StepForth SEO News Blog - by Ross Dunn and Scott Van Achte

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Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Ins and Outs of Local Search

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 2:21 PM

As the population with internet access explodes, and more and more people are using search engines to find what they need, the usage of local search also continues to rise. For any sites servicing a local or specific geographic audience, submission to local search based engines is becoming more and more important.

What is it?
In a nutshell local search involves the use of specialized search engines specifically created to focus on a selected geographic region to find local businesses and websites focused on your area.

Local search is commonly utilized as a directory, where users select their location, and narrow their search by categories till they find the listing they want. In many cases local search engines also guess at the users’ location by using their IP, so when you visit the site and search, for example, “Chinese restaurants” you automatically see results specific to your location.

Google has been doing this for a while to one degree or another. When you perform a search in Google using a geographic modifier the map comes up with results specific to that location. You can also take it one step further and search Google Local specifically.

But Google isn’t the only engine out there focused on local search. There are several of these directories ranging from the better known Best of the Web, right down to small town specific websites offering local search options. You even may find a web directory or guide specifically created for your city, and chances are, it will be a great place for you to submit your site.

Many local directories are free for basic listings along with paid advanced listing options.

Who needs it?
Local search is ideal for anyone serving a specific region, especially those with brick and mortar stores. While you do not necessarily need a physical location, some local search directories, including Google Local, require that you do.

Only recently have small local businesses realized the need to be found in the major search engines. I know that if I am personally looking for a bike tune-up, the first place I turn to is online, to find the various bike shops in my area, if at very least, I search online to find their contact info. I can’t remember the last time I picked up a phone book. As the internet grows in popularity, there are more and more people like me who use it exclusively to find what they want, local or otherwise. For businesses not found within the various local search sites, they are missing out on a growing piece of their market.

Considering the limited expense in getting listed in local search directories, traditional brick and mortar business can’t afford to not be listed, it’s quickly becoming a necessity.

Why bother?
With more people using these directories, and the incredibly low cost of “free” involved in being listed in many of them, it only makes sense to get listed. These directories, even the lower traffic ones, are a great free source of relevant traffic and the few minutes required to submit to them (usually around 10 minutes or so) only needs to result in a very small handful of site visitors to make it worthwhile.

Where to get listed?
When it comes to local search there are a few places you don’t want to miss such as Google Local. Many local search directories are country specific, so try your searching by using your country name; such as, “Canadian business directory”.

Try to focus your efforts on finding local directories that not only focus on your geographic region, but also offer you something in return.

How to decide if a directory is worthwhile
There are 5 main factors you need to consider when choosing to submit to a local search directory.

Location
What geographic regions does the directory serve? Do they serve your location?
Relevance
Does a relevant category exist? When you navigate to your appropriate category, are the other business listings relevant to your business? Some local directories may focus only on one industry, such as hotels. If the theme of the directory will not cater to your industry, you certainly don’t need to be listed there.
Price
How much does the directory charge? If it is free, it’s most likely worthwhile. If there is a cost associated with the listing, you need to know more to find out if it’s money well spent (which is where the next two points come in).
Traffic
Does this directory have much traffic? The quickest way to get a rough idea on this is to check their Alexa rating. Alexa is a rough indicator of how busy a site is, the busier the site, the closer their ranking will be to 1. If the site looks like it has very limited traffic, then you need to find out if the listing will have any SEO benefits if you are to spend any money here. (A low traffic free directory is likely still worthwhile however.)
SEO
Will your listing help you with your organic rankings? This is relatively simple to find out. You want to first check the Google Page Rank for their home page. If it is low (less than 5) then this is not one of the major directories. If it is between 5 and 10, then they likely have some authority. Next check the page your listing will actually reside on. Is this page indexed by Google, and does it have any Page Rank? If so, is the link back to your site search engine friendly?

Many local search directories may link to your site using the rel=nofollow tag, or by redirecting through a variety of tracking methods, which can cause your link to have no value in terms of SEO. However, some of them will give you a straight link fully readable by Google, so you will also get the added benefit of increased link density from many of these links. Some directories will also create a brand new page just for you. In that case, your page will not be indexed by Google and will have no Page Rank, but in time, it will. If this is the case, check a few of the listings to see if their pages are indexed.

If Google can not see this link, it has no SEO value. If the directory has no SEO value, and no traffic, it is not worthwhile to pay for this submission. (That said, if it’s a free listing, you may as well list your site there.)

How can I get listed?
Unlike organic SEO, getting listed in a local directory is often as simple as finding the local directories that are relevant and submit your site. Once you have decided that a directory is worthwhile, filling in a few online forms and submitting payment where applicable is all it takes. Most paid local directories will have your listing posted within a few days, if not immediately. Free directories can take anywhere form a couple of days to several weeks, depending on their policies, etc.

StepForth will soon be offering a Local Search service, so stay tuned to see what we can do for you.

Labels: Local Search, Scott Van Achte, SEO

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 2:21 PM.

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Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Google Sells Organic, Prepares for Acquisition

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 6:25 AM

For years now, Google and Yahoo have been making a significant portion of their income on the paid sponsored ads to the right of the search listings, and that is about to expand. Google has recently discovered a loop-hole in anti-trust legislation which will allow for the ultimate sale of organic rankings - the catch – they must partner with Yahoo.

Current laws do not allow for paid sponsorship of unlabeled organic listings; however Google has found a way around this – by spidering and indexing paid listings at competing site Yahoo, and including them within their own search results.

Google will soon start to spider and index select ads posted through the Yahoo Search Marketing platform, and rank them within Google’s own organic results. These paid ads will be given an artificially high ranking and will appear at the top of the organic results – appearing as free listings to searchers. Google will receive 80% on the per-click spend; this in itself may sound great, but it barely scratches the surface.

In order for Yahoo Advertisers to open up their ads to Google, they will need to pay a monthly service fee, of which Google will take the lion’s share. While the actual dollar amount for these fees has not been officially released, industry experts are anticipating the flat rate fee to be well in excess of $10,000/month - a small price to pay for first place ranking in a competitive industry.

It is expected that the increased revenue from this initiative will result in a boost in Google’s market value by as much as 30% in as little as a year; however, this may be an understatement given a 21% jump in Google’s stock shortly after markets opened this morning (increasing by $81.01 to $424.37).

This is only one of a number of plans that Google has for the very near future in order to ramp up its overall market value. With a looming sale to occur in April of 2010, Google wants to ensure that they get top dollar. Earlier this week, the next phase of buy-out negotiations was reported between Google and the White House with an agreement in principle that the US government will pay fair market value in April of next year.

Google has become one of the biggest players in the technological world, but lesser known is its growth as a high-level power in the political world and the US government wants control of this power. This potential government acquisition of the search giant is no big surprise given the extensive bank of in-depth information Google has amassed over the years.

"Google has been selling information to the US government now for several years," Frederick Grinder, head of Google's Secret Search Team, noted in a press conference early this morning. "An acquisition seems like a natural step."

Several years ago, Google was fined $15.5 Billion by the World Court for unleashing a virus-like spider that infiltrated many world-wide government databases and amassed an immense amount of sensitive information. (You didn’t thing that Google actually paid $2.2 billion for YouTube, $3.1 billion for DoubleClick, and billions more for others did you? These were merely cover-ups for the fine). While part of the court order was to have this data permanently deleted, many conspiracy theorists believe that Google still holds all this information, and the US government wants unrestricted access. The only way to secure this access is through full ownership of Google.

You’ve probably heard of Google Webmaster Tools, well Google also has Google People; A complex database consisting of confidential information on the vast majority of the world’s population accessible only to those with high-level clearance. Google knows what you bought using your super market discount card, they know what you charge to your Visa, they know your SSI and all your personal numbers, and they have all your internet passwords. For the US government to have access to all this same information they can significantly expand their anti-terrorism campaign which began during the Bush administration.

"With the help of our top secret satellite imagery and foreign personnel files we were instrumental in the capture of Saddam Hussein – with unrestricted access there is no telling how far the US can go to increase the safety of our nation," Grinder went on to say.

We will continue to keep you informed as this story develops. In the mean time, have a wonderful April 1st.

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 6:25 AM.

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Friday, March 27, 2009

Web Position Gold and the Keyword Visibility Index

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 3:16 PM

As many of our readers know, Web Position Gold (WPG) is a tool used to check search engine rankings. It does other things, but its reporting feature is all we use. It does a good job of managing multiple accounts and reporting rankings compared to many other choices on the market.

Some SEOs believe that position reports are useless, and while I understand their arguments, there is no denying that clients want to see this information. I am not going to argue the pros and cons about position reporting; this post is not about that. Here I am going to explain a specific chart that appears on the WPG reports, and my advice to WPG on how to improve on it.

One of the most common questions clients ask about position reports is the purpose of the “visibility index” graph that WPG displays, and how it is calculated.

How the Keyword Visibility Index Works
Essentially each ranking position is given a score, with the values increasing as you approach the #1 position. For instance, a #1 ranking gets a score of 30, with a #2 ranking getting a score of 29, and so on down to a score of 1 for the 30th position. If you have two phrases being checked in one search engine, one with a ranking in the #1 position and the other ranking in the #10 position, the score would be 30 + 21 = 51. (See Figure 1.0 below)

WPG calculates the maximum possible score (all phrases ranking #1 in all engines) divided by the actual score, to get a percentage. 100% would represent all phrases ranking #1. In the example above, two phrases in one engine would have a maximum possible score of 60, so the score would be 51/60, or 85%.

Generally, the closer your score is to 100%, the better your rankings. The problem with this is that there is one major hole that renders this visibility index nearly useless, and that is not being able to factor in the individual importance of each specific target phrase.

Fundamental Error with the Keyword Visibility Index
(This is where things get a little more complicated)
Let’s look at Figures 1.0 & 1.1 above. In Figure 1.0 the score is 85%. Now assume that PhraseA is very important, and PhraseB is of significantly lesser importance. If later we run a new report and see that the ranking for PhraseA has dropped down to #9, and PhraseB has jumped up to #1. The end result is a higher visibility score, up now to 87%. The end score reflects a positive change, but if PhraseA is significantly more important, these new rankings are actually worse.

The same can happen in reverse. Good phrases can increase in ranking while bad ones drop, resulting in a reduced score, where in fact the rankings actually are more favorable.

While an increase in this score is generally a good thing, not enough information is used to determine at a glance, if the campaign results have actually improved.

Potential Fix
There are likely numerous ways to correct this, but one idea stands out in my mind. By introducing a variable into the algorithm that determines the importance of each individual keyword, this could solve the problem. End users could enter in a value between 1 and 10, 10 being most important, to indicate how critical each keyword phrase is. By dividing the user entered score by 10, a multiplier between 0 and 1 could be generated behind the scenes.

If a user gives a value of 10 for a specific phrase, then that phrase will retain its full value as calculated by WPG. If they enter a 5/10, then the end score for that phrase will be multiplied by 0.5 (or halved). Phrases with a value of 0, would not contribute to the end score at all.

By doing this, the end result would be much more reflective of the actual rankings. As you can see in Figures 2.0 and 2.1 below, when the important PhraseA drops, and the less important PhraseB increases, the total score also drops, indicating that overall campaign is not doing as well. With this change users could, at a glance, have a better impression of how their campaign is doing with the comfort of knowing there is an extra level of accuracy.

I want to point out that I am not a programmer, or a mathematician. I would not be surprised if there were holes in my potential fix; however, I am certain, that some kind of variable to indicate importance would make WPG’s Keyword Visibility Index much more useful. Another, much more complicated method could be to have WPG automatically grab the search frequencies for each phrase and sort according, then apply importance values behind the scenes, or perhaps even a combination of this and my user entered idea. There may be even other better ways. This post is merely a suggestion to WPG on one way to improve their product.

I welcome the feedback of any WPG staff or users to chime in on what they think, so be sure to leave a comment. I will also happily accept any royalty checks should WPG successfully use my idea. :-)

Labels: Scott Van Achte

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Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Google Implements Two New Improvements

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 10:31 AM

Google announced yesterday morning over at the two improvements they have made to the search results. These improvements include more refined results for specific searches, and longer snippets for long tail searches.

Search Refinements

This refinement will allow Google to offer more “related searches” for various queries that users perform. Now when you do a search in Google, at the bottom of the results there is small section of links titled “Searches related to:” These are links to other related searches.

This addition expands Google’s ability to recognize related searches and as a result will now not only give more suggestions to users, but (hopefully) increase the relevance of its suggestions.

Impact on SEO

This change is relatively minor when it comes to SEO but does have some impact. With this refinement, Google shows other key phrases that it deems relevant to the initial search. This can be used to help refine your keyword research.

If you are interested in ranking for a particular phrase, do a search in Google and investigate the phrases Google notes in the "related to" section. You may find valuable keyword targets here worth pursuing. Including these phrases within your site may also help Google relate your site to the initial phrase and could help with your search rankings. This is something that one was able do before the upgrade, but now, these suggestions will likely be more refined and valuable.

