Effective Link Building Service

Funny Blog!

2012-02-03T05:18:00.001-08:00

Funny Blog!

Posted: 03 Feb 2012 01:15 AM PST

After the amazing success of the movie “The Lion King”, Disney released 2 sequels of this African adventure: “The Lion King 2″ and “The Lion King One and a Half”. But there is a rumor right now in Hollywood that Disney might soon release a new Lion King Movie, which would be simply called “The Liuon King 3″. What is amazing though is that this sequel would not be a animated movie, but a real life movie with live characters!!!!!!!

The Funny Blog got the scoop, and even an exclusive picture of this new movie!

11 tips for a better Facebook ad campaign

2012-02-02T05:07:00.001-08:00

11 tips for a better Facebook ad campaign

Posted: 01 Feb 2012 05:31 AM PST

As I have found out the hard way, Facebook ad production is extremely labour-intensive. Therefore it is imperative that you incorporate an effective ad production workflow to best utilise your time. Here are eleven tips I’ve been able to come up with over the past few months.

Account structure

In the Facebook Ads hierarchy, ‘account’ is the highest-level object. Every account is associated with a specific user’s Facebook account. Campaigns are the second tier that sit under the account level. Unlike in Google Adwords where ads are held within ad groups, campaigns hold ads within Facebook. It’s at the campaign level that daily budgets are assigned. Each campaign can hold any number of ads. Every ad is self-contained, including targeting elements, ad creative, bids, and time-scales. There is no requirement for ads in any campaign to be related in any way. However, it’s best practice to tightly theme each campaign with relevant and similar ads as it would make reporting and managing budgets so much easier.

Step 1 – get your target demographic right

Begin by making a list of demographic segments you want to target or make sure you are clear about who your client wants you to target. It’s always handy to ask your client to describe exactly who their target consumer is. This should be your first step in setting up your Facebook advertising campaign.

E.g. targeting list:

Females, age 18-30, who like Kim Kardashian and live in Orlando.
Males, age 25 and older, engaged or in a relationship, and interested in weddings or honeymooning.

Step 2: create your ads

Facebook has no process to save ads without submitting them for editorial approval. This is one of the greatest weaknesses to the user interface and the ad creation process and is a serious pain the rear. Therefore, it’s most efficient to submit one version of an ad for each social segment for approval at the time of research. It would be a complete waste of time if all your ad variants didn’t pass editorial scrutiny. Once the draft ads are approved, you’ll be able to tweak, duplicate and build ad variations and resubmit.

Step 3: designate the landing page

If the landing page has not already been determined, designate or create a page that is relevant to the draft copy. It’s extremely important to make sure the landing page is relevant for two reasons:

1) Facebook editorial might reject ads that take users to pages that aren’t relevant.

2) You would see a very high bounce rate, which means your time, effort, and money will be wasted.

Therefore, I cannot stress enough the importance of a great landing page. It’s often best to create specific landing pages solely for PPC campaigns. Trust me, the investment in development time will yield higher return on investment and provide a more effective PPC campaign.

Step 4: create your ad copy

The ad title, image, and body need to be reasonably related to pass editorial review. Again, choosing relevant images and writing compelling ad copy are critical to receiving higher click through rates.

Step 5: define your customer

This is the fun part. Use all the targeting attributes to fully target your social demographic segment.

Step 6: select your campaign

If you’re creating your ads on the web interface, click on “create a new campaign” and make sure you either change your budget to “lifetime budget” or change your daily budget to £1.00. This will ensure you don’t overspend your budget mistakenly. I’ve had to keep stressing myself to make these changes as I have had to endure some painful lessons in the past.

Step 7: set your bid and place your order

Once the demographic targeting is done, set your bid to £0.01. You set the bid so low because there’s no way to pause ads until after you’ve placed your order. Placing your bid at £0.01 will almost guarantee your ads won’t display and spend your valuable budget.

Step 8: repeat above steps

Once you’ve completed the above steps, find the little green button at the top right hand corner of the page that reads “create an ad” and click it. Go through the above steps until you have a paused campaign with an ad for each segment in it. Hopefully none of your ads will be rejected. If they do, all you need to do is make the recommended changes and resubmit them.

Getting the account structure right

Now that you’ve got a basic structure in place, let’s discuss best practice campaign lay-out. Most clients want to test more than one ad’s creative to the same target audience. While it’s tempting to dump a lot of ads targeting various segments in one campaign bucket, the result can be a big mess. Unfortunately Facebook does not currently allow you to sort results by demographic group. So you can’t isolate performance of ads by gender, education, interest or other criteria with a few clicks. This needs to be done manually, so setting things up with a bit of foresight goes a long way.

Example 1: messy structure

Baseball campaign:

baseball bat ad
baseball ad
baseball glove ad
baseball glove ad 2
baseball shirt ad
baseball shirt ad 2

Basketball campaign:

basketball ad
basketball ad 2
basketball trainers ad
basketball trainers ad 2

Football campaign:

football boots ad
football boots ad 2
football ad

The problem with the above structure is that Facebook’s algorithm decides which ads in your campaign are served. I suspect the algorithm is more optimised for Facebook to maximise its profits than for you to get coverage across all your ads equally. Because Facebook automatically rotates through each active ad in a campaign, it’s really important that the algorithm is comparing apples to apples.

Example 2 : better structure

Baseball bat campaign -

baseball bat ad
baseball bat ad 2

Baseball campaign -

baseball ad
baseball ad 2

Baseball glove campaign -

baseball glove ad
baseball glove ad 2

Baseball shirt campaign -

baseball shirt ad
baseball shirt ad 2

Basketball campaign -

basketball ad
basketball ad 2

Basketball trainers campaign -

basketball trainers ad
basketball trainers ad 2

Football campaign -

football ad
football ad 2

Football boots campaign -

football boots ad
football boots ad

You could go even more granular:

Baseball bat campaign (age 18-24)

baseball bat ad
baseball bat ad 2

Baseball bat campaign (age 25-35)

baseball bat ad
baseball bat ad 2

Baseball campaign (age 18-24)

baseball ad
baseball ad 2

Baseball campaign (age 25-35)

- baseball ad
- baseball ad 2

Baseball glove campaign (age 18-24)

baseball glove ad
baseball glove ad 2

Baseball glove campaign (age 25-35)

baseball glove ad
baseball glove ad 2

Baseball shirt campaign (age 18-24)

baseball shirt ad
baseball shirt ad 2

Baseball shirt campaign (age 25-35)

baseball shirt ad
baseball shirt ad 2

Basketball campaign (age 18-24)

basketball ad
basketball ad 2

Basketball campaign (age 25-35)

basketball ad
basketball ad 2

Basketball trainers campaign (age 18-24)

basketball trainers ad
basketball trainers ad 2

Basketball trainers campaign (age 25-35)

basketball trainers ad
basketball trainers ad 2

Football campaign (age 18-24)

football ad
football ad 2

Football campaign (age 25-35)

football ad
football ad 2

Football boots campaign (age 18-24)

football boots ad
football boots ad 2

Football boots campaign (age 25-35)

football boots ad
football boots ad 2

The above structure will be very handy when you need to monitor performance and also to make sure your end of month reporting is fairly straightforward.

A/B Testing

I love what one of my previous bosses told me during an internship programme I was completing some time ago. He said in my role I am not allowed to hold an opinion. If I need to push something forward, I’d need to substantiate it with tangible facts. I find A/B testing a great way to substantiate my proposals and recommendations, such as which campaigns to allocate more budget to, what type of images do I want, what type of message tone works with users, which type of call-to-actions work best, what colours are users more receptive to etc. By using A/B testing, you can obtain actual numbers, which can help you in your decision-making process.

Therefore, it is extremely important that you test different headlines, switching body copy, testing different images etc. It’s important to test at least a couple of ads per campaign. But don’t overdo it with loads of ads at the same time. As mentioned above, Facebook’s not going to give each ad a true chance to perform at its best even in rotation but will skew toward an ad the algorithm perceives as successful.

What’s in a name?

The last tip is to make sure you name your campaigns logically. The last time I checked, Facebook’s web interface allows a user to sort campaigns by most columns, while power editor does not support sorting. The ‘all campaigns’ page defaults to an alphabetical sort by campaign name every single time the user returns back to ‘all campaigns’, even after another sorting column was chosen previously. This can be extremely frustrating, so planning your naming standard early on will save your heart from increased blood pressure.

There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to naming conventions, but make sure they make sense to you when sorted alphabetically and that it also makes sense to someone who will work on the account in your absence. I generally use the following format as a guide -

[promotion name]-[product name]-[duration]-[special targeting metric]

e.g. Christmas deals – Trainers – 01 Dec/05 Dec 12 – males

Conclusion

The most essential take-away from this post is to plan ahead and be organised. Unless you use an in-house account management tool or you use a third party account management tool, managing Facebook campaigns can be fairly exhaustive. Hopefully the above tips will keep you in good stead. I’m sure you have some nuggets of wisdom to share too, so please feel free to leave your comments below.

Image credit: marcopako

Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog

2012-02-01T17:31:00.001-08:00

Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog

Really Simple Syndication 101
On Page Optimization 101
Social Bookmarking 101

Really Simple Syndication 101

Posted: 01 Feb 2012 03:29 AM PST

RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication, is overlooked by search engine optimizers quite often because RSS feeds were not indexed and cached by search engines. With time, search engines like Google have started indexing and caching content from RSS feeds and suddenly SEOs began taking them more seriously. If you harness the power of RSS for search engine optimization you are tapping a great little market. Search engine optimizers have already woken up to the reality that web content needs to be refreshed regularly to maintain high search engine rankings and the dynamic nature of RSS ensures that content is refreshed.

RSS feeds are easy to make and are available on every imaginable topic. Most platforms designed for content sharing include and easy to use plug and play widget. Having multiple RSS feeds increases the chances of incoming traffic, and allows webmasters to attract greater incoming traffic. A webmaster can easily add a RSS feed that displays top search engine results for targeted keywords to help attract a particular audience. Contrary to popular belief, popular search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN offer RSS feeds that can be easily added to a website if your own site isn't equipped for it when you take possession of it.

By putting a feed on your site, webmasters can increase the keyword density of target keywords and increase the search ability of a site. Inserting new RSS feeds helps ensure that content on a website is generated more frequently and is fresh. News RSS feeds are the best way to keep a steady flow of fresh content coming into your site. RSSmix allows you to blend multiple RSS feeds to create a single site feed which looks cleaner and is easier to manage.

Also keep in mind that an RSS feed on a website that is JavaScript based are not indexed easily by search engines, and are best avoided. JavaScript based RSS solutions are easy to implement, but they offer very little in terms of SEO. ASP, PHP, and HTML alternatives for RSS are readily available alternatives that suit both needs quite capably.

RSS feeds are the hottest phenomenon when it comes to search engine optimization and the number of webmasters looking to RSS feeds is always on the rise. If you haven't tapped into RSS, you are missing out on a great resource that saves you time and money while providing great fresh content for your site visitors to take advantage of. If you are unsure of how to proceed with RSS, your SEO can take care of getting you properly set up.

On Page Optimization 101

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 03:25 AM PST

On-page optimization is the first task that any SEO firm will undertake once they start work on a site, but then you must move on and concentrate on expanding your website's accessibility. The goal is to have as few impediments to accessing what is on a site as is possible. Limitations to access will hinder any efforts you make going forward. If search engine optimization is to make your website more search engine friendly, you can't ignore what are really very obvious factors that can hinder the search engines in their efforts and keep them from accessing your website freely.

Issues with accessibility that stop search engine spiders from crawling your site to index content are also stopping your human visitors from accessing your content as well. If access problems are present, visitors won't be able to access deeper pages of your website which means they are stuck in a certain sense. For a complete crawling of your website, proper indexing and good traffic from visitors, your website should be made freely accessible. Here are some of the most often ignored factors regarding accessibility that you may encounter:

Broken links are very common, but also easy to fix. Broken links aggravate search engine bots and human visitors equally! Linking to a page that is not live helps no-one, and can actually harm you as Google sees broken links as a sign your site is not being well maintained. All links should have an active page linked to it and it should be the correct page, or your visitors too will be disillusioned and will leave. Misleading links can also harm your reputation.

SEO efforts may wind up being futile if you fail to run routine, basic checks on your website for broken links. You could even end up losing your ranking in the search engines for such a mistake if it is prevalent enough. It is not enough to validate each link before the launch. You must revalidate all the links to see how they are performing when they are actually online, and continue to do so on a regular basis. You may know what you're doing, but you can't know what another webmaster is doing on their site, hence the necessity for regular check-ups.

Know that web pages that are too heavy can also cause accessibility problems. Your web pages should be 150kb or less. (This does not include the image files). Search engines downgrade web pages that take too long to load because they are a nuisance. Avoid heavy files since they can slow down the search engine in fetching the right information.– Load time is also often increased, leading to penalties in PageRank and other algorithms. Split large pages into two sections if needed and you shouldn't have any problems in this area.

Your websites HTML and CSS coding should comply with W3C to be as safe as possible. Decrepit HTML codes will often cause a search engine spider to turn and run like it saw a swarm of bats descending on it. If you have forms on your site, check them when you go live – never assume that because they worked in safe mode everything is okay – be thorough! If forms are not properly coded, they may result in wrong landing pages or page not found error – which, as mentioned above, is one of the worst problems you can have on your site.

