SEO Connections

SEO MixTour by Web CEO: Vital Basics: The Eternal SEO Queries

2010-05-14T05:35:00.000-07:00

We regularly receive emails from SEO MixTour readers and Web CEO users asking for advice on various SEO and SEM issues ranging from minor tips and tricks to some major issues such as the reasons for a search penalty. These are mainly backbone SEO questions which we call Vital Basics of SEO. If you are a novice search engine optimizer, please first read the previous issues entitled Search Engines' Index Questions and Keyword Optimization Questions, and go on reading today's issue.

Should I have my main keyword in the URL?

Yes. The best thing is a domain name that includes your main keyword. However, even subdomains, directory and page file names matter. It is always better to have your main keyword in the URL, unless you have a long-keyword-phrase-that-will-look-spammy.com. The keyword in the URL will not only tell search engines that your keyword relates to the topic you are concentrating on, but will help you get keyword-rich link texts (some people still link using the domain name as the link text). Besides the highlighted keyword in the URL on the SERPs, may positively influence the click through rate.

Are Meta tags still important?

Not that important. Last September Google announced that they do not use the Meta Keywords tag in web ranking. But the Meta Description tag is often used as the text for Google search results snippets, so why not making it descriptive and attractive? One more Meta tag that is used by search engines is a Robots Meta tag; you may read more about it in the SEO MixTour issue devoted to search engines' crawlers.

Is it OK to use both image alt text and image title?

Yes, especially if you are using them to help your visitors and not to stuff keywords. Image Alt text is used to provide explicit information on an image for those who are unable to see it; the Image Alt text should describe what the image is about. Image titles provide additional information; it is a title, so it should be short and catchy. Of course, you would like to use your keywords in both of them.

Are automatic site submissions to search engines harmful?

Rather 'No' than 'Yes'. The major search engines won't ban your site because of them, but do not expect automatic submissions to improve your search engine rankings. It is much better to submit your website's Sitemap to the major search engines.

How soon will my rankings improve after I submit to search engines?

There is no direct dependence between your site's submission to search engines and good rankings. Getting your site indexed just means that search engines know about your site and will return next time to crawl it and update their listing of your site. To rank well, you should optimize your pages. This involves content optimization for the targeted keywords, improvement of a site's link popularity (getting inbound links to your site), ensuring site quality (absence of broken links and other serious HTML errors preventing SE robots from crawling and indexing, search engine- and visitor-friendly design), promotion in social media, and advertising.

How do search engines know that you are the author of the unique content?

This question is usually asked when you think about a duplicate content filter that the major search engines apply. Let's see what happens when a search engine finds several pages with identical content. Its algorithms must select the page that offers the best information required and offer it to a searcher. How does it decide which page is better? Here the authority of the site and the number of backlinks pointing to the page come into play. So your task is not to just insist that you are the first to publish an article, but to prove to search engines that your page is relevant and authoritative enough to be listed in SERPs higher than others who only copied it.

You may read more about the country-specific sites and duplicate content filters and about the usage of borrowed content in the previous SEO MixTour issues.

Web CEO Metrics

Here we are sharing the generalized numbers from our HitLens Web Analytics service. It covers 300,000+ websites from all over the world.

In April 2010 Google referred 82 % of all visitors compared to the year 2009 when this number was 79%. Yahoo's numbers constantly decrease, and Bing's audience has slightly diminished.

You can see how visitors are being referred to websites.

While search engines are still the main visitor referrer, the share of linking sites increased from 19% to 20%. The bookmarking level dropped down, and the number of search marketers who use paid advertising increases step by step.

Advantages of sharing your Google Analytics data with DoubleClick Ad Planner

2010-02-25T20:40:00.000-08:00

Double Click Ad Planner

Double Click Ad Planner is a free media planning tool that can help you identify websites your audience is likely to visit so you can make better-informed advertising decisions.

With Double Click Ad Planner, you can:

Define audiences by demographics and interests.
Search for websites relevant to your audience.
Access aggregated statistics on the number of unique visitors, page views, and other data for millions of websites from over 40 countries.
Create lists of websites where you'd like to advertise and store them in a media plan.
Generate aggregated website statistics for your media plan.

Google Analytics shows your site's precise number of:

Page views
Unique visitors (cookies)*
Total visits
Average visits per visitor
Average time on site

By sharing this Google Analytics data with DoubleClick Ad Planner, you'll ensure that potential advertisers will see this critical information, feel confident in the accuracy of the data, and make better-informed decisions about including your site in their media buys.