Longer Snippets

Previously Google search descriptions were limited in length to around 150 characters. Now when you perform a longer search query of more than three words, the snippet is expanded considerably. I have noticed snippets as long as 413 characters, but some may be longer. This change was made to help people recognize relevant results when more detailed searches are performed, and in some cases provide the information that someone is searching for right within the result pages.

Impact on SEO

Longer snippets will not likely play a big role when it comes to getting a site ranked, but it may very well help determine if a ranking is clicked by a searcher or not. With these longer site descriptions appearing it will be that much more important to ensure that the description Google is using is appropriate for the search phrase.

If you find yourself ranking in the top 10 for a particular phrase but are not happy with the description, do what you can to help guide Google to use something more appropriate to entice users to click on the listing. This will give you a little more opportunity to attract visitors and perhaps make a few extra sales.

You may be able to find some insight by checking out your site's analytics for long tail phrases driving traffic from Google. Search for these phrases in Google and see what your description looks like and take it from there.

These two new improvements to the Google search results really play only a minor role in the big picture of SEO, but as with all adjustments they can contribute to your site's overall performance. In this case the main impact is in getting the right users to your site. If you take these two changes into consideration when you are working on improving your site's visibility it may help improve your overall SEO campaign results.

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 10:31 AM.

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Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Financial Times Launches Newssift - a New Seach Engine

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 12:38 PM

A new search engine, Newssift beta was recently launched by the Financial Times Group in an attempt to attract business users to search. It allows users to build incredibly specific queries to help return very specific and relevant results. Newssift also tend to focus on business oriented sources, including magazines, blogs, newspapers and other credible sources to help maintain higher quality results.

The site will be supported financially by the sale of ad space down the right hand side of the search results. Currently these ads are not contextually driven based on a user's search, but plans for the change are in the works for a future release.

As you enter in your search term, sub categories are displayed to help you narrow your search. Clicking on a topic under “business topics”, “organization”, “place”, “person” or “theme” will help you to narrow your search accordingly, or you can simply click "Go" to see results from all categories.

Next to the results returned they have also included a “Sentiment” pie chart that shows the break down of the results. A search for “google” brought up about 45% positive, 29% neutral, and around 25% negative stories. You can then click the pie chart and see only stories with the corresponding sentiment.

Beneath this is the “Article Sources” pie chart. Here you can select from “online news”, “blogs”, “newspapers”, or whatever other source you would like to narrow your search down by. If you want to see only positive blog posts about Google you’ll find about 1800 articles.

Another handy feature is the ability to search within your results, a feature not as easily done with the major search engines.

Selecting the timeframe of results within your search criteria is easily done and a welcome feature. If results from today only, or perhaps a specific past date or date range interest you, it’s as simple as selecting the appropriate timeframe.

I have read a few reviews about the site where it is noted as being ugly and somewhat cumbersome to use, but personally I found it to be fairly straightforward, and surprisingly, I somewhat liked the look. While it is not as simple as doing a search at Google, the increased functionality is very welcomed in easily narrowing down the search to the specific types of articles you are looking to read.

For anyone researching a specific news story, Newssift may make finding some of information you are after considerably faster and easier. I personally am not a big fan of the search engine's name, I would prefer something easier to say, “newsfilter” for example (but that’s already been taken by a domain squatter). Overall some of the features found in Newssift would be perfect if integrated within Google News – perhaps an acquisition will be in order sometime in the future.

Labels: Other Engines, Scott Van Achte

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 12:38 PM.

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Monday, March 16, 2009

Blogs, WordPress and Google

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 9:05 AM

It's no secret that a continually updated website with new content being added regularly stands a good chance of doing well in Google. One of the long standing methods to regularly expand a site's content is through the use of a blog.

While there are numerous platforms to choose from for managing a blog, few can compare with the immense flexibility offered with WordPress, and at a cost of free, the price can't be beat either.

Google likes fresh new content, and setting up a blog on your site, assuming it is updated often with interesting and relevant material, can be one of the best things you can do to help out your search rankings. The beauty behind WordPress is that there is a wide array of totally free plug-ins you can easily install that will make your blog totally search engine friendly.

The following are some basic guidelines and essential plug-ins you should consider when you install your WordPress blog.

Template Design
The first configuration you need to do is work on customizing the design template to match your existing site. I suggest finding a template that matches as closely as possible to the look you are going for then work on tweaking its graphics, colors, and other particulars till you achieve the desired appearance.

Most of your changes will occur in the header.php, footer.php, index.php, and page.php files in the theme editor, however, the theme you install will dictate which files actually need to be updated. You will also need to make some adjustments to your CSS file. These changes all involve working with code and graphics, and are most likely left to a professional.

Once you have your design set up, the rest of the customization is considerably less technical. The following are suggestions that most people can do themselves and you probably will not need an expert to help you here.

Settings

Permalinks
The next thing you need to do is customize your URL's. You do not want the default post URLs ("pageid=#") as they are simply not search friendly and you want your default names to have some meaning to them. While you can customize your URL's with various plug-ins, you may not always think to do this, so be sure to have a default you can live with.

Under the settings tab in your dashboard, click on permalinks. Here I suggest choosing one of the settings that includes the post name. Including the month and year is totally optional as it will have little to no impact on your search rankings, but you definitely do want to include the post name.

WWW or no WWW
With WordPress, there is no need to worry about the www vs no www redirects. It is handled for you, but you do need to select which variation you want, and it's very simple to do. Under "General Settings" you will see two fields; one for "WordPress address" and the other, "Blog address". Ensure that both these fields include the "www" (or not), whichever you prefer, and that's it. (I always recommend using the "www" version of your URL as most people linking into your site will use it, and this will help keep a consistency among your site.

Required Plug-ins
There is an almost endless supply of free plug-ins out there that you can add to your site ranging from photo galleries and spam protection, to social media integrators for Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and others. While many of these others will benefit your blog and search rankings, the XML Sitemap, and SEO plug-ins are truly essential.

SEO Plug-in
When setting up your new installation, the first plug-in you need to install is one that will allow for totally customized title, meta description tags, and page URL's. There are a number of tools that do this ranging from the widely popular "All in One SEO Pack" to a relative newcomer "HeadSpace2".

While I personally have yet to try HeadSpace2, it is high on my list, as it has been recommended by many industry professionals as the best WordPress SEO plug-in. For any new blog installation I highly recommend this plug-in be installed right away.

XML Sitemap Plug-in
To the best of my knowledge, HeadSpace2 does not have an XML sitemap option, and as such I highly recommend "Google XML Sitemaps". This plug-in will automatically generate XML sitemaps for you on the fly and submit it to Google every time you add, remove, or update a page or post. This helps ensure that Google has the latest information at all times. It's a very simple plug-in to install and configure and once setup, you can forget about it and it will do the job for you.

A well optimized site loaded with relevant content can do very well in Google if setup correctly. The power of WordPress can make this process incredibly easy so all you have to worry about is writing those great articles and selling your customers. The plug-ins and functionality of WordPress are endless and when installed correctly can make the optimization of your blog considerably easier, increasing your chances for top rankings.

Labels: Blogs, Google, Scott Van Achte

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 9:05 AM.

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Monday, February 16, 2009

Air Miles Offered for Yahoo Searches

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 9:01 AM

For all our Canadian readers out there, if you find yourself collecting Air Miles, searching Yahoo may help you get that free flight just a little bit quicker.

The Air Miles Yahoo Toolbar was recently launched, and for every 50 searches performed using the Air Miles toolbar you will earn 5 Air Miles, up to a maximum of 30 Air Miles per month.

For card holders who do not have enough Miles to redeem their rewards, Air Miles offers the option to purchase additional miles at 30 cents each. When we break down the math, that means that for every Yahoo search preformed using this toolbar, you will get a $0.03 value in return - (5 Air Miles * $0.30 / 50 searches = $0.03) - getting paid to search, it's about time!

As a search marketer I tend to search Yahoo fairly often, not as much as Google, but still, enough to get a little extra padding on my Air Miles Account.

Labels: Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

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Google PowerMeter

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 8:54 AM

Google is developing a service to try and impact electrical energy consumption by allowing users to easily track their energy usage.

PowerMeter software will tap into the information provided by "smart meters" installed currently on many homes. It will display to customers exactly how they are using power and relate it to specific appliances in the home to help them to pin point the biggest contributors to their consumption.

By having a clear idea where the electricity is being used up, it will allow for a much easier means to conserve energy and lower power bills. "If half of America's households cut their energy demand by 10 percent, it would be the equivalent of taking eight million cars off the road" noted Google Engineer Ed Lu on the Google Blog Last Monday.

While the project is still in the early stages, Google hopes that PowerMeter will be introduced publically within the next couple of months.

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 8:54 AM.

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Friday, January 23, 2009

SEO Results Take Time

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 12:15 PM

There is one important factor to remember whenever you are involved in improving the organic rankings of a website, and that factor is time. One of the most common questions I receive as an SEO is “How long till I start to see results?” This article is dedicated to anyone who has ever asked that question.

It doesn’t matter what industry you are involved in, or what techniques you follow, in all cases you will be a prisoner of time. In the vast majority of cases search engine rankings don’t come over night.

Regardless of the scope of the SEO campaign you are undertaking, you will have to wait for results. It doesn’t matter if you are undertaking a massive link building & social media campaign combined with extreme content development – you will still have to wait for those results. Just how long you need to wait however, will depend on a large number of factors.

In this article I will discuss some of these factors and give a few scenarios to help you gauge how long you may need to wait to start seeing results.

Factors to Consider
How long it will take for rankings starts with a few key factors:

How optimized is your site before SEO?
If your established site has no optimization in place at all, and has navigation that is blocking search engine spiders, sometimes opening the site up can result in a rather quick turn-around for results.

How many inbound links does your site have?
If you have an old site with no links this will add to the time you need to wait. If you have a number of links already, Google will probably be in to check out things within a week or so of updating.

How new is your website?
A brand new site with no links has to wait. Google may find you, but probably not. If you do nothing, your site may never be indexed – you must get a few links, and an XML sitemap if you want to stand a chance with a new site. Click here for info on how to install and set up an XML site map.

How flexible is your site?
If your site utilizes a content management system, how flexible is this system for customization? If your current back end will not allow for SEO based changes, this will drastically slow down your ranking progress.

How competitive is your target phrase?
This is huge. The more competitive a target phrase is, the longer you will likely have to wait, and the more links, pages, and fresh content you will probably need. Picking a target phrase that has searches, but modest competition is your best bet to get started. As long as your “dream phrase” is relevant, you can go after the bigger fish once your site has some links, content, and has started to find its place on the map.

Is your site positioned to be able to compete?
Take a look at the top 10 sites for your target phrase. If on average the ranking sites have 10,000 inbound links and 1000 plus pages, and your site has 7 links and 12 pages, you’re likely doomed. You don’t need to match the numbers of the top 10, but you do need to be in the ball park. If the top 10 is littered with all the big guys like Amazon, eBay, and the dreaded Wikipedia, you might just want to consider reevaluating your goals. If your site is not in a comparable position with the rest of the top 10 then you need to either step up your efforts in order to compete, or plan on waiting a very long time.

Get Google to Visit Your Site
How long it takes to start seeing results starts with Google. Once Google spiders your site you will still have to wait for the updated cache to appear in Google’s index, and in most cases, you will have to wait longer still to see any impact in the search rankings.

In most cases getting Google to your site is relatively easy, but it can sometimes take a month or longer. Even a site with some inbound links and an XML sitemap, may have to wait a while.

Typically an established active website will seldom have to wait more than a month to get Google’s eyes; however if your site has been sitting stagnant for several years, it may take longer.

How Long Will it Take For Rankings?
You now know some of the determining factors, but how long will it take for your site to see an improvement in its organic rankings? I really wish there was a solid answer to this question, but with such a vast array of variables there is no way to know for sure. I can say however, that from experience, the timelines below are fairly accurate.

Niche Industry
A niche industry is represented by phrases that are relatively specific, such as “widgets Bellingham”. While they don’t require a geographic modifier, phrases focused on a very specific area often are considered niche. Phrases used for a niche site will also often return less than 100,000 results in a Google search. The top 10 ranking sites will also often have less than 100 inbound links each.

Timeline:
- Brand New Site: Possibly as little as a few months
- Established Site: Potentially it could literally be over night, but most likely around 6 weeks.

Medium Industry
Medium Industry terms are slightly more general, but still include some kind of modifier, such as a state or color; “Washington Widgets” or “Blue Widgets”. These phrases often represent no more than a few million results in a typical Google search with the top 10 ranking sites having between 100-1000 inbound links.

Timeline:
- Brand New Site: 6 months to a year
- Established Site: 2-4 months

Highly Competitive Industry
These pages are those with phrases that are rather broad and seldom have any modifiers, such as simply “widgets”. You will often find tens or even hundreds of millions of competing pages in Google for your target phrase. Often the links required for the top 10 will be in the thousands, or tens or thousands (sometimes even in the millions).

