Archive for the ‘SEO’ Category

2010 will go down in Internet history as the year SEO died, with the looming release of Googles Caffeine and Personalised Search the death bells are sounding for what has been the backbone of Internet life.

Meta data and code structure will become almost redundant under the new systems as sites are positioned on their traffic numbers and content popularity, traffic figures will be determined by the use of google analytics primarily and while the numbers can be artificially inflated by the use of traffic exchanges and surf bars it should be noted google will discount this traffic and possibly penalise sites found using these methods.

Site owners will be encouraged to use good Marketing , Advertising and Social bookmarking methods to deliver traffic, For SEO companies this means changing their operations away from on page optimization techniques over to Search Engine Marketing and Social Marketing Optimization, In some cases it will mean complete re-training of their staff to encompass the new requirements.

The new system may also see the demise of the page rank system as we know it with sites being ranked on their position in the results rather than on their code structure,meta data and content.

The reshuffle will certainly upset some site owners as they lose their coveted page 1 positions replaced by sites that have good followings in the social area but have had very little SEO performed, it's not all gloom and doom though caffeine and personalized search will prove a fairer system for site owners.

Site structures will also change as site owners realise that using a blog based cms offers a fast track into the new Search results, sites using scripts like wordpress will find meeting the new requirements a breeze thanks to the scripts adapability and ability to encompass social bookmarking, these sites are also much faster to load and certainly much easier to maintain and keep up to date.

certain SEO aspects will still be required like keywords,descriptions,alt tags and titles but using a blog based script allows the site owner to manage these without having to pay an expert, adding and updating site content is also much easier requiring only basic knowledge and the ability to use a wysiwyg editor which is normally built into the script.

So why has Google decided to kill off SEO, well as the demand for greater speed and delivery of information grows it has seen the need to change how we access that information and how we find the sites carrying it, the Search algorithms have grown more and more complex over the years and still struggle to deliver relevant material, SEO has been largely a game of guesswork between seo companies, webmasters and Google which further corrupts the results delivered to the public, under the new system much of the guesswork is gone companies will have a clear understanding of what they require to gain good positions in the search results and their regular users will play a big part in how well their site performs, results will become more relevant for the user based on their surfing habits and we should see an increase in overall speed as sites become more user friendly.

As the title suggests in this post I am covering Keyword research, a task that can be frustrating and time consuming, however it is important that you research the keywords used in your site, marketing and advertising properly .

To start with you are going to need a good keyword research tool, one that can check and compare results from several different sources is best as while you may be aiming to score well on Google you cannot afford to ignore results from other engines like Yahoo or Msn Live etc as these will also play a huge part in how well your campaign fares on Google.

Often Search companies will supply these tools for users and Easysearchlive.com is no different  you will find an extensive tools page here http://velocitymarketerhosting.com/seo-tools/ (Velocity Marketer Hosting is owned by Easy Search Live).

To start your keyword research you first need to decide what niche your site fits best in try to drill this down as accurately as possible for Velocity Hosting this would look something like this Web Hosting>low cost>unmetered. this establishes the core keywords most relevant to your site or campaign, we would then use the keyword tool to compare the top 10 results on the major search engines this will then leave you with a generated list of keyword/phrases that the top 10 listings on the search engines have used, (sometimes this list can be quite extensive) and the number of seaches performed using those keywords/phrases.

Keeping in mind the top few results are likely to be quite expensive in a PPC campaign and competition on various search engines will also be extensive select a few that have reasonable traffic (it is better to have a few keywords rather try to compete for the top keyword phrase).

By this time you will definitely be looking for a cup of coffee and that niggling sensation is the start of the headache so it may also be time to reach for the Tylenol.

Having selected your keywords/Phrases it is time to check what it is going to cost you to run those keywords in a PPC campaign, you need this information because if they are outside of your budget then it is pointless using them on your site (Marketing and Advertising campaigns get better results when the keywords match those of your site).this can be quite time consuming also and be prepared to revise your keyword list or start from scratch.

Time for another coffee and a bunch more tylenol

When you have finally sorted out which keywords you will use it's time to start drawing up your marketing plan, now the key to a good marketing plan is to keep it simple try to avoid over complicating what should be a simple process.

You know which keywords are going to be used so lets order them according to importance, next we want to look at how we are going to use them and where, some will be suitable for anchors in textual advertising  while others will remain simply as extra tags or be used as content anchors on your site.

We need to identify where and when we are going to place our advertising ie Google adwords and determine exactly how much of the budget to allocate to that campaign  (each keyword/phrase is classed as a seperate campaign), Our Target Audience and the start and end date of the campaign.

the next phase is to design your adverts ensuring that the chosen keyword for each appears at least once in the ad content.

Be sure to  write all this up and place it where it can be a visual reminder, I personally like to use a whiteboard next to my desk for this purpose as it allows me to check on what i have done or what needs doing at a glance.