Your SEO professional should be able to pinpoint problems early in your site build and help you correct them, testing before and after launch. It is something you can do on your own, but with such an important task, it is advised to use an experienced professional.

Social Bookmarking 101

Posted: 30 Jan 2012 03:13 AM PST

There is no doubt that social bookmarking is one of the most effective approaches for building up your web site's One Way Links. Social bookmarking may mean different things to different people depending on how they view using them, so let's define it first to be absolutely clear: Social Bookmarking is a way of tagging content to make it easy for other users to find, and for tracking that content.

Social bookmarking can take many forms depending on the individual preferences of the person performing the task. Digg, Sphinn, Del.icio.us, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Technorati, BlogSpot and even an RSS fee from your own website or blog can be considered bookmarking if other people are subscribed to your feed, follow or friend you, or vote your content up. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

Social bookmarking can be time consuming and tedious for some people. It can get extremely repetitive, but if done correctly it is well worth the effort. If the social network isn't your scene, you can hire a professional social bookmarking service to take care of regular bookmarking on your behalf.

The Dos and Don'ts of Social Bookmarking as part of a full service link building campaign are as follows:

Always be selective. Having a huge array of buttons for every social network you can find at the side or bottom of all your content can overwhelm people and make them shy away from using even one sharing technique. People like choices, but they hate feeling overwhelmed or pressured. Use YouTube for videos, Flickr and Picasa for photos, MySpace, Twitter and Facebook for laid back personal messages, LinkedIn for professional shout outs, Digg and Sphinn for really interesting stuff that might go viral. Know your content and where it fits best.

Putting your content in front of the right audience for it is essential. Start by asking yourself if the Technorati crowd or the stay at home moms crowd are more likely to respond to what you are presenting and get them the right buttons to act on when you make your content live. In the opinion of many SEOs, the maximum number of social bookmarking site buttons that should ever be present on a piece of content is five – more than that and the reader figures 'what's the use' and simply skips the sharing step because they either don't know what to pick or feel overwhelmed and pressured to use them all.

Don't start bookmarking then get lazy and quit posting new content for your readers. Your following wants to see new stuff every day or so, so space it out. Try to set up automatic updates to simplify things if that helps. Change it up and vary which bookmarking sites you submit to, as well as the type of content, and track your results so you know what works and what doesn't. It takes time, but again, the data you collect early on can make life much easier for you later.

There are over 200 social bookmarking sites on the web to work with. Your job as the content provider is to find the ones that work for you and focus your efforts on them. You can always have a social bookmark submissions services firm submit en masse if desired – but figuring out where your niche customers like to hang out is the key to successfully generating extra links and traffic.

Everything you do in your social bookmarking campaign must be considered carefully, from how many social bookmarking sites to target, to what kind of content they will find valuable, to whether or not to employ a firm to ensure quality social bookmarking is being done on your behalf. If you outsource your social bookmarking, ensure that your online profile is being accurately represented and that your social bookmarking submissions are being handles correctly so you won't be labeled a spammer. The last thing you want is to be booted from a site because getting back on is not the easiest thing to do – and that will cost you followers in the long run.

HTML5 & SEO

2012-02-01T05:16:00.001-08:00

HTML5 & SEO

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 04:56 AM PST

It would be fair to say that pretty much every major change to the online environment is greeted with the same two questions by the vast majority of the SEO community –

What is it?
How can I use it to boost my SEO campaigns?

So with adoption of the next major evolution of HTML becoming more common, and having a growing feeling that it was about to come up in more client meetings, I decided it would be a good time to check how I can potentially make the most of HTML5.

I won't go into a whole explanation of what HTML5 is now – I will leave that for the web design blogs – but the highlights as I understand them are:

A more descriptive set of markup tags; for example, nav, article, aside and footer
The introduction of Canvas element could be used for rendering graphs or images dynamically without the need for browser plugins
A Video element which will allow videos to be embedded without the need for third-party plugins; for example, Adobe Flash
Sites will be able to geolocate users without having to use IP address detection

It is apparent from this list that there are some pretty big changes between HTML4 and HTML5. For example, I'm guessing that every SEO will spot the third bullet point – video without the need for Flash – and realise the obvious content indexing benefit this will offer as a result.

But will you get any direct benefit from being first to the party (so to speak)? Will changing your site to HTML5 be a quick route to top spot in the rankings? Well, the simple answer is no! And you don't have to just take my word for it either; Googler John Mu left the following responses to related questions on the Google Webmaster Central Help Forum:

In general, we work hard to understand as much of the web as possible, but I have a feeling that HTML5 markup is not yet as widely in use (and in use correctly) that it would make sense for us to use it as a means of understanding content better. As HTML5 gains in popularity and as we recognize specific markup elements that provide value to our indexing system, this is likely to change, but at the moment I would not assume that you would have an advantage by using HTML5 instead of older variants.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=2d4592cbb613e42c&hl=en

and

In general, our crawlers are used to not being able to parse all HTML markup – be it from broken HTML, embedded XML content or from the new HTML5 tags. Our general strategy is to wait to see how content is marked up on the web in practice and to adapt to that. If we find that more and more content uses HTML5 markup, that this markup can give us additional information, and that it doesn’t cause problems if webmasters incorrectly use it (which is always a problem in the beginning), then over time we’ll attempt to work that into our algorithms. With that in mind, I definitely wouldn’t want to stand in the way of your implementing parts of your site with HTML5, but I also wouldn’t expect to see special treatment of your content due to the HTML5 markup at the moment. HTML5 is still very much a work in progress, so it’s great to see bleeding-edge sites making use of the new possibilities.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=1d3850aec4e3dd96&hl=en

Although both of these comments date from late 2010, there doesn't seem to have been any further opinion put forward to suggest that this is not Google's current view, or not that I have found anyway.

So does this mean that you should ignore it all together? Well, no. This may sound odd having seen the opinions offered by Google, but there do seem to be some credible theories of the indirect benefits of implementing HTML5.

First, due to the fact that HTML5 is still a relatively "new" technology, a number of people will link to other sites that are using it. This means that an HTML5 site or piece of content (an infographic for example), if implemented well or uniquely, will accumulate links and social signals naturally. Check out this music video from Arcade Fire, which makes use of HTML5 and Google Maps to personalise the video to you. I'm not a fan of their music but I shared the link. Obviously this will only be a benefit until HTML5 becomes commonplace.

As well as this, it is believed that HTML5 will reduce the volume of code required to render a page, so it therefore has two indirect benefits. The first is that it will improve page load speed, which is a minor ranking factor, as well as having an effect on conversion. Secondly, it should increase the likelihood that information would be found by the search engine bots, as a result of them being able to process more site pages (if you believe that the search engines expend a limited amount of resources on a site).

Finally, you will be 'future proofing' your site. Even though Google's current position is that it will not aid rankings, the Webmaster Tools responses imply that it may do in the future once it is more widely adopted.

When HTML5 becomes a web standard, I believe that at some point it will be worked into the algorithm as a result of its wide use. Being an early adopter means there should be an immediate boost if and when it is added to algorithm. It is also safe to assume that this change wouldn't be publicly announced, so you will get a short competitive advantage until everyone else catches on.

Anyone who has read some of the other posts around on HTML5 and SEO are probably thinking I have missed out one of the most obvious benefits – the new markup. From what I have seen, a lot of people believe that it will indicate to the search engines what type of content is on a page and how important it is, meaning you are really able to draw attention to content.

While this may be the intention, I personally believe the ease with which this may be manipulated to promote low quality sites is such that it is likely only ever going to be a low value ranking factor, if it is one at all. It is very similar to the keywords metatag, which was so easily abused that Google finally discounted it as a ranking factor. If all you have to do is to put content within a certain tag to boost its rankings, everyone will do it.

So overall, while I personally wouldn't recommend that a site change to HTML5 as some kind of SEO silver bullet, there are enough incidental SEO benefits to make it worthwhile to work into new builds or redesigns, or to use for content generation (such as infographics).

Android Fails to Render URLs with Dashes Via Bit.ly

Posted: 30 Jan 2012 05:41 AM PST

Android platform is not able to render URLs shortened by bit.ly, which include dashes in blog post titles. To guarantee all users can read your posts via mobiles, be sure not to utilise dashes in blog post titles.

Last week, a client flagged up to us that their site wasn't getting Android traffic on certain posts. True, Android traffic is never high, but when it slips to 0 visits, there must be something wrong. When the client looked into the posts, it was evident the titles of these blog posts each had a dash (-) in them. The majority of traffic to these posts comes from Twitter via Bit.ly links.

With the help of my local Orange Shop (HTC Hero Graphite anyone?), and some rigorous testing by @spamhendricks, it can be concluded that Android is not rendering bit.ly links which have dashes in certain instances. Specifically, when a blog post title utilises a dash, a bit.ly link won't render on the Android platform.

Example

For example, here is an SEOptimise blog post with a dash in the title.

The URL for this blog post is:

http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2012/01/did-google-just-roll-out-panda-3-2-2012-edition.html

As you can see, dashes are utilised in the URL for two reasons. First, the dash between "roll-out" appears in the URL. Second, all spaces in the title are also accounted for as dashes.

This link is then bit.ly-fied to appear as:

http://bit.ly/xgR9xq

If you have an Android phone, this bit.ly link will not render.

Significance

This issue is most likely to affect blog promotion across the social media sphere. But it can also affect press release promotion, news stories, and essentially anything where a dash is included in the H1, and then promoted via the popular link shortening service of Bit.ly.

Inconsistencies

What I'm struggling to understand is why this Android rendering issue is only valid if the title of the blog post has a dash; the issue is not reflected in the URL.

This URL from the earlier example for the blog post "Did Google Just Roll-Out Panda 3.2 (2012 edition)" includes one dash in the title of the blog post.

http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2012/01/did-google-just-roll-out-panda-3-2-2012-edition.html

This second URL is for the blog post without any dashes "Foursquare 2012 | Experience, Thoughts and 6 Immense Tips for Your Business".

http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2012/01/foursquare-2012-experience-thoughts-and-6-immense-tips-for-your-business.html

In this second example, the URL still utilises dashes to make up for the spaces in the post title. And yet, in this second example the bit.ly link renders on Android platforms just fine. Why?

What do you think? Why does the title of the blog post equate to Android users being able to view the post or not view the post? Is this enough reason to stop utilising bit.ly?

Funny Blog!

2012-01-31T05:11:00.002-08:00

Funny Blog!

The Easter Island mystery now resolved!

Posted: 31 Jan 2012 12:12 AM PST

Well, it took a long time to figure it out, but the Easter Island mystery is now resolved. All we had to do was to dig a little bit under the famous heads!

15% Discount Code for SMX Advanced London 2012

2012-01-31T05:11:00.001-08:00

15% Discount Code for SMX Advanced London 2012

Posted: 29 Jan 2012 05:00 PM PST

Once again, we are proud to be a blog partner for the SMX Advanced London 2012 conference. The event takes place on 15-16th May 2012 at Chelsea Football Club – Stamford Bridge.

In order to receive a 15% discount, just enter the code SEOPTIMISE012 when signing up online. There are different packages available and the prices go up after 30th March so it’s best to book early!

For coverage of previous events, please check out the presentations we have delivered and posts we have written:

Funny Blog!

2012-01-29T05:16:00.001-08:00

Funny Blog!

Darth Vader at the Church?

Posted: 28 Jan 2012 07:46 PM PST

Very funny! Has Darth Vader converted, and is now going to the Church? Probably repenting for having killed all those Jedi in that galaxy far far away, a long time ago…

Changes to Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service

2012-01-28T07:45:00.001-08:00

		Is this email not displaying properly? View it in your browser.
Dear Google user, We're getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that's a lot shorter and easier to read. Our new policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google. We believe this stuff matters, so please take a few minutes to read our updated Privacy Policy and Terms of Service at http://www.google.com/policies. These changes will take effect on March 1, 2012.
One policy, one Google experience

Easy to work across Google Our new policy reflects a single product experience that does what you need, when you want it to. Whether you're reading an email that reminds you to schedule a family get-together or finding a favorite video that you want to share, we want to ensure you can move across Gmail, Calendar, Search, YouTube, or whatever your life calls for with ease.	Tailored for you If you're signed into Google, we can do things like suggest search queries – or tailor your search results – based on the interests you've expressed in Google+, Gmail, and YouTube. We'll better understand which version of Pink or Jaguar you're searching for and get you those results faster.	Easy to share and collaborate When you post or create a document online, you often want others to see and contribute. By remembering the contact information of the people you want to share with, we make it easy for you to share in any Google product or service with minimal clicks and errors.

Protecting your privacy hasn't changed Our goal is to provide you with as much transparency and choice as possible, through products like Google Dashboard and Ads Preferences Manager, alongside other tools. Our privacy principles remain unchanged. And we'll never sell your personal information or share it without your permission (other than rare circumstances like valid legal requests).	Got questions? We've got answers. Visit our FAQ at http://www.google.com/policies/faq to read more about the changes. (We figured our users might have a question or twenty-two.)

Notice of Change March 1, 2012 is when the new Privacy Policy and Terms will come into effect. If you choose to keep using Google once the change occurs, you will be doing so under the new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Please do not reply to this email. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered. Also, never enter your Google Account password after following a link in an email or chat to an untrusted site. Instead, go directly to the site, such as mail.google.com or www.google.com/accounts. Google will never email you to ask for your password or other sensitive information.

