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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Vampires are in Your Home!!

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 4:14 PM

an unrelated but sadistic looking vampire kitty!!!

You heard me right! There are items in your house ‘sucking a nickel of every dollar's worth of the electricity that seeps from your home's outlets’. The items I speak about are the ones in “standby mode”, such as your computer or any type of electronic waiting for the touch of a hand to fire it up. This includes rechargeable and trickle charge devices for cell phones, tools, toothbrushes, and any idle appliance such as an oven, dvd player or microwave that displays a clock.

An average household in the US will pay an additional $200 per year due to electronics on standby which is why The Vampire Slayer Act of 2006 has been approved by the California Assembly.

For ways to conserve energy I found this site to be of value and informative.

As for vampires in your home, they may be the ones shouting “Trick or Treat” at your door tonight.

Happy Hallowe’en from all of us at StepForth!

by Anita Sperrer, Office Manager

Ps. The picture of the kitty was added by Ross because... well a picture of a vampire kitty just seemed to work in his crazy Halloween-filled mind.

Labels: Fun, Other News, StepForth

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 4:14 PM.

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Google Shares on Fire

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 4:06 PM

Less than a month ago, On October 02, 2007, I wrote how Google shares were about to exceed the $600 mark. Web analyst Gene Munster had said in a report that he estimated the stock to exceed $660 within one year. I guess he was right.

In less than a month, Google shares have risen dramatically. Google stock has broken the $700 mark hitting as high as $707.00 on Wednesday afternoon. According to a simple Google search for "goog", the stock showed an all time high value of $707.00 as of 4:00pm ET time on Oct 31. That increase is simply amazing given only a short 29 day window.

To put this into prospective, an investor putting in $10,000 when the stock first went public at $85, would now see their shares valued at $83,176. So how high can Google’s stock go? According to the Associated Press, Dinosaur Securities analyst David Garrity is predicting a reach to $985 in 2008.

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 4:06 PM.

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Yahoo Algorithm Update Announced

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 3:56 PM

Today Priyank Garg of Yahoo announced that some changes to the Yahoo algorithm had been taking place over the past few days and will be completed soon. He has asked for feedback on the results... whether Yahoo will listen is another matter.

Labels: Algo, Ross Dunn, Yahoo

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 3:56 PM.

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WordTracker Promotion Extended

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 1:46 PM

StepForth is happy to announce that we have all been afforded an extension until November 30th on the great 15% discount for annual subscriptions to WordTracker. If you have not already signed up then follow the directions below:

Visit this link and enter the discount
coupon code us-annual-15 to get 15% off

What is WordTracker?
WordTracker is a phenomenal keyword research tool that allows subscribers to find out which keywords drive the most interest online. With this information in tow subscribers can change their SEO and pay-per-click keyword targets to make more money.

Labels: Coupon Codes, Other News, PPC, SEO News

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 1:46 PM.

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Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Twitter Gets a Guide

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 12:28 PM

My friend Jennifer Laycock suggested an article today that I am glad I checked out called "Twitter Guide Part #1" written by a blogging newcomer by the name of Caroline Middlebrook. It is a useful guide for an increasingly popular social property located at www.twitter.com.

Twitter has become so popular that it has, by its own nature, become a verb; "twittering" or "tweeting" is the act of 'telling' the world what you are doing at any given moment via instant messaging, mobile texting, or emailing.

When I first heard of Twitter I had much the same reaction as many of my friends and colleagues... "why would I want to send meaningless notes about my daily activities on a regular basis? It seems not only invasive but a waste of time and energy." Well I have to say that my reaction was more likely the result of social media startup overload than having put much thought into the marketing aspects of such a utility. The fact is that Twitter has become quite a marketing tool that is worth using if you are up to the task; I started using it today.

So how is Twitter a marketing tool? Well Jennifer Laycock noted a great example - CNN. CNN uses Twitter to publish news stories as they occur so that their Twitter community can be in touch with the latest events; a powerful tool for building and maintaining credibility. From my standpoint I plan on using Twitter to tell all which articles I find most interesting throughout my day and to perhaps post quick tips or links to articles we just posted on our blog. The trick to remember is that Twitter only allows 140 characters per 'tweet' so you have to be short and sweet; tweeting or twittering is aptly described as micro-blogging.

