Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization Blog

Relationship Based Marketing

2010-01-30T08:10:00.000-08:00

If you have been in sales or marketing for a while you probably have heard of the term "Relationship Based Marketing".

This type of marketing differs from other forms of marketing in that it recognizes the long term value to the firm of keeping customers, as opposed to direct or "Intrusion" marketing, which focuses upon acquisition of new clients by targeting majority demographics based upon prospective client lists.

Relationship marketing also relies upon acquiring the knowledge of what the consumer needs solely through existing customers in a mutual exchange. Relationship marketing is also dependent upon viral marketing for the acquisition of new customers. But as we have seen in very successful campaigns, viral marketing can have extensive effects.

What is viral marketing? Viral marketing refers to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet.

So how are people using the Internet to utilize viral marketing - in many ways.

Web 2.0 and Social Media

  According to Wikipedia, which is a perfect example of Web 2.0, the term Web 2.0 is defined as "commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Examples of Web 2.0 include web-based communities, hosted services, web applications, social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups, and folksonomies."

 Web 2.0 gives more tools to those who utilize relationship-based marketing to promote their product or service. With Web 2.0 you are not only reaching a large base of people but you are also giving more marketing power to your website through the spider web of connections behind each of these types of media. If you are promoting yourself through Wikipedia, you are getting a two-fold force of marketing, one, directly to your potential client and two, promoting your website's viability due to Wikipedia's highly spidered site.

 Blogging

  Blogging has probably been around longer than the other types of relationship based marketing techniques. What better way to promote yourself and your product then to sit down with a one-on-one conversation with potential clients? With your blog you can share your interests or passions with others who will then share that information and thus you have viral marketing.
  If the idea of creating a blog scares you, this too has been made easier. Not only is there software out there making it easier and easier to blog but there are also people who you can hire to write blogs for you.

  Comment on Existing Blogs

  Once you write your blog, it does your blog well to have people comment on it. This has to do with the way search engines work as well as plain ole viral marketing. To bring in more people to read your blog and comment, become a frequent visitor to sites that are related to your professional expertise and you may find yourself becoming the go-to person for those in need of that expertise.

 Facebook and Other Social media

 It is quite possible you have heard or even used Facebook by now. And if you haven't used Twitter, certainly you have heard the term. These along with MySpace, and LinkedIn are common forms of social media. Sites like Facebook and MySpace have a broad focus while LinkedIn is more business focused. Sites like Facebook, provide the opportunity to add a customized page you can use to promote a business.

 Relationship based marketing takes time and patience but is possibly one of the most viable and reliable forms of getting your name and company out to the public with the greatest long term value.

Pamela Ravenwood is a copywriter for ArteWorks SEO. She is an award winning writer, journalist, SEO specialist and strategic planning consultant. To learn more about this search engine optimization company, visit www.arteworks.biz.

Understanding Analytics Terminology

2010-01-13T11:02:00.000-08:00

If you are new to the business of owning and operating a website then the understanding of analytics and search engine optimization may at first seem overwhelming.

But like anything, it first requires a grasp of the terminology. Knowing the terminology, you will have a better understanding of what types of website goals you are shooting for.

Maybe you are now saying, my goal is just to sell more products or services. True enough. But to sell more products or services, one must understand who their customer is along with whether you are reaching that customer and if you are holding that customer's attention long enough to make a sell. To do this, one must understand the interaction between customers and your website and this is done through Website Analytics.

Website analytics requires analyzing data on the back end of your website. A marketing specialist or search engine optimizer is going to look at these figures to help create and modify a marketing plan for you. So what types of things is this specialist looking at?

1. Unique Visitors - We all want to know if people are finding our website and if so, how many. This number can be tricky to determine. In the old days, people installed 'hit counters" which gave the owner some obscure number regarding the number of times a person opened their website. The problem with hit counters is that they do not accurately count the true number of people who visit the site. Why is this? Hit counters are typically not sophisticated enough to separate a visitor from the data that comes up on your site - therefore, counters will show more hits than there truly are. This sounds complicated but this is how it works. For instance, if you gave a gallery page on your site and it shows twenty thumbnail pictures, each picture that loads is counted as a hit. Text on the page, other images, external stylesheets, external javascripts, links and other elements that require the server to pull a file to build the page register will count as a hit. One visitor may end up appearing as up to 100 hits.

I have seen many people base their unique visitor count primarily on the free hits counter that their hosting company provided or free software they downloaded, which leads them to believe they were receiving great traffic. After looking at their Google Analytics unique visitor count, the number was quite different and extremely low in most situations, which was highly disappointing to the new website owner.

A web analyst not only looks at the true number of visitors that visit your website but they also look at how many of those are Return Visitors in contrast to how many are Unique Visitors. Both are important numbers. Return Visitors can indicate a strong interest in your site and a likeliness of an action being made by that visitor such as a purchase. Unique visitors are valuable as well as it shows how many new people you are attracting.

2. Page Views - This term describes how many different pages a visitor looked at while on your website. The question an analyst is asking is, did this person just look at your front page and leave or did they browse around, click on your links, or read about your product or service. For marketing purposes, it is important to make sure potential clients are spending time on your website and finding everything they need. If they are not and leaving right after finding your website or what is called 'bouncing' out, you will want to analyze the reasons why. Did the person not find that they were searching for, was your website too obscure and difficult to maneuver, or are you even targeting the right audience? All of these are questions to be asked if your Page View statistics remain low.

3. Referrers - Discovering how people found you is also valuable. Did your visitor come from a website that linked to your website or did they find you through a search engine? Which search engine did they use? Which websites are linking to you that is providing you with traffic? Did your visitors find you through social media such as Twitter, Facebook or a blog? These answers can show how well your website represented in the web world and on a global basis?

4. Search Terms - Once an analyst determines how people are finding your website and you discover it may primarily be through search engines, the next logical question is, what words or phrases did that person type into the search engine. A search term or search string can show you if the terms people are using are correct for what your website represents - for example, if you have a large number of unique visitors, a small number of page views and people bouncing off the minute they find your site, you may wonder why? If you are a company for instance that sells model airplanes and your unique visitors are typing in the word 'model' in search of models or even 'airplanes', not using the two words together, they connotation is completely different and you may not be finding your correct audience.

5. Entry and Exit Pages - Another piece of information a web analyst studies is which pages on your website are visitors entering through and exiting? Did you pull your guest in, guide them through everything you wanted them to see or did you lose them right away or consistently on a particular page? Understanding which pages your visitors are looking at can help you identify the high interest pages to the low interest pages of your website.

While these are just a handful of terms used by a website analyst, it may help the new and even seasoned website owner understand how to improve their online rankings.

Pamela Ravenwood is a copywriter for ArteWorks SEO. She is an award winning writer, journalist, SEO specialist and strategic planning consultant. To learn more about this search engine optimization company, visit www.arteworks.biz.

Are keywords still valuable for optimization?

2009-08-31T04:51:00.000-07:00

For those unfamiliar with the term SEO or search engine optimization and how it works and how the term 'keywords' come into play, here is your synopsis.

For those unfamiliar with the term SEO or search engine optimization and how it works and how the term 'keywords' come into play, here is your synopsis.

To start, we will only refer to Google as it is the most commonly used search engine. So, let's say you have a business and of course you want people to find you - right? Of course you do. So what has to happen, you may ask. To start, you have to get into the mind of the person who will be searching for you. So, let's say for example you sell vacuums. What will your potential buyer type into the search engine to find you? Will they type 'vacuums' or will they type in 'vacuums for sale' or even 'cheap vacuums'? The terms people use are what we call keywords.

Now Google, who wants to provide the best webpage for your search term has to follow a particular criterion to help you get your match. Google uses a software element that is called a 'spider' which scans websites and their text looking for the keywords within your site that match the user's search terms. Google will they show a results page that is made up of two elements - sponsored links and organic results. The sponsored links are paid for and are on the right-hand side. The organic results are in the left-hand column or what appears to be up the middle. Organic results are the free listings and the listings people strive to get on the first page for.

So how do you get on the front page of Google without having to pay? One of the many ways is by writing and optimizing text. This text not only has to be of value to its reader but include the keyword(s) you think your potential customer will be using. Your first thought might be to shove a lot of these keywords into your text. Don't do this - it has been tried and while it worked for a short time it is now called keyword stuffing. Not only will this now turn your potential customer away but it could also get you booted off of Google for some time.

