Is Google Planning To Tap Into Your Brain?
I love this little insight from Frank Reed on an interview conducted by TechCrunch with Erick Schmidt, CEO of Google. Schmidt says the long-term goal of Google is to give searchers one answer to their questions instead of a list of web pages you can visit. I don't like that idea for a number of reasons, and none of them have to do with privacy (the joke is about tapping into your brain and providing the best response for what you were actually thinking). First, it's impractical to think that one answer is going to solve all of a searcher's problems. Most likely not. Searchers, just like the search engines, are getting more sophisticated in their approach to search. In turn, search engine optimization CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Are Search Engines “Social” Enough?
John Battelle wrote an interesting two-part blog post on what he hopes might develop in terms of a search engine helping him make a decision. I thought it was an appropriate piece for the venue since Bing is billing itself as the "decision engine." But is it? According to Battelle's ambitious dream, it's not even close. So what is that dream? Here's what he says will happen in his grand dream: I see two paths toward that goal: one is creating applications on top of “ten blue links” which help me organize and aggregate the knowledge I process while pursuing a search query, and the second is making my searches social, so I can share the process of learning and learn from those who have shared CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Have You Verified Your Site?
One of the most important things you can do as a webmaster as a start to your search engine optimization efforts is to verify your site with the search engines. This proves to them that you are the owner and they'll share valuable information with you about how you can better manage your site. Here's where to go to get your site verified with each of the search engines. Google - Webmaster Tools Bing - Webmaster Central Yahoo - Follow these directions: 1. Open a new browser window and go to the Search Engine page where you enabled the Sitemap feature. 2. Enter the Sitemap verification file name up to and including the .html file extension and click CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Google Product Changes
Google has made two significant changes to its product marketing offerings. No. 1, Google Product Search now supports multi-accounts, which means marketplaces and aggregators can control the uploads of their clients, giving searches a bigger edge in finding what they want. I always recommend that ecommerce websites list all of their products within the Google product search as part of a off site search engine optimziation effort. The second change, and I'm sorry to see this go, is the nixing of "one at a time" upload to Google Base. You can read about both of these changes here on the WebPro News website. I'm still waiting for product search to get better. Right now, most people search for products at the search engines the CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Blog And Ping To Become Bing And Ping
People don't say it much any more, but "blog and ping" used to be the catch phrase when people first started learning to blog. Nowadays, every one blogs, but do they ping? If not, they should. Ping services are services like Technorati that allow bloggers to notify the service automatically whenever a blog post is updated. Your blog software sends a notification to the ping service and the ping service publishes a summary of your blog post with a link so that anyone watching the service can visit with just one click. In the early days of blogging, this was a popular way to gain new readers to your blog. Now, it's just another SEO tool as many ping services offer link juice for blog posts CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Does Your Headline Need Your Keyword?
More and more, I'm seeing people online saying they don't always include keywords in their headlines. The idea is that they would rather write an effective headline and get the conversion than to target the search engine and lose sales. Makes sense. But can you have both? If you read the most important criteria for landing page conversion testing, the top one is usually the headline. That's the part of the page that gets readers' attention. If it's written well, they'll read. If not then you'll be passed by like a lighthouse. Other parts of your landing page you want to make sure are conversion oriented include: (Here is a great source for these points:) Call to Action Lead Paragraph Benefit Statements Images Look and Feel Supposedly, these, along with your CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Should You Use URL Shorteners?
Chris Lang makes a convincing case to ditch your URL shorteners, this is not 100% related to search engine optimization, but I think it is important enough to discuss. The only time I'd say you should use an URL shortener is when you are promoting affiliate programs and you want to mask your affiliate ID. Even then, there is a better alternative. Why not set up a page on your website that uses a keyword as a part of the folder and link to that page every time you want to promote your program. Then, when your site visitor clicks a link and heads over to that page they are redirected to your affiliate program's landing page and the sale closed. Why would you CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Journal is Written by SEO Expert:
Nick Stamoulis
Tel - 781-999-1222
nick@brickmarketing.com
Brick Marketing - SEO Company
