Google Suggest
Aug 29, 2008 SEO
Very recently, Google released it newest feature, Google Suggest. This feature has been out there in a beta version, and a similar feature has also been available through your Google Toolbar. The idea behind Google Suggest is that when a user starts to typing, it will offer suggestions, in real time. It is fairly similar to Google’s existing “Did you mean?” feature, which offers variations on spellings for your query after you search. This difference though, is that Google Suggest works in real time.
Google Suggest differs from the existing Google Toolbar feature as it does not account for personal search history, as it does with Google Toolbar. Google Suggest simply offers up potentional keyword phrases, in real time, based on data about the overall popularity of various searches to help rank the refinements it offers.
We are anticipating a potentially drastic change in Search in general, as it pertains to how users locate information using Google and the information that is displayed within Google’s SERPs. The downfall to this new feature, as it relate to search engine optimization and search engine marketing, is that these more historically searched keyword phrases, will be displayed to users to select, rather than typing in a more “long tail” keyword phrase, causing both the reality for getting ranked for that keyword phrase and the cost-per-click for that keyword phrase to become and unrealistic burden to bear. The longtail keyword phrase that search engine specialists were utilizing to supplement the more competitive keyword phrases could potentially become obsolete as the user is basically directed as to what they should search for.
Doesn’t this seem to be a round-about way for Google to control (even more so than in the past) the sites that are going to appear within their SERPs?
Tags: google
Organic SEO Success Metrics
Aug 25, 2008 SEO
What makes an organic search marketing campaign a success? This is a question that continues to cause confusion. For each client, the answer seems to be a little different. The success of an organic search campaign needs to be measured in a way that supports the business goals of each client. Let’s look at a few important measurements of SEO progress and what these metrics do and don’t tell you.
Keyword ranking
What this metric tells you: The ranking a website holds for any one or many keywords. While this is a popular metric for businesses to look at, it doesn’t come close to painting the whole picture.
What this metric doesn’t tell you: How much traffic you’re actually generating from the rankings you have, whether the keywords are relevant, how much of that traffic is converting, etc…
Organic traffic
What this metric tells you: Measures the amount of traffic that comes to your website through organic search. It’s always nice to see organic traffic on the rise as it’s a sign that the website is increasing in search engine visibility.
What this metric doesn’t tell you: Which types of keywords are attracting traffic, whether they are targeted for your product or service, whether they are converting, etc…
Organic keywords
What this metric tells you: Keywords that are driving traffic to your website and how much traffic each term is actually driving. It’s good to keep an eye on this number to make sure that, if you rank highly for a given phrases, you’re actually getting that traffic to come to your website.
What this metric doesn’t tell you: Whether visitors coming to your website for a given set of keywords phrases are converting (making a purchase, filling out a form, etc.).
Organic conversions
What this metric tells you: Measurement of the number and value of conversions you’ve had because of organic search efforts.
What this metric doesn’t tell you: Whether these conversions pay off from the standpoint of your business model.
As you can see, no one metric paints the whole SEO picture. Outlining specific goals and metrics for measuring success is critical for making an organic SEO campaign work. When considering employing organic search marketing experts to help you achieve your search marketing goals, make sure you’re working with a company who takes time to understand your business needs and not just a company who understands search engines. An experienced search marketing company will be able to take this information and provide you with the feedback you need to determine the value of the service they provide.
Tags: metrics
SEO and Search Engine Reputation Management
Aug 20, 2008 General
I recently heard a story of a guy who went to an interview. The entire interview went great until the employer asked him one last question: “What’s your MySpace page address?” Right there in the interview, the employer took a peek through this individual’s MySpace page. Seem outrageous? Yeah, but this type of snooping has become common, even if it doesn’t happen right during the interview.
More and more, employers are ‘Goggling’ prospective employees to learn more about them. And for a while now, consumers have done the same thing before purchasing a product or doing business with a new company. As a business owner, do you know what your prospects find when they search for you on the web?