So how many times can one keyword be used on a page without a site getting penalized? Many SEO experts feel 9 to 15% is a nice ratio. To evaluate the number of keywords in your text, there is a formula, or one can simply use free software available online to evaluate their keyword density in contrast to the number of words in the text.

Hiring professional writers who can integrate keywords naturally into your text is key. You don't want your pages to appear like spam and yet you do want it to meet Google's algorithms. Understanding how Google searches pages in not truly known by anybody as it is kept somewhat under wraps, but through experience, SEO experts can tell you the software is able to observe general relevancy in addition to the keywords.

The second element to all of this is that the value of keyword density will hardly ever come from your main content, but rather from the optimization of all the other factors on your page. Keywords are not only taken into consideration from your main text, there are other elements Google's spiders scan, they include:

• Page title
• Meta Tags
• Meta Description
• Images Description
• Headers Tags

The last important element regarding keywords is knowing which ones to use. Are people typing in 'vacuum' or 'vacuum(s)'? SEO professionals use a number of tools to find these keywords for their client's use. A word plural or not plural can make a difference by the tens of thousands of searches, at times.

Search engine optimization is always changing and evolving, but one thing that has remained most consistent is the continued value and use of keywords. Are they still valuable for optimization? You bet ya!

Pamela Ravenwood is a copywriter for ArteWorks SEO. She is an award winning writer, journalist, SEO specialist and strategic planning consultant. To learn more about this search engine optimization company, visit www.arteworks.biz.

What Is Viral Marketing and How Does It Work

2009-08-01T11:41:00.000-07:00

Viral marketing, either you have heard of the term or you haven't. If you haven't, it is most likely that you'll question the term viral, at it seems dangerous. But for those who understand how it works, viral is good.

Viral marketing, either you have heard of the term or you haven't. If you haven't, it is most likely that you'll question the term viral, at it seems dangerous. But for those who understand how it works, viral is good.

The formal definition of viral marketing is to promote information or products that other customers are compelled to give to other friends, colleagues and family. Viral marketing is also a way to promote a service or product exponentially, that is, a handful of people tell another handful of friends and the information spreads, kind of like a virus.

The beauty of viral marketing is that at times, you may not even see how it is spreading, it could be living in secrecy and then show itself suddenly in huge numbers. The 'virus', can piggybacks on other hosts and uses its resources to multiply itself. Add to that the right environment, and it will grow exponentially.

So how what are some elements of viral marketing and using it in a strategic way? According to professionals, an effective viral marketing strategy includes:

1. Giving away products or services - The term free still holds power, even after all of its use. Most viral marketing strategies give away some type of product or service.

2. Transferring Your Virus To Others - For viruses to transfer, they require human contact. And, they have to be easy to transmit. When looking at your marketing plan and strategy for your viral marketing, choose a medium that carries your marketing message easily and is easy to transfer. For example, Twitter has become a popular medium and platform for quickly transferring information. With Twitter, over 3 million messages are posted everyday.

Other ways Twitter has become useful in marketing is that it provides a venue for you to post news or updates about your company or products. You can post promotions, sales, or specials. With Twitter you can also give your brand a voice and a personality.

Another way to transfer information is through a news release announcing what you are giving away, or if you are hosting a contest, or even providing a free service. If your news release is carried by just 5% of the media you send it to, you could have not only have your URL in front of tens of thousands of readers quite inexpensively, you are transferring information at exponential speed.

3. Utilizing common motivations - Humans have a variety of things that motivate them. Marketing is about plugging into those motivations and working with them. Some of the basic motivators include the need to be popular, loved and understood. Discovering something that is free, cool or makes one feel unique, drives people to grab on to it, tell others and share 'inside information'.

4. Take advantage of others' resources - Blogs, forums, social networks, podcasts, RSS feeds, text messaging - they’re all capable of instantaneously distributing information across any and all borders and time-zones. They also allow you to reach people in a more targeted and personal way than ever before. Creating a timely and non-disruptive communication with your niche audience is the key to a successful email campaign. With the Internet, today’s shift in social media is bringing forth a whole new breed of brand influencers. Your job is to convince them on your brand’s attributes. The viral nature of the Internet can help you give your messages better reach than any traditional media ever could.

5. Encourage Word-of-Mouth Recommendations - Word-of-mouth (on the Web it's "word-of-mouse") is considered the very best advertising, because it is unsolicited. Here are some ways to encourage friends to share with friends, and use their network to promote your site.

Install a Recommend-It.com referral system. Recommend-It won't save a dismal site, but it will help your visitors promote your site to their network of friends.

Make it easy to e-mail or fax your webpage to a friend. Encourage readers to e-mail your webpage to a friend. This is similar to recommending your site, but allows your visitor to send specific content as well. This is easier to accomplish without a database-driven site.

Encourage people to forward your newsletter to friends. Do this at the end of a newsletter, and you may jog some readers to do it immediately. It's easy to do.

Viral marketing doesn't have to be complicated nor expensive. It often requires some great forethought and planning, along with follow through and patience. The results may not be immediate but the effect great.

Pamela Ravenwood is a copywriter for ArteWorks SEO. She is an award winning writer, journalist, SEO specialist and strategic planning consultant. To learn more about this search engine optimization company, visit www.arteworks.biz.

Your Corporate Blog and Ten Rules To Follow

2009-06-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

Having a corporate blog is almost a must these days. According to Jupiter Research, in 2006, statistics showed that 34% of large corporate companies had established weblogs. Another 35% planned to do so by the end of 2006, thus bringing the total to nearly 70%.

Having a corporate blog is almost a must these days. According to Jupiter Research, in 2006, statistics showed that 34% of large corporate companies had established weblogs. Another 35% planned to do so by the end of 2006, thus bringing the total to nearly 70%.

So what is a corporate blog? Corporate blogs can be internal or external. An internal blog, which is typically used through the corporations Intranet for employees, is a way to help employees participate in ideas, discuss issues, stimulate communication throughout the company’s divisions and is meant to create a feel of community within the corporation.

The external blog is available for anybody to read and often reflects the company’s values and its spokespersons views. The blog can be a way to announce new products and services (or the end of old products), to explain and clarify policies, or to react on public criticism on certain issues. It also allows a window to the company culture and is often treated more informally than traditional press releases, though a corporate blog often tries to accomplish similar goals as press releases do. In some corporate blogs, all posts go through a review before they're posted. Some corporate blogs, but not all, allow comments to be made to the posts.

With that said, what are some basic rules about creating and maintaining corporate blogs? Here are the top ten:

1. Don’t Use Your Blog Primarily For Marketing – People won’t want to read your blog if it is just a bunch of advertising and marketing. A blog should reveal the real meat of your company, an insider view. The more personal you can make your corporate blog the better. As with all blogs, there should be a level of personality, sincerity and sense of respect for the community that is best kept real.

2. Have The Backing of The CEO – Blogging can reveal a lot of information, therefore you want to make sure your CEO is behind it all the way. Before starting your corporate blog, make sure you have explained to the CEO the benefits and risks. You may also want to check with your legal department on what can and can’t be said. Know your parameters.

3. Who Will Write The Blog – This is important and it depends on if the blog is internal or external. Because each blog serves its own purpose, you want the right people for the job. This may require training for those you choose. You may choose numerous people who you feel represent your company well, but these people also need to be trained in how to write blogs, how to convey their message, how to inspire others and more. Your bloggers should understand how blogs work, what blog etiquette is or how to deal with blog basics. There is also the concern of your bloggers dealing with intellectual property rights and information leaks. But don’t be afraid, a little training will go a long way.

4. Keep It Authentic – As mentioned before, the blog is not another source for marketing and advertising. You want to connect with your readers in a real way. This isn’t to say your blogs shouldn’t be in alignment with your company’s brand, mission and objectives, this is important too. But allow room for the bloggers true voice to come through.

5. Assign Subjects - Assign a person to oversee all blogs, somebody who has an overall knowledge of company policies and public relations. Assign bloggers according to the expertise in their field. These writers should then have to submit their work to the one person who oversees all of the blogs for review before posting. This checks and balance system will save your company a lot of headaches, just in case a blogger gets carried away and says something that could harm the company. Work with each blogger to develop an editorial calendar that keeps him or her on track and aligns with company events, releases, industry happenings, etc.

