Today the search giant Google began discussing ways in which it can begin crawling Ajax based websites. This would be a welcomed change for webmasters that are forced to choose between the usability benefits of an Ajax based site and the necessity of sticking to website designs and functions that are more search engine friendly.
There are some challenges that Google would be faced if this were to be implemented. One that comes to mind would be some of the more “shady” webmasters manipulating the code to serve different information to search engines than to site visitor’s, similar to cloaking methods currently used by many “blackhat” webmasters.
The announcement was just made today and the idea is still somewhat in its infancy. It is certainly a step in the right direction and would be an excellent enhancement. Google is welcoming any feedback on ideas / concerns with this. Feedback can be provided here.
Below is a slideshow of the proposal:
Over the last couple years Google has been moving more towards a universal search model that provides searchers more diverse results than simply listings for related static pages on the web. Over the course of the last year and a half you have probably noticed YouTube videos, Google Shopping results, book results, blog posts and many more different types of results returned for certain search queries.
The most recent addition to Google search engine results pages is related forum posts. Google introduced these types of results on September 30, 2009. For certain types of search phrases, you may now find a series of recent (or in some cases not so recent) forum posts.
Here is an example for a recent search for “cooking chili in a crockpot”:
I have also noticed that the same exact thing is happening with Yahoo! Answers posts for several “How To” types of questions.
Google has made mention of placing more emphasis on returning relevant “real-time” results for search queries… this seems to be a step in that direction.
This opens up an additional reason for webmasters and Internet marketers to add forum marketing to their overall strategy. Not only does having an active forum presence in your market beneficial for ranking easily in organic search results as in the example above, it provides a great opportunity to establish a voice of authority and build some nice backlinks from high page rank authority sites.
Google announced today that it has added an enhancement to the seach snippet that is displayed to users on search engine results pages. Prior to today, search snippets were only comprised of the META description provided by webmasters, a snippet randomly taken off the page by Google, or a combination of both.
From today on, seach snippets on results pages can also include named anchors in a contextual text link format to help users jump directly to specific locations on the page rather than always being taken to the top of the page and being forced to scroll through all of the page content in order to locate the desired information.
Here are examples of 2 search snippets that include the new named anchors:
What Does This Mean For Search Marketers?
It appears that there is now a good reason to include named anchors in page content. It would be a safe bet to assume that search snippets containing a relevant named anchor that is now clickable and blue instead of an entirely plain text snippet could lead to an increase in click throughs from organic search results.
Most folks involved with search engine optimization have had a hunch for a couple years now that Google doesn’t give much weight to the Keyword META tags. In a recent video by Matt Cutts, Google’s voice in search engine optimization matters, it was stated that Google does not use the keyword META tags at all when ranking pages.
Keep in mind, there are other search engines that may… but it’s highly doubtful that either Bing or Yahoo! places much value on them either.
Here is the video from Matt Cutts:
There is some debate amongst the professional SEO community as to whether or not “first link priority” is or is not observed by Google. For those of you that are unfamiliar to “first link priority”, it relates to observations made by several SEOs over the past year and a half that claim Google places a higher level of “importance” on the very first link it crawls on a page. (You may notice the anchor text of the first link on this blog is ‘home’…. not exactly what I should be targeting with this blog… but oh well, this is just for fun)
The phenomenon of first link priority is important to the internal linking structure of your site because the anchor text and link URL you choose to put in this location allegedly get the majority of love from the Big G. If I were to tweak one thing on this blog to ensure that I was adhering to all SEO best practices, it would be to change the anchor text in the first navigational tab at the top of the page from ‘Home’ to something like ‘SEO Blog’… of course, since my logo is also clickable I would need to utilize some fancy CSS work to ensure that the ‘SEO Blog’ link is appearing above all other links in my blog’s code.
I have not personally been able to determine on my own whether or not “First Link Priority” is reality or simply “guru talk”… though to be safe I tend to to observe it and structure pages accordingly during the site development phase for clients. This can be done via CSS or in tables if using HTML.
Google Docs, the free suite of online office tools will start being crawled and indexed soon. According to a post made by a Google employee on the Google Docs help forum, “This is a very exciting change as your published docs linked to from public websites will reach a much wider audience of people.”
Google Docs, which is being used by millions as a free alternative to the pricey Microsoft Office suite, currently offers programs for creating and editing word processing documents, spreadsheets, slideshow presentations and forms.
