Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Google Insights: Web Trends


Google has launched a new Google Trends like service called Google Insights for Search.
The service allows you to specify a couple of terms and let Google show you the search volume for these mapped over time (from 2004 to this year), with search frequencies displayed on a world heat map.
Does it sound like just another Google Trends like program? Indeed it does, and you get to wonder why Google is rolling out a secondary product in this area instead of simply upgrading the existing google trends. Google’s VP of Search, Marissa Mayer once talked about the San Angeles strategy to merge existing initiatives and services of Google wherever possible to make it easier on the user. But right now this doesn’t really represent that approach. However near in the future these two programs may be merged eventually.
At the moment, Insights for Search may be slightly more targeted towards advertisers with Google according to Google AdWords blog. Google Insight has something called categories (a.k.a verticals) to restrict your terms to a certain niche market. It also shows top searches and top rising searches in the neighborhood of keywords you enter. Overall, this seems to be a huge extension to Google Trends, Google Ad Planner, and the tools available within AdWords to advertisers.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Google Analytics Is Re-Launched: Do These Five Things First In V2

Google announced the launch of Version 2 of Google Analytics today. Over the next few weeks Google will upgrade current GA users to the new version. Many of the most frequent GA users (big or small) already have access to V2 as of this morning (please log into your account and check).
Version 2 is so radically different and provides such a compelling value proposition to users of web analytics that I am excited to write a blog post about a product (the first time I have done this in 11 months of existence of this blog).
I am also the Analytics Evangelist for Google but you’ll see that I am so excited about GA V2 not because I consult for Google but because I believe that v2 is a leap forward for all of its current users and a new standard for the industry when it comes to interacting complex web analytics data. Please share with me what you think, at the end of this post.
Also while this post is about GA V2 it contains examples of the best practices I have talked about on this blog frequently, I have just tried to do those with GA here. So if you use Omniture or WebTrends or WebSideStory or HBX or Visual Sciences or ClickTracks or indexTools or NetInsight or any other piece of web analytics software (and care only a little about GA) you’ll still find tangible examples of analysis you can do to find actionable insights. You can follow along and replicate these with your web analytics tool.

Monday, August 18, 2008

What is Conversion Optimizer?

Conversion Optimizer is an optional feature within AdWords. When enabled, Conversion Optimizer can automatically adjust your bids to maximize conversions at the minimum price. This feature relies on a site's conversion data to operate, and is already available to AdWords Conversion Tracking users. We plan on rolling it out to Google Analytics customers soon as well, but for this feature to function with your Analytics data, you must first opt to share your data with Google. Then, activate Conversion Optimizer in your AdWords account once the enhanced version of this feature becomes available for you to use with Analytics.

Monday, August 4, 2008

10 Most Basic SEO Copywriting Rules

  1. “SEO Services SEO Company India Search Engine Optimization (SEO) India” as a title, are you kidding me? I’m not a bot , I won’t click that, use a page per keyword ideally. Especially if your closest competitors are “SEO Company India, SEO Firm, SEO India, Search Engine Optimization and Link Building Services India” and “SEO India, SEO Services India, SEO Company India, SEO Services, SEO India”
  2. Do not call yourself a “SEO Expert” I won’t believe you anyways. If you’re one others will tell me.
  3. Make sure to write a little about the place you’re from and the SEO market there if you insist on “Search Engine Optimization Los Angeles, SEO Los Angeles, Los Angeles Company SEO”
  4. Are you offering “SEO, SEM and PPC“? So why the hell should I hire you instead of the myriad of others who offer exactly the same stuff? Offer something unique or at least use a different angle in describing it.
  5. Do not overload your page/s with copy. My eyes hurt! Make it scrollable, hide and show (I don’t mean “hidden text”) on demand.
  6. Use images and text otherwise I will bounce.
  7. SEO, SEM, PPC, ROI, WTF? Don’t use more acronyms than the average spy.
  8. Use a memorable slogan like “An SEO Services Provider You Can Trust“
  9. Mention real people with real names instead of anonymous “SEO experts” or cool sounding company and brand names. People trust other people unless you are the Coca Cola of SEO.
  10. Remember that SEO etc. is the means not the goal. So do not focus on what you do but what the outcome will be and try to convey the message. Btw, what is the goal of SEO? Rankings? Traffic? Conversions? Sales? ROI? It’s higher profits.

