Seo for your living

Microsoft Live’s new markets
The Microsoft Live team has just launched the Live search service into 34 new markets.

The new markets include:

China - Simplified Chinese
Netherlands - Dutch
Belgium - French
Belgium - Dutch
Brazil - Brazilian Portuguese
Denmark - Danish
India - English
Russia - Russian
Sweden - Swedish
Taiwan - Traditional Chinese
Arabia - English
Argentina - Spanish
Austria - German
Chile - Spanish
Finland - Finnish
Greece - Greek
Hong Kong SAR - Traditional Chinese
Hungary - Hungarian
Indonesia - English
Ireland - English
Malaysia - English
New Zealand - English
Philippines - English
Poland - Polish
Portugal - Brazilian Portuguese
Singapore - English
South Africa - English
Switzerland - German
Switzerland - French
Turkey - Turkish
Czech Republic - Czech
Slovakia - Slovak
Slovenia - Slovenian
Latin America - Spanish

Microsoft is on the run, trying to launch into as many markets as it can in an effort, im sure, to stay side by side with its main competition in the search world, Google.

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The Value of Consumer Generated Media & Editorializing Commercial Offers

Looking for Christmas oriented keyword research? You would be hard press to find a better list of hot toys this year than to look at Amazon.com’s holiday toy list. Google also offers their Google Trends product, which will likely confirm the validity of Amazon’s list as the holiday season draws near. Both of these lists work to reinforce the market leading position of the associated companies, and editorialize their content based on user feedback.

Amazon.com not only offers stuff like the holiday toy list, but they

• offer video samples of products in use

• allow you to find out what is new, what recently got hot, and their best sellers by category
• list the highest rated consumer reviews near each product
• allow users to comment on the reviews
• tell you what other consumers who viewed the item you are looking at eventually bought

All of that editorialized information makes people more likely to talk about their site (free marketing), makes people more comfortable buying (higher conversion rates), and thus increases how much Amazon can afford to pay for traffic (through search or affiliate channels).

But you don’t have to have that sort of scale to editorialize your content. Many niche sites would do well to integrate user feedback. How hard is it for your content management system to create a most popular list which links to your highest traffic pages or most frequently sold items? After setting it up, it requires almost no effort to maintain, but provides social validation for what is already popular.

If you sell something expensive and want to avoid being replaced by improved technology and consumer feedback aggregation you should look to sell an experience instead of an object. One of the easiest ways to do that is by editorializing the offer and following up with the customer throughout the purchase process.

Manufacturers are going to foot the bill for some new types of product information packaging, but by the time they do everyone will have the same information and it will no longer be an advantage. Those who are quickest to adopt the new information formats and new types of interactivity will have fatter profit margins.

[Video] Creating Your Site’s Internal Link Structure for Google and Searchers

This video is a bit longer than some of the earlier videos, clocking in at 9 minutes and 39 seconds.

• The Dual Roles of Navigation: Navigation needs to be user friendly and search engine friendly. If you want a user to pay attention to an offer you have to link to it with a call to action in the content area of the page. If you want search engines to pay attention to a page you have to link to it on important pages and/or from many pages. In general it is also better usability and better for your rankings to use descriptive (or keyword rich) text links over image links for your primary navigation, and in most in content links on your site.

• Navigation Should Parallel Keyword Strategy: Your primary site navigation should be aligned with keyword categories, structured in related groups that capture keywords along the entire purchase cycle. If you have navigation that is not aligned with your keywords (like date based archives or an about page) you can use nofollow on it to prevent passing link equity through that portion of your site. You may also want to demote sections of your site that convert exceptionally poor relative to the better performing options.
• Examples of Channeling Link Equity: Some websites, such as Target.com, show Google more navigation than they show end users to promote seasonally hot items. Other sites, like Chocolate.com, chose to use nofollow on unimportant internal links to de-emphasize unimportant options. You can view the nofollowed links on Chocolate.com by viewing their site with SEO for Firefox turned on. In some cases it also makes sense to use nofollow on user generated content to lessen the incentive for driveby spamming.
• Clean & Clear Structure: If you author many pages about the same topic it is important to link to the most important articles in order to emphasize them, and use breadcrumb navigation to help structure the site and show what pages are most important.
• Duplicate content: Google likes webmasters to believe that Google has duplicate content figured out, but if they have multiple similar pages indexed you are splitting your PageRank and they may rank the wrong version. Make sure you do not place the same (or exceptionally similar) content on multiple pages. Stuntdubl has a good list of resources for dealing with duplicate content.
• Subdomains: If you have logical breaks in your content you may want to use subdomains to create smaller focused mini sites. If you have a strong brand you can get a bit more aggressive with subdomains, like eBay is.
• More: Here are some more internal linking tips from a prior post on the topic.

