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Video Search Engine Optimization (VSEO)

September 2, 2010 By Sue Spiker

Video Search Engine Optimization (VSEO) is an effective and often overlooked extension of SEO.  But, it’s actually an opportunity to support the content you’ve (hopefully) already worked so hard to optimize.  And even extend that content’s visibility.

According to comScore’s May 2010 figures, “U.S. Internet users watched nearly 34 billion videos in May.”  That makes VSEO a tremendous opportunity to:

  • Drive web traffic
  • Boost brand identity
  • Add life to your web presence
  • Connect with customers
  • Showcase your expertise
  • Build authority within your industry

And because YouTube “accounted for the vast majority of videos viewed”, creating your own YouTube Channel is an obvious place to begin your own VSEO efforts.  YouTube tags and indexes posted videos to show up its own search results based on much the same information that search engines use to index webpages to show up in their results.  Entering the right titles, tags and descriptions increases your video’s chance of being listed in the search results for YouTube and the major search engines.

Like every other aspect of your strategy, VSEO requires a carefully thought-out approach to effectively generate user interest, go viral and drive traffic to your website.  And while your own Channel may not generate huge numbers, you can still increase your web presence simply by posting easily-searched 2- to 3-minute videos.  So while you’re implementing general SEO strategies, consider video search optimization as a way to increase your web presence and web traffic.

Seed Sites are One of SEO’s Best Kept Secrets

August 20, 2010 By Sue Spiker

Part of a search engine’s secret formula is what domains it chooses to use as seed sites, the entry points through which it deploys its web crawlers to explore and index the Internet.  Knowing exactly what domains it chooses as seed sites could tell us exactly where to make sure our websites are listed and where to focus our linking strategies.

Helpful information for those of us on an eternal quest for a higher page rank.

No such comprehensive list is publicly available, for two reasons.  First, search providers use a multitude of seed sites, and they’re not committed to using the same sites each time.  Domains such as Yahoo Directory and DMOZ are likely candidates, but using a variety of domains increases the chances of discovering new URLs and finding out which URLs have expired, which helps keep its search index up-to-date.  Therefore, that list would constantly be in flux and not entirely accurate at any given date.

Second, search providers are historically (and understandably) protective of their trade secrets and are not expected to volunteer such key information any time soon.  Basically, they could tell us, but then they’d have to…well…you know.

And we can’t really blame them.  Imagine what would happen if such information fell into unscrupulous hands.  Spammers and hackers the world over would start gaming the system before we could say “Let me look that up online.”

So give your website the best exposure you can by submitting it to as many appropriate directories and niche portals as possible.  While you’re at it, use social media to get your site out there.  Search engines will find your website if you just keep spreading the word by practicing solid, white hat SEO techniques.  And when they do, make sure that you’ve done a thorough job of optimizing your content, coding and structure, including creating a sitemap.xml file to tell their web crawlers exactly where to go next.

YPO: The Original SEO

August 17, 2010 By Scott Penrose

You may not be familiar with the name YPO (Yellow Pages Optimization), but you’ve seen it in action.

Go grab your Yellow Pages directory.  What is that you ask?  It’s that big book full of ads sitting in the closet under the bread maker you always said you’d use.  Thumb to a category like pest control and tell me what you see.

The concept of advertising optimization is nothing new.  Long before search engines and secret algorithms, all a person needed to know to get a first page listing under their Yellow Pages category was the alphabet.  Eventually, somebody figured out that all they had to do to make sure more eyeballs saw their company’s name was to stick some A’s at the beginning of it.

Now, if you want to rank on the first page of say, Google…the old formula was that the more links you had, the more popular you must be and so the higher you would rank.  The concept is similar to “Alpha Loading” your company’s name with A’s.  The more A’s (or links) you have, the closer to the top you ‘ll be.

So the next time you think SEO is something new, think back to your handy dandy Yellow Pages.  As long as there are marketers trying to sell products, there will be marketers who try to game the system whether they be online OR offline.

Optimization: One Big Party On & Off the Page

August 9, 2010 By Sue Spiker

Their names imply that they’re completely separate approaches, but here’s the truth… good SEO integrates on-page and off-page optimization to grow web traffic and encourage a higher search ranking.  Neglecting one in favor of the other can do your site a great disservice because ultimately, they work together.

On-Page Optimization is what’s done to a website’s content to offer a smartly designed user experience and make the site easily explored and indexed by search engines.  Elements include title tags, meta tags, HTML tags, keywords, content, internal links, headings, images and Calls to Action (CTAs).

But after you optimize the content, coding and structure, you need to make it easy for people (and search engines) to find your site.  Otherwise, it’s like getting your house ready for a party and not telling anyone.  Sure, you may get the stray guest occasionally, but your traffic won’t be all that it can be and you won’t be listed on any Top 10 Parties lists.  You need to spread the word – that’s where off-page optimization comes in.

Off-Page Optimization focuses on generating high quality inbound links to increase your site’s link popularity, which tells search engines that your site is important and authoritative.  Remember that phrase “high quality” – it refers to the other site’s Google Page Rank, amount of web traffic and relevancy of its content.  Start by submitting your site to appropriate web directory categories, which have a very broad scope, and niche portals, which are smaller but much more specialized listings.

