Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Avinash Kaushik Reports on the Importance of “Making Love” to Your Direct Traffic


In his “Occam’s Razor” blog, Avinash Kaushik recently posted an article with a rather provocative title: “Make Love to Your Direct Traffic.” By direct traffic, he means everyone who proactively seeks you out on your site by typing in your URL or uses a bookmark. This includes four different, measurable groups of people:

  • Existing customers
  • People familiar with your brand
  • Word-of-mouth traffic
  • People driven by offline campaigns such as TV, radio, outdoor, etc.

  • Direct traffic visitors, Kaushik says, “have an extra motivation connected to their visit.” They know what they’re looking for and they know you provide it.

    So it would seem obvious, then, that web marketers would pay extra special attention to this already-in-the-hand market when using them to determine accurate traffic reports to their sites. But the reality, Kaushik says, is that most people don’t.

    He adamantly recommends segmenting direct traffic into your data, as it will improve your KPIs considerably. It also tends to help clean up incorrectly tracked links that have no tracking parameters. Such links are automatically categorized as “direct traffic,” which is usually not the case.

    Kaushik offers several ways to keep your direct traffic “clean,” and avoid polluting your direct traffic results. He also points out several “warning” signals that the direct traffic you’re receiving may not be entirely genuine, including:

  • Missing web analytics tags
  • Untagged campaigns
  • Improperly tagged campaign parameters
  • Improperly coded redirects/Vanity URLs
  • “Heavy” tags at the bottom of the page
  • Other miscellaneous, easy-to-fix problems

  • By eliminating these telltale “polluters” from your direct traffic list, you can compile a list of links who are truly repeat customers who know your company name and URL without having to be told.

    Friday, September 24, 2010

    Google’s new “Insight for Search” Tool an Easy way to Leverage more SEO Info, CanuckSEO Says

    Software analyst Joyce Loews, writing on Jim Rudnick’s “Canuck SEO” blog, is very excited about Google’s recently released SEO tool, Insights for Search (IFS). In her article “Four Great Ways to Use Google’s Insights for Search Tool for Canuck SEO," Loews calls IFS the “obscure cousin” of Trends. She adds the software actually outdoes its predecessor in several important areas.

    IFS reports the popularity of any keyword or phrase searched for since 2004. What makes it unique is that you can whittle down the results to determine the most popular search terms in virtually any State or province, and in the United States you can whittle it down to major metropolitan areas.

    Results can also be determined according to content or images sought.

    Citing some Canadian examples, Loews says the most searched term recently in Quebec has been recipes for “croustade a pommes,” or as we know it in America, the apple crisp.

    A search on “SEO” reveals that Canada’s interest in the subject has risen steadily throughout the past six years, with British Columbia sending the highest number of searches for that term.

    Loews says what IFS does best is to perform comparative research into search volumes. It’s not a numbers tool, like Keywords, but rather a way to narrow searches by region, time period of the search and search type. She says it’s a vital tool for companies with a new product to sell. They can research which areas of the country are interested in the company’s keywords. This tells companies where their potential audience is.

    Another feature of IFS is “Rising Searches,” a list of keywords and search terms that have steadily risen in popularity over the years.

    Loews sums up by saying that the heavily graphic-laden site should help to persuade the stubborn naysayers at your office that SEO is important, since search results are spelled out so well.

    Tuesday, September 21, 2010

    Guest Blogger Kasteler emphasizes the Importance of Creating Good Social Content at SearchEngineJournal.com



    “The Creation and Promotion of Social Content” could be the single most important strategy for increasing interest and traffic to your site. Moreover, it’s the name of Jordan Kasteler’s recent article at SearchEngineJournal.com.

    Kasteler, CEO of BlueGlass Interactive, says the combination of social media and content is the single best way to take full advantage of the web as both a marketing and reputation tool. Using several easy-to-follow illustrations, Kasteler diagrams this new marketing strategy. He says all it takes to generate more traffic is “a little ingenuity, passion and the ability to recognize the type of content your target demographic market is out looking for.”