Funny Blog!

2012-01-28T05:14:00.001-08:00

Funny Blog!

Snowstorm in the house…

Posted: 27 Jan 2012 06:30 PM PST

For those living in the northern countries, you know that when a snowstorm hits, it is not always fun. Sure the kids miss school, and the ski is good but the roads are dangerous, and there is lots of snow to shovel.

But this could be worst. Imagine what happens when the snowstorm is IN the house?

Here are the pictures of the snow in the home…

Foursquare 2012 | Experience, Thoughts and 6 Immense Tips for Your Business

2012-01-28T05:08:00.001-08:00

Foursquare 2012 | Experience, Thoughts and 6 Immense Tips for Your Business

Posted: 27 Jan 2012 06:32 AM PST

My Foursquare Experience so far…

Like many other people over the past few months I have been using Foursquare quite a bit, as shown below. I have knocked up quite a few mayorships and badges, but sadly I have already found it very monotonous and not at all engaging.

To be fair, Foursquare is great at the beginning with collecting the badges, stealing mayorships, getting those "Foursquare specials" and "Sharing with your friends". Well the last two I did not experience; working in Paddington I would presume that businesses would be flocking with specials, but sadly not, and in terms of sharing with friends I have none (on Foursquare). With myself not experiencing two of the most important factors of Foursquare, this has sadly hindered now a relationship with the platform (for now). In what I have found is a similar occurrence to Google+, the number of "real people" on there (and active users within the UK) is, I would imagine, not staggering.

Despite my negativity and social neglect of Foursquare as of this month, I do believe it will be a bigger issue this year amongst companies (especially SMEs and franchises) to start rolling out and using this social media platform. Using Foursquare has really helped me in understanding why businesses should start using this social media platform and how to use it most effectively.

Does your Business Foursquare?

If you were to ask most businesses about what social media platforms they use to market their company, I suppose you could name a few, popular ones being Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and if you are really savvy (but not really), Google+.

But how many of us have thought about using Foursquare as a marketing platform for their business? I am going to go out on a limb and say probably less than 5% use Foursquare and to its full potential; an infographic that I saw last year outlined the number of small businesses using social media, with Foursquare not even being mentioned in the Top 7. Even today, the fact remains that Foursquare is still not being recognised, which was exemplified when I took part in a business social media survey last night, shown below:

Shown from the screenshot, not only has Foursquare not been recognised, but what is interesting is that Google+ and Pinterest have not been included. Also, their list showed that wikis were a more of a popular option.

Should my business start using Foursquare?

As I envisage Foursquare to get bigger and better, businesses will find it particularly useful for:

Maximising their social media efforts.
Looking to improve their multi-channel marketing efforts.
Digital-only brands to build upon their online reputation.
Great way of testing new products to market.
Source of market research to help understand their consumers better.

6 Immense Tips for Your Business to Capitalise on Foursquare

There are many ways for your business to make the best use of Foursquare and making the"Foursquare Special" better. Here are my Top 6 Tips.

1) Make your check-ins more useful

As exciting as check-ins are, after a while users are bound to get bored of them, so capitalise on using them better; for example, it was reported by Tnooz that the Radisson Edwardian chain of hotels were offering guests the chance to keep their rooms for longer, if they checked in via Foursquare. The hotel chain gave guests an extra two hours in their room.

2) Review and monitor your tips section

Be sure to monitor your tips section and understand what people are saying about your brand via Foursquare. Not only is this a great way for "free market research", it is like having the service of a mystery shopper without the costs.

3) Create location-based experiences

If your business has one or more location, don't just have a standard special across all the branches. Include specific ones, for example if your business is near a seaside resort or within the city. Have a special offer that is unique to that place to ensure they that your branch capitalises on that specific location’s resources.

4) Capitalising on low-cost impulse items

This idea works particularly well for businesses that sell cheap items, that people buy on impulse. Reach out to people in the surrounding area to let them know of a "free cup of coffee with a cake" or "buy one doughnut, get one free."

5) Marketing new/seasonal products

Broadcasting new/seasonal items is a great way of using the “Foursquare Special” to letting your consumers know of any new products or services available, and that they should try them out as soon as possible!

6) Understand and review your specials

When you set up "Foursquare Special", don't just have one special set up and done; alternate them and see what works best for you. For example, if you own a restaurant, don't just have "free glass of wine for the mayor", but alternate them – "5% off Winter menu for check-ins", "20% off food bill for the mayor" or even "15% off total food bill on the 10^th visit." Play around with them to give new incentives and better engagement for the users.

2012 The Year of Foursquare (and the dragon)

With huge savings and partnerships already established in 2011 within the U.S, for example H&M, Sports Authority and Dunkin' Donuts on board, I envisage that Foursquare will only get bigger and better for us in 2012, and be adopted as another popular social media platform to help businesses improve their sales.

What Could Google’s New Privacy Policy Mean for PPC?

Posted: 26 Jan 2012 08:33 AM PST

Earlier in the week Google announced changes to its privacy policies. The main changes are that:

Now nearly all Google products are covered by one privacy policy.
Information you give Google's various different services can be combined.

Google still promises not to sell personal data, but to only share aggregated, non-personally identifiable information. It hasn't announced that it's collecting information it wasn't before, just that it's combining what it has differently. You can preview the new policy here.

According to Forbes, combining information between Google services has been allowed by the privacy policies since 2005. But this didn't stop the FTC complaining of privacy policy violations when Google used data from Gmail accounts when launching Google Buzz in 2010 – Google's policy at the time also said "If we use this [personal] information in a manner different than the purpose for which it was collected, then we will ask for your consent prior to such use." The new policy instead says "We will ask for your consent before using information for a purpose other than those that are set out in this Privacy Policy." Still, the FTC complaint may be a factor in why Google is trying to be very clear to its users about what it's doing with their data, as it starts to treat all of its products as parts of a single unified service.

And now, some speculation on what this may or may not mean for PPC and SEO:

Interest-based targeting may improve. Currently Google uses DoubleClick cookies to place users into interest categories based on the sites they visit – you can see what Google thinks you like here. The changes mean Google could infer interests from searches or Google+ activity as well, which should improve accuracy.
Demographics targeting might be available more widely. Currently targeting by age-group and gender is only an option on sites where users supply that information. But Google's demographic information (from YouTube or Google+ accounts) could be used for targeting on other sites as well.
New ways of targeting Display Network advertising may appear. For example it could be possible to target people based on what Google Products they use – advertise Analytics training to Analytics users, say, or push Google+ users to circle your Google+ page.
New ways of targeting Google Search advertising may appear. AdCenter already allows targeting based on age-group and gender when advertising on Search: Google could do the same.
There will be even more changes to the SERPs – Google's announcement says the change will let them "better understand which version of Pink or Jaguar you’re searching for". But perhaps it will also add more than help with disambiguation, adding to the personalisation of the SERPs we're already seeing with Search Plus Your World.

Have you any idea what Google is (or could be) planning? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog

2012-01-27T17:18:00.001-08:00

Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog

Hack Alert!
Is Your Niche the Right One?
SEO for N00bs

Hack Alert!

Posted: 27 Jan 2012 10:23 AM PST

Have you been hacked? Is there malware on your site that you may not even be aware of that is decreasing your ability to convert and potentially putting you and your customers information at risk? Hopefully, you are safe, but hacking is an activity that occurs everyday and hackers are skilled at hiding what they do. You need to monitor your site for malware not only to protect yourself and customers, but your standing with the SERPS.

Google's search quality guidelines plainly warn all users: "Don't create pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans, or other badware." If malware in your website is the result of successful hacking activity, it can be hard to prove it isn't you and Google will want to get you out of the results quickly and may not give you time to find the problem. No search engine wants to direct people to a hacked site because it compromises their credibility. If you aren't on the search indexes, you're basically nowhere.

If however you are monitoring your site regularly and detect malware early, it will not cause as much damage to your websites or your visitors. Google can actually help you, since they have the most effective tools for detecting hacked in malware on your website. In this type of situation, Google is your ally – they want to get rid of as much malware as they can as much as you do so that more sites and users don't become infected.

To get started, visit http://www.google.com/, and type in site: yourdomain.com (using your domain name where it says yourdomain). Use your domain name only, and don't include www. so you will get the maximum number of indexed pages. Follow this step EXACTLY!

Google will then produce a list consisting of all of the indexed pages on your website. If you have a lot of pages, change the default view to 100 instead of 10 results per page (you can do this in "Advanced search" under "Need more tools") to help speed the process up a little bit. Next, choose "repeat the search with the omitted results included" to display hidden results that you otherwise wouldn't be aware of.

If you see anything that says "This site may harm your computer." it means that Google found malware hosted on that URL. This means you have been hacked by someone who managed to slip some malware onto your site. This isn't good news, but once you know it is there you can start to repair the damage it has done. That is good news.

Go to your Google Webmasters account and then go to "Labs" in the dashboard. Once you are there, choose "Malware details." If you get the response "Google has not detected any malware on this site," then there has not been a hack and you are in the clear – almost.

New methods employed by hackers include planting links in the site pointing to spammy websites or malware domains. If link building is being done that you or your SEO are not responsible for, be suspicious! Links from unknown origins are not your friend and should be removed just to be safe. Tools are available to check external links, however, and you can also utilize your server logs to find out if unknown IP addresses are accessing restricted pages.

To do this, log in to your hosting account and copy and paste the access log into an Excel file or OpenOffice Calc. Once that step is accomplished, create filters to eliminate your own IP address and find URLs containing the word "admin". If you find any and they return a 404 (not found) or a 301 header that indicates a failed hacking attempt. That means your security measures are working, but also that breaches have been attempted so you may want to beef things up. A "200 OK" status may indicate a successful hacking attempt. Use server logs to trace where the hacker visited other restricted pages in your domain, and block them. If you fail to do this, they will backdoor you to death with hacks.

To protect yourself, enable logs for admin pages, update your web software, and sanitize user input. Also, use captcha to defeat malware bots planting links via comments or any openly available area. Once that is done, disable unneeded PHP functions, and use strong passwords and SSL. Never under any circumstances should you use the default passwords, and never store your passwords anywhere online. Scan your website regularly as described, and act fast if you think you've been hacked. it is better to be vigilant than a victim!

Is Your Niche the Right One?

Posted: 26 Jan 2012 10:20 AM PST

Choosing the right niche may not seem very complicated, but it is a cornerstone of success. Finding the right niche that will provide you with productive results depends on two main factors – a product or service, and finding the right audience to target for that product or service.

A niche is simply put a corner of the market where there is a shortage of supply versus demand. The best way for you to track down highly searched topics is by using a program that will show you what people are looking for, and as importantly, how they are looking for it. Google offers tools that are helpful in this area, albeit a bit imperfect. When you add modifiers like how, buy, fix and online to your niche keywords, you will find out what people need and how they are looking for it. Refining your search will help you attain the best keywords and key phrases to target.

The niche you choose should be ready to be monetized – meaning you can jump right in and begin converting. To do this, you either need strong affiliates or an established advertising base. Once you have found a site or two with good commission rates, you can check how much actual search there is for your keywords. Don't hesitate to take some cues from your competition. The greater the number of results you see, the greater the demand is – and that is what you want! You can use the Adwords tool to generate similar terms and figure out how to use long tail keywords in addition to your major ones. This is not popular with everyone, but Adwords can be a great jumping off point is used correctly.

There should be at least 500 different possibilities for optimization, with additional spin-offs. That sounds like a huge number, but in actuality it is very focused. The more options you have for optimization, the greater chance you have to end up on the front page of the SERPs for one or more of your keyword phrases. Think of it this way – ranking for two keywords is nice – ranking for 200 derivatives is exceptional!

You can also use Google tools to determine potential pay-per-click amounts from advertisers. If you can draw traffic that makes you attractive to advertisers, you should monetize your site and take advantage of the extra income. Just make sure the ads are relevant, pay sufficiently for your valuable space, and do not overwhelm your own content.

Develop strong content and a linking campaign to match it. SEO will get far, a linking campaign can take you farther and to the next level. Figure out who your best customers are and target them effectively. Soon your niche site will be up and business will be booming! It takes some work, but a reputable SEO company can help take a lot of the guesswork out of it and have ou up and running in no time.

SEO for N00bs

Posted: 25 Jan 2012 09:58 AM PST

SEO is a process that takes planning and time to work. You can't just start off blindly and hope it works out down the road because the odds are it won't unless you are extraordinarily lucky. You have to plan ahead so you can implement good SEO at every stage of your project to get the best results. Following are the bare basics you need to implement from day one in order to get effective results from your SEO program.

Keywords

You must do extensive research to find not only which keywords are good bets for traffic, but which ones you actually have a chance of ranking for. Chasing the long tail is the proven way to get rankings and drive traffic to your site. If you cannot compete with the major sites on broad terms, you have to refine your strategy to see where they are weak and where you can gain an advantage – and then you have to exploit that!

Titles and Meta Tags

After you identify your keywords that are likely to get you the best results, you need to ensure your website is correctly formatted and that all the proper elements like H1, H2 etc have been incorporated into each web page. Any images on your site have to be tagged and keyword rich text should be surrounding them. Images can provide great search results when properly tagged so don't ignore them.

