Why Use of Frames is Discouraged

While the use of websites built upon the use of frames was popular in the 1990's, they have fallen out of favor for a number of reasons, and it is recommended that any site that still uses frames be redeveloped to eliminate their use. There are a number of reasons for this.

First, search engines can't crawl a site with frames because each frame is treated as the same url as the home page, at least in simple terms. However, each frame requires its own separate html file. This is hard on the server load as well. When a search engine crawls your site, it may only the outline of the page but not the page content.

From an aesthetic point of view frames can make a site look cluttered. Frames can be hard to navigate because of scrolling options such as up/down and left/right on the same page. If each frame has a scroll bar, the site will be very distracting and hard to use, which can result in higher bounce rates and lower conversion rates. Put simply, a site that is hard to navigate will result in user abandonment.

Bookmarking a site with frames typically results in bookmarking of the home page url, as the url doesn't change when frames are included. Persons interested in bookmarking interior content, or linking to specific content on your site, find it impossible to do as the main site url is the url that appears on all pages of the site, and deep links to the interior of the site fail and link to the main url of the site.

For @Burnsie_SEO and @remarkablogger, frames were very useful. @ArteWorks_SEO held a contest about frames and asked contestants to find an example of a website built with frames so that he could show examples of sites with frames during an html training session. The two winners got a sexy and very stylish ArteWorks SEO t-shirt, calendar magnets, and a handful of business cards so that CEO Matt Foster's contact information would be close at hand. Wow, that’s better than winning a trip to Hawaii!

@Burnsie_SEO offers over 15 years experience in web site design and search engine optimization. To ensure the highest level of service and results for clients, she continues to monitor and study the ever-changing requirements and procedures of the search engines. She has optimized over 2000 web sites during her SEO career and has achieved top 20 placements and increased exposure for all of them. For more information please visit www.ontheavenues.com, the SEO consultant to the world.

@remarkablogger is a blog coach. He has been making websites and exploring online since 1997. For more informtion please visit www.remarkablogger.com BLOG

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Response: Authority Link Building, What and How

It is amazing the mythology which abounds in the field of Internet marketing. Take for example a recent article written by a company called LinkBuilderz which was entitled "Authority Link Building! What and How". In this article, the author explains that you will be "amazed with the results" if you drop links into Wikipedia. Problem is, the author is evidently ignorant of the fact that Wikipedia links are nofollowed and therefore do not pass any PageRank or link juice. Click for full article on authority link building.

The LinkBuilderz article is yet another example of the type of misinformation which individuals are putting out there regarding search engine optimization. As the search marketing industry rapidly expands, more and more unqualified individuals and firms are jumping on the bandwagon and selling snake oil, both to the detriment of the web user's experience as well as their clients.

So called "authority" links cannot be obtained by spamming Wikipedia. My philosophy is this: the only way to obtain quality, relevant, inbound linkage is through the creation of rich content to which site owners will naturally want to link. Content can take many forms, it can be blog content, videos, product pages, reviews, audio clips, and the like. If you are creating useful content which provides value to the end user, the links will come.

The LinkBuilderz article is premised entirely upon the myth that Wikipedia spam will provide "amazing results" in the search engines. While there may be some residual value in direct link traffic from links residing within the Wikipedia domain (assuming that they are not promptly deleted by wise Wikipedia editors), there is zero value in terms of passing PageRank or "link juice". This is because external Wikipedia links contain the rel=nofollow attribute which informs Google that the link is to a third party site which is not trusted by Wikipedia. The premise that an "authority" site such as Wikipedia will pass its authority (i.e. trust) to a third party site via an external link is not only false, but the exact opposite is true. Nofollow indicates the site is not trusted! The nofollow attribute was developed specifically to combat this sort of link spam, which has historically been prevalent on blogs, forums, and yes, Wikipedia. Nofollow allows site owners to provide users with the ability to contribute content without the angst associated with link spam bleeding link juice away from the site or causing the site to inadvertently link to a "bad neighborhood".

It seems that dispelling SEO mythology is a never ending ordeal. Reputable SEO firms will never advise placing links within Wikipedia for the purpose of increasing search engine rankings. It is important for the consumer to understand that when considering various SEO firms, if it sounds too good to be true it is. If your SEO firm does not propose creating content and promoting that content as a link building strategy, you should steer clear.

Matt Foster is the CEO of ArteWorks SEO, a full service search engine optimization firm.

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Custom Search: The Death Knell of Rankings Based Search Engine Optimization

Custom search based on user browsing behavior is here. This means that search engine result pages will deliver different results to individualized users based on the past search trends and geographic location of that user. And no, you do not have to be signed into your Google account for this to happen. Clients as well as SEO firms which insist on a rankings-based metric of success are going to have to change their thinking. Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee, rankings-based SEO. (Full article on custom search and geo-targeting).

Traditionally, the success of an SEO campaign has been largely based on visible search rankings for target keyphrases. I have always maintained that this is not the correct metric by which to evaluate the success of any given campaign, as all the search rankings in the world are worthless if they do not result in traffic to your website which results in conversions. While many individuals and organizations (both SEO practitioners and their clients) have steadfastly refused to accept this truism, the time is now upon us where they must accept and recognize this, or any SEO effort will be doomed to failure. But why?

