Search engine Web crawlers can learn from people perusing sites, according to Bill Slawski, who points to Yahoo patent application No. 20090019354 to demonstrate and detail his point. The patent abstract reads: "A user's browsing activities on a Web site are captured. The user's browsing activities includes affixing labels to Web pages and filling out forms. The captured activities are analyzed for patterns." Slawski provides insight on how user/site interaction could assist webmasters, manual reviewers and content subscribers. He also defines two types of Web crawling: free and focused. He describes approaches for each, pointing to problems with …

Continually reducing cost-per-lead, defining the cost/volume relationship, finding the efficient marketing curve, and determining the optimal cost for the lead are among the topics Patricia Hursh addresses in this post. "It's amazing how few companies can tell you what an online lead is really worth," she writes, laying out the problem and then providing the solution. Hursh believes there is an "optimal lead cost" for each company -- and establishing the correct cost-per-lead model means testing the market relationship between volume and cost. Return on investment (ROI) drives this, she writes. Determining this metrics give any company a …

In the first of a series on doing more with less resources, Amanda Kelly details how to get more conversions related to sales, form fills and account sign-ups from your Web site. It's no secret that one way to increase sales without increasing budgets is to convert a higher percentage of visitors to your Web site. So, Kelly tells us how to pay for the same number of clicks, but have a higher percentage of them turn into customers. One way to do this is with Website Optimizer, a free Google tool that allows you to compare multiple …

Patricio Robles disputes Mike Grehan's blog post on ClickZ last week that asserts "SEO's glory days are over. And we should get over it. Nobody is online looking for content." In a synopsis of the post, Robles admits Grehan makes "some valid points" based on the fact social media has become "extremely" important and has changed the way many people use the Internet to consume and produce content. "But this is not an either/or proposition," Robles writes. "It's not community or content." Whether content takes the form of text, video or photos, it remains a vital part of …

In an interview with Ann Smarty, SEO guru Steve Plunkett runs down the most important rules one should follow when running an SEO experiment. "My actually job title should be 'SEO scientist' instead of 'director of Internet marketing,'" Plunkett says, because he sits in his office daily, turns up the music and experiments. "I am running about 70+ experiments right now," he adds. The rules range from documenting all facts prior to conducting the experiment, to either retesting or modifying experiments if additional variables introduce themselves prior to completion. Other topics discussed include keyword-rich internal anchor text and …

No mention (yet) of a SEO team in the new government's administration, but White House staff for the 44th President of the United States now has a blog. Macon Phillips, the White House's director of new media, wrote the first post, recognizing the Internet as a major communications tool. "Millions of Americans have powered President Obama's journey to the White House, many taking advantage of the Internet to play a role in shaping our country's future," Phillips writes. "WhiteHouse.gov is just the beginning of the new administration's efforts to expand and deepen this online engagement." Phillips calls the …

Google Search may not be picking up every new blog post, according to Barry Schwartz. He brings to our attention a discussion thread in the Google Group's Blog Search forum noting that some new posts have not been showing up in Blogsearch results. Google's Jeremy Hylton confirms that the search engine began having issues crawling some blogs around the holidays, and continues to debug the problem. Schwartz suggests the problems began in November, around the time Google changed how it indexed blogs. "In early December they vowed to fix it and then in late December, Christmas time, they …

The basics of Web site redesign haven't changed, but some techniques have been updated. Erik Dafforn provides a refresher course, with tips on rapid crawling and indexing, prioritizing URLs for redirections, and quick fixes to errors you may discover along the way. "Expediting the crawling and indexing of new pages is the most important SEM-related issue to execute efficiently," Dafforn writes, explaining that a redesign could create bumps in the road as old content moves to a new location. These tips won't ensure an error-free relaunch, but Dafforn appears confident they will minimize any issues you may encounter …

Rand Fishkin says that gaining new links for old pages starts with updating old blog content with new information. Linkbait doesn't have to go on new pages. It can function well on old pages, too, he writes. Fishkin lists four strategies that can help you refresh content and build links, including running an annual contest to repeatedly garner links to the URL, or update posts with current information. While some believe blogs should remain untouched once posted, others such as Fishkin think posts do well as updates, too. Fishkin also provides information on troubleshooting pages you submit to …

Jason Annas clears up the mystery of proper Twitter etiquette, because some people spend way too much time thinking about the process and not doing. I know this firsthand. Since I've been pondering for months what to post on Twitter, my account remains dormant. Ironically, without sending one tweet, I have gained followers (go figure). So, for those who have procrastinated too long, Annas suggests creating a "swipe file" of users, which he explains in the post. Choosing five Twitters accounts to model, he analyzes the stats from each in a tool called Twitter-Friends. This will tell him …