StepForth SEO News Blog

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

By now everyone with electricity has seen images and video of the devestation that befell New Orleans and the surrounding areas yesterday. 80% of the city has been destroyed. Over 100 people have been killed, tens of thousands injured and hundreds of thousands left homeless. The magnitude of the disaster is impossible to express in simple words. When words fail, all we have are deeds. Now is the time to help in any way we can.

According to Canadian Red Cross Disaster Relief coordinator Sherri McCloud, the first and most important way to help is to provide the basic necessities of life. As authorities in the region are still assessing damages and response, the Red Cross is currently only accepting donations by cash or cheques

Supplies of blankets, tents, sleeping bags, non-perishable food, and clothing are likely to be collected by local fire stations for distribution in the coming weeks. Check your local newspapers or call the Red Cross for further instruction.

In both countries, the Red Cross is collecting disaster relief funds though as many remember from last year's Tsunami relief, it is important to specifically ear-mark these donations by writing in the memo section of the cheque "Hurricane Katrina Relief". The Canadian Red Cross also maintains a list of skilled Red Cross volunteers ranging from medical personnel to counsellors which will be activated when needs are fully identified.

While not yet organized, teams of workers will be needed in the coming weeks. If you have vacation time coming and want to lend a hand to neighbours in distress, let them know your availability by calling your local Red Cross office. Again, the same can be said for the American Red Cross branches.

In the coming days, building supplies and skilled workers will be needed to help clean up the city and rebuild housing and civic infrastructure. Materials are needed to rebuild sewers, water treatment, and other critical services. As with all major disasters, they will need blood as well. If you haven't donated blood recently, this is a good day to do so. If not today, tomorrow or Friday. Don't waste time thinking about it, just do it.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: New Orleans Relief

One week left. That's it. One week from the time this piece is being written the school doors open and the dog-days come to a close. Summer is over in seven days for tens of millions of students across North America . Going back to school is both exciting and anti-climactic, at least if I remember correctly. It has been quite a few years since I sat on the students' side of the lecture podium. Today, my only experience with schooling is as an infrequent guest lecturer at the University of Victoria or at one of the local technical colleges. My career as a student ended long before the advent of the commercial Internet.

Back in the olden days, we had to pour through books, periodicals, encyclopaedias and government records to research essays, papers and large projects. We had to learn to use the library. In order to find information quickly and easily, we had to learn the Dewey Decimal System, a seemingly clunky but efficient numeric ordering system. Apparently, something has shifted over the past fifteen years and my impression of a student's life is completely out of touch.

I am currently on vacation in southern Ontario visiting friends and family. Joining me is my brother and his two sons from Calgary . While my brother went to catch up with his old friends, I took Justin and Tyler to the nearest cybercafe to see how they related to and used search engines. My research method was anything but scientific. I drew up a short list of topics an eight year old and a fourteen year old might need to research for school essays and asked them to find a sufficient amount of information to write an essay using whatever search engines they thought would provide them with references.

According to my public-school aged nephews, Justin and Tyler, libraries are entirely organized alphabetically and the proper way to find information is to look it up on Google. Mention of the wonders of the Dewey Decimal System brought blank stares until Tyler tried to brazen his way through by explaining that the Calgary School Board used the numbers on the spine of the book to see who has them. To be honest, I am not sure how that works out but I have an obligation to report it as I hear it and that's what he said.

I learned a few things in the process, some of which might be good for the major search engines to hear about.

First of all, though my brother does not keep a computer at home and the two boys attend different schools, both claim that Google is the only search engine worth using. Tyler , aged 8, relies on Google exclusively because, "It gives me the most information back". Justin, aged 14, likes Google because it is simple to use and has a sparse, uncluttered front page. As far as my brother's kids are concerned, there is no other search tool worth using. They say their friends feel the same way.

I tried to prompt them on other search engines. The only one they knew about was Yahoo and according to Tyler (who really is quite bright), "Yahoo doesn't give me much information but Google gives me pages and pages." Hearing this, I tried to prompt him further by telling him that Yahoo claimed to have several billion more documents and objects in its database than Google did. Stone faced silence. "Uncle Jeaeem", Tyler said, "everyone knows Google is the best."

I wonder where the line is drawn between the mouths of babes and the horse's mouth. In a competitive environment reliant on user loyalty, Google's hold on the hearts of today's school kids suggests a massive portal into their minds both today and in the future.

