Archive for March, 2008

Use “Directory” + [Local Area] to Find Local Directories :: Social Marketing News

A WebmasterWorld member asks how to find local directories for link building purposes.

One member suggests that you search with “directory + [your local area]” on Google or Yahoo to find some really targeted local directories.

There are also some great paid directories including Best of the Web’s regional directory and Yahoo’s regional directory, both of which are subscription-based models.

How do you find quality link directories?

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.


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Whiteboard Friday - SEO Agency Insights with Tanya Vaughan :: Yahoo Search News

Posted by great scott!

This week Rand interviews Tanya Vaughan, Global SEO Manager for Hewlett-Packard. As the head of SEO services and programs for such a large company, Tanya frequently works with outside SEO agencies to contract out services. She opens up to Rand about some of the most important things she looks for when sourcing an agency. This is valuable stuff to consider for both in-house folks who work with agencies frequently, or agency folks who want to know the best way to approach large clients like HP.


Whiteboard Friday-SEO Agency Insights with Tanya Vaughan from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

PS-Since Google Video decided to be a complete bastard this week (yes, it IS uploaded and yes, that IS my password!), hence the delayed timing of this post, we’re trying a new video sharing platform called Vimeo (they’re a little guy, figure they could use the anchor text). They have a really nice interface, super easy to use, generous upload limits and a nice embedded player.  If anyone has problems viewing the video on this platform, please let me know in the comments. Thanks.

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Search Engine Optimization is not an exact science. It takes lot’s of work and research. Trial and Error. Read through our posts here and try to learn from our experience. We offer some of our insight… news and comment. Please feel free to share your thoughts, and ideas. The site does allow "follows" so post your links.

What’s Good for the WMC HTML Verification File Isn’t Good for the Meta Tag :: StumbleUpon Update

Posted by Brent D. Payne

Most of you are probably aware that you can utilize the same HTML file to verify Google Webmaster Central access for several different domains and subdomains.  Google makes that very easy to implement.  Simply keep the HTML file handy and load it up in whatever folder you need to verify.  I’ve been doing this for over a year now with Google HTML verification files.  Why the hell Yahoo! doesn’t do this is beyond me.  Their verification process is different for every domain and every Yahoo! Site Explorer user.  For that reason alone, I haven’t verified a number of the Tribune domains with Yahoo!.

To make it even easier, Google will even follow a 301 redirect to verify a site.  Yeah, that is really handy.  Put your verification file in one location and then just do a 301 redirect to that verification file.  For those on more complicated infrastructures, it can be actually easier than dropping the HTML file.

Bottom line . . . I’ve been singing praises about how user-friendly Google’s Webmaster Tools site verification process is for over a year now.  Unfortunately, I now have to complain that they didn’t follow this same user-friendly aspect when it came to verifying sites via a Meta tag.  While it’s still not as bad as Yahoo’s implementation, they do force you to use a different Meta tag on a per domain basis.  Thus, you will need to login to Google’s Webmaster Tools every time you need to supply a webmaster the correct Meta tag for their specific domain.

Can anyone let me know why there is this disparity?  Is there some type of security concern if you allow the same Meta tag?  Is there some type of security concern that made Yahoo! do their crazy verification?  Shouldn’t the search engines make the process as simple as possible for the webmasters?

This isn’t intended to be a rant, but a question and discussion.  Hopefully, we can get the SEs to take notice and make it easier on the webmasters–especially Yahoo!.

Thanks!

Brent D. Payne, SEO Manager, Tribune Interactive

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Search Engine Optimization is not an exact science. It takes lot’s of work and research. Trial and Error. Read through our posts here and try to learn from our experience. We offer some of our insight… news and comment. Please feel free to share your thoughts, and ideas. The site does allow "follows" so post your links.

SearchMe.com Breaks the Search Engine Mold :: Search Engine Optimization Weekly Report

SearchMe Breaks Search Engine Mold

With the SearchMe beta announced last week, and my invitation to participate arriving today, SearchMe.com has arrived to change up the playing field of Search Engines. Will it be successful? I think its new and fresh search engine interface will make a lot of heads turn. Here are 3 areas where SearchMe has broken the traditional mold of a search engine, and may add some new areas of emphasis in the SEO industry.

1) Site design, not page title
For most users, the page title that Google et al. display in the search engine results page (SERPs) is the first “eye-catcher” to draw in a reader and attract attention. Second comes the “description” which is pulled either from the meta tag or content on the page around the search term.

SearchMe.com makes your site the number one focus. Emphasis in terms of search engine optimization now has a design element.

searchme screenshot

Pages that are spammy (lots of ads), have little content, or an overwhelming menu structure will most likely be skipped. Optimizing your page for SearchMe might include making important text (like a heading) readable at that size to garner attention.