Largely unnoticed to many, Google has implemented customized search engine results pages based on a user's browsing history. The user does not have to be signed into their Google account, or even have a Google account, for this to happen. This can be seen clearly on the graphic below:


This is a screenshot of the first page of results on Google for the query "search engine optimization". Take a look at the red arrow marked "A". You can see that it points to the words "sign in". This indicates that the screenshot was taken while not signed in to a Google account - these are the natural Google search results for a user who either does not have a Google account or is not signed in to one. Or are they?

If you look at the red arrow marked "B", you will see the words "Customized based on recent search activity". This indicates that the "natural" search results which are being served to the user by Google are actually based on the user's recent search history. These results are filtered even further based on the user's geographic location. How do we know this? Well, clicking on the "more details" link leads us to an explanation: "When possible, Google will customize your search results based on location and/or recent search activity."

Therefore, it is evident that search results are being served in a geo-targeted manner as well as based upon recent search behavior. Geo-targeting is extremely evident when searching for an otherwise generic term like "coffee bar". See the graphic below:


At the very top right of the graphic, you can still see the words "sign in", indicating that I am not signed into any Google account. The red arrow marked "C" shows that Google is geotargeting the results to my location of Austin, Texas. The red arrows marked "D" and "E" show localized results based on that applied filter.

Clicking on "more details" yields the following message from Google:

"The following information was used to improve your search results for coffee bar:

Location - Your approximate location has been identified as Austin metro area, US.
Based on your IP address: 68.xxx.xx.xx" (IP address removed by author).

Google explains what they are doing with search customization in their Web Search Help Center. They state there are three factors which come into play for search customization:

1. Location. If signed into a Google account, location is based on your Google account information. If not signed in to a Google account, approximate location is ascertained via your IP address.

2. Recent Searches. Google uses recent search history to further refine your results because "it provides a valuable context for understanding the meaning behind your searches". Google goes on to say that they use search history "to customize your results whenever possible, regardless of whether you're signed in or signed out [of a Google account]." (emphasis added) Google claims that recent search history is kept on a cookie on your browser for a period of 30 minutes, after which it is deleted. It also claims the cookie is deleted any time you close your browser.

3. Web History. This customization is only provided if you are signed into a Google account and have web history enabled.

It is interesting to note that because the customization cookie is browser-dependent, you can obtain different results, on the same machine and IP address by simply opening a new browser. For example, switching between IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, or another browser will reset the customization entirely.

While this may be great for the user search experience, it can prove to be a big headache for SEO clients and SEO firms wishing to observe rankings as an indicator of success. Therefore, additional metrics of the success of a search marketing strategy must be agreed upon prior to the onset of any particular project. While a detailed analysis of such factors will be saved for a later article, they would include such things as analytics, user behavior, referral traffic, and of course conversions.

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5 Tips to Avoid Becoming an SEO Victim

First it was Internet Advancement. Now, it is Visible.net. Washington State appears to be on a mission to get rid of shady SEO firms which promise more than they can deliver and give the entire industry a black eye. I personally am glad that somebody is cracking down on firms which make overreaching promises. Here are 5 tips to avoid becoming a victim of bad SEO firms.


1. Avoid firms which contact you out of the blue.

I have no specific research to back this up, but I would venture to say that 99.99% of all "cold calls" come from unscrupulous or unqualified firms, many of which cold calls are outright scams. Do not respond to unsolicited emails, phone calls, facsimiles, snail mail, or other direct marketing from a purported SEO firm. A reputable firm will rely on its reputation in the industry, client referalls, search engine rankings, and other means to attract customers to it. In other words, customers should come to the SEO firm, the SEO firm should not come to the customer.

2. Avoid firms which guarantee you a #1 ranking.

No firm owns the search engines, therefore no firm can guarantee you a #1 ranking. If this sort of representation is made, it is a huge red flag. I know what you are thinking: "If they fail to deliver, I will just get my money back." Just try getting your money back. Chances are you will never get it, or you will have a #1 ranking which gets the firm off the hook - the problem is that it is for a keyphrase that has absolutely zero qualified traffic.

This illustrates the often misplaced notion that search engine optimization is about a #1 ranking. SEO is not about that at all, as a #1 ranking is worthless if it does not drive qualified traffic to your site which results in conversions. SEO is about conversions, not ranking for irrelevant keyphrases.

3. Avoid firms which claim to have a "special relationship" with major search engines.

No SEO firm has a special relationship with Google or any other major search engine. Period. Does not require further explanation.

4. Avoid firms which sell SEO as an "out of the box" solution.

Search engine optimization is not a product, it is a service. There are many companies which are selling SEO as an out of the box, package deal. In other words, they offer SEO services at a predetermined set fee, for a predetermined set of services. One common manifestation of this is in the nature of "Choose one of our proven SEO packages."

A firm offering out of the box solutions is not performing any sort of competitive intelligence at all. Each industry is different, each client is different, and the search engine optimization solutions for each project should therefore be different. What works for one client, in one industry, may not work for another client in another industry. A firm which fails to take into account the industry landscape, client business goals, budget, and other factors when developing an SEO strategy is doing you no favor. Each client should be provided with a customized solution based on a number of factors specific to that client. If your selected SEO firm is not performing keyphrase research and competitive intelligence prior to the development and execution of a customized strategy, you should find another firm.

5. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.

Most people who hire an SEO firm are business owners or professionals working on behalf of a business owner. Therefore, we might expect that these potential SEO clients have some degree of business savvy about them. Unfortunately, many don't, and they buy into the "get rich quick with a #1 ranking for a few hundred dollars" line. Come on, folks. You can't compete with Amazon.com for $500.00. Think about it. Search engine optimization requires an investment on par with the goals of the project. Rome wasn't built in a day. Use your common sense when evaluating various proposals from potential SEO firms. Like the baby in the picture above, be skeptical of offers which sound too good to be true.

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Is Rand Fishkin a Superhero?

In order to ascertain whether or not Rand Fishkin, the CEO of SEOMoz, is a superhero, we must first define the term and then put him to the test. Let's do it and see what happens.

Variously referred to on the web as "the Wizard of Moz", "Darth Fishkin", "Werewolf Fishkin", "Mastermind", the "Romantic SEO", and many other appellations, his best known pseudonym is perhaps "randfish". With all these names given to the mysterious Randfish, we can't help but wonder if he is a superhero.

Dictionary.com defines a superhero as "a figure...endowed with superhuman powers and usually portrayed as fighting evil or crime." Urbandictionary.com takes it a step further and adds the caveat "and looks good in tights."

So let's analyze this piece by piece.

Question: Is Rand Fishkin endowed with superhuman powers?

Answer: Yes.

Analysis: Only someone endowed with superhuman powers can influence Google's SERPs with the drop of a single link. For example, Rand wrote an article posted yesterday entitled "SEO Company Search Results - An Embarrassment to Google and the Other Engines" in which Rand ranted about the way that certain companies appear to be using unscrupulous techniques to rank for the term "SEO Company". He also provided the names of companies which he thought should rank for that term and provided an anchor text link to those firms with anchor text "SEO Company". As of today, a mere 24 hours later, two of the companies have suddenly appeared in the first few pages of the Google SERPs for this term. There are only two explanations for this. First, key personnel at Google read his article, agreed, and manually changed the SERPs to reflect his opinion. The alternate explanation is that the dropping of a single link in his post was sufficient to substantially alter the SERPs for this term. Regardless of which of the two scenarios played out it is self evident that only a person endowed with super human powers could have such an effect.

Question: Does Rand Fishkin fight evil?

Answer: Yes.

Analysis: As head of SEOMoz, Rand has taken a leadership role along with several other SEO firms (including ours) in the fight against Jason Gambert's attempt to trademark the term "SEO". While the rest of the world stands idly by and watches, Rand and a handful of other firms have taken up this fight for the common good. SEOMoz in fact was the first firm to discover this dastardly deed and make it known to the world. This is not an inexpensive fight, nor is it one which only benefits those who are fighting it. Rand has proven himself a leader in the world of SEO by standing up and defending everyone's right to use the term "SEO".

Further, he is not afraid to name names when he sees something amiss. Rand calls a spade a spade and does not care whether or not other people whine and groan about it. One case in point is in his article mentioned above. He names companies which he believes are using tactics which are not up to the industry standard, and goes on to define those tactics and expose them to the world. He emphasizes the transient nature of such tactics and points out that in the long haul companies using such tactics will suffer. He makes it clear that the noble goal of SEO should be the long term success of the target sites, and that chasing the latest loophole in the ranking algorithms is risky and not economically viable in the long run. While a number of people comment on his post saying things like "if it works it works" and that SEO is a "game", Rand holds his ground and does not compromise his lofty premise that search engine rankings, and indeed all SEO efforts, should be based on the provision of quality, useful content and links, of such a nature that will benefit the users of the web as well as the sites in question. Anyone who disagrees with that is certainly not someone who I would admire - the pursuit of selfish, short term financial gain at the expense of the long term success of a client as well as at the expense of creating a quality web experience is about as ignoble goal as is imaginable.

Rand explains his philosophy further in a comment reply below the post:

"I completely disagree with this logic that Google has weaknesses and we know how to use them. My thinking goes entirely the other way - Google and all the othe engines have ideals to which their algorithms aspire. If we pursue the "weaknesses" we will eventually lose - fighting against teams of some of the planets smartest people with some of the planets best resources (Google Web Spam, et. al) seems like a terrible idea and a poor way to generate ROI for our customers.

Instead, we should be focusing on what, in a perfect world, the engines would want to count, and building sites, content and links that embody that ideal. With this kind of strategy in place, you won't fall out of the results just because Google updates their algorithm or gets better at their job."

Very well said.

Of course Jill Whalen of HighRankings has to weigh in on the subject, in her predictable philosophy of "if it gets you to rank well in the search engines then it must be what Google wants". First off, Jill, Google doesn't "want" spammy links or bogus content. Because it works at the moment in getting a site to rank is far from saying that is the sort of thing for which Google strives to rank sites.

Jill then can be seen ranting about Rand's "outing" of companies engaging in questionable practices. Of course Rand stands up to her too, saying:

"Jill - I disagree on this point and I think I will for the future. Outing manipulative practices (or ANY practices for that matter) that put a page at the top of the rankings is part of our job. Disclosing tactics that work (and sharing my opinion about whether they should or not) is something I'll continue to do in the future, and I don't feel particularly bad for anyone who's getting "outed." If you don't want people finding out about your tactics, don't rank #1 for competitive phrases. It's always going to make you a target. I've never liked the "thieves code of honor" - it implies that as SEOs, we're thieves and that's the last thing any of us should want."

