Google’s Intentions for Apps and Future Acquisitions

Since Google began ruling the realm of Internet search it has become a major figure in my professional life. As a result, whenever an interview with a key figure of Google is posted I try not to miss it. To that end, John Battelle recently interviewed Google CEO, Eric Schmidt at the Web 2.0 Expo and posed some questions that have been tugging at my imagination lately. I watched the video over at WebProNews and jotted down some of my favorite points in the interview - I did the work, I might as well share it!

Please note that unlike the answers from Eric, the questions are not quotations but are similar to the question asked by John Battelle.

QUESTION A: With the latest introduction of a free online presentation tool Google has rounded off a nice office-like set of applications. Is this meant to compete with Microsoft Office?

Eric Schmidt:
“We don’t think so and the reason is it does not have all of the functionality nor is it intended to have all of the functionality of products like Microsoft Office. This is really a different way of managing information. It’s casual, it’s sharing. It seems to be a better fit to how people use the web and we think it is an example of one of the application categories on a web 2.0 framework
that we think will be very very successful. And my guess is that there are many companies represented in the room that are building products like this or other variants of this that are using this emergent architecture. You know, this whole story about Web 2.0, which I view is a
marketing term, is really an architectural transition from an older architecture to this new web based architecture and that transition which I think is what everyone in the room is a part of, is a fundamental computer architectural transition. Google is one of the companies that is benefiting from it, there are many others.”

John Battelle then responds incredulously by stating that Google’s toolset is bound to be “exceedingly threatening to Microsoft”.

Eric Schmidt:
“Well I am sure Microsoft will have a response. They actually have a set of web-based products which they can talk about. The important point here is that for people who are using products that are on the web who need presentation access and sharing”… “they are going to use this or something like this. And I think this is a testament to the strength of web 2.0.”

QUESTION B: What areas of technology is Google interested in focusing on into the future? Note: John essentially asked Eric what areas Google might be pursuing acquisitions in. Eric, with caution required rewording and responded with the following.

The 1st noted area of acquisition interest for Google
Eric Schmidt:
“The biggest growth areas are clearly going to be the mobile space; mobile, mobile, mobile. It is the easiest way to understand it. And the reason is that people treat their mobile phones as an extension of their persons and those mobile phones are very personal, very portable, and having GPS information in them now and this next generation of wireless networks, the 3G and eventually the 4G networks will have tremendous power. So if you look at the mobile space it is probably the biggest wide open space that quite a few interesting companies that we could partner with, and I won’t say beyond that, which are building either applications or advertising services that use the targeting that is capable in mobile.”

The 2nd noted area of acquisition interest for Google
Eric Schmidt:
“Another area is in the local space, most of the transactions we do in advertising are really good for local products. Go down a street to buy a car, go down a street to go shopping… that kind of thing. And most search engines”…”don’t fully take advantage of the local information that is inherent in the web. That is another big opportunity. There are quite a few companies that have figured out how to mine, target, or advertise in a local context.”

Wrapping Up
Other questions were certainly asked and I highly recommend watching the interview. That said, I was mostly intrigued by the quotes I placed because they show some indication of Google’s future intentions. Nothing was earth shattering. After all, it is no secret that Google Apps is thinly veiled as a competitor Microsoft Office. That is at least for users only requiring basic technology, however, the launch of a presentation application really makes any denial of competitiveness humorous.

Next we come to areas of interest for Google. “Mobile, mobile, mobile” certainly stood out as confirmation that getting into the mobile web scene is a smart move; do it now before everyone else does. Early adopters of mobile will be in a very good position once it catches on. Furthermore, the interest in local search is in perfect sync with Google’s desire to provide an enhanced regional experience. After all, the more local their search is, the more profits they can make since advertisers in every region will have their own top 10 listing to bid on. Exponential profit increases must sound mighty tempting to Google.

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by Ross Dunn is founder and CEO of StepForth Search Engine Placement.

Personalization and the Death of SEO

… as we know it. On February 2, 2007 Google launched its big push into personalized search results. This was, to many, a dark day as SEO’s scrambled to determine exactly what this meant for the industry and for our clients. Different results showing up for different people? What are ranking reports if what you see differs from what I see? Who’s right? And of course, how do I prove it?

I’ll admit it; my first thoughts at the launch of personalization were not necessarily along the most positive tangents. Upon further reflection (and much of it) and after wading through seven patents to get a better feel for the variables and what they mean (and might mean down the road) I came to one conclusion, coincidentally the same conclusion I consistently come to after each major algorithm update or search technology advancement: Anything that improves the search experience improves the SEO industry. This may seem an obvious statement but when the search engines (especially Google) throw a curve ball at us, one cannot help but worry.

This article will focus on two tangents, what is personalization and how will the SEO industry evolve to accommodation this new feature? The answer to the later is quite clear once one understands how personalized results are created.

What Is Personalization?

The most basic explanation of personalization is that it a system by which the search engines are able to extract patterns from previous search behavior and adjust present and future search results based on “learned” preferences. The simplest example can be found in the repeated selection of a single site when it appears in the search results. Ego drives many (present company included) to click on their own site when it shows up in the search results. Once the site is selected multiple times it will rise in the results when the same or a similar search is run again by the same user. Google has thus learned that you like this site and is now making it easier to get to it again.

What we can see from the patents that are out there indicate that personalization is going to go MUCH further than this and get far more sophisticated. Like any new technology, it is now in its first stages and as more data can be collected and more time put into tweaking the way personalized results are created and displayed the more factors they will be looking at. The numbers of potential factors, as with any algorithm, are virtually endless in theory however there are some key factors that come up repeatedly in the patents that are sure to hold weight as personalization evolves. They are:

Your personal search history. What you look for and the sites/ads that you select will affect the results you receive when you search. Right now this seems to primarily be restricted to increasing the position of a site that is selected multiple times when it appears in a set of search engine result however as this technology evolves your past behaviors and the types of sites you select in the results will surely be applied to new searches, increasing the positions of sites that have similar characteristics to ones you have selected in the past for completely different queries.

