May 16
Daily Search Forum Recap: May 16, 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 16
Daily Search Forum Recap: May 16, 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 16
SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 16, 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 News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

Business Issues

Local, Maps & Mobile

Link Building

Paid Search & Contextual

Searching

SEM Industry

SEO & SEM

Social Media

Other Items

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

May 16
SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 16, 2008
in Search Engine Land
Comments Off

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 News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

Business Issues

Local, Maps & Mobile

Link Building

Paid Search & Contextual

Searching

SEM Industry

SEO & SEM

Social Media

Other Items

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

May 16
Search Biz: Guerilla Artists Protest Google, Search Tops Online Spending Categories, Google Potentially Moving Mini To The Cloud, Predictions About Google Consumer Marketing
in Search Engine Land
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Search Biz - A Column From Search Engine LandOther than discussion of online advertising revenues, it’s an all-Google day for Search Biz: rumors of Google Mini being replaced by a hosted solution, a “public art” protest about Google doing business with the Chinese government and speculation about the future of consumer marketing at Google.

Click to continue reading…

May 16
Search Biz: Guerilla Artists Protest Google, Search Tops Online Spending Categories, Google Potentially Moving Mini To The Cloud, Predictions About Google Consumer Marketing
in Search Engine Land
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Search Biz - A Column From Search Engine LandOther than discussion of online advertising revenues, it’s an all-Google day for Search Biz: rumors of Google Mini being replaced by a hosted solution, a “public art” protest about Google doing business with the Chinese government and speculation about the future of consumer marketing at Google.

Click to continue reading…

May 16
Creating An Enhanced Listing With Yahoo!’s SearchMonkey Application Development Platform
in Search Engine Land
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Yahoo! Search Monkey

I’ve been playing around with Yahoo!’s slick new SearchMonkey Application Platform which was first introduced by Amit Kumar, Director of Product Management at Yahoo! Search, at the SMX West conference earlier this spring. Yahoo! hosted a Developer Launch Party yesterday in Sunnyvale top open the platform up to all developers. I created an example application for the Search Engine Land site, so read on for a description of the platform.

Click to continue reading…

May 16
Site Clinic: Beat Competitors With Better SEO And Backlinks
in Search Engine Guide
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by Jackie Baker

This week we are taking a look at GolfAsian.com,
an agency that plans golf vacations in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
With a well-organized website and great customer service, they are
poised to become a leader in the golf vacation industry - with a few
website tweaks and online marketing strategies.

GA-homepage.jpg
 
SEO: using primary and secondary key phrases
Mark has made some strong efforts toward optimizing the Golf Asian
website. Each page has a unique title tag and meta description, two key
areas that draw visitors in from the search engines. He is also making
use of some key phrases in the on-page titles and in the anchor text of
links within the content. However, many of the phrases targeted
throughout the site include specific golf locations and cities such as
Bangkok, Pattaya, Phuket, and Hua Hin. Unfortunately, these specific
locations are not getting many–if any–searches.

SEO will serve GolfAsian.com best by targeting visitors who are looking
for a golf vacation, but aren’t sure where they want to go. I would
recommend using broader terms throughout the website that aren’t
location specific.

keywords.jpgBased on some keyword research, some phrases that
are worth targeting as primary keywords are:

  • Golf vacation
  • Golf vacations
  • Golf holiday
  • Golf holidays
  • Golf vacation package
  • All inclusive golf vacations
  • Golf trip
  • Golf trips
  • Thailand golf

Only use the specific locations as secondary keywords on the pages that
are about those cities, courses, packages, etc, and always in
combination with the primary keywords. This way, you are focusing on
more general search traffic while still ranking for the handful of
people searching for a specific destination.

*Tool Tip: Not sure how to check if people are searching for
your keywords? Sign up for a service like Keyword Discovery or
Wordtracker. Sometimes these services offer a free trial; so plan ahead
and cram your keyword research into a few days.

Link building: beat the competition with a backlink
Currently, GolfAsian.com has around 4,000 inbound links, but they are
all coming from just a handful of websites. While lots of links are
good, they aren’t going to help you if they are all coming from the
same source. Links from a variety other quality websites are critical
for ranking well in the search engines, as well as driving traffic to
the website.

Instituting a link building campaign will help improve rankings for
more competitive primary keywords, as well as fill up the results for
secondary, less competitive phrases.

