Google Cares About Sentiment?
In the old days of SEO, all a marketer had to care about was whether or not he was building good content and building good links. If you wrote great content for your website using the right keyword mix with content that helped your audience, built links from good domains and with the right anchor text, and didn’t do anything the search engines didn’t like, then there was a good chance you’d rank well for the keywords you targeted. Those days are going away – fast.
SEOMoz has a great post on how Google looks at sentiment and how that affects SEO at the local level. You’ll be amazed at the technology the search engines now have.
Using something called stylometry, Google can determine whether your link from a third-party website is a positive endorsement, a negative endorsement, or neutral. And I find that amazing. It could affect your rankings.
Get enough bloggers to link to your website using negative references and you could see your search engine rankings plummet. On the other hand, get enough rave reviews and you could rise to the top. It’s pretty easy to imagine what you need to do to improve your rankings then, huh?
No, I don’t mean buy positive endorsements. I mean provide great customer service. Your reputation is more than just a few paid-for links. It’s how you do business.
Do You Need An SEO Consultant?
MerchantCircle conducted a survey and found that most small businesses would put all of their marketing budget into SEO if they could only choose one channel. These are interesting results. Why is it that small businesses would choose SEO over social media or traditional media?
I believe the answer is quite simple. Quite frankly, it’s the most effective and most cost efficient marketing channel.
SEO allows you to attract the type of customer you are searching for by “pulling” them in based on their own active search for information that you have to offer. And even today, the best converting traffic for most websites is traffic that comes from search engines. It’s almost a no-brainer.
But how many small business owners actually know how to conduct a search engine marketing campaign using the latest best practices for SEO? The answer: Not many. So who is going to do the actual work of optimizing their website?
It may be time for you to consider an SEO consultant. There are really three kinds of SEO consultants.
- The do-it-all consultant who analyzes your website and looks for opportunities to better your on-page and off-page SEO for increased search results. Then they implement a strategy approved by you.
- The assist-you consultant who analyzes your website and makes recommendations that you follow up on and implement.
- The hybrid SEO consultant who uses a combination of these two strategies and the two of you work together.
There are pros and cons to each type of consultant. Whichever is right for you is your call, but now is the time to consider an SEO consultant for your business for the upcoming year.
SEO And Fresh Results
Here’s an interesting post on how social media is changing search. There’s actually some real serious thought fodder here.
Specifically, here are a few snippets to bite into:
If I want to find information about very recent events, such as the things going on at occupy wallstreet or occupy oakland, I’ve been finding it much easier to type the hashtags for those into twitter than search at Google or Bing or Yahoo. At this point, Twitter still seems to be very much ahead of Google’s new freshness approach in pointing out recent pages about those protest movements.
Amen to that! Twitter’s been ahead of the search engines on recent information for a couple of years now. Twitter has actually become a breaking news center and is able to get news to the public faster than traditional news outlets. The search engines have yet to capitalize on that need.
(Source) So Google needs to have the best product to continue selling ad space. That product was ironically endangered by Caffeine. With Panda Google tries to solve the content issue and with the Social Signals linked inextricably to the Authors and Publishers tries to solve the obsolescence of the Link Graph.
Bill Slawski concludes:
Some topics demand very fresh content, and social media has raised the expectations of searchers by providing them with a way of finding fresh information on natural disasters, breaking news events, and other topics that are recency sensitive. If you search at one of the search engines and get no results for those topics, that might seem like a failure on their part. Google’s move towards providing fresher results was pretty much demanded by the expectations of searchers who want fresher content.
I for one believe the search engines have not yet fully tapped into social media’s potential for their search results. We’ve got a ways to go. But I do believe they are working on it. Bing is probably ahead of Google in terms of social media impact on search results simply because it includes Facebook in its results. And you can use Facebook to conduct Bing searches.
Don’t think that Google isn’t thinking of ways to make its search better with social media. Google+ is a big part of that effort and I suspect will become an even bigger part of the picture in the future.
Real SEO For Real People
What does it take to be good at SEO? Can you do it overnight? Is it a long-term strategy or a short-term strategy?