If you would like to learn more about Twitter then check out Caroline's Twitter Guide - it is a great introduction.

If you happen to signup for Twitter find me and join my community if you wish. I plan on having a lot of fun with it from now on :-)

Labels: Mobile, Ross Dunn, Social Marketing

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 12:28 PM.

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Monday, October 29, 2007

Matt Cutts Confirms Reason for PageRank Drop

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 1:42 PM

Loren Baker over at SearchEngineJournal.com announced that Matt Cutts had confirmed the PageRank update that happened last week was 'primarily' a response to link selling. No additional information was provided except that Google would be continuing to look "at additional sites that appear to be buying or selling PageRank."

If your sites's PageRank was damaged by this update Loren suggests taking a close look at your site and ironing out any wrinkles before asking for reconsideration via Google's Webmaster Tools. Be CERTAIN that your website is wrinkle free otherwise you may get yourself in hotter water if you tell Google to give your site special attention.

IMPORTANT
Remember that it is always wise to wait for the fallout to clear before making any considerable changes to your website in response to a search engine update. Often we find that when search results stabilize many falsely affected websites are automatically reinstated - at least partially. Here's hoping that the same happens this time around.

Labels: Google, Ross Dunn, SEO News

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 1:42 PM.

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Friday, October 26, 2007

Microsoft Jumping on the OLPC Bandwagon

Written by Timothy Rule and published at 3:31 PM

Hello all. My name is Tim Rule and I’m the most recent addition to the StepForth team. I believe my current title is “Gopher”, but I’m preparing to take over PPC management from Scott in the very near future.

I thought I’d take this opportunity to introduce myself to this blog by sharing an interesting thread I read in Slashdot this morning.

Not surprisingly, Microsoft has been fairly quick to recognize the long term threat to their dominant stature and have already taken steps towards addressing this.

With the XO not even released yet, I find it amazing the speed with which they have undertaken to insert themselves into this relatively recent initiative. It makes one wonder why they often seem so sluggish to resolve problems with their own products and yet find the energy to jump into new initiatives.

For those of you not familiar with the upcoming XO laptop you can learn more on this site.

Personally, I applaud this initiative and intend to pick up one of these myself. I can think of no globally worthwhile investment an individual can make to beat this. It is pretty hard to beat getting a warm, fuzzy feeling, a nifty new toy and a tax write off in one fell swoop.

I like the irony of the XO name as well.

Labels: Microsoft, New Tech, Tim Rule

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This SEO News was posted by Timothy Rule @ 3:31 PM.

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An Assortment of Interesting Stories for your Friday

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 12:01 PM

Here is a list of some articles that my staff and I came across today and thought worthy of sharing. Enjoy!

I, Cringely wrote an excellent article today describing Google's plans to host all of our applications. Cringely's insights are well founded in my opinion. This one is definitely well worth the read.
According to a mobile study released by Portio Research over half the worlds population will have a cell phone by 2009 and 75% of the population will have one by 2011.
"The Senate on Thursday night approved a seven-year extension of a moratorium on state and local taxes on Internet access." Honestly it is amazing to me that such a tax is even being considered - damn politicians!
"Google Inc. is confident that its $3.1 billion bid for online ad tracker DoubleClick will win over European and U.S. regulators." Personally I hope it doesn't go through simply because it has a very real possibility of giving Google a very damaging advantage over other search engines. I am still holding out hope that another player will steal more market share from Google because I prefer a more level playing field but I am well aware that is unlikely anytime soon.

And since we are approaching Halloween, here is something a little frightening for your day. A Zogby/463 Internet Attitudes poll states that 1 in 4 Americans feel the Internet is a decent substitute for a significant other for a period of time. Yikes. Oh and some other very interesting and occasionally boggling data was collected in the same poll so check it out for a laugh or two.

Labels: Google, Mobile, Online Statistics, Other News

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 12:01 PM.

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Wednesday, October 24, 2007

PPC Success in Five Steps

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 3:49 PM

There are a number factors involved in having a successful PPC campaign. These include everything from keyword selection, bid management, and campaign setup to your destination website. This article will discuss five of the most important areas: Keywords, Ad Copy, Destination URL’s, Organization, and Analysis.

1. Keywords
Having a successful PPC campaign starts off with keywords. While your keyword list will likely change and evolve over time, it is important to start with something that makes sense.

