SEO

by Matt Kluemper The Online Search market is the epitome of the saying “stay ahead of the game.” In the recent past, Google has been the trend setter - coming out with personalized search, blog search, map and image search, even a 1-800 number and text messaging service (Goog 411 ) to stay one step (or more) ahead of its competitors. And Google is at it again. This time, the impact is going to shake the foundation of the search market, and it is already an extremely popular topic amongst everyone who is anyone involved in Search Engine Marketing, including the SEO Team at PlattForm. The keyword? Universal Search. Behind the scenes, Google has been working endlessly to continue their domination of the search engine market. Sometime within the next few months (roughly November), Google plans to exclusively implement their bright and shiny “Universal Search” feature. Google’s Universal Search includes many different facets of search technology rolled into one search engine results page. You may have already seen Universal Search in some of the Google search results. Videos, maps, images and even news stories have been showing up randomly in the Google search results since about May of 2007. For example, when searching for olathe, KS, a map from Google Local of Olathe, Kansas comes up as the first result: Or, when searching for snl iphone, a Saturday Night Live Weekend Update skit on YouTube (which happens to be owned by Google) shows up in the search results: Are these better results? Google thinks so, and will be rolling it out very soon. Whether it makes the search results better or not, Universal Search is going to have an impact on the way everyone in Search Engine Marketing strives for successful results. The PlattForm SEO Team is here to explain the basis of the major sections and how Universal Search will impact different businesses in the search results, because – like Google – we like to stay at least one step ahead. Over the next month, the SEO Team is going to explain the most important sections of Google’s Universal Search. Expect the following topics about Universal Search: Part 2: Video and Universal Search Part 3: Maps and Universal Search Part 4: Images and Universal Search Part 5: Products, Books and Universal Search Part 6: News, Google Scholar and Universal Search So, tune back in soon to learn more details about the impact of Video in Universal Search. Because before long, Universal Search will happen to you...

Search engine optimization does not just include the on-site and off-site optimization strategies that may be implemented on a given web site. The structure of the code and how it is organized is also a very important piece of the SEO puzzle. Jonathon Hochman, of SearchEngineWatch, recently spoke with Dan Crow, the product manager for Google’s Crawl Infrastucture group about clean code and how it affects the indexing of web pages. There are only so many pages that Google can index because of bandwidth and electrical constraints, and they attempt to spread the indexing love evenly. For example, Google isn't going to index Web sites A-G and then ignore H-Z. They must allocate their resources so that they are dispersed evenly and reasonably. It takes more time for a search engine spider to crawl a page with excess code. If every site had very clean, concise code, the spiders could index pages faster. This clean code structure would include the externalization of JavaScript and CSS. If all sites had succinct code, the search engines would be able to index more pages. So what exactly does this mean for us? This proves that every piece of the web site is important for SEO and should be addressed in the strategy that is implemented accordingly. This also shows that it is easier for the search engine spiders to index pages that have clean code.

by Matt Kluemper If it seems like Google is taking over the world, well, that is because it is well on its way. Search and Google – now a worldwide powerhouse – is evolving into the telephone, providing users with search results even if they are miles away from a computer. Can’t find the movie theater? Craving late-night pizza? Who ya gonna call? Call 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411 for you lazy folks). This new service with Google is only in the experimental phases, but it looks like it could be propelled into everyday use for confused travelers and more. It’s pretty simple – all you do is call the number, tell the nice voice recording on the phone what city and state you are looking for, then the name of the business. Can’t remember the name of the business? All you have to do is tell the recording what type of establishment you are looking for. Example of a simulated phone call I had with Google on Sunday: Matt: [Dials number] Hi, Google! Google: Please say your city and state. Matt: Olathe, Kansas. Google: OlAAAthe, Kansas. Please say the name of the business or category of the business you are looking for. Matt: Movies. Google: [Subtle noises that sound like dial-up Internet – eee errrr kssh gong gong] Top search result for movies in Olathe, Kansas. Google proceeded to tell me the top eight search results for movies in Olathe, Kansas. Once I decided on the closest movie theater to me, Google even directly connected me to the theater so I could get the movie time for Transformers! (I know, that movie is soo last week). The point is, I didn’t even have to get up to get to my computer to find out where the movie was – I just called them. Too socially inept to talk to even a voice recording? Well, Google has that covered, too. Just text Google what you want. This is a little more difficult (involves remembering commands like “map 500 n. rogers rd olathe ks” to get a map of PlattForm’s location), and requires a cheat sheet provided by Google. However, in a matter of seconds, you can get the map to the movie theater, pizza place or anywhere else that floats your boat. (You can get lakes, too.

According to Technorati there are currently over 70 million blogs in existence and roughly 15 million of these blogs are active. An active blog just means a blog that is being updated regularly and has some active readers. For any active blog, the most sought after metrics are visits, links and of course, comments. Unfortunately, most of those 15 million active blogs don’t receive many comments or links and end up being buried in the noise of the blogosphere. This article will show you how to give your articles a leg up in the clutter of the blogosphere. It’s Not Because Your Content Sucks Most active blogs actually have pretty good content. That’s what can be so frustrating for a lot of bloggers. A great article is crafted, posted and leaves the front page without creating even a ripple of conversation. This is frustrating, but also good news. The problem is not the content, but a failure to engage your community. A community in the blogosphere is simply a group of blogs that concentrate on a certain area and share readers. There is a marketing community, a care enthusiast community, and even an education community. You must reach out and engage your community if you want to get the most out of the articles you are writing. Getting Engaged and the Golden Rule There are two primary ways to engage your community:

