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Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Local Search - Yahoo Local and Google Local

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 2:06 PM

I love New York City. More than any other city on the planet, New York is exciting, expansive and always interesting. As Earth's unofficial capital city New York is home to many of the world's largest entities, some even bigger than Donald Trump's ego. No other city has captured the world's imagination or harnessed its wealth to the degree of NYC. New York is also the home of over8-million people. As one of the most multicultural cities, every cultural group in the world is represented within its 301 square mile area. New Yorkers aren't just city-folk, they define what is hip in urban living in the early part of this century. Unlike their counterparts in cities like LA, Rome or Tokyo, New Yorkers don't fall for fads, set trends, or get giddy over the next new thing, ever. They are one of the most jaded and cynical populations and in their East Coast way, take great pride in their worldliness. That's what makes them the perfect test market for Yahoo's local-search engine.
Early next week, NYC Transit users will get a first hand glimpse of a clever marketing tactic from Yahoo. Yahoo plans to install bus stop kiosks featuring Yahoo Local-Search in order to test user's responses in one of the densest urban environments in the US. The first kiosk will be installed at W. 42nd ST and Eighth Avenue. A search for a cybercafe on 8 th Avenue in NYC produced a lengthy list of all cybercafes in the five boroughs including the first reference, a short two blocks from the epicenter of my search, W.42nd and 8th. Yahoo's local search also includes the Yahoo map feature, allowing the searcher to plan easy routes between destinations. Most search analysts feel the local-search market will become a cornerstone for both Yahoo and Google to build on as they move towards producing personalized search results for their users. Many also feel Yahoo has a slight lead on Google in the local search arena, though both firms are far ahead of their rivals in terms of usage, coverage and precision.
"It's definitely a growth opportunity," said Greg Sterling, an analyst for the Kelsey Group. "There's clear consumer demand that Google, Yahoo and others are responding to." With the paid search sector expected to grow into an $8Billion per year industry, Sterling predicts local-search will comprise about 1/5th of the market by 2008. Today, about 25% of all search activity is users looking for a specific business or service in their local area. Both Yahoo and Google are vying for dominance in the local-search market, but they face stiff competition from traditional advertising mediums such as the telephone directories, as well as from smaller search engines such as Ask.Com, A9 and others. As it stands today however, Yahoo and Google are far and away the market leaders in local-search. From this point, the only way for a smaller company to effectively enter the market is to present searchers with stronger and better branded technologies. An example would be the integration of a application like Keyhole into local-search.
Yahoo Local
Yahoo's local search is featured prominently on their standard front page with an easily found tab-link just above the keyword text-box. The local search page asks users to type the product, service or business they are looking for in one text-box and then type geographic information such as a street name or zip code into a second text-box. Search results are displayed in groupings of 10, based primarily on the distance from the approximate center of the geographic information entered. To the top right of the results is a feature reading "View Results on a Map" that generates a standard Yahoo map with all of the businesses listed in the search displayed in their street locations. Another feature lets the searcher to specify the size of the search radius through a drop-down menu measuring in 1, 3, 5, 10, 25, and 50 miles from the center of the search area.
Listings are added to Yahoo's local search by clicking on the link marked, "Add/Edit a Business". This link opens a fairly straight forward form asking for basic information about a business, including the nature of the submitter's relationship to the business. Right now, it appears that submission to the local search database is free so businesses should take a few minutes to get a listing there, especially as it is likely Yahoo will eventually charge for inclusion. Filling in the form takes less than five minutes and can only be beneficial for business.
Google Local
Google's version of local search is quite similar to Yahoo's but feels much less cluttered. While it is still considered a Beta-test version of a local-search tool, it works quite well. One of the winning features of this local search engine is the inclusion of a map beside the displayed results, unlike the map at Yahoo which opens on a different page. Google's local results do not offer as much information as Yahoo's but they do include exact street addresses, and a feature that allows users to get directions from their present location. While it sometimes takes a bit of fiddling with address coordinates and zip codes, the feature produces precise directions in text and map form. Google-local also displays results in lists of 10, though they use the letters A-J on each page of results. Placement is determined by distance from the center of the geographic search area.
Businesses wanting to be listed in Google-local are asked to submit their information via email but before they do, they should check to see if they are already in the index. Google-local gets its listings from a number of sources including local Yellow Pages and telephone directories. An interesting feature of the culture at Google is their willingness to help businesses update any out-of-date information carried in print directories they get listings from. For example, if your business moved locations after the most recent telephone directory was published, the information in that directory would be incorrect, as would your listing at Google-local. Google invites businesses to email them any contact information changes ( local-listings@google.com ) and they will not only update your listing at Google-local, they will also pass the new information to the source that provided them contact info from your area.
In the coming years, search engines are going to present searches with a more personalized and generally a more localized search experience. What we see at Yahoo and Google today is likely going to change and improve over the next few months. With both companies looking to expand their revenue sources, local-search is going to be an important issue for search engine marketers and businesses relying on customers referred by search engines.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 2:06 PM.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Local Search - Yahoo Local and Google Local