Base Keywords
First you will want to start off with your base keywords. These are any words you feel are relevant to your site. You may not end up using all of these in your PPC campaign but they will act as a stepping stone to finding other related phrases. Let’s say you own a camera shop. A few relevant keywords may include “digital camera” or “digital SLR”.

Modifiers
Use your base keywords and expand them with modifiers. Using the base examples above, you may want to use the camera resolution, or certain features as modifiers. You may even want to use words such as “discount” or “waterproof”. This could expand your phrases to “waterproof digital camera” or “discount digital SLR”.

Product brand names and model numbers are also valuable for paid search. Don’t forget to target your important brands, such as “Canon digital cameras” or “Nikon D200 digital camera”.

Also don’t forget about your location. If you offer sales from a traditional brick and mortar store, or if your geographic location is important for your visitors be sure to include keyword targets with variations of your location like “Seattle digital cameras”, or “Canon digital camera Seattle”, etc. You may also want to use other surrounding areas. As in the Seattle example, Everett, Tacoma and Bellingham may be appropriate.

Do not rule out long tailed search phrases. These are the phrases that contain multiple words and are often seldom searched. In many industries long tailed phrases are those that will offer you a relatively low cost per click and a very targeted visitor. “Canon digital rebel XTi” or “Canon digital rebel XTi Seattle” may be appropriate long tailed phrases for a camera shop. While these phrases will not likely draw a lot of traffic, if you send searchers using this phrase to a page about this camera, the likelihood of a conversion will go up considerably.

Negatives
Don’t forget about negative keywords, of which “free” is probably the most common negative keyword used. Using the camera shop example, you may also want to use brand names for cameras that you do not carry. If you don’t sell Casio, or Sony, using these as negative phrases will help cut some unqualified traffic. The same goes for pricing. If your products are more expensive than most, you may want to use “discount”, “cheap”, & “affordable” as negative words as well.

Eliminating
Before your ads go live, stand back and take a look at all the keywords you have come up with. Go through them and eliminate any that are too general or simply not focused enough. If you are selling cameras, the single word “camera” is essential to include as part of your longer phrases, however, as a stand alone phrase likely will not make much sense as it will be more expensive, less targeted, and as a result, less likely to convert. Remove any phrases that are simply too broad, or will not offer the right level of relevance.

More information can be found in the article Keyword Research for PPC.

2. Ad text
When it comes to ad text you not only want your ad to stand out, but you also want it to be highly relevant to the keywords and the destination page. Start by taking a look at some of the paid ads for keywords within your ad group and see what people are saying to draw the attention of shoppers. You may want to use phrases like “Cheap” or “Discount” in your ad text, but if you do this you better be sure that your products fit the bill. If the customer sees “discount” and your prices are too high, they will likely walk (or click) away.

Ensure that your target phrases are located within the ad title, description, or both wherever possible. Not only should your ad stand out, but you really want the searcher to see the direct relevance with what they have searched for. If your search phrase is “Canon Digital Cameras” and your ad doesn’t mention Canon at all, you will lose some searchers.

Also be sure to create multiple ad variations and run them against each other. If you see one is converting at a much higher rate, then create a new variation of that successful ad while pausing those that perform at a lower rate. This will help you focus in on what is working and improve your conversion rates.

Now that the major PPC platforms are using quality scores to rank ads and assign minimum bids you also want to ensure that your ad copy is highly relevant to the copy found on the destination page. This has always been important in terms of visitor retention and sales, but now that it plays a role in your cost per click, it is more important than ever.

3. Landing pages
This is really your first chance to sell the user. While you can hook them in and grab their attention with the ads, your landing page better sell your product or service or your chance of conversion will drop drastically. You want the visitor to be sold at this page; having them click all over the site will only increase the chances of having that back button clicked.

This is the page that you want to secure the sale. Ensure that this page is highly relevant to the ad and keyword selection (or on the flip side, ensure that your ad and keywords are highly relevant to this page).

Where it makes sense to do so you may also want to direct individual keywords to specific destination pages using the same set of ads, but remember though, make sure everything flows well. One example of where you may want to do this is if your ad mentions both Canon and Nikon digital cameras. Keywords including “Canon” should be directed at a Canon page, and those including “Nikon” should be directed at a Nikon page.

