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+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ OPTIMIZING VISIBLE RESULTS IN SEARCH MARKETING ********************* Catch and cache past installments of SearchWrite SearchNews in the http://www.searchwrite.com/Pages/searchnews.htm **********************
Google's market share in US searches rose last month to an all time high of 67% of total searches performed. Comparably speaking, Yahoo! Search represented 20%, MSN Search 5.25% and Ask.com 4% and trail far behind but aren't insignificant either.* At this time last year, Google was at 64% and MSN was at 9%. Momentum remains with Google, but is that momentum inevitable? Could things change? Some have argued that Google's approach to search is outdated and slow to change. Apparently it's working just fine today, but there's a world of opportunities for other innovators to come up with a better search experience. Still, at a time like this, an appropriate download for your leisure time enjoyment could well be Googolopoly, a board game where you can take part of ruling the Internet even if you don’t work in Mountain View. Instead of purchasing property like in the Monopoly board game from Parker Bros., in Googolopoly you buy shares in companies like DoubleClick, SalesForce, News Corp, Urchin, Ebay and Paypal. Remember the four railroads? Well they are now various Google platforms like Developer, Social, Mobile and Desktop. The goal of the game is to use Google shares to buy as many properties as you can without landing in the deadpool and losing your stock. Everything you need to create the game, including the board, cards and game pieces are inside the PDF. Googleopoly <http://www.box.net/shared/dguu2bfy88> * - Traffic reported by Hitwise
Microsoft makes headline news this week for a new service designed to find and display news on the Web. Using Live Search News, you can eyeball the latest news stories, categorized as "Top Stories," "World," "U.S.," "Local," "Business," "Politics," "Entertainment," "Sports," "Sci/Tech," and "Health." The site has several exciting features, one of which is a Local News sidebar. Although you can access Local News by clicking on the category page, the sidebar lets you keep tabs on your state's news at a glance. Another cool feature is the "Breaking News" bar at the top. You won't see this all the time, but when a top story is released, you'll spot an orange bar at the top linking to the article. Another feature that sets Live Search News apart from Google News is its "Top News Videos" section. Not only are the videos provided relevant, but Microsoft has implemented the same preview technology that Live Search uses in its video search. If you roll over any of the video images, a preview of the clip will automatically start to play. While Microsoft is not disclosing the specific number of sources included in Live Search News, it appears to be significantly less than Google News' 4,500. Google News also touts more customization and alert options than Live Search News.
Yahoo announced that the minimum bid of $0.10 within the search network will no longer be a true minimum bid. Yahoo is changing the system so that the minimum bids can be lower or higher than $0.10. This does not impact the Content network. What makes a Yahoo minimum bid go higher or lower? Two factors: (1) Value - the number of bidders and their bid amounts in a particular keyword market (2) Quality - the relevance of keywords, or how frequently users click on the ads associated with them relative to competing ads * Your keyword is active when your bid is greater than or equal to your required minimum bid for the keyword. * If your minimum bid is set to increase, you are given a warning with a grace period of up to several days to review and adjust your bid before your keyword becomes inactive. * Your keyword becomes inactive when your bid does not meet your required minimum bid. * Minimum bids may be updated from time to time: During these updates, inactive ads may become active again, and active ads may become inactive. <http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/ysm/sps/mrp_preannounce/index.html>
Google has announced that AdWords is no longer a requirement to use its Website Optimizer landing page testing software at no charge. You can now go to google.com/websiteoptimizer and register, for free, to use Website Optimizer, even if you do not have an AdWords account. You can use Website Optimizer to not just A/B test your AdWords landing pages, but also test your Yahoo landing pages, your banner landing pages, and different elements throughout your Web site to improve conversions and desired actions from your users. If you already use Website Optimizer within your AdWords account, you can continue to do so. The data and tool will remain in your AdWords account and can continue to be used there for the foreseeable future. The new Website Optimizer will have it's own user interface but will function a lot like the old Website Optimizer. In addition, Google has launched a new blog for Website Optimizer named the Website Optimizer Blog. The blog will contain "up-to-date product news, industry insights, testing strategies, and other educational information from the Google Website Optimizer team and our partners," according to Google. Google Website Optimizer <http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer> Google Website Optimizer Blog <http://websiteoptimizer.blogspot.com/>