The State of the SEO Market in 2007

Philipp Lessen recently asked me to guest post on Blogoscoped about the state of the world of SEO in 2007. I talked about recent events, editorial considerations, industry consolidation, and all sorts of other goodies.

I also did a mini interview with Web Pro News at the Blog World Expo. I pulled my wonderful wife into the interview, and she was kinda shy. Today is her birthday so we are about to go out soon.

[Video] Intro. to PPC Marketing Using Google AdWords, Yahoo & Microsoft

This 9 minute and 37 second video offers basic tips for starting with pay per click marketing.

General Tips for Starting With PPC Advertising

• Start advertising on the major search engines. Google, Yahoo, and MSN give you faster feedback and better traffic quality than smaller search engines typically do. The size and scope of the large ad networks means that the #5 market is going to have almost no clean syndication partners because 60% of Google is more than 90% of smaller networks. Yahoo and MSN often have cheaper clicks than Google due to fewer competitors and less sophisticated price gouging ad quality algorithms.

• Use different match types. Understand the differences between broad, phrase, and exact match. If you use broad or phrase match, make sure to use search query performance reports to find more keywords you should be advertising on and keywords you should be blocking via negative keywords tools.
• Should you use ad syndication? Off the start, opt out of contextual ad syndication and test your campaigns via Google search ads, such that you can get a clean signal of click value, ad position, and ad CTR. After you know what it takes to compete in search you may want to re-enable ad syndication. If you enable ad syndication, set it up with its own ad groups or bid differently for contextual ads than you do for search.
• Track conversion. This will teach you what keywords actually lead to commercial events. Sometimes if you are priced out of common market related keywords you can still find some high value lower search volume keywords that other competitors have not yet found. If you are managing large and complex campaigns you may want to use a third party conversion tracking tool, but if you only sell one product and/or run smaller accounts then you can use the free conversion tracking tools built into the search ad networks.
• Use PPC to guide SEO. It is cheaper to use keyword research tools and use PPC to find out what terms convert right when you start an SEO campaign than it is to spend months targeting the wrong keywords.
• A/B split test. Use the built in Google AdWords a/b split test tool to test different ad copy, and use their Website Optimizer tool to test different landing pages.
• Be relevant. Use tight ad groups and send traffic to a landing page catered toward that basket of keywords. These tips increase ad clickthrough rate, ad quality scores, and conversion rates while lowering cost per click. Set brand related keywords in their own ad group. Dynamic keyword insertion can help improve your perceived ad relevancy by matching the ads up against keywords from the search query. Google’s offline AdWords editor can help you create tight ad groups.
• Set advertising goals. Some advertisers are looking for direct ROI, while others are looking to build their brand while making meager profits. If your brand related keywords are highly profitable, you might want to use those profits to help subsidize the cost of keywords earlier in the sales cycle or keywords that help increase brand awareness. If you have no search advertising experience and no brand awareness you can’t be afraid of losing money off the start.
• Use PPC to build links. If you create linkworthy content and buy the related keywords you can get mainstream media exposure for next to nothing.
• Learn from the search engines. Google AdWords offers free online training videos which teach you how to use their ad network. One note of caution is that when they talk about Google tools that optimize something, many of those tools optimize eating your ad budget and increasing Google’s revenues at your expense.

How To Manage In-House SEO When Your Team Is Ignoring You (Search Engine Land)
It’s one month before your deadline and you realize nothing is done. Specifically, you need to get others to buy into your plans to move things forward…and no one has responded to your e-mails. What to do? Click to continue reading…

[Video] How to Spam Google Without Being Viewed as a Spammer

This 7 minute and 50 second video is one of the first SEO videos I made. After reviewing it I realize I could have moved the screen around to show a few more examples of the stuff I was talking about. Rather than discussing one topic this video moves around to offer a wide array of marketing optimization ideas.

• Domain name & site design: using a strong domain name helps you look more credible and helps you rank better. An original high quality site design also makes content appear more trustworthy.