6. Throw It Out There - Don’t hide from the tough stuff. Be willing to admit mistakes.
The blogosphere expects that when a company joins the blogosphere, they should be honest about shortcomings, failings and issues. Members of the blogosphere are also willing to forgive companies when they admit their mistakes.

7. Use Your Blog For Company Crisis – Every company has times when they receive a big black mark due to some error or PR disaster. You can use your blog to help your company work through this. Create a plan ahead of time regarding how your blog will address such potential company issues.

8. Moderate blog comments. – People like to comment on blogs and some take their aggressions out on the blog due to its anonymity. This is why it is important to moderate comments continually.

9. Use Your Internal Blog To Improve Communications – If you find your corporation doesn’t communicate well across departments, a blog can assist you in bridging this divide. When you place a representative from departments in a position of blogging for their department, information gets shared and can help the company see the bigger picture.

10. Create Objectives – Your blog should have some sort of device for measuring its effectiveness before starting it. Design criteria that you will want as a measuring device, this criteria can include: Positive media mentions, Traffic to the blog, Incoming links to the blog, Increases in brand awareness, Increased attendance at company events.

Having a corporate blog doesn’t have to be complicated and scary, especially if you apply some of the basic rules ahead of time. In the end, you might find it an easy way to help your company.

Increase Traffic To Your Blog, Increase Rankings

2009-04-20T09:23:00.000-07:00

There are millions of blogs online these days and with those blogs are people finding ways to improve their website’s search engine rankings. Yes, blogs have more than one purpose.

Sure they are informative and have lots of fresh content, but they also link back to corporate or business websites, which in turn helps those websites move up the search engine rankings scale.

So why are blogs so successful in increasing your website’s rankings? To start, blogs have no specific special powers of high rankings on their very own. What they do have potentially is fresh, unique content. Most search engines tend to like this, regardless of the format. If the search engines know any given site is adding new articles on a frequent basis, they will come around often to index it and indexing in turn means better ratings.

This leads us to making sure your site’s content is fresh and how to draw people to that content. Good content is probably the best thing you can do to draw attention to your blog and maintain a following. To do this, try covering topics that nobody else is talking about. By writing about niche subjects, you can grab traffic that is looking for what you have to say. Second, spend the time and effort to research and write about your subject, don’t just repeat what everybody else is talking about.

Another strategy in creating a successful blog includes the writing of quality title tags with two audiences in mind. First and foremost, you're writing a title tag for the people who will visit your site or have a subscription to your feed. You also want to think about search engines when you title your posts, since the engines can help to drive traffic to your blog. Once you have finished your title tags, now you will want to make sure all of your entries are tagged. Technorati is the first place that you should be tagging posts. Tagging content can also be valuable to help give you a "bump" towards getting traffic from big sites like Reddit, Digg & StumbleUpon.

Tagging posts is one method if getting your content out in front of your potential audience, another way is through Twitter. Although Twitter is a social media tool meant to create community and relationships, it does have an SEO value. For example, Twitter can affect positively your Alexa rankings by sending visitors to your pages. Usage data is a sign of quality for Google and all the other search engines. If you can make people come to your site via Twitter, then this is an SEO advantage you cannot afford to miss. When using Twitter, don’t worry about shortening your URL’s, the link will still have value. These TinyURLs are dynamically created URLs that redirect users to the real URL via 301 (permanent redirect). Search engines do not index TinyURLs, but index and pass PageRank to the actual URLs instead.

While we are talking about the backend, make sure you are pinging your articles each time you write them. An easy way for search engines to quickly find your new content is through the process of pinging. Using a tool like Pingomatic is very helpful in this process. Pinging seems to help get blog posts spidered and indexed very quickly.

Last, add social book marking links to the end of each blog entry. This helps your reader pick your article and add it to their favorite book marking software and simultaneously promotes your site. Having your blog’s articles submitted to book marking sites such as Delicious helps you also build links back to your blog. Backlinks are important because each time someone links to your site it counts sort of as a “vote” for it, moving it higher up in the search engine results pages.

These are just a few ways your blog can grow and along with it your website’s rankings. With a little time and some patience, before long your site will surely make its way to the top.

Pamela Ravenwood is a copywriter for ArteWorks SEO. She is an award winning writer, journalist, SEO specialist and strategic planning consultant. To learn more about this search engine optimization company, visit www.arteworks.biz.

The Value of a Well Written Page Title

2009-04-08T13:46:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it is the little things that make the biggest impression. This could be said for page titles.
A page title is the code behind your individual website’s pages that helps search engines identify it.

Do individual’s see page titles or just programmers? The answer is both. If you type in a website’s address such as www.arteworks.com you will notice in the tab is an identifier, this particular website’s reads “Search Engine Optimization Company SEO Companies | ArteWorks SEO Austin”. This is helpful for people who open many tabs or bookmark.

On the backend of your website, within the code, your title tag will be enclosed with brackets and labeled title.

Because page titles are seen by both your audience and search engines, lets look at the benefits of both.

Audience

1. One of the best ways to attract repeat visits is to have someone bookmark your web page and because page titles are the default label for your browser bookmarks, it makes it easier for your reader to find you again. If your page title is not descriptive or missing, most people will not remember why they bookmarked your site in the first place.
2. Page titles are stored in browser history lists. Similar to bookmarks, browsers by default use page titles to label pages in the browser’s history. If your audience wanted to find your page again in their History, they would not find it easily if your page has a non-descriptive title.
3. Page titles show up in some search engines as descriptors of your website. If you want someone to click on your website among the millions of other choices they have then you must write a very informative and concise title. Many people start with the name of their business followed by a descriptor, others start with keywords followed by a call to action. People should know instantly what they will be clicking to the moment they choose your site, therefore don’t stuff your title with keywords and unnecessary information. Be honest with your reader while seducing them into your site.

Search Engines

1. Naturally, search engines rank pages with relevant titles higher than web pages without relevant titles. The basic idea is that you are helping the search engine understand your web page through the page title.
2. Unique titles to match each of your website’s pages helps search engines clarify who and what you are. To understand this, let’s look at how the search engine works. Spiders crawl the web and grab as much content (including links) from every web site they can find. This process is infinite and the spider just keeps sending content back to the search engine servers for processing. The algorithm then sorts through all the content that is sent by the spider and has to determine what is on each page, what the content is about, and how relevant that page is to each search that is conducted at the search engine. The task is then to make this process as simple as possible, by helping the algorithm see the differences between each page. When the spider reads your descriptions and titles and finds that they’re the same, it is too difficult for it differentiate amongst your pages, and is less likely to return that page in the search results. So you need to be able to show the spiders that each page is unique, not only with unique content, but by also adding unique page descriptions and titles.
3. RSS generators and content management systems use page titles to create headlines; again this is important for search engines to recognize.
4. Almost half of all the badly ranking sites found in many of the major search engines do not specifically identify the homepage in the page title. Most websites simply included the company name in the title, making it impossible for a user to know exactly what particular webpage a bookmark or search result relates to.

Writing a quality title page for each individual page on your website may seem like a lot of work but when you evaluate the pros and cons, you will discover it is certainly worth the time.

About the Author: Pamela Ravenwood is a copywriter for ArteWorks SEO. She is an award winning writer, journalist, SEO specialist and strategic planning consultant. To learn more about this search engine optimization company, visit www.arteworks.biz.

The Blogger's Checklist

2009-04-02T10:51:00.000-07:00

If you are a new blogger or even an experienced one, it is important to check in with how your blog is doing and maintain it in a way that successful bloggers do. So what is it successful bloggers do? Here is your blogger checklist, which consists of eight items for you to consider.

If you are a new blogger or even an experienced one, it is important to check in with how your blog is doing and maintain it in a way that successful bloggers do. So what is it successful bloggers do? Here is your blogger checklist, which consists of eight items for you to consider.

1. Proofread Your Work - Misspellings and wrong use of words in a blog entry can turn a reader off in a real hurry. Make sure you type your original blog message in a program that contains spell check and then reread your work for errors. You can then copy and paste your work into your blog.

2. Publish Posts on a Regular Basis - If you want to maintain a following of readers and prove you are serious about your blog you have to keep your content fresh and updated. You may not have time to blog daily so the important thing is to just be consistent. Commit to how often you will make an entry, it may be weekly, biweekly or monthly. When you are consistent, your guests will know when to check back in with you.