Launching your Campaigns:

a mistake a lot of first time advertisers and marketers make is to panic because it's been a week with no indication of a result, campaigns need time to work and patience is the key here, my campaigns normally run for a minimum of 6 months with control checks evey month and a revision check every 2 months this allows sufficient time for the campaign to propogate throughout the web and allows for proper modelling of the results, campaigns that are under performing may need tweaking at the 2 monthly revision and this can be a simple as changing the wording of the ad slightly or simply changing the colors used.

Constant changing of the ad is detrimental to it's effect remember it needs time to be seen by the Internet community and your Target audience so make changes subtle and leave some time between them.

When performing the monthly checks what you are looking for is the number of clicks each ad has received and what your ROI (Return On Investment) has been for the period, you are also looking to see that your ads are in fact being displayed and that there are no errors in the ads (sometimes a webmaster can change the formatiing of his/her site and this can adversly affect the formating of your ad, it may now contain extra symbols or spelling errors or the colors may have varied from the original, in which case some urgent repairs may be required.

In closing my tip is "Don't rush things , think the campaign out thoroughly and keep a big box of tylenol next to the coffee pot "

In the old days of SEO it was important to make sure your sites code was valid to W3c standards and that your Meta data was correctly formatted, sites required loads of 2 way and one way links and a constant stream of fresh relevant information.

With the launch of Google's Caffeine  SEO has been tossed on its head, 2 way links (reciprocal)  are basically worthless and your meta data and code standard moved down on the weighting scale, instead it is now imperative to employ Google analytics into your site structure if you want to stand any chance of making page one of the search results.

Caffeine depends on information gathered by Google analytics in order to rank and position your site according to user information collected by analytics, Google have also started a personalized search system which is also integral to how your site is positioned in the results.

So what does this mean for SEO's and site owners, well for starters it means most SEO's will have to rethink their strategies and in many cases embark on a complete restructure of the sites under their care since the strategies they have had in place will no longer have the same effect as before.

The key to the new Caffeine system is Traffic and lots of, the more traffic a site receives the higher it is going to rank and position and it's part of a clever ploy by Google to increase it's advertising sales while raising the bidding war for top spots on the major keywords, site owners will need to increase their advertising budgets if they want to stay in the race for traffic and sales, SEO will be overtaken in importance by SEM and SMO and the costs incurred by site owners will rise tremendously forcing many small businesses to leave the Internet scene forever.

Meanwhile those that have relied on carrying the Google advertising on their sites and who have basically put Google where it is today will continue to receive breadcrumbs in return for their efforts, very few of the millions of site owners carrying Google adsense on their sites see decent levels of income from the Search Giant many on approaching the monthly claim threshold see a degradation of the ad quality supplied to their sites as Google chokes off the click rate and restricts their earnings forcing them to wait even longer to meet their $100 monthly minimum.

In some cases they will have their accounts terminated with out just cause and lose the income from their labors, (this has personally happened to me and while google did send me an email stating they would send me a check for the balance of my account  a lousy $36 they did not offer any sufficient reason for canceling my membership nor have i seen any sign of the check after 4 months).

To me it would seem that Google while putting on a face of performing a public service is changing it's systems in order to feed the Giants Greed and need to totally control the Internet and it's users.

Caffeine and Personalized Search are just another Tactic being employed to achieve this, Google is trying to play Big Brother to the world and decide for all of us what we see on the Internet , it is collecting information on each and every user despite the fact in some cases this is a breach of privacy (Germany has already raised this issue regarding Google analytics and is considering a Ban on it's use on .de tlds) It's maps system poses a security nightmare for countries even though sensitive areas are blacked out we are talking only a small area and when you think about it from a strategist point of view those black spots make ideal targets for a nuclear attack after all land a bomb within a kilometer of the black spot and your guaranteed to wipe the target out if the blast doesn't do the job the radiation will and they must be considered vital to a countries security to have required blanking out, so thank you Google for painting all those bullseyes .

The information they collect can also pose a threat to every Internet user notice the rise in spam and Internet scams lately and the fact a lot of it is personally addressed to you, well the people behind those annoying emails get their information via sites that collect mountains of data on it's users and their surfing habits the main repository is of course Google.

Now it may seem i am slamming Google quite a lot in this article but like the Berlin wall it's no use attacking with a toothpick if you want to make any impression that could cause them to reconsider the effect they will have on the general population of the Internet you need to use a large sledgehammer or two.

Yes some people will benefit from Caffeine and Personalized search but it won't be the small business man or in many cases the family members who turn to the Internet for information or to purchase needed items a little cheaper, those that are going to benefit most are the large corporations followed by the larger companies that can afford to plow an extra million or two into it's yearly budget, and of course Google.

For the families it's just another intrusion into their daily lives another struggle to find information they need as the Google index gets turned on it's head and well shaken put enough money into a lie and it becomes fact, control the flow of information and you control the world.