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Archive for the ‘search engines’ Category
Tuesday, January 29th, 2013
Don’t write Yahoo! off yet. CEO Marissa Mayer, a former Googler, has a lot of tricks up her sleeve, and I’m betting on her.
According to this article at TechCrunch, Yahoo! is planning a comeback in search, video, and mobile. Recent acquisitions show that they’re serious. In fact, Yahoo! has deep pockets, and if they continue to make smart acquisitions, then I think you’ll see them become big competitors against Google and Facebook.
Here are three specific reasons why I think Yahoo! is still in the game:
- Its acquisition of OnTheAir – OnTheAir is a video app that allows users to set up their own webinars. If Yahoo! can take advantage of this technology, they can build an online app that will compete with Google Hangouts.
- Its acquisition of Stamped – Stamped is a mobile app. Making good use of this app can give Yahoo! enough clout to compete with Google’s Android product, and if Facebook gets into mobile to compete for this space, then it could become an all out war. This is a huge opportunity for Yahoo! because no one is dominating here yet.
- Personalization – Yahoo! was the first big web property to let users personalize a home page. They did it long before Google ever thought about it. Personalization in search has become a big deal that Google has managed to position itself as a leader in. And Bing isn’t strong enough to compete against Google on any playing field. But Yahoo! is. If Yahoo! can take its current technology to learn enough about its user base to deliver personalized content, then it can become a major player again.
Yahoo! has an interesting challenge ahead of it. I don’t think they’ll knock Google off their pedestal, but they could be a competitor again. I’m rooting for Yahoo! to build a search brand that can give Google a run for its money.
Tags: mobile apps, personalized search, search, search engine, video, yahoo
Posted in search engines | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 8th, 2013
Before you worry about search engine rankings, you should make sure your website is indexed in the search engines. To get indexed, they need to get crawled.
There are some very important details you need to take care to pay attention to if you want your site to get crawled by the search bots. Here’s the short list:
- Make sure your site’s architecture is sound
- Get a sitemap
- Add some inbound links
- Update your website frequently
If you’ve just built your website, then chances are you have none of this yet. Hopefully, your web development team built you a site with a solid architecture.
Your first step should be to add a sitemap to your website. It’s a pretty simple procedure, but it’s necessary to ensure the search engines can crawl all of your pages well. After that, you need to get some inbound links – quickly.
To add links to your website, start by sharing your first web pages to all the popular social networks. Share to LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, and Twitter. If you have images, share to Pinterest. If you have videos, share to YouTube. After that, start blogging. Blog every day for the first 30 days of your website’s life.
If you have shared your web pages on the popular social networks, then your site should get crawled and indexed within a week. But it could take longer, so make sure you blog.
Next, build a Facebook and a Google+ page for your brand. As you blog, share your blog posts once daily to your Facebook and Google+ pages. Then share those on your Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn profiles. If you are diligent at this, you should see your website in the search engines pretty quickly.
Tags: google, link building, SEO, sitemap, Social Media, web development, web page indexing
Posted in search engines | No Comments »
Friday, October 26th, 2012
Every now and then Google changes the game so much that search engine marketers have to figure out how to play by the new rules. But this time, they’ve changed the rules so much that it’s taken us a lot longer to figure out the new game plan. But I think I’ve got it figured out.
Going forward, you have to work on your author reputation. It’s called AuthorRank.
That’s not to say that old considerations such as PageRank and link portfolios are dead and gone. Rather, the new paradigm is the old paradigm plus. And it’s all wrapped up in Google’s newfangled social search platform Google+.
If you haven’t joined Google+, now is the time to do it. In the future, AuthorRank will determine whether your content ranks for keyword phrases you’re associated with. It’s more than just a reputation management tool. It’s a search engine marketing management tool. Let me explain.
When someone Google’s your name, if you have a Google+ account, there’s no doubt that you’ll come up. Even if there are a half dozen other people with the same name, the likelihood that your profile is shown, particularly if someone has crossed your path before, is higher. In some cases, it will be much higher. But what if you are a foot doctor and someone Google’s “foot pain” or “bunions?” What then?
Well, the new emphasis on author reputation, or AuthorRank, will mean that foot doctors that routinely publish quality content related to those topics – either on their own properties or elsewhere – are more likely to rank for those terms.
This is Google’s way of fighting spam. I’ll have to say that I think it will be very effective. But if you aren’t playing by the new rules, you’ll be shut out of the new game.