4. Organization
The organization of your PPC campaign is really dependant on your requirements as an advertiser. In most cases you will be able to get away with a single campaign broken down into multiple ad groups. Each ad group will focus on a set of similar key phrases and ads.

Using the camera shop example, you may have ad groups broken into brand names (Canon, Nikon, Sony), camera types (digital, digital SLR, 35mm), or a combination of, (Canon digital, Canon digital SLR, Canon 35mm).

By having your campaigns and ad groups properly organized you can save yourself time and headache when it comes to ensuring that your ad and keyword combinations are relevant and optimized.

Breaking your account into multiple campaigns can also be very useful. Let’s say you only want to spend a maximum of $10 a day promoting Canon, but have $20 a day budgeted for Nikon ads. In this case you would want your campaigns broken into brand, then each brand ad group could be broken into features, camera types, or whatever is appropriate for your needs.

Another prime example for multiple campaigns is geo-targeting. If you have ads relating to Seattle and some for Miami and you want the ads to appear locally only, then you can set up a campaign for each and assign the ad serving to the respective city.

There are many different scenarios to apply to account setup, but ensure that whatever direction you take it will allow for easy maintenance. One of the biggest mistakes you can make as an advertiser is dumping all your keywords into a single ad group, and serving up a single ad for all phrases. This lower relevance would result in higher cost per click rates, and lower click through and conversion rates.

5. Analysis
Be sure to check the conversion and click through rates of not only your ads, but your individual keywords. If you find that some keywords are simply not bringing you any sales you may want to consider pausing them, or making changes to improve their chances. This may involve setting up a new ad group and creating new ads more focused on the individual keyword, or it may be as simple as just adjusting the bid.

Conclusion – Keep it Relevant
If you take one thing away from this article it should be ‘keep it relevant’. Keeping everything highly relevant is the key to success. Not only will relevance result in lower cost per click rates, it will drastically increase the chances of a conversion and provide you with a higher return on investment. Ensuring that your keywords, ads, and destination pages flow seamlessly together will provide you with the best chance for success.

Labels: PPC, Scott Van Achte

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 3:49 PM.

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Google PageRank Update Could Punish Many

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 2:50 PM

Google has upgraded its PageRank algorithm and it has negatively affected a whole host of popular websites.

What does this mean for you? First I should note that no one REALLY knows the reason these sites have been affected. After all, it is possible these PageRanks were reduced for another reason but with all of the righteous posturing from Google over the past year over purchased links I think it is a fair assumption that paid link advertising is the culprit. So with that in mind, if you have a high number of reciprocal or paid links on your website then it is quite possible you will also see a drop in PageRank soon. You should also ensure your site does not have links to websites that may have a vastly lower reputation - penalty by association.

Have rankings been affected? No it does not seem that the PageRank penalty has affected rankings yet. But it is too early for anyone to know exactly what Google has in mind for the sites that have been negatively affected by this update. Logically, however, it make sense that the PageRank is a warning of sorts from Google that they are beginning their crusade on sites that benefit from paid links or have links to websites that have a negative reputation.

Stay tuned! I will keep you up to date on any related news as soon as I hear it.

Other Sources for this News

For now here is a short list of affected sites that Rand Fishkin over at SEOMoz compiled today.
Here is TechCrunch's view on Google's update

Labels: Algo, Google, Ross Dunn, SEO News

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 2:50 PM.

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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Google Provides More Control Over Search Results

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 3:40 PM

As of today Google will allow you to see and optionally disallow which links on your site have been identified as candidates for appearing as "sitelinks" directly in Google search results. (see Google's press release)

What are Sitelinks?
Sitelinks are shown when a website is considered a leader in a particular search term. The sitelinks are a list of key navigational links on the site and they appear below the standard website listing (see snapshot).

To view and manage your sitelinks, go to the Webmaster Tools Dashboard and click the site you want. In the left menu click Links, then click Sitelinks.

How is this Helpful?
First of all, only a lucky few will ever have a top ranking where sitelinks are shown so this is really just a feature for a small percentage of sites. That said, if your site is fortunate enough to have a sitelink list you may want to disallow links to areas within your site that may be out of date or that are under construction. It is also possible that allowing a particular sitelink may mess up your ideal sales funnel.