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Desktop Search News

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 2:05 PM

It is expected that AOL will be integrating its own desktop search technology into the AOL Browser Beta; AOL's latest push to compete against rival Microsoft. The technology they will be implementing will allow users to search for files on their own computer as well as the Internet. Files such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and just about any other textual format will be searchable including the user's browser cache, allowing the viewing of sites already visited.

Microsoft's desktop technology has been touted again and again without a lot to go on other than the ability to search the desktop and the Internet in one tool. Fortunately, we can offer you a glimpse of the technology that will be integrated because it will be taken from one of Microsoft's recent company purchases - Lookout Software. Lookout offers "lighting-fast search for your email, files, and desktop integrated with Microsoft Outlook" according to Microsoft. You can try this rather cool software by accessing the MSN Sandbox web site . There are also other technologies available that they are working on.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 2:05 PM.

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Developing a Marketing Budget for 2005 - Bill Stroll - StepForth Sales Manager

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 2:03 PM

"You don't drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there." (Edwin Louis Cole)
What does the timing of Columbus Day (US), Thanksgiving Weekend (Canada), baseball playoffs, and corn roasts typically signify? For many of us it is the beginning of a process to focus and formulate our company's priorities for the New Year. Specifically, businesses that operate on a calendar fiscal year start about this time to prepare their new budget. Ideally we take extra time to analyze the current expenses and revenues. We dust off our microscope and try to objectively evaluate how each account has performed. How do they fit in with our short and long-term goals? What would you do differently?
Many website owners and webmasters view this as an opportune time to modify course and set out with renewed emphasis or establish more timely projects. Many emails and phone calls I receive ask for advice on what to put into a budget for their website. This is not always an easy question to answer. Consideration must be given to what sort of game plan or blueprint you want or need to establish for your website.
Many of us already have a budget account line for website design and development. This may include monies set aside for an unanticipated modification or a simple cosmetic quick fix such as adding or replacing images to the more complex and sophisticated full site redesign.
However many websites owners also now realize the benefits of a coordinated search engine optimization done by professionals. We are now in the era of digital marketing with website owners needing to secure as much arsenal over their competitors as possible. And SEO has now become the necessary first step in attracting more qualified traffic to your storefront.
So what is available and what is an owner to do? StepForth has developed a varied yet comprehensive set of options and programs to educate and assist you. One can learn about search engine optimization and placement or take advantage of our free website review. Another avenue for the more inquisitive or self-sufficient website owner might be one of our newly established SEO consultancy programs including on-site SEO training. To round out our services we also custom develop business and corporate service packages and campaigns, not to mention pay per click and on-going maintenance programs.
This can be a lot of information to sort through or digest. I would be pleased to help refine your focus and needs in order for you to make an informed decision.
To ensure you have a sufficient budget for marketing, optimizing, and maintaining your website the following may offer useful tips on how to reduce expenses for your business:

- Negotiate long distance telephone and cellular rates
- Turn off computers at night
- Review company health and medical insurance plans
- Lease instead of buying equipment
- Don't purchase the most expensive printing paper
- Duplex photocopying and printing tasks where possible, thereby using less paper and less postage
- Convert communications through the computer instead of using a printed format i.e., email vs. snail mail or courier
- Analyze print advertising costs and determine what is working for you. Consider digital advertising as an alternative to the yellow pages and your local newspaper
- Get an office cleaner instead of yourself so you have more time to concentrate on your business and clients
- Join your Chamber of Commerce and take advantage of discounts which may be available to you as a member at gas stations, convenience, and department stores

Valentine's Day
Start 2005 off on the right foot - begin planning for a successful Valentine's Day campaign now!
"The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year." (John Foster Dulles)

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 2:03 PM.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Developing a Marketing Budget for 2005 - Bill Stroll - StepForth Sales Manager

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What? More Search Engines?

