Internet Marketing and Digital Strategy Blog
SEO
Sidewicki-Reputation Management
Nov 16th
New business models for social marketers. Managing your brand on the web just got interesting. Sidewicki, the tool in your Google Toolbar allowing you to see comments made next to websites has been upgraded to allow you to view these for an entire domain, per the Google blog. You are pretty quickly going to get a view on what a business/ restaurant/ website is about using this feature.
On the upside, to comment users need a Google profile and also need some “trust” or “authority”, lets call it PageRank for profiles before they are published. As more people comment so this bar will rise. So you spam the sidewicki, as with search you will become invisible. But comment wisely and responsibly and you build an ability to influence an extremely important part of todays marketing mix.
Granted:
- Low use and understanding of Google profiles
- Not that hard to set up a profile
- Low use or understanding of Sidewicki, let alone having the toolbar installed
But
- Gmail, Local Business Centre and so on will continually enhance our understanding
- Google social will encourage all to set up profiles, also just to claim your own space
- Online profiles will continue to grow in importance and need to be managed
So this has the opportunity to bring power to the people. You want to book a flight and have some adventure, search for “air tickets to Iraq” and find the #1 ranking site, but low and behold there are numerous sidewicki entires about how that airline runs late, loses your lugage, are rude to customers etc. You still going to book with them?
In the future of search, if there were enough of these and the quality was good, why would they not More >
Sub domains
Nov 9th
Sub domains are always an interesting part of SEO and we often get questions about their status and when to use and when not too, use of keywords in the domain.
Using say this bedwetting example of a subdomain of a well known bed wetting product used in Australia. While this subdomain will appear if searched in the toolbar it does not appear when searched in the main results, in fact it appears non existent, just the main site is in the results. It is however in the index.
Any other experiences with subdomains, rankings and use of keywords in the domain.
Youtube and SEO
Oct 3rd
We have long been building paid and unpaid Youtube channels for clients, The great video shows some research on Australia specifically, using 3,000 participants. These go further to proving what Nielsen and Comscore say but with more detail. Great insights, you cannot afford to ignore youtube as a channel to market.
Having said that, you cannot ignore SEO. As more and more clamber onto the Youtube wagon if you want proper ROI, make the extra efford to optimise your videos propely. Also ensure you have an appropriate strategy for the videos on your site and those you make available on youtube.
Consider:
- Whats your objective, Youtube to website? or brand recognition?
- Do you know how to differentiate videos between those onsite and those on Youtube? Keep in mind hosting source and productID
- What search terms are you trying to rank for?
- Are your videos and video content aligned to the search terms?
- Are you measuring the results properly?
Bruce Clay SEO Courses 1 Day
Aug 31st
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Training Course from Bruce Clay here in Australia. We ran it in Tasmania, ratings and feedback were good, so now we are running it in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane during October 2009. Bruce Clay training is well known and our 3 day training course highly rated (4.8/5 average) for the 3 years it has been running to date. We now have added a 1 day curriculum which will run more regularly than 6 monthly as in the past. You can register here.
The course includes detailed material, live examples and
Where and when will the SEO training be held?
Brisbane – Wednesday the 14th of October, 2009
Novotel, 200 Creek St, Brisbane.
Melbourne – Tuesday the 20th of October, 2009
Stamford Plaza, 111 Little Collins St, Melbourne.
Sydney – Thursday the 29th of October, 2009
Menzies Hotel, 14 Carrington St, Sydney.
What is covered in the SEO course?
• Achieving better rankings in search engine results
• How to increase click-through rates
• How to make your site more relevant
• How to identify the best keywords for your site
• What is PageRank and how to increase link popularity
• How to identify and characterise your competition
• How to analyse and edit your own content
• How to avoid Spam
• How to include Engagement Objects™
• Designing and structuring your site in the right way to achieve better search engine rankings
• Optimising the technical structure of your site to improve rankings
• Ensuring your site is able to be spidered by the search engine robots
• How to develop links worth having
• Monitoring you and your competitors positions within the search engine rankings
• Being ethical whilst optimising your site
• How to measure your success
What is included?
Fees include the 1 day training course, meals and refreshments, a 1 year free subscription to the SEOToolSet® (valued at over $1,000) and a detailed course manual.
Bookings
Bookings can now be made at the following url: https://www.seotoolset.com/training/register_au.html
More information
More information on the 1 day SEO training course can be found at http://www.bruceclay.com.au/training/one-day-SEO-course.htm.
More information on the 3 day SEO training course can be found at http://www.bruceclay.com.au/training/index.htm.
Blind search engine comparison – Bing, Yahoo and Google
Jun 8th
This is interesting. Michael Kordahi, a Microsoft employee built the blind search engine I think to sell more Tweetshirts. The search engine comparisons exclude any blended search compnents such as News, Blogs etc.
Go check it out at http://blindsearch.fejus.com/
New Bruce Clay SEO Blog in Australia
Apr 5th
Bruce Clay has just launched their Australian search engine optimisation (SEO) blog. You can catch all the latest SEO related news, updates and events on the new Bruce Clay blog. The new SEO blog was launched in line with SMX Sydney and you can catch all the action from all the sessions there now. The focus of the blog will be updates, information, research, events and interviews, all from an Australian perspective. The goal as we understand it is to become the leading SEO blog in Australia within 6 months.
Coming up on the blog are interviews with some of Australia’s leading in-house SEO’s who work and manage some of Australia’s largest websites. Also watch out for 1 day training from Bruce Clay based on the recent 1 day training done for SES New York and others. The first session will be in Tasmania in May 2009. You can now get the latest and best right here in Australia.
Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jeremybolt for all the latest blog updates and news.
And yes… the 5hits will continue.
Brands Search and SEO
Mar 7th
Google has finally come out and confirmed the “Vince change” which favours big brands.
Outrage, arms thrown in air, search engine optimisation (SEO) has changed for ever…
So what does this mean? Firstly Google admits making a number of changes continually, so this is 1 of 3-400 annually which occur annually, and it is a change, not an update. So put your arms down and read further.
Matt Cutts at Google has tried to explain it, we think it goes further. According to Google, the dial has been turned up from brands and thus related generic keywords, searchineland gives great examples around “air tickets” and airlines.
What Google has said, via the Matt Cutts video:
Trusted sites, potentially brands will rank, as they are trusted. Trusted essentially means:
- PageRank
- Legacy (Age)
- Quality and unique content
- Technical soundness of the site
- No spam
- Good linking structure and outbound links to other quality sites
- Good inbound links from other quality/ expert site
COMMENT: If you give users high quality search results, they will keep on using your search engine. So whats new?
Given the average length of a query is 3-5 words and 25% of all searches each year are new, this only impacts a small number of search terms. Matt Cutts has confirmed this as well.
ISSUE:The change may only affect a small number of search terms, but… most brands are related to products, and if they are a big brand these products are generally popular. Take air tickets for example, which has significant search volumes behind the term. I believe that if you looked at the affected seach volumes as a % of total search volumes this may tell a different story. Effectively, this means that most of the generic terms related to large brands are searched on a lot, they are generally highly competitive terms. Saying the long tail is not affected is fine, but who targets long tail search terms, other than SEO’s who guarantee # 1 rankings.
Bruce Clay SEO Training – April 2009
Jan 24th
Bruce Clay Australia is holding more search engine optimisation training in April from the 6th-8th, just after SMX Sydney. You could theoretically enjoy the ultimate search week, hear the stories at SMX Sydney and then learn the how to implement them, from Bruce Clay, President of Bruce Clay Inc.
We have been holding search engine optimisation (SEO) courses now in Australia since 2007 and more recently they have started to get booked out. Testimonials from past attendees are available on the Bruce Clay SEO testimonials Training page and to date, touch wood we have not had a bad one.
The training is 3 days and the pricing has been slightly revised, as well as there currently being an early bird special at $2,550 for the 3 days including access to the SEOToolset. We generally hold the training at a hotel ensuring a comfortable environment and good catering.
We are very often asked, Why Bruce Clay SEO Training?, why are our courses different?
We believe the key reasons our training is different, include :
- The training is structured to take you through a learning process, leaving no one behind. We have marketing directors sitting next to web developers with neither getting bored. I might add, knowing what html is will help but you need be no more technical that that.
- We go into detail, a lot of detail. Including our methodologies, site structuring, linking etc. with real life examples and experiences shared. This is not a part of our selling process, we share all the knowledge we have. You implement what you learn, you will get more traffic to your site. More >
SEO and Adspend going forward
Jan 12th
So where is the spend going? Interestingly enough, into search. Per eMarketer, search is predicted to grow by 15% in 2009 and 30% by 2010. This is against display ads 18% , Classifieds -6%, Sponsorships -8%, Email marketing 8.5% and video 113% all by 2010. In this data, Search makes up 45% of online spend in 2008 and will move to 48% in 2009 and 48,7% by 2010.
This can only be good news to Google and those providing paid search and search engine optimisation (SEO)services. Video ad spending while good news, comes in varying forms and channels, from Youtube through to display video. From the data this breakdown was not available but no doubt there would be some overlap.
While this data is based on the United States and is based on various assumptions, we believe Australia will follow a similar trend. In fact the update and increase in growth in search may even be more dramatic, given the speed on adoption and innovation rates with Australian online marketers. Within the last 18 months it is clear that corporate Australia recognizes the opportunity from search and is prepared to invest accordingly.
Social media as a channel to market is still clearly emerging in Australia. Most corporates know they need to be involved and many are finding the best way to execute challenging. Search is also clearly integrated into social strategies.
So what does this mean? Some core considerations for 2009 are: More >
Search predictions 2009
Dec 24th
Merry Christmas to all 3 of you who read my blog. I hope you all enjoy what I’m sure is a well deserved break, a Merry Christmas if you celebrate Christmas as I do and have a blessed new year.
Now, where would we be without forecasts for the new year and what might arise. As any good SEO would I turned to Google rather than think for myself and looked at the first result for search predictions 2009. Who knew Craig & Janes world predictions for 2009 would be #1. From them amongst other things including Victoria Beckham getting pregnant and many top companies going bust, there was nothing related to search other than what Im sure will be searches, if nothing else.
Moving further up the tree I found some digital marketing predictions. Some interesting takes on this included:
- Twitter providing unprecedented access to corporate personnel
- Listening programs through social media to “feel the pulse”
- Having less but more meaningful digital friends (quality v quantity)
- That social networks will be leveraged with the current budget squeeze
OK, enough nonsense, maybe lets try the proverbial horses mouth, Mr Cutts from Google himself. He reckons in 2009:
- Pay less attention to ranking
- Universal search will continue to expand
- That there will be improved indexing of engagement objects, specifically video
As Bruce Clay has also reiterated, analytics will become increasingly important, and after all, has always been the true measure of success. Is your traffic going up? And of course lets see what the shiny new Google spider brings forth in the new year when engagement objects become more integrated with the ranking algorithms.
Don’t brace yourself though, from past experience Google Australia is highly cautious with search results More >