Timeline:
- Brand New Site: Anywhere from 1 to 5 years
- Established Site: Could be as long as a year or more

For a brand new site, starting with nothing, in most cases you will be looking at around a year before you start to see significant ranking changes. You may get the odd ranking here and there, and start to see some traffic, but for any phrases that are remotely competitive, it can take quite a while. Unless you have a very tight niche, expect to wait at least 6 months before you see any movement at all. This is not to say that you can’t get quick results, but in the majority of cases it is quite rare.

For more established sites, rankings tend to come much more quickly. One significant factor in determining time is links. If your established site has lots, but the site itself is simply lacking fundamental SEO or proper navigation, then you can sometimes see results rather quickly. If you have no links and need to build them, it significantly increases the wait time. Even for an established site, achieving links in a competitive industry can still take some time.

Rankings Are Taking Forever
There are a number of reasons why your site may never achieve results. If you find that your campaign has been going on for a long time and you have seen no movement what-so-ever, it is possible that one of the following is hindering your efforts.

Spamming & Penalties
In some cases your site may take forever to achieve rankings, or the rankings may never come at all. If your site has been previously penalized for spamming, you absolutely must clean up all traces of the past dirtiness.

Once the site is entirely cleaned up, then you can apply for re-inclusion. This is certainly no guarantee that Google will ever pay your site any attention again, but it’s the first step to the land of maybe.

Duplicate Content
If your site has utilized mass amounts of duplicate content, chances are you will not ever see rankings until you replace it all with something original and meaningful. There is no “duplicate content” penalty per-se, but you are essentially penalizing yourself if you copy content. Google tends to look at the first instance it finds online for a piece of content as the official source (not always the case).

If you copy content that is already out there and indexed by Google, they will discount your content as it is already indexed somewhere else, and your site or page will simply not get any rankings for it – and rightfully so.

Links (or lack thereof)
If your site has no links, you probably will not get any rankings, even after you are fully indexed. This is not always the case, I have seen sites rank well for various phrases with zero inbound links – but it is rare, and should not be relied on. Build up your links – period.

On the flip side of this, let’s say your site has thousands of links, but they are from free for all sites, link farms, or “bad neighborhoods”, and so on – they won’t help you. These links won’t necessarily hurt you, but will be essentially ignored. You need quality, relevant links.

Competition
You just may be out of your league. If you have a small operation, and are competing for a major ultra competitive term, chances are you will never see the light of day. Not to say it is not possible, but if you are competing in a well established industry where literally 10’s of thousands of links are required, and your target phrase is experiencing millions of searches a month, you need to weigh your targets. Chances are your keywords need to be re-evaluated as your chances of success are slim.

Not Listening
If your SEO gives you actionable recommendations, follow them. Recommendations are given for a reason, to help you achieve rankings. If you are not willing to implement what is suggested, then your campaign may go nowhere. I have seen websites fail to rank simply because clients ignored recommendations. Your SEO will not be able to help you if you refuse to implement their advice.

A Little Success Story
I have seen rankings come literally within hours. It is very rare but it happens. In one specific example a blog post was put up on a very specific niche topic that had almost no coverage online. Google coincidently spidered the blog within an hour or so of posting, and within an hour from that, the blog post was #1 in the organic results for the most relevant phrase. The site saw a giant spike in traffic for the next couple days while the phrase was a hot topic. (The search phrase was very specific and localized: “ election results”). This shows that for a site with an established link base, and a good reputation in Google, rankings can sometimes come extremely quickly.

Regardless of industry and target phrases, you will have to wait for your search results. Just how long you will wait varies on far too many factors to give a solid number, but expect to wait for results anywhere from a few days to several years. It’s the best time frame I can give without knowing specific details of your site and project.

Labels: Scott Van Achte, SEO Tips

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 12:15 PM.

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Yahoo Partners with Abaca to Reduce SPAM

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 10:11 AM

If you find that your Yahoo email account is being hit with too much spam, all that junk may be significantly cut back in the very near future.

On Jan 20th, it was announced that Yahoo will begin using the anti-spam services of Abaca to help protect Yahoo users from spam, phishing, and other email attacks.

Abaca is the only anti-spam company to guarantee a rate of 99% accuracy.

"As one of the world’s leading Internet companies, we take the security of our users very seriously,” said John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo! Mail. “Abaca offers superior e-mail security capabilities and has built a reputation for reducing unsolicited e-mail within mailboxes. We believe that by deploying Abaca’s solution with our anti-spam toolkit, we will offer Yahoo! Mail users not only added email security, but an enhanced user experience as well."

Labels: EMail, Scott Van Achte, Spam, Yahoo

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Thursday, January 22, 2009

Google Market Share Down for Dec 2008

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 9:46 AM

Google market share is down – or level, depending on who you trust most. The December numbers are in over at both Nielsen and Comscore, and while both agencies are reporting very similar figures for Google, one is actually showing a loss.

Comscore is reporting Google seeing no change between November and December with back to back months being at 63.5%. Nielsen, after reporting a jump of 2.9% for November, is showing a 1.2% drop for December, down to 62.9%.

This drop in Google’s shares is really quite minor if you look at their performance over all of 2008. Nielsen figures show Google’s share increasing by 6% from 56.9 in Jan 2008. Comscore shows a similar increase of 5% over the same period up from 58.5.

I suspect that Google’s market share is not on the decline and that in the coming months we will continue to see their figures rise.

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte

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Friday, December 19, 2008

Search Engine Market Share for November 2008

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 2:24 PM

The latest figures are in over at Comscore, and as far as search market share is concerned, Google continues to increase its lead.

It is never a surprise to see Google leading the pack, its been this way for several years, and it will remain this way for years to come. The only change is, how big is their lead.

Google has seen yet another small increase in its share, up 0.4% to 63.5%. Yahoo trails way back at 20.4% (down 0.1%) and Microsoft dipping 0.2% down to 8.3%.

Labels: Google, Microsoft, Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

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Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving!

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 9:31 PM

From all of us at StepForth, we would like to wish all of our American friends and clients a happy Thanksgiving!

StepForth will also be closing early Thursday Nov 27 at 3:00pm (PST), for our annual Christmas staff party. Yes we know it’s still November, but with everyone’s busy work and family schedules in December, tomorrow just works out best. We will be open during regular business hours on Friday Nov 28.

Again Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and let the Christmas shopping begin!

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 9:31 PM.

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Monday, November 24, 2008

Is Google Under Attack?

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 9:25 AM

It's 9:20 am PST on Monday November 24th, and access to Both Google AdWords & Postini, appear to be down. It seems strange that both Google services would be down without any formal notice stating a maintenance outage.

I first noticed the problem shortly after 9:00 am. Could Google be under a denial of service attack? I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Are you able to access either of these services, or are you having any problems accessing any other Google services? If so let us know, drop us a comment!

NOTE: Wouldn't you know it, only a few minutes after posting this (9:33) I was able to gain access to both services, but now Keyword Discovery and ZDnet appear to be having the same problem.

Less than 2 weeks ago Shaw Cable, a major internet provider for Western Canada, had a brief period where Google and Youtube were both inaccessible to users - perhaps today's issues are also related to Shaw. Again, let us know if you are having any strange problems today, and also note your internet provider.

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 9:25 AM.

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DivX Files Lawsuit Against Yahoo

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 8:33 AM

As if Yahoo doesn’t have enough financial troubles. San Diego based DivX is suing Yahoo for $25 million in damages. Allegedly Yahoo had breached an advertising agreement with DivX accounting for more than 20% of their revenue.

The contract between Yahoo and DivX was set to expire at the end of 2009, and only 9 months into 2008 Yahoo had stopped making payments. During those first 9 months DivX received $15 million in revenue under the deal.

When a similar agreement with Google ended last year, Yahoo snatched up the opportunity and won the deal with DivX that would have the Yahoo Toolbar incorporated into DivX downloads.

Yahoo has been slashing costs lately including mass layoffs. Trying to get out of this deal is likely just another way for them to try and save money. On Nov 11, Yahoo had demanded that DivX renegotiate the contract to eliminate termination restrictions and reduce the payment terms.

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 8:33 AM.

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Friday, November 21, 2008

Google's Market Share Keeps on Rising

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 12:35 PM

The figures from Nielsen Netratings and comScore are not in as of yet, but Hitwise has posted their latest numbers for October, and they show Google closing in on the 72% mark.

According to Hitwise, Google now sits with 71.7%, up 0.54%, Yahoo is down 0.3% to 17.74%, and MSN is pretty much the same at 5.4% (up a miniscule 0.04%).

As Google grows ever so slowly month after month, it will be no surprise if they manage to reach the 80% point. Will Yahoo or MSN ever manage to steal back some of this market share? Not likely in the near future, but time will tell.

Labels: Google, MSN, Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

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Google Book Search Settlement

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 9:30 AM

Google has now made one big step forward in its initiative to have out-of-print books online. Tuesday, Judge John Sprizzo approved a lawsuit settlement between Google and numerous authors and publishers to the tune of $125 million. This money will be placed in a fund to go to copyright holders and will allow Google the rights to placing out-of-print material online.

This lawsuit has been going on now for a few years and Google is undoubtedly glad to see an end to it. This could see Google becoming one of the biggest out of print book retailers around. Any revenue received by Google from its print services will be split 37 / 63 between Google and its publishers – the publishers getting the lions share.

Once fully operational, Google print will make it easy for users world wide to access a vast amount of difficult to find information – as Sergey Brin noted, "It's a real win-win for all of us, the real victors are the readers."

More information on the settlement can be found over at Google.

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte

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Thursday, November 20, 2008

Google Lively Not Lively For Long

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 11:49 AM

Last night in a blog post at the Official Google Blog, Google announced that one of its Google Labs projects, Lively.com, will see its doors closed forever.

After only a few short months, Google has decided to pull the plug on this popular chat platform in order to direct resources to more important areas such as core search, ads, and apps.

While I have never used Lively, it seems to me that if this site is popular, there must be a way to make some money off of it, and I am somewhat surprised to see them choosing to shut it down so quickly. Would it not make sense to try and sell? Surely a company out there could make use of this to earn a living and keep the current user base happy. Maybe they should approach Facebook and turn it into yet another app?

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Friday, November 14, 2008

Yahoo Shares Drop to Lowest in 5 Years

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 9:09 AM

It sounds more and more like Yahoo should have taken the Microsoft buy-out offer at $31 a share back in February. Since then Yahoo shares have been up and down, but as of today, they are hovering around the $10 mark, a small fraction of what they once were.

Yesterday Yahoo shares dropped to below $10 – the first time their value has dipped into the single digits in more than 5 years. One thing’s for sure, if Microsoft does step up and give Yahoo another offer it will be substantially less than the previous $44.6 Billion.

Yahoo is not the only major player in the search game to see significant value declines on their stock. Around this time last year Google shares were over $700 and as of today are at less than half that with the value at $310.31 at the time of this post. 2008 has also brought significant declines to Microsoft shares as well - at just under $20 today MS has seen shares drop by almost half with their 52 week high of 36.72 from back in December of 07.

Labels: Google, Microsoft, Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

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Friday, November 07, 2008

Scanned Documents Now Searchable at Google

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 7:00 AM

Last week Google began turning PDF files of scanned printed documents into digital text, and as a result their searchable index has expanded once again.

Previously, only rarely would a scanned document appear in the organic search results. With the technology of optical character-recognition (OCR) implemented now these scanned PDFs will find their way into the results.

In an article posted at Information Week, one downside to this is the possibility of personal information appearing in the search results. Social Security numbers that could have gone unnoticed in scanned court documents could be discovered by Google.

"Public.Resource.org, a project that aims to make public government publicly accessible, recently found about 1,700 documents with Social Security numbers or alien identification numbers out of a corpus of 2.5 million court documents that go back decades."

Unless Google wants more future lawsuits on its hands, I can imagine that issues such as this will be rectified rather quickly.

This process of turning an image back into readable text will likely have other uses such as reading text stored within images in a website. This could open the doors to using image based text more freely in one’s site design. While this use is not in place at the moment, it seems like a natural step forward.

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte

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Thursday, November 06, 2008

Wireless Internet Approved by FCC for TV Airwaves

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 8:15 AM

According to Bloomberg.com the FCC has approved a proposal by Google to utilize unused television airwaves for wireless internet access. Approved by a vote of 5-0 yesterday, this will ultimately allow for free Wi-Fi web access, especially in rural areas.

Any devices built to access the free wireless web will be required to utilize anti-interference technology, and makers of such devices will need to obtain FCC certification for each product.

Craig Mundie, Chief Strategy Officer for Microsoft noted a week ago, that if the FCC approval went through, that devices might be available to the public in as early as 12 months.

While this may take us one step closer to free internet for everyone, I think I may just prefer to pay for my access as I can only imagine the ads we will be bombarded with for this free access – it has to be paid for somehow. A PDF released by the FCC is available with more information.

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte

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Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Google Yahoo Deal Ends / Microsoft to Return?

