Entries Tagged 'Search' ↓

How many of these emails have your received, with promises of #1 rankings, yada, yada, yada? Surprisingly, even Google gets them.

In Google’s Webmaster Help Center, they say, “Amazingly, we get these spam emails too.”

“Dear google.com,
I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories…”

We get them, and frequently some of our clients forward them to us, asking what we think of the offers, and why don’t we, “offer the same guarantees.” We don’t because no one can do so honestly. But, don’t take it from me. I am happy to concur with, and tell you, what Google writes about them.

Google says you should, “reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for ‘burn fat at night’ diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.”

Those of you who have the need or desire to peruse Google’s Webmaster Help Center, likely know all of this. For rest of you, here is a list of the headings in one article.

• Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue.
• No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.
• Be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do.
• You should never have to link to an SEO.
• Some SEOs may try to sell you the ability to type keywords directly into the browser address bar.
• Choose wisely.

The bottom-line is, people or companies you can trust don’t send out unsolicited email promising the Holy Grail.

As Google says, “chose wisely.” The fact that you are reading this means you have chosen, or are close to choosing, wisely.

Thanks for your time!

Most searchers use two-word searches, reports OneStat.com, a provider of real-time intelligence web analytics.

• One-word searches account for 15.2 percent of queries.
• Two-word searches account for 31.9 percent of searches.
• Three-word searches account for 27 percent of searches.
• Four-word searches account for 14.8 percent of searches.

Instances with five (6.5 percent); six (2.7 percent); seven (1.1 percent); eight (0.5 percent); nine (0.2 percent); and 10 (0.1 percent) words are used in fewer searches.

Where and how do you use that information? First, you review the content on your home page and landing pages you use for PPC. Still not using Pay-Per-Click? Now is the time to start.

Are you effectively using search terms that your prospective customers would use to find your product or service? Take a look at your current pages. Does the content accommodate two, three, and four word searches? Google ignores some common words called ’stop words,’ such as the, on, where, how, de, la, as well as certain single digits and single letters. Remember and take advantage of that when writing content for landing pages, and you’ll benefit from proximity as related to search terms. There will be some out there that feel this advice is really reaching, but every little advantage can add up when it comes to Google’s Quality Score.

For those of you using PPC, you may find that some four-word (or more) search terms can be much more cost-effective. The also deliver you a reasonably well-qualified visitor. If you wrote your content well, and they find you via a multiple-word search, they likely are looking for what you offer.

Bottom-line is that we all need to really think about how our potential visitors search for what we offer. Then, we need to put that knowledge to good use writing content that includes those search terms.

Do a good job of describing your product or service, using two, three and four-word terms, and you have done some search engine optimization without trying.

So, what is a “Landing Page,” and when and why do you need them? Well, practically all of your pages are, or should be, landing pages. Those of you with PPC campaigns should already understand the importance of landing pages. All of your pages that have been indexed by Google and other search engines are defacto landing pages for search terms that are on your pages.

PPC landing pages should be about a specific topic, product, item or event you want to promote or sell. Putting multiple topics, products, items or events on a page will most assuredly not serve you well for PPC landing pages. Nor will they serve you well in organic (so-called free) search results. Your content should be page-specific to compete well (obviously, there are many other factors as well) in organic search results. Talking about more than one thing on a page dilutes the value as far as search engines are concerned.

The point is you should pay careful attention to creating any of your pages. Always follow Google’s guidelines for creating content. The essence of their most important guidelines is as follows:

• Write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
• Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your page actually includes those words within it.
• Make pages for visitors, not for search engines. (A useful test is to ask, “Does this help my visitors? Would I do this if search engines did not exist?”)

Treat all your pages as potential landing pages, and you won’t have to write one specifically for your next Google Adwords campaign. Just choose one that already exists on your site.

Good landing pages will help you meet your objectives and exceed your goals.

This is for those of you who have Google Adwords PPC campaigns. Of course, you know I believe if you are trying to market your site, you should be using Google Adwords.

Do you search Google for the keywords you bid on to monitor your ad positions? If so, think about this. Anytime you or your co-workers search a keyword associated with your ad, that ad accrues an impression. Over time, this may decrease your CTR (as the number of impressions increases but the clicks do not) and, in turn, may lead to a lower Quality Score. That, in turn, means you may begin to see your ad in a lower position than before.

Did you know that Google offers a way to check for your ads that won’t negatively impact your campaigns? It’s called the Ad Preview page and it enables you to view ads (and search results) as they would appear on a regular Google search results page to most users, without accruing extra impressions for your ad.

The Ad Preview page isn’t the prettiest tool Google offers, but if you have been searching for your own search terms, it is a tool you should use. Over time, it will save you money.

For many of you, I’ll be preaching to the choir. For the rest of you, let’s talk pay-per-click.

For several years now, we have been saying in meetings, seminars and on our Web site, that for all practical purposes, there are two ways to get your Web site found when people use a search engine. One you can influence, and one you can control. The former is through results in the organic or so-called free listings in search results of the major search sites. The latter is to use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising marketing.

Pay-per-click, or PPC, is simply what is says. You pay the search engine company when someone clicks on your ad, landing on the page of your choice on your Web site. Notice I said landing on the page of your choice. You control what your ad says, you control your ad placement (more-or-less), you control what your visitor sees when they land on your site, and you control what it costs.

Oh, and you can easily track the effectiveness of your advertising and marketing campaigns. Not many other types of advertsing offer all of those elements.

PPC is also a way to jump-start a new or redesigned site. You can be prominately displayed for your most important search terms long before your pages are indexed and start to show in organic listings.

We recommend starting with a Google Adwords campaign and then a similar campaign using Yahoo! Sponsored Search. There are others (including Microsoft adCenter) that offer PPC. Because of audience reach, we believe it is a good idea to get your feet wet with Google Adwords first.

There is much that goes into a successful pay-per-click campaign, and we’ll discuss in more detail later. You do need to embrace the following. It is imperative that:

• Your search terms (keywords) need to be researched and chosen carefully.
• Your ads need to be well-written and include your keywords.
• Your landing pages need to be well-written and include your keywords.

Of course, that just scratches the surface, but you get the idea. It is also imperative that you chose a firm with experience and expertise to manage your pay-per-click campaigns.

Pay-per-click, it’s not just advertising. It’s marketing.

Google Trends offers Today’s Hot Trends. You can see a top-ten list of what is currently being searched. It is not real-time, but the folks at Google say they update it several times a day.

But, there is more. Google Trends has the potential to be another tool for those of you responsible for search terms (keywords) for any web site. You can get a comparison of two terms (separate the search terms with a comma) to see which gets more traffic. Google Trends displays a search-volume graph and a news-reference-volume graph. You may select regions and years to display.

Unfortunately, some of the terms I tried to compare returned this message, “Your terms - search term1, search term2 - do not have enough search volume to show graphs.” Not entirely troubling, though Google has no problem displaying Adword ads for the terms (1,000s of impressions) and collecting for the clicks generated. Oh, well. It’s a freebee tool.

Read everything Google has to say about Google Trends here.

Curiosity or search engine optimization tool? It’s up to you.