Wow! Now if that isn't standing up for a noble cause, I do not know what is? Now, to be clear, am I calling Jill Whalen evil? Of course not. But I do believe that she is wrong to take a position in support of practices which do not benefit the long term good of either SEO clients or web users.

Question: Does Rand Fishkin look good in tights?

Answer: Yet to be determined.

Analysis: At time of writing, I cannot find a picture of Rand Fishkin in tights using a Google image search. This is the last hurdle Rand must overcome to achieve superhero status. Perhaps he would be good enough to send us a picture of him in tights, and we could have the ladies vote on the matter?

Only then will the world truly know for certain whether or not Rand Fishkin is a super hero.

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ArteWorks SEO to Join in Fight Against Trademarking Term "SEO"

It seems there is a character who thinks he can trademark the term "SEO". ArteWorks SEO is joining the trademark litigation, and it going to be fun laying the smack down on this nobody.

This character, who nobody has ever heard of before, has a name. His name is Jason Gambert. One look at his pathetic website, which I absolutely refuse to link to here, is clearly demonstrative of the absolute pitiful amount of knowledge of SEO this guy has. Take a look at his title tag, which by the way is the only indexable piece of content on the site. It's horrible. Why is there no indexable content on his site? Because it is a Flash site. And this guy claims to be an "SEO".

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has already denied his application at least three times. In his current application, he makes the claim that "SEO" is his rightful trademark and stands for "systems efficient optimization", which is a "process" (as opposed to a service) for the manipulation of keywords and keyphrases, and is not an Internet marketing service. Of course, Gambert contradicts his own application in statements he has made on his personal blog and elsewhere, appealing to the SEO community for support of his application, so that a standardized set of "SEO best practices" can be developed for the benefit of all mankind.

Now wait a minute, Gambert. I thought you said SEO had nothing to do with search engine optimization? Why, then, are you in your personal blog saying that your goal is to create a set of SEO standards? And, by the way, who are you? If anyone is going to be setting SEO standards, it will certainly not be you, a person of whom nobody has ever heard, with no professional reputation, not a single verifiable client (have you ever actually done any SEO for a paying client), and obviously zero SEO knowledge.

Utter hogwash.

The good folks at SEOMoz have already filed their Notice of Opposition with the USPTO, and ArteWorks SEO is in the process of filing its response. The SEOMoz response aptly notes that Gambert's application proposes to trademark the term "SEO" for any and all "computer related services". He claims the first use of the term "SEO" was by him and occured on or about February 14, 2007.

SEOMoz's pleading sheds further light on the arguments against the granting of this preposterous application. It notes that the term "SEO" has been used since the 1990's, and in fact that SEOMoz has been using it since 2003, a good 4 years prior to Gambert's alleged "first use". SEOMoz further elucidates the fact that it appears Gambert has falsified information and engaged in deception regarding his use of the term, including a cooked up logo or icon in which he claims he coined the term "SEO", but which is obviously nothing more than a "phony specimen" which has never been used in commerce and was concocted for the sole purpose of supporting his trademark application.

The SEOMoz Notice of Opposition continues, citing additional problems with the application, providing additional evidence that the term "SEO" has been widely and generically used in the field of SEO (oh wait, am I allowed to say that?), and goes on to describe SEO as a service (not a process as Gambert claims) which is an "essential marketing strategy". SEOMoz lends additional credence to their argument that it is a marketing and not a technological service by elucidating the otherwise-obvious-to-everyone-on-the-planet-but-Gambert fact that SEO is typically paid for out of an organization's marketing budget rather than its technology budget.

What it all boils down to is this - Gambert is trying to make a quick buck by leveraging the right to use the term SEO to only himself and those who he, in his sole discretion, believes meet the standards for SEO "best practices".

As leaders in the SEO industry, ArteWorks SEO is thrilled to join in the fight against this guy. See you in court, my friend.

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Matt Foster's Interview at SMX

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Debunking SEO Mythology

In Greek mythology, the Hydra was a creature who could not be defeated, as each time one of its heads was cut off, two more would sprout back in its place. It seems that SEO mythology is no different; every time one SEO myth is debunked, two more SEO myths crop back up in its place, only adding to the confusion about search engine optimization.
Hercules was able to defeat the Hydra by cutting off its heads and then burning the stumps before new heads could grow back. What SEO needs is a hero, an SEO Hercules, to come and save us from the Hydra of SEO Mythology. Let’s go through some of the more pervasive SEO myths and see if we can put a torch to them.

Myth: All I need to do is figure out the magic bullet, and I will be at the top of the search engines.

Fact: Search engines use over 200 factors to rank sites. No one factor will get you to the top. To get to the top, you must have a balanced search engine strategy encompassing many factors, both on page and off page. There is no magic bullet.

Myth: Search rankings are about link popularity. Get as many links as you can. Join web rings, “free for all” (FFA) link exchanges, and get as many sites as you can to link to you through reciprocal linking back to them.

