In the past, most local businesses never thought they could compete with major companies. The marketing budget needed to really make a similar impact was usually way out of their capabilities. However, with Google’s latest updates, it’s looking like the smaller business has a much better chance of staying within the public’s eyes.
When doing SEO, it’s not as easy as just picking out your main market keyword and thinking you can jump to the top with that keyword. A lot of people seem to think that generic keywords equal good sales. But this is not the case, more often than not. Good SEO requires work and research. Read more
Apple has recently revealed news on the iPhone OS 4 update. The more interesting part of this news for marketers is the new development of iAd – an advertisement opportunity to allow ads to be created and used within apps on the iPhone. Read more
Today a court order goes into effect to force Microsoft to allow Windows users a choice in internet browsers. Previously, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was the default browser installation on Windows. As of today, that decision is no longer enforced, and users will have a choice to make that many were previously unaware they even had.
One possibility of this outcome is that Google Chrome may now see some increase in use. Google is doing a heavier push in the mainstream media, so everyday internet users will see the option to install Chrome. If a lot of them choose this, this will increase Google’s hold over the search engine market, and this will also effect many SEOs in their approach to optimization.
It appears the battle between Google and Microsoft (who’s joined forces with Yahoo) may have only now just begun. To check out more details on this story, see this article by HighPosition.net.
As everyone knows, typing in a domain doesn’t always give you the site you intended to hit. And typos like this happen all the time. There are people who have realized this and are making money from it.
There are two ways to make money from domain typos – either by using PPC and bidding on these typos (and then making money from the traffic you get on these usually cheap keywords), or by registering these domains and putting ads on the site for them.
The people that do the latter are called “typosquatters”. And there’s potentially a lot of money in the ads for higher traffic domain typos. Keep in mind that if the owners of the real domain notice you doing this, they can ask you to take the site down.
Whether or not typosquatting is ethical is a subjective question, but the fact is that some people make a ton of money from it, and so does Google. You can find out more about this and the figures involved in this article from Sideways News.
The search engines evolve, as does most modern technology. The latest revision in search engine result pages is the “universal search”. This is the displaying of results for searches in not just web site links, but images, maps, videos, blogs, and more.
The universal search allows a large breadth of information to be given that is relevant to any search done. For SEOs, this means adjusting approach on how to get relevant information out onto the web.
When trying to publicize information about something you want people to discover, to make sure you can be found by different areas within this universal search you’ll want to make sure you go across multiple areas with your information publication. This can be done through audio, video, blogging, social media – or getting creative and doing it in unique ways.
It all comes down to doing good marketing, just online. As the web evolves, so must our online marketing. For more good information on the universal search, check out this article by Ron Jones at Search Engine Watch.
When a major magazine that focuses on large businesses and exchanges of huge numbers of money talks about how important SEO is, you know that it’s worth knowing about. Forbes put up an article about search engine optimization and gave a few really great tips.
The article mentions how there are over 12 billion searches each month and that most people never look past the first page on their searches. Because of this, being on the first page of results for your market is becoming more and more valued and valuable.
The tips they talk about are details such as content, keyword organization, and even speed of the site itself. The other element I was happy to see mentioned was the reminder to never forget the visitor directly. I’ve often told people – top listings don’t matter if no one wants to stick around when they visit your page. Because of this, good web design and focus on attractive details to the customer is important.
Most companies perceive getting negative attention or negative reviews as a purely bad thing. However, any type of attention is good for SEO. It will build up links, it puts eyes on the company. And in the case that the bad review or bad attention is a minor part of what is overall a good reputation for the company, getting eyes on the company (even in this way) can be a very good thing.
Also, a balance of positive and negative attention tends to make a company look more legitimate, so this can also make this negative aspect bring positive points.
For SEO, any links that point back to the site (even if for negative reasons) will increase PageRank and sometimes may even affect keyword ranking in a good way. I wouldn’t recommend searching for negative attention, but getting some is not always a bad thing. SEO Consult in the UK has more details on why this is.
SEO is dead! Come the cries from doubters, and they do vocalize it occasionally. The latest is from a man named Robert Scoble. He doesn’t exactly say SEO is dead, but he questions its validity.
Well, SEO (and internet marketing, in general) is not a static element. There are always changes that fit into it. For people who think SEO is just making some on-page tweaks, then that alone will not do a lot. And as more people and businesses get online, that limited amount of result that pure on-page/on-site adjustments will get will only go down.
SEO has been questioned on how effective it truly is for years now, and many have said it wouldn’t last. As long as 12 years ago. Well, it’s lasted, and personally I think it will last – maybe not in exactly the same fashion, but it’s not going to go away.
Danny Sullivan had a lot of interesting points to say (as well as responding directly to Robert – check his post) in Search Engine Land. Of all people, I think Danny is someone who is worth listening to when it comes to predicting the progress of SEO. Check out his full post to see more.
Doing SEO for an e-commerce site is tricky. Almost all the pages are virtually identical, so it’s hard to determine how to do standard SEO for these pages. Here are five quick tips to help you do some solid SEO for your e-commerce site (a shortened version of the excellent explanation on Search Engine Land):
- Do solid SEO on product pages. Focusing on these will help draw traffic to each specific product. Standard SEO rules apply here – especially remember the title tag, as that will make a big difference. And keep it search engine friendly – using a lot of Flash or something else the spiders don’t like is not recommended.
- Proper categorization. Every product fits into specific categories. Making sure you use this as best you can will help. If selling a television, keep all categories in mind, such as a brand name, the size of the television, the type of tv, so forth. The more detailed your categories, the easier to find (good SEO).
- Avoid duplication. Having duplicate pages is a big SEO no-no. If you have your URLs structured based on categories, then you can often have each category branching through other categories to a single product, resulting in different URLs but the same content (duplicate pages). To avoid this, you can use parameters (the same URL, different arguments) or even just 301 the duplicate pages all to one single product page.
- Use the on-site search engine. To start, having a good on-site search engine is highly recommended for all internet marketing purposes. If you have one – checking the queries people put into it are easy ways to see what people are searching for that couldn’t find it naturally. This is a big “SEO THIS” sign.
- Social media! Yes, get on board. By letting people comment on your products or share them with others through social media, you can often get more inbound links than you might expect. Just make it easy for users and visitors to be able to share, whether it be through on-site widgets or a site blog, or even profiles on social media sites.
These tips will help your products on your e-commerce site be found, both through social media and through the search engines. These tips are a revised version of the excellent explanation by Aaron Bradley on Search Engine Land.
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