3. Backup Your Blog - There is nothing worse than losing all of your work, especially if your blog contains numerous entries. Create an automatic backup system for your blog. Most blogging software companies have a Help file to assist you in understanding how to back your blog up or what processes are needed.

4. Link to Older Posts - If you have been blogging for a while, it is most likely that many of your topics will overlap, so why not provide your reader with reference to some of your older entries. This can be done with a link. When you do this, you are building an effective linking strategy and encouraging readers to stay on your blog longer. As we all know, a quality linking strategy can mean an increase your traffic and search engine rankings.

5. Answer Guests Comments - Take the time to answer anyone who makes a comment on your blog. Doing this will create loyalty among your followers and will help build community. If there comes a day when your blog is extremely popular, it is still important to maintain correspondence with your readers. Also, be kind and considerate when responding to your readers. A topic that may be obvious to you may not be to your reader and there is no need to make somebody feel bad.

6. Approve Comments - If you use comment moderation (and you should unless you get very low volumes of spam) you should approve pending comments on a regular basis. Having meaningful comments on your blog is important, so check pending comments regularly to make sure they are getting posted.

7. Remember Your Audience When Creating Topics – If you have a new blog, one of most overlooked items is being able to accurately define the audience that you will be writing to. As time goes by, you’ll learn what types of content your readers appreciate or don’t appreciate in that you will have little response. Sometimes creating a niche that very few people write about or understand is a great way to get your blog going and you will know exactly who your audience is.

8. Check for Dead Links – There is nothing more annoying than clicking on a dead link. If you’re like most bloggers you probably include a lot of links in your posts, both inbound and outbound. Those links may have worked at the time the post was published, but do you know if they still work? Dead links are especially common with outbound links. The blogs and websites you link to may shut down, changes their link structure, or remove a page, all of which will result in dead links. So make a date on a regular basis to check all outbound links on your blog.

Follow these eight simple rules and your blog’s maintenance will continue to grow successful.

About the Author: Pamela Ravenwood is a copywriter for ArteWorks SEO. She is an award winning writer, journalist, SEO specialist and strategic planning consultant. To learn more about this search engine optimization company, visit www.arteworks.biz.

Gag Me with a Spoon! - Latent Semantic Indexing?

2009-01-15T12:29:00.000-08:00

For years it has been thought that Google is using word relationship technologies, one of which has been dubbed “latent semantic indexing,” or LSI, and when you think about it, this concept is really something out of a Sci-Fi movie. Not only does Google index certain words that appear in a document, but it examines the document collection as a whole, comparing it to other documents in order to determine which documents contain similar word choice. The really amazing thing is how well it correlates these semantically similar pages in a way that is strikingly close to the way a human would classify the same information.

We recently discovered an excellent example of this that almost makes it seem like an actual human being made changes to a search result because of the relevancy of the result. We did a search for “gag me with a spoon.” We all remember that phrase right? Well, some of the younger folk these days have no idea what it means, so a simple Google search is the logical solution. As it appears below, the sixth result for this query is a Wikipedia entry about “Valspeak.”

It just so happens that Valspeak is the term used to describe the kind of speech, or sociolect, associated with the phrase, “gag me with a spoon.” In other words, it is the language of “valley girls.” So that doesn’t seem so uncommon so far because you might think there are some examples of Valspeak, of which one would be “gag me with a spoon.” But the amazing thing is that this phrase does not appear even once on the entire page. Scour it as much as you like, but the phrase we queried is nowhere to be found. This is simply an excellent example of latent semantic indexing in which Google has taken terms that do appear, such as “valley girls,” “surfer slang,” “Southern California,” or even “Clueless,” and compared it to pages containing the phrase “gag me with a spoon.” As you might guess, there are probably a large number of commonalities with these pages, and thus, Google succeeds in placing a search result that is actually quite relevant to the query but that does not even contain that term.

So what does this mean for search marketers? Anyone can easily do a search to find the terms that Google considers relevant to certain keyphrases. Simply do a search for ~search marketing. The ~ character causes semantically related terms to appear in bold in the search results so that terms like online marketing and Internet marketing appear. It might be a good idea to include some of this terminology along with target keyphrases in order to take full advantage of latent semantic indexing and increase the relevancy of your pages.

About the Author: Peter Hamilton is the Project Manager in charge of the Seattle office of ArteWorks SEO. His interest and experience in search engine optimization is largely focused on social media optimization and multi-media facets of exposure specifically video SEO. To learn more about this search engine optimization company, visit www.arteworks.biz.

Long Tail Modifiers for SEO

2008-12-29T14:04:00.001-08:00

So you’ve secured some first rate rankings for some of your target keyphrases and you are looking to expand that traffic. Well, there are about a hundred ways to do this, but one of the most simple solutions that many people neglect is modifying your keyphrases to include some long tail. What’s long tail? Well, long tail keyphrases are considered those that are three or more words that may not have a huge amount of traffic, but that traffic sure is relevant and valuable, which is why utilizing this method can really make a difference your search engine referrals.

First you will need to start with some keyphrase research to find out what phrases are going to be the most relevant while also producing a reasonable amount of traffic. Now, the key to this is that these keyphrases should also include the phrases for which your site already ranks. For example, if your website ranks will for “dallas real estate” (which would be quite fortunate for you), you might start looking at phrases like “dallas real estate for sale” or “dallas real estate investment.” Though these only show approximately 1360 searches per month combined, they are more relevant and less competitive. The odds of securing rankings for these phrases with your highly ranked pages are quite good.

So once you’ve picked out these phrases, what now? Well, you don’t have to stick them in everywhere, modifying your title tag and every reference to the already ranking phrase. In fact I would not recommend this. However, using this long tail phrase in an Hx tag or two as well as in regular text and maybe even an alternate image attribute can be very effective.

Of course, the work doesn’t stop with these on-page content/code modifications. Now you need to get some great anchortext links using these new long tail phrases. I will leave it up to you how you decide to accomplish this. The long and short of it is that many companies are missing out on some great traffic they could be snagging from work they have already completed. Long tail modifiers utilize the page rank and relevancy of a page you have already worked hard to achieve high search engine visibility, so why not utilize it as much as possible? So get started on that research. It is well worth the investment.

About the Author: Peter Hamilton is the Project Manager in charge of the Seattle office of ArteWorks SEO. His interest and experience in search engine optimization is largely focused on social media optimization and multi-media facets of exposure specifically video SEO. To learn more about this search engine optimization company, visit www.arteworks.biz.

Search Bar in Search Results: Why some and not others?

2008-12-05T12:51:00.000-08:00

Though it appears they have been testing this for some time, the search bar appearing in actual search results is a new one for me. A friend of mine saw them when doing a search for various photo sites and brought it to my attention. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Do a search for the query “Wikipedia.”

As you see, in the top listing for the main Wikipedia website, a search bar is included below the other site navigation results. As you conduct more searches, you will see that it seems a little odd that some major websites have the search box feature while others don’t. What do you suppose is the criteria for this? Are the sites that have a search bar in their name results hand picked by somebody behind the Google gates? Some notable searches that render a search bar in the top results are:

“imdb” “microsoft” “flickr” “youtube”

Then there are a few searches that surprisingly do not get a search bar in the top listing such as:

“film critic” “apple” “picasa” “google video”

Okay, fine, so some get the search bar and some don’t, but do you see any similarities between these two lists? I intentionally chose searches that would retrieve very similar results for companies that are very similar in size and nature. Is this just some addition to the sitemap that I do not know about? Perhaps some of you can shed some light on this for me?

Regardless, I think it is pretty slick. When you type in a search and proceed, the search engine provides a healthy list of results within that particular website that match your query. What might be even more interesting is to learn a little more about what that search algorithm looks like. What makes one reference to a keyphrase more relevant than another within the same website? I’m pretty sure it is not based on page rank, or maybe it is? And does this mean anything for those working on search engine optimizaiton for these major players?

Thoughts?

About the Author: Peter Hamilton is the Project Manager in charge of the Seattle office of ArteWorks SEO. His interest and experience in search engine optimization is largely focused on social media optimization and multi-media facets of exposure specifically video SEO. To learn more about this search engine optimization company, visit www.arteworks.biz.