Fact: While link popularity is important if done correctly, Google is placing links under increasing scrutiny, and sheer volumes of inbound linking without regard to the source of the link and other factors hasn’t worked in years. It is not the raw number of links that matter, but the type of links. Links from trusted sites, relevant to your industry, with proper anchor text and relevant surrounding text and page content, to original content on your site are the ones that will help you. FFA linking will most likely get you in trouble with the engines as they could interpret that as an attempt to spam the results. In addition to bleeding away all of your page rank to other sites, FFA linking will increase your chances of linking to a “bad neighborhood”, another thing which can get you into trouble. Never link to sites you do not know or with which you are not familiar. Remember, Google is smarter than you, you can’t fool them with unnatural linking schemes.

Myth: It’s all about “keyword density”. Be sure to repeat your keyword numerous times on your web site. Keyword repetition increases keyword density and inflates your search engine ranking.

Fact: Structuring your page around some magic formula for keyphrase density does nothing for you. Yes, your target keyphrases should be included at least once on the page, as well as in your title and meta description elements, and in an H1 or H2 tag if possible. Other than that, forget about keyphrase density. Create your web content for human readers and write it so it makes sense to them. Whatever you do, avoid keyphrase repetition, a known spamming technique sure to get you into trouble.

Myth: Repeated submissions to the search engines increase your rankings. It is a good idea to sign up for an automated submission service, which will regularly resubmit your site to 1,000 or more search engines each week.

Fact: Automated submissions are a violation of major search engines Terms of Inclusion and can get you into trouble. Search engines don’t need you to submit to them, set up a blog and get a few links to your site, and they will find you very quickly. Using blogger.com, which is owned by Google, usually can get a new site indexed within a week. Just be sure to put a link on the blog to your site.

Myth: The meta keywords tag must include your target keywords. Search engines place heavy weight on this tag and use it to determine which keywords for which to rank your site.

Fact: Search engines that matter, such as Google, place zero weight on the keywords meta element due to historical spam. Yahoo appears to give it some small weight. In any event, use of the keyword meta element is of so little use, many SEO’s ignore it altogether.

Myth: Because links are so important to search rankings, I should go out and purchase a large number of paid links and submit to hundreds or thousands of directories in order to get more links to my site.

Fact: Google especially has cracked down hard on paid links in the last few months. To put it succinctly, they don’t pass page rank. If you want to buy a link from a site, only do it if you believe the link itself will be a good source of traffic (in other words, only do it for legitimate advertising purposes). Do not do it if your purpose is for that link to transfer page rank or increase your ranking, as it likely will not. Additionally, hundreds of useless directories have been harshly penalized as well, so that links from within them are either not counted at all or given very little weight. Get links from a few well respected directories such as dmoz.org, Yahoo directory, Business.com, JoeAnt, and others which have a manual review process. Automated submission services which submit to hundreds of directories are a waste of money.

Myth: I should write articles and submit them to article directories, because links from article directories have high page rank and are given great weight by the engines.

Fact: Article directory links in and of themselves carry little to no weight. The engines are smart and know that people spam these directories with useless content just to get a link. If you want to get relevant, trusted links to your site that actually mean something, create useful, informative, or educational content that people will want to link to. Articles are one form of such content, but only if they are good enough to get picked up by other sites. Other content which can serve as link bait is video content, tools and widgets, product reviews, top 10 lists, and interesting or entertaining blogs.

About the Author:
Matt Foster is the CEO of ArteWorks SEO, a leading search engine optimization company. For more information on search engine optimization including a series of educational videos, please visit www.arteworks.biz.

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Video SEO 101

Discusses the increasing importance of video in search engine optimization, as well as techniques for video optimization.

The Growing Video Universe

If you are interested in the proven power of our vFlood (TM) video SEO services please contact ArteWorks SEO by calling 512-535-2821 or toll free 877-812-2217. You may also visit our video seo page for more information.

Predicted to be a $3 billion dollar business by 2010 (source: eMarketer), the use of video for search marketing, while still in its infancy, is growing at a tremendous rate. According to market trends expert Brian Haven, over fifty percent of world wide web users are viewing at least one video per month, and this potential number of viewers and visitors has many companies sprinting toward full scale internet video campaigns. With the launch of Universal Search in many of the most relevant search engines, including Google, more videos will begin appearing in actual organic search engine rankings, thus increasing their value to SEO firms and their clients, not to mention the advantages of pure viral marketing.

YouTube, the most successful video sharing website, estimates they receive almost 30 million unique users in a single month’s time. As only a three year old company, now owned by Google, it is considered to be the fourth busiest website in the world, and is only one of the hundreds of video sharing avenues. Metacafe is not far behind, generating almost 20 million unique viewers every month. The importance of video for Internet marketing as well as search rankings will continue to increase as broadband becomes more common and search engines react accordingly, and as such, video optimization has already become an important part of online marketing campaigns and search engine optimization strategies.

--> Get started on your vFlood (TM) video seo project.