    Kasteler adds that it’s not enough anymore to rely on target key phrases and 3% keyword saturation to make an impression – you need to focus on “building up your content repertoire.” For example, you need to generate content that has a point and holds your reader’s attention. This needs to be content that the reader will want to share with others. Kasteler say s try to make everything you write as compelling and “viral” as possible.

    To that end, he says the most preferable option is to make a funny video. People like humor, and if your video is truly funny, this can prove to be a great way to increase awareness of your product or service in a very short time.

    This naturally leads to Kasteler’s next point. Whether you shoot a video, create a widget put up a quiz or do something else, make sure it’s visible to the web, and shareable by all. You also want to be sure to track your content, to see which pieces are being picked up and shared.

    Friday, September 17, 2010

    Google’s Eric Schmidt Hints Announces Fall Debut of “Google Me” during Google Zeitgeist Conference Speech


    On the heels of finding out that Facebook had finally surpassed Google in total visits in August, Google CEO Eric Schmidt bared his teeth a bit at the recent Google Zeitgeist Conference in Scottsdale. According to John Brownlee, writing for Geek.com, Schmidt confirmed what most people suspected – “Google Me,” the company’s latest attempt at taking some of the social marketing energy that Facebook has all but snapped up , will debut this fall.

    However, Schmidt was equally as adamant at insisting that Google Me was not going to be a hub for social networking. Rather, he sees the service as adding social networking capabilities to existing Google services, such as YouTube (you’d be notified if a lot of your friends were watching the same video, for example).

    Brownlee says the industry is taking a “wait and see” attitude to see exactly what Schmidt and Google are up to. “Let’s just hope it’s not another ‘Buzz’ fiasco,” Brownlee says, referring to Google’s ill-fated Google Buzz project, which users never really accepted.

    Meanwhile, other commentators see Schmidt’s comments as being much more mercenary, using such terminology as “Facebook-scraping,” and saying that Google is willing to take as much info from Facebook by any means possible. For example, Schmidt also announced that Google had recently invested over $100 million in the Zynga Company, developers of Facebook’s popular Farmville and Mafia Wars games.

    Then, says Seth Weintraub at Fortune Magazine, there’s this quote from Schmidt’s Google Zeitgeist speech:

    "The best thing that would happen is for Facebook to open up its data. Failing that, there are other ways to get that information."

    What are those ways, Weintraub asks? He envisions someone creating a cartoon of Schmidt saying, “We have ways of making you talk. Mwahahahahah…”

    Wednesday, September 15, 2010

    As usual, Latest Google Innovation Causes Great Commotion; Affects Almost Nothing, PCMag.com Says


    Within 24 hours of Google releasing its Google Instant search capability, industry pundits, almost predictably, went into the usual “man your battle stations” mode, saying yet again that this latest change would affect the importance of SEO as we all know it.

    Not so fast, says Mark Hachman at PCmag.com in his article “SEO Not Affected by Partial ‘Google Instant’ Keywords”. Not 48 hours after Google Instant hit the streets, Google put out an announcement that internet marketers shouldn’t start jumping to conclusions and change any of their SEO strategies.

    The commotion, Hachman says, comes from many marketers believing that now, with Google making suggestions on partially typed searches, you need to optimize your search capabilities to rank for these partial searches. However, Alden DeSoto of the Google Analytics team says that’s not necessary, and rather silly. “This is not a productive strategy,” DeSoto explains. “”Ads are triggered based on the ‘predicted query,’ not the stem that users type in.”

    As an example, DeSoto says the partial query “flow” would provide results for the predicted query “flowers.” The only way people would see an ad optimized for “flow” would be if they were specifically searching for the word “flow.”

    Desoto added that Google Instant doesn’t change search rankings, either, because the predicted query still wins out over the actual query.

    Friday, September 10, 2010

    Google Instant: Search Results Before You’re Done Thinking About it


    It’s “Google’s decision to fix what wasn’t broken.”

    That’s the rather skeptical reaction of Google critic Tom Krazit at Cnet.com, over Google’s recent release of the Google Instant results capability. If you have performed a search on Google over the last few days, you’ve probably noticed that the results you’re looking for are already on the page before you stop typing. It’s what Google calls its latest attempt to provide “search before you type.”