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 2:01 PM

The search engine industry has received massive attention over the past few years including incredible increases in gross profit. The fact is, the search engine industry is extremely hot these days and many investors are leaping at the chance to enter into the market and take their piece of the pie. The following are a sampling of the new search engines on the block:

Snap.com
Another Idealab creation, Snap appears to have some truly winning concepts in place; namely that the search engine reveals a great deal of its user data to the public. This data is normally treated like gold on search engines because it can provide valuable information on user habits and referrer data. In this case though, Snap shows all of this data front and center on its home page for all to see. This combined with a unique method of sorting results by popularity, satisfaction, web popularity, web satisfaction and domain has really shone a spotlight on this entry engine. We will be sure to keep an eye on it for you. In the meantime, try taking a tour of its capabilities. And I can't help but to mention... what a great name!

MaZaZZ.com
Touted as "The Men's Only Search Engine", MaZaZZ is a meta search engine with a few gadgets that appear to be created for men. This search engine retrieves its result data from: HotBot, MSN, Alta Vista, AlltheWeb, Teoma and Yahoo!. Personally my first impression of this site is lackluster; I think the concept is relatively sound but there just does not seem to be enough that sets it apart from other search engines. It doesn't help that it looks just like Google used to look.

Clusty.com
Ahh! There is that frightening name again. Last weeks article on this search engine pretty much sums it up: an excellent resource with a very bad name.

CPASE.com
Dubbed the first "Cost Per Action Search Engine", CPASE.com offers advertising based on commission. Advertisers on this search engine do not pay per click but pay a percentage for every sale or lead they generate. Here is a press release with some more information.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 2:01 PM.

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MSN PREVIEW - Ross Dunn

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 2:00 PM

A REAL MSN PreviewThere has been mucho chatter on the airwaves about the up and coming MSN search engine. For the second time there is a preview for tech users to check out and run searches on. Check it out here and see where your site sits within the database right now.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 2:00 PM.

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Algo Update? Don't Panic

Written by Jim Hedger and published at 1:55 PM

There has been a great deal of speculation about a shift coming in Google's ranking algorithms over the past few weeks. Several recent pieces of evidence point to a coming shift however it is very difficult to predict what, if anything will happen. It's pretty much a given that there will be some form of update to the way Google reads and ranks sites. Google actually makes minor adjustments on a regular basis. There are rare occasions however when major changes are introduced. I suspect this is one of those times.

Most webmasters will remember last year's Florida Update which turned Google's rankings upside down for about eight weeks. That eight week period caused a great deal of turmoil for SEOs, small businesses and web masters. The Florida Update was introduced on November 15, just six weeks before Christmas and at the start of the most important season for retailers. If Google does update it's algorithm in the next few weeks, another sudden round of “placement dislocation” may occur thus frustrating online retailers desperate for online Christmas sales. While it is impossible to predict such an update with 100% accuracy, there are a number of simple steps webmasters and SEOs can take to protect their clients in the case of a major update.

Let GoogleBot do it's thing
While Google's ability to contextualize information found on a specific page is extremely complex, the primary way it gathers information from each page it visits is extremely simple. Google uses a hyperactive spider known as GoogleBot. Like all well-evolved search spiders, GoogleBot lives to follow links. Every web page online that does not prevent spiders from traveling through will be found by Google, provided there is a link directed to it. If a new site has a link coming to it from a site in Google's vast index, GoogleBot will find it. If you add a new page to your preexisting website and provide a link to that new page, Google will find it. It is really that simple. In the past few years, I have not submitted a client's site to Google. I have simply made sure there was a number of links directed to it from other websites and let GoogleBot do the rest, as it is programmed to do.

K.I.S.S. - On-site Tips
I am a big proponent of the keeping it simple, Sam. Like nature, search engine spiders love simplicity in all its forms. That said, we need to recognize simplicity is simpler said than done. While modern website design calls for increasingly complex technologies and commercial site design often relies on the use of multiple databases, there are ways to give spiders the information they require in the simplest possible formats.

Information Organization
Keeping a site simple is a matter of information organization. As much as possible, try to address only one topic per page. Your starting point is the HOME page of the site. If you have only one product or message, the job is relatively easy. If you have several products or a wide variety of information you need to express, organize that information as succinctly as possible. Channel various information streams into sub-directories. The key here is to be as focused as you can be when presenting information to search engines by distributing different blocks of information across as many pages as necessary. The days when a single page could represent several products are long-over.

Optimize your content page by page
One of the reasons SEO can be expensive is that a good SEO will work on every spiderable page in a website. This can be painstaking work but if done properly, it always pays off in the end. The scope of the job can be daunting though, especially when you consider the vast size of many websites today. A smart way to look at presenting information to search engine spiders without getting overwhelmed is to break the site down to basic components or elements. The most important on-site elements are Titles, Tags, Text and (internal) Links.