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 12:53 PM

The entire “Microsoft seeks Yahoo, Yahoo turns down Microsoft, Yahoo & Google hook up, and then break up, now Microsoft may be back with Yahoo” thing seems like an ongoing plot in a bad soap opera.

Back in June Google announced an advertising agreement that would allow Yahoo to use Google Ads on its websites. Many search marketers were left speculating the impact this would have on campaign effectiveness, however, this was all for nothing now that the Department of Justice has ended the deal.

Now that this deal is no more, the possibility of a Yahoo acquisition by Microsoft will likely be revisited. After news came yesterday that of the collapse of the deal, Yahoo shares saw an 8% rise by close.

According to CNN Money, many Yahoo shareholders are hoping that Microsoft will get back to the table with Yahoo and make a new offer.

The original offer by Microsoft, nearly a year ago, was for $29.06 a share. At the time Yahoo was looking for something along the lines of $35 to $37. Microsoft was willing to go as high as $33.

With Yahoo shares currently trading at around $14, if Microsoft does step up again, you can bet the offer will be much less than it was before. Perhaps Yahoo should have taken the original deal.

Labels: Google, Microsoft, Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

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Thursday, October 23, 2008

Website Slowing You Down?

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 11:42 AM

In a world where more and more households are connected to the internet, bandwidth is becoming an issue and brownouts have been predicted to occur in the next few years. With the strain on the infrastructure of the internet this makes having an efficient, fast loading website all that much more important.

The bottom line for most site owners though, is not the efficiency of the internet as a whole, but rather the financial sustainability of their websites. While there are many ways to make a site perform better in terms of converting visitors, one of the simplest, and probably most important aspects is simply to reduce the load time of your website.

If your site suffers from poor performance you could be missing out not only on sales and average visitor time on site, but also search rankings. Below I will discuss some of the negative impacts a slow loading site may experience, as well as a few ways you can correct the issue. In some cases, correcting the problem will cost you only some time, although it has the potential to really pay off in the long run.

Negative Impacts of Long Load Times
If your site takes too long to load this can have a number of negative effects including loss of sales, loss or rankings, and increased pay per click cost. It can even increase your hosting costs depending on the cause.

Loss of Sales
Let’s pretend for a moment that search engines just didn’t exist and rankings didn’t matter. People are impatient - if your site takes too long to load, many potential customers will simply give up and go elsewhere.

Broadband connections are growing incredibly fast in the US; however, according to a study posted at FoxNews this past July, approximately 10% of Americans still have dial-up internet access. If your site loads slowly, you may be alienating 10% of your potential customers.

The last thing you want to do is frustrate your visitors. If you do this, you may drive them away, never to return. If you can provide a fast loading efficient website, you will increase the likelihood that your visitors will make a purchase, and return again in the future.

Increased Pay per Click Costs
Only a few short months ago a post by Heather Lane at the Inside AdWords blog announced that landing page load times will affect a keyword’s quality score. The reason for this is quite simple: a fast loading website improves the end user experience. As a result, ads directing to a slow loading page will be given a lower quality score. This in turn will cause your keyword bids to be higher, costing you significantly on a per click basis.

Loss of Organic Rankings
We know two things for a fact. Google factors in load times with AdWords, and Google focuses on an improved end user experience. As a result, I for one am convinced that a site’s load time does impact overall organic search rankings. While this is likely only a small piece of the very large algorithmic puzzle, it does play a part, and if you can speed up your site, you just may be able to move your rankings up a notch or two.

Speeding up your site is unlikely to move your site from page 8 all the way to page 1, but it may be enough to move up a few positions.

Increased Hosting Costs
Assuming your load times are due to file size issues and not other server constraints, your hosting costs may be more than they need to be. This factor will vary a great deal based on the hosting company and the package you have chosen.

Many hosts now offer packages where a significant amount of bandwidth usage is included, resulting in a single flat monthly or annual rate. (LunarPages for example, has a $4.95 monthly plan with unlimited bandwidth per month.) If your hosting provider does put a limit on usage and you are using beyond the allocated max, you could be paying a fair bit in overage charges. If you fall into this category, optimizing your files to reduce bandwidth usages could save you a considerable amount of cash.

Issues and Fixes
There are a number of issues that can cause a site to load slowly. Below I have noted a few items that are fairly common and can be relatively easily corrected.

Issue: Un-Optimized Images
This is probably one of the biggest culprits out there impacting load time today. I have seen countless websites where image optimization is simply not done, resulting in significantly increased page load times. One of the biggest problems is when images are scaled down to fit the application.

Quite often webmasters will take a large image, and scale it down using the height and width attributes rather than physically resizing the image. What this does is then require the browser to load the full high resolution image, when it really only needs a fraction.

Let’s take this real world example. A client recently had a photo on their home page; the photo was 600 x 403 pixels, weighed in at 124.68 KB, and visually they had scaled the image to fit 473 x 317 pixels.

By resizing the original image to the desired dimensions, and then reducing the quality of the jpg to 70%, the end result was an image that looked identical on his website but weighed in at only 23 KB - that’s 101.68 KB smaller than the original. Using a simple filesize download calculator I found online, 101.68 KB would take 14 seconds to download using a 56 Kb modem, or about 2 seconds on your run of the mill broadband connection.

For broadband users 2 seconds may not seem like much, but remember, this is only for a single image. When you add up all other images and on-site components, the time can significantly add up.

Issue: Un-Optimized files
Another way you can speed up your sites load time is to have clean HTML, CSS, and other included files. Remove extraneous code from your files, and use CSS wherever possible. Every piece of old html code adds up in size, even if it doesn’t impact the visual site itself. I have seen many cases where links have been removed but the code remains accidentally, leaving something like:

link code

This code, while as tiny as it is, does contribute to an increase in load time (and in this specific example, could also be seen as spam by search engines).

If your site makes use of CSS, consider compressing it to save on load times. You can do this by grouping identical styles to save space. For instance,

p {
font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size:12px
}

li {
font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size:12px
}

can be compressed by grouping these two styles, reducing the coding by half:

p,li {
font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size:12px
}

Again this may not seem like much, but when you add this up with all of the other little things, it can ultimately result in a significantly increased load time for the page as a whole.

Audio and video can also be compressed. If your site uses a fair bit of multimedia, see if you can compress these files a bit more than you have already. You may be able to save some load time here as well without impacting user experience.

Issue: Hosting Server
It is possible that your site is perfect in every way, but the culprit is simply your web host. It does not necessarily mean that your host is slow, but if you are paying for an account on an old archaic computer with limited system resources servicing 1000 websites, this could seriously impact your site’s load time. If you have worked to ensure that the site is well optimized for efficiency and the load times are still extreme, you may need to upgrade your hosting account to one more suited for your business needs.

If your site is a fairly basic, such as a static 8 page html site, then a slow server may have little to no impact, but if your site requires extensive database queries and the help of an intensive content management system, and serves up tens of thousands of visitors a day, then you may need to switch to a higher end dedicated server. If you have found that your server is the only problem in your slow load times, contact your host to see what they can do for you.

Issue: HTTP Requests
According to a post at the Yahoo Developer Blog, "80% of the end-user response time is spent on the front-end. Most of this time is tied up in downloading all the components in the page: images, style sheets, scripts, Flash, etc. Reducing the number of components in turn reduces the number of HTTP requests required to render the page. This is the key to faster pages."

The article discusses combining files in order to reduce the number of HTTP requests, largely by the use of CSS Sprites. They also discuss using image maps to combine multiple images, however, from an SEO perspective, this is not something that I would recommend as my experience has shown image-mapped links are not always followed by search engine spiders.

They go on to explain a vast number of rather technical aspects to speeding up a page. If you are a technical person capable of implementing advanced techniques, the Yahoo Developer Network is definitely something you should check out.

Load Time Tools
Before you undergo any changes to your site to resolve the slow load times, I suggest first finding a tool and benchmarking your progress. Record how long your site takes to load, and then try again after you have made an effort to correct the problem.

There are a number of tools out there that can help you calculate your load times. One such tool is WebSiteOptimization.com. This site specializes in optimizing the performance of your site in order to decrease bandwidth and load times. They have created a very simple tool which will give you the load times for the individual components of your site, which can give you a good idea where to start.

Summary
If you take a bit of time to speed up the load time for your website by optimizing your existing content and cleaning up your code, you may just find yourself making more sales. As an added bonus you may also find improved search engine rankings, which will then in turn increase your sales further. Depending on your hosting provider, you may even have a reduced monthly hosting bill. Decreasing the load time of your site is really win-win for everyone.

As the internet becomes more and more bandwidth intensive with an ever increasing stream of users and higher use applications, doing whatever we can do reduce the strain on the system will make for a faster internet for everyone. If every webpage on the internet could be reduced be even just 100 kb, the web would be a much faster place.

(How do you keep your site loading quickly? Post your comments on this article with your tips and tricks for reducing load time!)

Labels: Scott Van Achte, SEO Tips, Web Marketing Tips

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 11:42 AM.

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Google Displaying Error URL Sources

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 7:15 AM

Google, in their Webmaster Central Blog, has introduced a nice little feature to the webmaster tools interface recently. The new feature identifies source URL's for various errors that they detect.

For instance, when they display a 404 (not found) error for your site with a link to the missing page, now they will also tell you where they found the link to this error. This added feature can save a webmaster a ton of time in some cases.

While there are other tools out there such as Xenu Link Sleuth, to help detect broken links, this added feature in Google gives site owners one more tool to help troubleshoot a website. The tool will display the source of all URL's causing any errors that Google reports.

In Google's "Not Found" and "Errors in URL's in Sitemaps" sections, you will now notice a "Linked From" column.

While this addition is not a major breakthrough, it does show that Google is actually listening to its users, and does increase the usefulness of Webmaster Tools. (On a side note I found it interesting that in Google’s own screenshots, they had 258 "Not Found" errors - I would have expected a few less.)

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte

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Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Yahoo Third Quarter Results

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 2:38 PM

I wrote about Google’s third quarter results last week, and yesterday Yahoo released theirs. While their revenues are up as compared to the third quarter of 2007, Yahoo will be moving forward with layoffs.

In Q3 of 2007 revenues at Yahoo were a reported $1.768 billion. In the same quarter for 2008 they are seeing a figure of $1.786 billion - up about $22 million. As a percentage, this is very small, but growth none the less.

During the Q3 announcement Yahoo noted that it would be cutting 10% of its headcount, but would continue future hiring in developing countries where salaries are lower.

Labels: Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

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Friday, October 17, 2008

Google Doing Well After Third Quarter

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 2:14 PM

With the stock market crashing and Google’s shares at the lowest point they have seen in a few years, Revenues for the third quarter of 2008 remain high. The quarter ending Sept 30 saw total revenues reaching $5.54 billion.

After paying out commissions and crunching the figures, the end result comes in at $4.04 billion, $10 million less than the expected $4.05 billion.

So while the value of their shares may be plummeting, Google, at least for now, appears to be recession proof. In many ways this is not surprising. As consumers are getting tighter with their money and businesses are struggling to make ends meet, boosting up advertising spend online to try and grab what shoppers are out there bodes well for Google.

Google shares closed at $372.54 Friday, down about $5 from opening.

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte

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Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Promoting Your New Website

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 2:55 PM

A few weeks ago I wrote about building your website from the ground up. This article did not dive into great detail on any specific topics, but rather touched on the key points you will want to address. In this article I will place most of the focus on the promotion aspect of this previous article.

While at times new websites can experience organic search rankings in a matter of months, for the most part, it can take well over a year before you start to see any progress, and that is if you start promoting right away!

SEO
If your new website has not been properly optimized for the search engines, then this is a necessary first step you must take. Ensure that your new site has integrated the appropriate keywords into all the fundamental areas of the site. Without this critical step of optimizing your site, in many cases no level of promotion will help you get those search rankings.

Note: Extreme numbers of inbound links can sometimes cause an un-optimized site to rank, but an optimized website will drastically reduce the number of links needed, and its associated cost. This varies from industry to industry, but is true as a general rule.

Ideally the optimization of your site occurred during the planning and building stages, but if it did not be sure to get this completed as soon as possible.

Press Releases
The first thing you should do when your site goes live is issue a press release. Be sure to include a link back to your website, preferably with your target phrase hyperlinked as well. Submit this press release to an aggregator such as PRWeb. This will help get the word out that your site is live, draw some attention from the public, and also get you that first valuable link to your website.

Search Engine Submission
These days search engines will find your site on their own, and submitting to them is not necessary. If you feel you must submit your site to the engines, submit it only once and shortly after the site goes live.

In order to help the search engines fully spider your new site, the best thing you can do in terms of submissions, is to create and submit an XML sitemap. Submit this sitemap to your Google Webmaster Tools account, and also be sure to include a call to it within your robots.txt file by adding the following line including a complete path to your sitemap:

Sitemap: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml

There are many tools out there to help you build your xml sitemap. Google has placed a list of some of these tools on their "Third Party Programs" page.

