Latest Articles
Partial Keywords: To Optimize or not to Optimize
October 18, 2010 By Sue Spiker
We’ve discussed expanding your SEO keyword list to optimize for Google Instant’s predictive search results. But you may still wonder whether or not to optimize for its partial keywords – especially for your Google Ad campaigns. After all, just as search results change to match what users enter, so do the paid advertisements that display.
In answer, Alden DeSoto, member of the Google Analytics team, states that optimizing for partial keywords “is not a productive strategy” because “ads are triggered based on the ‘predicted query’ and not the stem that the users type in.”
Let’s put it in some context. If you enter “sof”, you’ll likely get results (and ads) for “softball”. Keep typing and depending on your next letters, you may get “software”, “sofa”, “sofrito recipes”, etc. But according to Google, search terms will only be tracked and impressions will only be counted when you press Enter, click “Search”, select a predictive search term or stop typing for at least three seconds.
Basically, you still have to take an action that tells Google it offered up what you’re looking for before it will attribute a search term to the query. And unless your website specifically specializes in “sof”, there’s no point in optimizing for it because it isn’t going to be counted as a search term.
However, as users keep using Google Instant, their interactions with paid advertisements will still likely change, for better or worse. According to Dan Friedman of the Inside AdWords team:
“It’s possible that this feature may increase or decrease your overall impression levels. However, Google Instant may ultimately improve the quality of your clicks since it helps users type queries that more directly connect them with the answers they need.”
So while you don’t need to optimize for partial keywords, you still need to monitor changes in your AdWords campaigns. And be ready to adapt accordingly.
Google Instant’s Impact on SEO
September 14, 2010 By Sue Spiker
SEO is constantly changing, and Google Instant will undoubtedly change the game yet again. Another of Google’s improvements for the year, Instant guesses what you’re most likely looking for as you type and displays search results accordingly. Essentially, you get predictive search results without that pesky need to hit “Enter”.
All in the name of serving up search results even faster. Which brings us to the big question – how will Google Instant affect SEO?
Over time, Google Instant could change how we use search by offering a wider variety of search results faster, enabling us to refine our searches more quickly. And because the end goal of driving web traffic remains the same, logic dictates that Instant may also change how we get our own webpages in front of users’ eyes.
If your webpage is already optimized for specific keywords, Google Instant won’t change your search engine rankings for those terms. But because it displays the most likely search phrases and top results, optimizing for those additional keywords may become standard. For example, start entering “fitness equipment”. By the time you hit the letter “n”, a different keyword, “fitness magazine”, is already being predicted – as is the first page of “fitness magazine” search results.
“Fitness equipment” isn’t even suggested until you enter the entire term “fitness”. So, if you’re in the fitness equipment business, users can easily get sidetracked before your primary keyword is even suggested. If it’s appropriate for your business, you may want to consider additionally optimizing for “fitness magazine” as well.
One thing is certain. Whatever comes down the pike, adapting your SEO strategies will be critical to your website’s longevity and ultimately, your success. Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam Team, summed it up quite nicely when he stated, “I’ve said it before, but SEO is in many ways about change. The best SEOs recognize, adapt, and even flourish when changes happen.”
Watch the announcements:
Sept 8, 2010 – Google Instant Announcement at SFMOMA
Sept 7, 2010 – Eric Schmidt Speaks at IFA in Berlin: “Never under estimate the importance of fast”
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.
Yahoo now has Bing-Power
August 25, 2010 By Webposition SEO Team
It’s official. Yahoo!’s transition from Yahoo Search to Bing-powered organic search results is now complete. The Yahoo! search interface remains the same, but Microsoft’s search technology now generates the search results. This transition began a week ago and, in a blog posting by Shashi Seth, Senior VP of Yahoo! Search Products, was stated to have gone smoothly.
“This is a great milestone for Bing and Yahoo! and our customers, and we are happy to report the transition has gone smoothly and we feel great about the progress our search alliance has been making over the summer.”
While Yahoo! continues to make improvements to its search experience, Microsoft will migrate Yahoo’s advertising customers to adCenter and is expecting to complete that phase by fall.
So far, this move is in only the US and Canada markets and is only available in English. However, it can affect some users’ search engine rankings. What’s really interesting is that a webpage may rank differently in Bing compared to the new Bing-powered Yahoo!. If you’re tracking your search engine rankings, it’s still a good idea to track your rankings across Bing and Yahoo! separately. You can do a quick check on your search rankings free at www.webposition.com.
comScore’s July 2010 US Search Engine Rankings
August 20, 2010 By Sue Spiker
comScore’s July 2010 US Search Engine Rankings report is out. And, starting this month it includes two versions of the search engine query statistics – the traditional “Core Search” numbers and the new “Explicit Core Search” metric.
Here’s the difference. Core Search captures all qualified searches and remains consistent with comScore’s previous monthly reports. The new Explicit Core Search is an extracted metric of Core Search, and it contains only searches that are the direct result of users interacting with the search box. It excludes supplemental system-generated queries such as slideshows.
Because of this new metric, comScore’s July numbers may initially leave some confused and making it difficult to compare with last year’s figures.
|
Core Search |
Explicit Core Search |
||||
|
Google |
61.6% |
-1 point |
Google |
65.8% |
-0.4% |
Last month, Cameron Meierhoefer, comScore’s Executive VP of Analytics, discussed the reasoning behind the then-upcoming change. And in his Monday blog post, Meirhoefer describes Explicit Core Search as a way to provide “increased transparency into the search market” and that it’s meant to enable “each interested stakeholder to determine which view of the market they deem most appropriate depending on the particular circumstance.”
Essentially, comScore is responding to the recent changes in how some search providers are generating portions of their search results and is presenting a way to categorize each type of search, letting its clients choose which is most applicable for them.
But however you look at it, Yahoo has made the most progress while Bing remained relatively flat. Over the past couple months, Yahoo’s numbers have been in question due to the implementation of its slideshow feature, but with the Explicit Core Search we can now see the true gains in market share. Only time will tell if it can maintain this momentum and while some may worry about the decline in Google’s market share, these numbers are almost surely encouraging to Bing and Yahoo as they move forward with their partnership.
In the meantime, analysts still hold on to their wait-and-see approach as we look forward to seeing how Explicit Core Search impacts the ever-evolving search industry.
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.
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.
Older Posts »