A few tips for getting more links to your website:

  1. Search for authority sites. A “quality” link is one that
    comes from a site that has lots of other quality sites linking to it. A
    good way to find websites to court for links is to check the backlinks
    of your competitors. See who is linking to the high-ranking competition
    and ask them to link to you too.
  2. Get listed in directories.It’s important to be listed in
    general directories like Yahoo and DMOZ, but also target industry
    specific directories such as those for golf, travel, and vacations.
  3. Go slowly. Getting two many links too quickly is a red flag for search engines.
  4. Use anchor text. When a good site links to you, you want
    them to do it using phrases you are targeting such as “golf vacation
    packages.” Use your best judgment based on your interaction with the
    site manager on whether you can request specific anchor text, or just
    be happy with anything from a good site.


backlinks.jpg*Tool Tip: to check the links coming into your site, go to http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/.
Type in your domain, including the “www” if that’s your primary URL.
Click “Explore URL.” It will automatically show you the pages of your
site that have been indexed; just above the results, click on “Inlinks”
so see your incoming links. You can change the settings to exclude
links from your own domain and to include links to any page of your
website.

Layout: featuring everything equals featuring nothing
In general, there is too much happening on the Golf Asian website. By
trying to feature so many different things, nothing ends up getting
featured. The key areas that need to jump out from every page are:

  • Website name
  • Tagline
  • Navigation
  • Call to action

The content needs to be obvious and easy to scan. Break up long
paragraphs by using section headers and bulleted/numbered lists.

Choose a few items to feature in the sidebars and rotate them, instead of trying to feature everything at once.

Cut the homepage content in half, and then cut it in half again. The
homepage needs to function more like the back cover of a book, giving
visitors a taste of what they will find inside the website. Give a 2-3
sentence overview of what the site is about (using keywords) and then
drive visitors to the deeper content.

The GolfAsian.com website is filled with great information that is well
organized and relatively easy to navigate. Cleaning up the layout,
using more general key phrases, and instituting link building are key
changes that will drive more relevant traffic to the site.

 

Want more from your web site?
Search Influence can help! Targeted Traffic. Increased Revenue. Results Guaranteed. Customized Internet Marketing you can afford.

May 16
Site Clinic: Beat Competitors With Better SEO And Backlinks
in Search Engine Guide
Comments Off

by Jackie Baker

This week we are taking a look at GolfAsian.com,
an agency that plans golf vacations in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
With a well-organized website and great customer service, they are
poised to become a leader in the golf vacation industry - with a few
website tweaks and online marketing strategies.

GA-homepage.jpg
 
SEO: using primary and secondary key phrases
Mark has made some strong efforts toward optimizing the Golf Asian
website. Each page has a unique title tag and meta description, two key
areas that draw visitors in from the search engines. He is also making
use of some key phrases in the on-page titles and in the anchor text of
links within the content. However, many of the phrases targeted
throughout the site include specific golf locations and cities such as
Bangkok, Pattaya, Phuket, and Hua Hin. Unfortunately, these specific
locations are not getting many–if any–searches.

SEO will serve GolfAsian.com best by targeting visitors who are looking
for a golf vacation, but aren’t sure where they want to go. I would
recommend using broader terms throughout the website that aren’t
location specific.

keywords.jpgBased on some keyword research, some phrases that
are worth targeting as primary keywords are:

  • Golf vacation
  • Golf vacations
  • Golf holiday
  • Golf holidays
  • Golf vacation package
  • All inclusive golf vacations
  • Golf trip
  • Golf trips
  • Thailand golf

Only use the specific locations as secondary keywords on the pages that
are about those cities, courses, packages, etc, and always in
combination with the primary keywords. This way, you are focusing on
more general search traffic while still ranking for the handful of
people searching for a specific destination.

*Tool Tip: Not sure how to check if people are searching for
your keywords? Sign up for a service like Keyword Discovery or
Wordtracker. Sometimes these services offer a free trial; so plan ahead
and cram your keyword research into a few days.

Link building: beat the competition with a backlink
Currently, GolfAsian.com has around 4,000 inbound links, but they are
all coming from just a handful of websites. While lots of links are
good, they aren’t going to help you if they are all coming from the
same source. Links from a variety other quality websites are critical
for ranking well in the search engines, as well as driving traffic to
the website.

Instituting a link building campaign will help improve rankings for
more competitive primary keywords, as well as fill up the results for
secondary, less competitive phrases.

