How to Get More Search Traffic to Your Website
June 2, 2012
Biznology recently provided readers with an interesting take on how to fix a cluttered website in the article “How to Clean Up a Cluttered Website? Content Analytics is the Answer.”
According to the article, Google’s new search ranking algorithm allows the search giant to pay more attention to overall cleanliness and architecture. Therefore, it is essential that websites focus on content analytics.
Even websites that follow all the SEO rules such as writing excellent copy with relevant and engaging imagery as well as incorporated social media and relevant keywords and hash-tags sometimes don’t get high search rankings.
Here is why:
“A common reason: there are other pages in your environment optimized for the same keywords. Especially in large corporate settings, the main culprit to SEO failure is duplicate content. Often this is old junk that is just sitting on a server getting in the users’ way. More importantly, the old stuff is taking up slots in Google’s index, distracting the algorithm in its attempt to rank your content. Even if the old stuff was never optimized, these pages have links into them that should be pointing to your optimized experiences.”
The solution that this author offers to the problem of duplicate content is to “clean house” by auditing content, building a strategy, and choosing the right tools. If organizations follow this simple advice they are bound to up their search traffic.
Jasmine Ashton, June 2, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Google Fights Search Over-Optimization
May 16, 2012
Google is at it again. NetworkWorld reports, “Google Begins Penalizing Search ‘Over-Optimization’.” (SEOO?) The latest algorithmic adjustment is designed to counter the proliferation of low-quality sites designed just to attract click-throughs. I guess the poor Panda wasn’t trying hard enough. Writer Cameron Scott reports:
“The company emphasizes in Tuesday’s announcement that the algorithm shift will target only those practices, such as ‘keyword stuffing’ and ‘link schemes,’ that violate its guidelines.
“However, the announcement included the caveat that not all content punished by the changes will ‘be easily recognizable as spamming without deep analysis or expertise.’
“The shift to Google’s algorithm is likely to affect, at least initially, some websites that aren’t clearly violating its guidelines, according to a strategy paper for Web marketers released earlier this month by the search-engine marketing firm iProspect.”
The paper goes on to say that such users rankings will probably be restored with “subsequent adjustments and tweaks.” I’m sure that will be of great comfort to companies who thought they were playing by the rules but suddenly find themselves at the bottom of the heap.
Look, Google fostered search engine optimization in its effort to balance “free” placement with paid traffic. Now that the ponies have left the corral, Google wants to round ’em up. Do you hear the theme from “Rawhide”?
Cynthia Murrell, May 16, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Buying YouTube Love: Is This a Step Too Far?
May 10, 2012
It seems YouTube comments are for sale.
The SEO crowd has a new angle. EzineMark announces that you can now “Buy YouTube Comments to Contribute in the Growth of Your Online Venture.” The write up starts by mentioning how useful YouTube videos can be in a marketing campaign. Naturally, the more comments a company’s video gets, the more exposure the company ultimately receives. So far so good, but such a setup begs for someone to game the system.
Now, apparently, companies are doing just that. We are advised:
“There is a revelation that social media marketing service providers design various packages of ‘buy YouTube comments’ in a different price brackets. The price of the package varies with the number of comments demanded by the owner of an online venture. You can come across packages with numbers ranging from 100 to 500 comments to choose from. You can avail the package of buying YouTube comments in tune with your requirement and budget.”
This particular, um, article is not really worth combing through, unless you get a chuckle from poorly written English. The very idea of buying YouTube comments, though, is an interesting tactic. How long before it is utterly impossible to differentiate between marketing campaigns and organic content? Are we already there?
Cynthia Murrell, May 10, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
An Expensive Recipe for Search Traffic
May 1, 2012
Remember the good old days of 1993. A person could browse a list of new sites. Most Web sites then got some traffic. Today, getting traffic is not like 1993. (Is there an artist formerly known as Prince to write a tune about the shift?)
I read a recipe for traffic which appears in “Google’s Perfect Quality Score Sauce.” Among the tips are buying more keywords. Positive keywords and negative keywords are in the list of ingredients. But the operative words are “add more keywords.” Yep, spend more, get more.
The write up’s content comes from a Googler named Tanmay, but the important point is that key to traffic is a blend of cordon bleu methods which involve buying AdWords.
Will spending money produce clicks? The answer is, “Yes.” The reason is that without some type of exogenous lift, traffic to Web sites both desktop anchor and mobile on-the-wing are a bit like the income distribution in the US. One percent of the sites get the traffic. The other 99 percent do not.
The fact is creating a crisis of sorts among marketers who are pumping six figures into Web sites which yield a meager 2,000, 10,000, or 20,000 uniques.
Now the proper response to a CFO who questions the inefficiency of a traditional Web site is, “If we make one sale, the Web site pays for itself. And we get leads.”
One hopes the CFO says, “Okay, give me one sheet of paper with the sales the Web site has made in the last 30 days and a list of top 10 leads which have come from your Web efforts.”
Bad news, of course. Metrics are easy to talk about, but they are tough to map to hard dollars.