If you’re like most businesses, a simple search of your company name yields your website in the #1 organic spot. But what shows up in the #2, #3, etc. spots? Hopefully, it’s something positive like press releases or positive reviews of your business. In many cases though, you may find that negative press shows up somewhere on the first page. Imaging if one of your customers searched for your website and caught a glimpse of a couple of negative reviews that show up in the search results. Do you want to address the same concerns every time a new customer comes across a concerning review? Let’s face it; even the best companies have unhappy customers.
As more and more business-rating websites come online, the potential for other web properties to show up for a query of your name increases. So what can you do about it?
Search Engine Reputation Management
Search engine reputation management is not a new search strategy but is definitely a fast-growing one. It’s taken some time for individuals and business alike to take their online reputations seriously. It’s becoming more of the norm to research products before we buy them and businesses are starting to catch on.
So how does SEO reputation management work? First of all, it’s not about going around the web and making false positive customers reviews about your own products and services. There’s already enough garbage on the internet and there’s no reason to add to it. It’s also not about magically making websites disappear.
Online reputation management is first and foremost about identifying the negative press about your company and fixing it. This involves assessing the situation and developing a plan for addressing negative press. This may mean replying to negative forum posts or consumer groups and doing everything possible to turn the negative comments into positive ones. It may also mean creating content or websites addressing major concerns about your business. A result of online reputation management is improved customer service by actually responding to unhappy customers. For the situations where you can’t make customers happy, and this happens, reputation management is about putting yourself in a better position to promote the positive things about your business.
Search engine reputation management should be an important part of any brand’s marketing strategy. Web 2.0, the ‘social Web,’ has transformed the way consumers get information. Online reputation already has a profound effect on businesses success and will continue to do so in the future.
Tags: reputation management
Keyboard Shortcuts
Aug 18, 2008 General
I’m a huge fan of keyboard shortcuts. They help me multitask and every program lets you use them. It’s a great feeling to discover one on your own.
For me keyboard short cuts started with Photoshop. I can work on an entire project without once touching the top navigation bar or selecting something I need. I know just about every shortcut, test me. My favorite would have to be ctrl + alt + shift + s (save for web) I think I like it so much because I use it the most. Then of course you have to move to the Tools. Using Tool shortcuts makes image editing a breeze. You can manipulate the image and it’s so fast. The Tool short cuts are a hit of just one letter. Let’s say you need to type something, press T and your new tool is the Character tool, start typing. Need the Magic wand? Press W. How about Zoom, press Z. See the pattern, most of the shortcuts are the first letter of the tool you need. If it’s not a tool but a part of your page setup it’s simply ctrl + the first letter of what you need. Like Ruler ctrl + R. If you need to change the color of your image slightly try Levels, ctrl + L (that is one of the first shortcuts I learned) I also like to close my docs by hitting ctrl + W, don’t forget to save it though… just press Y when it asks if you’d like to do so. The list of shortcuts goes on, try them out and discover new ones, that’s the best part.
A great thing about mastering a programs keyboard short cuts is that it will be the same in their sister programs. For instance all Photoshop shortcuts are the same in Illustrator, In Design, Fireworks, and the other programs use simple shortcuts. Simple shortcuts are ctrl + s (save), ctrl + p (print), ctrl + w (close) you get me gist. Oh design program short cuts are different than development short cuts. I am learning the shortcuts for Dreamweaver. I only have the most important down pat. Like ctrl + shift + U, will Put the file. F5 will refresh your url so you can see the change you made. Then there are different ways of saving your files. So I have found those most helpful. I can’t imagine how many more there are. It will be exciting to find them out.
A useful list of JQuery Code and plugins - Part 1
Aug 18, 2008 jQuery
I guess everyone out there has a list that is used by many. a top ___ (fill in the blank) list of some resource you use. Well why not me? I compiled a list of some cool jQuery plug-ins I found that have been used in our web development here at THAT Agency.
Now without further Adou, the list:
1. Pop-ups using JQuery
Now we all love pop ups right? well in an effort to keep the actual code clean, you can use this code that was written by Richard Wong
$( document ).ready( function()
{
$("a[rel='pop-up']").click(function () {
var features = "height=700,width=800,scrollTo,resizable=1,scrollbars=1,location=0";
newwindow=window.open(this.href, 'Popup', features);
return false;
});
});
2. PDF links using JQuery
ok, so this one, I cant remember where I got it from, but its actually pretty handy when it comes to dealing with links to pdf’s.
