Search Marketing Word of the Week (6)

It's that time of the week again when our wonderful frogg shares with you his extensive search vocabulary. If you are new to all this 'word of the week' stuff, there is a good reason for this regular article.

If however, you are already sitting on the edge of your seat desperate to know this weeks letter, here goes...

'L'

OK, let's keep this simple...it's been a long week!

'L' is for 'Link'

A link is an area on a web page, perhaps an image or a word, which can be clicked upon to take the user to another page or area on the same page. Links are the primary means by which search engines spider websites and thereby create their indices.

The Magnificant Erasure - Flickr & Google

Having been very fortunate to witness another brilliant gig from Erasure at the Royal Albert Hall in London on Tuesday night (25th September) and probably like many loyal fans still on a high, I searched in Google for any mentions, photos etc the following day. The search term used in Google.co.uk was "erasure albert hall".

Amazingly, some fans had already posted their pics of the Erasure gig in Flickr in the early hours of Wednesday morning which were already being listed by Google on page 2 of its results on Wednesday lunchtime (13 hours after the gig had finished).

The purpose of the post is to demonstrate how quickly google is spidering and ranking content from Flickr and how images can be optimised, with titles, tags and lengthy descriptions. For more information, the following article from Clickz.com includes hints and tips on how to optimise for Flickr.

Thanks again Erasure, great night and another excellent album (Light at the end of the world), buy it now!!

"LTA suspends top junior players" - Are you showing your private parts?

Walled garden social sites including Facebook, promise security and safety, where users can chat with friends, meet old acquaintances or perhaps simply join interest groups. Such safety and security inspires confidence - encouraging users to include a high degree of personal details, including uploading and sharing photos, whether they be of holidays, drunken antics or graduation. But perhaps caution should be exercised when posting photos, statements and even your political outlook, as these walled gardens appeal to house large windows… and who knows who is looking in.


Yesterday’s (24th) sport section of the BBC News website carried the story of top Britain's tennis juniors David Rice - the second-best British junior - and Naomi Broady - the national Under-18 champion – who have been suspended for unprofessional behaviour" and "lack of discipline" after posting confusion and photos including a junior “slumped on a hotel bed surrounded by empty pizza boxes” on social networking site Bebo.

This story echoes that of Oxford students, reported by the Times in July of this year, who were “busted” by University officials who used the social network site Facebook to track down students who inadvertently soiled areas of the university quadrant with flour, champagne and toilet rolls as they celebrated finishing their exams.

There is even further talk that prospective employers have used Facebook to background check prospective employees (here and here).

Issues of privacy and invasions of ring true, and although sites including Facebook have privacy settings, little is know as to how to enable these.

Questions remain of social networks and of Facebook in particular, which to this day, leave me bemused?

1. Do I add my boss as a 'friend' or 'Contact'?
2. Should I edit what “Simon Is….” really doing on my Facebook profile?
3. Are images of me enjoying a drink at a nightclub on a school night really safe?
4. Can I really be myself online?

Ultimately, THE question is: Where do we draw the line?

Are social networks to be serious ‘networking’ spaces reminiscent of attending a Christmas party in a new job, where we must all be on our best behaviour? It certainly feels that way, and it’s a point galvanised by the suspension of Rice and Broady

Please accept my apologies if the title of this entry conjured up thoughts of an anatomical nature, but in view of your social networking profiles, are you showing your private parts? or perhaps, to further digress, is there a chance, in a metaphorical sense, that the zipper might get caught?

Search Tip of the Week (5)

OK so what golden nugget of information can we depart this week? Perhaps we can give you the quickest and most reliable method of finding out what other web sites on the Internet link to your site.

Whatever you do don't rely on the information Google gives you when you type in link:www.yoursite.com. The sites listed when using this command in no way represent what sites Google really has as listed as linking to your site. For reasons beyond the rest of us Google are keeping their cards close to their chest on this one. However we do recommend you take the time to sign up for the Google Webmaster Central suite that gives you a much more accurate picture as well as lots of other really useful information about how Google views and indexes your site.