• Logo & homepage page title: place your keywords in your logo. Instead of using Paypal as your logo, use something like Paypal payment solutions or Paypal online payments. You can still emphasize the Paypal name while benefiting from enhanced inbound anchor text due to keyword proximity, and some people perceiving your official name as containing the associated keywords.
• Title of articles & filenames: use at least one keyword phrase in your page title and make your filenames descriptive. Doing so will help you build descriptive inbound links. Some people link using your page title as the anchor text, this is especially true if your page title is short and memorable. Many authoritative websites cite sources using the full URL with filename in the anchor text.
• Minimize duplication: mixing up your on page seo, page titles, and meta descriptions helps you rank for a wider net of keywords and makes your rankings more stable
• Leverage your authority: add useful descriptive background text below the fold on high authority pages. Also consider adding more internal links on high authority pages.
• Buying links: when buying them, consider buying links indirectly through payment schemes involving community participation and discussion, such as contests and affiliate programs.
• Syndication: if your content is published on other sites, make sure to reference older posts on your site to drive that traffic stream and link equity back to your site.
• Drunken spelling: if you have a community aspect to your site, don’t correct misspellings. In fact, some publishers might even place fake reviews and comments on their sites to help capture misspelled keywords without raising their risk profiles.
• Spammy examples: find reasons to discuss spammy high margin topics on high authority websites by relating them to your core business. If your relation is a bit of a stretch, consider backdating it or finding another way to place the story on a part of your site that does not have thousands of people reading every word.

The Value of Consumer Generated Media & Editorializing Commercial Offers

Looking for Christmas oriented keyword research? You would be hard press to find a better list of hot toys this year than to look at Amazon.com’s holiday toy list. Google also offers their Google Trends product, which will likely confirm the validity of Amazon’s list as the holiday season draws near. Both of these lists work to reinforce the market leading position of the associated companies, and editorialize their content based on user feedback.

Amazon.com not only offers stuff like the holiday toy list, but they

• offer video samples of products in use

• allow you to find out what is new, what recently got hot, and their best sellers by category
• list the highest rated consumer reviews near each product
• allow users to comment on the reviews
• tell you what other consumers who viewed the item you are looking at eventually bought

All of that editorialized information makes people more likely to talk about their site (free marketing), makes people more comfortable buying (higher conversion rates), and thus increases how much Amazon can afford to pay for traffic (through search or affiliate channels).

But you don’t have to have that sort of scale to editorialize your content. Many niche sites would do well to integrate user feedback. How hard is it for your content management system to create a most popular list which links to your highest traffic pages or most frequently sold items? After setting it up, it requires almost no effort to maintain, but provides social validation for what is already popular.

If you sell something expensive and want to avoid being replaced by improved technology and consumer feedback aggregation you should look to sell an experience instead of an object. One of the easiest ways to do that is by editorializing the offer and following up with the customer throughout the purchase process.

Manufacturers are going to foot the bill for some new types of product information packaging, but by the time they do everyone will have the same information and it will no longer be an advantage. Those who are quickest to adopt the new information formats and new types of interactivity will have fatter profit margins.

Email, SEO, Usability are Top Holiday Priorities for Online Marketers, According to Brulant Study (PRWeb via Yahoo! News)
Email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and usability/customer experience are the top priorities for online marketers this holiday season according to a recent survey. The survey was conducted by online solutions provider Brulant at the Shop.org 2007 Annual Summit held in Las Vegas in September.

The SEM blog is retiring
Dear readers: The Search Engine Marketing blog is retiring. I admit to feeling sentimental about it, because this blog was originally created for me by Jason Calacanis, in the early days of Weblogs, Inc, and although I ended up contributing to several blogs in our lineup, this is where it started for me. I’m grateful to Jason, and thankful for the people I met in the SEM and SEO universes, via this blog.

Chris Gilmer, who has been posting here lately, is still with us! You can find Chris writing on Download Squad, our software and online services blog.

Although our editorial priorities have changed over the nearly three years of operation, we do not remove retired blogs. the SEM blog will remain available as an archive (and not a badly optimized one!). Thanks to everyone for reading.

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Superpages now uses Microsofts Maps
Apparently the Superpages.com directory has made the change into using Microsofts Live Local virtual earth maps. Not sure when this change occurred, but Greg Sterling has recently noticed this update.

It’s a nice new feature for Superpages to ad to their local directory. It adds a nice touch for local searchers. The current version of the maps embedded into the Superpages directory has three views, standard, aerial, and birds eye.

As recently reported, Superpages.com is rumored to be up for sale from Verizon.

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Google will not take enterprise search away from us - Microsoft

Microsoft thinks that enterprise search belongs to them. Even though Google has been in the game since the early 2000’s.

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Re: MySpace Spamming: over and out
welll… i undestand that postin…

MSN Revenues Decline
Looks like Microsoft might be a little behind in earnings compared with last years revenues. ClickZ has reported that last year MSN hit $598 million, and this year at the same time they are at $580 million in revenue.