Your behavior on a selected site. What you do on a site and how long it takes you to return to the search engine is or soon will be a factor. The search engines have clearly stated that their main goal is to deliver a positive experience to their users. The more readily a searcher finds the information they are looking for in a set of results, the better the experience and thus, the more likely that searcher is to continue to use that engine. If Google discovers that when a visitor lands on a site they are likely to stay for only a couple of seconds then that site can reasonably be considered less relevant for a specific query than one who’s visitor’s remain on their site for a minute or two. The former site will thus lose position for the phrase and the later will increase. All indications are that if this is the case for a single phrase, that the rankings for other phrases the site ranks for will not be affected however I would speculate that if visitors react poorly to a site for multiple phrases, that the value of the site as a whole will be reduced and the rankings will be affected globally.

Your location. Especially important for mobile search but sure to gain importance for specific, localized phrases – your business location relative to the searcher will gain importance. A search for a phrase such as “seo services” is likely to be unaffected by such factors (unless the searcher has a past history of selecting sites from his/her own region for multiple phrases) however if a searcher searches for “pizza victoria” and the engine is able to pick up that the searcher is from Victoria, Texas and not Victoria, BC those sites that promote a pizza restaurant in Victoria, Texas will be increased in the results.

The patterns of similar searchers. And now it gets even more complex. It does not appear that at this time the search engines are yet grouping users together to find common search patterns however there are multiple references in their patent applications that Google will be looking for ways to group users together by search patters, interests, or memberships in communities to provide personalized results based on what others with similar interested have selected. For example, if I as a searcher am looking for blue widgets and after looking at a number sites I spend a few minutes on site xyz.com and you do the same and then a couple days later I am looking for green gromits the search engine will reference your search patterns. If you have looked for green gromits in the past the engine will use your experience (i.e. which sites did you visit and for how long) to affect my rankings based on our past similar behavior. Now, when we’re dealing with just two people searching there isn’t a lot of information to affect the rakings however when the engines are looking at global rules across millions of searchers they are able to determine which types of searchers are selecting which types of results by grouping users with similar interests/patterns together and increasing the position of those sites that the majority of the group has found most desirable.

The engines can also use memberships in communities and bookmarking similarities to establish common interests and patterns to increase and decrease a site’s position for specific phrases or to raise the sites value as a whole.

Your value as a visitor. A colleague of mine and a brilliant reporter on the industry, Jim Hedger brought a point to my attention that snuck past me the first time I read it but which now jumps out as both interesting and important. An engine can (and likely will) assign users with their own PageRank. What this basically translates into is a value that your vote will have when you visit a site and its effect on the overall results of the many. If Google decides that I am a lack-luster searcher and seem to select sites that others with similar interests do not then my personal PageRank will be decreases and thus, the sites I visit will be given less of a boost than those of a user whose selected sites match those that others find favorable. That user will then receive an increase in their personal PageRank as their voting power will be deemed higher than others and their decisions more reflective of the most-desired-results.

As noted, there are a wide array of factors covered in the patents and only through research, testing, watching and waiting will we discover the true nature of the evolution of this technology. This doesn’t mean that all we can do is sit and wait. There will be sites that do well as personalization evolves and sites that do not. So what do you do to help hedge your bets and increase your chances of being on the right side of the winners-losers table?

How Will The SEO Industry Evolve?

As with any evolution in the search engine algorithms, the addition of personalization into the equations means that the community needs to adjust what we’re doing and how we rank websites. This has ramifications for SEO’s and for website owners alike however one of the differences here compared to past changes is that some of the changes will affect only one of the two groups. Usually what affects SEO’s will affect the website owner and vice-versa. This is not necessarily the case with personalization.

Let us take for example a scenario in which algorithmic updates outside of the personalization realm affect the site in a negative manner but at the same time changes from within the personalization realm affect the site positively. This would result in a scenario where the global results would show decreases in rankings but where members of communities, regions or other relevant groupings would find the site appearing higher in their results. A ranking report would show decreases but a traffic and conversion report may well show increases due to the site appearing high to users who are likely searching for the type of information your site provides. This is where much of the concern and confusion lies in the minds of those offering SEO services.

From this one thing is clear, SEO as we know it will be coming to a slow but sure death. The rules that once applied, those that were universal, will no longer apply. New ways of conducting SEO campaigns need to be developed that don’t just target the universal algorithm but also take into account the factors included in the personalization components.

While currently the effects of personalization have not been widely recognized, this is due in large part to the fact that the majority of search users are not searching Google with the personalization turned on (by remaining signed into a Google service such as AdWords, GMail, Blogger, etc.). This will change. Here are ways that more and more of the search population will be added to those receiving personalized results (note: this is far from all of them and new ways to track user behavior are sure to be developed):

• Toolbars added by default to installed browsers on new computers as is the case created in the recent agreement between Google and Dell in May, 2006.
• Toolbars being included in browsers such as Firefox as was established in an agreement between the two in August, 2006.
• Search engine produced browsers installed by default into mobile phones as was agreement upon in a deal between Google and LG in March, 2007.

Some other factors that are going to increase the number of searchers affected by personalized results:

• New methods for tracking visitor behavior developed.
• New engines providing personalized results. Yahoo!, with all their social properties, is well positioned to expand into this area and Microsoft, with their control over desktops and browsers, is in a highly superior position in the area of visitor behavior and site selection, even from competing search engines.

