Advanced Negative Strategies For Improved Paid Search Performance: Part II

by David Fishman


As discussed last month, negative keywords are an extremely important part of any top performing paid search program. Negative keywords help marketers both avoid non-converting impressions as well as shape traffic for better converting results.

Implementing “Match Type Silos”

Before I delve into new tips, I got a number of questions in response to last month’s suggestion to create “match type silos,” so I want to provide a bit more detail on how to implement this approach.

Creating match type “silos” by using a different AdGroup for each match type enables advertisers to force Google to trigger the correct keyword match type combination that triggered the user’s raw query.

Using this approach, if there is a keyword in the account matches the raw search term exactly the exact version (and related creative and landing page) will be triggered and, if a keyword in your account contains the phrase searched, the phrase version of that keyword will get the impression and finally, broader searches will trigger the broad keyword AdGroup.

While re-organizing AdGroups, and managing multiple instances of the same term might seem daunting, this approach isn’t very difficult to deploy. We suggest using copy-and-paste in Excel to build bulk sheet, or for larger scale campaigns, creating a quick Excel Macro to create the iterations for you.

Once you have created these lists in Excel, you can quickly create match-type gropus with a bulk upload.

The real challenge with this approach is maintaining this structure as you add and pause keywords by editing all three groups each time. In order to make the match type silo structure manageable after creation, I suggest using it solely for your highest volume ad groups.

Use Negatives To Shape Traffic & Avoid The Broad Match Trap

“Traffic shaping” is an advanced negative strategy used to ensure that the most relevant keyword is shown when groups represent different levels of detail or themes.

For example, consider a campaign that has two keywords in separate group. One keyword is ‘pet supplies’ and the other keyword is ‘San Jose pet supplies’.  The generic keyword ‘pet supplies’ is in a group with generic ad copy and directs traffic to a generic landing page.

The other keyword, ‘San Jose pet supplies’ is in a group with location specific ad copy and benefits from a geo-specific landing page with a unique local message to appeal to the residents of San Jose.

A typical search query might be ‘best pet supplies store in San Jose’. With this search, the advertisers risks Google serving the generic keyword with the generic ad, which doesn’t best match the user intent and could deliver poor results. However, if the query triggers the ad for ‘San Jose pet supplies’ chances are the user will be more likely to click and convert.

Broad and phrase match keywords can help Google match searches to the most relevant ad. For example, adding the negative keyword ‘San Jose’ to the generic group will ensure that the San Jose themed ads will appear over the generic ad when a search could have otherwise matched either group. Read More...

Column: Social Overload? Nah, bring on Google+

By Monica Vainauskas

Monica Vainauskas

I consider myself to be quite social media savvy; I'm all over it whenever I have the time.

I'm connected through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Flickr – I think I even still have a Myspace account, which I probably should delete.

Then, of course, there's the newly added Google+, or as some might call it, the new Facebook.

Google+ has grown drastically in 16 days by hitting 10 million users; a huge milestone that Facebook and Twitter didn't reach until two years after launch.

My first response to the new social media tool: I was a little skeptical.

As if we didn't have enough social networks already, it's a bit exhausting to think about adding a new one to the mix, especially since most of us have already set up camp on Facebook.

With the start of the fall semester just around the corner, it makes me wonder what effects the new social network will have on people.

Facebook is already enough of a distraction in classrooms; many of us can't really even go on a computer without checking one of our accounts.

Now that we're given the option for another one to update, this is going to be interesting to see.

Unless everyone decides to abandon Facebook like they did with Myspace, many people are going to be spending even more time online instead of out in the real world, catching up with friends the old fashion way.

It was my curiosity that led me to join Google+, along with hearing many favorable reviews.

Since I've made my Google+ account, I must agree to say that it is extremely appealing.

I was actually on Google+ the other day for over an hour just trying to figure it out – I had to force myself to go do something else for awhile. Read More...

High Risk SEO: 33 Ways to Get Penalised by Google

By Tad Chef

On SEO forums one of the most often discussed topics are Google penalties. Webmasters seek help to determine whether and why they have been penalised by Google. They also want to know how to deal with the penalty once it’s established that they have been hit by one.