All-in-all, I think sitelinks is a great addition to the webmaster toolset and it is yet another example of Google listening closely to the webmaster community - kudos to them!

by Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Web Marketing Inc.
Celebrating 10 Years of Web Marketing Success

Labels: Google, Ross Dunn, SEO News, SEO Tips

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 3:40 PM.

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China Caught Redirecting Google and Yahoo Traffic to Baidu

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 2:27 PM

According to TechCrunch today it appears that China is hijacking traffic that is meant to go to Yahoo and Google and transfering it to Baidu.com; China's banner search engine rife with legally (in China) ripped music and thick with communist party censorship.

Out of interest I tried surfing China's network using a Chinese-based proxy. I tested the network and definitely found many websites that were "unavailable" but Google, Yahoo and MSN were not being redirected on my tests... I guess the Chinese filters are playing favourites intermittently.

Harvard posted an interesting study on Internet cencorship in China they conducted in 2002 called an "Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China". I find this topic fascinating and disturbing so it stole a little more time out of my day than I had expected. In the report they listed a sampling of sites banned in China along with the regularity in which they were blocked during their study. The list shows 126 websites including:

Labels: Baidu, Other News, Ross Dunn

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 2:27 PM.

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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Microsoft Releases New Live Search Features

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 4:45 PM

On Monday Microsoft announced a new set of features had been rolled out within their Live Search platform:

Microsoft Corp. today announced the final updates to the fall release of its Live Search service, introducing a broad array of new services and features to its local and mobile search offerings. The new features and enhancements are designed to make it easier for people to find what they need at home or on the go through significant innovations in mapping, imagery and driving directions as well as new services to make the mobile search experience easy and powerful.

For more info check out their news release.

Labels: Microsoft, Ross Dunn, SEO News

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 4:45 PM.

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Google Expands Analytics

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 2:20 PM

Google announced yesterday a few new features to be added to Google Analytics in the coming weeks. If you are a fan of statistics and currently use, or are considering Google Analytics, these features could certainly come in handy.

One new feature is the addition of tracking which outbound links visitors click when leaving your site. This feature is nothing new to the world of stats programs, and seems only fitting that Google is finally implementing this option. Other new additions include an "Events Tracking" section which is used for working on user interaction with embedded movies and widgets. Event Tracking and Outbound Link Tracking will begin in a limited beta with no date mentioned for a full release.

If you have Site Search enabled you will also be able to track what searches were performed, from which page, and where the visitor was directed.

Use of these new features will require the update of your on site Analytics JavaScript code; however, Google has also unveiled an extra little upgrade. This new JavaScript code will not need to be updated again in the future as new advancements are released.

Upgrading to the new JavaScript is not necessary if you are not interested in using the new features. The existing code will continue to work correctly into the foreseeable future.

Labels: Analytics, Google, Scott Van Achte

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 2:20 PM.

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StepForth's Weekly Newsletter - Important Bulletin

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 2:06 PM

This is an important bulletin for anyone who is currently subscribed to StepForth's Weekly SEO Newsletter.

This week we need a moment of your time to confirm that you still wish to continue receiving StepForth's weekly SEO newsletter. In addition, starting next week, we will be using a new premium mailing service to send out our newsletters. The service is called Constant Contact and it will allow us to provide the highest quality opt-in and opt-out email services that will ultimately protect your privacy at a whole new level.

If you wish to continue receiving the weekly SEO newsletter please resubscribe here; it is a simple two step process.

Until you resubscribe you will no longer receive our newsletter.

Thank you for your time and we hope you decide to continue to receive our weekly SEO newsletter.

Sincerely,

Ross Dunn
CEO / Founder
StepForth Web Marketing Inc.

Note: This notification was sent via email to subscribers but due to the importance of this bulletin it has been posted here in case subscribers happen to miss the email.

Labels: Ross Dunn, SEO News, StepForth

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 2:06 PM.

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Dogpile Outranks Google

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 2:03 PM

J.D. Power and Associated rated Dogpile with the highest rank in customer satisfaction among search engines for the second year in a row.

Based on 1,000 points, Dogpile earned a score of 818 this year, up 14 points from 2006. Google fell in second at 794, with Ask filling in the top 3 at 784 points.

Dogpile users report that they are particularly satisfied with the limits placed upon paid advertising within search results.

This study is in its fourth year and looks at overall consumer behavior, experience and satisfaction within a number of search functions.