For those who haven't managed to set up the Webmaster Central tool yet or want to do a bit of link research on sites that they don't have access to, those fair folk at Yahoo offer a great free tool called "Site Explorer" that gives you a much better snapshot.

Just pop your URL into the box and hey presto you get a list of both internal pages that link to your pages AND those external sites that link to you. Use the links at the top of the list to toggle between them.

You can also then use the drop down boxes to filter out results for the entire site or just a specific page. All very useful stuff!!

Search Marketing Word of the Week (5)

It's Friday afternoon so it means just one thing...

Its word of the week time! If you would like to know what this is all about, please have a peep at the first post.

So, Frogg, let's have this weeks letter please...

G

...and D

Two letters eh?

OK, G and D...I know only one phrase and that is...

'Google Dance'

Many moons ago, it was reputed that Google's spider was unleashed across the web roughly once a month. At this time, website owners would study the search engine results pages' (SERP's) with great interest (and often anxiety) to monitor any change in position for their keywords. Why? Because during this time, Google would update a number of ranking factors that could result in a website jumping up the listings or on the other hand, moving downwards. Nowadays, Google is constantly updating it's index so spiders are always on the move. For a popular and trusted site no longer do you have to wait for the once monthly 'dance'. We have seen many examples of new content being spidered in a matter of hours, a likely reflection of how search engines need to be for more regular in their spidering due to constantly updated information, such as blogs.

Until next week...

Man v's Machine - can search ever be fully automated?

There has been plenty of interesting debate concerning the announcement made by Commerce 360 earlier this week that they are embarking on a mission to build a fully automated 'search optimiser'.

It would appear as if many of us got the wrong end of the stick. The presumption was that Commerce360 were referring to tools to automate the SEO process where as in actual fact they were referring mainly to Paid Search (Craig Danuloff from Commerce360 responds to the confusion in this thread by stating "the majority of the technology we’re building and the ‘future of search marketing’ phrase relates to paid search").

Despite the confusion, it has stirred up an interesting debate. Can SEO or Paid Search ever be fully automated? Our opinion is short and sweet - automated tools have a role to play in many aspects of managing search, both paid and organic. However, there will always be a need for the human touch.

Much of the recent debate has centred around 'on the page' optimisation and how automated tools may aid this process. Personally, I don't believe that 'on the page' SEO can be implemented and managed in an automated fashion because SEO is about targeting human searchers, not just search engines. Software, no matter how sophisticated, will never be able to understand the complexities of human interaction with websites, behaviour, psychology, etc.

It also has to be remembered that search marketing, especially SEO, has changed enormously in recent times. 'On the page' SEO, in our experience, only accounts for around about 40% of the optimisation 'mix'. The lions share of the ranking algorithm (certainly in Google's case) is accounted for by 'off the page' factors, most notably the number and relevancy of incoming links. There have been numerous tools to try and automate the link building process but in this day and age, how many of them really work? In our experience, these tools pick sites of low quality, poor relevance and have no understanding of sites that may be relevant to one another but in actual fact are competitors. Once the sites have been identified, an email is then sent which might as well have IGNORE ME, I AM IMPERSONAL AND AUTOMATED in the subject line (if I receive one more email from a competitor asking me to link to them I will not be held responsible for my actions!!). If automated tools cannot work effectively in 'traditional' link building, how can they possibly help in new link building disciplines, such as PR and social media? In short, they can't. These disciplines are only going to have a greater and greater weighting in the future and can only be effective if managed entirely by a human who understands objectives, target market, context and so on.