• What is a Google penalty and what isn’t? There seem to be different definitions floating around.

While Google employees will tell you that many SEO issues described as penalties aren’t actually penalties, most people seem to consider sudden and unexplained ranking and/or search traffic dropsas a penalty. They at least suspect they have been subjected to a penalty.

• oday I’d like to assist webmasters in determining whether they have been hit by an actual Google penalty by listing common reasons for getting penalised by Google.

Some of them are simply Google filters that deal with overtly manipulative SEO techniques. Some of these aren’t penalties at all, but I list them here as well because they are often mistaken for a penalty.

So just check out this list of ways to get penalised by Google. Many of them are high risk SEO tactics considered to be black hat by some. Read More...

Social Fresh Returns to Charlotte, September 6-7, 2011

by webmaster

Charlotte's biggest social media conference features industry experts from across the country for two day event

Social Fresh, the social media education company that originated in Charlotte, NC, announced the next stop in its educational conference series, targeted to marketing professionals. Social Fresh Charlotte will take place September 6-7, 2011 at the University Hilton in Charlotte, NC.

The two day conference will focus on social media for business results and teach social media tactics and strategy. It will provide actionable content and case studies to participants and encourage group discussion and networking. Topics range from marketing and social integration to blogger outreach and SEO.

Although Social Fresh has held over a dozen conferences over the last three years, Charlotte is the only city
Social Fresh returns to on an annual basis.

Keynote speaker Peter Shankman, founder of “Help A Reporter Out,” leads over a dozen social agency leaders and innovators, including Tom Webster of Edison Research, Justin Kistner of Webtrends and Lisa Hoffmann of Duke Energy.

“Charlotte is a great location for us, said Jason Keath, Founder of Social Fresh. “It is not only central to the east coast, but has an active and exciting social media presence. We expect a large attendance from locals and hundreds of others willing to travel to this great city.” Read More...

SEO and the Metrics of Success

by Small Business News

Being in small business today necessitates a certain degree of familiarity with the language of the Internet. After all, marketing online has become one of the cheapest, easiest options available for small business with little or no barriers to entry. But entering into the online world has also meant adoption of a whole new vocabulary and way of thinking. Here is a brief look at Search Engine Optimization, metrics and the new tools of small business success.

Social Media

What brand exposure does Facebook give you? Measuring impact on the Internet has long been a matter of metrics, but recently, ComScore Inc., specializing in the measurement of all things online, has announced a tool to measure brand exposure on the world’s largest social network. What can you learn about how Facebook impacts your brand WSJ

There’s a new sheriff in town. Whatever the impact of Facebook and other other social networks, one newcomer seems destined to gobble up at least a portion of the market, enough that it may make you think twice about ignoring exposure here. It’s time to get real about Google+. Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Finding Success

Spying on your competitor’s SEO. Search Engine Optimization is not done in a vacuum. Equally important to your efforts are the efforts of your competitors, fighting you for, perhaps, the same customers, the same traffic and the same advertisers. This tool, free for now during the beta, will be an eyeopener. SEO Book

Small business SEO: a success story. While trying to become a motivational speaker, David Leonhardt discovered he had a gift for search engine optimization, promoting his own site easily to a number 1 Google position. Combining these skills with a passion for writing, Leonhardt was able to launch a business based on the new business marketing of the Internet. BizSugar Blog

Tools of the Trade

Why Google’s not the only game in town. However powerful the number one search engine may be, it’s best for small business owners seeking to market their products, services or Websites via SEO to remember the competition. Here’s a peek inside the Bing Webmasters Tools, an alternative to Google that is best to keep in mind while marketing your site. SEO Book

Social media channels and the metrics of success. If presence on the social media–Facebook, Twitter, Google+–is being counted as authority by the Google algorithm, than involvement on these platforms is critical for your business as is making sure your content gets shared. Want to learn more about how it’s done? Follow the link. Read More...

Why Is It Best to Hire SEO India Services

Companies come and go. It is the quality of service and its marketing efforts that act as the catalyst helping a company to foster in its business. SEO India has been considered to be the best SEO services providing industry all over the world. The reasons can be found engraved in a list that goes on endlessly to prove the flair of SEO India experts.