While Dogpile has a long way to go in the major search engine race, it is nice to see an underdog (no pun intended) holding its own against the major search engines.

Labels: Ask, Google, MSN, Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 2:03 PM.

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dotMobi Domains Sell for Half Million

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 1:05 PM

Congratulations to the gang at dotMobi for their successful Moniker auction in Miami last Friday. I am extremely impressed with how much they made on these domains.

poker.mobi - $150,000
ringtones.mobi - $145,000
news.mobi - $110,000
shopping.mobi - $55,000
email.mobi - $50,000
buy.mobi - $32,500
podcast.mobi - $25,000
cash.mobi - $12,500
pda.mobi - $8,000
zipcodes.mobi - $8,000

As the governing body of .Mobi domains all of the money made will be re-invested into dotMobi's further product launches and promotions of this popular domain extension.

This is yet another indication that the .Mobi mobile website domain extension is here to stay and has a great many powerful supporters. If you haven't picked one up for your own brand then I highly recommend doing so quickly. The news is getting out! And no, I am in no way profiting from this recommendation... I just love the concept and I am 100% behind it.

Read up on mobile news, and mobile website creation and optimization:

by Ross Dunn, StepForth Web Marketing Inc.
Celebrating 10 Years of Web Marketing Excellence

Labels: Mobile, Ross Dunn

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 1:05 PM.

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Monday, October 15, 2007

Study Shows Social Networkers Love to Shop

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 1:10 PM

Today comScore released the results of an interesting study that clearly identifies social networking environments as great places to advertise for leisure products and apparel. If you have ever wondered whether social marketing was worthwhile then this study should pique your interest.

More Details

Big thanks to comScore for publicly releasing the results of this interesting study. There is nothing like reputable stats to impress the importance of emerging marketing tactics.

Labels: Online Statistics, Ross Dunn, Social Marketing

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 1:10 PM.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Study Shows Social Networkers Love to Shop

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Wednesday, October 10, 2007

How to Optimize for Ask

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 1:54 PM

Ask’s portion of the search market is a mere 4.3% (src. Hitwise) so it is understandable that optimizing for Ask is a low priority in the eyes of many webmasters. That said, despite the company’s rather infamous advertising campaigns Ask has some incredible and unique features that I believe will slowly but surely steal search share from its more popular brethren. Consequently, it seems appropriate to provide some tips on how to optimize for Ask without sacrificing rankings on the other search engines. To that end the following instructions are supplementary to the recommendations provided in my “How to Optimize for Yahoo” article.

ASK OVERVIEW

Ask differs from the other search engines because it has fully rolled-out universal search. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this term universal search is the integration of results from a variety of sources (i.e. images, video, local information, news, blogs, etc.) into a single results page. Although Google has implemented universal search to some extent Ask is the first search engine to leap head-first into these complex waters and they have done a great job of it. Since universal search is slowly going to be rolled-out across Google, MSN and Yahoo, Ask is a great place to prepare for the competitive world of universal search. The areas I will cover are images, blogs and feeds, local search and mobile.

ASK IMAGE OPTIMIZATION

Just how do you get an image to show up within Ask.com’s universal search results? The key is to remove any doubt of the image’s relevance to the keyword you are trying to achieve rankings for.

Alt tags need to be created and must clearly represent the topic of the picture while utilizing the target keyword.

The content nearby the image should be relevant to the picture and for best results should include the keyword used to describe the picture in the Alt tag.

The filename of the picture should utilize the keyword.

ASK’S LOCAL SEARCH: ASKCITY

AskCity is Ask’s local portal where various maps and locally themed content (such as event news, theatre tickets, etc.) can be readily found. AskCity was launched in December 2006 as a far superior upgrade over Ask Local and it remains a solid leader in the growing and highly competitive local search marketplace. Fortunately having a presence at AskCity only requires that your business is added to their database if it is not already there.

How to Submit Your Business to AskCity

Submit your business information to askcitybusiness@help.ask.com with the subject line “Ask City Feedback – Business”. Ensure the following information is added to the email:

Business name and complete address
Phone number
The category your business best fits
The website URL
A contact person’s email address

According to Ask the turnaround time is no more than 28 days.

Tip! You might notice that your business profile (once it is online) has a rating system attached to it; shown as a five star system. If you wish to influence your rating then I suggest sending your happy customers to CitySearch, Yelp.com, and Insiderpages where these results are drawn from. Once they are there have them find your listing and provide a positive review of your business.

