May 08
Google Maps Adds Pictures & Explore Feature
in Search Engine Land
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Some users like Mathiew Ingram noticed that Google has now added images from Picasa and Panoramio into the bar beside their maps.

Click to continue reading…

May 08
Google AdWords Adds Landing Page Load Time Metric To Reports & Launching Mid-June
in Search Engine Land
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As expected, Google has announced that landing page load time will become a quality score factor in Google AdWords starting mid-June.

In preparation for that launch, Google has started showing advertisers their metrics for the landing page load time for each keyword’s landing page. Here is a picture of what an okay landing page load time score would look like:

Landing Page Load Time AdWords

Click to continue reading…

May 08
Google AdWords Adds Landing Page Load Time Metric To Reports & Launching Mid-June
in Search Engine Land
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As expected, Google has announced that landing page load time will become a quality score factor in Google AdWords starting mid-June.

In preparation for that launch, Google has started showing advertisers their metrics for the landing page load time for each keyword’s landing page. Here is a picture of what an okay landing page load time score would look like:

Landing Page Load Time AdWords

Click to continue reading…

May 08
Deal or No Deal? Microsoft Put to the Challenge
in Search Engine Guide
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by Sage Lewis

Sage addresses the failure of Microsoft’s attempt to buy Yahoo!. The winners and losers of the whole ordeal are brought to light in an article by Andy Beale at Marketing Pilgrim, in which, ironically, Google comes out top winner, despite Yahoo!’s successful acquisition of Fast Search. Google also takes center stage with their artist-driven iGoogle themes that are now available, and the art of web development has a new resource thanks to Danny Dover at SEOmoz who came up the “The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet.”

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May 08
Daily Search Forum Recap: May 8, 2008
in Search Engine Roundtable
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Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

May 08
Twitter Dee Twitter Dumb: DirectTV Done Wrong and Right
in Search Engine Guide
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by Sage Lewis

Twitter and DirectTV go head to head this week by creating and solving customer service issues at the same time. Mack Collier’s article “Worst Example of a Company Twittering?” exposes DirectTV’s bumbled use of Twitter, explains the frustration that can cause, and encourages companies to use social media tools “as the rest of us do.” The DirectTV/Twitter saga actually begins with Stoney deGeyter’s tweet about the company’s presence, is filled in with his article “Why DirectTV is Losing My Heart (and Quite Possible My Business),” and then ends with another tweet about the company’s immediate response to his customer service issue.

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May 08
Twitter Dee Twitter Dumb: DirectTV Done Wrong and Right
in Search Engine Guide
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by Sage Lewis

Twitter and DirectTV go head to head this week by creating and solving customer service issues at the same time. Mack Collier’s article “Worst Example of a Company Twittering?” exposes DirectTV’s bumbled use of Twitter, explains the frustration that can cause, and encourages companies to use social media tools “as the rest of us do.” The DirectTV/Twitter saga actually begins with Stoney deGeyter’s tweet about the company’s presence, is filled in with his article “Why DirectTV is Losing My Heart (and Quite Possible My Business),” and then ends with another tweet about the company’s immediate response to his customer service issue.

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May 08
Bee’s Do It. NonProfits Do It. Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall In Link Love
in Search Engine Guide
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by Debra Mastaler

bees.jpgBeth Kanter of Beth’s Blog recently published an interview she did with Jonathan Colman of The Nature Conservancy. Jonathan is their Associate Director of Digital Marketing and he shared some insight on how the Nature Conservancy (a non-profit) was using social media as part of their marketing mix.

A lot of the interview struck home and made me think about the parallels between traditional linking and social media promotion. While I agree the two entities are different animals and call for seperate strategies, the bottom line is the same for both… to increase traffic and link love.

With some people holding SEO to the fire for exploiting social media, I thought it might be interesting to look at those parallels based on comments made in the interview and see if there’s any common ground. Let’s start with this one:
 

…one of the most interesting parts of engaging in social media is how you can measure just about everything that you do. The real challenge, of course, is to determine the meaning behind those numbers.