There is actually a lot of debate about this in SEO circles. Some SEOs are content to go on responding to Google’s frequent algorithm updates in hopes that they might figure out the secret to high rankings. Some SEOs will spend hours, days, and weeks “studying” the search engine algorithms hoping to learn how best to rank well for specific key phrases.
Is it possible? Can you study the search engines and learn the secret to rankings? Many SEOs stake their reputations on it.
The fact of the matter is that learning “the secret” to high rankings is a never-ending struggle. The best that any SEO can do is maintain a posture of good, solid content creation over time. While you might lucky and achieve excellent search engine results over the short term, the real SEO success formula is a long-term strategy. You are building websites and creating content for next decade as much as next year.
Instead of chasing algorithms, you’d do well to simply create great content and let the search engines do their thing.
Why Quality Is Your Best Bet
Google has spent the better part of 2011 clamping down on bad content. Not “bad” as in dirty or pornographic. Rather, “bad” as in not high quality.
In case you’re wondering, that’s what the infamous Google Panda was all about. It’s got everyone talking.
It’s also got everyone thinking. As well it should.
The most important thing to keep in mind is not that your content needs to be long. You might come away with that impression if you just looked at the surface of the Panda updates. What you should do, however, is look under the hood. Quality content is the name of the game.
So what is meant by “quality?” The truth is, quality is in eye of the beholder. And lest you think that in all cases Google is the beholder, think again. You should not be writing your content for the search engines, or for a search engine. Instead, write your content for your human readers. Quality is whatever your website visitors make it. Quality is what they want.
How do you do that?
For starters, ask yourself this question: “What do my website’s human readers want? What do they really want?”
Then, give it to them.
Quality isn’t about some search engine algorithm. It’s about delivering on a promise – the promise to feed your website visitors with the very best content in your niche. Do that and the search engines will be happy.
How The Search Engines Use Social Signals
Social signals are becoming more and more important in search, and I mean beyond Google simply counting and weighing the importance, relevance, and authority of links.
For instance, if you are logged into Facebook, you can go to Bing and see what your Facebook friends like. On YouTube, or anywhere.
Google, in an attempt to face off with Bing, created its own social network called Google+. When you conduct a Google search, beside each search result you’ll see a +1 button. If you +1 an item and you set your preferences on Google+ just right, then your friends will be able to see what you plussed on your Google+ profile page, and you they.
But Google takes it another step further than that even. On the search results page, you can see what items your friends have shared on Google+ and you can see other items they have shared on any social network – including Facebook.
Are these social signals exhaustive? Not by any means. In fact, they are just the beginning.
Social search is in its infant stage. I believe social signals in search will become much more important and we are only getting started. It will be exciting to see where the search engines of the future will take us. I can hardly wait to get there.
The Importance Of Schema
Schema are a new tool provided by a partnership between the big three search engines – Google, Bing, and Yahoo! You can learn more about them at schema.org.
The basic idea behind schema is that certain content is ambiguous and difficult for search engines to ascertain the purpose and intent while human readers have no difficulty. For instance, if you are writing about Vipers, the search engines may not be able to tell if you are referring to the snake or the automobile. Of course, if you are trying to sell cars, then the use of schemas can more easily define your content as related to automobiles and help the search engines in ranking your web page accordingly.
For instance, let’s say you are a local car dealer. There is a schema just for you. It’s listed under the broader hierarchy categories of Thing and Organization. The specific category is LocalBusiness. If you want to get more specific, there’s an AutomotiveBusiness type under that category. Even more specific is the AutoDealer category. That’s where you’ll fall in Mr. Local Dodge Dealer.
But what about that Viper? You can mark up your Viper review with the Review schema to let the search engines know that you are reviewing an automobile or the Product schema to highlight the fact that you are writing about an automobile called Dodge Viper.
With schemas, you stand a better chance of getting your content understood by the search engines. In turn, you stand a better chance of having it rank respectfully.
6 SEO Tactics That Will Waste Your Time
Many SEOs are still optimizing websites as if they are living in 1997. And they’re teaching their clients to do it too. I’m going to set the record straight about 6 SEO tactics that are ineffective and a complete waste of time.
- Keyword Stuffing – It’s hard to believe, but some SEOs still believe that if you put 2% keyword density into your web pages, then it will help you rank. It won’t. This is a total waste of time.