MAXIMIZING VISIBILITY IN ASK BLOGS & FEEDS

Ask is the proud owner of Bloglines which is one of the foremost news aggregation tools on the web and happens to be the database behind Ask Blogs and Feeds. To ensure that your blogs and feeds are included in this system I suggest creating an account at Bloglines and be sure to include your feed within the profile.

In order to have any chance of influencing your position within Ask Blogs and Feeds you need to be aware of a couple things. First, the order of results within Ask’s Blogs and Feeds is determined by a combination of Ask’s ExpertRank algorithm (their intensive search engine algorithm) and Blogline’s vast 12 million plus blog database. Ask uses this combination to create the first order of results which is dictated by relevance; not by date which is the most common first viewing at Ask’s competitors. Consequently, it is important that you pay close attention to the relevance of the keyword density in your title, body and links within each post you write on your blog. By keeping your ideal keyword ranking in mind while writing your posts you will have a better chance of obtaining a ranking based on relevance.

Secondly, aside from ordering results by relevance and date (noted as “most recent”), Ask also offers a sorting by popularity. I can only postulate how this works but it makes good sense that a popularity ranking is derived from a mingling of Ask’s monitoring of the stickiness of certain articles (how long users stayed at an article before returning) and how many times a feed and/or a post is accessed within the multitude of user accounts at Bloglines. Considering these factors it stands to reason that creating a sticky blog post is the clearest and most obvious first requirement. The second requirement would be to get active in the Bloglines community and try to spread the word about your quality blog(s) throughout your community. The more people that add your blog feed to their Bloglines profile and interact with it, the better chance you have of achieving a top spot when results are ordered by popularity.

ABOUT ASK MOBILE

Ask Mobile utilizes ExpertRank and appears to be based on Ask’s standard website database. This may seem odd at first. After all, how can Ask provide mobile users with full size websites? The trick lies in their use of Skweezer technology that squeezes normally unwieldy websites into more digestible one column sites for mobile users. It may seem that there is nothing that can be done then to influence mobile rankings at Ask. Not true, the answer lies within the fact that Ask Mobile is focused on providing local results to cell users while they are on the go. With that in mind it makes sense that you improve your website’s odds of being found by ensuring it has a comprehensive listing in AskCity.

Tip! If locally based results are extremely attractive to you then I also suggest adding your physical address information within the footer of every page so that Ask and other locally focused search engines have a better chance of associating your website with a region.

SITEMAPS ARE CRITICAL

Ask’s spider is the least active of the big 4 search by far. When reviewing client spider reports I see Ask visiting websites 50% less or more than MSN, Yahoo and Google. In fact on many websites that have not yet added a sitemap or have less than ideal site structures Ask often does not even index pages deep within their website(s). As a result, submitting a sitemap to Ask is critical if you want your deep content to be properly indexed.

First create a sitemap. On StepForth’s recommended SEO tools page we noted our favourite tool currently: Vigos Google Sitemap Generator. Download this free utility and have it spider your website. Once it is complete set whatever custom data you want (info is provided within the program) and then generate the sitemap.xml file. Place this file within the root of your website and move to step 2.

To submit your sitemap to Ask you have two options: add a link to the sitemap into your Robots.txt file or simply inject your sitemap.xml address into the following URL and then visit it:

http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http%3A//www.the URL of your sitemap here.xml

Of the two options I strongly recommend going the route of adding the sitemap auto discovery link to your robots.txt file because this is now an agreed method of submitting a sitemap amongst the major search engines. Just place the following code on its own line within your robots.txt file:

SITEMAP: http://www.the URL of your sitemap here.xml

USING ASK AS A RESEARCH TOOL

Ask has a helpful resource included in its universal search layout called “narrow your search”. Try typing in your keyphrase in Ask and then take a look at the narrow your search section of the page. There you will see popular searches that are relevant to your keyphrase. Record this information when conducting keyword research because it is a valuable glimpse into what Ask’s ExpertRank algorithm considers closely relevant and it may also show what users are actually searching for.

OTHER INFORMATION

There are a few personality traits that you should be aware of when working with Ask that are quite unique:

Ask does not currently support the “nofollow” tag which could mean that any link leaving your website is considered a vote of confidence for the destination site.