I found myself considering the following: (1) my first impression (good or bad), (2) is the content type what I expected based on my search (lots of product images, lots of content, a video, etc.), and (3) from what I can read does it address what I am looking for (including the page title when that pops open at the bottom of the screenshot).

2) No more Page 1
Instead of having a next page button, you can keep on scrolling for forever (I didn’t get to any end of results after 2 minutes of scrolling, so that’s assumed). This seems inconsequential, but it no longer gives us a “top 10″ results. Obviously the first listings will be seen more, but there is no more defined line.

3) Assumed verticals
Google et al. have different verticals like web search, images, blogs, maps, shopping, books, finance, etc. SearchMe also has verticals, but automatically generate what verticals they assume you are searching for if you would like to narrow your search. When I type in “pizza, st george ut” (a local search type of query), for example, I get “Lodging & Hotels”, then “Restaurants”, “Sales & Bargains”, “Skiing”, and “Dentistry”. Of course they have more verticals than this, and each set is based on what you are typing. Very slick. The other thing I might mention too is that the verticals are actually centered on what I am actively seeking, rather than just having a defined set of verticals that you have to make a decision of relevance on.

I think SearchMe has a great product, and I’m looking forward to the refining of the algorithm, speed, and total index.


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Search Engine Optimization is not an exact science. It takes lot’s of work and research. Trial and Error. Read through our posts here and try to learn from our experience. We offer some of our insight… news and comment. Please feel free to share your thoughts, and ideas. The site does allow "follows" so post your links.

One-Fourth of All Internet Users Cannot Perform a Simple Google Search :: MSN/Live Search News

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen blogged about how difficult it is to perform a Google search:

If you thought it’s easy to get to Google, think again. In our current round of usability research, only 76% of users who expressed a desire to run a Google search were successful. In other words, 1/4 of users who wanted to use Google couldn’t do so. (Instead, they either completely failed to get to any search engine or ended up running their query on a different search engine — usually whatever type-in field happened to be at hand.)

He concludes:

I doubt that any Web designer would be incapable of running a Google search. So, the fact that 1/4 of users can’t do it is a striking demonstration that you can’t rely on your own experience if you want to reach a broader audience.

Surprised? Not so much. How many people grew up around computers? Most of us did not. You’re still dealing with people who are adding “www” to their email address and are discovering that pages actually can scroll.

But not everyone prefers Google:

What shocked me last week at a barbershop is absolutely nobody there considered Google a good search engine. They all considered Yahoo and MSN the better search engines. There were about 15 people ranging in age from 25-75. People were vocal about Google. They were upset at seeing a lot of pages on Google where the keyword was only mentioned once on the web site. As I listened further these people were savvier than I thought. Many seemed to show a shift to other search engines based upon the roll-out of Universal Search. Most also seemed to like SEO. They felt even if the web site overused the keywords it was more prone to be about the subject. Also it seemed to be about branding and the fact that Bill Gates at least tried to help his fellow man.

Interesting. Do you think the findings are farfetched? Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.


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Search Engine Optimization is not an exact science. It takes lot’s of work and research. Trial and Error. Read through our posts here and try to learn from our experience. We offer some of our insight… news and comment. Please feel free to share your thoughts, and ideas. The site does allow "follows" so post your links.

Niche Marketing and Link Building Resources :: Mypsace News Bulletin

Ann Smarty writes, "The best things about niche link building is that it is (1) highly effective, (2) looks natural, and (3) lets you find targeted audience and like-minded people who will then cite you and link back to your site."

45 Vote(s)


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Search Engine Optimization is not an exact science. It takes lot’s of work and research. Trial and Error. Read through our posts here and try to learn from our experience. We offer some of our insight… news and comment. Please feel free to share your thoughts, and ideas. The site does allow "follows" so post your links.

The ROI of Blogging and Social Media :: StumbleUpon Update

For years ROI or Return on Investment was a term used by business people in suits and marketers who worked for them. While search marketers often obsessed with rankings, traffic and conversions. Recently ROI is going mainstream as not only SEOs turn to ROI as the most important metric after rankings and traffic have become […]
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Search Engine Optimization is not an exact science. It takes lot’s of work and research. Trial and Error. Read through our posts here and try to learn from our experience. We offer some of our insight… news and comment. Please feel free to share your thoughts, and ideas. The site does allow "follows" so post your links.

Striving to be (Below) Average… :: Social Blog Network News

Google Analytics came out with a novel benchmarking feature which compares your site’s performance to other websites in your field. You can see this benchmark data ONLY IF you are willing to aggregate your data into the pool of anonymized data.