Basically we’re heading into a world where more and more people will be receiving personalized results and in which more and more people are being tracked to provide superior sets of data to base group-based personalized results on. So what do we need to plan for and what can SEO’s do to prepare their clients and the websites they optimize to rank highly in the face of personalization? To be sure, new tactics will be developed and resources made available as the technology matures however here are some steps you can take today to help promote high rankings in personalized results. Below you will find them listed based on the criteria we listed above as being measured:

Personal search history. Having a website that ranks for multiple related phrases and which provides valuable content for all of them is a great way to affect a visitor’s search history. If a visitor goes to your site multiple times and remains on your site for a reasonable period of time then your site will be given a boost when future search queries are performed that include your site in the results. As a bonus, this is just a best practice regardless and will provide more high quality traffic in-and-of itself.

Behavior on a selected site. When visitors land on your site, the time they spend there can be tracked by the engine. This means that if your site has stickiness and searchers spend a reasonable amount of time there when it shows up in the results, the rankings will increase for that phrase. Basically, the better designed your site is to provide visitors with the information and experience they are looking for the higher it will show up in the results in future searches. The only tip I will give here on how to accomplish this is to make the information that a searcher is likely looking for when conducting a specific search easy to find. Past this we are getting into a variety of usability and copywriting issues. These are definitely important for SEO and for your site health and will only become more important over time however they could not possibly be covered adequately here. As an added bonus again, changes made to improve the visitor behavior on your website is going to increase conversions and keep the visitor there for longer periods of time.

You also may want to consider adding Google Analytics code to your site. Here I feel it necessary to give a few clarifications regarding some of the common reservations with using Google Analytics. The biggest common concern among web marketers in general is that Google will use the data obtained through Analytics (especially if you are using conversion tracking) to affect bids for those using AdWords at some point down the road. I’m not sure if I entirely believe they would do this however it is definitely within their abilities. They could also adjust the position of your paid add in the results based on how users react to your site once you give them the ability to view how visitors behave. It’s on the tangent that we head into the effects Google Analytics could theoretically have on your organic results. We know that Google wants to provide the best possible experience to their users (even more true in the organic realm than their paid). When you use Google Analytics you are effectively telling them how visitors behave on your site. If their behavior is not positive (low time on site or low page views) then Google could theoretically affect the position of your site in the search results based on this. This is the area that most concerns me personally and relates to this article. My rule of thumb is that it is best to use other analytics tools until you see that your traffic patterns are favorable and then install Analytics. At this point you would actually want Google to see your traffic patterns and visitor behavior.

Your location. While you can’t affect the location of your business or your searchers you can affect how you rank for localized phrases. The tactics here fall into standard SEO tactics, however the first step is outside of the traditional SEO realm and that is to be sure to get your business listed on Google maps. Most of us have seen the map results showing up in the search results. This gives you an opportunity to show up above the natural results for localized phrases or, in future, for generic phrases where the results are based on the searchers position geographically. It’s also a great way to “tell” Google where you’re located so if localization becomes a defining characteristic of a searcher, your site will appear when relevant.

You’ll also want to engage in traditional link building efforts from regionally specific resources such as city-specific business directories, and related business in the area. There have been many great articles written on link building and there is certainly not space here to do it justice.

The patterns of similar searchers. When you know what searchers of specific criteria (such as search phrase) do when they enter your site you need to let the engines themselves know that these searchers like what they see (assuming you’ve already dealt with the behavior points noted above). You need to associate your site with specific communities that you know your visitors are likely to be a part of. You also need to try to get your site added to social bookmarking sites by people who are likely to have common bookmarks with others who may search your targeted phrases or related phrases.

Basically you want to make sure that any connection you can help make between your site, your visitors, and other potential visitors with similar interests or patterns as your past/present visitors is established. This can be done by asking visitors to bookmark you on social bookmarking site by providing links to some of the popular bookmarking sites such as Google Bookmarks and del.icio.us. This will help make bridges between your site and others by people with similar interests. Getting links on industry-specific authority sites is another useful way to tie your site to other quality resources in your industry. To illustrate how Google would view this: if authority site A links to related sites B and C and site D is not linked to by site A Google can assume that if a visitor likes site B then they are more likely to also like site C than the unassociated random site D not linked to by the authority site A.

The value of a visitor. So how to you get visitors that can positively affect the results to visit your site? While there is no definitive answer to this question there are a couple actions you can take to hedge your bets. The first is sheer numbers. Not necessarily the most scientific of answers but effective nonetheless. If you have 1000 visitors to your site your odds that you have visitors who have a high degree of PageRank assigned to them are much higher than if your site only receives 50 visitors. Ranking for multiple phrases and pulling in traffic from social bookmarking sites and authority communities are great ways to help increase your visitor numbers from people interested in the topic of your site.

Another way to attract high PageRank users to your site requires thinking like a high PageRank user. What type of person would visit related websites and view multiple pages and/or spend reasonable amounts of time on those sites? What are they looking for? How do they surf? What other sites do they visit? If you can get an understanding of how they surf the web and what they do on websites you’ll get a feel for what you need to do in regards to site structure and keyword targeting to get them and keep them on your site.

What Does All Of This Mean?

To understand what this all means we need only reflect back on the title: SEO as we know it is dead. SEO’s are going to need to develop new measurements for their campaigns that reside outside of the direct ranking-reports of old. New strategies to tie sites together and ensure that websites are included in communities and that visitors react favorably to them are going to become increasingly important.

What this means to the website owners is that the workload on your SEO provider (or on you if you’re a do-it-yourselfer) is about to go up and like all things, so too is the cost. On the other side of the coin, you’re about to get traffic from new sources and your site, by necessity, will be more visitor friendly so your conversions will go up. So while the workload and cost may increase, so too will the ROI.