SEO India experts have a proven flair in the world of SEO. You will find it tough to get a better deal for your website than the one you get in India. Not that the whole thing is being written to sensationalize India, but facts from the past have proven such claims. There is no better venue in this world than India to hire SEO Services from. SEO Services in India are the holy grail for every website out there trying to break into the bigger league of successful entities making money. Its SEO services are specifically designed to meet the needs of those who want to "fly" their activities, promoting it on the web and leveraging full potential of network.

SEO India marketing campaign is well known for specializing in positioning of websites on various search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. As experts from the placement they are passionate about the industry and are completely dedicated to the improvement of classification of results in the search engines for keywords chosen by the companies. 

SEO Services India outfits have an eye for designs. Website designing being an intricate part of website growth is understood well by these firms. They have a team of designers in-house which creates visually appealing designs, with a blend of strategy to enchant the visitor showing up. They know the colors needed to make the website look glamorous and professional at the same time. Indian service providers with their depth of experience know how to find the right links to a website. When they start link popularity building for a website, they use the right sources and deploy the right cases at various forums. So the site automatically grows in terms of networking and popularity. Its experience in the field of positioning is proof that they know exactly what search engines like, how to adapt your website. They offer fully managed SEO services with tangible results to ensure that your investment in web marketing is profitable.

Most SEO India Services outfits nourish a team of proficient writers who know how to do the content for a given website. They are well versed with the tone, language, and rhythm of content that strikes a chord with the reader and the necessary keywords that would optimize the site taking it to the top. Their English is impeccable, grammatically flawless and a delight to read. Read More...

Small Business SEO: Get to Grip With Links

Rob Chant

When thinking about SEO, many website owners put undue attention onto the site itself, worrying about things such as meta tags, keyword density (actually a myth ), headings, and titles. While on-site factors do play a part in SEO (especially when it comes to content), they pale into insignificance when it comes to links.

Most SEO practitioners spend their days obsessing over links and link building, but many site owners ignore them completely or pay them only cursory heed. The reason for this is pretty obvious: your site is something very tangible that you can see and pore over without any effort, whereas links can be a somewhat vague concept without dedicated tools.

Let's do something to redress that balance.

Monitoring Your Links

First, don’t use Google's link: search operator to check your links. It's notoriously inaccurate and regarded as being for entertainment purposes only (more on Google's philosophy and reasoning for this apparently broken tool here).

So if you can't use the link: command, what can you use? Your first port of call is Google Webmaster Tools.

Google Webmaster Tools supplies you with a wealth of information about what Google knows about your site, as well as how it performs in the search results and +1 metrics. Although the accuracy and validity of the information given even here is often questioned, it's an invaluable tool for webmasters.

In amongst this information is the "Links to your site" page. This is where the action begins.

There are two main numbers with which you need to become intimately familiar: the number of links to your site and the number of domains linking to your site. Both these pieces of information are available in "Links to your site," albeit in separate pages.

The number of links will almost always be higher than the number of domains, as you will often have more than one link from any site that is linking to you. Two links are better than one, but two links from two separate domains are even better. So, it's that latter number that's the most important.

But wait -- you may already have spotted a fine detail with those figures. Google isn't telling you the number of linking domains, they're telling you about the top linking domains. Once again, Google has taken an important piece of information and filtered it without giving you any explanation. Read More...

Optimize Facebook SEO to Increase Your Local Business

By: Chris Marentis

From completing your Facebook business page and connecting with influencers and connectors, to posting compelling and newsworthy content and using Facebook Insights analytics, there are tons of Facebook tips and tactics for business owners to use to create a following to boost leads for their business. And another important tactic we share with our clients and prospects is the importance of honing in on Facebook SEO.

Many business owners mistakenly think that Facebook SEO and external search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) SEO are the same thing. But it's important to understand the distinction between the two when it comes to boosting SEO for your local business. Typically, what works to boost SEO via Facebook for external search engines will also work to boost SEO within Facebook's internal search engine, but the opposite isn't always true. And given that many people are using the Facebook search engine to find businesses these days, it's very important to understand the difference.