Google Trends Show Dramatic Increase in " Video SEO " Search Queries

2008-11-19T14:24:00.000-08:00

Many SEO’s have been kicking and screaming against really using video as a legitimate source of content and link bait. The fact of the matter is that video is quickly becoming the most accessible and viewed type of content online, meaning Internet marketers should be hopping on this and fast. I suppose the largest barrier is that most SEO’s have very little if any experience in video production or formatting for the web. So for many, the task may seem daunting. Whatever the reason, now is a better time than ever to really make an investment in this steadily growing market.

Take for example this recent Google trends graph “search engine optimization” queries.

This may unsettle a few in the industry, showing a decline in the desire for SEO services over all, but I don’t believe this to be the case at all. I believe businesses and marketers are becoming more and more savvy with SEO and are now looking for more specific facets. Why do I think this? Let’s take a look at the trend of queries for “video seo” related keywords.

Hmmm. This looks pretty exciting for SEOs looking to expand their video production departments and affiliates. Of course the numbers are still not at the level that “search engine optimization” queries are, but according to the trend, it won’t take long. Matt Foster, CEO of ArteWorks SEO, predicts that we will see all of the major online players “jumping on this bandwagon over the next 18+ months.” Coming from someone who has watched the SEO trends for the last 10 years under a microscope, I would take this statement seriously. There is going to be a major shift.

If you are not involved in video or some of the other more specialized SEO strategies in the future, you will be left in the dust. Search ranking competition continues to increase as the status quo continues to rise, and at the same time, online video viewership is increasing at an alarming rate. Video is the new SEO copy, and as always, the better the content, the more links juice it will create, so everyone should be prepared to get their feet wet if they are not already pursuing this.

Google's SEO Starter Guide

2008-11-14T14:21:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday, Brandon Falls of Google released what they call the Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. This is a twenty two page document that summarizes the basic ideas of SEO so that the average webmaster has some direction on how to improve their rankings for relevant searches. If you refer to the post that provides the Starter Guide pdf, you will see over sixty comments on what various people think about this guide and about Google releasing such a guide. It seems that some SEO’s are not too excited about it, but I say thank goodness.

Now why would a search engine optimization expert be happy about this? Isn’t it putting us out of a job? To be honest, it should make my life much easier. I spend half of my time trying to educate people about many of the practices discussed in this document. I suppose some SEO companies are distraught because companies with smaller websites and budgets can start doing their own work. For me, this is great news. ArteWorks is not scrounging to find underfunded projects for which we can’t produce real results. If the budget threshold is too low, clients are better off doing some work on their own, and this is a great resource I can point this range of client toward. They may not be able to achieve top rankings depending on how competitive their industry is, but at least they can go in the right direction with this great resource at their side.

Of course this starter guide is only one of many that can be found online. It is great for all of us to have this information directly from the horses mouth, but do not be deceived that any of this material is some grand revelation. This guide is exactly what Google has labeled it as, a “starter guide.” With that in mind, there is a great deal of accurate and incredibly important information included, and it might also be extremely helpful when shopping for the right SEO agency. With a little of this education under their belts, consumers and business owners will find a conversation with a search engine optimization company to make much more sense, which can be crucial in developing the best SEO campaign.

I say congratulations to Brandon Falls and the rest of the Search Quality Team for providing a simple, clear, and insightful resource to webmasters and business owners of all levels. It might also prove to drown a few old disputes about what is or is not important when optimizing a website.

About the Author: Peter Hamilton is the Project Manager in charge of the Seattle office of ArteWorks SEO. His interest and experience in search engine optimization is largely focused on social media optimization and multi-media facets of exposure. To learn more about this search engine optimization company, visit www.arteworks.biz.

"Reality has a well known liberal bias" - Stephen Colbert

2008-10-31T12:10:00.000-07:00

This blog is a rant. I am not ashamed, even though I have never posted a ranting post before. A discussion entered Sphinn today based on an article about Google’s CEO Backing Obama, and it seems to have gotten some people really upset. Well, let me put in my two cents without taking up a full page of comment space.

The problem with our human interaction with media (including search media) boils down to something I studied back in film school. Have you ever heard of the “hypodermic needle theory” in regards to media? Well, it basically says that what we watch is what be believe. So if I see something that tells me that Dove soap is better than Ivory, I am likely to believe it, even if there is no logical persuasion (now all of you will go purchase Dove soap). As a young idealistic lad at the University of Texas, I thought, NO WAY. No way does that make any sense. People believe what they choose to believe, and these advertisements, politically charged TV shows, or morally biased films only add to the collective resources we have to make opinions. As you can imagine, I did not believe that way for long.

People are like sheep. By and large, we go where we are told. This can be a very scary thing to consider when people have the power to elect presidents, engage in mass riots, and wipe out other races. The hypodermic needle theory certainly has some weight.

Now, back to this article about a political bias in Google. The only thing that scares me more than the bias of one of the world’s most powerful media resources is not knowing what that bias is. Though it was probably not in his public best interest, it is good for us to know that Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, has a democratic (or Obama) bias. A few comments in the discussion supported this idea, saying that Eric Schmidt is going to have a bias either way and he will most likely have some influence with that bias. The only difference with him doing it publicaly is that now we know about it and can adjust our interpretations of his company’s actions accordingly.

And this is great!

When the public hears things like this, the hypodermic needle theory becomes less effective. The more a reader or searcher knows about the company giving the information, the more they will put it under scrutiny and attempt to gather their own opinions. We should not be afraid of knowing the truth! I hope millions of people learn of Google's political affiliations and catch wind of other biases found in major corporations or other powerful entities so that we can begin to live as more analytical creatures than our less fortunate woolen friends.

About the Author: Peter Hamilton is the Project Manager in charge of the Seattle office of ArteWorks SEO. His interest and experience in search engine marketing is largely focused on social media optimization and multi-media facets of exposure. To learn more about search engine optimization, visit www.arteworks.biz.

The iPhone and Search Engine Optimization

2008-10-14T17:35:00.000-07:00

With iPhone users gobbling up more and more of the mobile search market, Internet marketers must consider the idea that perhaps the mobile market will some day be the dominant search platform. That is certainly the feeling I got from the iPhone and SEO session at SMX East 2008.

According to panelist Cindy Krum, iphone users consume six times more data than the average mobile phone user, and in a world where mobile search has increased by 68%, this is a pretty exciting figure. One of the largest barriers to success with mobile search, and why some companies have outright ignored it, is the necessity for a separate website format that is easily accessible to cell phone browsers. According to Cindy Krum, the .mobi website structuring is out, and iPhone web browsing is in, quickly changing the possibilities for all types of businesses. With the iPhone’s ingenious ability to render html, most website owners don’t even have to change their existing site to show up in beautiful form on the iphone. Even if a business wants to create a custom look for mobile users, they can simply have multiple CSS, one set of rendering instructions for ‘Screen’ and the other for ‘handheld’. The content can stay the same, while phone users get a much simpler navigation using a handheld.

This means that more and more people are going to be exploring the world wide web using mobile devices. Both Nokia and Blackberry have already come up with their answering products to the iphone, meaning a simple touch screen interface and quality html rendering will eventually become commonplace. This implies that consumers will be using their phones to search for information, services, entertainment and more at a dramatically increasing rate. Any smart business owner will soon realize the importance of a search engine presence on mobile devices, which is why SEO experts and in-house teams need to be paying close attention.

Gregory Markel of Infuse Creative, brought up some excellent points about the possible future of the mobile search experience. Markel speculates that search oriented applications will take over the way users find what they are looking for. Instead of relying on keywords in a vast search engine, specific apps will help users find information and services faster. For example, Urban Spoon is an application that helps you quickly find restaurants and revues in proximity to your current GPS location. Just shake the iphone, and this nifty application brings you exactly what you’re looking for, maps it up, and will even let you know what others think about it. This sounds pretty simple compared to entering a long keyphrase search like “thai restaurants near seattle wa,” then having to sift through various forms of results, then mapping them, then getting directions or looking at reviews. Phone Internet users are looking for the quickest, easiest way to get what they want, which is extremely understandable given the limitations in download and typing speeds.

Making sure your business is available through the most used industry specific applications and that your website is user friendly and attractive on the iphone is going to be extremely important if you are going to compete in mobile search. Though it may seem like a small slice of the pie right now, I believe we are going to see a surge as cell phone technology continues to develop, making it possible for people to have access to everything they need through a device small enough to fit in their pocket.