Video Marketing

There are millions of short video clips produced by professionals and amateurs alike available on the web. Some post videos in the name of fame and fun, while others are focused on using videos to create a viral marketing campaign and drive traffic to their respective websites. With millions of consumers of video content the question must be asked as to how successful are videos in driving actual web traffic. According to a recent study by Market Experiments Journal, the use of video in viral marketing can produce incredible click results. Market Experiments produced several amateur style videos for posting on the web that would serve as experimental viral marketing. These 28 videos pulled over 80,000 views in one month, and by sixty days they had received over 300,000 views with no additional work or investment. At 324,190 views, 4,162 people continued on to click through their website, and the best part is that the views will continue to increase, bringing in more website traffic at a minimal cost. When the cost of the acquisition of these users via video was compared to PPC, it was discovered that a PPC campaign would have cost over $20.00 per visitor acquisition, whereas the video campaign cost a fraction of that.

How does this transfer to SEO?

It has long been known amongst search engine optimization experts that one of the most valuable ways to create inbound links to a website is by creating quality content. This content in turn serves as “link bait,” with the goal of receiving one-way links from other websites that fuel both traffic and search rankings. The concept is simple, and applies to the utilization of video for SEO. Entertaining, informative, or humorous content has proven to be excellent link bait, as are product reviews and “top 10” lists. With the proper techniques of production, formatting, optimization, posting, and publishing, video can be an excellent way to create such content and boost search engine ranking results.

--> More information on vFlood (TM) our video seo service.

Creating Video Content

To take full advantage of video optimization, the first and most important step is to produce a high quality original. Most successful videos are created using professional equipment, digital tape, plenty of light, and quality microphones. Some of the most successful amateur videos on the web were shot with 3 CCD cameras and nice tripods. ArteWorks SEO, for example, utilizes a Canon GL2 3CCD recording on MiniDV with both standard letterbox and 16:9 widescreen capabilities. This will produce an obvious difference in the clarity of picture as well as accuracy of color. Videos that are too dark or whose sound is difficult to decipher will most likely be passed over by increasingly savvy viewers or leave an impression that the video producer is an amateur. Next, it is important to shoot videos that have some relevance to your industry. Even if it is just a funny skit, an ounce of relevance will go a long way in creating relevant links and search traffic. Once the footage is created, videos should be edited to a length that is conducive to viewer attention spans. Informational videos should be less than five minutes, and funny skits should usually be under one minute or even thirty seconds. Videos that are too long may lose viewers or experience loading delays. The object is to load the video as quickly as possible and then leave viewers wanting more.

Video File Optimization

Once you have created short, concise, entertaining, quality videos, you will need to optimize the video files for search engine crawlers. Titling is the most important part of this process. The actual title of the file name works similarly to Title Tags for web pages. Search engine crawlers can recognize these file names and index them accordingly, so it is important to include target keyphrases within the video title. The process continues by injecting the appropriate metadata into the actual video file encoding. This should include information like the title, length, keywords, and authorship associated with a particular video clip. Another increasingly popular video optimization strategy is to include a transcript of each video. This transcript will not only provide valuable text threading, but it can also include anchor text links specific to keyphrases.

--> vFlood (TM) is the #1 ranked video seo service in the world.

Publishing Your Video Content

There are two common ways to post videos for others to view. The first, for SEO purposes, is to post videos directly on your website. Link bait that is directly connected to your website can then attract links directly to your website. Each video should have an individual page with content that is associated to that video’s specific keyphrases, and the URL for that page should include the title of the video. Videos can also appear in blog or forums so that others can comment and form a small social network. When a video is posted on a webpage, you can include a link to the video transcript and the code for embedding the video on other websites or blogs.

Beyond posting on your own website, publishing your video on various video sharing websites is almost more important in terms of actual exposure. Video sharing sites like Youtube, Metacafe, AOLvideo, Yahoo Video, Myspace, and more can solicit thousands of views in a short period of time because each of their viewer bases range from 10 to 50 million per month. With proper submission, these types of sites can serve as a mass syndication effort for your videos, which is vital for viral and organic ranking purposes. There are hundreds of Internet success stories that come from the thousands, or millions, of hits a particular video clip received on a video sharing site.

Video Bookmarking

Though video sharing websites are an excellent resource for achieving high exposure, social media sites such as Digg, Stumble Upon, Del.icio.us and others can also create a powerful buzz as well as provide excellent inbound links. Again, this process is similar to that of bookmarking any other type of content on a social media site. By bookmarking the video on the business website and on other sharing sites, using relevant and authority bookmarking accounts, the videos have been released to another world of sharing and voting that can bring in countless views, especially if they are well liked by the community. However, there is another key reason for submitting bookmarks to social networks. Search engines have become increasingly likely to index bookmarked postings on social media networks. Thus, your video content can appear in universal search rankings, which will increase their visibility for relevant keyphrases. If that bookmark leads back to your actual website, the impact on your organic search rankings will be noticeable.
Making it easy for others to bookmark videos on your website is another means to fully take advantage of social media networks. Most social media sites with bookmarking capability offer “buttons” that can be posted on a website that will automatically bookmark the selection for the viewer to the appropriate network. For example, you might place a “Digg” button next to a video player, and when clicked, it would prompt the viewer to quickly bookmark this item to their Digg profile. More information on video seo.