Facebook has rolled out the first of a raft of new features to figure prominently in its redesign. It's called Lexicon. The new feature reveals the popularity of terms used on the site’s millions of “Walls.” (A “Wall” is the place on each individual or group profile page where people can leave messages.) Lexicon generates graphs and charts of this keyword information to show how many Facebook members are talking about a particular query term. CNET compared the data to Google’s Zeitgeist. In Facebook's own words: “Facebook Lexicon aggregates and analyzes millions of Wall posts on the site every day to provide a snapshot of the collective conversation on the site,” the company explained in an FAQ. “Users can query as many as five strings of a single word or two-word combinations. The analysis for Lexicon is done automatically without any person reading Wall posts and without access to any personal information.” Lexicon data can be more useful in marketing and reputation management than just remarking on the popularity of a specific term. At present, the data is only archived to 8 Sept 2007, and cannot currently be segmented by geography or demography. Other Facebook features added this wee are additions to the Mini-Feed, the section of a profile page that displays a user’s recent Facebook activities. A new Import feature allows Facebook users to import items (called “stories”) to their Mini-Feeds from their Flickr, Picasa, Delicious, Yelp and (added yesterday) Digg accounts.
Everyone’s favorite Web statistics whipping boy, Alexa.com, has announced a major overhaul of how it compiles traffic figures. The biggest change is Alexa’s decision to drop exclusive reliance on the Alexa toolbar for traffic data, with Alexa now aggregating data from “multiple sources” to compile its statistics and web rankings. As part of the move, historical data from Alexa is no longer available, with data now only going back 9 months (we presume calculated using the new methodology). Alexa is spinning the decision as a step forward without admitting to previous flaws: Your ranking wasn’t wrong before, but it was different. Alexa toolbar users’ interests and surfing habits could differ from those of the general population in a number of ways, and we described some of those possible differences on our website. While the vast majority of sites’ rankings were unaffected by such differences, we’ve worked hard on our new ranking system to adjust for situations in which they could matter. The new rankings should better reflect the interests and surfing habits of the broader population of Web users. See below for 10 ways to lift your Alexa rank.
Planning on moving your site to a new domain? Google Webmaster Central offers advice on how to do it without hurting your site's performance in Google search results. The aim with a site move is to make the transition invisible and seamless to the user, and to make sure that Google knows that your new pages should get the same quality signals as the pages on your own site. When you're moving your site, pesky 404 (File Not Found) errors can harm the user experience and negatively impact your site's performance in Google search results. Here's where to pay attention: * Test the move process by moving the contents of one directory or subdomain first. Then use a 301 Redirect to permanently redirect those pages on your old site to your new site. This tells Google and other search engines that your site has permanently moved. * Once this is complete, check to see that the pages on your new site are appearing in Google's search results. When you're satisfied that the move is working correctly, you can move your entire site. Don't do a blanket redirect directing all traffic from your old site to your new home page. This will avoid 404 errors, but it's not a good user experience. A page-to-page redirect (where each page on the old site gets redirected to the corresponding page on the new site) is more work, but gives your users a consistent and transparent experience. If there won't be a 1:1 match between pages on your old and new site, try to make sure that every page on your old site is at least redirected to a new page with similar content. * If you're changing your domain because of site rebranding or redesign, you might want to think about doing this in two phases: first, move your site; and second, launch your redesign. This manages the amount of change your users see at any stage in the process, and can make the process seem smoother. * Check both external and internal links to pages on your site. Ideally, you should contact the webmaster of each site that links to yours and ask them to update the links to point to the page on your new domain. If this isn't practical, make sure that all pages with incoming links are redirected to your new site. You should also check internal links within your old site, and update them to point to your new domain. Once your content is in place on your new server, use a link checker like Xenu to make sure you don't have broken legacy links on your site. * Add your new site to your Webmaster Tools account, and verify your ownership of it. Then create and submit a Sitemap listing the URLs on your new site. This tells Google that your content is now available on your new site, and that we should go and crawl it. * Finally, keep both your new and old site verified in Webmaster Tools, and review crawl errors regularly to make sure that the 301s from the old site are working properly, and that the new site isn't showing unwanted 404 errors. Moving is never easy - but these steps should help ensure that none of your good web reputation falls off the truck in the process.