About the Author: Peter Hamilton is the Project Manager in charge of the Seattle office of ArteWorks SEO. His interest and experience in search engine marketing is largely focused on social media optimization and multi-media facets of exposure. To learn more about search engine optimization, visit www.arteworks.biz.

Facebook Reaches 100 Million Stong!

2008-09-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

Did everyone see that update on your Facebook “Home” the other day? 100 million active users on Facebook, and no, this is not an Austin Powers reference. This social networking platform has consumed a population that is one-third the size of the United States. The more amazing part of this new fact is the “active users” part. This number does not include those fly by night posers that just sign up for an account and never return to that beautiful blue bar again. Now, what if we took a little liberty and substituted the word “users” with the word “viewers.” Suddenly we all see the dollar signs.

Think about the demographic that Facebook has captured. Traditional advertising has been fighting for this culture group for years. Want middle to upper class, 18-24 year olds? They’re on Facebook, and it makes sense when in fact the Facebook creator and world’s youngest billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg, is only 24 years old. You might say that he speaks their language.

So what does this have to do with us, Internet marketers? This is obviously a major platform for exposure to one of the most impressionable and profitable demographics online. Time magazine even discovered that Facebook is more popular than porn with college students. How is that even possible?

So how do you get the stage for this audience?

Facebook advertisment is certainly one way to approach it. These have proven to be some of the most successful ad campaigns in the history of social networking (which I suppose is not that long). Every user has a “Home” page that gives them news and updates about their various friends, updates on Facebook changes, as well as short little ads. The most successful of these ads are the ones that make announcements about new products or offer some kind of update for users. You will also find image and text ads on the right side of profile pages, specifically targeted for certain demographics. In fact, in the Facebook ad creation form, you can actually designate the age group you would like to reach, where they are from, and specific keywords that might be found in their profiles. This is truly amazing ad control.

Also, most online marketers have long realized the importance of viral participation in major social networking communities. This is an excellent way to get your brand in front of target markets without beating them over the head with advertisement language. Company Facebook profiles and groups can accumulate quite a following, especially if there is useful or interesting information being posted, videos being uploaded, or other incentives for users. Most Internet marketers have barely tapped the surface of creating a Facebook presence but have already realized results. Facebook can produce citations/references, brand awareness, community interaction, and yes, even links.

If your company is not involved on Facebook, I hope these numbers give you a kick in the pants to get started. Take it step by step. There is no need to be afraid. Start by signing up and creating a profile, NOW!

About the Author: Peter Hamilton is the Project Manager in charge of the Seattle office of ArteWorks SEO. His interest and experience in search engine marketing is largely focused on the social media optimization and multi-media facets of exposure. To learn more about search engine optimization, visit www.arteworks.biz.

Directory Submissions are not for SEO!

2008-09-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

I am sick and tired, tired and sick of potential clients asking me how many directories I will submit their site to. “But in this proposal, they said directory submissions are essential!” For most of us in the SEO world, this beast has been dead and buried for some time, but how do we get the word out that directory submissions are no longer the super highway to link building success? (as if they ever really were) I suggest that every SEO company include a blog post on this very subject. It would be great to be able to throw down 15 links to all the major agencies talking about the myth of directory submissions boosting your link juice.

So obviously this will serve as my post. When considering all of the wonderful things that actually create valuable link juice, it is easy to see that most directories have none of these things.

1. Content – It is the king, and directories often have very little of it. There might be a few 200 word blurbs, but as far as valuable or entertaining content creation on a regular basis, directories are extremely lacking.

2. Indexing (with verified sitemap) – Upon closer look, you might realize that many of the interior pages of directories are not even indexed in major search engines. In fact, you might be submitting to be included on a page that does not even exist to Google, Yahoo, or MSN. (might want to check on that)

3. Relevance – Are these directories really relevant to your industry? When your website is submitted to hundreds, if not thousands, of directories, how do you know the relevance of those directories? Any time you talk about doing a hundred or more things at one time I start to get a bit nervous.

4. Incoming Links – Who links to a directory? Seriously, most directories have very little link flow themselves, which is why their PageRank usually matches. So why does it make sense that a link from a directory with no PageRank is valuable link juice?

5. Outgoing Links – How many sites are these directories linking out to? Any PageRank that a directory might have attained is then immediately dispersed to the several hundred sites in their listings, giving a client’s website a very small piece of the pie.

Now with that said, there are a couple of directories that can be useful for referral traffic, such as Yahoo Directory and Business.com, and even beyond those, some niche directories have their place. However, these are not the type of directory submissions SEO companies are peddling. Clients can easily submit their websites to these directories themselves, and each should be individually considered. Even if an SEO company claims to manually submit to directories, you must again consider all of the factors listed above and seriously debate the value of submitting to any directories, especially if your goal is search engine optimization. I think you will find that 95% of the time the link juice just is not there.

About the Author: Peter Hamilton is the Project Manager in charge of the Seattle office of ArteWorks SEO. His interest and experience in Internet marketing is largely focused on the social media optimization and multi-media facets of exposure. To learn more about this search engine optimization company, visit www.arteworks.biz.

My Experience at OMS Seattle

2008-08-12T09:56:00.000-07:00

Though I was very busy last week and only made it over to the Online Marketing Summit Conference in the afternoon, I felt that my experience was well worth documenting. After getting a call from a friend and colleague that I should really take the time to drop by, I headed downtown to catch the last two sessions of the day. Having attended some rather large and reputable Internet marketing conferences, I must admit that my expectations were not very high. Let me tell you that I was pleasantly surprised.

With an attendance of only a few hundred people, I felt like the size was one of the greatest assets of the conference. It was a tighter group of folks, and guess what? they were mostly from Seattle. In terms of networking, it was great to meet people close by (both in house and agency side), rather than having to completely depend on things like Facebook to stay connected.

The first session I attended focused on Social Media Communities, and I was very impressed with the various industry examples and excellent ideas and advice about creating online communities from the session's speaker, Barry Tallis of Jive. The following session, and final for the day, was an expert panel designed to field questions on just about anything Internet marketing related, which took on the form of a great SMM discussion. This was one of the best conference panels I have seen in a while. The responses were candid and genuine, and minus all the BS. Panelists included:

Shane Atchison – CEO & cofounder of ZAAZ – Is a long time industry expert, going back to the creation of ZAAZ in 1998. Some of their clients include Starbucks, T-Mobile, Disney, Fox Television Network, Microsoft Corporation, and National Geographic, just to name a few…

Liza Tewell - REI.com Online Editor – REI has long been a major player in online commerce and social media spaces. I found Liza’s comments to be very insightful from a client perspective, and it was great to see the level of interest REI has in the social space.

Olivier Chaine – CEO & Founder of Magnify360 – Another fantastic mind in the social world of Internet Marketing. He has spent many years on both the client and agency side and he made for substantial addition to the knowledge base.

Matt Holleran - vtrenz - an iMarketing Automation for salesforce.com's AppExchange.

What a great group! Questions to the panel were rewarded with a cocktail of the asker’s choice, for which I received my shot of Tequila. niiice…

The "drinks/networking" event afterwards was extremely down to earth and enjoyable, complete with raffles and plenty of eats (the cheese was the best), and I really felt like it was easy to connect with some great people. This was definitely the best 5 hours I have spent at a conference this year. And after speaking with Aaron Kahlow and Jimmy Huh of BusinessOL.com (Conference hosts), I found out why. Their goal is to create educational sessions without all of the ridiculous product and service plugging. Each speaker is required to submit their material in advance so that any overt marketing ploys and otherwise useless pieces of information are edited out. They are trying to bring the bare bones truths of the industry directly to the attendees.

I realize some of the sparkle of OMS is directly related to the smaller number in attendance, but I hope they find a way to keep that close knit feeling as they will undoubtedly grow. I love the concept and I urge everyone to check it out, especially if it comes to a city near you!

About the Author: Peter Hamilton is the Project Manager in charge of the Seattle office of ArteWorks SEO. His interest and experience in Internet marketing is largely focused on the social media optimization and multi-media facets of exposure. To learn more about reputation management and this search engine optimization firm, visit www.arteworks.biz.

New To Knolling?

