New Content Matters for SEO
I’ve always said that search engines look at three things:
- Keywords in content – do you use the search terms your potential clients use on your pages?
- Popularity as defined by links – do other, quality sites link to your site?
- Freshness of content – are you updating your site regularly
I just read a statistic that increased my interest in fresh content. Google’s VP of Engineering recently reported that 20 to 25% of the queries they see are brand new. He was talking about how Google uses context to understand searches. (You can see more here: http://tinyurl.com/2xsaoa.)
I think it also feeds into a popular idea of the long tail search engine optimization. The long tail search focuses on multiple-word phrases [st paul dry cleaning open Sunday] as opposed to single phrases, such as [drycleaners]. (Here’s more info on the long tail search http://strategizer.wordtracker.com/.)
If you are a drycleaner in my town that’s open on Sunday, you could see where showing up for the first search is even more important that showing up for the second if you are focused on making a sale.
In some ways the goal is easier when you just pick the most popular terms and focus on using them, although the competition is getting increasingly fierce. I think the best way to reach those or long tail searches is to provide as much information as possible.
On traditional web sites this can be somewhat difficult as there is realistically only so much space for info. That’s why I’ve been becoming a bigger and bigger fan of blogs. Blogs are easy to maintain. Each blog acts as its own page in terms of SEO – so that if you write all about your adventures in dry cleaning on Sundays, you can do well for the search above. And writing about your industry and what interests you and your clients, I think you increase the odds of using other long tail search terms.
Also each blog post feeds into providing fresh content for the whole site.
Writing blog posts takes time – and sometimes it makes sense to hire that out – but I think in terms of SEO it can be money well spent.
Kind of long this week – I hope that’s helpful.
Free webinar on QR Codes
In September I am giving a free webinar on QR Codes for Minnesota Renewable Energy Marketplace. You’re all welcome:
QR Code: What, How Why?
Have you noticed barcode matrix graphics in magazines, ads, even billboards? Have you wondered how they work and how you can use them to reach your audience? We’ll talk about what they are, how to use them and how to create them.
| Title: | QR Code: What, How Why? |
| Date: | Thursday, September 22, 2011 |
| Time: | 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM CDT |
| After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar. |
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/197549182
Also for Minnesota folks, I wanted to share my annual State Fair scavenger hunt: http://wp.me/p48Vv-18X
Training for Google in MN
Sorry to folks outside Minnesota. This is pretty area specific this week.
Google joined the Minnesota High Tech Association earlier this month. My hope was that it meant they might start doing training and sponsoring speakers here. Well, apparently it does. They just announced Google Training offered Sep 9 and 10. They are offering a range of classes on how to build a free web site, get listed on Google Places, buy ads and use some of their other free tools. There are three workshops, each lasting an hour. So I’ve signed up for two just to see how it goes. I’ll report in after to tell you how it goes.
I know these sessions have filled up quickly in Dublin – but they are open now if you’re interested: http://www.minnesotagetonline.com
Prime Google Ad Placement
I know today’s byte is pretty specific to anyone who is interested in Google ads. For others my tip of the day is to sing up for local Groupon http://www.groupon.com/ when planning your vacation – it can help you save bucks while you have great time.
Recently I had someone ask about how to buy Google ads for placement above the search results, rather than the ad sidebar on the right. Over the years they’ve actually changed this process. It used to be that you paid the very big bucks to get placed in the prime above the search results. Now you still pay the pretty big bucks (depending on the keyword phrase) but your ad must also merit top ranking. They use an algorithm based on bid per click and quality of ad to determine which ads go to the top places. Here’s the explanation from the Google Adwords (aka Pay per Click ads) help section…
Google believes strongly in providing high-quality and relevant advertising to our users. On Google search result pages, only the highest ranking AdWords ads are eligible to appear in the top positions above the search results.
Our system does not rank ads solely on cost, so there is no way to guarantee top placement on a search result page. However, by adjusting your keywords’ Quality Scores and CPC bids, you can better control the position of your ad and help improve your ad’s chance to appear higher within search results. Remember: The higher the quality, the lower the CPC, and vice versa.
The above is quoted from http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=6546
New site for Minnesota Sign Company
I am pleased to unveil a brand new web site for Wilson Graphic in Madison Minnesota. We wanted a sign that showcased Dan Wilson’s art and craft. As you can see he does a great job with standard business signs, vehicle signage and residential art. Also we wanted something that they could maintain themselves and that would fit well with their growing social media strategy.
DMOZ – getting listed
Someone asked me about DMOZ recently. It was like hearing about an old classmate. DMOZ or Open Directory Project is a volunteer-maintained directory of web sites. http://www.dmoz.org In its day, DMOZ was a great search engine and it gained relevance by letting other directories and search engines gain access to their database of links. So getting listed on DMOZ was very beneficial to your overall search engine rankings. A long time ago I was a volunteer editor for DMOZ.