To boost internal SEO within Facebook:

1. Be sure to choose the right business category for your local business within Facebook to target the right customers. By doing so, you will be more easily found within Facebook's search engine when someone searches for your type of business.
2. Use keyword research for posts and status updates. Many think that this will provide external SEO juice, but not so much. However, the internal Facebook search engine will pick up on keywords in your status updates and posts when people conduct a search with those keywords using the Facebook search engine. Don't go overboard, but do use keywords where appropriate within your Facebook business page.

To boost both internal and external SEO with Facebook:  Read More...

Hakuna Matata SEO

by Nick Stamoulis


Just about everyone over the age of 3 is familiar with “The Lion King,” arguably one of Disney’s most famous films (and rampantly successful Broadway show). One of the film’s quintessential songs is “Hakuna Matata,” which Timon and Pumba teach to young Simba. The moral of the song— no worries.


I’ve seen plenty of experts and clients fret over their SEO. Sometimes it feels like our entire industry lives by the will of the search engines and their algorithms. A new update comes down the pipeline and website owners are scrambling to make sure their site will pass muster. But it doesn’t have to be that way! SEO may not be totally worry free, but we are a lot closer to Hakuna Matata than you may think.

If you stay white hat, there is no need to worry.

Most algorithm updates are designed with one end goal in mind—to improve the user experience. Search engines want to keep their users happy and coming back, just like any other business. Delivering the best results for a user’s search is how they make that happen. This means combing the Internet for the most relevant sites, and hopefully that means yours.


Google’s Panda update that launched earlier this year was designed to take on content farms that were cluttering the search results. The low quality, spammy sites were not what users were looking for, so Google updated their algorithm to remove them from the SERP. A lot of site owners claimed to be unfairly affected by the Panda crackdown, but my company’s site, as well as the sites of all my clients, sailed through with flying colors. Why? Because I take a strictly white hat approach to SEO.

If you are a site owner or marketer looking to expand your knowledge of SEO, I suggest you start with the Google Webmaster and the Bing Webmaster SEO Guidelines and consider the information in them your line in the sand. When it comes to SEO, you have to play by the search engine’s rules if you want to succeed! Abiding by the search engines guidelines is white hat SEO. Read More...

37% More Incentive to Focus on SEO for Bing

by Jonathan Allen





Large search agency, Rosetta (recently acquired by Publicis), have conducted a study of organic search traffic to their clients' websites in which they measured the percentage contribution of organic clicks from Yahoo, 


Bing and Google and segmented the data into vertical markets. The study found that the Bing-Yahoo search alliance presented significant competition to Google in the financial services and retail sector.


The data pulled from over 10 million organic-referred visits from January through May 2011 paints a slightly different picture from other search market share data providers such as comScore and Experian Hitwise. 


Whilst this is to be expected, as all their methodologies are completely different, the Rosetta study corroborates findings by the other market analysis firms as it points to untapped potential in every sector.


Both comScore and Hitwise's recent market share figures are roughly the same, putting Google's dominance at 65%. Hitwise reports a combined 30% market share for Bing & Yahoo whilst comScore reports 14% and 16% respectively. Broadly speaking both analyst firms measure market share in terms of the number of search queries performed on the destination sites - a metric which comScore calls explicit core search. Hitwise has an additional metric called "search success", which measures how many searches led to a click on a website - and posits Yahoo and Bing at approximately 81% whilst Google searches only lead to a click 66% of the time.


The Rosetta study took a slightly different tack and estimated marketshare from a site owners perspective, aggregating organic clicks from search engines into specific industry verticals. It is noteworthy that the Hitwise search share success metric seems to be borne out in this latest. 


The results show that whilst Google is dominant in every industry in all respects, and in some verticals command a marketshare of over 75%, vertical markets such as financial services and retail actually had stronger competition from Bing and Yahoo. In financial services, Google's dominance was only at 54% and in retail, they only accounted for 60% of the clicks to the websites surveyed. Therefore, Bing powered search on Yahoo represents a more significant organic SEO opportunity in the retail sector, with almost a 37% share.

Hitwise and comScore also offer this type of analysis via paid-for services, but Rosetta plan to continue publishing this analysis over the coming year. Read More...