There’s been some chatter on how links generated through social media are somehow less relevant than those secured through traditional link building methods. In traditional link building you identify a link, assign value to it and then proceed to do what you can to get it. If you’re successful in securing the link, it becomes a commodity because of where it came from and the importance you placed on securing it.
It’s the opposite with social media. You put the content out there and if you’re lucky you’ll see big traffic and some quality inbound links. Generating links through the social networks can be a crapshoot, you get what you get. Unlike traditional linking, you can’t pinpoint where those links will come from or control which sites to target.

So the question is, are the links generated through social media campaigns any less efficient?
The short answer is -it depends on your goal. In today’s linking landscape it’s important to secure links from high quality sites, and/or those in your niche for maximum ranking impact. Getting links from places like CNN and The Huffington Post are also great provided they aren’t dynamic. But if you’re looking to generate eyeballs and traffic, then general links in massive quantities are fine, it should be easy to determine their effectiveness.

Here’s another comment Jonathan made:

 

… another principle strategy of ours: connecting with people where they are rather than making find us. …Rather than force people to come to our site … we’re happy to ind them where they’re already engaged and introduce them to the Conservancy in venues of their choice.

Advertising/participating on sites your customers frequent when they’re not on your site, that’s just smart marketing. It’s why keeping them engaged through reviews, surveys and customer commenting on your site is so important. Use your site to pull the info you need to find out where they are. No matter what type of linking campaign you do, you need to know what your customers want, where they are and what sites to target. That’s Marketing 101.

He then went on to comment on some specific tactics/sites the Nature Conservancyy was using:

 

I routinely bookmark and comment on environmental news, green blogs, and stories about sustainability and alternative energy technology. One of our foremost social media strategies is to try to link to and promote as many stories as possible outside of our own site.

When we talk about link popularity as a concept, we tend to overlook the importance of topical relevance for the more impactful issues like anchor text and quality links. It’s a given that anchor text and inbound links are strong factors but it’s equally important to establish community relevance by linking out to sites within your community. By finding and linking to sites hosting your demographic, you work the opportunity from both sides… you get targeted eyeballs and establish your site in a cited, topical network.

…. with Digg visitors, these folks just viewed the landing page and most of them immediately left without viewing any other pages. But that’s OK, because our popularity on Digg drove in 50+ links from blogs, including a few elite sources like The Huffington Post and Cisco.com, and also caused “spillover” popularity into other social news networks. The real value from this particular success on Digg wasn’t so much the initial spike in traffic, but the increased SEO positioning and second wave of visitors coming from blogs and other sites.

The article being referenced can be found here on Digg , some of the “spillover” sites he mentions are Mixx, Hugg, Care2, Reddit, Magnolia, and Netscape . While you may not get as many votes from any one of these “spillover” sites as you would Digg (provided the story went hot), put them all together and their numbers are impressive.
You’ll also get a wider circle of inbound links which is good for establishing a varied linking pattern and increasing visibility overall.

I turn to Twitter to publicize my social media campaigns, usually the ones on Digg. … a handful of friends following these tweets … actually click through and vote on the stories. Twitter, Pownce, even IM can be used to draw people into your campaigns…

I’ve noticed a change in the way people are using Twitter these days. When I started it was more conversational but now, people seem to be using it to annouce new blog posts, ask questions and ask for Diggs/Fetches/Sphinns. More than once I’ve picked up an URL or a new site that’s been helpful; I added a link I saw on Twitter to a recent SEL column, I had finished the post and was ready to send it in when the “tweet” happened. Being able to find and react to information that quickly is every marketer’s dream.

Cherry picking links is still a good idea, you target what you want and what you know you need. Social media is good for spreading the word while attracting links in the process. The links are less targeted but no less efficient or important to your overall inbound link graph. Successful link building is about blending both and loving the results.

 
Debra Mastaler offers link building training and custom link building campaigns through her Williamburg Virginia based firm Alliance-Link.  She is also the author of the link building blog The Link Spiel.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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May 08
Bee’s Do It. NonProfits Do It. Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall In Link Love
in Search Engine Guide
Comments Off

by Debra Mastaler

bees.jpgBeth Kanter of Beth’s Blog recently published an interview she did with Jonathan Colman of The Nature Conservancy. Jonathan is their Associate Director of Digital Marketing and he shared some insight on how the Nature Conservancy (a non-profit) was using social media as part of their marketing mix.