- Meta Keywords – No major search engines care what you put into this meta content field.
- Search Engine Submission – Directory submissions can help you. Search engine submissions can’t. The major search engines will crawl your website. You don’t need to submit your site to them.
- Header Tags – If you think H1 and H2 tags are going to push you up the rankings, think again. They look nice, but they only help your site visitors. That’s important, isn’t it?
- Multiple Pages For Similar Keywords – If you think that optimizing a page for “widget” and another page for “widgets” is going to give you a competitive edge, then you are dreaming. That’s especially true if most of the content on those pages is the same.
- Nofollow Attributes – Putting a nofollow attribute on your internal links for your privacy policy and terms of service is not going to help you increase your link popularity on important pages. It just won’t.
No serious SEO will tell you these tactics work. If you hear it, run the other way.
Who Created The Spam Market?
Spam is a big problem. There’s search engine spam, e-mail spam, social media spam, and canned spam (just kidding; checking to see if you’re really reading). :-)
I’ve read blog posts from SEOs and Internet marketers that essentially blame Google and its policies for search engine spam. I don’t think it’s a fair accusation. Who would you blame for e-mail spam? Or how about social media spam?
Whenever there is money to be made, there will be cheaters. Stock markets provide a way for people to invest money in hopes of getting a profitable return. Certain practices, like using insider information, are illegal and considered unethical. But people still practice them, and if they are caught they will pay the price.
Of course, spam is not illegal. But the search engines have policies in place to address spam in their indexes. Are they perfect? Do the search engine policies effectively control spam 100% of the time? No. But it’s not for lack of trying.
The real cause of spam is greed. Some people would rather risk future profits for the quick dollar now. That’s essentially the motivation behind every spam message you see – whether in your e-mail box, your search engine listings, or your social media walls. If you are a legitimate Internet marketer, however, you don’t want to get caught being a spammer. It can be a real reputation destroyer. Instead, focus on providing value and deliver on your promises.
Beef Your Online Presence With A Blog
Can the addition of a blog help your online presence? There are lots of arguments both for and against a blog and the answer to that question very much depends on who you talk to. From our perspective, the positives that blogs deliver far outweigh the negatives, especially if you publish your blog in the most appropriate manner.
Blogs are especially beneficial to those who try to market a business on a small budget. In fact, apart from your time, blogs can be published and used as a marketing tool, virtually for free. However, don’t make the mistake of adding a blog and then publishing anything and everything. Like all business processes, a little planning can go a long way. Here are a few tips to help you get started.
Consider your audience:
Your blog should be targeting your audience, and that starts with simple things like your theme and the language used. If your audience is young, then a bright, cheerful, and fun theme may be appropriate. If your target audience is more mature, then a more mature blog may be more appropriate.
When it comes to language, if your target is a youth audience, then using the language of youth could be appropriate – you could even consider hiring a young person to write your blog. Likewise, if you are targeting mothers, getting a mother to write your blog could pay dividends.
Focused content:
Plan your content. One of the biggest mistakes that many business blogs make is to oversell. Use your blog as a social communication tool rather than as a formal business tool. This is where niche related writers often bring better results than marketing people. Your content should be focused on your business, be entertaining, and should take a ‘helping hand’ approach – even when introducing new products.
One of the benefits that blogs bring to any online presence is the steady stream of content. Search engines will visit a website more often if it is regularly publishing content. Naturally, your blog should be optimized for organic search to deliver best results.
Ultimately, your blog is a great communication tool. It draws interest from search engines, from social media communities, and from general readers. Make your content interesting and people will come back on a regular basis.
The real
Competitive Intelligence – There’s No Such Thing As Privacy On The Web
One of the downsides of the Internet is the lack of privacy. It can be amusing to see individuals jump up and down because Facebook has breached their privacy when the exact same information is freely available on their website. I guess it’s the principle at stake. However, it does lead to my point that, online, there is very little privacy. When it comes to competitive intelligence, the information is out there and often easy to find.