Neither nephew was particularly interested in paid-advertising and both expressed surprise when I pointed out the text-ads above and to the right hand side of search results. Apparently, neither had actually noticed the paid ads before having them pointed out by old Uncle Jim.

When he did see them, Justin identified them as "useless", at least to him. "I don't click on them because they often lead to forms, endless surveys and stuff you have to fill out, stuff I just don't need. They are just junk, a waste of time". Even after I informed him that Google makes the bulk of its vast revenues from the click-fees associated with paid-advertising, he seemed relatively uninterested in anything other than the word 'billions'. When I told him how much Google's revenues were last quarter he said something I don't think he would want his father to read in print. Justin is a born-again punk rocker and as such has developed a somewhat cynical outer shell. I didn't bother to get into the difference between revenues and profits as I was laughing too hard.

As the boys embarked on their impromptu research projects, I watched how they interacted with the search engine and with the Internet Explorer web-browser used by that cybercafe. The older of the two, Justin used more sophisticated search strings, entering two or more words for his queries on every search. Tyler on the other hand, almost always used only one word. Naturally, Justin found the information he was looking for faster, often on the first page of results. Looking over at the machine Tyler was working on, I noticed how he compensated for a lack of clarity by drilling down in search results until he found what he was looking for, sometimes on the third, fourth or even fifth pages of results. He didn't seem to mind. It was as if the search itself was an adventure though I am not sure if that had something to do with me hanging over his shoulder asking a bunch of questions and taking an obvious interest in his experience.

One research habit the two brothers shared was the way each would keep the browser windows open to pages, sites or documents that contained information relevant to their search challenges. They would just open a new browser window when they wanted to conduct another search. Forgetting they didn't have a computer at home, I asked why they just didn't bookmark the pages to reference later.

"There are a lot of other kids using the computers in the library", said Justin, "the bookmarks are too full to find anything." Tyler agreed adding that most of the bookmarks on computers in his schools were for game sites.

That's about the time my cell phone rang. It was a local radio station from back home in Victoria BC wanting to do an interview with me. I stepped outside, leaving Justin in charge. The interview lasted about fifteen minutes and when I came back in, Justin was surfing a Marilyn Manson site which could have passed as a fan site from the movie A Clockwork Orange. Two feet to the left of him, Tyler had found a page full of dirty and/or corny jokes and was cracking up reading them out loud to the chagrin of some of the other patrons. It was obviously time to leave.

In a few years, Justin will hopefully be entering college or university. Tyler is sure to follow. When they get there, they will face the prospect of paying absurd fees for text-books, many of which are priced above $100. Those familiar with college level text books know that they rarely differ from year to year in substance but do have unique material added in order to force the purchase and bolster the bottom line for paper publishers. If you were a student in today's educational environment, where would you look for this information? Increasingly, students are turning to the Internet and their primary gateway to the 'net appears to be Google.

My nephews are both pretty smart young Internet users. I was surprised at some of the stuff they had to say and some of the ways they use search engines but I know enough to listen closely. Yahoo, MSN and yes, Google too should listen up as well.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: School Kids Search Too

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Two weeks ago, I used this space to write about the importance of usability in website design. The article was supposed to act as a lead-in to a short series of articles on the basics of search engine optimization and as a gentle suggestion for webmasters concerned with converting visitors into buyers. As it turned out, the article was long on style but short on substance, a fact that was quickly pointed out by Kim Krause Berg in a blog entry entitled, " Don't Tell Me I Need Usability Without Explaining How ". Kim Krause Berg, for those unfamiliar with her, is one of the leading usability experts in the United States .

To quote Kim's post, "This article, by StepForth Placement's Jim Hedger, is getting a lot of exposure - Website Usability Leads to Conversions , though its another one of those articles that says, essentially, "You have to make your web site more usable but I'm not going to give you the exact details on how to do this."

Kim was right, the article unintentionally short-changed readers interested in usability issues. Last week, Kim kindly agreed to an email interview, the full text of which can be found here . It provides a detailed look at Kim's views on usability. At the end of this article and sprinkled throughout the full interview, there are links to a number of sites where those interested can find a wealth of information about the multiple aspects of website usability. Ironically, by the end of the interview, (which stretched eight pages long), I was left with the firm conviction that it takes tens of thousands of words to literally scratch the surface of website usability. That's why we have specialists and experts.