    Yvonne Bell at Search Engine Journal says it’s Google’s attempt to take the guesswork out of search and put an end to the speed argument created by other real-time services such as Twitter.

    If you run a search right now, you’ll notice how results can change literally letter by letter , at a speed that Google estimated to be 480 milliseconds.

    Google says the three main advantages to Google instant are:

  • Dynamic Results: What you see is always relevant to what you’re typing and changes word for word, if necessary.
  • Predictions: This improvement to Google’s assumptive search capability predicts the rest of your search term in light gray text. As soon as you see what you’re looking for, stop typing and click.
  • Scroll to search: If Google pulls up several possible predictions for your search, you can scroll through them to get to the one you want faster.

  • Helen Popkin at msnbc’s Technolog sees another advantage to Google Instant in the “question-asking” category. Type in a “Where is” query , for example, and the most popoular results to this query pop up before you type in a qualifying noun. She calls it “instant access into the bizarrely awesome zeitgeist experienced by Google users.”

    While Popkin finds Google Instant somewhat “creepy,” she also wonders whether you really have an alternative: “What are you gonna do – use Bing?”

    Tuesday, September 7, 2010

    Make no Mistake: DailySEOTip.com Knows 5 SEO Mistakes that Happen all the Time


    Everybody makes mistakes. It’s how you learn. And once you know it was a mistake, hopefully, you avoid it and never worry about it again. Scientists learned this lesson with the brontosaurus. After years of believing it was its own species, it turned out that the bronto was no different than the apatosaurus. You live, you learn.

    In SEO, mistakes are also a reality, says Kev Strong, a guest columnist at DailySEOTip.com. Some mistakes are made more than others are, so Strong put together a list of “5 SEO Mistakes Anybody Can Avoid.” He says these are the five most commonly noticed mistakes that webmasters notice when asked to analyze other people’s websites:

    Duplicate Titles: Every page on your websites should have a unique tag. Many times, multiple pages are found using the same tags, which just gets confusing for the search engines. Strong says to check this by either browsing your website or searching on Google for your domain. If you see duplicate titles, change them on the pages that need changing.

    Duplicate content: If you’re not repurposing pages that have been moved or changed, you run the risk of having duplicate content seen on your site by the search engines. While the rel=”canonical tag can help deter problems, it’s best to just put new content on those pages or remove them completely.

    Blocking your Website: One of the most common mistakes made by people who should know better is when web developers forget to turn on the “index, follow” command for new pages. Look at your source code. If you see “noindex, nofollow,” change it immediately.

    Non-Crawlable Navigation: Java script menus keep search spiders from crawling your site. They can’t rank what they can’t read, so think hard before deciding to use Java.

    XML Sitemaps: These help the search engines see all of the pages on your website. You can even use a sitemap uploader, such as xml-sitemaps.com, to alert all the search engines at once to the existence of your site.

    Thursday, September 2, 2010

    Hubspot offers tips on getting leads from Whitepapers


    In a guest post on Hubspot.com, Kuno Creative co-owner John McTigue recently explained “How to Write a Whitepaper that will Capture Leads.” He says it’s a challenge to simply write a good whitepaper, much less attract leads with it, but it can be done. The three areas where whitepapers differ from blogs, for example, are scope, style and intent.

    The scope of a whitepaper is usually incredibly in-depth. He suggests thinking of whitepapers as web-based research papers. As a result, your whitepapers should be at least 10 pages long, profusely illustrated and researched, with plenty of information for the reader to absorb. Whitepaper readers aren’t looking for a summary; they want all the information you can give them right at hand.

    The editorial style of a whitepaper is usually serious and professional. You’re talking to people who are seriously considering buying your product or service, so make sure your whitepapers are written, edited and formatted professionally. If you’re not a graphic designer, hire one to help you put the piece together. Even if you write for a living, show your document to at least two other writers to make sure you’re being clear, accurate and literate. Make sure you’re not saying anything potentially liable or false.

    The intent of your whitepaper should be one thing: capture leads. This is business and you’re providing valuable information that most people would gladly pay to see. “Good information backed by well-documented research is worth its weight in gold,” McTigue says.