In short, while the lives of SEO’s are once again going the to get a little more difficult, the search engines will benefit, their visitors will benefit, website owners will benefit and so in the end, this is good for all of us.

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by Dave Davies is the CEO of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning, Inc.

Back to Basics, Custom 404 Error Pages Aid SEO

Your job as a search marketer is to make your site easily navigable for both users and the search engines. Your navigation should be clearly and uniformly laid out, your internal linking structure should make sense to a user, and a site map should offer links to the most important pages on your Web site. Part of this responsibility includes acknowledging that mistakes happen and offering users a roadmap for when errors arise.

Despite your best efforts, users will click on broken links, they’ll mistype a URL, guess wrong at what they think a URL should be or try to access a bookmarked page that has since moved. Users do all sorts of things to get themselves confused; sometimes it’s not even their fault. And when they do, they’ll meet your 404 page.

A 404 or Page Not Found error is an HTTP standard response code that alerts your visitors and the search engines that the page they were trying to access no longer exists. By creating a custom page that addresses the needs of your users, you help them get back on track and find the information they were looking for. You give them a reason to stay on your site and not seek out the information elsewhere. Over time this can add up to a significant number of saved conversions.

The question is: What kind of 404 page do your visitors see when they meet a roadblock? Is it friendly and appropriate to their needs or does it look like the default 404 page - cold and ugly, offering them nowhere to go but back to the page that lead them astray? Even worse, does it redirect users back to the home page without explaining or even acknowledging the error?

Our experience tells us that creating unique 404 pages is often one of the most overlooked elements in a search engine optimization campaign. Clients become so consumed with creating great content, adding links, and mastering all the other on-page and off-page factors that go into optimization that they ignore the importance of keeping users on their site when a problem arises. Unfortunately, they do this to their own detriment.

Imagine you’re a searcher on the hunt for a new pair of cowboy boots. You’ve spent time researching the various styles and fit options and now you’re ready to make a purchase. You head to SEOCowboyBoots.com, your favorite stop for cowboy-related merchandise, and come across a pair of boots that you think meets your exact needs.

One problem: You go to view the product information of the pair you’re interested in and you’re hit with a default 404 page that looks something like this:

There’s no navigation, no links to relevant pages, nowhere to go but back, and no way to get back to your boots.

Are you going to stick around and try to figure out what happened or are you going to go the next site on your list, a site you’re confident will have your boots?

You’re going to bail out on the conversion path and go somewhere else.

Most users are intimidated by a default 404 error page. Essentially, you’ve just scolded them for doing something wrong and given them no way to make it right. Obviously, you do not care about their needs, so why should they stay on your site?

The most effective 404 pages are invisible to users because they actually become part of the site. They use the same site template, they’re clearly written, and instead of scaring users away, they invite them to continue interacting with your site.

The five Must Have’s for every custom 404 page are:

• An apology for the error (even if it user error)
• A prominent search box
• A link to your site map
• A link to your home page
• Links to the other main areas of your site

On BruceClay.com, we go above and beyond the five Must Haves. Our 404 page includes our full navigation, a link to our home page, an area for SEOToolSet members to log in, a link to our site map, as well as links to other popular areas like our Search Engine Relationship Chart, SEO Methodology page, and our Code of Ethics. We’ve intentionally made it really easy for visitors to find the pages most relevant to their needs. We do this because we believe it aides in our search engine optimization goals and because we want to make it easy for users to navigate our site.

When appropriate, we sometimes encourage clients to create 404 pages that include a touch of humor. Make light of the situation; acknowledge the goof and encourage users to get back on track and dig deeper into your site. If you’re that site selling cowboy boots, display an image of a cowboy stuck in his own lasso, a boot with its heel broken off, or a rodeo clown two seconds away from getting pummeled. There’s no rule that says your error page has to be boring. Keep users entertained and they’ll be more forgiving of the casual misstep.

There’s also no rule that says your error page has to include the frightening term “404 Error Page” anywhere on it. This phrase provides no value to your users. Most of them don’t know what it means, nor do they care to. All they want to know is how to get to the page they were originally looking for.

Custom 404 pages aid search engine optimization by ensuring that more of your pages are indexed. If you leave the spiders to find a default 404 page you’re throwing a roadblock in front of them that they have no way to get over. Search engines can’t hit the back button or use the other advanced features of your Web site. All they can do is follow links. If they come across a bad link and you don’t give them anywhere else to go, they’ll leave your site. This may result in entire sections of your site not being indexed. Creating a custom 404 page that includes links to your site map and your site’s most popular pages will help prevent this from happening. You have to give the engines something to follow.

Providing access to your site map becomes even more beneficial since the engines will continually return to your site to see if those nonexistent pages have returned. If they have, they’ll reindex them. If they haven’t, they’re once again left with your 404 page and all of your relevant links.

Something else to consider is that if you’re using a 404 that quickly redirects back to home page, you may be penalized. The search engines could potentially see the redirect and take it as a sign that cloaking. In most cases, it’s in your best interest to include a custom 404 error page.

You may even want to create one for every occasion and possible misstep. With just a basic understanding of JavaScript, site owners can create dynamic 404 pages that are specific to what went wrong. If a user click on a broken link, you can create a page that apologizes and gives visitors a place to report the broken link. If they’ve clicked on a product page that no longer exists, you can design a page that includes links to related products. Or you can take a one-size-fits-all approach and deliver one 404 page regardless of what caused the error. Find what works for your site.

When you design your custom 404, make sure you create it to be larger than 512 bytes. This is to ensure that your server will actually display the page you’ve created. If it’s under 512 bytes, some browsers will assume that is the boring default error page and replace it on their own. After spending the time and energy to create a page that stands out and addresses your user’s concerns, you don’t want to leave the decision of which page is shown to your browser.