Kim is a usability expert. A keen observer of websites and design, she cut her teeth in search engine optimization while working as a site designer in Pennsylvania for Unisys and Verticalnet before the dot-com crash of 2000. Kim became frustrated with an inability to help her clients beyond making their sites visible on the search engines. When Verticalnet shifted her to the Quality Assurance Testing department, Kim's new supervisor mentored her in usability issues. The dot-com crash forced a quick career change and Kim found herself sub-contracting for a Verticalnet client that performed QA surveys. Five years later, Kim is the usability expert referred to by many in the SEO field including Jill Whalen, Christine Churchill, Kalena Jordan, Rand Fishkin and Barry Schwartz.

Kim likens usability to an act of kindness, one that pays huge rewards in customer satisfaction by creating a positive user experience for everyone. " Those of us who work on the Web, whether it be in design, programming, SEO, copywriting, search engines, whatever - we have this amazing opportunity to do really humane things for and with one another. By building web sites that everyone can use, we're generating an act of kindness and consideration", she says in the email interview.

Usability is often confused accessibility (making a site fully accessible to people with physical disabilities) however Kim sees accessibility as a critical element in site usability. " The more I learn on this topic, the more I understand how many people aren't being serviced properly on the Internet." she writes. "At Cre8asiteforums, we've been lucky enough to have several people kindly teach us and provide resources. One example is provided by " Webnauts " in this amazing post . Adrian, one of our Site Administrators is passionate about the topic as well as CSS, as is our forums blog editor, Elizabeth (aka "ablereach")."

Kim added a note of caution to SEOs who use techniques based on site attributes like alt-tags originally designed to assist screen-readers for the visually impaired. "There are some search engine optimization techniques used to enhance content that wreak havoc on end users who require screen readers. Matt Bailey , of The Karcher Group, illustrated this at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in New York this year by letting everyone listen to an optimized page using JAWS. The mechanical voice kept repeating keywords over and over again. It was enough to chase off even the most patient of visitors."

Like the SEO sector, there is no agreed upon definitions in the usability profession. In her definition, Kim takes the goals and needs of both end users and site designers into account. "For the end user, usability is the ability to successfully, comfortably and confidently learn or complete a task. For the web site designer or application developer, it's the mechanics of designing and building a web site or Internet-based application so that it can be understood and easy to accomplish any task."

Usability is a factor that should be worked into the design of websites from the onset with conversions and customer/visitor satisfaction being the primary benefit. “Web sites are co-dependent on the visitors who search for them and then stop by,"Kim says, however, “Web sites can't do anything you didn't design them to do."

The initial design phase and the planning that goes into how and what a site will do is key to creating a site that meets professional usability standards. "The primary hallmark of a usable web site is that it meets its primary goal and every element, link, page, image, ad, and form can be traced back to and meets the requirements of that original goal."

That's often the place where the differing goals of various corporate departments crash, clash and coalesce into what ultimately becomes a poorly designed site.

"You'd be amazed at the number of sites or web applications that have a completely different primary goal," Kim wrote, "Some of these include "Make our investors happy." This will dictate everything from content placement to the order of navigation links. Other common lead objectives are 'Get as much personal information as possible up front and then sell them something', 'Meet the CEO's drop-dead deadline, even with 35 mission-critical defects', and 'The marketing department stakeholders insist that their stuff go above the page fold on every page'. These are things end users notice. When you play them for invisible, dead or stupid, you'll pay the price, eventually."

In her perfect world, Kim would see usability specialists involved in all design team meetings. Usability specialists have, "...valuable input from the get-go on information architecture and the needs and habits of target markets. They may have case study findings dancing in their heads, ready to bolster a designer's suggestion or adjust a programmer's method of coding a form."

Not only can a person well versed in usability issues help in the design process, they can also aid overall site development by communicating with various and often competing departments in an organization. "They can aid in documentation of requirements and help gather valuable information for stakeholders, as well as developers."

Kim also notes that usability specialists have skills generally missing from most smaller website development teams. "User testing with real people during the wire frame and/or staging process adds enormous value. It's not done in situations where cost is an issue, or time. It takes longer to build and test as you go. But, the advantages to a process that includes usability along the way, is less defects at the end and increased customer satisfaction on roll out."

Usability is critically important to online success. In a virtual world, your business website is your commercial representation, a storefront of sorts open for universal access. Being assured all aspects of it work properly and meet your corporate, business or social goals in a friendly and helpful manner, before spending thousands of dollars marketing it is simple common sense. From the early planning stages to ongoing tests of site functionality to informing and communicating with various departments involved in site creation, website usability specialists set truly professional sites apart from their competitors.

