Latest Articles

Your Page Weight Still Matters

June 29, 2010 By Webposition SEO Team

These days, it’s easy to take it for granted that end users have high-speed Internet and can download almost any webpage in the blink of an eye.  So to attract visitors, pages get stuffed full of flashy ads, audio, video and plug-ins.  And in the rush to get the page up, efficient coding and image optimization fall by the wayside.

After all, it’s a competitive Internet out there, and that page needs its share of the traffic – now.

But consider the end user.  According to eMarketer, a page can lose 50% of its audience if it takes more than 15 seconds to download.  And many users still use dial up or don’t have access to high-speed broadband, especially in countries that are still building out their telecom infrastructures.

Even if a page loads quickly on a desktop, it may not function well on a smartphone.  According to Chetan Sharma Consulting, US data traffic exceeded voice traffic in 2009, which means that the number of users conducting searches on mobile devices is growing.  But not all users have 3G coverage to download overweight webpages.

Page weight still plays a key role in performance and user retention.  Slimming down a page can increase traffic, save hosting costs and improve page rank.  Here are some resources that can help you test your page weight to determine if a ‘less is more’ approach is necessary.

• WebSiteOptimization.com – Free webpage speed analysis
  www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze
• Webpositionadvisor.com – Free webpage size checker
  www.webpositionadvisor.com/tools/page_size_cheker.php

If your page is overweight, you don’t necessarily have to redesign your entire website.  It can be relatively easy and practical to create a low-bandwidth or mobile version, and the benefits could be well worth doing so.

Is Yahoo Flatlining?

June 21, 2010 By korbodo

We were doing some research into Father’s Day keyword positions for a SullysBlog.com post using WebPosition Reporter, and noticed something odd.

There was almost NO movement in rankings on Yahoo.

Unsure if Yahoo’s flat lines were an anomaly, we took a look at different report with over 200 keywords and saw a similar trend. There was movement in 12% of Google positions, 7% had some change in Bing and less than 3% had any change on Yahoo.

Almost as interesting is the volatility in positions on Bing – more up and down vs. a visible, gradual trend on Google. Perhaps once Bing receives an influx of traffic after the Yahoo cut-over, and therefore more user and click data, we’ll start to see more gradual trends at Bing?

SEO in the Mobile Search Space

June 17, 2010 By Sue Spiker

In 2007, search went crazy for mobile devices.  Once the iPhone launched, Google’s search on the mobile Internet bloomed.  Then smartphones were introduced – they now have about 15% of the mobile search market, and statistics show that smartphone users are more engaged on their mobile devices than ever before.

Which means that now, due to the limited display space on a mobile device, the top search rankings have become more valuable…but the details of each listing are shorter.  Each carrier displays results in a different layout, and each carrier is highly focused on providing the most relevant information to their end user. For optimum SEO, this focus makes your meta data, description and keywords even more essential.

Why is Meta Data Important?

• Results listings are shorter compared to traditional search results, and the URL displayed is often truncated to save valuable space.
• Some users evaluate the URL itself when selecting a site to click on.  However, many mobile search results display a URL based on its relevancy to a user’s query AND  location.
• Mobile devices now provide GPS coordinates with geo-targeting capabilities. So, much of mobile search focuses on providing relevant local results that include maps, weather, local points of interest, sports scores, etc.
• Some mobile devices allow you to set your location preferences for search results, and these location settings impact both the local and vertical results the user sees.

What does this mean to you?
Everything if you want to be listed at the top of mobile search results.

Mobile SEO techniques are still in the beginning stages and there is much left to be learned.  Many providers continually test to improve mobile search experience, making mobile SEO more challenging than traditional SEO.  But, not so much we have to re-invent the wheel.  So keep your eyes wide open on these slowly forming standards and be ready.

Online Search Behavior for BP Oil Spill

June 14, 2010 By korbodo

 
As the catastrophe of the oil spill continues to unfold in the Gulf of Mexico, and the discovery that BP is buying related search terms sparks outrage, it certainly got us wondering what people were searching for. 

Using anonymous search data provided by InfoSpace, Inc.’s Dogpile.com, we gathered close to 150 examples from June 8, 2010 that included the search term “oil spill”, and looked at what people searched for next.

After viewing search results for “oil spill”, close to half searched again. The top follow-on keywords were “bp spill live cam” at 13% of users, “gulf oil spill” and “oil spill cleanup” at 11% each, followed by “oil spill live feed”, “Obama”, and “bp oil spill” at 5%, 4%, and 3% respectively.

As searchers continued their journey, they used emotionally stirring terms: pelican, oil spill update, unique marine group, oil cleanup jobs, boycott bp icons, crying bird, bird in oil spill, larry king on oil spill, obama mad, and bp flack.

Unsurprisingly, while only 6% of searchers started with a search for images, 18% of the searches across all sessions were for images.

The Social Media Life – Making the Most of It

June 11, 2010 By Sue Spiker

Facebook and Twitter aren’t just for teenagers anymore – today’s social media sites now offer legitimate marketing tools as well.  And with leading sites attracting a significant number of visitors each day, social media has become a key player in today’s marketing plan.