The biggest source of information are the search engines. Search engines spend their whole being scouring the web looking for information that hasn’t been indexed, and updating information it already has. Don’t let anyone fool you into believing the search engines only index web pages – they certainly don’t. Images, videos, tweets, and forum posts along with a million and one other social media conversations are all being indexed and, once indexed, they could appear in search results.
When seeking information related to your competitors, the hardest part is not finding the information; it is sifting through to get to the real data. A review, for example, could be written by an affiliate, a disgruntled customer, a pay-for-post blogger, or perhaps even an employee. Of course, don’t be surprised if you come across data that appears to be wrong. Smart business owners are trying to foil competitors by placing misinformation in certain areas – misleading keywords in meta tags is an obvious one.
Is it wrong to collect competitive intelligence? Businesses have been doing it for thousands of years – the Internet has just made it easier. Besides, if you’re a strong competitor, you can bet they are looking over your shoulder right now! Privacy – you’re online – what privacy?
How Internet Marketing Has Evolved
In the early days of Internet marketing it was relatively easy to get a web page to rank in the popular search engines for the keywords that you wanted to target. Keyword targeting essentially started with these early search engines and keyword density along with meta tags was the dominant way to get a web page to rank.
But in 1998, a search engine company appeared on the scene and introduced new technology that would change the landscape of search forever. That company was Google.
What was so special about Google? The search technology that Google introduced was all about counting backlinks as a measure of value. If a web page had a lot of inbound links, so the thinking went, then that meant that a lot of other web publishers saw value in that web page and it should rank higher for the keywords it targeted.
This presented a few problems and once word got out that Google counted links then everyone started looking for ways to get more links. You could call it the Great Link Scramble and you’d be right on the money.
In the last ten years Google has made a lot of changes to its algorithm. The search engine has added some factors and taken some factors away in its search for the optimal mix of ranking factors. But the basic core philosophy of using backlinks as a measure of value is still there.
Some other changes that have taken place since Google’s entrance into the search engine wars include the addition of new technologies like pay per click advertising, video marketing, social bookmarking, and social networking. While article marketing was a popular way to seek links early on, social media sites seem to be a more popular way today. But article marketing still works.
As the Internet grows and more people use it for marketing, more technologies come into play for marketing through the medium. I can hardly wait to see how it will change in the next ten years.
MSN Slings The Bingbot
MSN is determined to take over Google’s dominance of the search wars. And its latest weapon in the battle is the newly minted Bingbot. Honestly, though, it’s just a new name, not a new bot.
Bing has changed the name of its bot from MSNbot to Bingbot. But that name change is not all that has changed. The bot is also more adept at crawling non-optimized websites, so Bing says. Take that for all its worth. I wouldn’t purposely fail to optimize my website in hopes that the Bingbot would find room for me in in Bing’s search rankings. That would be foolhardy.
The bright side for webmasters is that you don’t have to change anything in your robots.txt. Bingbot will still respond to calls for MSNbot. In other words, when you look in your log files and see “Bingbot” you can just consider it the same as “MSNbot”. In fact, because that’s what it is under a new name.
So will Bingbot help Bing overtake Google as the No. 1 search engine? Only time will tell. Meanwhile, learn more about how you can sing a song the Bingbot will enjoy.
A Free Competitive Intelligence Tool You Must Have
Every so often I run across a tool so useful that I have to tell you about it. Such is the case with this free competitive intelligence tool. It’s a tool that gives you a ton of useful information about your competition in a single click. Right at your fingertips. Add your own cliche.
The tool is the SEOQuake toolbar. Here’s what it does for you:
- Tell you the Google PageRank of any web page on the Internet
- Gives you the number of pages indexed in Google for any website online
- Also tells you the number of links pointing to any web page as reported to Google
- Reports the number of pages indexed at Yahoo
- And the number of Yahoo links
- Reports the number of links to any domain as reported to Yahoo
- LinkDomain2 – The number of links reported to a full Yahoo domain, unlike LinkDomain1 (previous bullet point) which reports for a single domain such as a subdomain.