Google still in charge of UK search results

While Bing has made significant inroads to the goal of sharing the world search market with Google, it appears their efforts in the United Kingdom continue to fall short. Results information for June 2011 reveal that Google handles an astounding 92% share of all UK search queries. In fact, for the last 12 month period, Google’s share in the UK has actually increased. This in light of massive advert expenditures by Microsoft and Bing. In terms of worldwide growth, a great deal of Google’s recent success can be attributed to the growth in popularity of Chrome, Google’s browser. In many South American countries, Chrome has grown to become the browser of choice.


Bing results combined with their search partner Yahoo equal just under a 7% share. Yahoo is actually a larger search engine presence in the UK than Bing. Fortunately when Bing was put in place by Microsoft, their long term strategy was to use their search engine as a data generation tool. Microsoft wanted a greater understanding of what the public wanted in operating systems, browsers and other closely related to hardware applications to be. This information will factor into the Microsoft products of tomorrow. Read More...

Muckmakers: Online-Reputation Firms Struggle With Ethics

By: Rosanna M. Fiske

Before You Hire One, Remember the Coverup Can Be Worse Than the Crime

Rosanna M. Fiske

What do you get when you mix Google's complex search algorithm with rampant reputational concerns and a nascent industry offering to placate nervous CEOs fretting over seeing their head shots listed in search results for the latest scandal?


Answer: The shady underworld of the growing online-reputation-management industry.
Scant data exist as to the size of this market, but there is little doubt that business is booming. It's easy to see why: From the threat of WikiLeaks to their own ill-timed and ill-conceived proclamations, more than ever CEOs need help protecting their reputations and that of their businesses.


Maybe that's why a Google search for "online-reputation management" returns 5.2 million results.
But there is a somewhat sinister underbelly to this prosperous business. It lurks where ethical communicators seek to inform; it openly tries to cover up previous online mishaps in an age where little is private anymore. Read More...

Now Available from Pepper Law Group – Internet Defamation and Reputation Management Services

by Somerville, NJ (PRWEB)

Pepper Law Group is now proud to provide Internet Defamation and Reputation Management Services for everyone from individual persons looking to clean up their online image to multinational corporations seeking to protect their online reputation and everyone and everything in between.

Pepper Law Group

 “Today, you are defined by what appears about you online,” explains Dan Pepper, managing member of Pepper Law Group. "When doing business online, there is nothing more painful than to hear that a potential customer 'Googled' your company or personal name and will not be doing business with you because of what they read online."


Pepper further indicates that, “Hundreds of thousands of dollars are lost each day because of false, defamatory or malicious search engine results. Whether these negative listings are from a competitor, an intentionally created negative website, or a message board, the impact can be financially and emotionally challenging at best, and devastating at worst."

Today, you are defined by what appears about you online.

Pepper Law Group has been assisting its clients with these types of Internet defamation for years. As thevolume of inquiries continued to grow each month, Pepper explains, "We really felt the need to structure a service in order to efficiently assist clients with handling defamation damage and their reputation management needs."

Unlike other law firms and so-called "reputation repair" companies, Pepper Law Group combines both proven legal and technological strategies to help address Internet libel, defamation and online reputation matters. Read More....

Internet Reputation Management Company May Mimic Google’s Online Identity Management Tool

by EMAILWIRE.COM

If the glove don't ......

Southfield, MI -- Business Internet Marketing (BIM) can manage, defend, repair and steer a client’s online reputation and image for the benefit of their company. BIM maintains a full-time staff to monitor and respond to the internet, social media, and blogs to their client’s benefit.

The Google tool is called, “Me on the Web,” and is now included on the Google dashboard in between account information and analytics. It is not intended to be another privacy setting.
 
BIM helps their clients in recent years by automating the same tactics that Google suggests.

And, the winner is .....

The new dashboard section encourages you to keep tabs on these mentions by setting up search alerts for data points included in your Google profile, like your name and email address. It has long been possible to set up these type of alerts using another section of the dashboard, but now it takes fewer clicks.

The BIM Reputation Management Team prefers to be proactive for their clients. The old-school system of monitor and manage is not in the company’s activities. At BIM, they research keywords for their clients and then saturate the internet with positive press releases and articles and blogs.