It all comes down to the end-user experience, the ultimate test of the success of an online venture. "The majority of my clients are interested in two things - search engines and what happens after somebody finds their web page." Kim says.

For more information on the vast topic of website usability, please reference one or more of the following documents, sites or forum threads:

General Information:

• What is usability in one word?
• Jared Spool's User Interface Engineering
• The Usability Professionals' Association
• Human Factors International
• Ben Hunt's Web Design From Scratch
• Usability.gov

Information for SEOs, Webmasters and Designers

• UsabilityEffect.com ( Blog )
• WebWord
• Donna Maurer
• Matt Bailey (Accessibility)
• Creating Passionate Users

Forums on Usability

• Cre8asiteForums
• High Rankings Forums
• QA Forums (software testing)
• Sticky Minds

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Expanding on Usability - An Interview with Kim Krause Berg

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

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View this Article Only: SEO 101 - Basic Optimization Techniques

Friday, August 19, 2005

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: The First SEO Republic Forumed

I am taking a two-week vacation starting next Friday. That is a good thing too because the past four days have almost turned me off this amazing industry. A break from the silliness of the search engines and the pettiness of practitioner politics will do me a world of good. I'm also sure that the absense of my frantic presence for few weeks will provide a much needed break for the rest of the StepForth crew as well. ;)

For me, a vacation means going away from my apartment in the tiny ocean side city of Victoria and flying (I hate flying) 3500km back to Toronto, the biggest city in the country (6th largest on the continent, 32nd largest the planet and second favourite in my heart) to finally be there without having to work. The last few times I visited TO I was involved with the Search Engine Strategies show and anyone who has attended an SES event knows how totally draining they can be both physically and mentally.

This time, I plan to spend a lot of time lounging in my parent's backyard and visiting friends and extended family all over the massive city. A lifetime of things to do and catch up with and I only have ten days or so to spend there.

While I am there, I would be interested in meeting anyone who wants to talk SEO, SEM, search engines in general or online marketing. I am always looking for new ideas and fresh stories, and let's face it, as much as I love my parents, we often don't speak the same language.

I'll still be writing the feature for our weekly newsletter while away but almost certainly won't be writing more than that. Until then, I am building up a fine head of steam over the spam/ethics debate playing out across a number of search engine marketing forums. I expect I'll type a two-thousand word opinion on that later today. Next week I hope to expand on usability and SEO by interviewing Kim Krause Berg, one of the USA's top usability proponents. I also want to take another look at click-fraud in light of yet another click-fraud lawsuit that looks as if it will be going to court soon. Lastly, in my heart of hearts, I want to write an article on basic non-spammy SEO techniques that really do work wonders without the bother of trying to play tricks on the search engines.

I am leaving Victoria on the 26th and returning on the 6th but am already booked for the 2nd and 3rd for family stuff. Anyone interested in meeting up in Toronto can call myself or Bill Stroll at 1-877-385-5526.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Going on vacation next week

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Last week saw the resumption of the search engine size wars in which one major search engine claims to be larger than its rivals, prompting those rivals to rapidly upsize themselves. Yahoo fired the first round at Google, claiming to have over 20billion objects accessible in their database. Google, which can only claim about 13billion objects fired back with questions about measurements, basically stating Yahoo was mistaken or misleading in its claims. Others got in on the act and the blog-o-sphere was full of stories about Yahoo's obsession with size. By the beginning of this week, the search marketing community was fed up with being fed tripe about the importance of size, as reflected August 16 th in Danny Sullivan's post to Search Engine Watch, " Screw Size! I dare Google and Yahoo to Report on Relevancy "

The frustration with the major search engines felt by serious search marketers is real. Our clients don't care about size and neither does their money. They care about being found when searchers are seeking information about products or services they sell. They care about potential clients and their ability to present information to them. They care about being relevant.

Search engine users don't really care about size either. Given the mind-boggling amount of data available via even the smallest of the major search engines, most users have no idea of the depth of search results, as they tend to look only at the Top10 or 20 listings. Even if Yahoo returns thousands more references than Google for any given keyword query, both know that only the first 20 links tend see any measurable traffic. Again, it isn't about being the biggest; it is about being the best. Being biggest does not necessarily mean being best.

There is no real scientific method of proving which search engine is the biggest, and no real way to gauge which one is best. That's not to say folks aren't trying though. The thing to remember is, “best” means something slightly different to every search engine user.