A few tips for getting more links to your website:

  1. Search for authority sites. A “quality” link is one that
    comes from a site that has lots of other quality sites linking to it. A
    good way to find websites to court for links is to check the backlinks
    of your competitors. See who is linking to the high-ranking competition
    and ask them to link to you too.
  2. Get listed in directories.It’s important to be listed in
    general directories like Yahoo and DMOZ, but also target industry
    specific directories such as those for golf, travel, and vacations.
  3. Go slowly. Getting two many links too quickly is a red flag for search engines.
  4. Use anchor text. When a good site links to you, you want
    them to do it using phrases you are targeting such as “golf vacation
    packages.” Use your best judgment based on your interaction with the
    site manager on whether you can request specific anchor text, or just
    be happy with anything from a good site.


backlinks.jpg*Tool Tip: to check the links coming into your site, go to http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/.
Type in your domain, including the “www” if that’s your primary URL.
Click “Explore URL.” It will automatically show you the pages of your
site that have been indexed; just above the results, click on “Inlinks”
so see your incoming links. You can change the settings to exclude
links from your own domain and to include links to any page of your
website.

Layout: featuring everything equals featuring nothing
In general, there is too much happening on the Golf Asian website. By
trying to feature so many different things, nothing ends up getting
featured. The key areas that need to jump out from every page are:

  • Website name
  • Tagline
  • Navigation
  • Call to action

The content needs to be obvious and easy to scan. Break up long
paragraphs by using section headers and bulleted/numbered lists.

Choose a few items to feature in the sidebars and rotate them, instead of trying to feature everything at once.

Cut the homepage content in half, and then cut it in half again. The
homepage needs to function more like the back cover of a book, giving
visitors a taste of what they will find inside the website. Give a 2-3
sentence overview of what the site is about (using keywords) and then
drive visitors to the deeper content.

The GolfAsian.com website is filled with great information that is well
organized and relatively easy to navigate. Cleaning up the layout,
using more general key phrases, and instituting link building are key
changes that will drive more relevant traffic to the site.

 

Want more from your web site?
Search Influence can help! Targeted Traffic. Increased Revenue. Results Guaranteed. Customized Internet Marketing you can afford.

May 16
Social Networking Holds True Value for Small Business
in Search Engine Guide
Comments Off

by Jennifer Laycock

When you do what I do for a living, it’s a constant battle to remind yourself that not everyone lives and breathes online marketing. The true challenge of small business education isn’t really in teaching people what they need to know…it’s in convincing them they need to know it. That’s why I couldn’t resist writing a rebuttal to an article over at Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends site by John Mariotti called “Ten Reasons I Won’t Use Social Media Sites.”

Apart from reminding me of how far we have to go in educating small business owners, the article also reminded me of how quickly we dismiss the unknown.

John wrote:

In spite of the fact that I have always been an early adopter of new technology — or communications-based tools, social media turns me off. I have signed myself onto a couple in their early stages — at the urging of friends — and that’s when I realized why I wouldn’t have anything more to do with them, at least until they get much further down their evolutionary trip and improve measurably.

John goes on to list ten reasons why he stays away from these sites. Some of them make sense and are quite understandable:

Social networking is in the evolutionary stage, and as such, all of the sites that exist now will change, evolve become either more useful and secure or go away.

and

Security of social networking sites is as great a risk as passing business cards around in a busy bar. No matter how many times the site owner/operator promises your information will be protected, secure, etc., the lure of money will make them liars. Someone will buy the site for the contacts that come with it — period. Then they will sell those lists to as many people and companies as will pay for them, to do whatever they wish with them.

But other reasons…well, they’re stereotypical lines justifying an avoidance of something new and different.

Real business people realize that this social networking trend is superficial. True relationships may originate in email or other similar venues, but must become personal and not electronic to be of meaningful value.

and

I am simply too busy to meddle with something that is at least largely populated with people who have nothing better to do with their time, or others who think is it somehow an easy way to really be connected to a lot of people.

It was those two lines that prompted me to craft a response to John in the comments after his post.

I don’t know John. I think you’ve confused online dating sites with social networking sites. I also think your view is a tad bit antiquated. Now if you are a small business that has a traditional office and you “go to work” each day, and you aren’t a primary caretaker of children, your ideal world of off-line networking functions, organizations and classes might be practical.

But the “real world” of small business is changing. I’ve spent the last decade working with small business owners…teaching them how to utilize technology and the Internet to market their businesses. I see people all over the country running virtual offices with anywhere from 2, to a few dozen employees. These companies bill anywhere from half a million a year to several million a year. I’d argue that makes them “real” companies.

The ones who have taken the time to learn about and to carefully select the social networks they wish to spend time on pull incredible reward from them. Remember that “vouching for someone” works online and offline. I travel once a month to shows around the world. Thanks to social networks, I can keep in touch with the people I meet at these shows and I can then network with the people they know and can vouch for.

I’ve watched small business owners create a community via Twitter that allows them to bounce ideas off each other, get quick access to info, offer support and close deals. I’ve seen the same happen via LinkedIn and even Facebook.