We recommend adding to the top of your 404 page so that the search engines will not index this page. The last thing you want is for your 404 page to start ranking in the engine’s index.

Once you’ve created the page, you need to upload the page to your server and tell it which page to use. Depending on which kind of server you are using, this is done differently.

To do this for a Microsoft IIS Server, open up your “Internet Service Manager” and click on the site you want to set the custom 404 error page for. From there, select “Properties”, and then “Custom Errors” from the list of Radio tabs. Once selected, scroll down until you come to the file associated with your 404 error page. You can then edit this file or upload a new one for your server to display.

For a Unix server, modify the .htaccess file (create one in new text document if you do not already have an .htaccess) to include the command(s):

ErrorDocument 404 /404.htm
ErrorDocument 403 /404.htm

Note that this will redirect all 404 errors (File not found) and 403 errors (Forbidden) to your custom page.

Save the modified .htaccess and you’re done.

Making your site easily navigable and addressing visitor concerns will keep users happy and planted on your site. An optimized 404 page is one that blends in with your site and seamlessly gets visitors on their way to a conversion again.

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by Lisa Barone is a Sr. Writer at Bruce Clay Inc.

Hot HTML Tips that Never Fail to Deliver

When it comes to HTML, you can always count on accuracy and detail delivering your website’s content in proper order to the search engines. If you are new to website building, or are struggling to understand why your website is not performing this article may be of tremendous value to you.

First, let’s look at meta tags, these are the main points of interest to the search engines, they do not look at a webpage as humans do, so meta tags are the brail, if you will, to what they see. Meta tags should always be between the and tags, like so:

The section is where all the content goes about your site, closed by

The next step is to have the search engines focus on your main points of interest. You can call attention to these words or phrases inside your content section using HEADING symbols;

Making Money Online

Top Paying Keywords

Landscape Rock

Just encase these phrases with the

etc, wherever they fall within the content.

This draws special attention to the search engines and helps your site rank higher in the search engines. Do not use more than 3 tags or it will only distract from what the search engines consider important on your webpage.

In your keyword meta tags above, adding the right keywords is important. Use keywords that highlight your subject matter, but avoid using, a, and, the, more, less, again, those type of words are frowned upon by the search engines. Search engines don’t actually read, they just want to know the relevant words in your content.

Using Top Paying Keywords is a way to increase your Adsense Ads revenue, if you use them to benefit from the content or subject matter of your webpage. This is a very valuable asset you can add to your site, if you apply the right keywords.

Alternate tags is another great way to align your website for optimum display for the search engines. Alternate tags are used with images or pictures on your webpage. They allow the search engines to recognize the picture with words you provide. For example;

A picture html description would look like this:

By adding the alternate tag, you can add keywords that are relevant to the picture or the content of your page, like this:

alt=”website traffic” src=”internet-traffic-2.gif” >

Anchor Text is a way to focus on keywords that link to another page or website. Again, search engines really like this and it draws attention to the relationship of keywords and relevant webpages or other websites.

< href="”http://www.Your-website.com”">Making Money Online < /a>

For more priceless information like this lesson article, visit http://wealthsmith.com.

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By Jim Wilson

Green with Envy in the Google Game

Beginning on April 14th, 2007, a firestorm blew through the Internet community with the search engine optimization (SEO) community burning the hottest. The embers were warm and waiting for a strong wind to blow and kick up the flames, but it took Matt Cutts, the Google engineer extraordinaire to fire the flames with an off-the-cuff comment about “paid links.”