Over the past four months, well known search-blogger RustyBrick has been tracking search engine relevance through RustySearch an ongoing blind user-test of results drawn from a random Big4 search engine that is reminiscent of the Pepsi-Challenge. The RustyBrick site has posted live-time results and an explanation of the methodology. As it turns out, the Big4 search engines all return relevant results most of the time with Yahoo enjoying a slight lead over Google in overall relevancy. The biggest problem with this study is that users who tend to be very well versed in search engines and search marketing provide the bulk of the data. In other words, the study group is not likely to be highly representative of the far greater majority of general search users. Nevertheless, it does provide the only ongoing view of how its unique study group rates search engine result pages generated by the Big4.

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois took up a study of results generated by Google and Yahoo in reaction to Tim Mayer's August 8 th post at the Yahoo Search Blog that started this round of the size war. Basing their findings on the average number of results returned from 10,012 random queries, the results clearly show Google tending to return (on average), three times the number of references Yahoo does. The study-document states quite early that there is no real way to test the actual size of the index so its methodology is borrowed from a method pioneered by search legends Krishna Bharat and Andrei Broder that samples the size of search results based on words derived from previous search queries. The NCSA study shows Google gives a greater number of results than Yahoo though it in no way intended to suggest those results are better or more relevant.

In some ways, the results of the two studies seem to cancel each other out with Yahoo nosing ahead of Google in the first and Google squashing Yahoo in the second. Unfortunately, neither study offers a conclusive analysis of which search engine is the best. RustySearch provides data on which search results are considered most relevant, showing Yahoo and Google receiving similar relevancy ratings even though the NCSA study demonstrates Google returns far more results than Yahoo does.

Perhaps the two studies combined show that Yahoo has better filters than Google does though that still does not show conclusively which is the better of the two. As their results appear to be relatively equally relevant, perhaps a measure of which is the best comes in overall usefulness to searchers and, ultimately to advertisers.

The real interesting competition between all the major search engines is being waged on the battlefield of usefulness and user loyalty. This is the user-focused space in which one or more of the Big4 will eventually rise to dominate the various sectors of search. The question is, what is useful to search engine users?

Over the past few years each of the major search engines has introduced a number of new tools that on their own might not seem to have a lot to do with organic search results but collectively have a lot to do with the business of search.

For example, Google, Yahoo and MSN each offer sizable free email accounts to their users, some of whom like myself maintain addresses at all three. Google and Microsoft are sparring over satellite mapping technologies, expanding on the usefulness of maps in relation to local search users. Earlier this week, Google introduced Froogle Local, a revolutionary simple application for mobile device users.

Yahoo has also made improvements to their local search system, this time by allowing registered users to write Wiki-like reviews for local establishments and services. These reviews will be available to other registered users and distributed to members of the reviewer's social network. Earlier today John Battelle wrote an excellent review of improvements to Yahoo Local and their usefulness to Yahoo searchers.

Business 2.0's Om Malik says Google appears to be ready to introduce a national WiFi network while Yahoo's VOIP based upgrades to its Instant Messaging client. Its purchase of internet phone company Dialpad has analysts speculating Yahoo is about to enter the VOIP cyber-phone market, a rumour Yahoo is vigorously denying . Regardless of their denial, the VOIP based improvements to the IM are indicative of much larger plans around digital voice transmission.

The point to all the information above is simple. Google and Yahoo are both working feverishly to provide their loyal users tools that are useful to them. There are dozens of other examples of user-friendly tools created to capture user-loyalty such as blog support, desktop search applications, toolbars of varying shapes and sizes and personalized syndication feeds. These types of applications and labour saving tools are what the search tools are betting on to retain current users and win new ones.

As demonstrated by the most recent Nielsen Net Ratings , the strategy seems to be working with Google, Yahoo, and MSN (which offer the greatest number of user-focused tools) leading the pack by a wide margin. Guess which of the three offers the most useful tools to the greatest number of searchers? Now, guess which of the three can offer the biggest distributed bang for an advertiser's buck. That's what our clients care about.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Size Less Important Than User Utility

Friday, August 12, 2005

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Last Week was More Interesting than it Seemed

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Known as the web's Usability Czar, Jakob Nielsen is one of the Internet's most respected consultants, authors and commentators. Dr. Nielsen's fame stems from his uncanny ability to note basic things most observers miss or gloss over. Although many of his observations on website usability amount to basic common sense, his message is often ignored by small to medium sized business websites and by newer webmasters and search engine marketers.