This is supposedly mostly due to to the large amounts MSN has been dumping into the Live.com search property, adCenter, and MSN search in general.

MSN has stated that it is transitioning into home grown ads with MSN’s adCenter as opposed to its previous sponsored ads. Microsofts CFO said in a conference call with investors that they are aiming at having 100% of their business targeted on adCenter. Thus Microsoft is planning on spending over $500 million in developing its online services portion of their business. Including Live.com, and Search.

MSN does not expect to be profitable in 2007 due to these spends on investments.

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Wall: Cutts “Blindlingly Hypocritical” About Google (WebProNews)
Not much love in the SEO blogosphere today, as Aaron Wall slams the most accessible member of the Googleplex over Google’s alleged treatment of SEO as spam. Wall: Cutts “Blindlingly Hypocritical” About Google Considering Matt Cutts and his enormous popularity at search industry conventions, to the point where his swarm of followers have been dubbed “Cuttlets,” …

Top Keyword Terms Companies are Buying
Nielson Netrating has done some homework and developed a list on the Top 25 Companies By Sponsored Link Impressions list.

Its a pretty interesting list that shows the top 3 keywords that are bought by some major companies.

Here is a sample of that list:

• eBay - myspace, ebay, maps
• NexTag.com - dell, airlines, ipod
• Vonage - verizon+dsl, at&t, sprint
• Time Warner - mapquest, dictionary, maps
• Amazon.com - books, haunted+lighthouses, log+splitters
• Microsoft - hotmail, mortgage+calculator, movies

I think by far, Amazon.com has the best list.

Clickz has some other charts from the report that show the Advertising Breakdown by Industry, Advertising Breakdown by Ad Unit Types, and Top 25 Companies by Sponsored Link Impressions.

[via ZDnet ]

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Yahoo and Zillow Home Valuation
Yahoo has teamed up with Zillow to create a home valuation search on Yahoo real estate.

The value of homes can easily be searched for free, and users can find an instant home value estimation based on homes in the general area of your search.

When you search for a residence, a map with your area is put together with 10 other comparable properties in the area are drawn out. Yahoo has also integrated a trend graph to show price trends historically for the area in question.

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Searching Google for Girls
Search engines are popping up left and right. With people fiddling and tinkering with open source directories, and API’s. But i have never came across something like this….

Are you a girl? A girl that loves searching? Better yet, a girl that loves searching on Google? Why not try Girgle?

There is really nothing new as far as search technology goes here. Girgle is really just a pretty landing page for the AdSense search tool. Pretty might not even be the word. Its landing page is a little malformed with its heart shape thingy. The developer might have something, but they might want to spend a bit more time making it at least appear a little prettier.

Thanks to Nathan for spotting this site!

UPDATE: Girgle has changed their site to a “million dollar pixel homepage”. Thanks for the notification Orang

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SEO for Firefox : Rundown of This Incredible SEO Tool (Search Engine Journal)
As Most of you are aware, SEO for Firefox is one of the hottest things in SEO at this moment. Using this time saving tool, you can get any amount of information gleamed from the data made from the SEO toolbar, it’s a highly recommended Firefox extension for anyone in search marketing (and according to […]

The Search Works strengthens SEO team (Netimperative)
The Search Works, a European leader in search marketing services for online advertisers, has announced the appointment of Usman Patel, formerly SEO Supervisor at Vivid Lime, to the role of SEO Manager.

Community Powered Search
Eurekster is a different kind of search engine. It is based on community decisions on what the top results should be.

What you would have to do to get inclusion into Eurekster is to create your own swicki. It would be tailored to your particular interests. The swicki will then scan all of the updated pages from your particular site. As people use your particular swicki, the system will learn behaviors of people, and rank your site accordingly.

In a basic approach, a Swicki is a search engine that learns from your users. Results are produced for relevancy, and a buzzcloud of searches are created based on only what users care about.

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LookSmart Publisher platform
Looksmart has released its new publisher platform. The new publisher ad platform works much like other search engine publisher platforms, whereas ads are easily displayed on sites, and generate revenue per click.

Through LookSmarts AdCenter you can sell online ads directly on your site to advertisers, and actually determine your own CPC’s. This approach helps publishers grow direct relationships with advertisers.

LookSmart allows you the opportunity to white label AdCenter solutions. The hosting, sales, and service are fully hosted through LookSmart, and pricing is fully determined by you.