2008-07-30T11:54:00.000-07:00

Well so am I! I guess I am a little behind the wagon train because I just signed up on this recent addition to Google’s bag of tricks. A “knol” as defined by Google is a “unit of knowledge.” Of course, I am a bit unclear about what a “unit” of knowledge really means and if it is supposed to be a metric or US unit, but nonetheless, it is some type of unit. Upon visiting knol.google.com, I signed up for my own profile, for which I was then required to verify over the telephone. It felt like I was sucked into that early 90’s movie Sneakers - “my voice is my passport, verify me,” though I am not comparing myself to Robert Redford in any way. Once I was in and all verified up, I was then allowed to write my very first Knol, and how exhilarating it was to create my very own “unit of knowledge.”

As the initial excitement began to wear off, I found myself quite familiar with this Wikipedia style content submission, the main difference being less focus on terminology and definitions and more on full articles with unique titles. Just like Wikipedia however, other users can comment on and amend the submissions of other users. The idea being that information will continue to be revised and updated to provide the best information to readers.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that anchortext links are quite welcome and encouraged by the edit html tool found on the editing page for any knol. So of course I tossed in a link back to me and a few others to various sites I think worthy, so I guess we’ll see what that does. I was also able to add “bio” to my profile, which also included some anchortext, but the interesting thing is that this bio is also considered a knol. I suppose my life story (not really) is at least a unit or two of knowledge. You never know what you might be asked on in the final round of Jeopardy.

Since the creation over eight months ago, Google’s knol has gained a bit of press in search engine circles. Various SEO’s have run experiments to see how the mother ship search engine treats this little toddler finding some pretty interesting results. It seems as though Google tends to give it some preferential treatment when it comes to ranking content from the Knol versus identical content posted previously on other websites. David Utter talked about this yesterday on a Web Pro News Blog. Personally I don’t see too much of a problem with it. They have been giving the same preferential treatment to their other services like adwords, analytics, blogging, and email for years, as do all of the other search engines.

By and large, I think this is a very interesting new space to explore, and I certainly plan on contributing quite regularly. I think Google is on the right track by introducing some more user generated spaces. The social media trend continues to grow, and they should continue to think of new ways to join the game in order to stay on top.

About the Author: Peter Hamilton is the Project Manager in charge of the Seattle office of ArteWorks SEO. His interest and experience in Internet marketing is largely focused on the social media optimization and multi-media facets of exposure. To learn more about reputation management and this search engine optimization firm, visit www.arteworks.biz.

Managing Your Reputation in a Social Space

2008-07-17T17:09:00.000-07:00

In the old days, unless someone sent a letter to the editor or started an all out advertisement war, most big companies had little difficulty keeping a tight hold on their reputations. Unfortunately for some, the information age has turned the world of reputation management upside down. Anyone with a computer and a dial-up connection (or just an iPhone in their pocket), can post whatever slanderous thoughts they have or take out their frustrations on anyone in a very public way, and because search engines appreciate the authenticity of blogs and other user generated content, these comments, rants, and raves often find their way into extremely visible positions. Agreed, some companies probably deserve it, but the really sad thing is that many great businesses hurt by one person’s statements, suddenly lose an incredible amount of online credibility.

Social media websites have amplified the situation incredibly. These user-generated meccas are permeating search indexes and grabbing ranking results in virtually every possible market. Decide you don’t like the company you work for? Just give them a thumbs down in Stumbleupon and leave a nasty comment. It is so easy for a single voice to be heard that companies are walking on pens and needles, afraid of their social networking savvy employees or customers. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in a freedom of speech, but some of these negative claims have no foundation in truth, and in some circumstances, the company is just an innocent bystander.
Luckily, it is still possible to control online reputations using a very similar principle as in the old days.

Own the space.

By taking over the entire space for particular search terms, companies don’t have to worry about those one off bloggers or that one disgruntled customer (who was being unreasonable anyway). Consider a search for the phrase “hillary clinton.” I am quite certain that this senator as a large amount of slanderous material written about her online, but somehow a Google search does not reveal any of that material for at least the first two pages. Now does this mean there are not hundreds of blogs devoted to running her name through the mud? of course not. Because Hillary has a large amount of valuable and heavily linked online material associated with her name, she owns the search ranking space for her name.

Yes, this is an extreme example, but any company can take control of their name space by producing great content, building the strength of that content in the search engines, and using that content to build the strength of other websites in that space, are things that reputable SEO firms should have no problem accomplishing. Sometimes negative comments can stay in the rankings for years, and there is no reason why any organization or individual has to stand by helplessly as their reputation suffers. Online reputation management is a great way to protect your brand.

About the Author: Peter Hamilton is the Project Manager in charge of the Seattle office of ArteWorks SEO. His interest and experience in Internet marketing is largely focused on the social media optimization and multi-media facets of exposure. To learn more about reputation management and this search engine optimization firm, visit www.arteworks.biz.

Paid Links: The Holy War of SEO

2008-06-05T16:20:00.000-07:00

Yet another conflict arose at this year’s SMX Advanced here in Seattle, WA. Just a short jaunt from my home in Seattle, I was pleased to have a bit of controversy in my own backyard. Jay Young, of Link Fish Media stepped up to the “Blow Your Mind Link Building Techniques” session, intending to do just that. Among other “brass balls” techniques, Jay is a hearty advocate of Paid Links, suggesting that it is a perfectly legitimate marketing method and that SEO’s and small businesses should not be afraid of Google’s iron fist.

The Google Fist himself, Matt Cutts, later took the stage in a session called “You and a Session with Matt Cutts,” in which he proceeded to morally challenge the likes of Jay Young by questioning who wants to be in an industry like that. Unfortunately for Matt, it seems we are already very much in an industry like that, and I don’t know about you, but my arm was never twisted. To me it is almost like asking who would want to live in a world where money equaled power or sex sells products. The fact of the matter is that money does produce success, especially in marketing. Saying it is not fair for a company to purchase links for the sake of their online visibility is like saying it isn’t fair that one restaurant has a great location and atmosphere and therefore gets all of the traffic, while the taco shack on the corner has much better food (not a perfect analogy I know, but you get the point). In a perfect world the Internet, and all search engines associated with it, would remain unbiased and reflect only the best, most relevant content. But even then we have a problem. The “best” is always subjective, and the “most relevant” content is certainly an opinion. Historically, we have always been told what is best by the government or the church, but mainly by big business. Themz the cold hard facts of life, and it will be no different for the Internet, unfortunately.

So while it may seem unjust or shallow, you must ask yourself the question, “do I want to play the game?” Perhaps this whole world of business is just too cutthroat, too self seeking, and too unfair. If that is the case, any type of marketing or profit seeking venture is probably not the best place for you. May I remind everyone that all of the major engines make a great deal of their profits directly from link sales. Anyone paying for Adword links? How are search engines exempt? Besides, buying and selling links can also produce a healthy dose of commerce and help people find already trusted companies who have achieved great financial success. In a funny way, bought links can actually produce better content for the web. Just as paid advertisement has allowed for the creation of some of the world’s greatest news stations, films, and television shows, so can link selling provide a great incentive for producing excellent web content.

Officially, ArteWorks SEO does not participate in link buying or selling, but I am not going to judge another for participating in what seems to me to be a perfectly natural way of doing business. Though I love the idea of a pure search engine that only brings me the best content and a world where all people help others before themselves, I am faced with the reality that not everyone is going to promote my business for me or give me the shirt off their back. I have to agree with Jay that this is marketing, not morality. The day I see Yahoo pages ranking in the top results on Google, and visa versa, perhaps I will give this some more thought. For now, I will call it a difference in ethical opinion in which both sides have their flaws.

About the Author: Peter Hamilton is the Project Manager in charge of the Seattle office of ArteWorks SEO. His interest and experience in Internet marketing is largely focused on the social media and multi-media facets of exposure. To learn more about this search engine optimization company, visit www.arteworks.biz.

The Content of Social Media

2008-04-24T13:03:00.000-07:00

Everyone is realizing the amazing influence social media websites can have on an Internet marketing campaign, but social media can’t work miracles. In fact, the scene is not so different than it was a few years ago. Content is still the most important part of any online campaign. It is like the old saying from The Field of Dreams, “if you build it, they will come,” which is so completely true. If you provide rich, interesting, and even entertaining content, people will find you (assuming your content is actually published). Yes, there are some submissions and tricks here and there that should be considered, but at the end of the day, no trick can make up for the lack of anything worth looking at, reading, or watching.