$(document).ready(function(){
$("a[href*=.pdf]").click(function(){
$(this).attr({"target":"_self"});
return false;
});
});
3. Rounded corners using JQuery
This was actually the first plugin I tried for Jquery and I have been pretty much hooked ever since. This is just a cool easy way to create rounded corners (plus more) with just jquery. No top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right images… none of that stuff. just quick and easy.
$(function(){
// round the boxes on the Main Nav Links
$('.yourClassName').each(function()
{
$(this).corner("7px");
});
});
Tags: plugins
Goal Oriented Design
Aug 18, 2008 Page Layout
Many times as a designer I’ve found myself lost in a sea of client feedback and design changes. Most times it’s best to step back and ask yourself (and sometimes the client) “is this going to achieve the site’s/home page’s goal?”. When designing a home page it’s best to stick to the program and have definite goals in mind. Without that initial direction the home page really has no other purpose than to look good and possibly give the user the right impression. Having conversion goals, whether it’s a phone call, an email form or an online purchase these goals are important.
Often times as a designer we’ll have several goals for the home page and organizing them in a logical hierarchy is the best and most practical solution. The best way to get this done is to sit down with the client up front, before design even starts and lay out exactly what the client expects to gain from the home page. What does it need to “do” and which items are more important than others. Direct a user to specific conversion page, incite a user to pick up the phone or inform them of the latest special offer.
Once this is accomplished keeping to that goal should be just as important to you in design as it is to the client in conversion. When you or clients find yourselves lost in a sea of changes and ideas take a step back and make sure you’re not watering down the message/goal and you’ll have a much more enjoyable design/conversion experience.
Redesign vs realign
Aug 13, 2008 Web Design Trends
I heard a quote floating around the internet a ways back. At the time I didnt fully understand his point.
“Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign”
What hes trying to say here is that anybody can redesign a website. Its easy to add a mirror reflection and some drop shadows to make a site look “slick”. Sure it may look cool, but does it work better? does it convert browsers into buyers? Did the redesigned site post better results than the original?
On the otherhand a realignment will take the existing content and reposition it to gain results. A good approach is to step back and ask why the site was built in the first place. Is it to sell watches? If so, the most available path should guide me to where I can buy a watch. Paths that guide me away from buying the watch should be removed. In other words a well designed site will guide me towards buying a watch and nowhere else.
This concept seems obvious but for whatever reason people have a tendancy to add things. Often these additions become distractions which compromise the sites effectiveness. Next time you set out to redesign a site think about your goal, Are you trying to make it look better or work better? A good looking site is cool, but a site that works better is way cooler.
Geo-Targeting Your PPC Campaigns
Aug 13, 2008 PPC
Google, MSN and Yahoo have offered location-targeted campaigns for as long as I can remember. This feature allows advertisers to select the zip codes, cities, states, countries and continents to show their ads in.
From the perspective of business that provide a good or service to the local population, the application of this feature is pretty straight forward. Local advertisers use geo-targeting to show ads to customers who are in their buying area. For example, a dry cleaning company in Miami would only show ads to users searching for dry cleaning from a computer in the Miami area.
Applications for national and international companies
The applications of geo-targeting for companies whose prospects span wider areas are often overlooked. Advertisers often think that, because they can service searchers in any area, they should run the same ads for all areas. Consider the following applications for geo-targeting:
* Manipulate ad copy based on location - Running ads personalized to a given location can increase click through rates, which will allow you to run your ad in lower positions at a lower cost. For years, marketers have found that personalizing ad copy increases response rate by grabbing the attention of potential customers. Why not spend a little more time setting up location-specific campaigns if it makes sense for your product? After all, it doesn’t hurt to test this strategy in a small area before applying it to all your campaigns.
* Test ads and promotions - There are many features that will allow you to test ads and geo-targeting is just one of them. Try different ads or promotions in different cities to see which tactics are most effective. This is especially effective for high-volume campaigns.
