Posts Tagged ‘SEO’

Yahoo! Changes Its Search results

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

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In preparation for the holiday shopping season Yahoo! has updated how it reveals search results. The intention is to provide answers and not just links. Whenever a user conducts a search that might yield results about shopping, recipes or entertainment Yahoo! will then produce at the top of the search results information about the product instead of links to others.

This change will help its users better find what they are looking for. This should also attract more firms to beef up their budgeted dollars on Yahoo!. Where a firm could normally hope to be represented in Yahoo! search results or on advertising space with the network, now a firm’s products can be displayed at the very top of the search results. This premium spacing is not a paid-for space, but having a strong presence on Yahoo!’s rankings can help with placement there.

Holiday Results

Google’s +1 Button Now Everywhere

Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

FaceBook may have invented the ‘Like’ button and the placement of that button everywhere, but now Google has a similar tool. Google’s ‘+1’ button had existed only on its search results until Wednesday. Now publishers will be able to put the ‘+1’ on their pages allowing Google to obtain more data about other spaces on the internet.

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Photo: thefastertimes.com

Google searches will improve dramatically as a result of this. Until now Google searches would only benefit if people had clicked on +1 on the search page. Now people will see the button on many regular pages. Google also collects, just as FaceBook does, data every time a page with +1 loads on it. Even if a viewer does not click the button Google obtains some data, and even the viewer’s non-selection of ‘+1’ tells Google something. That in itself is a huge amount of data that will help refine Google searches. And increase the power of targeted advertisements.

Mashable: Google’s +1 Button Challenges Facebook’s Like Across the Web

Google Adwords: Caveat Emptor

Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

Ever wonder how specific companies got their site moved to the top of a google search? Well they pay for that spot. A service offered by Google, called Google Adwords, allows companies to pay for the top spot on a search of any keywords you choose. As I’m sure you know, from your experience with the search engine, the highlighted sites at the top of the page draw your immediate attention, and because of this, Google Adwords is rapidly growing as a online marketing tool.

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The Google Adwords program has many different options, which are adjustable to your budget. One of the most popular options is a pay-per-click option which means you pay a set amount each time someone clicks on your link and goes to your page. This seems like a pretty straight forward concept, but it does have some inherent risks. When you set up your account you choose which keywords you would like use. Your selection of keywords dictates which searches you will show up in. In addition to that there are several wrinkles to the program which makes it much more customizable, and also much easier to overspend.

An article in the Wall Street Journal discusses several businesses that were paying more than they had expected due to unwanted ad clicks. One of the wrinkles of the Adwords program is called “session-based clicks” which is something Google does to try to optimize your views. Essentially what it means is that if someone is searching for, lets say, new flooring, and they search for ten different words regarding hard wood flooring, your site will show up in all of them. They do this because, seeing that the person is looking for wood flooring, they anticipate that your advertisement will be useful to them not only on their first search, but on subsequent searches as well. Now here’s where it gets tricky: If a person searching for carpet, which your flooring site might show up on, then decides to search for something less related, like area rugs, you might still be showing up in the search results. If they stray further, say to furniture, it is possible that, if they searched for flooring enough, your ad might follow them. What this does is show your ad to, and potentially get a click from, people that maybe aren’t interesting in flooring as much as Google thought. Now, because they clicked, you have to pay. Granted this isn’t a huge problem, it probably does more good than bad, but it can lead to increased expenses if left unchecked.

Now, this isn’t to say that you should stay away from Adwords, it is a great program that offers results for a relatively modest amount. What I would recommend is that you study the program, or let professionals help you with your campaign. Luckily the Google Adwords trend has not gone unnoticed, and because of that there are a growing number of Google Certified agencies that are proficient in the Adwords program and can help you optimize your results. So if you think you might be interested in having your website seen by the masses, find yourself some help, and look into Google Adwords.

Search Engine Optimized Profiles (and Pages) at Social Harbor

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

Social Harbor

Search optimized profiles are the key to being found on the Internet. And one of the essentials to search optimized profiles is keywords.

Keywords come in all languages, shapes, and sizes. There are long ones, short ones, and even hyphenated keywords. There’s keywords that you’ll never be able to compete for, and ones that you could own within a week. Whatever your keywords are, it’s always helpful to be able to visualize them and see just what words actually appear most on your web page.

There’s a fun AND useful tool called Wordle that allows you to enter long text from a web page (or a blog URL) and then builds you a word cloud, showing you which words are most prominent on that site. For example, Social Harbor does extensive keyword research for their clients, deciding which words are best to optimize for. Below is the keyword cloud Wordle pulled for Ingenex Digital Marketing’s company page on Social Harbor.

Ingenex Digital Marketing Agency

You can see that Ingenex’s page uses the words Marketing and Digital most prominently, as these are the keywords the client wished to be search optimized for. So Wordle has shown that Social Harbor correctly and efficiently built Ingenex’s page with the keywords needed for search engine optimization.

Are the keywords you want to be found for the most prominent ones in your word cloud? Do you need help optimzing your company for searches? Social Harbor builds custom company profiles with extensive keyword research and implementation, a solution that works for search optimization.