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Re: Ranking Syndk8 for Buy Viagra
yeah that would be cool.
email i…

Speaking Publicly on Online Marketing (WebProNews)
They say you should face your greatest fears head on and public speaking has been one of mine since I was a kid. Being shy didn’t help during those school speech assignments one bit. Anyone with me on that one? Having worked in the search marketing/web dev business since 1997, it was only 2 years ago or so that I began to speak at events about SEO, marketing with blogs and online public …

The Value of Consumer Generated Media & Editorializing Commercial Offers

Looking for Christmas oriented keyword research? You would be hard press to find a better list of hot toys this year than to look at Amazon.com’s holiday toy list. Google also offers their Google Trends product, which will likely confirm the validity of Amazon’s list as the holiday season draws near. Both of these lists work to reinforce the market leading position of the associated companies, and editorialize their content based on user feedback.

Amazon.com not only offers stuff like the holiday toy list, but they

• offer video samples of products in use

• allow you to find out what is new, what recently got hot, and their best sellers by category
• list the highest rated consumer reviews near each product
• allow users to comment on the reviews
• tell you what other consumers who viewed the item you are looking at eventually bought

All of that editorialized information makes people more likely to talk about their site (free marketing), makes people more comfortable buying (higher conversion rates), and thus increases how much Amazon can afford to pay for traffic (through search or affiliate channels).

But you don’t have to have that sort of scale to editorialize your content. Many niche sites would do well to integrate user feedback. How hard is it for your content management system to create a most popular list which links to your highest traffic pages or most frequently sold items? After setting it up, it requires almost no effort to maintain, but provides social validation for what is already popular.

If you sell something expensive and want to avoid being replaced by improved technology and consumer feedback aggregation you should look to sell an experience instead of an object. One of the easiest ways to do that is by editorializing the offer and following up with the customer throughout the purchase process.

Manufacturers are going to foot the bill for some new types of product information packaging, but by the time they do everyone will have the same information and it will no longer be an advantage. Those who are quickest to adopt the new information formats and new types of interactivity will have fatter profit margins.

Driving the Business — New Company, Top SEO Marketing, Inc., Launches (PRWeb)
“Top SEO Marketing, Inc.” (www.topseomarketing.com), based in Winnsboro, Texas, with offices in Dallas, is an exciting new entry in that field that is quickly gaining prominence. (PRWeb Nov 11, 2007) Post Comment:Trackback URL: http://www.prweb.com/pingpr.php/WmV0YS1FbXB0LUZhbHUtWmV0YS1UaGlyLVplcm8=

LookSmart Publisher platform
Looksmart has released its new publisher platform. The new publisher ad platform works much like other search engine publisher platforms, whereas ads are easily displayed on sites, and generate revenue per click.

Through LookSmarts AdCenter you can sell online ads directly on your site to advertisers, and actually determine your own CPC’s. This approach helps publishers grow direct relationships with advertisers.

LookSmart allows you the opportunity to white label AdCenter solutions. The hosting, sales, and service are fully hosted through LookSmart, and pricing is fully determined by you.

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Hi im analyticmatt and I too have a problem
I specialise in Web Analytics, b…

Re: Hi im analyticmatt and I too have a problem
Go on spill the beans, which eng…

Community Powered Search
Eurekster is a different kind of search engine. It is based on community decisions on what the top results should be.

What you would have to do to get inclusion into Eurekster is to create your own swicki. It would be tailored to your particular interests. The swicki will then scan all of the updated pages from your particular site. As people use your particular swicki, the system will learn behaviors of people, and rank your site accordingly.

In a basic approach, a Swicki is a search engine that learns from your users. Results are produced for relevancy, and a buzzcloud of searches are created based on only what users care about.

Read�|�Permalink�|�Email this�|�Linking�Blogs�|�Comments

Re: Hi im analyticmatt and I too have a problem
Alas, my lips are sealed.

Microsoft Live’s new markets
The Microsoft Live team has just launched the Live search service into 34 new markets.

The new markets include:

China - Simplified Chinese
Netherlands - Dutch
Belgium - French
Belgium - Dutch
Brazil - Brazilian Portuguese
Denmark - Danish
India - English
Russia - Russian
Sweden - Swedish
Taiwan - Traditional Chinese
Arabia - English
Argentina - Spanish
Austria - German
Chile - Spanish
Finland - Finnish
Greece - Greek
Hong Kong SAR - Traditional Chinese
Hungary - Hungarian
Indonesia - English
Ireland - English
Malaysia - English
New Zealand - English
Philippines - English
Poland - Polish
Portugal - Brazilian Portuguese
Singapore - English
South Africa - English
Switzerland - German
Switzerland - French
Turkey - Turkish
Czech Republic - Czech
Slovakia - Slovak
Slovenia - Slovenian
Latin America - Spanish

Microsoft is on the run, trying to launch into as many markets as it can in an effort, im sure, to stay side by side with its main competition in the search world, Google.