Directory Submission
Back in August I wrote about using Directory Submission to help build links. The general gist of it is to be sure that there is a high level of relevance in the directories you submit your site to, especially if it is a paid directory. Currently DMOZ still has a high level of value as it is seen as a strong authority at Google. Make the attempt to have your site listed here in the most relevant category possible.

Link Building
There are a number of ways you can work to increase your back links. In July I wrote about 13 ways to help build links. Links are one of those strategic tools that will never be a bad investment. Today they play a significant role in search rankings for most industries, especially in Google. While the future will almost undoubtedly still see search value in links, even if that value declines, or disappears entirely, quality links can still help drive traffic as well, and a strong base of inbound links can deliver you customers well into the future.

Explore the different ways to build links to your site. A steady progressive increase in inbound links will help Google look positively in your direction. Do not be afraid of reciprocal links either. If you are trading with highly relevant websites to your industry, then you should have nothing to be afraid of.

Social Media
Promotion largely consists of building links and becoming recognized by the search engines, but in order to help you build those links, getting your name and brand out there can really do wonders. By increasing awareness of your site and product, the public will often help create the buzz you need, and often, this can result in fresh links to your website.

To help get your site in the eyes of as many people as possible, take a look into Social Media and consider creating profiles on some of the popular platforms. This can include creating a YouTube account and uploading instructional, informational, or interesting product videos. You can set up a Facebook page, and work to build a community around your product. Create a profile page on Squidoo, MySpace, and Flickr, amongst many others.

These pages often act as backlinks to your site, and also help spread awareness. Be sure to keep your social endeavors updated regularly or any viewership you have will dwindle as people lose interest. If you are able to build a strong following, this can result in many individuals linking to your site and spreading the word, resulting in long term benefits for you and your site.

Your use of social media does not have to be exactly about your company. For instance, let’s say you sell cars. Your use of the social platform, while it may note your business, can focus on other car info including trivia, news, photos, etc. The key is to keep it relevant, not identical - you are not looking to create a mirror of your site.

Article Writing
Write articles about the subject of your website and submit them to various services such as EzineArticles. Consider also writing for your own blog to help grow your site content. By writing and distributing relevant articles you can create a nice cushion of relevant incoming links. By writing articles that closely match the topic of your site, and including a link back to relevant content within your site, you can help out not only with search engine rankings, but by creating an extra traffic stream for your site

Pay Per Click
While Pay Per Click (PPC) will not give you many long standing benefits, it can help you to start making sales immediately which in turn can give you the funds needed to promote your site via other means. If you need that immediate traffic, this is one way to get it, but at a cost, and as soon as you stop paying, your traffic stops, so it is far from a reliable long term means. In some industries however, it can pay off, so it is definitely worth considering.

Summary
In general, reference your website everywhere possible. Get links from every relevant source you can think of, issue a press release, and get your site listed the key directories for your industry. The more eyes you can put your URL in front of and the more relevant sites you can get to link back to yours, the sooner you will start to see progress in the search engines.

For many industries it can literally take years to get those coveted first page results - in some industries it may be near impossible, but if you want a chance, you need to start promoting that new site of yours immediately.

Labels: Scott Van Achte, SEO Tips

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Monday, September 29, 2008

Google Shares Drop Below $400

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 9:30 AM

Google shares are at a considerable low today. They opened with a value of $420 and by 12:26pm ET, had dropped below the $400 mark to $396.29 (according to a Google search for "goog")

Google Shares, Sept 29, 2008: 12:26PM ET

At one point the stock had reached a new 52 week low of $395.34 - a far cry from the 52 week high of $747.24 set in November of last year. That’s a drop of more than $350 since the peak which is a lot of coin for all serious Google shareholders.

With this considerable low, perhaps now is the time to buy, but I have been thinking that for a few months now, and it seems to keep dropping. The last time Google shares were below $400 was back in Sept of 2006 according to Google Finance. With all the troubles over on Wall Street I am curious to see how much impact this will have on Google shares. I am no finance expert, in fact, far from it, but I see shares dropping further in the coming months.

UPDATE (Only minutes after original post)

I find it rather interesting how Google finance seems to be wrong. When I took the screenshot above it said the 52 week low was $395.34 - that was at 12:26pm ET on Sept 29, 2008. Take a look at the screen shot below, taken only 8 minutes later - it shows a 52 week low of $397.27. Guess it goes to show that Google Finance is a little off on their numbers.

Google Shares, Sept 29, 2008: 12:34PM ET

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 9:30 AM.

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Friday, September 26, 2008

$28.7 Million to Improve Digg

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 7:45 AM

Funding to the tune of $28.7 Million, led by Highland Capital Partners, will be used over at Digg to incorporate a number of changes, Jay Adelson announced in the official Digg blog Wednesday.

Changes will include improvements in infrastructure, new feature development, international expansion, and hiring new employees to make the whole thing happen. New features will include personalizing the "Digg Experience" and incorporating a number of user suggestions from over the years.

Adelson notes that nearly half of their 30 million monthly users are from outside of the US, so making adjustments for localized tastes and languages are on the forefront for their growth strategy for 2009.

He also notes that they will be hiring, so if you are a techie in need of a job, you may want to take a look at their jobs page!

Labels: Digg, Scott Van Achte

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Thursday, September 25, 2008

Yahoo Opens Doors in Grenoble France

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 4:19 PM

Yahoo has opened up another location, this time with a research center in Grenoble France. This follows shortly after news that Yahoo may also be opening up a location in La Vista Nebraska creating at least 50 news jobs.

Layoff notices for more than 1000 employees were also handed out near the start of the year, and Yahoo's shares have just hit a 52 week low - interesting that they are expanding in all this turmoil.

Regardless, it looks like the new facility will employee 220 engineers and be Yahoo's biggest center in France. The French minister of economy is offering sizable tax credits for research based operations, which helps to explain the choice of location.

Labels: Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

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Google to Give Away Millions!

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 2:16 PM

How would you like to have Google cut you a check for a few million dollars? Well, if you have the right ideas that could help change the world you just might get some cash from Google. There is of course a catch.

If your idea to help make the world a better place is chosen by Google, you will get a share of $10 million, but the money you get must go directly towards putting your idea into action. Google is putting up $10 million which will be divided up among the top five submissions to be used for project funding.

Submissions must be made by Oct 20, 2008. In late January 2009 Google will select 100 of the ideas and leave it up to the public to narrow down the list to 20 semifinalists. The five winners will be chosen and announced in February by a Google-sponsored advisory board.

To submit your project ideas or for more information, visit Google's project10tothe100.com.

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Tuesday, September 23, 2008

August Search Marketshare

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 4:29 PM

The latest search market share figures are in at Nielsen, ComScore, and HitWise, and, for the most part, Google continues to rise.

Depending on which provider you prefer, Google saw yet another increase in market share in August as did Yahoo. MSN has dropped according to all three providers.

Over at Comscore Google has seen an increase of 1.1% to 63%, Yahoo is down 0.9% to 19.6%, and MSN is also down 0.6% to 8.3%. Nielsen Netratings reports Google down 0.2% to 60%, Yahoo up 0.7% to 18.1%, and MSN down 1.2% to 10.7%. Finally, Hitwise is showing Google up 0.3% to 71.07%, with Yahoo and MSN both down slightly to 18.26% and 5.32% respectively.

While the numbers between these providers range a fair bit, there is no denying that Google’s strong hold is not going anywhere.

Labels: Google, MSN, Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

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Monday, September 22, 2008

Your Website from the Ground Up in 10 Steps

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 9:50 AM

So, you have finally decided to build yourself a website, but really have no idea where to start. The following 10 steps will give you some insight into what you need to address when creating a search friendly website from the ground up.

While this article is not an exhaustive list of everything you need to know, it does touch base on many of the important aspects of creating a new website.

Step 1 - Keyword Research
Even before you choose your domain name, you should put a little time into some keyword research. Research all the possible keywords that will fit your industry and the website you plan on building. Having a clear idea of what your end targets are will make the rest of your job much easier and help things to just fall into place. Take a look at Keyword Research for SEO, written earlier this summer, for more help on this.

Step 2 - Domain Selection
If you already have an established brick and mortar business and the website will be an extension of that business, using your company name as the domain name is in most cases the best idea. If your company name is either irrelevant, or simply unavailable, you may want to consider a domain that has your target phrase listed as part of the domain.

A great example of this is if your site is focused geographically. Using the location as part of the domain when possible will give you a little extra juice with the search engines and help draw people to your site as they instantly can see the relevance in the domain.

Let's say that you are building a website focused on your home town, "Somewhere USA". A domain you may consider could be "Somewhere.com"; however, this would probably be already taken. Other options such as "SomewhereInfo.com" or "SomewhereGuide.com" may be good alternatives. The same goes for retail stores. "SomewhereCameras".com or "SomewhereBakery".com would also be good choices.

Avoid excessive use of hyphens; sometimes it is appropriate to use one, but if you can help it, avoid more than that as it can appear messy and even spammy in some cases.

Step 3 - System Back End
If you plan on having a large scale website that will grow and change constantly then you may want to consider a content management system (CMS) such as Joomla. If you decide to go this route you want to ensure that whichever CMS you choose is search engine friendly and offers items such as unique title tags, custom URL's, and full control over content, heading tags, image alt tags, etc.

Starting a website using a non-friendly CMS is like buying a car without an engine. Sure it may look great, but it won't get you anywhere.

Step 4 - Site Structure & Navigation
This is really one of the most fundamental aspects of your site creation. If the structure of your site does not work well, then your site may be doomed from the very beginning.

Take a look back at your keyword research and brainstorm all the areas of your site that you may want to develop content for. In some cases you may find valuable keywords that would fit perfectly into a few pages of content for your site. If the phrase and the content would be a good match for the theme of your site, go ahead and note them as pages to create. Get a list, or flowchart, of all the content you plan on adding and sort those pages into relevant categories.

Be sure your site files are saved in a way that makes sense - this includes both the file name, and the complete path to the file. Save files including similar content in a relevant subdirectory, with simply file names representing each. Let's take an example of an informational site dedicated to a specific geographic location. If you have a series of pages dedicated to recreation you may save them as:

/recreation/parks.html
/recreation/trails.html
/recreation/beaches.html

Keeping your URL structure clean and tidy can not only help with search engine rankings, but it will give a good visual impression to the site visitor as well. Often, using each of these categories as main points for your primary site navigation may make the most sense.

Also be sure to keep your site relatively flat, with as few layers as possible. Don't make the search engines follow a dozen links to get to the deepest levels of your site. Unless the site is literally tens of thousands of pages, there is no need to click more than 2 or 3 links to get to any deep content. The shorter the path to an internal page, the more credit by the search engines.

Step 5 - Navigation
When developing the end site, you also want to make sure that your site navigation is search engine friendly - this is critical if you ever want free organic listings.

If possible use a text based form of navigation. You can use CSS to style the text links to fit into your graphical design. Text links are the best method, however, image based navigation and even some forms of drop down menus are search engine friendly.

If you choose to use image based navigation be sure to include image alt text relevant to the link to give something for Google to associate with the linked page. If you absolutely must use Flash, or any form of navigation not friendly for search engine spiders, be sure to supplement this with text based links on another location of the page.

Step 6 - Analytics
It's never too early to start thinking about your stats. Before your site goes live you must have some form of accurate analytics in place so you can measure your site's traffic and progress.

There is an endless supply of analytics options out there to choose from. You can simply use the stats software that comes free with your web hosting, however, more often than not, they tend to be very basic with no flexibility. Advanced choices such as ClickTracks can give you rather in-depth statistics, but for a very small mom and pop operation it may be too expensive. Google Analytics, is a free option that can give you most, if not all the data you will need and does not require access to your raw log files.

If you do opt for an option such as ClickTracks, check with your host to ensure that you will have the raw log files you require. StepForth can also help you with your statistical analysis and offers a number of inexpensive ClickTracks service packages.

Step 7 - Content Creation
Now is the time to get that new, fresh content posted to your site with the SEO in mind. Make sure that the content you write reflects your industry and target keywords. You don't need to flood the content with your target keywords, but make sure they are in there a few times. When it makes sense to do so, also include some acronyms to help Google establish the overall relevance.

If you perform a search in Google for "~keyword", any words that Google bolds in the search results will be acronyms that Google deems relevant. Include some of these where possible.

Step 8 - Basic SEO
Ensure that ALL pages of your site include unique Title and Meta Description tags. This is one of the core fundamental aspects of an optimized size and it does play a significant role in your search rankings. Make sure that these tags are not only unique but are accurate representations of each page. Also be sure to place your target phrase in heading as well as image alt tags where applicable.

Step 9 - Initial Promotion / Launch
Now that you have your new site all up and ready to go, you want to give it that kick start to help drive some traffic. It will be a while before the search engines fully index your site and even longer before you start to see organic rankings for your target search phrases. It is important to start off right away to get the ball rolling.

Start off by issuing a press release to announce the launch of your new business website. Press releases are a great way to get some traffic and a rather valuable first link into your site. Submitting your press release using a company such as PRWeb will get your link in the engine's path and should help your site to be initially indexed by Google right away.