The trouble with DMOZ is and always has been the wait to get listed. You can submit your site for free – but you are reliant on a volunteer getting and processing your submission. I don’t think a link from DMOZ has the same impact now as it did 5 or 10 years ago – but it’s still nice to try. Here are my quick tips to submitting your site:
- Search the database to make sure you aren’t already listed.
- Find a category that fits your site
- Make sure that category has an Editor (if there’s a note at the bottom saying “ Volunteer to Edit this Category”, there’s no Editor)
- If your first choice category doesn’t have an editor, find another category
- Follow their instructions: http://www.dmoz.org/docs/en/add.html They are pretty specific and straightforward
- Submit, wait, and don’t lose any sleep over it
- If you really want to get listed – wait six months and try again – maybe with a different category
I hope that’s helpful. Again a link from them is nice – but not worth more than 30 minutes of your time anymore.
Client example: Keyword research & placement
You can never rank too highly on the search engines. Sometimes I hear from folks who have not paid much attention to search engines; sometimes I hear from folks who have been paying attention but for some reason run into hiccups. Return2Ftiness had paid attention for search engines. In fact they ranked very well for shoulder brace – but not as well for knee braces.
The site is well constructed, very functional, they had done a lot to get links into the site. The question was – why was knee brace not doing as well as should brace?
Return2Ftiness has a sister site in the UK. So my first concern was the chances of duplicate content – but the pages were sufficiently different so as not to confuse a search engine. (Although we also noted that they have had issues getting listed on DMOZ and I think perhaps the cause there was that an Editor didn’t take the time to recognize the site differences. We’re trying again there.)
We did find space for improvement. Specifically we add some keyword-rich content to the top of the knee brace page to help search engines make the connection between the specific product names and the general term. Also we moved the link to the specific page up in the navigation. So that search engines would see that this page is prominent in the site structure, which generally indicates importance.
We’re currently waiting for results – but I thought the steps we took might be helpful to others.
Email Management Tips
I’m cheating this week by passing on tips that one of my customers is passing on to their patrons:
Here’s a quick take on the article on handling email:
1. Lower the volume.
2. Don’t ask to be kept “in the loop.”
3. Return email in batches.
4. Be clear.
5. Spell correctly.
6. Leave the iPhone or Blackberry at your desk sometimes.
7. Remember, email is not your job.
Here’s where I got it: http://www.lqpeda.com/2011/07/26/the-7-habits-of-highly-effective-emailers/ Because I am in Ireland I’ve been learning to live some of these tips already. Essentially I quite look at email at 5 pm (MN time). Then when I go back to it (at 2 am MN time) I find I can get through it much quicker than if I were answering messages as they came in.
Also I wanted to share another fun thing a different client is doing: http://melaniescorner.com/ You can follow their little Garden Hero toys around the world on their blog or Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/#!/learningzonexpress (My 7 year old has grown to love these little fruit and veg dolls!)
New Client Site: Montana Rural Health Initiative
I’m enjoying a rare day of calm – so I thought I’d update the Byte of the Week with some of the newly minted web sites, starting with the Montana Rural Health Initiative. They had used WordPress for their old site – but some of the features had gone wonky so it was time for a refresh. Part of the issue/opportunity is that WordPress and WordPress Themes have made so many upgrades.
So this new site is also built on WordPress. It uses a Woo Theme and ties into other online tools such as Google Calendar and Constant Contact.
DVDSoft – free video conerter
Last year I got a Droid. I’ve been pretty happy with it and it takes decent video – but I can’t upload them directly to YouTube, which is kind of a pain. Luckily I found a free and easy video converter.
DVDVideoSoft http://www.dvdvideosoft.com/ has a series of free downloads related to video and video conversion. I downloaded the Free Studio. It allows me to use the following tools:
- Free Video to DVD Converter
- Free Video to Flash Converter
- Free Video to MP3 Converter
- Free Video to JPG Converter
- Free 3GP Video Converter
- Free Video to iPod and PSP Converter
- Free Video to iPhone Converter
- Free Video Flip and Rotate
- Free Video Dub
- Free Screen Video Recorder
- Free DVD Video Burner
- Free DVD Video Converter
The 3GP Video Converter is the only one I use. I open it up, add my file (which I have downloaded to my laptop) and click convert. Then it’s saved to a local folder and ready to upload to YouTube. Here’s my latest upload http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wka2xIeCOCA. I’m only adding it so you can laugh at the sort of videos I upload. (It’s a reenactment of the Battle of Clontarf!)
Ann Treacy