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Is Your Domain Name Triggering A Red Flag? (Search Engine Land)
The audience that makes up the majority of Digg users tends to be very fickle. The slightest whiff of linkbait and they will bury your story into the depths of hell where it will never see the light of day again. They hate SEO and it’s no secret. This is the reason why it’s so important to make sure that you approach social media sites carefully and thoughtfully. Click to continue …

Survival Guide to Being an SEO - 10 Tips to Making it in the SEO Community (Search Engine Journal)
Well, I’d come up with a great start like, “hey kiddo, you’re looking to become an SEO superstar?”, but I’ll go forward from that path straight to the meat. To make it in the SEO industry, you really need to just get right down to it and group with others, I mean, that’s all there […]

Learning SEO by Doing it Hardcore
Are you ready to take your SEO skills to the next level The learn by doing approach works best but what do you do after you ve done something so many times that it s automatic You get out of your comfort zone by doing something a little different and scary that you might not have considered doing before….
Web Hosting for $1.66/month Up to 1000Gb space, 1000GB transfer, MSSQL, MS Access, MySQL, PostgreSQL, FREE Domain, FREE Apps

Superpages now uses Microsofts Maps
Apparently the Superpages.com directory has made the change into using Microsofts Live Local virtual earth maps. Not sure when this change occurred, but Greg Sterling has recently noticed this update.

It’s a nice new feature for Superpages to ad to their local directory. It adds a nice touch for local searchers. The current version of the maps embedded into the Superpages directory has three views, standard, aerial, and birds eye.

As recently reported, Superpages.com is rumored to be up for sale from Verizon.

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Driving the Business — New Company, Top SEO Marketing, Inc., Launches (PRWeb via Yahoo! News)
“Top SEO Marketing, Inc.” (www.topseomarketing.com), based in Winnsboro, Texas, with offices in Dallas, is an exciting new entry in that field that is quickly gaining prominence.

Re: Hi all….
� kichus

Searching Google for Girls
Search engines are popping up left and right. With people fiddling and tinkering with open source directories, and API’s. But i have never came across something like this….

Are you a girl? A girl that loves searching? Better yet, a girl that loves searching on Google? Why not try Girgle?

There is really nothing new as far as search technology goes here. Girgle is really just a pretty landing page for the AdSense search tool. Pretty might not even be the word. Its landing page is a little malformed with its heart shape thingy. The developer might have something, but they might want to spend a bit more time making it at least appear a little prettier.

Thanks to Nathan for spotting this site!

UPDATE: Girgle has changed their site to a “million dollar pixel homepage”. Thanks for the notification Orang

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Flash is Required: How to SEO Flash? (Search Engine Roundtable)
One of the oldest topics in SEO is how can I optimize my Flash site for search engines? Honestly, the sad answer has always been, you can’t optimize Flash pages to do well in search engines. Of course, there are workarounds, but those workarounds are suggestions on how to make use of Flash alternatives to create the same thing. Kim posted a Cre8asite Forums thread asking, what should one do …

Re: Good Popup Code
Wouldnt that require them to cli…

How Efficient is the Web at Selling High Priced Items?

I wanted to get my wife something cool for her birthday, but the gift I wanted to buy proved nearly impossible to find from a trustworthy source. I was going to get her a high end autographed item, but who should I buy it from?

1. The not for profit site that is down, requiring you to buy through the payment link inside of Google’s cache

2. The site with Google Checkout and Google AdSense on their home page
3. The site with a sleazy Clickbank affiliate ad for how to steal stuff
4. The site with no money back guarantee
5. The site with a design that looks like I created it in January 2003 (my first month on the web)
6. The eBay member with 0 reputation
7. The eBay member that takes a month and a half to ship
8. The eBay member selling authentic lithographs
9. The eBay member selling the item used

While I listed the above faults as though each was a different site, many of the sites actually suffered from multiple trust eating offenses. I consider myself a savvy searcher and yet these were the best sites I could find for what I wanted to buy. Because of the price-point I was unwilling to trust any of them enough to buy.

At lower price points we are more likely to let little things slide, but almost every site undermines conversion rates. A year from now I will probably look back on this post and laugh at some of the things I was screwing up today.

[Video] On Page SEO Tips for Google

Keyword Density vs Conversion Oriented Content

• Keyword density as a measure of relevancy is at best limited. If pages have too high of a keyword density and are too focused they may have suppressed rankings or may get filtered out of the search results, plus dense copy does not read well, does not convert well, and nobody will link at it.