Next submit your site to some relevant directories starting with DMOZ. It can take months, even years, to have your site listed in DMOZ, so it is important to get it submitted right away. Consider submitting to other industry relevant directories. For some information on how to select the right directories take a look at Building Links with Directory Submissions.

Work on getting as many links from relevant industry websites as possible. The more links you can get from reputable sources, the better the overall performance of your site.

Step 10 - Ongoing Promotion
Once you have completed the site, the content looks great, and all appears finished, you've still got work to do. For long term success, especially for a brand new site, you need to continually promote your site. You should always be looking at ways to increase your inbound links, and increase your relevant content.

Consider creating accounts with various social media platforms to help promote your site. These can not only give you a link back to your site, but they can help you drive traffic and raise awareness about your business and product.

A site that is always growing, and always getting new links, has the best chance of getting a stable top 10 listing in Google.

Labels: Scott Van Achte, Tutorials

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Monday, September 15, 2008

Gold Medal with the help of Google

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 2:46 PM

When poking into twitter earlier today I saw a post from Matt Cutts who had linked to an interesting TechCrunch article.

It seems that Kristin Armstrong used a GPS and Google Earth to help her train for her Gold Medal performance in Beijing last month.

During a trial in December of '07, Armstrong brought along her husband's GPS to capture elevation along the cycling route. She then took this information home and after exporting the GPS data into Google Earth was able to plot out a similar route in her home town of Boise. Having a close match to the course in terms of elevation and distance, gave Armstrong the ideal method of training, which, in the end allowed her to grasp that coveted Olympic gold medal!

Labels: Google, Net Reality, Scott Van Achte

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Friday, September 12, 2008

Google Results and Webposition Gold

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 8:45 AM

For those of you out there who use WebPosition Gold, you will be happy to know that it is now properly reporting on Google results. While news had circulated all over the forums and various SE News sites that WebPosition had been banned by Google, apparently this simply was not true.

Supposedly Google had changed the way in which they display results within the HTML of the site, a change not visible on the site when performing a search. As a result of this change, it essentially broke WebPosition, and the software then required some updating to correct the issue. Back in August Google posted to the official GoogleBlog that they were testing a number of items within the search results. One test included creating slightly more whitespace between the first and second listings. It is some of the small HTML changes like these that are likely the culprit to the temporary down time experienced by WebPosition.

As of earlier this month, the leader in reporting software did in fact complete the update and now reported results do appear to be correct. While there is much speculation as to how long reporting software will continue to work without being permanently banned by Google, for now, things are working once again.

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte

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Thursday, September 11, 2008

Yahoo Hires Former Microsoft Exec

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 12:00 PM

In an effort to help out Yahoo with its revenue problems, Yahoo has hired Joanne Bradford, a former Microsoft Corp. Executive.

Yahoo announced the recent hire in a press release Tuesday. Bradford was Microsoft's head of their Media Network and resigned back in March after a 7 year stint with the software giant. She then joined Spot Runner Inc as their Executive Vice President of National Advertising Services before being swept up by Yahoo.

"My decision to come to Yahoo! was simple because there is no other company that combines one of the world's most recognizable brands with unparalleled reach, industry-leading products and programming, and a full spectrum of advertising offerings for marketers," said Bradford. "I am convinced that the very best days for this company are ahead, and I want to leverage my experience in programming, distribution, and selling to help Yahoo! take this business to the next level."

Bradford will be assigned the title of Senior Vice President of U.S. Revenue and Market Department. A rather large title probably compensated with an equally large pay check.

Labels: Microsoft, Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 12:00 PM.

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Friday, September 05, 2008

Ad Views: Myspace Surpasses Yahoo

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 12:05 PM

According to Reuters, MySpace saw more advertiser ad views in June than Yahoo! Yahoo may be the second biggest search engine on the planet, but when it comes to advertising it saw 34.7 billion ad views compared to MySpace which saw 51 billion views. (figures are from a press release issued by ComScore last week).

Yahoo does have the power to draw more revenue out of their ads and still leads MySpace in terms of revenue. Typically in the realm of social media, ad impressions do not necessarily equal dollars.

"Social media gets all these ad impressions but not necessarily get the dollars," said Colin Gillis, analyst at Canaccord Adams. "MySpace's cost per thousand (CPM) page views are significantly lower than that of Yahoo".

Back in June MySpace unveiled a redesign of their home page which has opened to doors to larger sponsors such as Wendy's and Sprint. While it is too soon to say that MySpace has overtaken Yahoo in the ad wars, this definitely shows that at this rate, they aren't far from it. Look out Yahoo!

Labels: Scott Van Achte, Social Marketing, Yahoo

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Microsoft Acquires Ciao

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 10:49 AM

The Ciao shopping and price comparison sites, operating in seven European countries and languages, will now be the property of Microsoft. This follows the deal reached between the software giant and Greenfield Online, operator of Ciao, for $486 Million.

Ciao allows users to create lists of their favorite items, rate products, and provide feedback. Microsoft plans to incorporate Ciao into its Live Search portal in Europe.

Microsoft's VP for consumer and online products, John Mangelaars, said in a statement: "Integrating Ciao's capabilities into Live Search will provide a strong launch pad for our commercial search offer in Europe and enhance our e-commerce offering on MSN,"

Labels: Microsoft, Scott Van Achte

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Microsoft & Jerry Seinfeld Team Up

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 9:30 AM

Apple has seen great success with its popular "Hi I’m a Mac" ad campaign, and now Microsoft has enlisted the help of Jerry Seinfeld for a series of TV ads.Seinfeld will earn a reported $10 million as part of the $300 million advertising campaign being launched by Microsoft.

The ads debuted on Sept 4 – I just by fluke happened to see the first ad when watching Kitchen Nightmares last night. I found the first ad to be funny, but personally think Microsoft has a little ways to go to catch up the Mac ads which in many cases are down right hilarious. You be the judge - take a look at the embedded video below and leave a comment with your opinion!

Labels: Fun, Microsoft, Scott Van Achte

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Wednesday, September 03, 2008

So Long Yahoo Mash

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 1:04 PM

Including features that are commonly found on other networks like Facebook and MySpace, Yahoo Mash was Yahoo’s beta attempt at the Social Networking scene.

I have to ask the question "where have I been?" It was not long ago that I reported on the demise of Windows Live Expo, a classified ad platform that I had never heard of until its doors were closed. Now, I hear of the loss of Yahoo Mash, another entity that, well, I didn’t know existed until I read a twitter post from Lee Odden noting that its shutting down.

As of Sept 29, just a few short weeks from now, Yahoo Mash will no longer exist (according to the official Mash Blog. The post does not go on to note the reason for the closure, but does state that if you wish to retain any data within your account, you’d better grab it before Sept 29, because after then, it will be gone forever.

I may not use every program, application, and web entity out there, but I do like to think that I at least know of the existence of the important ones. Maybe that’s the key, “important”? But, for me to have not even heard about Yahoo Mash, not even through the grapevine, this shouts out that Yahoo Mash was a failure for a reason, nobody knew about it, likely the same reason for the death of Live Expo.

Perhaps the "invite only" access was a killer right from the start, or perhaps the beta never really worked as they had planned, who knows, but had they done more to get the word out, Mash may have been the next big thing since potatoes.

Labels: Scott Van Achte, Social Marketing, Yahoo

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Friday, August 29, 2008

Google Cows Point North

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 11:03 AM

The Los Angeles Times reports German researchers, through the help of Google Earth, have discovered that 2 out of 3 cows point North.

Using Google Earth, the researchers studied more than 300 herds of cattle from around the world. Of the 8510 cows they observed, two thirds of them had aligned themselves to face magnetic north while grazing or resting.

This is the first discovery of large land mammals to have this built-in compass. Other animals such as birds and most bees have a similar trait to aid with migration.

So, if you ever find your self lost out at the farm, take a look at the near by cows to help guide you safely home.

Labels: Fun, Google, Net Reality, Scott Van Achte

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Lawsuit Against Google over Voicemail Patent

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 10:30 AM

Is there no end to lawsuits against Google? On Tuesday Judah Klausner, an inventor from San Francisco, filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Google, Verizon, LG, Citrix Systems, Comverse Technology, and Embarq.

Klausner's company, Klausner Technologies, filed a patent back in 1992 for "visual voicemail", a way to apply a graphical means of interacting with voicemail messages, similar to the use of e-mail.

Back in June, Klausner had a similar lawsuit settled against Apple, AT&T, and eBay (Skype) over its "visual voicemail" features on iPhone devices.

Verizon apparently had anticipated the lawsuit from Klausner and two weeks ago filed their own lawsuit in US District Court, to have the inventor's patent declared invalid.

In an article published on Reuters Tuesday Jim Smith, a Verizon spokesman stated: "We anticipated Klausner's action. We are seeking a declaration that Klausner's visual voicemail patent is invalid and that Verizon's system does not infringe the patent in any event."

The latest lawsuit is just a series of suits filed by Klausner dating back to the first in 2005 against AOL.

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte

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Thursday, August 28, 2008

Yahoo to setup shop in Nebraska?

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 9:11 AM

According to ABC 9 Eyewitness News, Yahoo has applied for a huge state tax break to help them setup shop in La Vista NE.

In order to qualify for the tax breaks Yahoo would have to create at least 50 jobs with an average salary of at least $68,700, and invest $100 million over a four year period.

The Application for these tax breaks is no guarantee of Yahoo’s plans to build in Nebraska. Its interesting that with all the financial trouble Yahoo seems to be having, that they may be willing to move forward with such a huge development.

Labels: Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

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Friday, August 22, 2008

Building Links with Directory Submissions

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 1:27 PM

A few months ago I wrote an article about 13 ways a webmaster can go about building links to their site. One of these ways was through the use of directory submissions.

There are many reasons why you may consider a directory submission. You could be trying to build your brand, focused on links for organic rankings, or simply want to drive traffic to your site. Below we will focus on the link building and organic ranking aspect of directory submissions.

There are countless directories out there these days, some are free, some are paid, and many are garbage. If you decide to build links to your site using online directories, there are some things you will want to consider before spending your hard earned money.

Page Rank
Check the Google Page Rank. The visible page rank is only a very slight indication of a page's strength, but a PR 6 still represents a site of more value than a PR 2. Do not discount a site solely based on PR, but know that a higher PR site, if relevant, will give you more value.

Outbound Links
Check the number of outbound links on the category page you would submit to. If the page has more than 100 outbound links, then chances are it will help you very little but there are of course some exceptions to the rule. Let’s say that the page in question has a few sites listed that are organically ranking in the top 10. The page also has a Google PR of 6/10, and the page is highly relevant to your industry. In this situation, even if there were as many as 150 or 200 outbound links, you would probably still want to get your site listed.

The same holds true for DMOZ. We know that DMOZ is a great place to get your site listed, and while listing your site on a page with the fewest links will give you the most value. In the case of DMOZ, even if the relevant category for your listing exceeded 100 outbound links, I would not hesitate to continue with a listing submission.

Category Pages
Check the number of pages per category. If your main category has 10 pages of listings, you may want to forget it as the deeper you dive into these pages, the less value they will hold - they also add the risk of the directory being downgraded due to spam etc. If you still want to be listed, what page will your listing appear on? If you can’t get the first page, you will probably want to walk away.

Are listings alphabetical? Are new listings added to the top or the bottom of the list? If they are added to the top, you should know that in time, as more people submit, your site will get bumped down to the subsequent pages, reducing its value with every new bump.

Success of Other Listings
Take a look at other listings in the directory. Are any of these sites ranking for related top phrases? Try to assess if other sites in your category are benefiting from a link at this directory, especially if it’s a paid directory.

Anchor Text
Does the particular directory allow you to determine the anchor text used, or does it simply link you URL. If you can choose the anchor text, the link will be far more valuable as it will allow more value to be passed on due to the relevance of the anchor text and the target phrase for your site.

Indexed in Google?
Are the directory and your preferred category sub page both indexed in Google and the other major engines? If it is a paid directory and they are not indexed, don’t waste your money. If the directory is well indexed including your preferred category, and has a fairly recent last cache date, then it is worth considering.

Price
Prices for directory listings can range from free to hundreds of dollars, so you have to ask yourself "is it worth it". If you find that the directory is in good standing, other competing sites in your industry are ranking organically and listed here, and the page has a decent visible PR, this may warrant paying a higher premium to be listed. Be sure to consider if the billing is a one time or recurring expense.

If you have only a $300 annual budget the $299 a year for Yahoo may make sense, however if you break that up into 10 listings in other top directories for $30 a year each, this may be a better investment – it all depends on what is available for your industry, how high its quality is, and at what price.

Can Google See the Link?
If your focus is on search engine rankings, then you definitely want to ensure that both your link, and the page your link resides on, are both fully spiderable by Google. Ensure that the rel=nofollow attribute is not used on your link, or on the pages that link to the directory page; also ensure that the page is not being blocked by a robots Meta tag or within the robots.txt file. The best indication that a page is seen by Google is if there is a recent cache of it within the Google index. If this page is also noted as a back link for others sites listed, it’s a pretty safe bet that yours will be seen also.