- Shows whether a website is listed in the Yahoo directory
- Reports the number of pages indexed at and links pointing to each page at Bing
- MSN (Bing) LinkDomain and LinkDomain2
- Tells if a website is listed in DMOZ
- Alexa Rank
- Links to Digg, Technorati and Delicious histories for any website
- Link to Whois
- Gives keyword density report
- And a whole lot more
You can also judge the value of your competition’s website with traffic data and monetary value information. There is so much that SEOQuake can tell you about your competition that it’s difficult to NOT recommend it.
The only catch is that it can only be used with Firefox since it is a Firefox add on. And you can add other plug-ins to the add-on such as SEO Toolbar and AdsSpy.
If you want real solid competitive intelligence data then download the SEOQuake toolbar.
Why Strict Keyword Densities Are No Longer Necessary
To truly understand how SEO works today you need to have an understanding of the history of SEO as a marketing strategy. Search engine optimization did not develop in a vacuum and it won’t evolve into what it will be tomorrow without the developments that are occurring today. There is a continuum and it can be traced.
To begin with, SEO did not really get its name until after Google came on the scene. Before Google, Internet marketers were optimizing their websites but they didn’t really call it that. However, that “optimization” was very primitive compared to how it’s done today.
Meta Tags, Backlinks And The Rise Of Google
At one time, pre-Google, all you had to do was add a bunch of keywords to your meta tag list and you’d rank well for those keywords. It didn’t even matter if those keywords appeared in your page content or not. You’d still rank. Hardly seems fair, does it? That’s why Google rose to such prominence as quickly as it did. The company introduced a whole new paradigm.
When Google came along, no one was interested in analyzing back links. Today, that seems intuitive, but at one time no thought it was important except for two guys with the software to make it happen.
Those two guys started Google, whose search ranking algorithm was based largely on the number of inbound links pointing to a particular web page. Soon, Internet marketers started dropping their meta tag strategy in lieu of a backlink strategy. Back links became the new currency.
From Backlinks To Semantic Natural Language
Over the years, Google has tweaked its ranking factors to include more than just an analysis of the number of inbound links to your site’s pages. Quality of links, relevancy of links and link diversity are important too. And there are more than 100 other factors Google considers as well. And then there are Bing, Yahoo!, AOL, Ask and many other search engines. Each one has their own ranking criteria.
One consideration that the major search engines look for today is natural language, or semantic language, syntax. While keywords are still important, successful web page do not need X number of one keyword phrase per Y number of words on the page, what marketers call “keyword density”. Instead, it’s important to put your keyword phrase in the right places on your page and in proximity to other important elements on the page. And to write naturally for your site visitors just as you would if keywords were not important.
In essence, the search engines are looking for the best content for every keyword phrase they rank pages for. If you stuff your pages with keywords just for a ranking then you are doing yourself and your site visitors a disservice. It’s basically shooting yourself in the foot. Trust me, that hurts.
Why SEM Changes So Much
Search engine marketing is in a constant state change. This may seem a bit odd. Wouldn’t the search engines benefit more by keeping things steady and constant? Not really and it’s a simple matter to understand why.
There is a constant tug of war between the search engines and webmasters trying to get their pages to rank well. But there are different types of webmasters. Not all of them play fair.
The first type of webmaster is the run-of-the-mill webmaster who just wants to run legitimate business. This type of webmaster doesn’t really have the time to learn everything there is about marketing to search engines, but they do take out time to learn what they can. Their goal is to rank as well as they can and not try to game anyone.
The second type of webmaster is the professional search engine marketer. They spend their time studying the search engines, testing different techniques and doing their best to stay on top of the latest changes.
A third type of webmaster is the “blackhat” practitioner. Like the professional SEMer, he spends his time learning the latest techniques and keeping up with search engine ranking changes. However, this type of webmaster will use any technique at his disposal to gain an edge in the rankings. He doesn’t care if the search engines approve of his tactics or not.
Then there is the spammer. This type of webmaster is simply careless. And sloppy. And somewhat lazy. She won’t take the time to study the search engines. She just learns what the popular theories are of the day and chases rumors without testing them. This webmaster will likely have a few websites de-indexed then wonder why.
Finally, there is the clueless. This webmaster doesn’t know the first thing about how search engines work. He just builds his website and hope people show up to look at it.