• Commenting on other blogs
• Linking out to other people’s articles

It’s funny how that works. If you want comments on your blog and links pointing to your articles, you’re going to have to start doing the same. A blogger will receive from their community exactly what they put into it. Comments Commenting on other people’s blogs works because bloggers love seeing comments. That means when you comment on someone else’s blog they are going to become curious and they are going to click through to see who did it. That will lead them to your blog. If they like what they see, they may become a regular, and they may start linking to your articles. Linking Out and Trackbacks Linking out to other articles works because of something called “trackbacks.” If you write an article on your site linking to an article on site ABC, then a link to your site will pop up at the bottom of that article on site ABC in the form of a trackback. Bloggers notice when they have a trackback and will appreciate the link, just like you would. When the blogger on site ABC notices the trackback created because you linked to their article, they make a trip to your site. Again, they may become a regular and start promoting your blog with links back to your articles. The 2-for-1 Rule I advocate a 2-for-1 rule on blogging. For every post I do, I like to either link out or comment on two other blog articles. This forces me to not be lazy and engage my community. Otherwise, your blog will accrue content that goes uncommented and unlinked. Blogging in a silo gets boring fast, so break out of your routine. Use blogging search engines like Technorati and Google Blog Search to find blogs in your community and engage them with links and meaningful comments. If you do this 2 times for every 1 blog post, your inbox will be full, your articles heavily linked, and writing new posts will be fun instead of feeling like doing your taxes.

SEO is a discipline that leaves people scratching their heads. Clients and Account Executives are pelted with a laundry list of tactics. The one thing that is rarely communicated is what the priorities are. What is really important? What tactics are less important? What’s critical? Rank Fishkin over at SEOmoz has done the research for us and has published his report of the top ranking factors for SEO. The study consisted of a panel of the world’s top SEOs going through the list of tactics and rating them. After all of the dust cleared, the following list was developed outlining the top 10 drivers of search engine traffic, and in turn, leads:

1. Keyword Use in Title Tags
2. Anchor Text of Inbound Links
3. Global Link Popularity of Site
4. Age of Site
5. Link Popularity within a Site's Internal Link Structure
6. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site
7. Link Popularity of Site in its Topical Community
8. Keyword Use in Body Text
9. Global Link Popularity of Linking Site
10. Rate of New Inbound Links to Site

Now we will break that list down into two areas: tactics that involve building backlinks to a web site and tactics that do not involve building backlinks to a web site: Tactics That Do Not Involve Building Backlinks:

• Keyword Use in Title Tags
• Age of Site
• Link Popularity within Site's Internal Link Structure
• Keyword Use in Body Text

Having keywords in your title tags is extremely important and simply involves putting the phrases a site should rank for in the title tag of the document. The age of the site factor just means that older sites rank better than younger ones. The factor dealing with internal link structure means that how you link within your site affects ranking. If one page in your site is more heavily linked than other pages, it will rank higher. The keyword use in body text just involves placing your keyword in the main content section of a page. Tactics That Do Involve Building Backlinks:

• Anchor Text of Inbound Links
• Global Link Popularity of Site
• Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site
• Link Popularity of Site in Topical Communities
• Global Link Popularity of Linking Site
• Rate of New Inbound Links to Site

Without evening knowing what they heck a “topical community” is or the definition “anchor text” it doesn’t take long to notice the common theme in this list. It’s links, links, links. Once you have your keywords in your title tags and content and your architecture set up, gathering links is the one surefire way to boost your search engine traffic and bring in more leads. Building backlinks accounted for six of the top 10 ranking factors in this study. A Closer Look at Links It’s not just any old link that is going to take a site from the cellar to search engine dominance. It requires certain types of links. Looking at the list above highlights this fact. The links should come from authoritative web sites and they should be relevant to your topic. Other things that help are the inclusion your keywords in the anchor text (the clickable text of a hyperlink). How to Get Links Most of the best links for any school are going to come from local organizations and industry partners. Some SEOs send e-mails to obtain these links, but I find that the telephone is my favorite linkbuilding tool. That’s right, the telephone. E-mail is OK, but the telephone converts at twice the rate of e-mail. As long as the link you are going for is relevant, the person on the other end shouldn’t mind a bit. Here are the people most schools should call for links:

• Vendors and partners you do business with
• Sites about your city (Chamber of Commerce, city government etc.)
• Local organizations that you have helped
• Local newspapers
• Any other relevant sites that your site would add value to

Other avenues for links are social media news sites such as Digg, Reddit and Slashdot. If an article from your site makes the homepage of one of these sites, they can send enough traffic to shut your sever down, and hundreds of links will follow. However, this is a sink or swim proposition and should only be used alongside the previously mentioned tactics. Lately, a lot of people have been buying links to achieve top rankings, but this is a tactic that Google’s Matt Cutts has stated is against their webmaster guidelines. The only paid links that are 100 percent safe are links from sites that offer editorial review, such as the Yahoo Directory. If one does decide to buy links, do so with caution and only buy highly relevant links. Those that have a budget for linkbuilding and don’t want to risk buying links might try buying content. This is not against Google’s webmaster guidelines. Conclusion Ever since Google’s inception, they have been pushing for one thing: a web experience that rewards good content with backlinks. This is the essence of the Google algorithm. They are achieving this goal and are becoming better and better at rewarding sites that deserve to be ranked. This is evident when we see the top SEOs in the world list link-related tactics in six out of 10 of the top ranking factors. Pulling out your phone and going after authoritative backlinks from relevant web sites is the right way to build long-term organic growth. If you do this, not only will you be optimizing for today’s algorithm, but tomorrow’s algorithm as well.