The Doctor's message is fairly simple, "On the Web, usability is a necessary condition for survival. If a website is difficult to use, people leave." That is easy enough to understand. Keep it simple and visitors will use it. Make it difficult and visitors will find something easier to use. The popularity of the ultra-simple Google interface and subsequent gains made by Google at the expense of its info-heavy rivals over the past four years is a prime example. Dr. Nielsen work should be required reading for students of website design and search engine marketing. Similar concepts are taught to students of architecture, creative writing and engineering, fields that share a number of basic skill-sets with website design and marketing.

For search marketers, there are important tips to be learned by studying Dr. Nielsen's ideas. In the early years of the industry, search marketing was mostly about getting Top10 placements for clients under their chosen keyword phrases. As the sector grows in size and sophistication, search marketers are expected to help their clients convert the increased traffic driven by high search placements into increased conversions and sales. In other words, getting a client into the Top10 organic placements and effectively managing PPC positioning is only half the challenge. Helping a site make sales by advising on usability issues is the second side to every coin earned by experienced search marketers.

There is a school of thought in the SEO sector that suggests optimization should be performed for the site users' benefit as opposed to algorithmic focused tricks and techniques. Sites that are designed to be easy for human visitors to use are often the easiest for search engine spiders to navigate. Better navigation options combined with search friendly site architecture and content tend to produce strong search engine placements and increased visitor retention. According to the findings of the Nielsen Normal Group , usability issues have an enormous effect on website revenues. As clients ultimately measure the success of search marketing campaigns by their ROI, search marketers might benefit from a quick review of some of Dr. Nielsen's basic ideas and observations.

Usability, as defined by Dr. Nielsen is, " ...a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use." In a short August 2003 essay titled, "Usability 101: An Introduction to Usability", Dr. Nielsen lists five quality components used to inform site builders, webmasters and content creators through the lifetime of unique site-designs. Each of these components leads to an assessment of an overall user experience working from the basic assumption that good experiences are appreciated and rewarded by online consumers.

The first quality component noted is labeled, "Learnability ".
When a new visitor enters a website, how easy is it for them to perform basic tasks like moving from point A to point B, gathering information, or using embedded tools such as maps, video-players or currency exchange calculators?

The second is labeled "Efficiency".
Once a new visitor gets used to the site, how quickly can they use the site and its tools to perform tasks?

Third on Dr. Nielsen's list is "Memorability".
On subsequent visits to a site, how quickly can users find their way around and use site tools and features?

The next component is labeled "Errors".
Web designers should ask how many errors do site visitors make, how severe are those errors, and how easy is it to recover from those errors?

The fifth component is labeled "Satisfaction".
How pleasant is the design and does the design please the user?

It is fairly easy to see how applying these simple tests of usability might affect website traffic, visitor retention and ultimately ROI.

In a widely published quote from his essay, Dr. Nielsen bluntly notes the importance of usability stating, "On the Web, usability is a necessary condition for survival. If a website is difficult to use, people leave. If the homepage fails to clearly state what a company offers and what users can do on the site, people leave. If users get lost on a website, they leave. If a website's information is hard to read or doesn't answer users' key questions, they leave . Note a pattern here? There's no such thing as a user reading a website manual or otherwise spending much time trying to figure out an interface. There are plenty of other websites available; leaving is the first line of defense when users encounter a difficulty."

Understanding these ideas is one thing. Employing them in site design is obviously more difficult. Designers and their consultants work in a bubble of online information and often neglect to consider user experience. For example, many sites are designed in the favourite colours of the designer. While a designer might like striking colours and psychedelic graphics, it doesn't necessarily mean folks visiting his or her site will. Similarly, site designers often know exactly where information and products can be found within the sites they build but the navigation options they often provide visitors serve to push traffic to competing sites.

As noted previously, many of the major search engines have taken Dr. Nielsen's theories to heart. Google, Yahoo, MSN and the rest spend a lot of time conducting discrete user research and overt beta testing, using the findings of their surveys to adapt page and product design to users' wants and needs.

In a recent Alertbox newsletter Dr. Nielsen noted that due to their growing obsession with site usability, "Yahoo! now makes 0.3 cents per page (equivalent to a CPM of $3)." He goes on to note that over the past four years, Yahoo! has seen a 28% average increase in page views each year with an increase of 15% per year in earnings per page view. Dr. Nielsen explains, "These numbers show that it was about twice as important for Yahoo's growth to find out what users want as it was to increase the monetization ratio."