At BIM, they recognize that clients, as business owners or professional service providers, have to make providing a quality product or service job one. BIM’s priority is to generate leads (new potential customers, clients, and patients). To grow small business, their clients need potential clients calling them, emailing and walking through your door. BIM’s four core services; Business internet marketing, SEO training, SEO consultation and Reputation Management do just that. Read More...

Even In-House SEO Superheroes Need Tools

by Steve Beatty  





The SEO landscape has changed dramatically over the past 10 years. In 2001, you could get by simply doing keyword research, making a couple on page site tweaks, and ranking for some keywords. You were an SEO guru by doing this 2001.

Everything since then has changed dramatically with the increasing importance of Google and its many algorithm updates, the availability of more SEO information, and the largest recession of the century. All these together have created a much more complicated modern SEO campaign.

In-House SEO Superhero of the 21st Century

The modern in-house SEO is a demanding job. You’re the educator, strategist, and executor wrapped up into one.
Typically in large organizations, you’re really almost a salesman trying to convince other teams/divisions to buy in to why SEO is important. A typical day can consist of many meetings, presentations, and your other relegated duties -- like ensuring the website ranks well and meets the business goals your company set forth. The modern in-house SEO manager is a marketing juggler, if not a superhero.

Modern SEO Campaign

In 2011, the modern SEO campaign has become more demanding. More results are expected, more reporting is asked, education is needed, and more buy-in is needed. Justification of your efforts is required at every turn. A typical campaign will be measured on metrics for success (varying from business to business) such as: Read More...

Weebly Launches New White Label CMS Solution That Enables Designers to Build Sites Faster, Earn More Money, and Make Their Clients Happier

by (PRWEB)


Weebly, an industry-leading website builder powering over 2% of the world's websites, today announced the new Weebly Designer Platform, a white-label content management system (CMS) that integrates website design, hosting, and client management into a centralized interface. Based on Weebly's easy, drag-and-drop website builder, the Designer Platform provides designers with tools to help them build sites faster, manage more clients, and make more money, while also giving clients the ability to easily update their own websites through a portal branded with the designer's company logo and colors. Designers have full control over client sites and permissions and can authorize additional staff members to speed up website development and help support more clients.

The Designer Platform provides an integrated solution that does not require clients to purchase hosting from a 3rd party web host. Instead, hosting is provided by Weebly's data center redundant, cloud based infrastructure that powers over 7 million websites. With Weebly's hosting, designers can generate additional revenue from clients through monthly recurring hosting fees.

"Weebly's Designer Platform cuts out a lot of the worry that stems from managing backend infrastructure and ultimately lets us spend more time helping our clients," said David Hua, CEO of HippoBird, a web design and marketing firm located in San Francisco. "The platform's CMS is a huge time-saver and our clients love it because they can use it without much guidance. Branded with our company's look and feel, the interface is so easy-to-use, clients just log-in and make edits with a simple point and click. Our clients are now able to run with their new website without getting bogged down in technical details like hosting and using an FTP server." Read More...

Optimize Your Website with Blurbpoint’s Link building service

Blurbpoint is one of the most popular and leading SEO website that offer variety of SEO services to you. You can use these SEO services and get lots of benefits that are profitable to you. We offer various SEO services at competitive rate.

Website owners must plan strategically towards hiring of link building service if they seriously want to improve the web ranking on the major search engines. Your hiring process will yield positive results when you will approach to reliable firm. Blurbpoint has a unique place on the online business platform. It is one of the leading SEO firms currently. It has served tons of web owners who have sufficed their unique business needs at regular intervals.

The company has proficient experts and professionals who understand the nature of your business and after case study try to offer you all the beneficial aspect of link building. They offer comprehensive SEO link building which is available as a package that helps in accomplishing high quality link building required for your website. It is very much important that you should check out the profile of the company before fetching your hard earned money on their any hired services. This will give you clear picture about the company and the type of services it delivers. Link building services are widely hired by web owners as finding it quite beneficial. They help to draw high traffic and large numbers of visitors towards the site. Blurbpoint team is widely known for providing qualitative links, and ethical SEO link building service.