Tags: AuthorRank, google, reputation, social search
Posted in search engines | 6 Comments »
Thursday, September 27th, 2012
Keyword research does not always have to consist of searching for the most searched for keywords related to your niche. Sometimes you just want to write a blog post about a topic that will benefit your readers and you want a keyword that isn’t necessarily popular but will allow you to write about a topic that you may not normally address on your blog. Looking for alternative keywords might be well worth your time.
Soovle is a great tool for helping you do that.
Soovle is a real simple tool. When you arrive on the website you’ll see a search box in the center of the page surrounded by the names of seven search engines. Enter a search term into the search box and related terms will appear under each of the names of the seven search engines. Click on one of those search terms and you’ll be redirected to the page at that search engine that discusses that search term.
For instance, let’s say you enter “internet marketing.” Click on “internet marketing jobs” under Google and you’ll go to the search results page for that search term. Click on “internet marketing secret” under YouTube and you’ll be catapulted to the search results page at YouTube for that search term.
Soovle has other useful tools as well. You can rearrange the search engines on the page or even choose 11 or 15 search engines for culling more results from more places.
Click on “Top” in the top left corner of Soovle and you’ll be taken to a page of the top search terms. It’s quite a list too, arranged by alphabetical order. Search on any search term and it will appear in the search box at the top of the page. Then click on one of the search engine icons next to the search box and you’ll go directly to the search results page for that search engine.
Soovle is a useful tool if you want to find alternative keywords you can target in your blog posts. Try it. I’m sure you’ll like it.
Tags: keyword research, keywords, search engines, Soovle
Posted in search engines | 5 Comments »
Friday, September 7th, 2012
Bing keeps trying to convince, by one way or another, that its search results are better than Google’s. They’ve tried just about everything they can think of. But they have one more card to play (or maybe not), and they’re playing it pretty heavy right now.
This is probably the best idea that Bing could come up — a blind search engine test.
What if there was a website where you could type in your search query and get side-by-side search results from both Google and Bing and see which one was the best? Well, there is. It’s called Bing It On.
According to Bing, the power behind the test, Bing results are winning 2 to 1.
Bing would have been a fool to even try this if they weren’t confident they’d win more often than lose. And if the results are honest (of course I have no reason not to trust them), then it looks like Bing may very well produce better search results. However, I do expect Google to retaliate. If Bing’s results are better overall, then I’d imagine Google will do some tweaking to change that. They always do.
But if it’s true and Bing’s results are better, does that mean online marketers should change their focus from Google to Bing? Not necessarily. Google still gets more traffic. But I’ve always been of the opinion that you should find traffic from as many sources as possible.
I encourage you to take the Bing It On blind test. See what you think.
Tags: bing, google, search engine, search results
Posted in search engines | 3 Comments »
Monday, July 30th, 2012
If you’ve wondered when it would happen, here’s the good news: Google+ is now being integrated into search engine results. But what does that mean for you?
It means that, more and more, small business owners should think about using Google+ as a social media service. Not only does it help your reputation by posting often to Google’s social media service, but your posts and comments on that service now could be integrated into the SERPs.
Google+ content is being integrated under the guise of “actively discussed on Google+.” That’s not a bad thing.
No one knows what the criteria are for Google+ content being selected to appear in SERPs. Google is saying it’s a test. But you know what happens to tests. They either end up being canned and forgotten or they become a practice. I expect the Google+ integration into the search results to become a common practice. It might not end up in the way that it’s being tested right now, but I believe that Google+ content will end up being preferred content in the SERPs the same way that YouTube videos are.
In fact, since YouTube videos are so easily added to Google+, the popular video sharing site will likely be a beneficiary of Google’s goodness as well.
Tags: google, search engine results, SERPs, Social Media
Posted in search engines | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, July 25th, 2012
Microsoft has announced that starting August 1st they will charge for the use of Bing’s API. This is going to kill a lot of free SEO tools, and it could very well put a dent in Bing’s overall market share as well.
Let’s face it, pursuing a solid SEO strategy is getting more expensive all the time. Some smaller companies already cannot afford to pay an SEO consultant for services, so they end up doing it themselves if at all. Many of them use free SEO tools because they can’t afford the more expensive ones. Now, they may not have a choice.
If your free SEO tool stops working after August 1st, you’ll know why. But this move could hurt Bing as much as anyone else – at least, in search market share.
There are a lot of free tools and toolbars that use Bing as the primary search engine. Conduit is a very popular toolbar creator that uses Bing. Will they continue to use Bing if they have to pay for the API? It’s anyone’s guess, but if they choose to end their relationship with Bing they will likely go back to using Google.
For Microsoft, this could be more about the money than it is anything else. In fact, I’d say that Microsoft is looking for ways to maximum its revenue on the search engine. In that case, they may not mind losing market share to Google.