There is no doubt that certain aspects of both 'on the page' and 'off the page' can be automated but the role of software is limited only in making the more mundane tasks more manageable, thereby improving efficiency. What would be really useful is a single environment where all of the many tools we use daily could co-exist and interact. Perhaps such an environment already exists but I have not come across it. Imagine, a one-stop shop, perhaps in a browser style format, where all of the very best tools can be found and called upon easily, as opposed to visiting many different sites, having to download programs, etc . SEO for Firefox is undoubtedly close to what I have in mind but I think there is the possibility to go one better.

Perhaps this is what Commerce360 meant or perhaps not. I look forward to hearing more over the course of the coming months.

What really makes me smile about the debate raging at the moment is the number of people who appear to be in favour of more automation. Do they not realise that the more automated the process becomes, the less likely they are to have a job, especially at entry level?! And of course, the more automated the job becomes, the less interesting it is.

Google Analytics Reverts Back To Original Stat!!

Following our blog post on the 3rd August where we informed all our readers that Google had changed the basis on which it reported the Average Time Statistic in Analytics by effectively excluding bounce rates from the calculation, they have now reverted back to the original calculation by including bounce rate information.

Why may you ask are Google changing this calculation of the Average time spent on our site? Well, according to a statement on Google's official Analytics Blog "many of you prefer the original calculation: the total time on site for all visits divided by the total number of visits."

Is this an admission that the July update was an error especially with regard to the last statement in the blog post "We are always seeking to improve the value you get from Google Analytics. We try to be right 100% of the time, but we're human."?

There were two other updates to analytics as part of this release regarding the how Absolute unique visitors information is displayed and the way URL parameters are ordered.

All of us at leapfrogg are great fans of analytics to the extent that all of our clients are encouraged to implement this website tracking measurement tool, however, perhaps Google could improve their communications of any future updates by broadcasting a statement in live analytics when you log in stating that an update has occurred. This could be a simple link to their blog for instance. There must be thousands of users especially businesses who do not have the time to find out whether an update has occurred and then have spend needless time working out why stats have suddenly changed.

Therefore, future communications of analytics updates surely has to improve, Google, please listen!

Search Tip of the Week (4)

The tip this week is pretty straightforward but we are amazed at how many companies and individuals still claim that it is a necessary chore to submit, and regularly resubmit, a site to the major search engines.

So let's put this one to bed...there is no need to submit your site to any of the major search engines. Search engines compile their databases through the process of spidering. A spider (robot, bot, crawler) is a program used by search engines to follow links from web page to web page. As it goes on its merry travels it takes a copy of each page to store in its index. Even if you are launching a brand, spankin' new website it will usually be found by search engines pretty quickly. Gone are the days when search engines, most notably Google, only spidered once a month. We have seen some new sites spidered within hours.

Even more so, there is absolutely no need to regularly resubmit to any of the major search engines. It is remarkable to still see so many companies selling submission and resubmission services when they are so completely unnecessary. If you build links to your site and establish a degree of trust with the major search engines, they will regularly revisit your site through the process of spidering. Continually resubmitting your site over and over again to any of the major engines is only going to serve to annoy them! In fact, its debatable as to whether sites are even fed into the system having been submitted through a form such as Googles.

So, if you are ever offered a submission or indeed resubmission service, run a mile!!

'Education, education, education'

I received an interesting call this morning from a company looking for SEO consultancy. It was a pretty typical story; the company in question had employed a search marketing agency around a year go, who, in the main appeared to know what they were doing but in reality had failed to deliver. Although I have taken a thousand calls along the same sort of lines, this story had a particular angle that got me thinking. As I do with any new lead, I asked a series of questions so as to gain a greater understanding of the company's knowledge and understanding of basic SEO principles. I was alarmed to learn that although the company in question had been paying a pretty sizeable monthly fee to their existing search marketing agency, they knew absolutely nothing about online PR, social media or reputation management. In fact, they had not even heard of these disciplines in the context of SEO.

This amazed me. One of the main reasons why companies, especially smaller ones, outsource search marketing is because they do not have the time and resource in-house to manage the many different disciplines that fall under the guise of today’s search marketer, let alone also keep up to date with latest industry developments and trends.