In other words, focusing on the user experience over the investor experience tends to make both groups happiest in the long run. For search marketers, there are three important types of user experiences to consider: the search engines, site visitors and the clients. Common sense search engine optimization meets the needs of both search engines and site visitors because spider-friendly navigation and content is often the easiest for human visitors to use.

At the Search Engine Strategies Conference happening this week in San Jose , Barry Schwartz writes an interesting report on the Converting Visitors Into Buyers session. Points made by the two speakers, Bryan Eisenberg and Mike Sack are well worth the read.

Savvy search marketers already know about push and call-to-action techniques that help direct traffic from index page to product page. Learning how live-users relate to navigation prompts and integrating that knowledge into SEO redesign or consultation can help search marketers boost their clients' conversions and ultimately, their own bottom lines.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Website Usability Leads to Conversions

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

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View this Article Only: Google's Bad PR Day

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Yahoo claims indexed database over 20-billion

Friday, August 05, 2005

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Study Shows Search Engine Variety

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

In June 2003, Google made one of the wildest moves in the history of the Internet by innovating on the paid-advertising idea originally conceived by Overture. Already the most popular tool among search engine users, Google gave website publishers a revenue generating gift that kept on giving. Google's great PPC innovation was to permit AdWords advertising to appear on private websites, splitting the click-through fees 50/50 with the private webmasters whose sites delivered traffic. By giving private webmasters the opportunity to generate incidental revenues by acting as billboards for AdWords, Google saw profits from AdWords skyrocket while Internet users became conditioned to accept the small and unobtrusive ads.

The paid-search advertising market is worth billions and is expected to be worth tens of billions in a few years time. Yahoo! is betting that market will support a growing network of small to medium sized online publishers who will in turn bring more revenues to Yahoo!. Google, which generates over 90% of its enormous revenues from the AdWords program, might face serious competition from Yahoo!, which currently receives about 60% of revenues from paid-advertising.

This week, Yahoo! released a beta-test version of a similar program known as the Yahoo! Publisher Network or YPN. Open to a limited number of testers, including StepForth News, the YPN is meant to compete directly with Google's AdWords program. The beta is open, for the most part to US based users only. StepForth is fortunate to be among the few non-US based beta testers.

Yahoo! has had two long years to study the AdSense model and appear to have adopted a unique publisher-focused philosophy offering small and medium sized publishers access to syndicated Yahoo! products and services in a bid to brand Yahoo! content as well as Yahoo! generated paid-advertising. In other words, Yahoo! is not only serving paid-ads to webmasters, it is also helping them bulk site content with Yahoo! products such as search, shopping, travel, RSS, user-option personalization featured, and eventually, Yahoo! syndicated music and video services.

"Yahoo! has developed many highly successful relationships with web publishers around the world, and is building on those experiences to bring new revenue sources and compelling content to even more high quality sites," said Bill Demas, senior vice president, Yahoo! Partner Solutions group. "By helping the broader publishing community maximize the value of their sites, we aim to create an even more rewarding Internet experience for publishers, advertisers and users."

Much like AdWords, YPN will be a revenue generator for webmasters by delivering advertisements that match the topic of the document they are placed on. The Content Match™ feature enables publishers to place Yahoo!'s contextually-relevant listings on their sites and receive a share of the revenue generated by them. For example, ads that might appear in future editions of the StepForth Newsletter would likely be about search engines, search marketing, blogs, and/or tools for SEOs and website designers. Contextually driven advertising is cool but, profitable as it is, PPC is not the full story behind the YPN.

The Internet is the backbone network of global communications. Currently facilitating shopping, travel bookings, entertainment and instant-research, the Internet has supplanted traditional tools such as television and radio because it can easily mimic both mediums while simultaneously performing a number of other functions. Users interface with the Internet via documents that are, for the most part, created and posted by small to medium sized publishers. Yahoo! has adopted a publisher focused outlook and is looking to place its brand on information and entertainment content offered (eventually) on tens of millions of websites.

As publishers from every medium understand, the key to success is in keeping a captivated audience. One of the more interesting features of the YPN will be access to Y!Q, a context-driven search tool which is also in beta-test. Y!Q is a Yahoo! search application that uses the topic of the document it is embedded in or a trigger-word set by the webmaster to present search results in a transparent overlay. The results shown in the overlay consist of images, two news stories, and the first three organic search listings. The logic is site users will stay on a document instead of opening another search window and traveling away from the site. Y!Q is an open-beta. Webmasters interested in using Y!Q on their sites should refer to the Y!Q for publishers page.