A lot of the interview struck home and made me think about the parallels between traditional linking and social media promotion. While I agree the two entities are different animals and call for seperate strategies, the bottom line is the same for both… to increase traffic and link love.

With some people holding SEO to the fire for exploiting social media, I thought it might be interesting to look at those parallels based on comments made in the interview and see if there’s any common ground. Let’s start with this one:
 

…one of the most interesting parts of engaging in social media is how you can measure just about everything that you do. The real challenge, of course, is to determine the meaning behind those numbers.

There’s been some chatter on how links generated through social media are somehow less relevant than those secured through traditional link building methods. In traditional link building you identify a link, assign value to it and then proceed to do what you can to get it. If you’re successful in securing the link, it becomes a commodity because of where it came from and the importance you placed on securing it.
It’s the opposite with social media. You put the content out there and if you’re lucky you’ll see big traffic and some quality inbound links. Generating links through the social networks can be a crapshoot, you get what you get. Unlike traditional linking, you can’t pinpoint where those links will come from or control which sites to target.

So the question is, are the links generated through social media campaigns any less efficient?
The short answer is -it depends on your goal. In today’s linking landscape it’s important to secure links from high quality sites, and/or those in your niche for maximum ranking impact. Getting links from places like CNN and The Huffington Post are also great provided they aren’t dynamic. But if you’re looking to generate eyeballs and traffic, then general links in massive quantities are fine, it should be easy to determine their effectiveness.

Here’s another comment Jonathan made:

 

… another principle strategy of ours: connecting with people where they are rather than making find us. …Rather than force people to come to our site … we’re happy to ind them where they’re already engaged and introduce them to the Conservancy in venues of their choice.

Advertising/participating on sites your customers frequent when they’re not on your site, that’s just smart marketing. It’s why keeping them engaged through reviews, surveys and customer commenting on your site is so important. Use your site to pull the info you need to find out where they are. No matter what type of linking campaign you do, you need to know what your customers want, where they are and what sites to target. That’s Marketing 101.

He then went on to comment on some specific tactics/sites the Nature Conservancyy was using:

 

I routinely bookmark and comment on environmental news, green blogs, and stories about sustainability and alternative energy technology. One of our foremost social media strategies is to try to link to and promote as many stories as possible outside of our own site.

When we talk about link popularity as a concept, we tend to overlook the importance of topical relevance for the more impactful issues like anchor text and quality links. It’s a given that anchor text and inbound links are strong factors but it’s equally important to establish community relevance by linking out to sites within your community. By finding and linking to sites hosting your demographic, you work the opportunity from both sides… you get targeted eyeballs and establish your site in a cited, topical network.

…. with Digg visitors, these folks just viewed the landing page and most of them immediately left without viewing any other pages. But that’s OK, because our popularity on Digg drove in 50+ links from blogs, including a few elite sources like The Huffington Post and Cisco.com, and also caused “spillover” popularity into other social news networks. The real value from this particular success on Digg wasn’t so much the initial spike in traffic, but the increased SEO positioning and second wave of visitors coming from blogs and other sites.

The article being referenced can be found here on Digg , some of the “spillover” sites he mentions are Mixx, Hugg, Care2, Reddit, Magnolia, and Netscape . While you may not get as many votes from any one of these “spillover” sites as you would Digg (provided the story went hot), put them all together and their numbers are impressive.
You’ll also get a wider circle of inbound links which is good for establishing a varied linking pattern and increasing visibility overall.

I turn to Twitter to publicize my social media campaigns, usually the ones on Digg. … a handful of friends following these tweets … actually click through and vote on the stories. Twitter, Pownce, even IM can be used to draw people into your campaigns…

I’ve noticed a change in the way people are using Twitter these days. When I started it was more conversational but now, people seem to be using it to annouce new blog posts, ask questions and ask for Diggs/Fetches/Sphinns. More than once I’ve picked up an URL or a new site that’s been helpful; I added a link I saw on Twitter to a recent SEL column, I had finished the post and was ready to send it in when the “tweet” happened. Being able to find and react to information that quickly is every marketer’s dream.