In my view, if you have a paying client who relies on you for information on the latest trends, developments and disciplines and you are not providing this information through one means or another, then you are failing your clients. As a search marketing agency, you are the clients’ ears and eyes. If you are not keeping up to date, assessing, testing and then relaying information back to clients, then I fail to understand how you sleep at night; not only must you worry about the longevity of your business but quite simply you are not doing the job that you have been contracted to do.

By now, you are no doubt wondering what a young looking Tony Blair has to do with any of this. Well, 10 years ago, Tony Blair made his now infamous speech where he claimed Labour would put classrooms at the top of the political agenda. Whether Labour delivered on this promise is a debate for another time (and indeed another blog!), however, the memorable words 'education, education, education' can be applied in the context of the search marketing industry and in particular search marketing professionals who ‘look after’ clients and charge a monthly fee or retainer for doing so.

A key role for search marketing agencies is to continually educate (and re-educate) their clients on latest trends, developments and disciplines. This benefits the agency; keep clients informed and their campaigns current. Not only does this result in ongoing up-sell opportunities but if campaigns are well implemented, it will inevitably result in happy clients. Happy clients will shout your name from the rooftops if you deliver for them. Too many agencies are currently looking at short term gains instead of looking at the long term benefits of delivering good quality SEO solutions. Yes, it takes time and effort to keep up to date with the latest developments and to offer new services to clients, but this is a small price to pay to develop a successful business in the longer term.

On a macro level, a well educated market may help in eliminating those agencies and ‘consultants’ who knowingly deliver poor quality ‘solutions’. Currently these people are able to operate based on their ability to take advantage of a relatively young, uninformed and to a certain degree, naive market. A market which is well informed will not be so easily suckered by those seeking to pull the wool over the clients’ eyes.

There is already a band of excellent search marketing professionals at the top level who preach the very best in SEO. However, it is up to all of us with a genuine love for this industry to keep clients informed through ongoing education, education and more education. By doing so, those agencies who are failing their clients will fall by the wayside more quickly and there will be a greater degree of trust in an industry which suffers greatly from far too much misinformation.

Search Marketing Word of the Week (4)

It's that time of the week again...the frog's moment of glory when he can demonstrate his search marketing knowledge; all in a language even the newest of search marketing 'newbies' can understand!

So without further ado, please give us this week’s letter...

'B'

OK, lets go to the dark side...

'B' is for 'Black Hat'

Most search engines publish their own set of guidelines for Webmasters. In essence, these are the rules you need to play by if you want to have your site included in a search engines index. They are by no means specific instructions on how to 'optimise' your site but are certainly considered a good place to start in learning the do's and don'ts.

A search marketer adopting any one of a number of 'black hat' techniques is generally acknowledged to be partly or wholly ignoring these guidelines. Instead, techniques are adopted which are often designed to fool the search engine into showing content that it would not otherwise. Effectively, 'black hat' techniques are adopted to 'game' the system. For more information, see our brief guide to ethical SEO.

Search Tip of the Week (3)

The tip for this week is more of a "TASK" than a tip. SEOmoz a highly regarding search marketing resource from across the pond have released an SEO Quiz to test your knowledge of search marketing.

It is an extremely comprehensive quiz and we recommend you take it as it not only encourages you to think hard about certain aspects of SEO but also gives you the right answers at the end of the quiz to help you brush up on the areas you are lacking knowledge in.

Go on, we are sure you will be surprised at how much you really know!!!

Google Local - Are you listed?

We are hearing ever more about personalised recommendations, reviews and ratings systems within individual websites. Whether it is Loren Baker at the SearchEngineJournal commenting on the increasing power of Social media voting and user views of particular videos for first page results or perhaps that of Technorati Authority and it’s relationship with Google’s ranking and PageRank algorithms.

