• IE8's Influence On SEO And Search
    Andrew Girdwood poses a few interesting questions about Microsoft's release of Internet Explorer 8. For starters, just how well do the popular search blogs cope with IE8? Girdwood analyzes each of the top SEO blog designs and offers us his critique. The sites he analyzes include Search Engine Land, E-Consultancy, Marketing Pilgrim, Search Engine Journal, SEO Book, SEOmoz, and Search Engine Roundtable. Another question centers on whether a new feature in IE8 would enable searchers to bypass the Google search engine and go straight to suggested related sites. Girdwood explains a new feature in IE8 offers a button …
  • Google Takes Issue With Click Forensics Report
    A report from Click Forensics released Wednesday has Google up in arms. The research firm said click fraud hit 17.1% in the fourth quarter of 2008, the highest rate since the company began tracking it in April 2006. Google questions the validity of the report, according to Juan Carol Perez. Google and Click Forensics have clashed over the rate of click fraud in the past. While Google began publicly cooperating with Click Forensics recently by agreeing to accept the electronically generated click-quality reports generated by the FACTr service, it's evident the companies still have significant disagreements regarding the issue …
  • SEO Meets Traditional Marketing
    Too often SEO experts approach optimization with the wrong mindset, "almost a tick-box exercise" that limits opportunities for the success of great Web sites, according to Ben McKay. So, he suggests a way out for those who get stuck in the process. McKay analyzes SEO as an art as well as science. The lengthy post covers market penetration, development, diversification, traditional marketing, and more. He presents the problems, but also suggests several solutions for each.
  • SEO Death By Way Of Development Server
    Turn off your development server after you've completed testing features on your Web site, warns Andrew Shotland. "If your test environment gets crawled and the pages get indexed you can suddenly have a duplicate of your entire site competing with your live site and your rankings are guaranteed to go any direction except up," he writes. There are a host of other bad things that could happen, too, if you forget to turn off your test server. But while Shotland doesn't provide advice on ways to recover, Keri Morgret, who posts in the comment section, does.
  • Gaining Scale And ROI For PPC Campaigns
    Consumers are watching each dollar they spend. So, if buying habits are changing, it's not enough for marketers to tweak pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns and hope they work. "This year, failure to understand the implications of budget decisions with regard to search could be the difference between success and failure of both a marketing campaign and a company," warns Kevin Lee. Lee serves up some advice on strategies marketers should consider this year to produce successful campaigns. For instance, the economy makes it more important for marketers to understand the requirements to combine technology tactics and strategies to achieve …
  • Clarifying 'Bounce Rate' And 'Time On Page'
    Mark Williams attempts to clear up questions on bounce rate and time on page. He believes many times these metrics are misinterpreted, so he provides insight on using them properly. For example: Analyze bounce rates "page-by-page" because each page on your site has a different goal. Take, for instance, the landing page, which is designed to have visitors take some form of action such as buy a product, fill out a form, or download a whitepaper. Williams suggests that if you view the landing page as the gateway to the site that qualifies and collects information from customers, you …
  • Much Ado About Yahoo's Ts & Cs
    Earlier this month, Yahoo emailed advertisers new Terms and Conditions stating the company may create ads, edit keywords, and/or optimize the accounts of U.S. advertisers not bound by an insertion order.. Now the search engine has posted a blog, "The Truth about Account Optimizations," that explain its decision to auto-optimize sponsored search, writes Matt McGee. McGee summarizes Yahoo's post, calling it "condescending." He believes Yahoo's justification doesn't address complaints shared by Jerry Nordstrom, who airs his grievances about having an account auto-optimitized on a linked post. (The issue has also been addressed in two
  • Finding A Goldmine In Mobile Search Terms
    Bryson Meunier provides a list of top mobile search queries entered in 2008, as reported by Yahoo Mobile, AOL Mobile and Google Mobile India. It turns out, he writes, there are 26 unique mobile search terms between the three engines. So, Meunier took the 26 queries and assigned both desktop search volume and Google mobile search volume according to the new Google mobile keyword tool's estimates. He serves up the results, along with a few observations on the data. The moral behind this story, he writes, "if you or your clients were selling anything in 2008 that related …
  • Conversion Optimizer Tips
    Google has made the Conversion Optimizer tool available to all campaigns using AdWords' free Conversion Tracking tool that have made at least 30 conversions in the last 30 days, according to Amanda Kelly. Kelly explains ways to get the most from ad placement in each auction based on the likelihood of a conversion. "This process helps to avoid unprofitable clicks and to get you conversions without requiring you to spend as much time managing your bids," she writes, explaining how the tool adjusts bids using data it collects. For example, after observing clicks, the Conversion Optimizer might conclude …
  • Why Should I Buy From You?
    It's a question people continually ask themselves. It's also a question you should ask yourself. Why would consumers buy from you? Knowing the answer will help hone organic (SEO) and paid search (PPC) marketing strategies. Mary Bowling serves up some ideas to identify your value proposition and build trust among prospective clients. Bowling also provides a list of common pitfalls to avoid. Many are common sense, but she reminds us, for instance, to avoid making claims that are not true. "If you say you can do it, you'd better be able to deliver on that promise the vast …
« Previous Entries