The SEO industry is growing out of its adolescence into the realm of mainstream credibility. After surviving the infancy and adolescence of the industry, search engine optimization and placement is just being recognized as the essential element that can make or break an online business’ bottom line. A successful SEO enriched marketing campaign will require a few simple but crucial elements: timing, organization and commitment. There are several search engine placement strategies to choose from. This SEO plan focuses on achieving traditional search engine placements and does not address pay-per-click advertising.

Timing
It happens every November. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firms start getting phone calls from online retailers desperate for traditional Top10 placement before the Christmas shopping season moves into full swing, two weeks later. Before considering the actual work and turn-around time involved in achieving search engine placements, potential clients put their service providers in uncomfortable positions by expecting SEO’s to provide results within impossible time frames. In many cases, some SEO providers take these jobs without letting the client know what to realistically expect in the hopes the placements will magically appear before the rush begins. In our case, we are forced to explain the realities of the situation.

A successful SEO promotion requires time, the amount of which is dependant upon the competitiveness of keywords your company has chosen to target, (“cars” vs. “Pintos in Iceland”), and the existing popularity of your web site. For example, if you represent a freshly designed car sales web site that has not been previously promoted (no existing online popularity) and your aim is to achieve Top10 placements under the word keyword “BMW” within 2 or even 3 months then you had better rethink your timeline.

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Froogle Grows but Still Searching for the Magic Ring

Google’s product search tool Froogle is growing rapidly but industry insiders say the discount-price search tool has to personalize its offerings if it wants to grow larger. Comparing Froogle to Yahoo Shopping, Business 2.0 notes Froogle’s lack of added features that stream ads to your computer based on your previous interests. Users need to scroll through pages of products before finding one that matches their needs and location, making the Froogle product-search engine more difficult to use than the telephone directory. Nevertheless, Froogle has grown rapidly and is poised to become one of Google’s staple revenue generators. Users should look for changes in the near future as the current version is a working beta.

If you have a suggestion or comment for the improvement of Froogle, contact the designers at froogle-support@google.com.

A Glimpse of the Future?

Overture's chief technology officer, Paul Ryan, recently showed a glimpse of the direction of the online advertising markets. He noted that the paid search engine industry should be working towards "democratizing" other forms of marketing so that small business has the ability to move into normally costly advertising markets. He showed specific interest in contextual advertising, local search, paid inclusion and email advertising.

Mr. Ryan noted that this is not necessarily a 'road map for Overture's business plans', however, contextual advertising seems a likely evolutionary step for Overture.

For more info on Contextual Advertising, please see our March 5th Newsletter Headline - click here

Health, hope and a beautiful location on Washington State’s Puget Sound make Harbor Press Publishing of Gig Harbor Washington one of the more lively and interesting small publishing houses in America. Harbor Press is a leading publisher of information designed to improve your health and well being. Offering a full selection of self-help, natural-health, and life-issues books, reports and videos, the staff at Harbor Press are dedicated to finding and printing a wide selection of quality health related publications. With best selling books such as “Yes Your Teen IS Crazy”, and “Smart Buys Drug Wise”, Harbor Press is making a noticeable impact on the health and wellness publishing sector. They are also extremely nice people to work with. As it says on their website, “If you’re in the neighborhood, be sure to drop in for a visit. We’ll treat you like family. We promise!” Gig Harbor is one of the most picturesque marina towns on Puget Sound. If you are in the Pacific North West, take a few hours to visit Gig Harbor and its small but growing publishing house, Harbor Press.

View HarborHealth's website at www.harborhealth.com for Health and Wellness Publishing

We have spoken about the importance of link popularity a myriad of times throughout our newsletters, however, we feel that a good example of good link popularity and bad link popularity is in order.

For the purposes of this example, I will use StepForth's web site.

Good Links: a good link is one that originates from a web site that delivers content relevant to the service that you provide, or better yet, the keyword phrase you wish to be found under. For example, StepForth offers Search Engine Placement and Optimization services. A good link for us would be to get placement on a web site devoted to news or tutorials on search engine optimization. In this case we are content providers for a popular web site called SearchEngineGuide.com. Because this site now links to ours, a search engine such as Google will now perceive StepForth in a better light since we are essentially being recommended by a top-rated web site related to our industry.

Bad Links: a bad link is one that originates from a web site that either has no direct relation to your web site's services or is itself perceived as a 'link farm'. In this case if StepForth were to receive a link from a hair stylist without the words "search engine placement" on the page, then the link would not aid our positioning. If we were to receive a link from "XYZ Links.com" which is, in fact, a link farm blacklisted by Google then there would be zero positive effect since Google does not count them.

In short, focus your linking strategy on web sites that are directly related to your web site even if you have to pay for advertising. Just make sure that the links pointing to your web site contain relevant textual information. For example: "Try StepForth's Search Engine Placement Services". If the link pointing to your web site does not contain relevant text it will not have as much impact.

If this does not show just how pervasive the search engine world is in real life, we don't know what does! From March 23rd to March 30th, the Spanganga Gallery in San Francisco will be home to an art exhibit that will be run much like a search engine is, at least as far as the selection and curatorial process. The exhibit begins totally empty and during normal working hours the gallery welcomes open submissions from artists. Each submission will be discussed before being accepted or rejected much like the Google search engine algorithm would if you had submitted your web site. Outside gallery hours, the curators will scour the city of San Francisco in an attempt to find the most interesting work, much as a search engine spider would randomly search the net for new content. The end of the show will ultimately end in the completion of a gallery filled with satisfying art objects.

Background: The Center of Attention is a "non-commercial independent contemporary art gallery" based in London, UK. The mission of the gallery is to constantly redefine what makes a contemporary gallery. In the past it has even had 'Email Art' exhibitions.