Cherry picking links is still a good idea, you target what you want and what you know you need. Social media is good for spreading the word while attracting links in the process. The links are less targeted but no less efficient or important to your overall inbound link graph. Successful link building is about blending both and loving the results.

 
Debra Mastaler offers link building training and custom link building campaigns through her Williamburg Virginia based firm Alliance-Link.  She is also the author of the link building blog The Link Spiel.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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May 08
SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 8, 2008
in Search Engine Land
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Below is what happened in search today, as reported on
Search Engine Land and from other
places across the web

From Search Engine Land:


  • Search Engine Land Partners With Federated Media & The Future Of Search Series
    I’m happy to formally announce that Search Engine Land has joined John Battelle’s Federated Media advertising network. Yes, we’re still selling our own advertising directly (and our team is more than happy to help!). Yes, we’re still doing our own thing editorially and owned by our parent, Third Door Media….

  • Microsoft’s Facebook Ad Deal Doesn’t Include Search
    Wondering why Microsoft’s search isn’t being promoted on Facebook? Greg Sterling has noted this odd absence a couple of times, such as in his article today on a possible Microsoft purchase of Facebook. Others have as well. The answer is simple. Last year’s big Microsoft-Facebook ad deal didn’t include search….

  • Microsoft & Facebook Do Mating Dance As Microsoft Seeks Alternatives To Yahoo; Google Now Uncertain On Yahoo?
    At one point or another, most of the big online media companies have talked about buying Facebook. Yahoo is rumored to have made an early offer of almost $1 billion for the company, which was (obviously) turned down. But as the MicroHoo discussions appeared to be deteriorating, Microsoft apparently made…

  • The Most Powerful SEO Tactic: Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
    The most important thing you can do when talking to an SEO client (be it your boss in your company, or a different company you consult for) is to learn how to explain SEO in the simplest terms possible. When you are dealing with a non-SEO type, use the 30…

  • A Small Business Marketing Success Story: Avante Gardens
    There’s a battle going on in the floral industry, and many small, independent florists are losing. Like other small businesses, they don’t have the time or knowledge to keep up with the latest marketing trends and tactics. But there are other challenges, too: Way back in 1998, the FTC…

  • Convertibles & Croatia: Google Thinks They Go Together
    Check this out, a search on jennifer convertibles in Google shows for Embassy of the Republic of Croatia to the USA sporting a Jennifer Convertibles stock quote feature. Yes, Google thinks that Convertibles & Croatia are the same thing, in a sense. Both the main Jennifer Convertibles result has a…

  • Internet Archive Wins Fight Against Secret FBI Request For Records
    When in comes to search privacy, one of the biggest worries in my book has been the US government’s ability under the Patriot Act to make secret requests for information that no one can know about. Last year this was ruled unconstitutional by one judge. Today, news is out about…

  • Yahoo Glue Pages Launches In India
    Yahoo has launched Glue Pages Beta in Yahoo India. Glue Pages are specialized pages that contain an enhanced visual search result page, for select search queries. The search results that trigger the special “Glue Pages” run across searches in health, sports, entertainment, travel, technology, and finance categories. The Glue…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

Business Issues

Local, Maps & Mobile

Link Building

Microhoo

Paid Search & Contextual

Searching

SEM Industry

SEO & SEM

Social Media

Video, Music & Image Search

Other Items

Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

May 08
Search Engine Land Partners With Federated Media & The Future Of Search Series
in Search Engine Land
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I’m happy to formally announce that Search Engine Land has joined John
Battelle’s Federated Media
advertising network. Yes, we’re still selling our own advertising directly (and
our team is more than
happy to help!). Yes, we’re still doing our own thing editorially and owned
by our parent, Third Door Media.
Partnering with FM allows us to try some other ad formats and be part of a great
collection of other
independent authors.

One of the things FM has

pioneered is conversational marketing, where brands want to spark discussion
among pundits, analysts and others. It’s a new thing, and potentially risky if
authors don’t let their audiences know what’s going on. Since I’m about to
participate in my first such conversational marketing campaign, here’s what’s
up.