Content

Your content should be informative, captivating, well written, and free from typos – and of course, keyword optimized according to your prior research. One of the biggest thongs to remember is that it has to be reader friendly – meaning it flows well and makes sense. If it reads spammy, you won't keep a reader for long. There should be a balance between the relevance of the content and the keyword density. Avoid any black hat tricks you may read about because eventually you will get caught and penalized heavily. The SERPs are unforgiving about balck hat SEO.

Links

Categorize the links on your web pages for ease of use by visitors. You have essential and non essential links to deal with. Non essential links include the no-follow property inserted into the <a href=>. This keeps you from bleeding out PageRank, or having paid ads show up as links that are causing you trouble. Distribute your links evenly across all of your pages. There is no sense or value to wasting them all on the home page. Deep linking is preferable than having fifty links all pointing to your one landing page! Olan ahead and this won't be a problem.

Site Map

A site map not only helps the search engines index of all your web pages, but helps in even distribution of links across the site. It should be user friendly as well with a link to it from the bottom of every page. This is non-negotiable – a good well laid out site map is an absolute necessity in any SEO plan.

Once you have begun your site the right way, keeping it easy to navigate and indexed by search engines should be easy. Don't cut corners, and you won't have to go back and redo stuff later on. The saying do it right and you only have to do it once surely applies to SEO planning.

SEO Newsletter Vol 98: SEM Predictions for 2012 and Search Plus & SEO

2012-01-27T11:03:00.001-08:00

SEO Newsletter | Vol 98 | January 27, 2012

Blog | Contact | About | Get Quote

FEATURE:
State of Internet Marketing: 16 Predictions for 2012 by Bruce Clay

BACK TO BASICS:
Understanding Search Plus Your World

INTERNATIONAL:
Freshness Score and Why It Exists

THE USUAL: Coverage of this month's
hot topics, shuffles, shindigs, attaboys and word on the wire.

State of Internet Marketing: 16 Predictions for 2012 by Bruce Clay

Author: Bruce Clay

Another whirlwind year in Web marketing is behind us, and the one ahead seems just as exciting. The big news of 2011 emerged as Google worked to make results even more relevant and useful to users, which eventually led to the Panda algorithm update that targeted low-quality sites in the results pages. Then of course, big strides were made by major search engines like Bing and Google to make social search more of the norm leading to perhaps the biggest news in social and personalized search, just announced this month by Google with its Search plus Your World feature.

In keeping with our annual tradition here at Bruce Clay, Inc., I'd like to share with you my forecast of the search climate in 2012.

BACK TO BASICS:
Understanding Search Plus Your World

Author: Jessica Lee

By now, you’ve probably heard the buzz about the new Google search experience dubbed Search plus Your World – and if you haven't, let me break it down for you.

The way the search engine results pages in Google are rendered have completely changed. Personalized search is more personal in the new view of the SERP, Google+ is heavily promoted and the non-personalized SERPS seem to be giving more "raw" rankings data than we've seen in a long time.

What was once thought to be just a social network trying to catch up to Facebook, we now know Google+ is part of a much bigger plan for Google to expand on social and personalized search. Much bigger.

INTERNATIONAL:
Freshness Score and Why It Exists

Author: Brent Yorzinski

Previously, it was not uncommon for search engines to return outdated pages among results. This occurred since they matched the words entered by a visitor to content indexed from pages on the Web, often leveraging signals that favoured older pages with accumulated link data to order and display results that contained the visitor’s queried keywords. That method made it possible to show old pages that were not in line with a visitor’s search intent.

As a measure aimed at solving this problem, in 2009 Google expressed that freshness of data, through such algorithmic implementations as QDF (Query Deserves Freshness), would be taken into account when determining what a visitor is interested in finding. However in late 2011, Google significantly extended the signals it used to score freshness and the number of queries this scoring mechanism then impacted.

One-Day SEO Training Coming to West & East Coasts

Demand for SEO education is at an all-time high, as search marketing becomes ever-more complex and crucial to the growth and stability of businesses of all sizes. Bruce Clay has partnered with major Internet marketing conferences in San Jose and New York City to present one-day SEO training workshops in the coming months.

On February 27, Bruce presents SEO training with SMX West at the Marriott San Jose. Early bird registration continues through January 28. An additional 10 percent discount can be applied on the cost of conference registration with code smx10bruceclay.

On March 23, SES New York hosts Bruce Clay's SEO training at Hilton New York.

The next extensive three-day standard or five-day advanced SEO training course in Southern California takes place March 12 to March 16.

Hot Topics

Google has dominated the spotlight as the subject of multiple major tech stories despite the year having only just begun.

Punishes Self with Paid Links Penalty

In a surprising twist of just desserts, the Google Chrome browser was outed for a sponsored post campaign containing juice-passing links. The search engine issued a PageRank penalty to the Chrome home page after all instances of paid links were removed. The incident highlighted several concerns, including the inequity in how Google handled its own penalty compared to the penalties it deals other sites, as well as the issue of how webmasters have little defense against malicious paid link attacks by competitors. These issues and more are discussed in an SEM Synergy video with Bruce Clay and staff.

Lower Than Forecasted Earnings Plunge Stock

After four straight quarters of booming growth, Google posted weaker-than-expected earnings for the fourth quarter of 2011. While paid clicks in search results were up 34 percent year-over-year, the average cost per click was down 8 percent. An analysis and accompanying infographic by PPC tools provider WordStream illustrate which industries were responsible for the bulk of the search engine's $37.9 billion ad revenues.

Google+ Integration Signals Biggest Search Change Yet

In what's been called the most radical change to Google search yet, Search plus Your World presents content from a searcher's Google+ network within search results. Images, profiles, business pages, posts and comments from Google+ may be returned for signed-in users' queries. Personalized results are marked with a blue person icon, and the personalization feature can be turned off with a toggle button on the top of the search results page. SEOs may be worried that the personal social results may make organic ranking optimization more difficult. Read this month's article Understanding Search Plus Your World for more on how the change affects SEO.

A new privacy policy that unifies 60 of Google's services was met with scrutiny by some privacy advocates and praise by others. Google will combine data collected across services to create a more complete picture of individual users. The primary benefit to Google lies in the ability to better target ads for users. The changes go into effect March 1 and users cannot opt out.

Shuffles

From Q3 2010 to Q3 2011, Internet ad revenue rose 22 percent. The digital marketing sector showed greater growth than other media channels, and climbed to nearly $7.9 billion.

Cyber Week 2011 set a new record for online sales in a week in the U.S. and three days each topping $1 billion in sales. Consumers reported that free shipping is “very important” to their online purchases.

A major redesign for Twitter, including the launch of brand pages, emphasizes the hashtag and the "@" symbol to improve usability of the navigation experience. Images, links and attached media are also embedded in expandable tweets.

Facebook added the ability for users to subscribe to pages and other users, allowing for the one-way following of public figures, brands and more.

Facebook introduced Sponsored Stories in users' News Feeds. The move looks to monetize the social media site and its user base in order to make the stock more appealing to potential investors.

Yahoo found a new CEO in former PayPal president, Scott Thompson. Yahoo had been without a CEO since firing Carol Bartz in September.

A new report by eMarketer shows that adults in the U.S. now spend more time on their mobile device than looking at print media. In an average day, 65 minutes is spent using a mobile device, while 44 minutes is consumed with newspapers and magazines.

Shindigs

DOMAINfest starts January 31 and goes until February 2 in Los Angeles, and features insights into acquiring and monetizing Web traffic. Bruce Clay will speak on the session SEO Tips and Best Practices for 2012 on Thursday.

Online Marketing Summit happens February 6 to 9 in San Diego.

Social Media Strategies Summit runs February 7 to 9 in Las Vegas.

SMX West will take place in San Jose February 27 to March 1, including a one-day SEO workshop by Bruce Clay. Bruce Clay, Inc. is a gold sponsor of SMX West, and Bruce will take part in the Ask the SEOs Q&A forum on March 1.

Conversion Conference West hits San Francisco March 5 and 6.

A Federated Media event on how to reach customers through both established platforms and the independent Web takes place March 21 in San Francisco.

SES New York will be held March 19 to 23 with Bruce Clay's one-day SEO training on the 23rd. Bruce Clay, Inc. is a silver sponsor of the SES New York, and Bruce will speak on the session SEO is Dead. Long Live SEO! on March 21.

The newly updated SEOToolSet® standard and advanced training and certification course will take place in Simi Valley, CA, on March 12 to 16.

Bruce Clay Australia presents the upcoming SEO training courses in Sydney in 2012:

One-day training in Sydney: February 29, 2012
Three-day training in Sydney: May 7-9, 2012
One-day training in Sydney: July 31, 2012
One-day training in Sydney: September 4, 2012
One-day training in Sydney: November 6, 2012

Attaboys

Google+ is expected to reach 400 million users by the end of 2012. Calculations are based upon the December growth rate of 24 percent, which can be attributed to a variety of marketing efforts, positive word-of-mouth, and the holidays.

Larry Page has been named Investor’s Business Daily's CEO of the Year.

SEMPO has recognized Bruce Clay, Inc.'s SEO training course as a recommended training provider.

Bruce Clay Europe's managing director, Ale Agostini, will be talking about SEO at IED Milan, one of the world most important fashion and design universities, on January 27.

Word on the Wire

According to a recent survey of small businesses, SEO is considered the most important marketing channel. Of the businesses surveyed, 63 percent have an annual marketing budget of $2,500 or less.

Twitter launched a self-serve option on its ad platform with a handful of advertisers for beta testing. It is viewed as a much-needed step to improve revenue optimization for Promoted Product campaigns for small- to medium-sized businesses.

Twitter received a $300 million investment from Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, giving the monarch a 3 percent stake in the popular social media site.

Facebook advertising in the form of Sponsored Stories might be available on the mobile platform by March. Despite the obstacles or potential negative feedback regarding the expansion of its ad network, Facebook projects $4.27 billion in revenue for 2012.

YouTube executive Robert Kyncl expects that 90 percent of all Web traffic will be driven by online video in the very near future. This prediction emphasizes the importance of video content in online marketing.

Nielsen's "State of the Media: The Social Media Report" shows that in Italy, over 50 percent of the Italian population uses the Internet to research, work and share information. The use of social networks has greatly increased, with more than 20 million Italians saying they have a Facebook account and 86 percent of them using Facebook regularly. Most of Facebook's Italian users are between 35 and 44 years old, with the 25 to 34 year old sector behind them. Thanks to the spreading of smart phones, 40 percent of Italians use social media through mobile devices.

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Funny Blog!

2012-01-26T05:20:00.001-08:00

Funny Blog!

Can you spot the difference?

Posted: 25 Jan 2012 09:18 PM PST

2 pictures that are almost identical. Can you spot the differences?

Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog

2012-01-25T17:15:00.001-08:00

Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog

Article Writing Formulae – Help or Hindrance?

Posted: 23 Jan 2012 06:14 PM PST

Do article writing formulas work? There is no easy answer – or right answer. It all really relies on how good your SEO copywriter is. There are at least seven different styles of article, and dozens of 'optimization formulas' to work with which are effective to varying degrees. For an experienced SEO copywriter, they can be a little tricky – for novice they can be torture. There are some who claim keyword density is everything, while others are adamant that it is all about keyword placement. Others still, will insist until there dying breath it is all about the right keywords. What we believe is it has something to do with all of those ideas, but none of it means anything if it is not readable and relevant. Here are the common types of articles you will mostly deal with.

How to articles are good for SEO because people search using the term 'how to—' and also because the articles at least infer direct step by step instruction. Provide a source or two for more info, or to other articles you've written on the topic. Doing this is a quick way to give you a reputation as an online expert in your field.

People love lists, so think of top ten lists or best whatever lists or 20 ways to such and such lists. Start with a short introduction, do your list, and wrap up with a comment. Put the numerals in the title. Five, seven, ten and top twenty lists get the most searches so try to focus on those.

Play devil's advocate by setting up a premise – then demolish it in order to show your own, better way of approaching the question or problem at hand. Think along the lines of "Is waxing really better than shaving?" and then demonstrate why your side is superior after providing the meager positives of the side you oppose.

You can answer questions with examples – such as 'Should I Outsource My SEO Work? and inform your audience by telling a few short success stories then offer your help. Use stats to give your piece authority. Again, think like a person searching the web. What would they ask? Identify that and then answer it.

Interview – Interview an expert for an article, and interject your own points you want to cover. You can style it as a traditional article with heavy use of quotes, or as a Q&A. These are less common than they used to be, but are highly effective despite the extra time they take.

Keep up on fads and do quick Press Release style articles tying in relevant trends or news to your own topic or field. These have a chance of being picked up if you do a good job! SERPS love whatever is hot at the moment – exploit that to your own advantage. You can always play an angle if you look hard enough.

Inform people about the 'release' of a new completed study or survey. You can base a whole article on the results of case studies, and then add an authority site to increase the credibility. These are both very search friendly and newsworthy which is a great combination to strive for.

Whatever method you choose, make sure you use the right keywords. Be careful not to spam them out, and then write a solid piece of relevant content that is informative and engaging. That is the best formula for success there is!