• If your content is emotionally charged then it does not need to be as optimized to rank well. If people respond to your content by linking at your site then you gain authority and will rank better.
• Conversion rates and value per customer are far more important than keyword density. If your content converts you can always afford to buy traffic and/or sign up affiliates.
• Great usability is a key to converting. Read Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think if you are new to the concept of usability. Make sure your pages are structured with headers, subheaders, and bulleted lists.
• You should actively drive people toward conversion using text links in your content. Cleanly segment the page into small easy to read chunks using headings, subheadings, and bulleted lists to make the page easy to scan. Use textual formatting and other visual cues to call out the different audiences or the different reasons people would buy your product or service. Dan Thies does a great job of this on his SEO Research Labs website.

Setting a Baseline

• Use web analytics tools to track your traffic sources AND what keywords are converting.

• Work on improving on page optimization and conversion rates of your most important pages first.
• Ensure you have some trusted quality inbound links. Start with a few trusted directories if you are starting from scratch. No matter how much on page SEO you do, you are not going to get much exposure or rank for competitive terms until AFTER you have some trusted inbound links.

Mixing Things Up

• Search for your keywords on Google and look at the text from top ranking pages. They are defining the local language set. Make sure you include some of the words and phrases that are common in those pages.

• Use tools like Quintura and Wordtracker to find modifiers to include in your page. After you are done optimizing the page, you can enter your URL in the Google AdWords keyword tool to see what they think your page is about. If they do not select the right topics that means they might not be certain what your page is about.
• Mix up the order of words and phrases in your page. If your page title uses farm insurance in it, then include something like insurance for farmers in your h1 heading. Also mix up how you use phrases throughout your page where it makes sense, but stay clear of using language that doesn’t make sense, like butter peanut.
• Instead of paginating, it typically makes more sense to keep some pages longer in nature. Glossary pages and other text heavy pages rank for a wide array of keyword phrases. Using various word counts depending on sales needs, content requirements, and topic selection is a better strategy than writing every page to match a specific arbitrary length.

[Video] Optimizing Your Meta Description Tags for Google Searchers

Tips to Optimize Meta Descriptions

• Meta description tags may appear in the search results below your page title. Descriptions should be formatted in compete sentences so they read well to humans. Google displays about 150 to 160 characters from meta description tags in their search results. If your description runs past 160 characters they will cut it short and add … at the end of their listing.

• Each meta description should be unique on a per page basis. If you have a large website you can automatically generate descriptions using formulas to include things like item price, shipping details, or any sales offers. If your site is smaller it is best to edit each meta description by tag, especially on your key pages.
• Meta descriptions should compliment your page titles by helping you differentiate from the competition and appeal to your target audience using similar touch-points.
• Your descriptions should use slightly different word orders and keywords than what you use in the page title. Some examples:
  • If a page title uses the plural version of the word the description can use the singular version

  • If a page title uses an acronym the meta description can use the full version of the phrase
    word order should be changed where it makes sense

  • If SEO Book was in my page title my meta description might include something like leading book on search engine optimization
• If you do not have a meta description tag or your description is irrelevant to the search query search engines may grab a snippet of text from your page to describe your listing. If you do not like the snippet they grab you can either create a meta description tag or edit the part of your page that they are inserting into the search results. After their next crawl of your page they should update your snippet.

Selling Commodity Services: Controlling Cost vs Adding Value

One theory of web marketing starts off with controlling cost. Where you try to find what works right now, and do exactly what is needed to get to the level of success you want to reach. The theory sounds valid, but…

• By the time something is common knowledge, its value and effectiveness has decreased and is heading lower.

• The markets are shifting. Tomorrow’s marketplace is uglier and more competitive than today’s marketplace. And it has lower margins for average players too!
• Those who invest in building real assets are going to eventually beat you. And their success is self reinforcing.

Investing & Adding Value is Better Than Being Cheap

Rather than thinking of how to control costs while growing a web business, it is better to spend that same time, energy, and focus learning how to create value and how to get people talking about how valuable your widget is. When I was new to the web I kept my reported income far lower than it should have been because I kept reinvesting in learning and marketing, even when I was heavily in debt. Some of the spend was a waste, but I know enough to compete in many markets with minimal investment.