Tags: API, bing, search engines, SEO tools
Posted in search engines | 4 Comments »
Friday, May 4th, 2012
Google has been reworking search algorithms for years, however, they have been coming thick and fast recently, and Google I’m sure has taken great pleasure in applying names to them. Earlier in the year we had the Panda update that hit poor quality sites and recently we had the Penguin update that is said to hit spammy websites. The problem with the Penguin update is that it came hot on the heels of a fresh Panda update, so webmaster who suffered a drop in traffic are unsure if it is due to poor quality (Panda) or spam (Penguin).
There is a relatively easy way to tell, if you have Google Analytics (or any good analytics software). The Panda update was released on April 19 and the Penguin update on April 24. If your traffic started to drop off after April 19, then you have quality issues. If your traffic dropped off after April 24, then Google has issues with your website related to spam.
You don’t use spam? Me neither, can’t stand the stuff! What about your website? Have you ever, particularly in your sites early days, built a few unethical links? Pay for links? Does your website have any duplicate content issues? This may be duplicate content on your own site, or content you have copied from other websites.
Whether it’s Panda or Penguin, you will need to work on areas that don’t meet Google’s quality guidelines. A complaint to Google will not necessarily reverse Penguin related loss of traffic. Clean up your site and, with luck, you’ll float back to your original position in search results. Google is not against search engine optimization, in fact, it has written guidelines on how to get it right. Just don’t over optimize, or use grey (or black) hat techniques.
Tags: google, Panda, Penguin
Posted in search engines | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012
Much is being written about the difference between ‘freshness’ and ‘relevance’ in Google’s search results. Much of this discussion stems from Google’s own ‘freshness’ update in recent weeks. There are a couple of points that are well worth noting now when it comes to search results. These include:
What you see is not what you get. Checking search results has become a bit hit and miss over the last 12 months. You and I can type in the same search term and yet come up with completely different results. Our differing locations, our previous search and surf history, and that ‘freshness’ factor all affect search results. It’s almost impossible to now proudly claim number one position for a search term since that ranking isn’t across the board.
Relevance is in the eye of the beholder. What is relevance? After all, what is relevant to you could be totally irrelevant to me. Again, time and location are important. Chris Crum on WebProNews wrote an article about this issue, using his own search criteria as an example. I used the same search criteria that he used, and came up with different results again.
Search has never been perfect. Whilst this is probably not an acceptable point to many, with billions of pages on the Internet, search is never going to be perfect. Using Chris Crum’s example, whilst the term he was searching for wasn’t ranked at number one in the results, it was ranked at number three. Google probably is over rating fresh content, however, the biggest complaint in the past was the staleness of results. Old out of date pages were ranking highly simply because of age and the number of inbound links they had acquired.
The current preference for freshness over relevance is creating problems for many businesses, especially when freshness is delivering inaccurate results. If you’re search rankings are being underminded by fresh content, I wouldn’t panic too much just yet. I would look closely to ensure my content was up-to-date and not stale, and that my content was relevant to my readers. If it isn’t, then it may be time to publish more relevant content – and it’ll be fresh too.
Tags: google, search rankings, search terms
Posted in search engines | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, April 25th, 2012
The concept of being in business is to sell – that could be a product, a service, or perhaps even a concept. This may sound a little strange – are you too focused on selling? I know that is why you are in business, however, if you focus too strongly on selling, you may be missing other opportunities. Generally speaking, traffic from search engines convert at between 2% and 10% depending on your product/service. There are also seasonal factors that could influence that conversion rate, even so, if you take the industry standard of 5% (converting into sales), what are you doing with the other 95% of visitors?
That 95% arrived on your site from a search engine for a reason. It may be curiosity, it may be because they are researching products/services prior to making a final decision, and any one of a dozen other reasons. However, something about your listing in the search results convinced them to visit, so there must be an inkling of interest. The question you should be constantly asking yourself is how to make use of that traffic.
When it comes to non-coverting traffic, the opportunities are endless. Newsletter subscriptions, social media connections, and social media sharing are just three of those options. An increasing tactic is to pop-up a short survey when exiting a website. Pop-ups do annoy some people, however, you will be surprised how many people stop to answer a question or three, and you’ll be equally surprised with the results that these surveys deliver, including newsletter subscriptions.
Your website should be focused on your number one goal, and that is converting traffic into sales. With some careful thought, you may be able to convert 5%-10% of that lost traffic into alternative areas which, over time, could help to increase your sales – and isn’t that why you’re in business?
Tags: newsletter subscriptions, Social Media
Posted in search engines | 5 Comments »
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