What Brands Need To Know About Google+ Pages

2012-01-25T05:20:00.001-08:00

What Brands Need To Know About Google+ Pages

Posted: 24 Jan 2012 06:25 AM PST

The recent integration of social and search at Google marks a huge change in how information on the internet will be presented to us. When a logged in user now performs a search, they will be given two types of search results: the anonymous search results that we are all used to and personal search results, which are generated from information shared within that user's network of Google+ circles. This new platform presents a major marketing opportunity for brands and it requires a developed strategy just like other social media platforms. It would be daft for brands to consider Google+ as just another fad, and, in the same breadth that brands define strategies for Facebook and Twitter, the same now needs to be done for Google+.

While it is apparent that Google+ is not yet fully developed, it would appear a good time for brands to set up their Google+ page, start uploading regular content and playing about with the different features on Google+. What should you as a brand be doing now?

1. Grow Your Circles

As we have seen, Google are placing more emphasis on people. People are going to share your content; they are your audience, so make sure they are interested in your market offering and develop trust with them. What can be done to grow circles? First and most importantly, the Google+1 button must be displayed on your site. This not only helps build contacts, it helps verify your site to your page. Ask employees and partners of the organisation to share the page within their circles. In the same way a brand would develop Twitter and Facebook campaigns, the same should be done on Google+. This could include giveaways, deals, offers – anything that is exclusive to Google+ will help you gain more followers. People's pages at the moment have a higher weighting than brand pages. People need to add a page before the page can add them, so if a celebrity like Lady Gaga was to pick up your page, it could essentially drive a lot of people to your page. There is also a What's Hot feature on Google+, so featuring on this would also increase the visibility of your page.

2. Segment Their Audience

Like in Google+ for personal pages, you can divide up your contacts into 'friends', 'family', 'colleagues' etc, the same can be done with your Google+ Page contacts. At the moment, a Google+ page's circles are defined as 'following', 'customers', 'VIPs', and 'team members'. This is a good place to start, and more circles can be added to further segment your audience. This provides brands with a wonderful marketing opportunity where they can target each segment with unique and specific messages. This is important, as it allows brands to develop trust with their audience… a key factor which will encourage users to share their content.

3.Develop A Content Strategy

Content creation will become more important for brands than ever before. A content strategy should take into consideration the latest Google algorithm updates, including Panda, which favours unique content that is relevant and fresh. A regular flow of high quality content will raise your brand awareness and potentially drive traffic to your site through your Google+ page. However, the value of that content will drop if it is not 'shareable'. Making content easy to share and to +1 will widen its reach across the internet, essentially helping that content appear in more personalised results. Having said that, creating shareable content is not always an easy task and brands will need to analyse their content and adapt it. 'Ripples' is a feature that will allow them to do so. It provides visual information on how content has rippled through the web. This insight could be invaluable to brands, as they are able to see who is sharing their content.

Now that Google+ allows multiple managers to log into a brand's Google+ page, there is even more incentive for a brand to use this platform. Excluding the owner, a page can have up to 50 managers who can act on behalf of the organisation. While taking on another social platform may seem a lot of work, I believe that brands that implement and integrate their Google+ page well could really reap big rewards, not just in terms of brand awareness but also SEO. However, until the platform further develops, it will be hard to say exactly how SEO and Google+ pages will be intertwined. Google+ is about 'connections, interactions and activity' …people, essentially. Surely Google will reward in some way, brands that can prove they have quality, shareable content that has been publically approved (+1ed) by numerous people in their circles?

Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog

2012-01-24T17:25:00.001-08:00

Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog

Social Media Marketing – The New SEO

Posted: 22 Jan 2012 08:28 PM PST

Social media marketing is quickly becoming one of most important search engine marketing strategies that can be engaged in. A good SEO campaign in conjunction with a well run social media campaign is one of the best ways to get a product up the search engine rankings and seen by the greatest number of people possible. As importantly, a strong social media campaign can help improve targeted traffic returns. If you have not been concentrating on social media marketing so far, it is high time that you started concentrating on social media marketing to promote your website.

You will be able to find both general social media sites as well as niche specific social media marketing sites to work with and each carries with it a specific value. Some of the top social media sites include Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Flickr, Mixx, Stumbleupon, Technorati and hundreds of other similar sites. The key is to identify where your target audience gathers so you can get your product in front of them where they hang out rather than hoping they find you on the SERPs.

Among the many benefits of using social media, you will be able to make your brand visible to the online community. If you are launching a new business or taking your existing business online, people will not know your brand online. You have to take the initiative and deliver it to them for the quickest results. Sure, great SEO will get them to you eventually, but who wants to lose potential conversions waiting for Google to update? Even the best SEO takes time to develop.

There is also a traffic advantage when you promote your website in the best social media websites. You may get a few people that look and leave when you drive traffic through social media, but you will also get people that stay, share and convert. The key is to make sharing easy for them. The increased traffic will also help you with getting your search results up and even page rank in some cases.

Search engines love social media sites, so having a presence on them is to your benefit. For many, social media is easy to ignore because it seems like too much work, but it really only takes being a regular – meaning say 5 days a week making a few posts or comments as you go along. It also helps increase your reputation as an authority in your field.

Something else social media marketing can do for you is increase your number of links on the web. People love to share something good – give them something good and you'll see more and more links popping up. By submitting your website to no follow social media sites, you will not be able to get back links though you will be able to enjoy the other benefits such as online visibility. As you can see, there are numerous benefits associated with social media marketing and you should not ignore these benefits. Your competition is doing it and so should you.

Funny Blog!

2012-01-23T05:13:00.001-08:00

Funny Blog!

Fish for dinner?

Posted: 22 Jan 2012 11:07 AM PST

Ah, fish is very good. I event read somewhere that it makes people smarter to eat fish. I guess I should eat more then..

Anyway, what was I writing… Oh, yes! Fish! Here are some pictures of fish that represent well the expression “You are what you eat”. Very funny pictures, as you will see…

Added to the Funny Food page!

Funny Blog!

2012-01-22T05:11:00.000-08:00

Funny Blog!

Dalmatian Owner!

Posted: 22 Jan 2012 12:12 AM PST

Seems quite easy to recognize a dalmatian owner!

Well, OK, this time it was quite easy, since the dog was with it’s master, but I’m pretty sure I would have been able to recognize it anyway…

SEOptimise

2012-01-20T05:14:00.001-08:00

SEOptimise

Did Google Just Roll-Out Panda 3.2 (2012 Edition)?

Posted: 20 Jan 2012 02:26 AM PST

Yesterday Google announced a new page layout algorithm update – this is a landing page quality update, which looks at “the layout of a webpage and the amount of content you see on the page once you click on a result”. As opposed to having the need for scrolling beneath ads to get to this. Doesn’t this sound very similar to Panda though?

At Pubcon in November last year, Matt Cutts mentioned that:

"If you have ads obscuring your content, you might want to think about it," asking publishers to consider, "Do they see content or something else that's distracting or annoying?"

With Danny Sullivan following up to say:

“Many already assume that Google's Panda algorithm is already penalizing ad heavy pages. This suggests that this either is not part of the Panda algorithm or that it might be made a separate and more specific algorithm in the works.”

So reading into this, I would suggest that if this wasn’t rolled out last year - it just has been!

Google has stated that this isn’t a change which will affect every site that has ads above the fold, just those that have an excessive number of ads which obstruct users from getting to the content that they were searching for:

“This algorithmic change noticeably affects less than 1% of searches globally. That means that in less than one in 100 searches, a typical user might notice a reordering of results on the search page. If you believe that your website has been affected by the page layout algorithm change, consider how your web pages use the area above-the-fold and whether the content on the page is obscured or otherwise hard for users to discern quickly. You can use our Browser Size tool, among many others, to see how your website would look under different screen resolutions.”

So that means that if you’ve been penalised, it should be easy enough to get out of. It’s an algorithmic penalty, not a manual one – so if you fix the layout of your page, Google’s filters will pick this up the next time it’s re-crawled and whatever penalty you had previously will be lifted. We’ve seen this many times with other algorithm penalties – and once you figured out what’s caused the drop in rankings, it’s not too difficult to get out of. It’s the manual penalties you want to avoid, Google take note!

And overall it’s not likely to affect a huge number of sites (1% predicted by Google), but it looks like affiliates and ad monetised sites are those most open to suffering. So is this the latest, unofficial panda update? Maybe Google has just got bored of keeping track of the numbers now that it’s 2012 – what do you think?

Image credit: David Allen

Time Management for SEO

Posted: 18 Jan 2012 02:23 PM PST

Over the last few months I have been trying to work on improving my time management skills, not only at work but in my personal life as well. I am forever being told that I am late or don’t do anything on time, and that is just from the wife.

So I took to improving my time management skills, and thought that I would share with you a few techniques that I am using now in my working life.

Time Planning

Whether you have your time scheduled out for you by management or you prefer to manage your time yourself, ensure that you plan your work in advance.

I use a spreadsheet within Google Docs to create a monthly calendar that I populate with the hours that I need to complete, for the forthcoming month.

By planning your month in advance, you know exactly what is in store for you on a daily basis. It provides you with the flexibility to move your schedule around to suit the needs of your clients and any unexpected changes that may happen.

Email

Communicating via email is a great way to get information to and from your clients and contacts quickly, but it can be a massive distraction.

I, like most others, get distracted by emails and tend to reply immediately to any queries that come through, taking your attention away from what you are currently doing.

If this happens several times throughout the day you are potentially taking an hour or more of productivity out of your day.

Recommedation: Check your emails at certain times during the day, and closing it during the other times.
e.g
9:00 – 10:00am Open
10:00am 12:30pm – Closed
1:30pm – 2:00pm – Open
2:00pm – 5:00pm – Closed
5:00pm – 5:30pm – Open

Email Categories/Labels

Prioritising emails can help save you a large amount of time. Most people, myself included, set up rules that move emails straight into allocated folders. I find this a very useful trick to keep my inbox organised, allowing me to find specific emails quickly.

As well as using rules, I would recommend using the categories (outlook) or labels (gmail) to separate emails that need to be actioned.

Recommendation:
Create two categories called “To Action” and “Completed”. When you recieve an email that requires you to do an action, then assign it to the “To Action” category. This will provide a constant reminder that you have emails to action, and work that needs to be done. Once you have actioned the emails you can change the category to “Completed”, this will allow you to see all the emails that you actioned. This will help you to keep track of the emails that you need to action and the ones that you have completed, ensuring that your inbox is efficient.

To-Do Lists

To me, knowing what I am doing on a daily/weekly basis is an essential part of managing my time correctly.

Personally I think the best way of organising your work is by having a to-do list. I am such a big believer of this that I actually have three to-do list methods. I know it’s a bit over the top but hey, it seems to work for me. :)

1. Remember the Milk:
I use Remember the Milk, an online to-do list mainly for personal use, including picking up the milk or feeding the cat.

I do however, use it for work when I am on the move and need to add something to my to-do list. Using the iPhone application I record anything that I think of whilst I am not at the office or don’t have my notepad with me.

If I have made any notes whilst I am out, I transfer any tasks that have been created to the most relevant to-do list.

2. Project Management Tools – Monthly To-do Lists:
There are many project management tools available, but I am a big fan of Basecamp. It gives you a lot of functionality including the ability to keep track of all communication, files, calendar meetings and to-do lists.

In Basecamp I plan out the next three months worth of work for all my clients, split into monthly to-do lists. Doing this allows me to tick off the tasks on completion.

An example monthly to-do list might include the following:
- Monthly Report
- Monthly Client Meeting
- “keyword1″ link building
- “keyword2″ link building
- Keyword Research Review

Although the list tends to be a lot bigger, you get the general gist of what I mean about the monthly to-do lists.

Using project management tools such as Basecamp allows you to share the work that needs to be done with the rest of your team, whilst also providing visibility to the client on what work has and will be carried out.

3. Written To-do List – Weekly:
As mentioned above I create monthly to-do lists that plan out the next three to six months work. Because I am planning for the future these tend to be high level lists.

At the end of each week I take time to look at the monthly to-do lists and write a weekly task list on my notepad for the following week. This would generally include more detailed information.

Example:
Client A
Keyword Research Review
- Long tail keywords
- Analyse keywords generating conversion
- Analyse potential ROI
“keyword1″ link building
- Blogger Outreach
- Guest blogging x3
- www.example.com
- www.example1.com
- www.example2.com

Time Sheeting

Keeping track of what you do for your clients on an hourly/daily/weekly basis is important, not just for you but for your agency.

There are many ways that you can keep track of the time you have spent on a particular project, either manually using spreadsheets or using a database driven tool.

My personal preference is using a tool called Harvest to track time. Harvest allows you to do much more than just time tracking. It includes invoicing, expenses, reports, etc, which are all very valuable. To me the time tracking aspect of the product is great – you create projects and tasks that you record time against as and when you work on a specific client.

As you begin to track your time against the projects you are working on you can see how much time has been spent, how much is left and where the time has been spent. From a project management perspective the account manager can see what the team has been working on and who has done what very quickly by running a quick query.

These are just five techniques that I believe can help improve your time management when working on your projects. Now I just need to solve my personal time management skills to make the wife happy :).

What techniques do you have for managing your time? Do you agree with my suggestions? I look forward to hearing your thoughts and opinions in the comments below.

Image credit – Roby Ferrari on Flickr.

Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog

2012-01-19T17:28:00.001-08:00

Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog

Being the Twitter King – Twitter and Your SEO

Posted: 19 Jan 2012 04:30 PM PST

If you're preparing to take the dive into the world of Twitter but have no idea how or what really makes for a successful Twitter campaign you're not alone. Most people are lost when they start out – and that is okay, but being informed is better. When most people think about what makes for a successful Twitter account they generally think of it in terms of one thing – how many followers do I have? Having a load of followers is nice and it surely can win some bragging points, but is that really all it takes to be a Twitter king? Doesn't the quality of your audience count too?