How to be Cheap

Two months ago my mom told me she wanted to create a new blog about Diverticulitis, a topic effecting my grandma. With no warning, that afternoon I…

• learned how to spell the word Diverticulitis (2 minutes)

• used WordTracker’s free keyword research tool (2 minutes)
• bought my mom a $6 domain at GoDaddy (2 minutes)
• spent 5 minutes aligning the DNS, hosting her site at Dreamhost, which allows unlimited sites to a $7 a month account. I recently created a 5 year account for a friend and only spent $300 for 5 years of hosting!
• set my mom up with a default Blogger template (5 minutes)
• created a cheesy logo (that took me 5 minutes to make using low end $50 logo design software I bought years ago)
• modified the CSS file to match the logo (5 minutes)

My mom wrote 10 blog posts that took her ~ 5 to 10 minutes each, and a week later I spent 5 minutes and ~ $80 submitting it to a couple directories.

A few months ago I bought a domain name for $2,500. Last month I was offered $17,500 for the domain, and not too long ago the same guy paid over twice that for a similar but worse name. If he offered me that much I might have sold, but unsolicited offers are typically on the low side.

Today I was sent an unsolicited $500 offer for my mom’s new site. Why? Because the site already ranks in Yahoo and Microsoft. If I spend a few hundred more the site will likely compete in Google too. My marketing knowledge was expensive to acquire, but everything else was good enough to compete for cheap or free (at least in that market at this moment in time).

The reason this story is remarkable is because people were willing to buy such a small site when it was so new. In two months the site was conceived, created, competing, ranked, and someone already made an offer on it. Two months ago that same domain name was $6.

Everything is Becoming a Commodity

It started with the average travel broker, then it hit classified ads and regional monopolies like newspapers, and it is working its way toward your industry. Just look at all the above web industries listed that are free or nearly free. Due to more efficient markets, automation, outsourcing, and the need to compete on an open marketplace, the margins for almost everything needed to compete on the web are heading toward zero.

My mom’s new site competes on about $100 of investment, but in a year or two that domain name might have cost $500, and a couple more competitors entering the field might have pushed the marketing costs to $1,000. A year or two later the domain name might have been $2,000 and the marketing costs might be $10,000.

Don’t Become a Commodity

The three solutions to the commodity issue are

• use new technologies to create and publish the DIY tools and information that will commoditize other businesses competing in your space

• build your knowledge in related fields that interest you, such that you can add value to multiple points on the value chain. Google is search + ads + documents + hosting + syndication + etc etc etc. I know a bit about SEO + SEM + marketing + branding + conversion + domaining + etc etc etc.
• Invest to build your awareness and brand (build mindshare and distribution) to where you are not considered a commodity. Create enough of an abundance of demand that you chose who you work with.

Unless somebody is talking about you or consuming your stuff right now you are becoming a commodity, although you may not realize it yet.

The SEOBook Free SEO & SEM Job Boards

The Excessive Demand Problem

About 5 people a day ask me to recommend an SEO or link builder or site designer, but many of the people I have traditionally recommended

• have either quit providing services to work exclusively on their own sites, or

• have long wait lists.

Add that to the increasing complexity of SEO and increasing rates commanded by top experts, and it is hard for me to recommend any specific service provider to readers of this site. There are people offering to pay me good money to do some jobs and I simply do not have enough time to do everything I want…to the point where I probably even accidentally come off as rude to some people, just because it is so hard to keep up with 100 emails every day.

Job Boards Are Your Friend

I recently hired a blogger from the ProBlogger job boards. I was shocked by the quality of worker I was able to find (and some of the potentially great ones that I had to turn away). I also started placing help wanted ads in the SEO Book feed for things like gadget developers and link builders and got great results, but placing job ads in the main feed is a bit selfish.

With that in mind I decided to place an SEO jobs board on SEO Book.com. Currently I am not looking for people to submit advertisements offering services (the web is already full of that) but I am hoping to help people in need find someone to help them out with SEO, link building, site design, PPC, programming, etc.

Warnings

Of course due diligence is necessary when choosing who to work with, but sometimes good things start with a hello, and some of the newer hungry workers do sell their services for less than what they are worth. Don’t take risks you can’t afford to and never bet against your gut.

Currently the job boards here do not have a feedback module in them, but if the feature becomes popular you can expect me to add many features to help the marketplace get more efficient.

A True Story About Me

I met my second SEO customer ever on a jobs board at an SEO forum. I only charged him $300 back then to rank his site. That customer ranked #1 in Google, sold hundreds of thousands of dollars of merchandise, sent me a large Christmas bonus, became a great friend, and was the first person to review the first copy of SEO Book. He has since sold that top ranked website, but he and I have started working together on other projects. Hopefully others meet and have cool stories to share from the job boards on this site.