The search engines, first and foremost, want to show good search results to searchers. But they also want to be fair to each of the types of webmasters above. And to do that, there must be some kind of way to ensure that no one games the search engines to gain an unfair advantage. That’s why the search engines penalize the use of careless tactics and those that attempt to game the results.
But it would not be fair to allow the professional search engine marketers an opportunity to gain advantage over everyone else by letting them in on all the ranking secrets and shutting everyone else out. So the search engine frequently change their ranking algorithms to wipe out the advantages of the professionals and to ensure that no one games the results for an unfair advantage.
This means it is even more important to study and test to see what works – not just for today, but for all time.
Can Small Pay Per Click Search Engines Make You Money?
Can you make money with smaller pay-per-click companies? You know I’m not talking about Google, or Yahoo!, or Bing. Those are the majors. I’m talking about the small companies and search engines. Some of them you’ve probably never heard of, such as:
- Miva
- Looksmart
- 7Search
- Search123
- GoClick
- Kanoodle
- AdBrite
- Enhance
This is just a small list. There are plenty more.
Most pay per click advertisers stick with the big three, but they are missing opportunities with the small search engines. The advantage to using the small PPC companies is that your cost per click will be lower – much lower. In some cases, keywords that you’ll spend $1 or more at Google or Yahoo! will cost your mere pennies at one of the smaller companies. The downside is you won’t get anywhere near the traffic that you’ll get at Google, but if you get any traffic for a fraction of the cost then it’s worth it. Right?
Yes, right. So don’t discount the small pay per click companies. They could be very profitable.
What Will Search Engines Be Like A Decade From Now?
Bill Slawski takes a walk down memory lane by showcasing some archived screenshots of search engines from a decade ago. It’s interesting to see what Google, a new upstart, looked like back then. And even better to see some of the sites that are no longer around. But the best thing about Bill’s post is the final comment, “I’m wondering what they might be like a dozen years from now.”
Yeah, I’m wondering too.
And here’s my speculation. I think the search engines will be fully social. Not only will you be able to visit Google and search for real-time information and expect relevant results, but you’ll be able to share Facebook-like information and provide “status updates” in real time as well. Facebook might even be one of the leading search engines. And Google could be one of the leading social networks.
I think Google Wave is the start of a new direction for search engines. You’ll likely be able to search the Web from your desktop – even the “desktop” of your cell phone. There may even be an MP3-size device or Blackberry-like contraption on which you can do all sorts of things including search the Web, send text messages, phone your mother, and project 3D holographic images on your boardroom wall (well, that might be a stretch).
I’m looking forward to the next decade of search. I believe we’ll see some striking technological innovations and likely from some unexpected sources. The part I’m wondering about is what will search engine optimization be like?
Why SEO Is Still Important
You might think, with all the talk of social media, real-time, and video/viral marketing, that SEO is not as important as it used to be. Don’t be fooled. It’s still as important as ever and, if anything, is more important than it ever was.
There are two things more than anything else that influence the importance of SEO – increased competition and search engine policies.
Regarding competition, there’s not a lot you can do other than try to out-optimize your competition. That requires some competitive intelligence, but it also requires some aggressive search engine marketing and keyword research. You need to know what people are searching for and how you can meet the demand for information better than the other guys. That’s a bit of a no-brainer.
The tough one is search engine policies. They change, and they can change drastically. Sometimes without much notice. But they rarely change in ways that are unforeseen and illogical.
For instance, in the past couple of years we’ve seen the search engines go from offering 10 blue links of organic results to offering a handful of organic links along with images, video results, and listings from other verticals. Savvy web marketers should have seen that coming. The rise of the verticals almost ensured that would happen. And people demanding better search results all around was a huge factor as well. Plus, it just makes sense. People searching for information on a given topic may not necessarily be looking for a website – they could be looking for a video or an image.
So, search engines change. And that means SEO can sometimes change. But, again, it rarely changes in ways that can’t be unforeseen or that are totally illogical. Just because your friends are going social doesn’t mean that SEO isn’t still necessary. It is – now more than ever.
Optimizing PDF Files
Search engine optimization is always changing, always improving, and that’s a good thing. One of the latest developments in SEO is that webmasters now have the ability to optimize PDF files. But how?