Looking to Tomorrow

The use of video as link bait content is a relatively new concept, and the increasing sophistication of search engines will continue to change and improve the ways videos are indexed. There are already some search engines like Blinkx that use speech recognition and visual analysis rather than just metadata in order to determine the nature of specific video content. Capabilities like these and further advances will continue to change the way video can be used to create online exposure, but the value of video for the future is clear. Regardless of the technological advances and shifts in industry standards, video content will continue to grow in popularity as the rest of the world shifts to standard broadband Internet connections. For this reason, it is important to consider the inclusion of some form of video content for any online business that seeks to improve their credibility, visibility and ranking results. By starting now, your business can ride the wave from the beginning, growing alongside the development of the role of video in search engines. It is truly a golden opportunity for smart businesses to rise to the top.

If you are interested in the proven power of our vFlood (TM) video SEO services please contact ArteWorks SEO by calling 512-535-2821 or toll free 877-812-2217. You may also visit our video seo page for more information.

About the Author

Peter Hamilton is the Project Manager in charge of the Seattle office of ArteWorks SEO. He has a Bachelor’s degree in radio, television and film and extensive experience in social media optimization. Mr. Hamilton also heads up the ArteWorks SEO educational video series on topics related to Internet marketing and search engine optimization. If you would like to view the free educational SEO video series, please visit www.arteworks.biz.

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Your Competition Works for Google

Still think you can fool Google with your unnatural links? I'm talking about link exchanges, link farms, hidden links, and now even paid links.
Google's Matt Cutts recently wrote about Google's plan to catch you. You and I know it as vigilantism.
Prior to the Google era search engines were mediocre at best, looking at on page factors only which could easily be manipulated and spammed. These factors included metadata (especially the keyphrase tag) and the number of times a search term appeared on a page.

Those days are long gone. With the advent of Google, the concept of link popularity became tantamount to the determination of the relevance of a page to a specific search query. But what is Google looking for when it comes to links?

The answer is natural, one way, inbound links from trusted sites to unique, original, useful, informative, or educational content, with the anchor text of the link containing keyphrases relevant to your site.. The answer may also be found in what they do not want: link farms, link exchanges, hidden links and paid links. And guess who they have watching you? Your enemy.

Cutts wrote in his blog this week the following:

"I’d like to get a few paid link reports anyway because I’m excited about trying some ideas here at Google to augment our existing algorithms. Google may provide a special form for paid link reports at some point, but in the mean time, here’s a couple of ways that anyone can use to report paid links:

- Sign in to Google’s webmaster console and use the authenticated spam report form, then include the word "paidlink" (all one word) in the text area of the spam report. If you use the authenticated form, you'll need to sign in with a Google Account, but your report will carry more weight.
- Use the unauthenticated spam report form and make sure to include the word "paidlink" (all one word) in the text area of the spam report.

As far as the details, it can be pretty short. Something like "Example.com is selling links; here’s a page on example.com that demonstrates that" or "www.shadyseo.com is buying links. You can see the paid links on www.example.com/path/page.html" is all you need to mention. That will be enough for Google to start testing out some new techniques we’ve got — thanks!"

Whoa! Google is now asking your competition to report you if you buy or sell links. Interesting, isn't it, when Google's massively popular AdWords program is all about paid links. Conspiracy theorists will tell you that Google is trying to take over and control all paid advertising on the Internet, worldwide. But I digress. The point is that Google is asking your competition to report you if you buy or sell links. Period.

So what to do? Create the kind of links that Google wants. There is only one way to do this, and that is through the regular creation of unique content. Here is what you do:

1) Set up a blog (blogger.com is owned by Google and a great one to use as they crawl all of their blogs regularly)
2) Post content in the form of articles
3) Syndicate those articles through article distribution sites (do a search for "article distribution" to find these sites), use your keyphrases within anchor text links back to your site (these links are usually included in an about the author section, but can be in the article body as well)
4) Get active in social bookmarking and social media optimization, sites such as digg, furl, and del.icio.us to name a few.

Those four simple steps are all it takes to conduct an effective link building campaign that won't get you into trouble.

About the Author: Matt Foster is the President of ArteWorks SEO, one of the top 15 search engine optimization firms in the world. For more information, please visit www.arteworks.biz.

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Top Factors Affecting Positive Search Engine Rankings

The jury of search engine experts over at SEOMoz has weighed in, and here are the top factors affecting search engine placement, according to them, with my comments.

1. Keyword Use in Title Tag - I have said for many years that if I had a gun to my head, and could do only one thing to a web page to optimize it, my choice would be the title tag. Put your keyphrases in your title tag, and remember to optimize each page individually (i.e. don't overstuff your title tag, and have different title tags for each page that reflect the content of that particular page - otherwise, you may suffer from a duplicative content exclusion and find yourself in the supplemental results).

2. Keyword Use in Body Text - Duh. If your keyword or keyphrase isn't mentioned at least once in the body text of the web page, then it does not seem your page is very relevant to that keyphrase, now does it? But don't get all caught up in the keyphrase density myth - there is no magic number of times it should appear. Make sense to readers, and it will make sense to the search engines.

3. Relationship of Body Text Content to Keywords (Topic Analysis) - Google is smarter than you give them credit for, and just stuffing a keyphrase into a completely unrelated page won't do you much, if any good. Your page should be on a topic which is semantically related to the keyphrase which you are targeting in your title tag.