SPAM
Ensure that the directory you are submitting to is totally on the up and up. If you find that they are doing anything shady turn the other way. This could be in the form of hidden text or links, or abusive pop-ups, etc. If they are promoting some software or anything that may include adware or malware, you definitely do not want to be associated with this site.

If the site is free and without an approval process, you may as well forget it. It will (if not already) end up littered to no end with irrelevant links which will drastically downgrade the value of the link to as low as zero. While Free-for-All sites can be a quick source for links, the links will actually be useless, so avoid them.

There are many ways to build links for a site, and directory submissions are just one of them. By having your site listed in a number of relevant directories you can help your sites overall link reputation to grow. It is important to remember though, that directory links are usually not enough on their own, they are just one piece of the big picture.

By Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO

Labels: Link Building, Scott Van Achte

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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Will Google Index You & Me?

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 12:48 PM

When you look at it on a global scale Google is by far the leader when it comes to searching for online information. Nobody really questions that. But what is the next step for Google? For some time now they have been helping users to find images, videos, news reports, and so much more - but once the internet is fully categorized within the depths of Google, and the monetization is solid for all its efforts, what will Google move to after that?

It seems that I cant escape the mention of anything work related during my personal life. This weekend when reading the September issue of Discover Magazine I saw an article on DNA testing that mentioned Sergey Brin and Google's contribution of $3.9 Million to 23andMe, a genetic testing company back in 2007. This is old news, but it got my brain thinking off to a tangent.

Could the goal behind this investment be to prime the company for a future takeover by Google? Perhaps the future for Google is to index you, and me, and all our deceased relatives. By fully indexing DNA, perhaps we will someday have the ability to load in a drop of blood, saliva, or a hair, into our computers and have Google spit out a complete list of all our relatives, their info, and real-time Google Earth images or videos from above showing what they are doing at this exact moment, all with ads of course.

It may sound far fetched - (and okay, maybe it is), but less than 50 years ago so was the idea of us having personal computers in our homes - and only a few centuries ago the world was still flat! So while it may be unrealistic, in a few generations we may be able to research the DNA of potential mates from our homes by simply entering their name (probably telepathically) into Google. What a scary thought.

Labels: Fun, Google, Scott Van Achte

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Friday, August 08, 2008

Google AOL Investment Not Worth It

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 2:48 PM

About three years ago Google took on a 5% stake at AOL for a whopping $1 Billion. Today Google is not so sure that the investment was a good choice.

While they are not saying the value they believe the investment is worth, they are certainly not pleased by the past decision.

"Based on our review, we believe our investment in AOL may be impaired. After consideration of the duration of the impairment, as well as the reasons for any decline in value and the potential recovery period, we do not believe that such impairment is 'other-than-temporary'." Google noted in their lengthy 10-Q on June 30, 2008.

AOL apparently has also been looking for potential buyers - Certainly MSN and Yahoo have been in consideration, but one must wonder, that even if they think their $1billon investment may have been a bad idea, would they be willing to buy out AOL to keep it out of Yahoo and Microsoft’s hands? Time will tell.

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte

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Google Offers Free Music in China

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 2:45 PM

Looking for free music online in China just got a lot easier - and its legal! Google recently launched Music Onebox over at Google.cn to try and grab a larger percentage of the search market over in China according to the LA Times. Currently Baidu is the Chinese leader in search - one of its strongest features is music, however, most if which is illegal.

By providing a legal alternative Google hopes to snag some additional market share. According to a Google spokesperson: "We are launching Music Onebox to give users an easy and legal way to find the music they're looking for, and to give music labels and publishers a new channel to distribute, promote and make money off of their valuable music content."

When visitors at Google.cn perform a search for music they are directed to top100.cn where they can download and stream music. Ad revenue on the site is split between top100 and the record labels and publishers.

Baidu is currently under pressure due to music piracy issues, which gives Google the perfect opportunity to swoop in a grab what they can.

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte

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Yahoo and Olympic Medal Standings

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 9:04 AM

Today is the first day of the 2008 Olympics from Beijing China and Yahoo has made it incredibly easy for us to track the medal standings. Now, when you perform a search in Yahoo for "Olympic medals" at the top of the search result pages you’ll see the standings for the top 5 countries along with a "more" link to see the full results.

This year there will be no need to surf and hunt through various news and olympic sites as the medal standings have never been easier to find.

Labels: Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

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Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Yahoo's Second Quarter 2008 Results

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 9:10 AM

Yahoo has their second quarter shareholder conference call Tuesday evening and the numbers are in.

For Q2 of 2008 Yahoo's Revenues were $1.79 Billion, representing a 6% increase over 2007 Q2 Results. Their cost of revenues were also up substantially resulting in a gross profit up by only $18 million compared to 2007. Granted that a profit of more than a Billion dollars is nothing to sneeze at, but $18 million in growth is really peanuts in this multi-billion dollar industry.

For a full rundown of all the figures or to listen to the conference call, visit Yahoo Investor Relations.

Labels: Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

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Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Google Goes Shopping - Purchases Russian Service “Begun” for $140 Million

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 6:45 AM

Rambler Media, a Russian company, has recently sold their contextual ad service, “Begun” to Google for $140 million according to Reuters and announced in a Google Press Release Friday. As part of the deal, Rambler also agreed to use Google results and advertising on its Russian based site, www.rambler.ru. Ramblers search results will be enhanced by Google with Google Ads being displayed along side.

"Google is very committed to giving Russian users, advertisers and partners the best possible service and experience," said Mohammad Gawdat, Managing Director Emerging Markets, Google. "This agreement will result in better search results and more relevant advertising for our Russian users and publishers."

Currently Rambler Media owns 50.1% of Begun and will be buying the remaining 49.9% from Bannatyne Limited before selling the entire firm to Google.

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte

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Monday, July 21, 2008

Google and Microsoft Show Profits for Q2 2008

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 4:17 PM

Google’s earnings are in after the second quarter report was issued yesterday. While their net income is up from the same period in 2007 by approximately $325 Million (925.1 Million in Q2 of 2007, 1.25 Billion in Q2 of 2008), this is not as high as was expected – Wall Street was expecting to see $4.74 per share – actual earnings were $4.63 per share.

With the economy down on its luck Google still managed to make more than $300 Million – roughly a 35% increase over the same period last year.

Microsofts profits for Q2 are also up by roughly 46 cents a share. They saw earnings in Q2 of 2007 at $3 Billion, and an increase of 42% to $4.3 billion for 2008. These are impressive earnings, however, Microsoft’s online business did not help much in terms of this profit. Compared to 2007, Q2 of 2008 actually saw a loss of $488 Million!

Had Microsoft’s Internet division actually turned a profit, they would have achieved Wall Streets estimate of 47 cents per share, rather than their actual 46 cents.

Yahoo has not yet released their Q2 Earnings for this year. Their shareholder conference call to discuss earnings is scheduled for July 22 at 5:00pm ET.

Labels: Google, Microsoft, Scott Van Achte

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Google Losing Market Share? June 2008 comScore Figures Are Here

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 4:09 PM

comScore released the latest figures for search engine rankings and their respective market share Friday, and Google has actually seen a drop! For all you Yahoo and Microsoft fans out there, don’t get too excited, it’s quite small to say the least.

For June 2008 Google has shown a 61.5% hold on market share, down 0.3% from May of 2008. Yahoo also showed a 0.3% change, only in the positive direction moving from 20.6% up to 20.9%. Microsoft had the biggest leap of a whopping 0.7% up from 8.5% to 9.2%.

When comparing numbers from June 2007 with June 2008, Google has seen a sizable gain stealing users from MSN and Yahoo. In the past 12 months Google has seen an increase of 6.6% with Yahoo and Microsoft both losing, 2.9%, and 3.1% respectively.

Labels: Google, MSN, Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

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Unlimited Top Level Domains with with ICANN Approval

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 3:16 PM

ICANN has recently approved a proposal to expand the availability of top level domains to virtually unlimited levels – at least if your pockets are deep enough.

On Monday the Wall Street Journal reported that businesses, or even individuals with money to burn will be able to apply for top level domain names using just about anything they want as the suffix.

What this means is, rather than the usual .com, or .ca extensions, companies could purchase the rights to brand name extensions such as “.google”, or “.ebay”, or if I was given a hefty raise and felt the need, I could spend a half million dollars and register “www.scott.vanachte”, (although I am not sure what I would do with such a pricey piece of online real estate).

Don’t get too excited however, according to ICANN it could be upwards of two years before the new domains are released, and with these vanity domains going for as much as a half million dollars, we are likely to only see them used by the big corporations until prices come down.

Labels: Other News, Scott Van Achte

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Friday, July 04, 2008

A Bakers Dozen: Ways to Increase Link Density

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 9:59 AM

In today’s race to the top of the Google SERP’s (Search Engine Result Pages), there are a number of factors that can help you achieve those coveted spots. While certain techniques may weigh better than others based on your industry and level of competition, there is no questioning the power of links.

There are several methods, some common and some yet to be discovered, you can try out to help boost your link density and search rankings. While it would be near impossible to go into great detail on all methods (that would require a book) below I have outlined some of the more common techniques a web site owner can use to increase their site’s popularity.

1. Reciprocal Links
Reciprocal links used to be a huge asset and played a significant role. Today, fewer sites are employing this technique as it is thought by many to have no role in the eyes of Google. This is simply not true. While the overall value of reciprocal links has declined over the years, they can and will still help your rankings if done correctly.

The key with reciprocal links is very simple - relevance. If you trade links only with highly relevant sites, you will get value from this. There are some things to watch out for: ensure that the links returning to you are spider friendly, that they reside on pages with as few links as possible, and are contextualized, meaning the content on the page, and preferably the site as a whole, is related to the content of your link and site.

If you contact a relevant site to request a link exchange, keep the email personal to help grab the attention of the webmaster. Most link exchange emails are spammy automated submissions and are deleted without being read. Write the subject and entire email in such a way as to entice the user to read on, but keep it short. Offer to put their link up first, or even better yet, put it up before you contact them.

2. Purchasing Links
Google has been devaluing links, and in extreme cases, even penalizing sites for selling links, but there is no denying that this technique still works as many sites have skyrocketed to the top of the SERP’s through the art of buying links.

Many high profile sites such as major and local newspaper publications sell text links, yet nobody seems to be penalized for it as the publications rank well with high PR and the site they link to ranks well as a result.

If you choose to take the gamble and purchase links back to your site, check out how they are linking back, how relevant they are, and try to get a sense of how their site is treated by Google. If you see other sites that appear to have purchased links from them, check their back links and see if the linking site appears (although it may not be displayed as Google displays very little of this information to the public these days).

It is thought that if penalties will arise from the sale of links, that only the selling site will be penalized. Even if this is the case, Google’s policy could change at any moment, so be warned that this could potentially come back to bite you.

3. Industry Contacts
Get in touch with your industry contacts and ask them if they will link to your site. You just never know, and the worst they can say is no. This is usually best requested in person or by phone if it is someone you have a good relationship with. It may include manufacturers or retailers of your products, or various business partners and companies you have a relationship with.

4. Good Old Fashion Content
Believe it or not it works. If your site is loaded with original, valuable content, you will get some people linking to your site on their own. While you can not base your entire linking strategy around this concept, as it could take forever to get enough links, rest assured knowing that if you build it, some will link.

5. Build a Blog
Everyone and their dog seem to have a blog these days, and for good reason - they work. Blogs help you create a never ending stream of content, and if updated regularly, written well, and interesting, you will find people will link to it. Not only that, others may pick up your blog through your RSS feed - this can result in an increase in both links and site traffic. Be sure to utilize your Digg and other social media accounts within your blog to help gain a little extra attention.

6. Social Media
Promote your site and your blog using various social media tools. When someone "Diggs" or "Stumbles" your article you can not only get a link back to your site from the media platform, but you can also see traffic generated by this. The more people that flag your article, the more traffic you can get, and the higher the value of the link.

Creating company profile pages on platforms such as Squidoo, Facebook, MySpace, and even uploading photos and videos to Flickr and YouTube, can all count as back links to your site, so be sure to utilize these platforms to the fullest extent. Do not use these networks to spam them full of links, but rather to inform. Build unique relevant content and become a member of the community, and you will find your links will work much harder for you.

7. Article Syndication
When you write worthwhile articles, submit them to any known article aggregation websites in your industry or great general portals such as ezinearticles.com. When submitted to the right places you can drive traffic and increase your links. Again, be sure to include a link or two within your article that links back to your site when possible.

8. Press Releases
Press releases are still doing wonders. When your business hits a milestone, releases a new product, or has anything worthy of a press release, issue one through the services of PRWeb. You will get a link back to your site, and you may also get some targeted traffic from those interested when reading your release.

