Latest Articles
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:
- MarketPosition SEO 101: Takes you through some of the ins-&-outs of basic SEO.
- Google SEO Starter Guide (PDF): Explains some best practices for making your site user- and search engine-friendly.
- Google Webmaster Guidelines: Guidelines to best optimize your webpage and submit it to be included in Google’s search index.
- Bing: New Features Relevant to Webmasters White Paper: Includes SEO guidelines for ranking well on Bing’s search results.
The Giants of Mobile Search: Follow the Leader
July 14, 2010 By Webposition SEO Team
Since its popularity boomed 3 years ago with the introduction of the iPhone, mobile search has revolutionized how we access the Internet on-the-go. Today, it’s an ever-evolving frontier in which the top three search giants are vying for the lead. And each giant has its own strategy.
Google
The default search engine for the iPhone, Google already has the lion’s share of the market. The first to add voice activated search, Google took the lead before others even heard the starting pistol and still continues growing its repertoire of mobile apps. But, while Google remains the default, iPhone 4 users now have options: Google, Yahoo or Bing.
Yahoo
App-happy Yahoo offers multiple apps across a broad spectrum of categories, including popular news, finance and shopping. This multi-faceted approach could dilute its attempts to up its position in the mobile search market. Or could it? The Yahoo News app ranks #47 in the News section of Apple’s App Store, so traction has been gained. Still, it’ll be interesting to see the effects of the supposedly upcoming Yahoo-Bing merger.
Bing
The newest of the three and therefore last out of the gate, Bing targets shopping and entertainment segments. It has redesigned its mobile browser to appear more like a mobile app. Its actual mobile app, which already ties users’ Facebook and Twitter updates back to its search, now includes visual scanning. Currently #2 in the App Store’s Reference section, this mobile app has helped Bing stay in the race if not yet take a commanding position.
Competition means Opportunity
With each search provider aggressively exploring new avenues to boost their mobile search market share, there is growing opportunity to promote these services through mobile apps and mobile-friendly landing pages. As previously discussed in SEO in the Mobile Search Space, the competition for the top results positions is fierce. Taking advantage of the competition between Google, Yahoo and Bing could make a difference in your mobile search rankings.
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?
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.
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 |
|
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.
The Google Analytics Application Gallery
May 18, 2010 By Webposition SEO Team
38 Features in One Place
Let’s face it, there can never be enough tools to extend the functionality and enhance the presentation of Google Analytics results. And if these tools could be found in one place, that would be even better. Good news – Google Analytics just recently launched the Google Analytics Application Gallery, which includes 38 apps, many of which give marketers and SEM agencies more tools to gather, analyze and report metrics.
Here are just a few of our favorites:
• Analytics App on the iPad – Especially practical given the mobility of the industry and the popularity of Apple’s mobile devices, Analytics HD lets you check and analyze statistics from your iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Its multiple login and account support should also come in pretty handy for those of you with multiple clients.
• ShufflePoint Studio™ for PowerPoint – This app lets you associate Google Analytics data with Microsoft® PowerPoint’s text, tables and chart placeholders and refresh all of the associated data with a click of a button. Creating dynamic, up-to-date PPT presentations is now more straightforward and less time-consuming.
• Analytics Checkup – Making sure that Google Analytics is working properly is essential, and this free app lets you automatically check that your Google Analytics setup is correct, which can help identify (and in some cases, even prevent) a lot of common problems. Checkup even comes with a few additional tools to help you get the most out of Google Analytics.
You can find these and the rest of the collection at www.google.com/analytics/apps. Give them a try and let us know what you think.
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.
The Difference A Space Makes In Your Search
January 30, 2009 By Webposition SEO Team
By Scott Goodyear
Talking to a WebPosition customer this morning, they were wondering why a Google link: search would show that they had 4,000+ links pointing to their site when WebPosition was showing only 26 links from the “same” search. A space, as well as other things, can make all the difference in how you search and what Google returns from your search.
A Space Makes A Difference
In the customer’s case, and using Apple.com as a generic example, they had been searching in their web browser like this:
link: www.apple.com
When this search is performed, Google looks both for the word “link” and the second word, the domain name. This turns the search into a normal keywords search rather than invoking some of Google’s advanced search and filtering functions. You’ll notice that Google even highlights the “words” in the search results:
This is the proper way to do a link search at Google:
link:www.apple.com
Notice that while there may be fewer pages listed as linking back, this is also using Google’s link command rather than a normal search.