We have had so many clients and potentials trying to get to the top of Google or increase their search traffic for highly competitive keyphrases, but they simply have no content worth viewing. Every website developer should ask questions like, “Why would anyone come to this website?” or “Why would a search engine consider my website to be an authority?” I suppose it all goes back to everyone wanting something for nothing. People want to be ranked number one, but no one wants to put in the time, money, or effort to make their website into a real authority on the subject.

That said, the users of social media networks are gaining an incredible amount of power over the visibility of that content, which is exactly what makes social media so great. Instead of some executive from a major network dictating what content is best, a group of actual viewers are rating and voting to bring the best content to the top. This means that any Tom, Dick, or Harry can be heard on a global platform! (which must be quite scary for some of the “powers that be”) As it stands for now, anyone can make their name as long as they have something valuable to give.

The level of content resulting from this kind of promotion has been widely debated amongst Internet marketing strategists as well as individual social media participants. I believe this is indicative of the different uses of the Internet. Some visitors like to spend time learning and gaining knowledge, while others are just looking for a laugh, and everything in between. Obviously, for those looking for credible information, the content promoted by those looking for a laugh or some simple entertainment will not satisfy their search. What I have come to realize about social media is that it is a bit like a real person. Social media communities have their moods and look for different things at different times. Just like a friend, you cannot always predict their feelings or attitudes, but you can learn to appreciate different modes and parts of their personality.

Social media has become a truly fascinating form of content circulation, and in these constantly fluctuating environments, it is important for web developers and bloggers to consider which content gets the right kind of attention from their target audiences. By producing this type of content, social media sites can have a great impact on your website visibility. Perhaps I am an idealist, but I still truly believe that content really is king, especially in a realm where the viewers decide.

About the Author: Peter Hamilton is the Project Manager in charge of the Seattle office of ArteWorks SEO. His interest and experience in Internet marketing is largely focused on the social media and multi-media facets of exposure. To learn more about this search engine optimization company, visit www.arteworks.biz.

The Future of Search Engines

2008-03-25T15:19:00.000-07:00

One of today’s hottest topics for Internet marketing is “the future of search engine technology.” I received an earful of speculation from SMX West in Santa Clara, and you can find some mention of the subject in almost every SEO blog, forum, or website. Obviously the future of search engine technology will greatly impact the marketing and optimization infrastructure that has developed in recent years, so there is certainly cause for consideration, but the basic concepts of web marketing and search engine optimization will never change. Yes, there are always old tricks or new tricks that can manipulate the system for a short while, but a real SEO campaign should stand independent of shifts in algorithms or technology.

With that in mind, there are some exciting new ideas entering the conversation about the future search experience, and in order to understand why these concepts are developing, it is important to know how people search. The three basic types of searches are find, discover, and explore searches. "Find" searches are considered short sessions that have very specific questions, such as local listings, stocks, directions, etc, while a "discover" searches have the same clear need with a less specific answer in mind. These searches might look like shopping for a new car. Yes, the searcher knows they are looking for a car, but they spend any number of hours researching and searching for the right one. Finally, an "explore" search has no real answer or target in mind but seeks only to browse various subjects. The future of search will be entirely defined by these basic search types.

Search engines are still quite weak in terms of "find" searches. When searching for something very specific, there may be thousands of results and no real way to specify further. For this reason, the idea of personal search has surfaced, where the engine would learn through various means what types of results certain users are typically seeking. So when a construction contractor searches for “windows” he will come up with glass windows instead of the operating system.

Rankings determined by user interaction are another possibility for the future. In this case, the amount of times users choose particular sites from search rankings would be recorded and totaled to prove which sites are most valuable to the rankings. There has even been talk of artificial intelligence for search engine use. With artificial intelligence, search crawlers would actually read and interpret text, comprehend video content, and even analyze photographs. With this futuristic technology, the search index could be extremely accurate, providing the best, genuine content, and it might not be that far away.

Search engine technology is an extremely exciting field, providing information from millions of sources to people around the world. The information is out there, and the engines are in place, now it is only a question of improving those engines to make access to information as simple and seamless as possible.

About the Author: Peter Hamilton is the Project Manager in charge of the Seattle office of ArteWorks SEO. His interest and experience in Internet marketing and search engine optimization is largely focused on the social media and multi-media facets of exposure. To learn more about search engine optimization, visit www.arteworks.biz.

Taking Advantage of Blended Search

2008-03-12T15:13:00.001-07:00

The development of blended search is an exciting new chapter in the history of search engine technology. Not only have search engines developed wonderfully intelligent means for sorting out spammers from authentic content, they are beginning to include images, videos, book results, recordings, and more in a multi-media search result environment. According to Google Senior Staff Engineer, David Bailey, the process for creating a blended search is similar to the previous web results model. The only real difference being that each form of content is classified into a particular “silo” of information that the search engine investigates. Results are first collected from all “silos,” or content categories, and then the engine creates a ranking decision based on the collective results. Of course, this ranking system is more complicated since comparing a video to a website, or a picture to a song, is quite difficult, not to mention collecting all of this data. David Bailey acknowledges this complication in terms of cost and accuracy, but continues to have a hopeful perspective toward the future of blended search and its ability to truly meet the needs of searchers.

So what does this mean for those interested in increasing their search engine visibility and rankings? I agree with Bailey, recommending that those pursuing search engine optimization should begin tampering with various forms of content. Marketers and optimizers should start publishing high quality and well captioned images, creating video and video sitemaps, updating business listings for local searches, submitting feeds to product searches, and creating high quality multi-media blogs. One must only consider the developments of the web’s most popular social media networks to realize how important these things are becoming. For example, StumbleUpon and Digg, two of the most popular bookmarking communities, have both introduced new submission and search possibilities that specifically focus on video and images.

Because blended search is so new, most of the space is open for the taking. Any relevant videos or images of minimal quality are likely to find their way into search results, especially when hosted on major posting sites such as Youtube, MetaCafe, and Flickr. So for the cost, videos and images can be excellent exposure tools. The studies are still young in regards to tracking actual conversions from videos and images, but an increase in website traffic never hurts. Now is the time to take advantage and explore blended search. Like the development of traditional search rankings, those who get start early are more likely to solidify a highly ranked presence.

About the Author: Peter Hamilton is the Project Manager in charge of the Seattle office of ArteWorks SEO. His interest and experience in Internet marketing and search engine optimization is largely focused on the social media and multi-media facets of exposure. To learn more about search engine optimization, visit www.arteworks.biz.

Returning from SMX West

2008-03-03T00:27:00.000-08:00

This past week, ArteWorks attended the Search Marketing Expo (SMX) in Santa Clara California, and I must say the experience is well worth it to anyone interested in any type of search engine marketing. Representatives from all of the major search engines as well as the most knowledgeable people in our field were in attendance. The seminars were focused, the keynotes were inspirational, but most of all, the networking was tremendous. This was my first conference to attend as a representative for ArteWorks, and getting to know so many brilliant and fun people in the industry was certainly a highlight.

The conference started Monday evening with a networking bash (with drinks provided), which was a great way to break the ice with people I have only known in the blogosphere. The next morning the keynote started early, lead by Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land, focusing mainly on blended, personalized, and social Search. After a break, the seminars began. The next three days would be a solid chunk of focused info sessions ranging from social media, to video, to reputation management, to Q & A with search engine engineers, and beyond. Each seminar would be lead by a panel of experts in a particular field and was open to email questions at the end. I concentrated on the social media and blended search oriented seminars as this is what I am most interested in, and I found the presentations to be quite useful. Though I am already familiar with most of the concepts and strategies addressed, I felt like I was going down the laundry list of factors that make up a successful Internet marketing campaign and reevaluating my approach. For someone new to the industry, these types of seminars would be absolutely invaluable.

Now on to the parties! Each night there was an organized “networking” function that encouraged chatting with new people in the industry while letting loose a little bit. I felt that the atmosphere was extremely open and friendly, and a fantastic avenue for getting to know some of the most knowledgeable people in Search as well as those just getting started. Not only did I make some of the most valuable business connections ever, I genuinely had a great time doing it. We are not alone, all you Search Marketers out there!

If you have ever considered attending one of these events, I hope you will take my recommendation and make it happen. SMX offers so many great advantages in this industry, and it would be a shame to miss out.

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 marketing. Mr. Hamilton also heads up the ArteWorks SEO educational video series on topics related to Internet marketing and search engine optimization.