core search market in November with 63.5 percent of the searches conducted, up 0.4 percentage points from October, followed by Yahoo! Sites (20.4 percent), Microsoft Sites (8.3 percent), Ask Network (4.0 percent), and AOL LLC (3.8 percent). Visit the comScore website to see their full findings.

comScore Core Search Report*
November 2008 vs. October 2008
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch 2.0
Core Search Entity

Share of Searches (%)

Oct-08

Nov-08

Point Change

Nov-08 vs. Oct-08
Total Core Search

100.0

100.0

N/A

Google Sites

63.1

63.5

0.4

Yahoo! Sites

20.5

20.4

-0.1
Microsoft Sites

8.5

8.3

 -0.2
Ask Network

4.2

4.0

-0.2
AOL LLC

3.7

3.8

0.1

* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

Filed Under: Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, etc. Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

To Understand SEO, Get to Know Google First

January 10, 2009 Leave a Comment

When you pitch a new business prospect, you get to know a little about the company first. What business are they in? Who are their customers? Who are their competitors? How big is the company? And a million other things. You cater your pitch to appeal specifically to the prospect. The more you know in advance, the higher your odds of winning the account.

Well, it’s the same thing with search engine optimization (SEO). If you want to understand SEO, you first need to gain an understanding of how search engines work. And with a tight grip on 60+% of the search market, that means Google! Here’s a simplistic look at how Google works, from the 50,000 foot level.

Google has bots or spiders ─ programs it calls “Googlebots” ─ that “crawl” billions of web pages everyday. The Googlebots analyze the pages to determine what each page is about (keywords to match to your query) and the relevance of each page (incoming links from other pages that help determine the importance of the page). All this information is stored to create Google’s “index.” The index is constantly being updated to add new pages as well as to record changes to existing pages in the index.

When you place a keyword into a Google search box, Google checks its index to determine which pages are most relevant to the keyword and presents (or “serves”) a snippet of those pages in order of Google’s proprietary and highly complex ranking algorithm.

Here’s an illustration from Google that shows the search query process, which by the way, is usually executed in less than a half a second:

"Life of a Google Query" by Google

"Life of a Google Query" by Google

Think of SEO as a process of employing various techniques to:

    1) ensure that the pages of a website are easily and thoroughly crawled and indexed by Google
    2) maximize the relevancy of the web pages through quality links and other Google-defined factors
    3) closely match the content on web pages with targeted keywords

For a little more explanation of crawling, indexing and serving, check out what Google has to say on the subject. Soon you’ll be ready to make your pitch to Google.

Filed Under: Everything Google Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Anatomy of a Google Search Results Page

January 3, 2009

Natural listings, organic results, sponsored ads, SERPs — these are just a few of the terms used to describe elements of a Google results page. But do you know what each one means? If they’re Greek to you, then keep on reading.

When you conduct a search query on Google, the results page presented — also known as a search engine results page or SERP — usually contains links that are free as well as links that are purchased. Free listings are referred to as “natural” or “organic” results. They represent the majority of the results on a SERP and are found along the left side of the page. See the green box in Figure 1 below.

Purchased links are called “Sponsored Links,” but may also be referred to as “pay-per-click ads (PPC),”  “Google AdWords” or “paid ads.” Sponsored links are found along the right side of the page, and may also be the top three links on the left side of the SERP. See the pink boxes in Figure 1 below.

Organic results vs. Paid results

Figure 1 -- Organic results vs. Paid results

As suggested by the name, Sponsored Links are paid ad placements based on the purchase of clicks for specific search query keywords. Organic results on the other hand, are completely controlled by Google. Google bots crawl millions of web pages every day, constantly analyzing the context of pages and adding them to its index. Using Google’s proprietary and incredibly secret algorithm, it serves up organic results to your query, making every attempt to provide the highest quality web pages matching the keywords.

There is a lot more that may be said about how PPC and organic listings happen, but we’ll leave those for other posts. For now, if you would like a detailed explanation of all of the elements on a Google SERP, visit Google’s Web Help page (link).

Filed Under: Everything Google Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

New Year, New Blog

January 2, 2009

The new year is officially here and so is this new blog. I titled it Search Matters because not only is search going to be the primary focus of the site, but it also emphasizes the importance of search engines. After all, there are more than 12 billion searches conducted on search engines every month. And as the following chart from comScore shows, the number is growing.

Monthly Search Engine Searches -- October 2008

Monthly Search Engine Searches -- October 2008

Search Matters will approach the subject with the agency executive in mind, specifically those who are not yet knee-deep into the wonderful world of search. This is a perspective the author, Katy Barrilleaux, knows quite well. With more than 20 years in the agency business — the last ten years in interactive — and the past year focused specifically on search engine optimization (SEO) (definition), Katy Barrilleaux knows first-hand the challenges facing agency professionals.

I will attempt to get information posted as quickly as possible, but in the mean time, if you have an urgent client opportunity with search, I encourage you to check out Lead Maverick (website) — the SEO platform specifically for advertising, public relations, interactive and web development firms. No technical knowledge is needed; just use Lead Maverick’s proprietary online content analyzer to publish onto our highly optimized SEO platform — and watch the top natural search results come!

Let me know if there are specific topics you’d like to see covered here or if you have any questions. I hope you find Search Matters informative.

Happy New Year!

Katy Barrilleaux

Filed Under: Potpourri Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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