How To Keep Your Docs Private
It is important to note, due to Google Docs being crawled, if you create a document that you do not want to potentially show up in search results, make sure you choose the “stop publishing” option under the “publish / embed” settings under the “share” tab…. especially if you are one that keeps a spreadsheet of usernames and logins for websites and software programs.
It will be interesting to see whether or not organizations will be able to benefit in terms of SEO from this change. PDF documents have been crawled and indexed for years, and in my experience tend to rank even higher than standard html or php pages for certain types of keyword phrases…. looks like it’s time to run some tests!
In the current search engine marketing climate, it’s no secret that a large number of relevant (or semi relevant) external links pointing back to your website can help give you a leg up in organic search engine rankings.
Unfortunately, it’s not exactly easy to secure a large enough number of relevant links, so creativity is a must if you plan to edge out your competitors in organic search rankings.
Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing have been known to reward sites for certain types of backlinks one day and then “slap” the sites the next day, causing a significant drop in search engine rankings. In order to ensure that your website’s traffic is not solely at the mercy of particular algorithm change, make sure you take time to plan out a link building strategy ahead of time that utilizes various link types.
How Is This Achieved?
To make sure your backlink profile has enough variation to weather search engine algorithm updates, one should keep a few things in mind:
- Stay away from individuals or companies that offer to submit your site to several thousand website directories.Not only is directory submission rather pointless in my opinion (aside from about 50 solid directories), companies that offer these types of services rarely vary anchor text, page titles and descriptions which is essential to developing a natural looking backlink profile.
- Be creative! One of the most important keys to successful link building (and online marketing in general) is creativity. It pays to secure links from sites that aren’t linking out to hundreds of other sites. Step outside the box and think of ways to get links from these authority sites and your rankings will thank you.
- Always be ready to leave a link!Some of the best opportunities to leave a backlink come when you least expect (and most likely don’t actually have time to drop a link). Keep a spreadsheet of potential places to drop a backlink and make sure to check it weekly so you don’t get behind.
I decided to write this blog post today due to the number of e-commerce site owners I have worked with that are not aware of the benefits involved with utilizing product data feeds to increase site visibility. Not only is data feed marketing an excellent way to get your brand in front of more eyeballs, it’s generally quite inexpensive and easy to setup and manage.
A data feed is a file (commonly in xml, csv, or other format) that allows you to easily upload your site’s entire product inventory to online shopping portals or comparison engines. A few example of these type of sites include Google Product Search (Google Base), Yahoo! Shopping, Shopzilla, PriceGrabber, Shopping.com, ShopLocal, Gift.com and more.
Many of the sites charge a fee to list your inventory, but it’s almost always worth the charge due to the large volume of traffic and high search engine rankings these sites tend to have. For those of you that would like an introduction in data feed marketing, but aren’t interested in paying a cost per click or a cost per conversion, the ideal place to start is with Google Base.
Google Base is a service that Google offers that allows merchants to upload a data feed of their inventory to Google Product Search. There is no charge by Google for the service, and it is a great way to gain more exposure for your online store.
There are two main benefits to using Google Base:
1. Your products are added to Google Products. Google products is a service provided by Google that assists consumers with comparing products based on pricing, location and several other criteria. It is a completely free service for both product buyers and product services.
Below is an example of a Google products search for “black and decker weed wacker”
2. Your products can appear in the natural results as “Shopping Results”. This is undoubtedly the biggest benefit to using Google base since the majority of online searches start with Google.com. For certain types (not all of them, usually longer tailed search phrases) of product searches, Google currently delivers 2 to 4 “Shopping Results” mixed into the natural search rankings. These shopping results are often times found about 3 listings down in the results, but have been known to appear number 1 for less popular search terms.
Notice in the example below, by using Google Base, one can essentially achieve a #4 Google position for a search term with 195,000 competing pages. Not too shabby, eh?
Below is a screenshot of a Google.com search for “Black and Decker weed wacker”
There are some steps that need to be taken to properly export your product inventory in the format that Google Base accepts, so if your e-commerce platform has an extensions or plugins available to help automate the data feed export process, they are almost always worth using.
Also, just because you add your data feed to Google Base doesn’t automatically mean you your products will show up in the natural results, often times product descriptions and titles must be tweaked in order to gain the desired visibility.
Do you have questions about whether or not your website can benefit from data feed marketing? Ask below!