Click to continue reading…

May 08
Site Navigation and Usability: Easy Tips for Happy Users
in Search Engine Guide
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by Scott Allen

Yesterday, I stumbled across a large ad agency website that promised to be interesting. As soon as I clicked on the link in Google, my senses were assaulted by a splash page, followed by a Flash intro, all before I could enter the site. Yes, it took two clicks before I was even at the homepage…that is appalling! Why on earth is anyone in this day and age still creating websites with splash pages and Flash intros, let alone both on the same site! That borders on visitor abuse.

This particular agency claimed to have won lots of awards, create ground-breaking campaigns, along with all kinds of other lofty promises, and yet they couldn’t even get their own usability issues under control! Wow, talk about missing the point. If I was a potential client, I would have been out the door as soon as I saw the splash page.

Ditch the lofty ideas and focus on the users.

Lofty ideas are great when executed with usability in mind, but when the big ideas interfere, it’s time to go back to basics. Why? Because unhappy users don’t convert. You won’t sell product, you won’t get contracts, and you achieve your other conversion metrics if you make people want to run away.

Navigation is the Foundation of Usability

The first and foremost element of good usability is navigation. Almost all other usability issues are built on, or in some way related to navigation. This article will focus on some key tips you can use to improve your site’s navigation.

Navigation 101: 3 Clicks or Bust

When someone visits your site for the first time, it’s often their first point of contact with your company, so the relationship with them is quite fragile. On average, people are willing to give you 3 clicks to find what they are looking for, and if they can’t reach their target destination within those 3 little clicks, you’ve lost them. It’s extremely important to structure your navigation so that any page of your site can be reached within 3 clicks of any other page, because users don’t always enter at the homepage, especially when they come from a search engine.

This point is really what sparked this post. The ad agency mentioned above wasted two of these valuable clicks before a user was ever at the homepage. Take a look at your site: When you have a new visitor, can they get to their target destination in 3 clicks or less? If not, you need to overhaul your navigation. Users tend to get lost without clear navigational paths, so make it easy for them. Take time at the beginning of site development to create a good site map, and sketch out navigational paths.

Redundancy is a good thing.

Provide multiple paths to the same destination. Take x product (or service) and make sure that users can get there through the primary navigation, the contextual links in the text of the site, and through any other paths that make sense, for example through site search results. The key is to think like a user.

Get outside feedback.

When developing a site, especially navigation, it often is necessary to get some people to visit your site who are completely unfamiliar with your site and products/services, and get their feedback. You might be surprised. Often outside feedback can you step back and see some weaknesses you weren’t aware of.

Make sure it’s easy to read.

Keep in mind that eye-tracking studies have shown the users’ eye tend to gravitate toward the top and left sides of the screen, starting with the top left corner, so those are prime locations for navigation. Users should never have to scroll to find navigation buttons/links.

There a many more things that can improve and fine-tune navigation, but these are some easy tips, that if implemented, will improve the user experience at your site.

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May 08
Highlights from the SEW Blog: April 14-18, 2008
in Search Engine Watch
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Featured posts to the Search Engine Watch blog in the past week.

May 08
Microsoft’s Facebook Ad Deal Doesn’t Include Search
in Search Engine Land
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Wondering why Microsoft’s search isn’t being promoted on Facebook? Greg
Sterling has noted this odd absence a couple of times, such as in his article
today on a possible
Microsoft purchase of Facebook. Others have as well. The answer is simple.
Last year’s big
Microsoft-Facebook ad deal didn’t include search. I asked Facebook about the
absence of a Microsoft search box today and got back:

It is not part of our deal–our deal is directly for MS running industry
standard banners in US and internationally.

The big picture? If Facebook does potentially offer a goldmine of search
traffic, it’s still up for grabs. The
exodus of Googlers
from there to Facebook could suggest that Facebookers wouldn’t want to fall
under the shadow of Google in anyway, not to maintain its "next big thing"
position with some. Then again, those Googlers might still want to work with the
Big G. Or Yahoo. Or Microsoft, which already has an investment. We’ll see.