Think of Twitter in terms of a car dealership. Your account is equivalent to car showroom. You try to tweet as many interesting and relevant things as possible to not just get the attention of people passing by, you want to convert those visitors into clients. It's not that much different than the guy with the wacky inflatable arm waving prop on the corner of his lot trying to draw you in.

Just as having 1,000 people visit your showroom without making a sale is a bust. Having 1,000 Twitter followers that do not re-tweet your posts or ever put a penny in your pocket are pretty useless. The whole point of Twitter is getting people engaged so you can get them to a conversion point. Would you enter any venture that saps your resources to get zero return? So what do you need to do to make Twittter work for you?

Start with a professional profile. Use your corporate logo as the photo and then come up with the most engaging description you possibly can in 160 characters or less. Make sure you include a link to your website in the field provided for it. Allow people to direct message you. It helps encourage engagement. If necessary, hire someone to do it for you. This is going to your company's outward presentation to the world so it is worth spending a few dollars to make it the best it can be and running professionally. Keep in mind that Google will index this, so it is definitely not something you want to play around with and skimp on. SEO does count! Even with the birth of G+, twitter does have a Google presence.

Next, get to know your competition. Too many people never even consider looking for who on Twitter is competing for the same keywords as they are. To do this, type http://search.twitter.com Type in your keywords and see who is hitting them and how effectively they are doing it. Figure out what you ned to do in order to do it better than them. Next, begin tweeting articles from around the web related to your target audience using titles you have optimized. Be sure to credit the original source! This is a great way to get industry specific followers. Once you get them reciprocating, the odds are you will get some of their followers as well. This makes it easier to get your business tweets shared around later – reciprocation is big.

It is important to tweet on a regular basis so people keep your name and product fresh in their mind. If you aren't there, it's almost like you don't exist. If you are asked questions, make sure you answer all that are relevant. Don't waste time if it is a, excuse the phrase, "stupid question." Your odds of converting increase greatly if you actually are social when using social media. While Twitter has not banned the use of hash tags in tweets, it is best to keep them to a minimum. People that use hash tags in their tweets all the time are often looked upon as spammers – and it simply does not pay to get that tag. Playing nice and keeping it clean goes a long way.

When you begin following people, make sure those that you follow are people that can do something to raise your corporate profile on Twitter. Avoid bots and people that you wouldn't want associated to your business in the real world. Keep in mind that the people you follow on your personal account may be of no value to your business account – keep them separate! Like anything else, keep your eye focused on quality and your campaign will be all it should be. You'll be a twitter king, or at least a prince, in no time at all!

Niche Linking and Social Marketing – When Worlds Collide

Posted: 19 Jan 2012 02:28 AM PST

The use of large scale Social Media Markets is a power that cannot be denied when done correctly. Some businesses have gone from small local brands to international hits via SMM. But you have to ask yourself if that is really the best way to spend your time, energy and money? Sure the appeal of a community with tens if not hundreds of millions of people is an awesome draw, but is it the right draw for you? Is establishing in those markets enough on it's own to carry you to ultimate success? Will it keep you ahead of your competition? Why deal with a community of several thousand when platforms with millions are available?

The easy answer is no. The large SMMs like Facebook and Twitter are the jumping off point. You need a presence in those markets, but what you really need is a strong link building strategy – particularly niche link building. Niche link building is the prime rib on the pate that is social networking. This is what helps you gain some page rank and more importantly authority in your field,

Niche social sites immediately put you in contact with people that already have a strong interest in what you have to offer. You are not spending your energy trying to get them to like adult sized pajamas for instance. They already want them, they just want more options when it comes to buying them. That is as close to a "gimmie" sale as there is. By not even having to clear the hurdle that is generating interest in a product you have cut your workload immeasurably. That benefits your fiscal bottom line.

Once you begin interacting with and converting a few sales from that niche crowd, you have tapped into a market that is more likely than not going to recommend you and your products to their friends of a similar interest. People love to share a deal, cool item or great sale. They will take care of doing some of your work for you if you provide them with a great consumer experience. If you gain the loyalty of one niche buyer, you get them and two friends they bring along in many cases. Without asking, they will distribute your link for you to platforms where it is not only relevant, but usually with a glowing testimonial. That is hard to beat. Free promotion is good – but not guaranteed.

You can crack niche markets one of three ways that returns excellent results:

You can create your own network of forums and blogs. This is only ever a viable suggestion if the niche you are trying to crack has nothing out there and that is beyond unlikely. Nearly everything has some presence on the web and this can be quite time consuming.

The second option is to Google your keyword accompanied by "chat", "Forums, "discussions" "community" and similar phrases. At that point you need to begin involving yourself in those communities enough to be noted as an active and responsible member – not just a link spammer. That takes time, energy and a load of patience. This is a great way to get established, but because of the massive amount of time it can take it is often a job outsourced to a professional SMM.

The third option is to hire someone to do all the social media management for you instead of just portions of it. Yes it costs money, but when weighed against the cost in terms of time, energy and hiring a company that may already have established inroads in your niche community, farming the project out is often the best way to get fast results. These are people that interact for a living – they can almost always do it better, faster and cheaper than you when compared against the opportunity costIt is not so much about how you go about your niche specific marketing plan as it is that you just do it! Sitting on the sidelines does not translate to conversions.

Funny Blog!

2012-01-19T05:12:00.001-08:00

Funny Blog!

Facebook Shower Curtain

Posted: 19 Jan 2012 01:36 AM PST

Cool! A Facebook Shower Curtain. There even is a small hole to put your head! No doubt, everything is getting “social” now!

Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog

2012-01-18T17:08:00.001-08:00

Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog

Facebook, SEO and Traffic – Stats Don’t Lie

Posted: 17 Jan 2012 04:25 PM PST

Your Facebook page is all set up and ready for action. You built a following, and now you're wondering what is it all for? Are you really getting traffic to the point of sale site the way you need to? Are you actually making salesand seeing any money come in from all of this? Do all those "likes" really mean anything of significance or are they hollow? Does it all translate into being something that is actually worth your resources, or just an elaborate game?

Being real for a second, Facebook fans are pretty easy to compile. The key is not about grabbing the most fans, but rather the right fans. The quality of your audience does make a big difference. In the beginning, any fan will do because your main focus is to look like you have a ton of activity. How you are perceived matters. Once a base of followers is built up though, what are they really worth to you? Thanks to Jessica Lee and a friend who shared survey data from over 4,000 respondents, there are some metrics that demonstrate the actual value of Facebook fans which reinforces two principles – not all fans are created equally, and a good fan is money in the bank.

Before diving into the numbers, the data collected was from B2C companies alone and not B2B's. How it may correlate to B2B type companies is something that is going to require more research. That is something we are really looking forward to seeing.

* Fans are 41% more likely to recommend a product they like to their friends than non-fans.
* Fans have a brand loyalty exceeding that of non-fans by 28%
* The average fan that "likes" items spends $71.84 more than non-fans on average.

The value of a fan goes beyond those numbers however, and likes on Facebook are not all equal as we stated earlier. If you already have a well recognized strong brand name outside of Facebook, likes tend to mean a little less. You generally already had a fan base before ever launching a Facebook campaign, and the likes you have tend to be in large part from people that are already using your product. One also has to consider the value of fan interaction when a company has an established fan base prior to Facebook. In this type of case, engagement is more toward customer support. It may not be directly making sales, but keeping existing customers happy and informed does indirectly help sales.

A Fan that "likes" an item once per year and visits the page maybe once every five weeks is not a terribly valuable commodity. What you are looking for are fans that may visit about every two weeks and "like" around ten items each year. Then the analysis can go even further into how many friends your fans have. The more friends they have, the more people there are that potentially see their "likes" making them more valuable. The reach of a particular person liking an item is important – the greater their reach, the more valuable their likes are.

The best strategy going forward with any serious Facebook campaign is to seek outside help to provide some insight into who your fans are and what they are really doing for you? You need answers two important questions like whether or not your fans can actually afford what you are selling? If they cannot, how valuable are they to you? How do you get the sporadically active fan more active? Is your fan base too big to manage on your own and is that a possible reason why you are not converting as much as your raw numbers would indicate you should be? These are all issues your professional SMM can analyze and act on to get you the best results.

In the final analysis, your fans are only as good as you compel them to be. Getting a ton of "likes" is good and valuable in a certain sense, but there is a lot of gray area between getting someone to hit the like button and visiting your site – and then opening up their wallet. Don't discount Facebook like so many people do thinking it's a fad or that some other network will knock them off. If you're missing out on Facebook, you're missing out on selling to the world.

Funny Blog!

2012-01-18T05:33:00.001-08:00

Funny Blog!

Funny Aquariums!

Posted: 18 Jan 2012 01:47 AM PST

Hum… some people have strange taste when it comes to home decorating. Funny aquariums can sure improve the look of a house, but sometimes, well, it is way too weird. See by yourself these funny fish thanks!

SEOptimise

2012-01-18T05:07:00.001-08:00

SEOptimise

Why SEOs should be conducting user testing research

Posted: 17 Jan 2012 07:07 AM PST

'Build websites for users, not search engines' is the advice continually propounded by insiders at Google. As SEOs, we're used to looking at websites and analysing how they would be viewed by a search engine. In actual fact, though, there's a fairly big overlap between what's helpful for a user and what's helpful for a search engine, and the user and search engine experiences can often mirror each other. That means that it's often worth carrying out user testing research in the initial stages of your SEO project to gain valuable insights into how real visitors view and use your site.

User testing isn't just about usability for humans or identifying bugs; parts of your website that are difficult to use can hide potential SEO problems that you may not have spotted. User testing can help shed light on the user behaviour behind the dry metrics you see in Google Analytics, and its benefits in conversion rate optimisation are obvious. It's also worth noting that if your client is taking some convincing that they should make a change to their website for SEO reasons, having concrete evidence from the word of users' mouths might prove more persuasive.

User testing research takes people from your website's demographic and gives you the benefit of several fresh pairs of eyes to enable you to see your website (or your client's) as your target audience sees it. Sure, it can only ever be a small sample size, but the insights you can gain from user testing can nevertheless be valuable. Here are just a few of the issues and insights we've uncovered with user testing for some of our clients…

High bounce rate
The reason for a high bounce rate isn't always immediately obvious – particularly if you've viewed that site many times and have become, as it were, 'immune' to it. I conducted user testing research for one of my clients and it transpired that, upon viewing the homepage for the first time, users weren't immediately sure what that my client's site was actually about. This was mainly because the imagery on the homepage was misleading, and the headings on the page weren't obvious either. If users are having problems figuring out what a site is about, the chances are that Google spiders are too. We'd spotted the lack of optimised headings, but the wider issue of the imagery was only identified by getting real users' first impressions. Whether bounce rate has any meaningful impact on rankings is beyond the scope of this post, but I'm sure you catch my drift.

High time on site
Similarly, if people are spending a lot of time on your site, you can only really speculate as to why. Is it because they're are engaging more with your content? Or is it actually because they can't find what they're looking for? User testing may be able to help you find out.

Keywords are friendly to users, not just search engines…
…Otherwise why would people type them in? Keywords are revealing about user behaviour, and search volumes for differently worded search terms are revealing about how people think. We're obviously used to optimising header tags to target keywords, but this can often have benefits to users, too – because keywords can give them a clearer idea of what each section of a site will be about (e.g. "our products" versus "shoes for sale"). Within reason, using keywords to help your users find their way around your site makes sense, and helps avoid confusion over the purpose of the site (which was something user testing highlighted for one of our clients).

Hiding content behind registration
A lengthy registration process for one client highlighted the issues surrounding hiding content behind a log-in. During user testing, users were frustrated by the number of details they had to provide to get at the full-length content, and one even said that if he hadn't been paid to look at the site, he'd have given up long before he got to the end of the process. So the issue of content being hidden went beyond an SEO issue and it became a possible conversion rate problem. In an ideal world, we'd have liked to have seen all that content immediately in the public domain, for both users and search engines; this not being possible for legal reasons, we recommended a simplified sign-up process and optimisation of the visible content instead.

So how does one conduct user testing research? We've used http://www.usertesting.com/, which costs $39 per user and allows you to set your target demographic and specific instructions/tasks that you want users to accomplish (e.g. find a particular product or page). You get a video of the user's screen as they navigate your site, and a soundtrack of their voice commenting on what they see. This sort of insight obviously delves deeper than dry metrics, user journeys and even heatmaps, because you get explanations rather than straightforward identification of patterns.

Have you conducted user testing research? Did you find it helpful, and did it uncover anything you'd not spotted?

Image credit – mastrobiggo on Flickr.

Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog

2012-01-17T17:20:00.001-08:00

Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog

Your Blog Can Mean More Revenue!

Posted: 16 Jan 2012 07:31 PM PST

It is often asked why blogs are so important for businesses, and the answer is very simple – blogs equal a higher potential revenue. Did that get your attention? It should, because it is true. Simply slapping together a blog and expecting magic to transform your sales numbers overnight however is unrealistic. Today we will take a look at why blogs are effective tools and what it takes to have a successful blog.