If your press release is of significant news, you may also find bloggers and other writers referencing it and linking to it from their articles, providing even more value. Ensure that with any press release you include deep links back into your site. Links from within the bio are helpful, but those integrated into paragraphs of the release are worth much more.

9. Comments
I know I am going to get a hard time for this one, but if used wisely, it can help. When reading relevant blog posts, if you have something useful, constructive, and worthwhile to say, leave a comment and include your link if they provide the option. A comment like: "nice post" is inappropriate, but if you have something to add or contribute that others will find of interest then go for it. These links can add up, and they do add some value. Don’t stuff your comment or name with keywords, keep it natural, and use your real name.

10. Forum Posts and Signatures
This is an area where you may be able to grab a few links, but it is also one you need to be careful about as it can backfire. I do NOT recommend going out and wildly posting in random forums and including your link.

Where this area can be useful is if you establish yourself as a solid contributor to a particular forum directly related to your industry. Once you are established, and people know and trust your name, and understand that you are not there as a spammer, then you can consider adding your link to your signature file, and including the odd link in your forum posts when it is fully in context. This will allow you to get the odd relevant, inbound link. Check with the terms of the specific forum though before you start. Some do not allow links of any kind.

11. Testimonials
You see them on many sites offering products or services, and quite often they include a link back to the submitter’s website. If you have used a product or service, don’t be afraid to write a testimonial for the company. In many cases online businesses will post your testimonial along with a link. The testimonial helps that business instill confidence in their customers, and you get the valuable link back.

12. Directory Submissions
Yes, do still submit your site to the major directories. While DMOZ can be very difficult to get into, once you are there, it is like gold and will play a part in your top rankings. Yahoo directory has a high price $299US, but can also provide you with a valuable inbound link. Consider submitting to the major directories, as well as any industry specific directories. These links add up and will contribute to your site’s well being.

13. Link Bait
We have heard this phrase thrown around for a while now, but the technique has worked long before the phrase "link bait" was coined. Why all the hype? Because it works.

Take a look at your web site, your business and your industry. See if you can think of some way to attract people to link to your site. Perhaps sponsor a contest, add an elaborate and unique tool, write a controversial article, provide something useful for free - whatever you do, do it well, and promote the heck out of it, and people will naturally link to you.

A Few General Rules:
Before you actively seek out a link from a specific site do some investigating to ensure that the site is not spamming or using any black hat techniques. If they are, run.

If the link you are seeking is merely for you to try and boost your link density, then also check out how they are linking to other third party sites.

Does the site use the rel=nofollow attribute? Are the pages your link would reside on blocked by the search engines, or do they use the robots Meta nofollow? Are they using other techniques that would not allow a spider to follow them (such as JavaScript, Flash, or frames)? If so you may want to move on.

And a note on Google PR (Page Rank) - the PR you see on your toolbar is outdated. While it can give you some insight, just because it says 0, doesn’t mean it is. Also what has a 0 or 1 today, could be a 4 or 5 tomorrow. Don’t use PR as your sole means of deciding if you should obtain a link or not.

Summary
Using any or all of these linking methods will help you to increase your link density. There is power in diversification. Use variations on anchor text and descriptions, use inline text links within articles, and gain links in as many different venues as possible. By being diverse your site will stand the best chance of being around well into the future.

Today, blogs are huge and can be a strong asset, but what would happen if tomorrow Google decided to ban blogs? Highly unlikely, but it could happen, and if it did, would your site survive? By being diverse, your site has the best chance to survive change.

Labels: Link Building, Scott Van Achte, Tutorials

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 9:59 AM.

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Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Google up in US Search Share

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 2:32 PM

The latest numbers are in, and Google continues to dominate search - we already knew that, but by how much?

The latest figures from HitWise released this morning show Google up a little over 3% compared to May of 2007. Google was accountable for approximately 68.29% of searches performed in the US in May of 2008. Yahoo and MSN fell to 19.95% and 5.89% respectively.

Yahoo’s figures for May 2008 are down marginally by about 1% and MSN down nearly 2% compared to the same period a year ago. HitWise figures are based on a sampling of 10 million U.S. Internet Users.

Labels: Google, MSN, Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 2:32 PM.

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Thursday, June 05, 2008

Windows Vista Lives

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 3:37 PM

Very recently my old laptop started giving me a world of problems ranging from minor software to rather serious hardware issues. For a three year old laptop it just didn’t make sense to fix it, so I decided to take the leap and buy a replacement.

I originally had hoped on finding something with Windows XP, and the only new machine I could find with XP was through Dell - my now dead laptop was a Dell, so I decided to pass and jumped over to a Toshiba running Vista.

Surprisingly thus far I like Vista, and it has only given me a few correctable & minor inconveniences. Of course, only after purchasing the new machine did I read that Microsoft has again opened the doors to selling Windows XP, and it will be made available on "Ultra Low Cost" Notebooks and PC’s.

It seems that Microsoft, in the wake of so many complaints about Vista, and so many people wanting new machines with XP, has decided to extend its availability, and manufacturers are able to produce and sell XP based systems, possibly until June 2010. Microsoft has officially stated that technical support will still be available for Windows XP until at least 2014, giving you a solid 6 years of life left using XP.

The catch is, XP will only be made available on these new "Ultra Low Cost" systems, which are limited by CPU speed and screen size, so if you want that high power machine, you better keep thinking Vista.

If you are one of those users in need of a new machine but are holding off due to distaste for Vista, you do have options. According to an article published today at InfoWorld, Asus will have machines available with XP until June 2010, and manufacturers such as Dell and HP will have "downgraded" XP systems available until Jan 31, 2009 and July 30 2009 respectively.

If you plan on purchasing a custom built PC from a local shop, January 31, 2009 is the last date that XP will be available.

Personally, all this seems kind of strange. If so many customers are complaining about Windows Vista, and want to purchase Windows XP, why not sell it to them? I can understand the desire to move forward, but with such a high demand on a product, it only seems to make sense to continue offering and profiting off of it - at least until ALL the bugs are worked out with Vista. Hmm, has there ever been a ‘bug free’ Microsoft product?

Labels: Microsoft, Scott Van Achte

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 3:37 PM.

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Yahoo and Walmart Strike a Deal

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 10:13 AM

Yahoo signed a multi-year deal with Walmart to start displaying advertising on its company website a press release stated Wednesday. The deal will enable Walmart.com to utilize Yahoo's ad platform for presenting new offers to their customers.

"This announcement builds on our strategy to be the partner of choice for leading brands looking to engage more customers with compelling offers online," said Todd Teresi, senior vice president of the Yahoo! Publisher Network. "By combining Walmart.com's leading position as a multi-channel retailer with our industry-leading display advertising sales and ad management technology and sales force, we will be able to provide advertisers with the easiest, most effective way to deliver targeted, relevant marketing messages to Walmart.com shoppers."

Marketers are expected to be able to start taking advantage of this partnership sometime near the end of this month.

Labels: PPC, Scott Van Achte, Yahoo

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 10:13 AM.

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Google Earth offers 3D view of Disney World

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 9:58 AM

As Google Earth advances, they have offered 3D views of several major cities and attractions world wide, but with the help of Disney providing intricate models, a 3D walk through has been created providing users with incredible detail in their virtual visit.

Information is made available on all of the parks 1500 attractions and contains videos and photos as well as booking details. Restaurant menus are also available for the many dining establishments at the theme park.

While currently the virtual tour only includes the outside of the parks buildings, a future update will allow visitors to see the inside of hotel rooms and enter the various attractions.

If you are interested in taking a break and viewing the 3D tour, ensure you have the latest version of Google earth and the "3D Buildings" layer is enabled, and perform a search for "Disney World". Clicking on any one of the colored Mickey Mouse logos, will get you started.

Labels: Fun, Google, Net Reality, Scott Van Achte

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 9:58 AM.

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Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Louis Vuitton takes Google to Court

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 9:33 AM

A case was brought to French court surrounding the use of certain keywords through the use of Google AdWords.

Google AdWords offers advertisers a keyword tool which will often suggest variations of certain keywords to be added to a given campaign. Fashion retailer, Louis Vuitton is unhappy as AdWords has been noted to suggest terms such as "Louis Vuitton fakes" and "Louis Vuitton replicas".

Because Google is essentially selling the advertising rights to these trademarks, Louis Vuitton alleges a trademark violation, and took the search giant to court - and won! Naturally Google has appealed and the case will now go to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

Labels: Google, PPC, Scott Van Achte

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 9:33 AM.

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Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Microsoft adCenter Desktop Beta

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 2:16 PM

For a few years now Google has offered their AdWords advertisers an alternative to the online interface with AdWords Editor, a downloadable program offering additional functionality to make managing your campaigns just a little bit easier. Today at SMX Advanced, Kevin Johnson, Microsoft’s Platform & Services Division President, announced the launch of a similar such product for Microsoft adCenter, in Beta of course.

Microsoft’s vision is a fully functional desktop client version for adCenter, rather than just an editor. This means that tools such as those used for keyword research will be integrated into the software, a feature lacking by Google AdWords Editor.

This product launch will likely make many advertisers happy assuming it all goes smoothly. Our experience with adCenter is that of awkwardness as their interface is far from user friendly, taking several steps to complete a task done with only a single click over at Google.

Unlike many other beta launches that are accessible to only a select few deep pocket advertisers, adCenter Desktop beta is available to anyone with an account in good standing. If you meet the adCenter terms and conditions, you are eligible to apply. If interested in giving the beta a try, fill in their application form to be considered.

Labels: Microsoft, MSN, PPC, Scott Van Achte

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 2:16 PM.

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Friday, May 23, 2008

Microsoft Joins in with Mobile Display Ads

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 11:51 AM

Google, Yahoo, and others are already there, and now Microsoft has decided to follow the leader with the launch of Mobile Display Ads.

On Tuesday Microsoft Announced it had opened the doors for advertisers to display banner ads directly to Windows Live Messenger and Hotmail mobile users.

Microsoft also rolled out its beta for keyword based advertising using Live Search Mobile, to be expanded in the second half of 2008. A select group of "invited advertisers can create keyword campaigns through Microsoft adCenter that target customers on the go. This will be the first time that Microsoft has enabled advertisers to monetize its popular mobile search service."

Mobile advertising and search is still in its very early stages and, in keeping with tradition, Microsoft has followed behind Google and Yahoo. If they ever hope to boost their market share and better compete with the two leaders, Microsoft should really try launching initiatives like this first rather then constantly playing catch-up.

The service is currently available to advertisers in France, Spain, the UK, and the US. As keeping with the trend of new web developments, Canada is still left out in the cold.

Labels: Mobile, MSN, Scott Van Achte

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 11:51 AM.

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Google Earth Expands to Include News

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 11:47 AM

Avid users of Google Earth will now find a new layer added to the unique mapping system. Google News has recently been incorporated allowing users to see regional news related to the specific areas they are viewing.

For some time now the ability to find geo-tagged photos within Google Earth has been available, and it only makes sense that geographic news stories would also be made integrated into the service.

If you are interested in activating the Google News layer "navigate to the "Layers" menu on the left-hand side of Google Earth. Expanding the "Gallery" node in the layers tree will expose the "Google News" layer. Check the box next to the Google News layer and start zooming into the places on the globe in which you're interested. Each story is represented by a Google News icon on the globe. Clicking on the news icon opens up the news story's snippet, along with links to learn more about the event."

The launch of the new feature was announced Tuesday morning by Project Manager Brandon Badger on Google's Lat Long Blog.

Labels: Google, Scott Van Achte

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 11:47 AM.

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Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Microsoft’s New Beta, Out of this World.

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 11:16 AM

Microsoft offered a sneak peak back in February, and as of Tuesday the public beta of WorldWide Telescope has been made available, according to a Press Release issued by Microsoft.

The online virtual telescope has been created in response to Google’s launch of Google Sky a few years ago, and takes things to the next level with a huge database of high resolution images from various stars, galaxies, and other non-earthly entities. Ray Gould spoke about WorldWide Telescope back in February and noted that some of "the best images from the worlds greatest telescopes from earth and in space are woven them seamlessly to produce a holistic view of the Universe."

"The WorldWide Telescope is a powerful tool for science and education that makes it possible for everyone to explore the universe," said Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft. "By combining terabytes of incredible imagery and data with easy-to-use software for viewing and moving through all that information, the WorldWide Telescope opens the door to new ways to see and experience the wonders of space. Our hope is that it will inspire young people to explore astronomy and science, and help researchers in their quest to better understand the universe."

WorldWide Telescope, Much like Google’s Earth & Sky products, is offered free and is currently available for download. While the user interface is quite different, the overall experience is very similar. WorldWide Telescope has a more modern and sleek interface than Google Sky, but in the end both have about the same to offer.

I prefer the Microsoft interface with easy graphic thumbnails to take you directly to the celestial body. Personally I find that this new beta release offers a higher level visual experience, which is why I would likely turn to it in the future.

Labels: Google, Microsoft, Scott Van Achte

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 11:16 AM.

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Google Goes Social, Launches Friend