The good news about the sad state of traffic for most Web sites is that those who sell clicks, eyeballs, traffic, or other clever “evidence” of success is that Google will benefit. This is different from the good old days when a Web site was an event. Today a Web site is a distraction, an expensive distraction.
Stephen E Arnold, May 1, 2012
Sponsored by Ikanow, which delivers analytics that answer questions
SEO Confusion is Common
April 28, 2012
If you are confused by SEO tactics, don’t fret because you are not alone. SEO admits even it is not sure what it does.
In an effort to ease the confusion, Search Engine Journal recently posted an article titled, “24 Eye-Popping SEO Statistics.” The article begins by commenting on the apparently misunderstood medium that is not well regarded in the online marketing arena (just type “seo is” into Google and watch it fill in the blanks.) We then read that a user should begin by getting their minimum viable SEO right before site-building and may then turn to more advanced SEO once they have accomplished that.
And then, to complete the explanation of SEO, some statistics are presented. Some key stats from the article:
“*Content marketing rocks. Marketing Sherpa reports distribution lead to a 2,000% increase in blog traffic and a 40% increase in revenue.
*70% of the links search users click on are organic.
*70-80% of users ignore the paid ads, focusing on the organic results.
*75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results.
*GroupM states “when consumers were exposed to both search and social media influenced by a brand that overall search CTR went up by 94 percent.”
*Search and e-mail are the top two internet activities.”
Still confused? So are we. And I’m fairly confident the SEO gurus are too.
Statistics do not define SEO, and readers should be provided more valid reasoning and explanation of processes before being asked to embrace the so-called marketing tool.
Andrea Hayden, April 28, 2012
Sponsored by Ikanow
A Click or a Sale: Which Do You Need?
April 26, 2012
A useful set of four questions to ask about online advertising and the inevitable metrics that trail along is outlined in the article, The Four Questions: Getting The Scoop On Viewable Impressions | C3 Metrics This simple outline can help businesses contemplate the most useful and profitable solution.
The point of the article is best summed up as;
“As I talk to clients and associates about the impending viewable impression standard, there’s some confusion about some of the finer points — some of the most techy ad ops questions in years. I’ve identified four of them:
1. How is data being collected?
2. How is the viewable impression method trafficked?
3. How do I grow a campaign using viewable impression data?
4. How does the iFrame issue get solved?
When evaluating the options available for your business, one should review all the information provided. Many people are misinformed when it comes to the simplicity of the click, and often don’t see the bigger picture. However, the big picture needs to be the primary focus when contemplating revenue.
We can’t stress the importance of asking the right questions when dealing with a provider. What matters more? A click or a sale? We vote for a sale. The click business sounds solid, but a click may not be revenue, just cost.
At ArnoldIT, we are into sales. Clicks? Meh.
Jennifer Shockley, April 26, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
WideStat Collects and Provides Data on Web Sites
April 23, 2012
An interesting service has turned up with a report on Exorbyte. The site is named WideStat, and calls itself a “Website Worth Calculator.” The page is a collection of statistics, many of which are displayed in colorful charts. Pretty.
We are not sure if these types of auto-complete Web services help or hinder a search and content processing vendor. Here is what it has to say about our old friend, Exorbyte:
“Exorbyte.de has #662,408 traffic rank in world by Alexa. It gets 726 internet visitors per day. Visitors to it view 2.9 unique pages each day on average. Estimated daily time on site 02:45 seconds. It has an average of 786 pages indexed in major search engines like Google. There are an average of 124 links pointing back to exorbyte.de from other websites. Exorbyte.de has the potential to earn $15 USD in advertisement revenue per day. It has an estimated value of $5,227 USD. Out of the 30 unique keywords found on exorbyte.de, ‘exorbyte’ was the most dense. This site has Google PageRank 4 of 10.”
As a aside, think about how much more readable that would have been had a human written or translated it. Just a thought.
We are not sure if these types of Web services help or hinder a search and content processing vendor. Besides, the 726 daily visitors to the company’s Web site strikes us as quite low. We recommend you check your company on WideStat and see what tidbits it may have picked up about your business.
Headquartered in Konstanz, Germany, Exorbyte was founded at the turn of the century. The company provides search and data matching software and solutions for online ecommerce, directories, and data quality applications. Their core platform is colorfully named MatchMaker.
Cynthia Murrell, April 23, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Fake Reviews a Growing and Tenacious Problem in Social Media
April 20, 2012
Ah, sentiment and lies. Next Gen Market Research blogger Tom H. C. Anderson interviewed data mining expert Bing Liu in anticipation of his day-before workshop for the Sentiment Analysis Symposium in New York City early next month. He has titled his interview, “Practical Sentiment Analysis and Lies.” Interesting.
Professor Liu teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago, in the Computer Science Department. His work on text analytics and detecting online ratings fraud was recently featured in the New York Times. Anderson posed Liu with questions on the upcoming workshop as well as on his work in general.