Titles
Aside from the URL, the title is the first on-site element seen by a spider. Titles play an important role in keyword contextualization for Google. Placing keyword phrases in the title of a page is extremely important to achieving rankings under that keyword phrase. Webmasters and site design planners need to remember that each page in a site presents specific information and thus requires a unique title. If you are following the single-focus per page tip, titles are usually pretty easy to formulate. Take the two strongest keyword phrases that apply to that specific page and place them beside a keyword phrase that describes the overall site. For example,

Tags
Meta tags do matter, however there are only two essential meta tags that should be included on every page in the site, the Description and Keyword tags. Of these two, the most important is the Description. The description tag provides GoogleBot with primary topical information about the content of that specific page. A good description is often two sentences long and uses target keywords and phrases. The keyword tag is of lesser importance but does play a small role at both Google and Yahoo. Don't spend an inordinate amount of time on this tag but be sure your target keywords and phrases are mentioned at least once and not more than three times.

Body Text
The text is the most important element on the page. The most important reminder regarding text is to focus on one subject or topic per page. Make sure you use target keywords and phrases in the text on the site and make sure that text is well written. It is often wise to place a keyword enriched sentence at the very top of a page, above the company banner. It is also important to know that GoogleBot reads a page much like you read a newspaper, in columns starting in the top left and flowing to the bottom right. If you are using tables or CSS, remember how GoogleBot likes to read. Keyword enriched text should be presented early in the page.

Directing GoogleBot
Understanding the behavior of GoogleBot is important at all times but if there is a major update, it will be important to allow GoogleBot free transit in order to have as many pages in your site spidered as possible. Making pages spiderable is not much more difficult than offering a text link to each page in your site. The most efficient way to open the site up is the use of three different levels of internal link mapping. While that sounds somewhat complex, it is quite easy. Across the bottom of each page in the site you should establish text links to the index or default page of each sub-directory. This is called the "root navigation map". Across the bottom of each page in a sub-directory, you should put a link to other pages in that sub-directory. These maps are called the "sub-dir navigation maps". Lastly, you should create a unique page at the root level that acts as an overall sitemap and place a link to it in all sub-dir navigation maps and the root navigation map. The sitemap page should be designed in basic text and have a link to every page in the site.
Anchor text used in links
Most keyword targets can be expressed in short two-word phrases. These short phrases should be used as the anchor text in your internal links. For example, the Blue Widget Construction Materials Company might phrase a link as such,

openlink-http://www.blue-widgets.com/construction-widgets.php " Construction Widgets -endlink (blog doen'st allow html code)
Note the anchor text would read Construction Widgets.

Off-Site Tips
Aside from your competition, the only major off-site element recognized by Google is incoming links. This is an extremely important element as Google bases your site's ranking largely on the number of related sites linking to you. There are two factors to consider when examining incoming links, numbers and relevancy. The more relevant links directed to a site, the better that site will rank. This has always been the basis of PageRank and knowing that, many SEOs have undertaken a brisk trade in establishing, purchasing or selling links. Some have even started businesses creating pages designed to be relevant in Google's eyes in mass-market sectors such as health and travel in order to create links as commodities.
Since Google doesn't like being gamed so easily, the value of incoming links is where Google engineers do most of their tinkering. As stated early in this article, Google is getting much better at figuring out specific page topics and overall site context. They are continuously applying advancements in contextualization to their link-relevancy algorithms. My guess is this algorithm update will target unrelated links, lowing their value considerably while rewarding sites with highly relevant links. Google will also likely target companies and sites that exist solely to sell links, thus effecting all associated with such schemes. If your business is based on selling links, watch this update very carefully. If your website has purchased links, you too should watch this update very closely. Unfortunately, when the first signs of trouble come, it will already be too late to take any action aside from removing irrelevant links wherever possible.
Even if there isn't a major update in the next few weeks, these tips are basic common sense and are based on Google's current behavior. Using them can only help your site. If there is a major update, being ready is better than being surprised. The problem with predicting a major Google update is that the prediction is made in weeks in advance of the event and, of course, may not happen at all. Recent evidence and previous history point to an imminent update so consider this article your ounce of prevention.

By the way, Happy Holiday Season to all online retailers. Remember, it is only twelve weeks 'till the season.

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This SEO News was posted by Jim Hedger @ 1:55 PM.