4. Keyword Use in H1 Tag - Oh, for years the naysayers have been telling me that H1 tag keyphrase use meant nothing and that I was an idiot for thinking otherwise. Well the verdict is in and this is the fourth most important factor according to the SEOMoz article. At this point, therefore, we have learned to put your keyphrase in your title tag, include it in your body text, which body text is topically or semantically related to the keyphrase, and head up the body text with an H1 containing the keyphrase.

5. Keyword Use in Domain Name - This is one that I disagree with. I have seen absolutely no evidence of this at all. Do a simple search on the internet for most any search term, and chances are the top results do not have the search query in the domain name. I believe this may have minor importance, but don't go and change your domain because of it. Seriously, you have much more to lose (such as age of domain, inbound linkage, site reputation, etc.) I regularly see clients at the top of Google with domain names containing nothing near the relevant search terms.

6. Keyword Use in Page URL - This is what I have called "descriptive file naming" for a number of years. I believe it is of some importance, again, however, is more of a factor when setting up a new domain than would be for an existing domain with high pagerank and inbound linkage. Changing your internal url's for the sole purpose of meeting this criterion again is very risky, for the same reasons mentioned above.

7. Keyword Use in H2, H3, H... Tags - Well if it works for H1, why not for H2 et al.?

8. Keyword Use in ALT Attributes and Image Titles - SEOMoz incorrectly calls them an ALT tag, but it is not a tag, the ALT is an attribute of the IMG tag. Semantics aside, I believe this to be highly important, I would have ranked this above the URL and domain name items. Experience has shown me that image optimization (image file name, alt attribute, and title) is a wonderful way to make a page more relevant to a desired search query.

9. Keyword Use in Bold/Strong Tags - I always use this method, as well as keyword use within the EM (italics) tag. I believe this to be a moderately important factor as it helps emphasize to Google what your page is about, and what you consider important. Definitely on my short list of things to do for "on page" search engine optimization.

10. Keyword Use in Meta Description Tag - Again, one of my "big 4" for on page optimization. The "big 4" being: title tag, meta description, h1, and image ALT attributes. (I don't include body text in my big 4 as I believe that is self evident). Definitely important, and again, each page should have custom title and meta description tags.

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The Rising Power of Social Media Optimization

Social Media Optimization (SMO) is perhaps the best kept secret these days in the field of search engine optimization. But what is it, and how can you harness its power?
Loosely defined, social media optimization is a form of search engine optimization which targets the increasingly popular user-driven content bookmarking sites such as digg.com as sources of both traffic and inbound linkage. This type of SEO strategy can best be described in more traditional terms as an aggressive viral marketing campaign, in which user driven content forms the "word of mouth" necessary to create a buzz in the online community regarding a particular web site.
Huh? Let us address some key terms one at a time.
Social media can be defined, for our online purposes, as any web site in which the content of that site is primarily user driven. In other words, the site owners don't create the content, the users do. Some familiar examples might be blogger.com, myspace.com, facebook.com, and similar sites. It would also include social bookmarking sites, which are becoming evermore popular these days, especially by users in their 20's and 30's.
A social bookmarking site is a site such as digg.com. There are many of them. These sites generally operate as a way to store Internet bookmarks online. Think of the familiar "Favorites" folder in your browser. Well, social bookmarking sites do the same thing, but take it a step further. First of all, social bookmarking allows a user to post his or her favorite articles, news stories, or web sites online as opposed to on their local machine. Secondly, these bookmarks are public, so that anyone can browse them and find sites that other people have bookmarked. Finally, many such sites offer additional functionality, such as user-driven ranking or voting and the addition of public comments to each bookmark.
So how can this be used for search engine optimization purposes? Well, it is important to rember that the proper goal of search engine optimization is not just rankings, but traffic, and not just any traffic but qualified traffic. It serves no business purpose to be #1 for a term not relevant to your site, or to recieve loads of unqualified traffic to your site that will not result in a conversion to sale. When SEO is considered in this context, which is the proper one, things begin to make more sense.
Social media optimization involves a number of things, which will be detailed in later posts. However, generally speaking, the bookmarking of your site's content to social bookmarking sites creates both inbound linkage, traffic, and a "buzz". It is a wonderful way to "get the word" out about your site in short order.
The other advantage of social media is that it does create its own sort of internal quality control. Those who choose to spam a site with low quality posts will generally get voted down by the social community. Of course, bad publicity is better than no publicity, but we would all rather have a positive buzz about us given the choice. The creation of quality, useful, informative content is crucial to generating a positive buzz about your site.
Social media optimization involves more than just the act of bookmarking your site, however. It also involves making your site easy for others to bookmark as well. This is usually accomplished via a series of bookmarking icons placed somewhere within each page of the site, which allow users to post your content to a social media site with a simple click of their mouse.
Ethical social media optimization also requires the creation of quality content, as previously mentioned. The online community simply will not tolerate useless, banal posts and the user driven model of social media fosters a spirit of creativity and originality, all of which contributes to the "mashup" of Internet content. The mashup theory in a nutshell centers around the concept of an aggregated web, in which content is pulled from a variety of sources to generate a quality, relevant, and informational experience for the netizen.
Of course there is much more to social media optimization than this, however this thumbnail sketch should serve to acclimate you with key terms and processes. Happy bookmarking!

About the Author: Matt Foster is the President of ArteWorks Business Class, one of the top 15 search engine optimization firms in the world. For more information, please visit www.arteworks.biz.

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