The words that caught my eye were in Liu’s response to the issue of detecting fake reviews:
“Social media is here to stay. Its content is also being used more and more in applications.
Something has to be done to ensure the integrity of this valuable source of information before it becomes full of fake opinions, lies and deceptive information. After all, there are strong motivations for businesses and individuals to post fake reviews for profit and fame. It is also easy and cheap to do so. Writing fake reviews has already become a very cheap way of marketing and product promotion.”
Important though the issue might be, Liu admits that ratting out fake reviews is a huge challenge. Almost impossible to identify simply by reading them, misleading missives must be discovered through secondary information, like aggregate reviewer behavior and the physical origins of a post. Apparently, a reliable method has yet to be developed.
So, let this be a reminder of something my Dad used to tell me: now, perhaps more than ever, you can’t believe everything you read.
Cynthia Murrell, April 20, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Search Asserts its Place
April 17, 2012
Is SEO is relevant? We admire the SEO folks’ creativity, as demonstrated in Search Engine Watch’s “Integrated Marketing: Why Search Needs a Large Seat at the Table.” In the write up, writer Eric Enge discusses a panel on Integrated Marketing he attended at this year’s SES New York conference. The article asserts:
“Yes, we’re in the business of harvesting demand, but search should have a large seat at the table for the following reasons:
- As our culture becomes increasingly digital, search represents one of the largest channels for harvesting demand created by traditional marketing.
- Search can harvest demand that traditional marketing didn’t even try to create. This may the single most important benefit of search.
- SEO deserves a large seat at the table because it may provide the most profit in the long run, which creates cash flow to fuel future programs and growth.
- Ranking in top positions on generic search terms has a large brand impact.”
Hmm. I see a bit of supposition in there, and some points that might simply become outdated soon.
Enge laments the perception outsiders have that the search marketing industry is all about harvesting. Well. . . yeah. See one and two, above.
Cynthia Murrell, April 17, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google and Its Stock Split
April 16, 2012
I pointed out that the big news from the Google quarterly report was the erosion of revenue from Google’s core business.
Other addled geese, poobahs, and mavens found the stock split more troubling. A good example of the reaction is this Reuters real news story: “Google’s Evil Stock Split.” The idea is that Google seems to be perilously close to violating guidelines put in place 90 years ago. Here’s the key point in my opinion:
Google has, now, clearly violated the spirit of the NYSE rules, if not their letter. It took 15 months for the independent directors on the board to be persuaded of this, in long and secret deliberations.
Well, the independent directors * were * convinced.
I also enjoyed this comment in the Reuters real news story:
This move, then, is basically a way for Google to try to retreat back into its pre-IPO shell as much as possible. It never really wanted to go public in the first place — it was forced into that by the 500-shareholder rule — but at this point, Google is far too entrenched in the corporate landscape to be able to turn back the clock. It’s too big, and too important, and has been public for too long. That’s the thing about going public: it might suck, but once you’ve done it, you’ve done it. And at that point, if you try to pull a stunt like this, you risk looking all too much like Rupert Murdoch.
Okay, real Silicon Valley is starting to look like the real news paragon, Rupert Murdoch.
Wow.
My take is very simple.
The Googlers know that revenue softening can no longer be swept under the rug or surrounded with big band music and fancy dancing. The numbers are too big. The declines are double digits. The grousing about Panda and the push to get people to buy AdWords to visible to some Web site operators.
Therefore, the stock play is designed to leave the existing management team in charge as the financial news get increasingly dodgey. The Google senior management team does not want to be looking at a start up to fund without the Google ID card in their pocket.
So the erosion of online ad efficiency is causing the control push. Because this has been going on among the independent directors, I have concluded that the revenue erosion was noticeable in 2010, maybe earlier.
Will control reverse the online advertising money machine’s functioning. Nah, but the days of the “Google can do no wrong” are either over or drawing to a close. Google has these issues with which to contend:
- Legal hassles. Big disc brake applied to some activities.
- Amazon, Apple, and Facebook. Each of these companies has learned from Google. This is The Google Legacy I wrote about back in 2004 or 2005. You might want to check it out because Amazon, Apple, and Facebook have out Googled Google and seem to be gaining strength as Google does the fancy dancing.
- Costs from brute force solutions. Google spends a lot of dough to keep its brute force indexing system up and running. Facebook, on the other hand, can just spider Web urls which its members have posted. No brute force required to get started with an interesting search solution. Amazon has slapped A9 in the AWS plumbing and can move into search niches where Google has not gotten significant traction. Apple, which Google really wants to emulate, keep chugging along with a walled garden and customers’ religious fervor. Do you know anyone with religious fervor toward the Google. Well, I know one company. Oracle. See item one above.
Net net: Blekko/Yandex and Facebook could put the squeeze on the Google with a little luck and some good timing. How will Google respond? No clue. Google is not accustomed to playing defense. Ego is a potent concept. As the Greek tragedian said:
Cleverness is not wisdom. Bacchæ l. 395
Stephen E Arnold, April 18, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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