A blog is another avenue for traffic. The more streets you have that lead to your main site, the higher your potential is to increase sales. That is a pretty easy concept to grasp, right? Even if your main site is highly ranked, it still is not drawing in every potential client possible. Having one blog leading back to your site is good, two is better, and several is really taking the bull by the horns. Think of it this way – one dollar is good – ten dollars is better. It's the same concept.

Another nice thing about blogs is that you can use them to get out information about products that may not really have a appropriate space on your site for the purpose. You may not always want to tinker with your main site so having a blog that addresses that need works perfectly. Another thing to keep in mind is that a well maintained blog can be monetized via programs like Adsense or other advertising opportunities and over time become self sufficient or even profitable entities. This isn't the norm, but it does happen, and if you can get some revenue back, you have to grab it.

What you need to do when setting up a blog is have a well thought out plan. Know the audience you want to target with your blog(s) as best as you can. Focus the content to attract those people, and as importantly, keep your blog fresh. You should plan on adding new content at least 5 times each week – one update per day is optimal. You can go with less, but the main key is consistency. Establish a presence and maintain it.

Create a space where visitors feel comfortable posting comments, and good or bad, make sure you respond to those comments. Consider using your blog to give away some freebies – people love almost anything that is free. Run a weekly contest, randomly choose from those who have posted, or use whatever criteria you desire. The key is that a blog that is interactive is a blog that gets bookmarked and passed around which leads to you getting more links, more exposure and almost assuredly more sales. it's a lot cheaper form of promotion than many other options.

Once you've established a thriving blog, you can work to make it more viable for conversions and increase its value as time goes on until you wonder how you ever got by without it! Invest the time – your business deserves it!

Don’t Let Your Website Be Sad

Posted: 15 Jan 2012 07:22 PM PST

If your website is sad, as a webmaster, so are you. If you make mistakes when you are optimizing your website, you're going to have some pretty sad results, that is for certain! Knowing how to avoid pitfalls that commonly cause your website to perform under the levels it should be reaching is not that hard and is essential if you want to keep your customers happy and your website running efficiently!

It is easy to make mistakes when search engine optimizing your site – everyone has a few of them hanging around they'd rather forget. Even when you have the best of intentions to get things right, there are a few very common SEO mistakes people make without ever realizing they have made a mistake. The good news is that once you learn the right way it is easy to avoid making them again – or for the first time. Better yet, they can be corrected as well.

The first big mistake is repeating keywords in your head tag more than one time. There is no benefit to the repetition regardless of what some self appointed gurus may espouse. The SERPs them self tell us point blank it is a wasted practice. It only takes using a keyword one time to clue in the search engines that your site is relevant to that keyword. It isn't any more complicated than that.

If there is any way to avoid it, and there is, do not use JavaScript links on your website at all. When you use JavaScript links you are merely adding something to your site that search engines are not equipped to crawl. In the world of search engines, if they cannot crawl it, it does not really exist. if it doesn't exist, it's not doing you much good.

Avoid using Flash when you build your website because that it is another thing search engines cannot crawl. Staying on that theme, if you are using frames, the odds are you are once again losing out on some search engines crawling and indexing your site. They are not necessary, so you are best advised to avoid using them. Yes, they may look cool, but looks are less important than functionality.

There is no escaping the fact that you have to use unique content on your site. Duplicate content will kill your hopes of a strong page rank as quickly as any SEO sin. Duplication in any way is going to do immense harm as soon as search engines spot it, so invest the extra time to keep it original throughout. Similarly, use a unique title page for every page – that cannot be stressed enough. It's something simple and it pays huge dividends to you for the extra effort.

Finally, even legitimate redirects are going to be viewed as a malpractice. When a page redirect takes a visitor to a page other than the one he/she intended to visit, search engines will not be able differentiate the intent. As much as any SEO mistake, this is one you absolutely have to avoid. It's not convenient, but you need to bite the bullet and rebuild in these cases for best results.

SEOptimise

2012-01-17T05:13:00.001-08:00

SEOptimise

How Is adCenter Different to AdWords?

Posted: 16 Jan 2012 06:08 AM PST

So you're advertising on Google, but you want to branch out to Bing? There's a new audience for you there, with less competition and less cost!

Microsoft adCenter is in many ways similar to AdWords. Your ads appear on searches that match your positive keywords but not your negative keywords. Your account contains campaigns, which contain ad groups, which contain keywords and ads. Your ad's position and the price of a click are determined by your bid and previous performance. But there are many differences – here are some of the most important ones for when you're starting out.

Markets and Locations

In adCenter, there are separate options for Market and for Location. The Market determines what language you can use and which websites your ads appear on. Location determines where the users are.

So if your Market is 'UK – English', and you target all Locations, then your ads will appear on English websites like uk.msn.com to visitors from anywhere in the world. If the Market is 'UK – English' and the Location is United Kingdom, the ads will be on the same websites, but only visitors from the UK will see your ads.

The current Markets are USA (in English or Spanish), Canada (French or English), UK (English), France (English) and Singapore (English). You choose a campaign's Market when you create the campaign, and it can't be changed afterwards. Location can be set at campaign or ad group level, and can be changed at any time.

Learn more here.

Normalisation

All search terms and keywords – regardless of match type – are normalised. AdCenter will ignore CapITAlisAtion, áccents and most #punctuation. Note that plurals are left unchanged.

Apostrophes are treated differently to other punctuation. If an apostrophe appears in a name or in the middle of a word, it will be left, so "O'Brian" is different from "OBrian" or "O Brian". If an apostrophe is used in a possessive, the non-possessive form will be used, e.g. "Keiko's" is the same as "Keiko" but not "Keikos" or "Keiko s".

Words like 'the', 'of', 'what', 'for' and 'a' are ignored. This means adCenter sees no difference between the searches "Keyword", "How to Keyword" and "What is Keyword for?" – any of these terms can trigger an ad that has 'Keyword' on exact match. Negative keywords are normalised the same as positive ones, so you can't stop this.

Microsoft's explanation of normalisation is here.

Dynamic Text and Placeholders

In AdWords, you can use Dynamic Keyword Insertion to put terms from the search query into your ad. AdCenter has a similar feature, which allows extra information.

Firstly, you can put {keyword} into your ad, and this will be replaced by the triggered keyword when the ad appears.

Secondly, adCenter will let you give your keywords three Placeholder parameters, which can then be inserted into adverts. You might have keywords that are misspellings, and use a Placeholder for the correct spelling to appear in the advert. Or you could have keywords for different products, and use Placeholders for their price or special offer information.

Microsoft's help page for dynamic text is here.

And Some More…

Negative keywords can be phrase or exact match, but not broad. Positive keywords can be broad match, phrase match or exact match (although broad match is a bit less broad than it is in AdWords).

AdCenter has demographic data available on searchers logged into Microsoft or MSN accounts. This means there are demographic targeting options, where you can exclude or change bids based on age group or gender. You can also get age group and gender reports.

AdCenter gives search query reports (available in the Report tab), but they do not give search query information for search terms that generate no clicks. The number of impressions given is not the actual number of impressions for a search term; adCenter only reports the number of impressions that occurred within an hour of a click.

Chelsea Blacker Joins SEOptimise London Team

Posted: 16 Jan 2012 01:35 AM PST

We’ve been quietly working away on a few things here at SEOptimise during the last couple of months, so it’s probably about time we made a couple of announcements!

Firstly, you may have noticed that in December we opened a new London office in Paddington. Alongside this, we recruited two new SEO execs – Gillian Cook and Pak Hou Cheung – both of whom have written some great posts on the SEOptimise blog already.

And now we are delighted to welcome Chelsea Blacker to head our London SEO team. Chelsea has a huge amount of experience in SEO, having worked within the search industry agency-side for the last 5 years. In addition to this Nick Clarke will be joining the Oxford team as a content writer later this month.

So following a very successful 2011 which included some great new client wins, conference speaking at leading industry events and topped off with a search award - we have plenty to look forward to for a very exciting year ahead!

Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog

2012-01-16T18:31:00.001-08:00

Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog

Link Requests

Posted: 12 Jan 2012 05:52 PM PST

Link exchange requests are sent to the trash soon after being sent many times. Many people send mass link exchange requests that are simply spam. We can dress them up all we want, but the majority of people think "spam" immediately and hit the delete button. Truth be told, these belong in the trash! If you want to be taken seriously, you will have to do better than a form letter with no individual touch.

In order to get links from authority sites, you must send link exchange requests – this is just the way it works. The secret of successful requests is to produce a link exchange message that is won't look like spam and sit in file 13 forever. You need to be read!

1. Secure the reader's attention

The first thing you should let the recipient know is what they get out of responding to your request. There has to be something useful in this for them. Focus on benefits, not the features of your site – what do they care about your features? Those features don't help them get traffic or a better PR. Tell the recipient how your website can solve his problems, and aim for their ego- if you tell them that you only plan to link eight or ten sites and they have been selected, that makes the request seem customized and more appealing! Everyone loves being a part of a select group.

2. Grab the reader's interest

If you want people to read your link exchange message it will have to stand out. "Dear webmaster" is not going to cut it. take the time to find the recipient's real name and then use it! Go the extra mile and write a personal message. Starting with "Dear webmaster" makes it all the more likely that it will be moved to the trash. Use a real email address with a real name as the sender address – the more professional, the better. Free email addresses from funky mail clients and email addresses with numbers look spammy. Keep everything aboveboard and transparent.

3. Create the need and wish

The recipient of your link exchange message won't react to your request if they have no need or wish to. That is nothing more than common sense – link juice is to valuable to toss around. You have to create this, preferably by doing something in advance as a gesture of goodwill. You can kick a webmaster up a notch from interest to feeling invested by downloading his ebook, subscribing to his newsletter or RSS feed, or asking permission to reprint a quote. They will feel more need to reciprocate if you have already done something. Be accessible, and show trust; include your phone number in your email to make the process seem even more sincere.

Don't make the recipient have to think. Supply copy/paste HTML code with your link information to make the linking process as easy as possible, but make it clear this is only for their convenience and of course they should use what linking methods they are most comfortable with. Give them the appearance of choice, most times they will be pleased with that and then do things exactly as you requested.

Once you have established a rapport with the first webmaster you approach, you should find it easier to build the next relationship and the one after that. Yes, it takes longer than automated spamming asking for links, but the rewards and response are much higher when you take the time to do it right! The results and benefits will be obvious – you'll be glad you went the extra mile!

Funny Blog!

2012-01-15T05:32:00.000-08:00

Funny Blog!

Funny Fake Restaurants

Posted: 14 Jan 2012 11:14 PM PST

You think all McDonald's restaurants are about the same all around the world? Well, maybe for the "real" McDonald's, but here are a few pictures that will help you notice that you entered a wrong McDonald's.

Very funny fake restaurants, some of these owners really have lots of imagination!

Added to the Funny Food page!

SEOptimise

2012-01-14T05:14:00.001-08:00

SEOptimise

A Collection of 47 Helpful Google Search Operator Queries

Posted: 13 Jan 2012 06:19 AM PST

To be honest, from my school days of using Google right up to today, the search engine giant has not once stopped impressing me. From its algorithmic updates for a better user experience to its cloud based computing services, Google has captured my life and sadly, probably my soul.

Today I will be sharing with you a collection of my favourite Google search operator queries, not only to help open your mind to the powers of Google being much more than a search engine, but also to show you that knowing some of these queries will help you become better in the art of SEO.

6 Starter Operator Search Operator Queries

These queries are particularly helpful because they’re generally quick and easy short cuts in narrowing your search results:

Query	What does it mean?
"best practice seo"	Searches for this exact phrase within “”
mobile -phone	Inclusion of – means searches for the word mobile but nothing following after phone
seo ~glossary	Brings up a glossary of information regarding that word
define:seo	Definition of that word or phrase
OR / \|	Returns search queries with one of the given terms
related:	Helps list web pages related to the URL

5 Basic Mathematics Search Operator Queries

Google search provides users with the ability to calculate simple maths without the need for your calculator:

Query	What does it mean?
+ / – / * //	Simple mathematics rules
% of	Percentage of a number
^ / **	Raise to the power of a number
square root of number	Find the square root of a number
reciprocal of (number)	Find the reciprocal value of a number

4 Advanced Mathematics Search Operator Queries

Surprisingly, Google does not stop at the most simple of mathematics and is there for the more complicated algorithmic-based equations:

Query	What does it mean?
sin, cos, tan	You’re able to use the trigonometric functions within a search
ln(number)	Utilises the natural logarithm of the number
log(number)	Utilises the base 10 logarithm
number!	Returns a factorial number

7 Converting Tool Search Operator Queries

Google offers users the ability in search to convert various units:

Query	An example, search in Google:
Currency converter	36 yuan to dollars
Data converter	Convert 81 Mb to Gb
Distance converter	68m to cm
Speed converter	38mph in kph
Temperature converter	18 Celsius in Fahrenheit
Time converter	89 days in minutes
Weight converter	8 stones in kg

7 Everyday Helpful Search Operator Queries

I find these operator queries particularly useful everyday, and maybe you will too:

Query	What does it mean?	An example, search in Google:
file:	Results show various file type extensions	file:linkbuilding.pdf
movie:	Results show movies in your local area	movie:oxford
weather:	Current weather forecast of that area	weather:oxford
time:	Local time in that country	time:china
sunrise:	Sunrise in that area	sunrise:oxford
map:	Map of that area	map:oxford
safesearch:	Search without any adult content	safesearch: sex education

2 Google News Search Operator Queries

These search operator queries are restricted to only Google News – very useful when you want to find news from a particular country or source-specific articles:

Query	What does it mean?	An example, search in Google news:
location:	Discover news posts from a location	Location:china
source:	Discover news posts from a source	Source:search engine land

4 Blog Search Operator Queries

When searching for particular blog-related links, these operator queries can help you search by author, post type and blog title:

Query	What does it mean?	An example, search in Google:
inpostauthor:	Search for this specific author	inpostauthor:”kevin gibbons”
inblogtitle:	Search for this specific blog title	inblogtitle:seoptimise
inpostitle:	Search for posts with these titles	inpostitle: on page optimisation
blogurl:	Search for blogs under a specific URL	blogurl:seoptimise.com

12 SEO Operator Queries

As an SEO practitioner, one of my most powerful search tools has to be Google itself. Just knowing these search operator queries exist is only quarter of the battle. But understanding how they work and best practices is where you can excel:

Query	What does it mean?
site:URL	Search only one site or domain
site:URL (image search)	Shows results for images on that website
allintitle:	All search results must appear in the title of the page
intitle:	The following keywords must appear in the title of the page
allintext:	The following must appear within the text page
intext:	The search term has to appear in the title of the page
allinurl:	The search term appears in the URL
allinanchor:	The following search terms must all appear in anchor text links with the page
inanchor:	All the following search terms all must appear in anchor text links with the page
cache:	Displays Google's cached version of a webpage
info:	Provides information on that specific page
link:	Finds the pages that link to that URL

Top Tip to Remember: In Google search you are not restricted to just one query per search. For example, you could have multiple queries in one search – e.g. site:seoptimise.com “web trends” -ppc

Thanks for reading this and please do share some of your favourite search operator queries!