Our dedicated experts will try to offer you end to end solutions based on your required business needs. They are so skilled that whenever you will approach to them will not offer you common solutions. You will always get proper attention and right solutions whatever you’re expecting from link building service. We will also provide you weekly report of each submission. Above, all benefits of different link building packages. These packages are Starter, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Advance. All of these packages are quite unique, and highly recommended for lifting up your web page rank. Read More...

How To: Organize Content for Mobile Website Optimization

by Tim Gray

If you haven’t already, it’s time to start thinking about building out mobile optimized websites to capture a slice of one of the world’s fastest growing markets.


The worldwide mobile phone market is churning upward, growing 19.8 percent in the first quarter of 2011 alone, largely on the heels of new technologies and demand in developing countries. In the United States, which has a relatively mature and steady market, 36.4 percent of the 234 million mobile users access the Internet from their phone, according to research firm comScore.


And as technology and capabilities improve these numbers are certain to climb much higher.


So designing websites for mobile conversations is going to be paramount as more people consuming content on their handhelds will increasingly demand mobile websites that are quick and easy to use.

Content is king.

Because mobile website content needs to be prioritized for multi-tasking users ─ the very essence of being mobile suggests other activities are occurring ─ you’ll need to understand how and where information is being processed.


One of the most important factors when designing a mobile website is determining what information to include and exclude. Read More...

Outsourcing Content Post Panda Update 2.3

by Matt Krautstrunk

Outsourcing content for your website is risky if you don’t know what you are doing. After Google’s algorithm change to ranking factors, (known as “Panda”) content is becoming an integral part of your businesses search relevance.


It used to be, if you had content over 300 words and applied the proper on-page optimization you were primed for SEO best practices. However, Google is now taking in to consideration more factors of your site when determining if it is “high quality” or “low quality.”  Last week, Google refreshed their algorithm yet again, boosting rankings for many SEOs that operate sites with quality content, and lowering ranking for sites with poor content. The ultimate emphasis being, if your site has great content, you will rank better.


However this is an issue for many businesses that don’t place an emphasis on content, like e-commerce, and local business listings and directories sites. So if you have see any rankings drop in the last 6 months you may be frantically searching for ways to ramp up your site’s content.


One thing you will learn is that good content isn’t cheap, so if you don’t have an in-house copywriter or simply don’t have the resources to update your site, outsourcing may be your only option. However, with outsourced web content, you should tread carefully to make sure your site doesn’t raise any red flags. Here are few tips to outsource your content and not sacrifice rankings. Read More...

How I improved my SEO by scrapping AdWords

by Patrick Stafford

Joshua Kamil started Ready Steady Print to cater for what he believes is a lack of quality services for businesses and individuals. By combining traditional printing services with online features like the ability to customise as much of the product as possible, the company has carved out a solid niche. 



Revenue is growing at over 40% a year, with the company set to turnover about $1.4 million this year.

But Kamil says while he once spent thousands of dollars on Google’s AdWords to drive traffic, he has now scrapped nearly all of that budget. Instead, he says relying on SEO and improving your conversion rate will get you better results.

How’s the business been travelling this past year?


We’ve exceeded last year’s growth rate, but that having been said, we’re not spending nearly as much as we were on advertising. I’m pretty confident that we can smash 45% out of the ballpark again.


So what made you decide to get rid of AdWords spending?


Once you get to a level of traffic where the business is making a lot of money, and you’re building traffic… it’s taken me a good couple of years to realise this is all about the conversion rate online.
Even if they’re driving traffic, you may need to kill them because the focus needs to be on the conversion.

When did this whole strategy begin?

We’ve just cut back our AdWords spending, I’d say over the past 12 months. We’ve tested certain keywords but haven’t been running them on a day-to-day basis.


It’s been after a combination of spending so much time working on our own SEO, which is now starting to generate good amounts of traffic and is just getting busier and busier. And it made me think why I was spending so much money on AdWords when we’re flat out.


We’re just allocating that money elsewhere, developing the website. The better focus for us is really on how we can increase our conversion rate. Traffic is not costing us anything, but AdWords is. Read more...