First, you have to ensure that your PDF files are not in a secure folder. Locked by security walls will cause search engines to be denied access and if search engines can’t crawl them they can’t be indexed. But other than that, there aren’t too many restrictions.
PDF files are optimized a lot like HTML pages. You can place your keywords in the headline of the document as well as in subheadings and throughout the document. You can also link out from PDF files to other pages on your website and use important anchor text for those pages. But more importantly, you can link inbound to PDF pages using appropriate and relevant anchor text to help improve their crawlability and ranking quotient.
PDF files also have author, tittle and description information that you can fill out when you create them. Use that information as the search engines may be able to use it for indexing.
Ensure that you when you create your PDF file that you do so using a text editor or word processing program like Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, or CoffeeCup. Don’t create it as a .jpg or it won’t be crawlable.
Optimizing your PDF documents is not hard and can be done just as you would do for an HTML page.
Spread Your Pay Per Click For Better ROI
Pay per click marketing can be a stressful past time for many web site owners particularly if they are in a competitive niche where costs per click can be high. If your walking a tight line between profitable and unprofitable costs then it may be time to rethink your pay per click strategies and look at some of the lesser known PPC options.
There are quite a few alternate search engines around that offer pay per click advertising, often with lower costs per click than the big boys like Google. The hard part is finding these alternatives. A search of Google will help you find a good handful of alternatives.
Once you have a list of alternative pay per click search engines, sit down and do some research. Sign up and create a few ads, check out their interfaces, and see what sort of costs per click you may be up for. Many of them can provide the same keyword advertising program but at much less costs.
If you have the funds, create a few trial ads and let them run for a few days. This will give you an idea of what costs you are likely to face, what sort of click through rate you are receiving, and most importantly, what sort of conversion rates you are achieving.
You would be surprised at the amount of traffic you can generate through these alternate search engines. You may also find you are achieving better conversion rates – if that’s the case, your ROI will simply get better.
What Will Search Engine Marketing Of The Future Look Like?
Search engine marketing has often been defined as attempting to rank web pages in the search engines through means such as pay per click advertising, paid placements and paid inclusion. But this is a little bit of an antiquated definition.
With Microsoft taking over Yahoo!s search business and incorporating it into Bing, at least two of those strategies are nearly no longer valid. Yahoo! trumpeted paid inclusion years ago, but since search engines have gotten better at crawling and ranking web pages, paid inclusion has not be all that necessary. Any search engine marketer worth his weight in salt ought to be able to get a web page ranked without it.
So what will SEM of the future look like?
My guess is will still involve contextual advertising, or pay per click, but it will also involve some form of social media advertising. As the Web grows more into a social web with search functions, as opposed to a searchable database with social features, the search engines themselves will take on a more social role. Search engine marketing could actually become more social in nature. What do you think?
How You Are Judged In PPC
Many would-be Internet marketers are a little confused about pay-per-click marketing. It is assumed that because it is keyword-based like SEO then the rules are the same. That’s actually not the case.
With search engine optimization, you are judged by how well your website is optimized by both on-page and off-page factors. You are judged by things that are both in your control and outside of your control. With PPC, you are judged entirely by things that are within your control. However, your placement on the page is judged by things outside of your control.
Let me explain.
A good PPC campaign begins with a list of keywords. You first have to build a landing page that is optimized for your keywords. Maybe not all of them, but enough of them. Next, you write an ad that is designed to drive traffic to that landing page. You set a budget and bid on keywords and let your ad go live. The search engine will give your ad a quality score. That quality score is based on how well your ad and landing page work together AND whether or not visitors to your landing page stick around – your bounce rate.
You might say, wait a minute, I can’t control what my visitors do. But before you say that, consider that your visitors are reacting to your copywriting skills. If they leave your site because it is poorly designed or doesn’t meet their expectations then it’s because of what you did. You have control over that.
But even if you do everything right and you get the best quality score, your placement within the search engines is dependent upon the search engines. You may be placed high on the list due to your quality score, but if someone else achieves a higher quality score, which you can’t control, then they may actually achieve a better positioning than you.
So your ad is judged by what you do, but your placement is judged by a combination of what you do and what your competition do. Those are some things to keep in mind when planning your next PPC campaign.