Enhanced Google business listings, which, using the example of the Travel industry, draw from a number of recourses including Tripadvisor and TabletHotels, have been reported to boost local search listings. With the introduction of universal search within the UK, this is certainly something business owners should be harnessing.

Running a search for 'New York hotels' on Google Maps will return a vast list of various accommodations in the city, however many will be differentiated with reviews, photos, comprehensive contact details, payment terms and perhaps even the hotel’s logo.

The example given for the Hilton Millennium includes 385 reviews and 35 photos – which certainly beats a traditional name and address listing.


An extract from the ineedhits blog details an actual user’s experience on Google Maps, concluding that users are more likely to convert into enquiries, and, using the example of travel, customers if they are presented with as much relevant information as possible to enable them to make an informed choice from the range of companies offering a particular product or service.
In addition Google’s enhanced top-of-the-page listings are being returned for individual business lookups, such as a specific restaurants or location-specific business searches. We have run a search for “Hilton Millennium new york” and the following screen grab shows the results.


Considering the scenario that a prospective traveller might print off a map and directions to your hotel, as well as noting the telephone number to confirm his reservation, isn’t it worth ensuring the information is correct?, particularly if it is supplementing Google’s ‘Local’ results?

But Google’s Local Business listings aren’t just for Hotels, and should be considered like a hard copy of the Yellow Pages, where you can list your business, its location, and in light of this blog post, a detailed amount of relevant information for prospective customers. You might also like to encourage your customers to add a review to your listing as a means of differentiating you and your business from existing listings.
Further information about listing your business on Google Local, which is FREE, visit google.com/local/add

Search Marketing Word of the Week (3)

Ok so this week the frogg has given us the letter 'R'

R is for "redirect"

A redirection is when a webpage automatically redirects any visitor to another web page. They are commonly used to allow one page to be viewed from a number of different addresses without ending up with duplicate versions of the page.

There are many many different types of redirects that can be used across the web. For you non techie types we have picked the most common one in relation to search marketing.

• 301 permanement redirect. This used to tell the search engines that a particular page or site has been taken offline permenantly and has been superceded by another page. This redirect is particularly important as it not only means your site visitors wont get an error page when viewing a page that no longer exists but also tells the search engines to transfer the link popularity of the page to the new page. This minimises the loss of rankings when changing any page urls.

Redirects can also be known as domain forwarding or redirection.

In relation to search marketing we reccomend you avoid the following redirects as the search engines are not very keen on the first one and cant follow the second!

Meta Refresh

JavaScript Redirect

For more information on url redirects see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL_redirection

Who said that SEO folk were boring...?

Ok, so we love spending all day (and sometimes all night) on the Internet, tweaking PPC accounts, monitoring reputation, implementing links and pushing forward in best practice search marketing techniques, but we do get out of the office. The monitors are put on standby and we actually have fun.

Here is the team last Friday at Brighton's Palace Pier....
There’s nothing like a bit of sea air.

Search Tip of the Week (2)

This weeks tip is rather a DO NOT rather than a DO. Our tip for this week is DON'T OVER OPTIMISE.

Gone are the days where you need to cram your keywords into every part of your page. In fact these days repeating your search terms too many times can trip Google's SPAM filter and could lead to your site being ignored.

If you have the same keyword in each of these areas on a page its too much:

Title tag
Visible page title styled with an H1 tag
Page subtitles styled with an H2 tag
First sentence / paragraph on the page
Hyperlinks within the page content
In all internal links to the page
Image alt tags

That isn't to say that these aren't all valuable places to have relevant words you would like to rank for. Just make sure it isn't exactly the same ones in each place. It wouldn't make sense to your visitors to repeat the same words over and over all over a page and it doesn't make sense to search engines either.

Try to keep your optimisation as natural as possible. If you have chosen your search terms wisely they should easily and naturally fit into different areas on the page.

Think about your users first and the search engines second.