When your off-page optimization starts generating interest, your on-page optimization (which should already be in place) encourages users to come back and gives other sites a reason to create backlinks.  Basically, if you’re going to send out party invitations, your house must be ready to receive guests.  Otherwise, most visitors won’t stay long, and even fewer will recommend you to friends and family.

There’s no single, universally accepted SEO checklist that addresses the best practices for optimization on all search engines, or even the top three.  But here are some resources to help you get started:

To Click or Not to Click: What Was the Question?

August 2, 2010 By Sue Spiker

How much information do you retain after reading online content? Not as much as you may think. Take a brief moment to read through each of these articles.

Done? Okay. Now let’s chat. How many of you clicked on the links in the second version AS you were reading? That didn’t happen with the first version, did it? That’s because Version 2 has hyperlinks within the body content while Version 1 doesn’t. And hyperlinks within body content are a leading reason for users not retaining as much information as they would if they were reading a continuous, flow of unlinked text.

Let’s be honest, we don’t ‘read’ so much as we ‘scan’ online content. Nor do we think twice about clicking link after link to go from page to page. And it’s hard to retain information when elements within the content are specifically designed to encourage navigation somewhere else. In fact, we quickly forget much of what we’ve just read the moment we move on.

As users, we’re hardwired to instantly evaluate the value of clicking a link versus the value of staying where we are. How much focus can you actually maintain as you move from page to page reading up on SEO, Information Architecture, the World Wide Web and the Twinkies 80th Anniversary Celebration? (Incidentally, Twinkies have a shelf life of 26 days – I looked.)

Yes, including links within the body content may be good for SEO, but too many links can be data overload for users.

Good SEO practitioners know that their efforts

should not interfere with the user experience.

Understanding how your current approach impacts user behavior can help you create a stronger, more effective linking strategy. Balancing the number and placement of links with the user experience can actually strengthen your linking strategy AND help readers retain the information that you’re offering.

Improving Link Popularity

May 27, 2010 By Webposition SEO Team

The stronger a webpage’s link popularity, the higher its page score and the higher it will rank in search results.  Link popularity is the total number of links that a search engine finds for a webpage, and it’s the quality of these links that determines the page’s overall link popularity.  But not all links are equally valuable.

Search engines can tell the difference between reciprocal links and one-way links, and one-way links are stronger when it comes to boosting link popularity. And when search engines index your website and the sites that your pages link to, they also take into account Rank, Relevancy and Authority.

Think about it – between CNN.com and a single-page hobby site, which has a higher page rank?  How about content that’s relevant to yours?  Which would search engines consider a more authoritative, established site? Create quality outbound links by pointing your visitors to sites with a respectable search ranking and content that complements your own.

True, you can’t always control who links to your pages, but a good way to attract quality inbound links is to give visitors a reason to bookmark your page and keep coming back.  The better your content is and the more your overall website has to offer, the more likely other sites are to link to yours.

Check out our SEO 101 tutorial Building an Effective Linking Strategy to learn more about managing inbound and outbound link building. Make creating quality links part of your marketing plan, and it can ultimately make a difference in your webpage’s search rankings.

To Underline or Not Underline Links For Google

March 16, 2009 By Webposition SEO Team

By Scott Goodyear

Interesting post over at SEO ROI Services called “Does Google Care If A Link Is Underlined? – SEO FAQ“. Gabriel Goldenberg relates a conversation that he had with Google’s Matt Cutts over the use of underlines in links. I know a lot of people wonder about whether tricks like keeping links underlined or not is kosher with Google and generally…

It looks like it depends.

Reading Cutts’ reply, it looks like you are probably OK using or not using an underlined link at your own discretion. It comes down to how the links are interpreted by Google. If you are doing something on your site that seems sketchy and a competitor turns your page or site in for a spam review, a manual review may occur. There was a Google Spam Grader PDF over at Search Bistro (site no longer available) that was of interest. A newer version was mentioned more recently over at Search Engine Land and at SEOBook. I would imagine that some of the points in those documents, whether the docs are real or not, would indeed cause some concern (i.e. a seemingly benign URL in the search result forwards you to an adult URL, hidden text on a page, etc.)

I know some will want to “hide” a few extra links on a page for marketing reasons (i.e. link trades and exchanges). I know that others may have their own design aesthetic that may warrant not using visible links at all. For example, I’ve seen some ARGs and interesting graphic designer portfolios, rock band websites, etc. that choose not to underline all links in their pages so as to force visitors to hunt and peck through their site. Visitors who scour such a site are often rewarded with “easter eggs” – materials such as free ring tones, free wall papers, and the like which are not available from the normal navigation of the site but may be hinted at.

From Goldenberg’s conversation with Cutts, it seems that intent is the key. If there is any doubt that Google may misinterpret your intent, just use normal linking.

Non Profit Web Site? This Site May Help: TechSoup.

February 27, 2009 By Webposition SEO Team

By Scott Goodyear

I got a tip today about a site that helps non-profits out, a site called TechSoup. It appears that if you are a non-profit company, you may be able to qualify to pick up free or discounted software. While I don’t work at a non-profit myself and have not used this site before, this seems like a great opportunity for non-profits and for enterprising companies to donate or provide discounts for non-profits. Have you used TechSoup before? Do you have any similar resources to share?

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