Other integrated features in the beta include, Add to My Yahoo and Yahoo Maps, showing an inclination towards local, mobile and personalized search results.

"Add to My Yahoo!" will help webmasters and publishers find their way onto user monitors and personalized search results via the Yahoo! branded RSS feed and subscription service. RSS stands for really simple syndication and is basically a XML feed that delivers fresh content to people who subscribe to it. As with Y!Q, Add to My Yahoo! is already available for webmasters and publishers.

The inclusion of Yahoo! Maps shows Yahoo!'s understanding that user or webmaster generated maps are extremely important for local and mobile search users. Yahoo! has recently introduced an API for Yahoo! maps allowing webmasters to place geographic information on Yahoo! generated maps.

Yahoo! timed the release of the YPN beta to coincide with next week's Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose. As beta testers, we will be using some of these features in future editions.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Yahoo! Publisher Network to Compete with AdSense

At the same time, Ask today announced they are reducing the number of ads appearing beside organic search results in a bid to increase user numbers as an April 27th article at ClickZ noted, "Significant user experience improvements were tested over the past two quarters, and implemented in April. Most notable is a 31-percent reduction of paid ads "above the fold." This brings up more natural search results from Jeeves' Teoma technology, which the company has found to lead to stronger user retention and increased frequency of use. The company feels long-term gains in site visits will offset any impact on revenue-per-query resulting from the move.

On Monday, Ask Jeeves announced the integration of AJinteractive, with IAC Partner Marketing, the advertising division of Ask owner, InterActive Corporation, to form IAC Advertising Solutions. IAC Advertising Solutions will focus on search, media and performance marketing with the massive branded resources of IAC as the foundation for a massive advertising network.

• premium placement on Ask Jeeves, Ask properties, and the IAC network,
• lower bid costs for prominent placement
• an easy to use, self-serve system

Ask Jeeves is the fourth most popular search engine in North America and one of the most popular in Europe. It has spent the last two years redefining itself and its search technology. When it was acquired by IAC earlier this summer, the pieces started to appear to fall into place. While the Sponsored Listing Program is not as sophisticated as Google's AdWords, it is a large step forward in closing the chasm between Ask Jeeves and its larger competitors.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Ask Jeeves introduces Paid-Placement Ad-Network

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Search marketers were surprised this morning by the announcement that three of the most influential publications in the search marketing sector had quietly been sold to new owners. Jupitermedia, publisher of Search Engine Watch and ClickZ Magazine, announced plans to sell its research, publishing and trade show divisions to UK-based publisher Incisive Media PLC for approximately $43million in cash. The timing of the announcement is interesting as it falls on the eve of the largest annual Search Engine Strategies conference, SES San Jose which opens next Monday (August 8th).

In 2004, Jupitermedia reported nearly $40million in revenues which translated into $23.6million in gross profits from its online media and search event divisions. It also reported revenues of $21.5million in the first half of this year.

Jupitermedia chair and CEO, Alan Meckler, who is interested in expanding the digital images and photography divisions of Jupiter, said the sale would help strengthen Jupitermedia's finances, making additional acquisitions possible. Currently, the digital image and photography market is dominated by Bill Gates' Corbis Images and Getty Images.

The sale is said to demonstrate the continued strength of the B2B publishing sector, at least as it relates to search marketing. Incisive Media says it will finance the purchase by releasing new shares to institutional investors and through increased debt facilities. It also says it wants to expand the number of SES tradeshows while expanding its reach in the North American search marketplace.

"The acquisition will allow Incisive Media to strengthen its footprint in the US and to roll-out the SES model across the territories in which the company currently operates," Incisive said in a media release.

Search Engine Watch is the home of search journalism pioneer, Danny Sullivan and his team of bloggers, journalists and SES organizers which includes Gary Price, Chris Sherman, and Elisabeth Osmeloski. In a post to the SEW forum, Danny expressed optimism over the sale stating that he and his team, "... are carrying on with our regular work as part of the deal. While the owners are changing, the quality content we aim to deliver to you is not. Overall, it's a good thing. Jupitermedia is concentrating on its images businesses, and the deal puts us with a new owner looking to expand the work we do."

Expansion of SEW's work seems to be in the works for Incisive as well. Incisive has announced it plans to organize a larger number of SES conferences in the future with a focus on the European and Asian markets as well as the North American market.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Jupitermedia sells Search Engine Watch, SES and ClickZ Magazine