I joined Twitter as a skeptic last fall so I could write an article about how I gave it a fair shake and it’s useless. Instead, I churned out a five article series explaining exactly how to leverage Twitter for your small business.

I’m co-owner of a virtual company that does very good business online. Three of us work from virtual offices full time. We also have two part time employees and more than a dozen contractors that work with us. I work from home full time and have two small children. Heading off to breakfast meetings and being involved in the rotary and half a dozen professional organizations simply isn’t feasible for me at this point in my life.

But thanks to my involvement in social networks, I have thousands of contacts around the world, hundreds of which I have now met personally. On top of that, my contacts are not limited by geography which gives me true access to the best of the best.

I understand the new technology can seem overwhelming and finding the diamonds in the rough can be difficult…but I always thought the thing that really made small business owners stand out was their ability to adapt with the times and to find creative ways to use new technologies. If you find these types of networking options to lack value, it may simply be that you don’t know how to properly use them.

Or, it may be that they don’t work for you. Either way, I’d hate to see any small business owner pass up the chance to create strong and lasting business relationships via these tools because you convinced them it wasn’t worthwhile. As one of your commenters noted above, the truth is often somewhere in between.

Social networking is not THE solution to small business life…but hiding in an anti-social networking box isn’t the solution either.

I’ve often wondered at the marvel of online networking. I’m an incredibly social person, but my personal life and my choice to be a full-time caretaker to my children severely limits my ability to attend networking events locally. Sure, I can arrange for childcare when I’m traveling, but there’s a big difference between asking the grandparents to keep your kids for a few days every month or so and asking them to keep your kids a couple times a week. (Especially when they live a few hours way.)

Thanks to online networking tools like LinkedIn and Twitter (especially Twitter) I can not only keep in touch with contacts around the world, but can be introduced to new contacts. In fact, I spent a huge amount of time leveraging Twitter to network with local marketers in Houston before our spring Unleashed conference. I’ve also been able to leverage Twitter to meet a dozen or so new Ohio marketers that I haven’t yet met in person, but will soon.

Then again, all of this is being written by the person who owns a company with someone she’s worked with for four years, but only actually met last summer. So maybe I’m a tad bit biased? Or maybe John is.

Want more from your web site?
Search Influence can help! Targeted Traffic. Increased Revenue. Results Guaranteed. Customized Internet Marketing you can afford.

May 16
Weekly Search Buzz Roundup - 05/16/08: Google Dresses in Green, Yahoo Gets Local & Laser Games Are Played
in Search Engine Roundtable
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search-buzz-roundup.gifAnother Friday, another rainy day. For what it’s worth, though, today is a special day, as we are celebrating the first laser. I don’t know if lasers are viewable through cloudy skies, though. Do you?

Mother’s Day

First things first. Did you have a happy Mother’s Day? (Did you even surf the internet on Mother’s Day?) We did. By the way, Chris Boggs, the Search Engine Roundtable design was inspired by our graphic designer, Mabe. Glad you liked it. :)

The First Laser

Today is the 48th anniversary of the first laser. How did I know that? Google told me. Interesting logo choice for sure.

UK Yahoo Users Getting Geo-Targeted Search Page

Want to visit Yahoo.com while you’re in the UK? You may be directed to uk.yahoo.com instead. Does this have anything to do with geo-targeted Yahoo ads? It’s possible, as Barry suspects.

What Background Do You Like Better?

Are you a fan of green? Blue? Yellow? Well, it looks like Google is testing out green backgrounds on the sponsored results. I’m not sure I like it; it’s a little “bolder” than the standard yellow. In my opinion, it sticks out like a sore thumb even though it’s still a pastel green.

Get Creamed by Your Competitor?

According to a recent poll we had on Search Engine Roundtable, most SEOs believe that their competition can hurt their rankings. My question: are you saying this from experience or are you paranoid?

Google Will Let You Buy Alcohol

Okay, just kidding. Google has a rule that disallows hard liquor to be sold, and guess what, they sell materials related to vodka and hard liquor, but since their policy prohibits indexing hard liquor content, Google is not indexing the actual alcohol itself. If you want to buy Vodka on the internet, go to another search engine. Better yet, just go to your local liquor store, flash them your ID, and you’ll be fine.

Is the Yahoo Search Ambassador Program Gone?

Forum members have spotted notifications that the Yahoo Search Ambassador program is being discontinued. Why now? Does it have something to do with Google?

Tomorrow: Google AdWords System Maintenance

If you use any tools based on the Google AdWords API, bear in mind that the Google AdWords system will be down for a few hours tomorrow, May 17th. That’s okay. Go out and have fun. It’s the weekend, after all.