Google has long used Google Maps as a way to show local business listings. When you search for hotels in a given city, for example, each digital pushpin that appears on the map can be clicked on to reveal more information, including photos, reviews, and Web links. Now YouTube videos associated with each listing will also appear. Combining the power of YouTube with Google Maps should make Google’s local listings that much more appealing. Now any local business can essentially put a television ad on Google Maps. But the most effective videos will be the ones that don’t seem like ads at all, but rather show the real people behind the businesses that are listed. It is unfortunate, though, that Google chose to make this feature available only to businesses that list on Google. Stay tuned for this feature to open up.
Jupiter Research's recent study confirmed what you may have suspected: search engine users click specialized content within general search results more than they do within vertical search results. * 36% click "news" results within blended ("universal") search results Images are the most clicked type of result after a vertical-specific search, but news items are the most clicked type of result within blended search results. Even in blended search images are the number two choice. With 36 percent clicking news and 31 percent clicking images this is a huge PR opportunity. Many marketers have thought that since searchers don't pay that much attention to vertical search there's no need to optimize news and images. It's definitely time to rethink that one. The study also revealed where searchers click: * 68% of search engine users click results on the first page Takeaway: Optimize all your news content for search and make sure it is visible in the search engines. A news story on page 4 or 5 does you no good. Add images to all your news content. Optimize any images you already have on your website.
Alexa.com is a subsidiary of Amazon.com and a service which provides information on traffic levels for Websites. The Alexa rank has historically been measured according to the number of users who’ve visited a website with the Alexa toolbar installed. As announced above, Alexa will now be factoring other traffic data in addition to the toolbar, but the bar is still important. If you depend on link or site selling as a form of monetization you’ll definitely want to increase your Alexa rank, because it’ll increase your bargaining power when it comes to ad pricing. ReviewMe, Text Link Ads and Sponsored Reviews are just three of the networks which base your ad selling strength on Alexa Ranks. Here are 10 Ways to Increase your Alexa Rank: 1. Install the Alexa toolbar or Firefox’s SearchStatus extension and set your blog as your homepage. This is the most basic step. 2. Put up an Alexa rank widget on your website. Each click counts as a visit even if the toolbar is not used by the visitor. 3. Encourage others to use the Alexa toolbar. This includes friends, fellow Webmasters as well as site visitors/blog readers. Be sure to link to Alexa’s full explanation of their toolbar and tracking system so your readers know what installing the toolbar or extension entails. 4. Work in an Office or own a company? Get the Alexa toolbar or SS Firefox extension installed on all computers and set your website as the homepage for all browsers. Perhaps it will be useful to note that this may work only when dynamic or different IPs are used. 5. Get friends to review and rate your Alexa website profile. 6. Write or Blog about Alexa. Webmaster and bloggers love to hear about ways to increase their Alexa rank. They’ll link to you and send you targeted traffic (i.e. visitors with the toolbar already installed). This gradually has effects on your Alexa ranking. 7. Flaunt your URL in webmaster forums. Webmasters usually have the toolbar installed. You’ll get webmasters to visit your website and offer useful feedback. 8. Write content that is related to Webmasters. This can fall in the category of domaining and SEO, two fields in which most webmasters will have the Alexa toolbar installed. 9. Use Alexa redirects on your website URL. Try this: http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?www.searchwrite.com . Replace searchwrite.com with the URL for your website. Leave this redirected URL in blog comments as well as forum signatures. This redirect will count a unique IP address once a day so clicking it multiple times won’t help. There is no official proof that redirects positively benefit your Alexa Rank, so use with caution. 10. Post in Asian social networking websites or forums. Some webmasters have suggested that East Asian Web users are big Alexa toolbar fans, judging by the presence of several Asia-based websites in the Alexa Top 500. ****************************************** Catch past installments of SearchWrite SearchNews in the |
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