The flames raged and in most forums, the wind quickly shifted moving the firestorm back towards Cutts and Google. Thread Watch offered the most biting rebuttal to Cutts’ comments: Google Wants Reports of Paid Links… What a Joke and The Real Reason Google Doesn’t Like Paid Links.
Aaron Wall at Thread Watch is a respectable fellow, and he tore into Google with a ferociousness that I had not anticipated. Matt Cutts tried to answer some of Aaron’s questions, but it seemed that Cutts’ rebuttals only added more fuel to the fire.
I would not have wanted to be in Matt Cutts’ shoes that week. Oh my, it was brutal!
Even on Cutts’ own blog where the “paid link” comment originally surfaced (Hidden Links), Danny Sullivan posted a question that went unanswered, so Sullivan commented about it on his site: Time For Google To Give Up The Fight Against Paid Links?
Search Engine Watch even mentioned this issue and linked to additional forums where the debate was raging: Google Goes to War on Paid Text Links
What Most Readers Took From Cutts’ Comments
There were only a few readers who took Matt Cutts’ comments to be brotherly-advice.
The vast majority of people were screaming that Google intended to exercise their “monopoly control” over the Internet to run all of their competitors out of business.
Generally, I am not a “reactionary” type person. But for about an hour, even I had a ball in the pit of my stomach.
The ball passed from the pit of my stomach when I read a post that mirrored an opinion I have openly written about numerous times before: How does Google determine the “intent” of a person making a link? They can’t!
Understanding The Nuances Of Similar Items
Some people suggest that I should be ashamed of myself for speculating about the future of Google’s algorithms. There is even one clown, who has suggested that I should fear mentioning Matt Cutts’ name in an article, because I am bound to draw Cutts’ ire against me and my businesses. But, I am not worried.
I am simply laying out my “speculative” opinion about what Cutts’ comments might mean to my business and yours. You are free to use your own brain to judge the value of my words.
Am I playing a double standard when I say that Google cannot determine the intent of the person placing a link, and then I comment on how I interpret the future of the Google search algorithms? I don’t think so, and let me tell you why.
Google uses algorithms (software programs) to make distinctions about what a web page is about, how they value that page, and to judge the nature of a link.
I use my intellect (or as some would suggest, my lack thereof) to make a judgment about what Google has told us we should expect from them in the future.
I trust software to a certain extent, but software cannot always read the nuance that separates two very similar items. So, how can the Google algorithm be expected to determine the intent of a person who placed a link?
It has always been my contention that humans are “required” in any process that must make an interpretation of nuance. In my businesses, we refuse to trust computers to make judgments of nuance, because they can’t. That is the reason we employ human beings to process orders.
What Is Google’s Intent Behind The Paid Links Issue?
The whole of Cutts’ argument seems to hinge on nixing “paid links” that are designed to manipulate or “game Google’s PageRank” and to a lesser extent, their organic search results. Google seems to be really agitated that webmasters are “selling links based on the PageRank value of a page.”
The problem is that webmasters are selling an intangible asset that is wholly owned by Google and maintained for “Google’s benefit.” Webmasters are selling this Google asset, but Google will not receive any of the proceeds from that sale.
As a result, Cutts suggested that webmasters should use some method that Google’s spider can use to recognize and distinguish “paid links” from “given links.” Since Google’s algorithm is based on the theory that links are given to websites that deserve those links, the paid links on high PageRank pages can really skew Google’s PageRank values and its organic search results.
Here Is Where It Gets Ugly
Both honest and dishonest people inhabit this Internet.
Google wants webmasters who are selling links to distinguish paid links from given links, so that Google can ignore “links purchased to influence PageRank.”
If honest people distinguish paid links in a way that Google can recognize, then the market demand for those links will dry up. Once the PageRank value of a link is taken away from the buyer, the buyer will be forced to purchase links based only on the traffic that the specific web page receives. If all paid link decisions were based only on a web page’s traffic, then the market value of a link would be decimated.
Once a webmaster tells his link-buying customers that his or her links will no longer carry PageRank value to the buyer’s website, then the value of that link will drop in most cases by 80% or more. Why would a webmaster want to reduce the market value of his links by 80%?
Although Google’s links do not pass PageRank to the websites that are in their index or paid listings, we have to ask ourselves one thing. Would Google be willing to take a step that would reduce the market value of their own links by 80%? They certainly would not do anything that would cut their own bottom line that deeply, yet they are asking webmasters to do just that.
This is the reason people are teed off at Google. At least 80% of the market value of a link is driven by the PageRank value of the web page where the link will be placed.
Dishonest people don’t care to play by the rules; they will continue to sell their PageRank value, as long as they continue to have buyers. Only the honest will suffer.
Link Buyers Are Green With Envy
Link Buyers are envious of the PageRank value given to other web pages, and they want a bit of that value passed over to their own websites.
Link buyers are green with envy, because they can see that little green bar in the top of their browser that tells them how much value Google gives a web page in its algorithms.
If Google were to keep PageRank as a private value, known only to them, then “paid links” would not be an issue for them to manage.
If the public cannot see what a page’s PageRank value is, then link buyers would not be able to use PageRank to influence their link buying decisions, and webmasters would not be able to market their PageRank value to other websites.
How Simple Is That?
All Google has to do to solve this problem of theirs, is to take away the indicator people use to buy and sell PageRank.
Someone suggested to me that Google would never do away with the PageRank indicator in their toolbar, because Google feels that it is the only thing that ensures that people will keep the Google toolbar in their browser. Personally, I will continue to use the Google toolbar for my searches, even if the PageRank indicator was not there, because I like the search results Google gives to me. But that is just my opinion, and I am only one person out of millions of Google toolbar users.
What it boils down to is this. If Google is serious about nixing schemes to buy and sell PageRank, then they would simply take their PageRank indicator away from us. But will they take it away? Only time will tell.

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By Bill Platt

How to Create Search Engine Friendly Website Copy

Search engines read text and not much else. Because they can’t generally index graphics, search engines rely on the text in web sites to provide information about the site content, which they can compare with search queries.

Webmasters therefore need to use body text on any pages on the site that they want indexed by the search engines and ranked highly for matching search queries. Not graphical text that was created in design software, but actual, visible body text. Not sure if your site uses graphical or body text? A good rule of thumb that I learnt from search engine guru Danny Sullivan is to try and highlight the text with your mouse. If you can drag your mouse over individual words in the text when viewing it in a browser, chances are this is body text and the search engines can read it.

(figure 1 - What site visitors see on non text-heavy pages)

(figure 2 - What search engines see on non text-heavy pages)

The most important page on which to use body text is the home page. Above is an example of a home page that uses graphical text instead of body text. Figure 1 shows what content the site visitors see, while Figure 2 shows the content a search engine sees and indexes.
How much information about a site’s content does a page like the one above provide a search engine? That’s right, very little. With next to no text to be found, the search engine would have to rely on the page’s Title and META Tags to tell it what the page is about. With such little information to go on, it is unlikely that a search engine would consider this page a relevant match for search queries relating to its content. To remedy this, it is widely recommended that each web page you want listed in search engines should contain at least 250 words of visible body text.

Keyword-Rich Text
While it’s a good idea to use plenty of body text on web pages, if that text doesn’t contain relevant keywords and phrases that people type in to the search engines, there’s not much point, because a site isn’t going to be found for logical search queries anyway. Many web sites make the mistake of including text on their site that is either unrelated to their products and services, or full of marketing-speak like “Internet solutions” or “superior services”. The Internet is plagued with web sites selling particular items without once making reference to those items in their site text. Weird huh?
For a search engine to find a site relevant for a particular search query, it MUST find that search query somewhere in that site. The easiest way to ensure this is to include logical keywords and phrases within the visible text on web pages, as well as in the Title and META tags. The best way for webmasters to find keywords that searchers are actually using is by conducting keyword research of their target market on a site such as Keyword Discovery or WordTracker.
Once it is determined what search terms perspective visitors are commonly typing in to search engines, they can then be compared to the goods and services offered on the site and the body text can be adjusted accordingly. Sites lacking any keyword research tend to use very generic, unfocused body copy, or sales-oriented “hype”. Neither style contributes to high search engine rankings.
Target keywords and search phrases placed strategically throughout your body copy give your pages a much higher ranking potential on search engines for related searches. But it’s not as easy as throwing the keywords into your site text willy-nilly. You must ensure that the keywords are integrated seamlessly so their repetition is unobvious and so that the text flows smoothly for the reader.
Don’t compromise the readability of your copy to achieve this - hire an expert copywriter to strike the right balance if need be.