Ask utilizes a site/content preview window for each listing it presents; represented by a binocular icon. Since users may use this tool to get a glimpse of your site before visiting it is more important than ever to ensure the content above the fold (that appears first without scrolling) is enticing to users and relevant to their search.

CONCLUSION

I am solidly impressed by the technology at Ask and its successful foray into the realms of universal search. In fact, my research for this article has moved Ask from a bystander in my set of daily search tools to the forefront. I highly recommend utilizing Ask for your search needs and to keep an eye out for future technology additions to this solid search engine. In my opinion Ask is cutting edge enough that we can expect many search engines will be copying their successful implementations in the future.

Now… if only Ask could get the positive attention it deserves. If I were them I would start by creating a stronger connection with webmasters to interact with them and build awareness. That would be far more effective than the ad campaigns they are currently flooding the airwaves with.

Are you an Ask fan? If so, what do you think they need to do to improve their visibility? Post your thoughts by commenting on this article and perhaps Jim Lanzone and his crew will get a helpful tip or two.

by Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Web Marketing Inc.
Celebrating 10 Years of Web Marketing Excellence

Labels: Ask, Ross Dunn, SEO, SEO News, SEO Tips, Tutorials

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 1:54 PM.

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15% Discount on WordTracker - Compliments of StepForth

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 12:37 PM

Wordtracker is a fantastic tool for researching keywords to prepare for an optimization campaign OR to compile an unbeatable list of top searched phrases for your pay-per-click campaign.

To that end, we would like to offer you a fantastic deal: 15% off a subscription to Wordtracker. The offer allows a 15% discount on one month or even one year and it includes a 30 day money back guarantee.

Just click on the link and insert the appropriate code below to get this special discount:

Monthly discount: us-affiliate-monthly-2007 (link)
Annual discount: us-affiliate-annual-2007 (link)

The offer expires October 31st, 2007. Enjoy your membership and thank you for reading the StepForth SEO Blog.

Labels: Press Releases, Ross Dunn, SEO News

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 12:37 PM.

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Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Minor Updates to Yahoo's Panama

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 12:36 PM

Yesterday, Yahoo announced in the Yahoo Search Marketing Blog, a few updates to the Panama platform have been released making life slightly easier.

Custom Reports
Yahoo now allows advertisers to create custom reports and set up a report scheduler. These reports are available in XML, TSV, CSV or Excel. This is a feature that has long been a part of Google AdWords and is a welcome addition to YSM.

Lateral Navigation
Before whenever you wanted to switch from one AdGroup to the next you had to jump back to the main campaign page. Moving from one to the next was quite inconvenient. Now with the new previous and next links at the top right, moving from one item to the next is much easier and faster. This feature works on the campaign, ad group, and keyword levels. It would be also nice if Yahoo could take this one step further and simply provide a dropdown menu visible on the campaign and ad group levels that would allow you select the specific group desired.

Calendar Date Range
Under the calendar drop down when selecting a date range, “Today” has also been added as a preset option. Often the results for the current day are incomplete, but if you want to see where you stand this does make it much quicker then entering a custom date range for the current day.

While there are still many features needing improvement within the YSM interface, these few adjustments are certainly a step in the right direction.

Labels: PPC, Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 12:36 PM.

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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

The Top Websites in U.K. and France

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 9:39 AM

Today comScore released the latest statistics on the top websites in the United Kingdom and France for the month of August. This information provides a revealing glimpse into the minds of prospective European clientele.

Note: For more information or an interpretation of any stats click on the link below each image to visit the source page.

The results for each country are shown below:

more info on this chart

Additionally the report provided charts for each of the properties that have seen the highest gains in traffic in comparison to the previous month (July 2007):

more info on this chart

Labels: Online Statistics, Other News

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 9:39 AM.

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Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Google Stock to Exceed $600

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 12:04 PM

It all started with a value of $85 a share back in 2004. Since then Google has spent literally Billions upon Billions of dollars snatching up businesses and expanding its overall online presence. Now, after roughly 3 years, it's about to surpass the $600 mark.

According to Bloomberg, at 1:54pm today (New York Time), shares rose $12.90 up to $595.45. Web analyst Gene Munster said in a report yesterday that he estimates stock will reach $660 within a year.

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 12:04 PM.