*Image credit: niknack on Flickr.

30 SEO Resolutions for 2012

Posted: 13 Jan 2012 06:05 AM PST

Like most people, SEO practitioners reflect on the past year and attempt to improve their skills in the new year.

If you haven't made up your mind what exactly you want to change in the coming year, check out these suggestions for 30 SEO resolutions for 2012 that draw on modern industry best practices and growing trends.

Content Creation

I will create less shallow content and more quality “one of a kind” pieces of content.
I will create more content using multiple rich media such as images, audio, videos and the like.
I will write shorter, more readable postings instead of long, hard to read ones that nobody can follow.
I will create more content on site and waste less time on third party sites that require me to give away "User Generated Content".
I will provide less average sales copy and create more outstanding content for inbound marketing purposes.

Link Building

I will perform fewer tedious tasks such as contacting unwitting webmaster about link exchanges and provide more appealing incentives for people to link to me voluntarily.
I will go after more citations and fewer links to get traction on local search and Google Places instead of just the organic index that gets less exposure.
I will make sure my old inbound links are still there and also fix 404 errors on my own site.
I will link out more, not only to get noticed and more links back, but to reach out honestly to like-minded industry professionals – after all, we don't compete most of time.
I won't sneak in "free links" anymore on unsuspecting sites that would not voluntarily link to me.

Social Media

I will market less and contribute more in order to become a valuable contributor to social media.
I will get organised while social networking and not just waste time drifting from update to update on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.
I will follow fewer hypes and not just jump in on every social site that web celebrities want me to. I will go where the real value is.
I won't just share links all the time on social sites but instead use them in a balanced way, adding networking and conversation to my daily habits.
I will schedule times for my social media activity instead of just dropping in and getting distracted all the time during work hours.

Blogging

I will blog more regularly instead of just updating my social media profiles on third party sites.
I will guest blog on other blogs, both the already important ones and the not yet very well known.
I will focus my blog writing on the desired outcome – not just blog for the page views and social shares.
I will socialise with other bloggers both online and in real life to establish lasting relationships.
I won't check web analytics daily or more often and obsess about metrics that only make sense to check in the long term or every other week.

Tools

I will use fewer tools and more techniques. SEO and SMO are still about how you use them, not how many tools you use.
I will use the tools I prefer more in-depth instead of just scratching the surface of the features.
I will take more time for social media analytics and monitoring and find out what real humans say about me, my contributions and why.
I will not trust tools with everything and make sure to cross check data and compare with other outcomes.
I will recommend only the tools I truly use, not the ones I'm an affiliate of.

SEO

I will perform more SEO tests and publish the results to the benefit of the SEO community, no matter how vague the outcomes are.
I will provide more advice to educate the clients and their teams and make them more self-sufficient.
I will share my techniques, tools and case studies, not just to show off but to get recognition from the SEO community.
I will rant and complain less about Google, other SEOs and bloggers and instead keep on improving my own arsenal.
I will build a recognisable brand instead of just relying on generic rankings on Google.

These resolutions are written in the first person to make it easier for you to identify with them and to apply them yourself. They are not necessarily my personal resolutions.

On a side note: this is my last post on SEOptimise after more than four years. I hope you liked my posts. If you did, you can keep on reading my own blog over at SEO 2.0.

The SEOptimise team will take care of this blog completely from now on, so there won’t be any shortage of posts.

* Creative Common image by Aftab Uzzaman.

SEOptimise

2012-01-13T05:03:00.001-08:00

SEOptimise

What Signals Are Google Sending About Image Search?

Posted: 12 Jan 2012 05:21 AM PST

In recent months, Google has made a distinct effort to publicly communicate the small changes they have been making to their algorithms. In a bid to appear more transparent, Google has published monthly updates on its blog with regard to these changes. With special attention on these updates, and taking into consideration yesterday's big social search announcement, this post ponders the signals being sent to us around Google Image Search.

The first mention of these subtle changes came in November, when Google cited one change as:

"Retiring a signal in Image search: As the web evolves, we often revisit signals that we launched in the past that no longer appear to have a significant impact. In this case, we decided to retire a signal in Image Search related to images that had references from multiple documents on the web." It would appear that by Google is trying to reduce issues of duplicate content by making sure the same image doesn’t appear twice.

It was during this month that Google also rolled out the +1 button to Image search. Its social media offering opens up to integrate photos, allowing +1 users to highlight favourite images. This marks the start of a personalised web experience and reinforces the growing sentiment that social and search are becoming increasingly intertwined.

In December's post, Google mentioned:

"Image result freshness: We made a change to how we determine image freshness for news queries. This will help us find the freshest images more often."

A month earlier, Google announced its freshness update to search, which prioritises recent, relevant and timely results. Joe Crowther, of Metro news site explains, “The quicker you get the image up the better. Google tends to assume that the first to break a story or image is the source. As the story develops, it will re-adjust, dependent of other signals”. As image search succumbs to the freshness update, we can deduce that Google is continuing to include image search within all its major algorithm updates.

Last week, Google announced 30 subtle algorithm changes. This 'monthly series' instalment was different to any previous one due to Google publishing the codenames attached to each change. In its newfound approach to communication, Google mentioned three updates specific to image search.

"Image Search landing page quality signals. [launch codename "simple"] This is an improvement that analyzes various landing page signals for Image Search. We want to make sure that not only are we showing you the most relevant images, but we are also linking to the highest quality source pages."

This update is rather reflective of the Panda update, which favours high site quality.

"Better spam detection in Image Search. [launch codename "leaf"] This change improves our spam detection in Image Search by extending algorithms we already use for our main search results."

SEOptimise’s Matt Taylor explains the possible implications of this for an SEO campaign: "When Google rolls out something from the main search to image search that wasn't there previously, it may be possible to spot patterns on what Google deems as spammy by noting which sites disappear from the search results. If you notice images from your site disappear from the image search, this gives you an indication that Google thinks you are spammy".

"Improvements to image size signal. [launch codename "matter"] This is an improvement to how we use the size of images as a ranking signal in Image Search. With this change, you'll tend to see images with larger full-size versions."

The improvements to image size present opportunities for ecommerce sites. Bigger images will rank better, and if these sites have good size images of their products, they may be able to pull traffic from image search for products that may be difficult to rank for normally.

These changes not only signal that image size is now important, but also that the quality of a landing page (or the page on which the image sits) determines how an image is ranked. Along with added spam detection, all these updates point to a "cleaning up of image search".

Yesterday Google announced its "+1 Your World" project, which confirms and further enhances Google personalised search for users based on their social circles. Search queries will now deliver results from the anonymous web and results from the user’s own personal networks (providing that the information has been shared with that user). Image search will be no different. However, the personal image results will only be truly useful depending on the information that is attached to the images. Images posted with the original JPEG filename will not rank well in personal search, just as you would expect in a public search.

This update strengthens Google's previous attempts to clean up web images by rewarding well classified image information. It is apparent that Google Image Search is being targeted with algorithms that reflect the ideas behind the major Google algorithm update, which would suggest that this area of Google’s business is becoming more important.

Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog

2012-01-12T18:28:00.001-08:00

Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog

Why You Need an SEO Expert

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 06:12 PM PST

All businesses are trying to save money in every way possible. Finding ways to survive and to reduce losses during these financially difficult times is something everyone is trying to do. One of the areas where companies spend huge sums of money is website SEO. There are various ways of reducing our expenses on SEO if you know how to trim things down strategically. One of the ways that often comes to mind is to have an in-house expert in SEO. There are varied opinions about this approach, each valid, but one that is clearly superior for most.

Some feel that having an in house SEO expert will help us cut down the costs a great deal. To a limited degree, this is true, but many people forget that SEO is ever evolving and constant training is needed – which takes time and costs money. Others think that outsourcing is what will bring savings. These two diametrically opposing views have their own pros and cons. Let us have a look a few of the pros and cons of having an in-house expert, then you decide for yourself.

When you hire an in-house SEO expert, you will have to review many candidates and you cannot merely go by what their resumes say. People can build castles in the air and make you believe that they can deliver your every need and SEO related dream. They might have been successful in one aspect of SEO, but this does not guarantee that they will be successful in getting your website as lofty as their resume promises. While reviewing candidates, your website remains unutilized which costs you conversions. Even after recruiting a candidate, you will not be able to review the performance of the candidate for several months because SEO results are slow to come by. If you then realize your "expert" wasn't so expert, you lost time and money via salary and lost conversions not to mention technical costs.

On the other hand, when you outsource your requirements to an SEO Firm, you still need to review the companies before handing over your website's SEO. The process is much easier though because successes, and definitely failures, will be easy to find on the webl. Moreover, you can get your money back guarantee from top SEO companies like Submit Edge – your in house SEO won't offer that. Here you are absolutely risk free. Here too the results may be slow to come by, but here you can take advantage of multiple talents of a team rather than being limited to a single person's expertise. That is a major factor to consider.

Often a group of people will be assigned to your website's SEO at a fraction of the cost that you spend your in-house expert. Each will have their individual strengths they apply to your website. Moreover, when you hire a full time SEO expert, you will not be able to keep him occupied full time. He or she may have to spend long hours only in the beginning stages and once the SEO is implemented maintenance will not take the entire day so you may not get the best out of your investment unless you draw clear list of tasks to be performed by your SEO expert. That results in spending money you have no need to. It flies directly in the face of cost efficiency.

On the whole, you are more likely to save when you outsource your SEO requirements. It may not be true in every case, but for nearly all businesses this is an axiom that holds true.

Keyword Spam and Keyword Scammers

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 06:07 PM PST

Did you ever stop to consider how the latest trends in internet scams will affect your website's traffic? Not many website owners are aware of the issues involved in this area. It does not even occur to them that this is problem area for their website's traffic. Whether they assess the risk or not, it still exists and can become quite problematic if overlooked.

It isn't just the webmasters and SEO professionals that are carefully observing the latest web searching trends to optimize their websites, it is also the scammers and hackers that are keeping a close watch on the latest search trends. This is the manner they operate – and they do it well. Their goal is to try to reach the largest audience, though for wrong reasons. So if you think that a particular keyword gets the largest number of hits or that a particular keyword is searched for the highest number of times, then spammers and hackers too optimize their websites and web pages for those keywords. If you do not remain vigilant against this, you can fall victim to it along with your customers. If that happens, everyone loses – aside from the scammers.

As more people continue to become victims they will learn to be careful about what they search for and opening links associated with those keywords. For example, lately it has been noted that most spammers attack the keyword screensavers and keywords that are associated with "free". That makes perfect sense because they are highly searched words and people tend to not associate risk to them.

Keep this in mind, because when you are choosing keywords, the last thing you want to do is go overboard on a keyword like "free" with the hopes of obtaining loads of traffic. When you look for alternative keywords if there is fallout, you will lose a considerable amount of time in regaining the traffic and reputation that has been lost. If you are an SEO professional, it is important that you educate your customers of this changing trend so they can understand why some keywords are not as advantageous as they seem. Some customers may not see the point immediately and it would take a bit of time to convince them to opt for safer keyword choices, but in the end nearly all come around on this point.

Finding alternatives for these keywords to compensate for the traffic that will be temporarily lost is a huge challenge. Remember that scammers and hackers never rest – they are always looking for a way in. All our approaches and efforts should be futuristic, looking into the future. Just by repeating the same old SEO procedures, we will remain stagnant and vulnerable. We should be able to break through that barrier and look beyond today's trends. This however, requires experience and good analytical skills. Don't fret, you can do it, or hire an SEO to do it for you. Either way, you need to remain vigilant.

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