SEO Copywriting

Before writing your web site copy, you should research potential keywords and phrases that your target audience may use in search engines and then narrow the list down to your priority terms for each page, sorted in order of importance. You should then use those target search terms as a basis for the creation of optimized Title and META tags for each page on your site. Once you’ve done that, it’s time to integrate those same target search terms into your visible web page copy. We call this SEO copywriting. But exactly how do we do it?

Speak to Your Audience
Don’t lose site of the reader when writing your body copy. Integrating your keywords is important, but not if you are sacrificing the readability of your site and losing the attention of your audience. Put yourself in their shoes like you did when researching your keywords. What are they looking for? What do they need? How will your product/service help them? Does it represent value for money?
Be emotive when describing your products and services. Describe how your product/service will make them feel or look, how it will improve their lives, give them more time etc. Use trigger words that people respond to such as “free”, “success”, “you”, “cash” etc. Not sure what these are? Check out Words That Sell reports. These reports are perfect if you are targeting a specific industry or profession because they define what keywords people in over 38 industries respond to and what they expect when making a buying decision.
Not sure who your audience is or what they’re looking for? Why not ask them? Use a free survey service such as Survey Monkey to learn more about them so you can write “to” them and not “at” them. You could even draft various styles of body copy and obtain feedback from your site visitors to determine what copywriting style works better for them.

Use Easy to Understand Language
The Internet is no place for verbosity. People are in a hurry - they want to find what they seek quickly and easily with the least hassle possible. You can help them in this quest by ensuring your site pages use simple language and easy to grasp concepts throughout. For example instead of “brand-building web information architects”, use “website designers specializing in brand promotion”. Keep the large chunks of text on each page to a minimum, using bullet points, white space, graphics, lists and sub-headings to break it up and make it easier to read. This rule of thumb is especially important when creating landing pages for pay per click and other advertising campaigns.
Use examples to get your main points across or to demonstrate your product benefits. Use the old WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?) adage when composing your body copy to keep the user’s interests at top of mind. Remember your international visitors by incorporating regional word usage (such as organize versus organize or jewelry versus jewellery) and avoid technical jargon that could alienate. Want your visitor to take a particular action? Spell it out for them in plain English, for example Click here to Buy Now, Subscribe to our free newsletter, Bookmark this page now etc. These references are called “Calls to Action”.

Build Your Copy Around Your Keywords
You should always build your page copy around your keywords and not the other way around. If your existing page copy doesn’t contain any of your target search keywords, you’re going to have to rewrite it! Start from scratch if you have to. The secret is to focus. Search engines aren’t going to rank your web site about socks highly if your body copy talks about foot sizes. You need to get specific. It sounds really obvious, but if you sell socks, make sure your site copy has plenty of references to the word socks! If you sell green wool socks, target the phrase “green wool socks” and not “foot apparel in lovely shades of emerald”! Who’s going to search for socks using that phrase?
At the risk of sounding like Dr Seuss, if you want to be found for, big socks, small socks, cotton socks and wool socks, then mention them all. Better still, sort your copy into categories based on your various products and services. If you sell wool socks AND cotton socks, then have a page dedicated to each kind. This allows you to target niche keywords within your copy and meet the search engine’s relevancy guidelines for related search queries.

Keyword Integration
So imagine you’ve added plenty of text to your pages and the copy flows well for the reader. You’ve researched your keywords and phrases and now you’re faced with the dilemma of integrating the keywords into your copy. So how do you satisfy the search engine’s craving for keywords without interrupting the copy flow for the reader? The answer is: very carefully.
Let’s take a look at a practical example. We have a client that specializes in luxury adventure travel. Before I optimized their site, part of the home page copy read like this:
“We specialize in providing vacations for people who want a personal service. We bring to our efforts a fanatical obsession with quality and exclusivity. We also bring a freshness, an outward-going passion for discovery which justifies our growing reputation as one of the world’s top travel providers. We can put together packages that include all adventure activities, accommodation, transport and food”.
Extensive Keyword Discovery keyword research for the client had determined that the site should target the following key phrases:
• adventure travel

• best adventure vacations

• tailored travel

• overseas adventure travel

• luxury travel packages
So taking our original home page text, the challenge was to integrate these keywords carefully and naturally so as not to disturb the logical flow of the copy and lose the interest of the visitor. Here’s how I did it:
“We specialize in providing the best adventure vacations for people who want a personal and tailored travel service. We bring to our efforts a fanatical obsession with quality and exclusivity. We also bring a freshness, an outward-going passion for discovery which justifies our growing reputation as one of the world’s top overseas adventure travel providers. We can put together luxury travel packages that include all adventure activities, accommodation, transport and food”.
Note that the key phrase “overseas adventure travel” accommodates the phrase “adventure travel” too. Voila! The search engines are happy because the site contains text content relevant to related search queries, the client is happy because we were able to integrate the keywords without distracting the visitor and I’m happy because I know the site is going to rank highly for the client’s target search terms.
Now it’s your turn – go tackle your web site copy!