But before you dive straight in, develop a targeted strategy just as you would for any other aspect of your business.  It’s easy to get carried away once you get started, so stick to your plan and make it work.

• Prioritize. Focus on sites that are most likely to help generate business leads.
• Choose the right avatar. It’s your social media logo, and a good picture is worth 1,000 words.
• Be active.  Interact with your users instead of just creating a static site.  People appreciate consistent responsiveness.

As cost efficiency and user-friendly formats drive their popularity forward, the number of social media sites is growing.  But not every site offers the same format or function.

• Content Posting – Share visual media such as videos and photos.  (YouTube and flickr)
• Networking – Connect with friends, family and colleagues.  (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn)
• Bookmarking – Store, organize, search, manage and share bookmarks of webpages.  (del.ici.ous, Ma.gnolia and Furl)
• Sharing – Recommend business-related or news worthy links.  (Digg, Diigo, Stumbleupon, Reddit and BizzBites)

With more and more people integrating social media into their daily lives, we have seen only the tip of the iceberg.  Coming up, we’ll be looking at some possible benefits of paid advertisement through one of the most popular social media sites.

Google Caffeinated Its Search

June 9, 2010 By Sue Spiker

Have you Googled anything today? Probably, but you may not have noticed that the results seem ‘fresher’ – the result of Google launching its new, highly anticipated Caffeine indexing system today.

To understand how Caffeine works, it’s important to know what happens behind the search scenes. When you enter a term, Google searches its index of the Web, not the entire Web itself. And how up-to-date that index is determines how fresh the search results are.

Caffeine doesn’t change how you use Google – it speeds up how quickly Google refreshes its index. Before, there was a larger delay between when a webpage is published and when it’s included in Google’s index. Caffeine is reported to now close that gap by 50 percent.

This newest update comes at a time when there’s increasing competition from social networks and may indicate that Google is feeling the heat of their competitors. You can learn more at Google’s Official Blog.

Yahoo’s Score Still a Topic of Conversation

June 4, 2010 By Sue Spiker

Up from 16.9% in March to 17.7% in April, Yahoo’s comScore data remains a hot topic among industry analysts. But amidst the abundance of expert opinions, it’s important to remember that comScore’s data isn’t in question – numbers are numbers.

It’s the addition of a new slideshow feature to Yahoo’s UI that has analysts questioning just how impressive the search engine’s gain in market share really is. Why? Because a query generated when a user scrolls through the pictures in the slideshow is not the same as a query generated when a user enters a term into the search box. Yet comScore counts both.

Considering the impact that these automatically generated queries can have on the numbers, many analysts remain dubious of any significant growth. Barclays Capital analyst Douglas Anmuth “would prefer to see share gains come more from higher quality searches that could have a greater direct impact on revenue.”

Even if Yahoo truly has made gains, many doubt whether it can maintain its newfound traction. And with good reason – Yahoo’s market share had been in a 13-month downhill slide until February of this year when it added the slideshow feature.

With Yahoo’s apparent increase in market share happening almost overnight, it’s important to temper optimism with caution. As Jefferies analyst Youssef Squali stated in a recent MarketWatch article, “It is critical for Yahoo to stabilize its search-market share in 2010 to remain relevant in the search market.” Only time will tell if Yahoo can sustain this momentum or if the search engine’s gain in market will ultimately slow.

comScore’s April 2010 Search Engine Rankings

June 2, 2010 By Sue Spiker

comScore’s search numbers for April are out and although the numbers don’t lie, they don’t give you the full picture either.  Thanks to significant changes to the user interface for all three search giants, making a straight comparison between April and March figures is not necessarily an accurate analysis.

Search Engine	March	April	Difference
Google	65.1%	64.4%	-0.7
Yahoo!	16.9%	17.7%	+0.8
Microsoft Sites	11.7%	11.8%	+0.1

(Source: comScore)

If Yahoo’s growth were taken at face value, it would be impressive.  However, much of its growth is being attributed to its new “slideshow” feature, which automatically generates additional queries as one image is displayed after another.  Not the same as user-generated, intentional web searches. As Broadpoint.Amtech analyst Ben Schachter points out, “This will likely continue to benefit YHOO’s numbers going forward, and also likely explains why YHOO has been so confident in saying that the March quarter would be its bottom in terms of share.”

And, according to eWeek.com, much the same can be said of Microsoft’s Bing, which also started using new “slideshow” image searches in several of its search categories in April.

On the flip side, Google’s UI changes have actually lowered its reported query volume by combining organic web searches and any following news/video searches all into one search.  Regardless, despite a mild 0.5 percent decrease in its market share from March, Google is still king of the mountain with 64.4 percent of the market and its query volume consistently growing 6 percent each year.

It is worth noting that Yahoo has been working closely with comScore to make sure that the queries generated by its slideshow interface are counted incrementally. UBS analysts Brian Pitz and Brian Fitzgerald both say the slide shows accounted for about 6% of Yahoo’s total traffic. And, moving forward, it will be interesting to see how comScore adjusts to account for these non-user generated searches resulting from such methodologies.