The best sites in your industry probably are not using Google Analytics, and those who do are probably not benchmarking against average, so you are essentially benchmarking your site against a random sample of the bottom half of your industry. I guess such a measurement has purpose, unfortunately I fail to see it.

I hope that while so many people are out smelling the flowers, someone is taking the time to plant some. - Herbert Rappaport

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Search Engine Optimization is not an exact science. It takes lot’s of work and research. Trial and Error. Read through our posts here and try to learn from our experience. We offer some of our insight… news and comment. Please feel free to share your thoughts, and ideas. The site does allow "follows" so post your links.

Online Reputation Management Requires Cabinet War Rooms :: Yahoo Search News

Intense preparation helped Churchill win the war, and it can help you deal with a sudden reputation management crisis. Reacting swiftly and decisively can help minimize the damage from negative search results.
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Search Engine Optimization is not an exact science. It takes lot’s of work and research. Trial and Error. Read through our posts here and try to learn from our experience. We offer some of our insight… news and comment. Please feel free to share your thoughts, and ideas. The site does allow "follows" so post your links.

Post Comments :: Mypsace News Bulletin

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Search Engine Optimization is not an exact science. It takes lot’s of work and research. Trial and Error. Read through our posts here and try to learn from our experience. We offer some of our insight… news and comment. Please feel free to share your thoughts, and ideas. The site does allow "follows" so post your links.

Google Analytics Why Do You Make Me Distrust You :: StumbleUpon Update

So I logged into Google Analytics this morning and I get the following message

Google Analytics why are you ruining it why? I always recommended to customers who don’t have an analytics package in place or were using sub standard analytics packages to switch to Google Analytics, without reservations, and for me to recommend Google’s products […]
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Search Engine Optimization is not an exact science. It takes lot’s of work and research. Trial and Error. Read through our posts here and try to learn from our experience. We offer some of our insight… news and comment. Please feel free to share your thoughts, and ideas. The site does allow "follows" so post your links.

Do You Search in the Singular or the Plural? :: Mypsace News Bulletin

A Hitwise post digs into the behavior of searchers and sees whether they prefer searching in the singular or plural. Using the term “laptop” versus “laptops,” it is clear that “laptops” is the winner in search. When investigating nine other terms, the following was discovered:

…[W]hile the results are not conclusive, it does seem that plural terms are better at sending traffic to retailers than singular terms. Two thirds of the products tested performed better as plurals, with technology products in particular skewing in favour of an added ‘s’.

Of course, as one member on Sphinn notices, this is specific to traffic, not necessarily conversions. However, it’s a good first stop. Now can someone compile a report on the conversions? ;)

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.


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Search Engine Optimization is not an exact science. It takes lot’s of work and research. Trial and Error. Read through our posts here and try to learn from our experience. We offer some of our insight… news and comment. Please feel free to share your thoughts, and ideas. The site does allow "follows" so post your links.

The Problem with Keyword Rich Anchor Text :: Search Engine Optimization Weekly Report

Ask any SEO consultant to explain Google bombs and they will be able to show you how linking to a certain website with keywords in the anchor text propels that site higher and higher in the search results.
Websites in all industries use this tactic to rank highly for their target keywords – in essence it’s […]
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Search Engine Optimization is not an exact science. It takes lot’s of work and research. Trial and Error. Read through our posts here and try to learn from our experience. We offer some of our insight… news and comment. Please feel free to share your thoughts, and ideas. The site does allow "follows" so post your links.

Expandable Google Map Local Listing UI Test :: Mypsace News Bulletin

Here’s a new google UI test I’ve never seen before an expandable Google map result

Sponsor:: Need help with your blog? Check out my SEO Services for information about site optimization, and content production.
Related PostsUniversal Local Search and Direct NavigationSo here’s an interesting little discovery, type the following into your FF address bar
Museum of Mod…Local Search […]
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Search Engine Optimization is not an exact science. It takes lot’s of work and research. Trial and Error. Read through our posts here and try to learn from our experience. We offer some of our insight… news and comment. Please feel free to share your thoughts, and ideas. The site does allow "follows" so post your links.

Living Without Google - you know it’s not that bad :: Social Blog Network News

So my site was hacked and Google supported me by blocking my blog from their search engine..But, I have had two weeks without Google traffic, and you know what? I hardly noticed. Sure, it pulls in a few hundred people a day, but most of those are ti

35 Vote(s)


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Search Engine Optimization is not an exact science. It takes lot’s of work and research. Trial and Error. Read through our posts here and try to learn from our experience. We offer some of our insight… news and comment. Please feel free to share your thoughts, and ideas. The site does allow "follows" so post your links.

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