For decades now, businesses both small and large have spent a significant portion of their marketing budget on listings in print directories like the Yellow Pages. Over the years, it has proven to be an effective method of advertising as many consumers turned to phone book directories to get in touch with service providers.
Over the past few years however, many business have stopped renewing advertising in the directories due to lack of effectiveness, and it’s really quite easy to understand why when you take a look at how Yellow Pages advertising stacks up in terms of effectiveness vs. online marketing via paid search or organic search engine optimization.
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3 Reasons Why The Yellow Pages Stink Compared To Search Marketing
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1. Consumers are flooded with info.
Take a look at your local Yellow Pages and search for an attorney, chiropractor, lawn service, etc. and you will find several pages of ads… many times with the total number of ads into the hundreds. Think about this…. people are paying to be in a directory listed right next to all of their local competitors. Not only do you have to bank to on potential customers picking up the Yellow Pages, you have to bank on the small chance that your little ad will stand out amongst the dozens/hundreds of competitors.
With search marketing, websites that are optimized for local search terms can easily dominate the results on major search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing. This works well for companies due to the fact that more and more consumers are utilizing search engines for information instead of print directories. Plus, if your site is ranked at the top of the search engine results, you (and you alone) stand out as the “authority” business… you don’t have to worry about consumers comparing your “ad” to dozens of other ads, research clearly shows that searchers favor the site that is at the top in the organic search engine rankings.
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2. The Number Of Print Directories Continues To Grow
It seems that each year, another print directory enters the market. Many companies feel they are forced into purchasing advertising simply because their competition is doing it. This is causing companies to throw a larger percentage of their marketing budget at a medium that is slowly suffocating. Do yourself a favor, don’t fall for these new directories… put the cash towards some optimization for a couple targeted local keywords.
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3. You Are Stuck With Your Ad For A Year
Another real disadvantage of advertising in print directories is the fact that once your ad is submitted, it cannot be edited. You get once chance each year to update your listing, and if something changes, or if you would like to add some additional messaging, you are S.O.L.
When marketing via online search, your ad (which can be a landing page on a website, a paid ad, a banner, etc.) has the ability to be edited at any point in time, with the changes takign effect immediately. Not only does this provide more flexibility for advertisers, it allows for much more targeted advertising as messages can be varied towards time of year, location of the site visitor, etc.
Hundreds of thousands of small business owners are once again finding themselves at a crossroad and are questioning the effectiveness of having a website. 10 years ago (or 5 years ago if you are here in South Dakota) many small businesses decided to establish an online presence primarily because everyone was doing it.
Unfortunately, 99% of businesses simply posted an online version of a promotional brochure and haven’t touched the site in years.
These small business owners still tend to question the effectiveness of online marketing due to the lack or performance in their “web 1.0″ website. In the current economic climate, it’s unfortunate that more companies don’t understand the value of online marketing due to it’s low cost and high potential returns.
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When used effectively, a company website can do the work of dozens of sales people…. dozens of sales people that work 24 hours a day / 7 days a week, don’t require insurance, don’t require workspace and don’t pring the post-it notes home with them.
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Here are 3 Methods that Small Businesses Should Consider To Put Their Website To Work:
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1. Search Engine Optimization
Before you can put your company website to work for you, you need to make it easy for people to find. Without receiving a steady stream of targeted traffic, a website is nothing more than a liability.
SEO is best way to boost your online visibility. Simply optimizing your website for a few targeted keywords can result in a flood of site visitors… visitors that searched for exactly what your business has to offer.
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2. Capturing Leads Online
More and more businesses are finding that their website can be a huge source of lead generation. In a lot of cases, the small investment it takes to add the functionality to a company website is easily made up for with the first sale attributed to the site.
There are several ways companies can capture a site visitor’s phone number or e-mail address without being invasive at all. By simply offering a “free price quote” or the ability to download a “free report”, a company can accumulate hundreds of targeted leads pretty quickly. These leads can be followed up with a phone call from your sales team or e-mail communication.
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3. Placement Targeted Ads
One method of online advertising that is slowly gaining popularity is utilizing Google Adwords placement targeted ads. These are ads on the Google content network that allow you to determine the exact location on an exact page of a site that participates in the Google content network. Also, rather than paying per ad impression, you only pay if somebody clicks the ad and goes to your website… and you only pay what you want to pay.
This is an excellent way to increase your site visibility on authority websites like New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CBS Sports Line and hundreds of thousands more. In many instances you can pay pennies per click… and all other impressions cost nothing.
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