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By Kalena Jordan

Google’s Last Dance! Could Semantic Search Mean the End of

As a full-time online marketer and webmaster I try to keep my eyes peeled to what is happening with the search engines. These complex creatures control the Internet. They truly are the heart, soul and brains of the web. Unfortunately, they also control the faith of many struggling webmasters who are clawing their way to the top of SERPs in organic search. Being listed on these first page results for your chosen keyword phrases is the ultimate goal and it is often the determining factor in the success of your site. Recently, I have noticed some strange movements with my closely watched keywords, especially in Google.
Which shouldn’t alarm anyone because there are often sudden movements and adjustments as Google tweaks and refines its algorithm, the complex series of formulas it uses to determine which pages and sites get featured. (Ed. note: An excellent resource on Google’s Algorithm and ranking factors can be found at: http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors#f41 It’s way too early to jump to any conclusions but the big question on everyone’s mind: Is Google Moving Towards Semantic Search? Or more precisely will Google have to move to semantic search if it has any chance of surviving in our ‘here today - gone tomorrow’ search world. Most of us old folks can easily recall a pre-Google web. Is a post-Google web possible? That’s very hard to swallow but stranger things have happened on the net. But the real question should be: will Google have to embrace semantic search or perish? Wikipedia defines Semantic Search or Semantic Web as the evolving process of taking all the content on the world wide web and “expressing it not only in natural language, but also in a förm that can be understood, interpreted and used by software agents, thus permitting them to find, share and integrate information more easily.” As can be imagined, finding the formats and framework by which all this data can be processed into meaningful responses directly related to a search enquiry is mind boggling. Technologies such as RDF (Resource Description Framework), data interchange formats (e.g. RDF/XML, Turtle, N3, N-Triples), RDFS (RDF Schema) and OWL (Web Ontology Language) will all probably play a role. Many believe microformats will be very important in this evolving semantic web. New Semantic Search Engine We now have our first search engine supposedly based on semantics or meaning: Hakia. Is it the first in a whole new wave of search engines generated and powered by the Semantic Web which is now tagged as Web 3.0? More importantly, can it compete against a more text based search engine such as Google? Hakia has some great features such as highlighting potential answers to your posted question. For example, ask it a question like: What is the population of Seattle? And you will get an answer. But you will also get a gallery page featuring all the relevant information about Seattle: How to get there? Local Hotels, Restaurant Guides, Local Weather… Of course, do the same search in Google and you will also find your information along with images and maps of Seattle. However, using Hakia will show you the relevant information faster because it is highlighted and easier to find. And in my opinion having a whole gallery page of information somehow makes your search more relevant and useful. Can Google Compete? Is this a better mousetrap? Maybe, maybe not… but it is definitely pointing the way to a better method of searching on the web. Granted, this type of search engine has a long way to go to match Google’s massive resources and obvious dominance in the search market. But even the most devoted Google user like myself must admit Google’s method of ranking pages and content on the web is not without some flaws.
Take for example the issue of Google Bombing where different webmasters influenced the listing of the keyword ‘miserable failure’ to point to President Bush. Google has now solved that problem but Google is basically an elitist system where sites and content are judged by the PR ranking system and its algorithm and filters. One would like to believe it is a democratic system where the best and highest quality content rises to the top. One would like to… Information is one thing but opinions and the quality of those opinions is something entirely different. Will the new semantic web/search be able to judge quality content and rank it as good as Google presently does? Problems For Webmasters Regardless of how the whole Semantic Web scenario plays out, it may have some consequences for webmasters and marketers. At least in the initial stages until you can adjust or optimize your sites to this new 400 pound Gorilla on the block. One major concern is how will the literal translation or semantic meaning of your site’s title and URL determine your placement in a semantically themed search engine? Most webmasters know to place their major keywords in their site’s domain name but, if you cover many topics within your site, this is not always possible. Plus, does a Semantic Web mean everything will probably have to be tagged to the nth degree as we are seeing in blogs, social media and Web 2.0? Thankfully this can be easily done with free software such as WordPress which has tagging already built into its programming. If we do get truly semantic search, wouldn’t on page factors play an even greater role for ranking? Special care would have to be taken as regards to your keywords and keyword variations. Great care will also have to be taken with page Titles, Meta Tags and your URLS. I notice I am listed in Hakia for certain keywords but those have the direct phrases in the URLS. Keen observers will also note that Google is now listing five or six related links in the number one SERPs position for certain keyword phrases. All these links come from the same site but are they more semantically related to the search enquiry than traditional links we have seen in Google? Or are they more in line with the gallery pages we see in Hakia? Of course, jumping to any conclusions based on just one or two examples is foolhardy to say the least. Especially where search engines are concerned. Brave New Internet No doubt, Semantic Search or a Semantic Web poses some difficult obstacles and challenges as we seek a more human response from all those bits and bytes. For example, will semantic search mean we will have more closely focused sites strictly sticking to the topic of the url or domain name. Will the semantic web be more restricting than liberating? When it is all said and done, will we really be able to devise a computer/machine/system that will be able to truly interpret the vast stored knowledge and give us the right meaningful answers to our questíons? Will it be able to be programmed so it’s human enough to not only understand but also interpret the subtle differences and meanings we have for different words in the whole context of a webpage? Perhaps the most intriguing question, can someone take the present day ‘www index’ and then apply microformats or even new technology to this massive data and build a supplemental exclusive extension of the present day web? Turn it into a more semantic ‘natural language search’ accessible index. If such a gigantic feat was even feasible, you would also have to wonder who could have the resources to make such a creature possible! As we have seen from Google a dance is not necessarily a dance and a slap is not necessarily a slap. Could an index be more than an index? It may be too early to tell, but Google will probably be better equipped to quickly adjust than anyone to this new Semantic Web whatever shape or form it takes._____
By Titus Hoskins