* Fool the competition - Ever have a competitor watching (and copying) your every online advertising move? Try running a dummy ad just so your competitor doesn’t know what you’re really up to. All you need to do is find out where your competitor is located and run a geo-targeted ad just for them. The rest of the country will still see your ‘real’ ads. This may be a good tactic for advertisers launching a large, national campaign who want to keep their competitors in the dark for a while. The con here is that potential customers in the same geographical region will see the same ad as your competitor.
Staying on top of your game requires creativity and lots of testing. Take a close look at your campaigns and see if you can think of new ways to run your campaigns more effectively and efficiently.
Tags: geo targeting, local search
Google Opens Up to Webmasters
Aug 7, 2008 SEO
Google offers several useful tools for webmasters. These tools have a variety of functions but generally help webmasters optimize websites so that the search engines can access and understand their content. One such tool is the keyword research tool. For a long time, Google has offered a keyword research tool intended to help website owners select keywords for pay per click campaigns. Unfortunately, the tool wasn’t very helpful because users weren’t given complete data.
As a result, webmasters have relied on third party tools like WordTracker and Trellian to help with keyword research. These tools provide webmasters with ‘estimated’ keyword search statistics and competition. The only down side is that the data collection method used by most of these tools leaves room for error.
Google has finally exposed search volume for keyword phrases
Recently, Google decided to improve its keyword research tool by adding numerical search estimates. This is an improvement that many of us have been waiting for a long time to see. The revised Google keyword tool gives users the ability to type in a search phrase and get back results of exact and similar phrases that are commonly searched. Each keyword phrase is accompanied by a numerical estimated monthly search volume and competition level. In the past, the actual search numbers were not revealed. Instead, a bar graph would indicate a low, medium or high search volume.
So if Google is giving away for free what we’ve been paying for, why still use third-party tools?
Don’t get me wrong, I still love to use WordTracker and probably will continue to do so, for now. It’s a powerful tool that does more than just return keyword search volume stats. But, I think I will add Google’s tool as another resource for determining search trends and verifying search volume on keyword phrases important to our projects.
Tags: keyword research
.htaccess - The Gift and the Curse
Aug 5, 2008 Technology Trends
Now we recently came across a situation where we had to work on changing some stuff around on a website. Since the website was already established and had inbound links and such, we could not just start all over with writing a new system. So we decided to do what we needed to do using an .htaccess file.
Holy cow!!! where is some legitimate documentation on this? tell me please? Well we did end up finding some good information on it via cheatsheets like Addedbytes.com, LifeHacker.com and a Google Group. I know there were more, but for the most part we kind of tried to stay in these sites.
So from what I have read; and correct me if I’m wrong, the .htaccess file needs to be layed out in a particular order. This makes it seem like one of those slider puzzles you used to get in the cheap candy bags, where you needed to have everything layed out in a certain way, in order to actually see the picture for what it is.
Actual example from the project:
So we had a structure like this
.com/blog.php?id=444 (page was called, id would return the information for that blog)
They wanted:
.com/title-of-article/
So where to start? After gathering a bunch of cheat sheets and references and searching…we decided to do this.
RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ blog.php?title=$1 [L]
so here is the basic gist. the ^ is the site (i.e. http://www.your-domain.com/)
the ([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ basically breaks down to “it dont matter if its a letter number or dash and ends it with the $.
the rest tells the server that anything that does ([A-Za-z0-9-]+)/?$ i.e. .com/title-of-article will return the page: blog.php?title=title-of-article
nothing to it right? woah…hold your horses there cowboy. now if your cms was only returning information on the blog using its unique ID, then how would the system know now with the title? IT WONT!
we also had to change the function that returned the blog information to return the blog information NOT by the id it has, but by the title. granted that your system already added a SEO-Friendly title to the DB that you can query.
If all those things are in place, then you should be good to go.
Now I know the title might not have made sense, but note that if you have some information and know what and how to work with the .htaccess file, is a gift. If you have never worked with them and only seen them in passing, then good luck to you pal! read up. But once you understand the basic concept you should be ok. uhm yea..ok.
Tags: htaccess