* If you opt in your Google Analytics data, the unique visitors (estimated cookies) metric in DoubleClick Ad Planner becomes unique visitors (cookies). (Learn how to review the two metrics.)

See Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LQrSiqw_Zs&feature=player_embedded

Click for Details

Follow Your Conversions With Over Time

2009-11-24T03:03:00.000-08:00

If you've recently looked at your Website Optimizer reports you may have noticed something different. Today we launched another new feature designed to help you better understand the performance of your variations: over time charts.

With over time charts you can see the cumulative conversion rate of each combination over the life of an experiment. This can give you a better understanding of how your site is performing. The new charts are available for all Website Optimizer experiments, and you'll find them on the reports page.

We'd like to give a special thanks to Dennis Huo, who interned with us this past summer and built over time charts as part of his work here. Thanks for the charts, Dennis!

Original Article

3 Reasons Twitter Is Not A Fad

2009-11-17T00:51:00.000-08:00

I’ll cut to the chase. Twitter isn’t a fad. It’s not going away. Let me tell you why:

They Have Industry Recognition

Industry giants can be intimidating for any new business, especially on the web. Since Twitter’s inception, we’ve seen multiple companies make offers to acquire the young service, and we’ve seen multiple companies get turned down. A lot of people were thinking, “Hey, why didn’t they take the money and run?” I know I was. But, it seems the folks at Twitter had bigger and better things on their mind.

Besides fighting off the temptation to give into lucrative acquisition offers, Twitter has had to face the looming threat that all startups face: what happens when Google decides to do what you’re doing? Yikes. This question has gotten even scarier for social startups – what happens when Facebook decides to do what you’re doing? Double yikes. But, Twitter has stood the test of time and managed to fight off the major industry players. Facebook users can update their Twitter accounts with a simple application, fan pages have a built in utility to update Twitter accounts, and Google and Bing are now showing Tweets in their search results. Win. Win. Win. Win.

There Is No Replacement

Besides fighting off internet giants like Facebook and Google, you would suspect that Twitter would also be facing heavy competition from copy cat services. After all, making a micro blogging platform isn’t that difficult, but, then again, the platform itself isn’t Twitter’s main advantage over competitors. Those trying to duplicate Twitter’s service would be faced with overcoming Twitter’s first mover advantage, their piles of funding, and their existing relationships (see paragraph above). With all of these advantages, it’s no surprise there hasn’t been much real competition from similar services. Simply put, if Twitter were Myspace, there is no Facebook.

The Mobile Web Is Here

So, maybe Twitter isn’t falling to competition any time soon. That doesn’t mean people won’t just quit using it. What’s to keep Twitter from becoming just another Second Life? The answer is mobile. There are three reasons why mobile is important to Twitter’s success:

Mobile is easy. Instead of using an isolated desktop application or piece of software that limits use to specific times and places, mobile presents an easier, less cumbersome way for people to use Twitter: on the go, anywhere, anytime.
Mobile is real. Because Twitter can be used and viewed on the go, its content is more than just tech talk floating in cyberspace. It’s real updates about things beyond the monitor: Mobile brings the value of conferences, speeches, concerts, accidents, crimes, parades, inaugurations and more to the folks who weren’t there.
Mobile is the direction the internet is headed. E-marketer estimates US penetration will near 100% by 2013. And, it’s not just talking and texting anymore. The mobile web is here.

Unlike Second Life, Twitter doesn’t propose an alternate reality. It proposes a simple way to better understand our current reality. Tweets ranging from “what I had for breakfast” to “Michael Jackson died” give followers world-wide a better grasp on the activities and thoughts of real people.

Twitter isn’t for everyone. Some people just aren’t interested in real-time news, objects of local interest, or the status updates of friends and family, but an increasing number of people are. With their sealed market position and a platform that makes mobile usage easy and compelling, Twitter isn’t going anywhere soon. If you’ve been waiting for the fad to fade, get ready for a long wait.

Original Article

Google Wave

2009-09-27T21:18:00.000-07:00

Google Wave is a new tool for communication and collaboration on the web, coming later this year. Watch the demo video below, sign up for updates and learn more about how to develop with Google Wave.

Learn
Google Wave can make you more productive even when you're having fun.
Take a sneak peek.

Develop
Learn how to put waves in your site and build wave extensions with the Google Wave APIs.
Visit code.google.com/apis/wave.

Build
Google Wave uses an open protocol, so anyone can build their own wave system.
Learn more at www.waveprotocol.org.

First Post

2009-09-27T11:05:00.000-07:00

First Post