This should suffice for the beginning. I’m afraid most SEO copywriters won’t learn very fast though. So support these rules by not paying attention to those who fail to abide by them.

On a side note, if you’re looking for “SEO Company UK, SEO Firm, SEO UK, Search Engine Optimization and Link Building Services UK” you might try as well SEOptimise

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

7 Advanced SEO Tactics

If you're like most online webmasters, then you have probably read one article after the other about search engine optimization. Most of them rehash the same old information and you end up wading through tons of fluff. However, this isn't one of those articles. Listed below are 7 advanced SEO tips that you won't find on every digital corner.
1. Syndicating Articles that Link to Your Sitemap

As you probably know, syndicating articles is one of the best methods for obtaining one-way backlinks.


They are also valuable pieces of search engine bait because search engine crawlers are frequent visitors to many high-profile article directories. If you want to get the spiders quickly crawling your site, simply submit an informative article to a site like EzineArticles, GoArticles, or ArticleCity.

However, there's another article marketing strategy that isn't mentioned much in marketing circles. This tactic can get the crawlers searching deeper into your site and indexing more of your pages. Simply link to your sitemap within the resource box. This will send the spiders straight to a content buffet where they can quickly slurp up all of your pages.


2. Translating Your Website Into Other Languages

Are you marketing in just one language? If so, you are missing out on 64.8% of your marketing potential. This is because 64.8% of the world is surfing the internet in a language other than English. By becoming a multilingual marketer, you immediately open up a stream of new markets. Google alone crawls web pages in 35 different languages.

One of the best ways to attract worldwide traffíc is to translate your site and register it with both English and foreign-language search engines and directories. If you are a seasoned SEO, you'll be happy to hear that the competition in foreign search engines is much less than in those of the United States.

In addition, online foreign language markets are currently growing at a much faster rate than English speaking markets.

You have the opportuníty to tap into this market while it's in an exponential growth phase.


3. ROR Sitemaps

As you probably know, sitemaps are important for making sure your site can be completely spidered and indexed by the search engines. Unfortunately, many of these sitemaps are specific to one search engine or another. For this reason, there have been a number of Google and Yahoo site map generators produced in recent years.

However, there is an alternative that is even more exciting. These are ROR sitemaps and they are readable by all search engines, not just by Google or Yahoo.

ROR is an exciting new sitemap tool that uses XML feeds to describe your website. These sitemaps are structured feeds that enable search engines to complement text search with structured information to better interpret the meaning of your site. With a ROR sitemap, search engines can better understand your products, services, images, newsletters, articles, podcasts, and anything else that you want to describe.

For example, if you are selling products, a ROR file enables you to document your product names, descriptions, prices, images, availability, affilíate programs, and any other

relevant information. Search engine crawlers like the Googlebot have an enormous job to do. It's time we start helping them to better understand our content.


4. Keyword Phrases that Convert

Selecting the right keyword phrases is the single most important aspect of any SEO campaign. Unfortunately, many webmasters target the wrong keywords. Too many of us target very general keywords like "real estate" or "internet marketing". Although these terms get lots of visitors, it is unlikely that you will be able to rank highly for them. Then, even if you do, this type of traffíc produces very low conversion rates because it does not target prospects.

You will be much more successful, if you target keyword phrases that are 3-4 words long. These terms are much less competitive and have been proven to convert much better than keywords that are 1 to 2 words long.

Who do you think is more likely to buy; someone who goes to Google and searches for "ipod" or someone who searches for "4gb black ipod nano"? Obviously, the person who searches for a more specific phrase is much closer to making a buying decision.


5. GoogSpy

Would you like to get an in-depth view of how your competitors run their business? Well, you can do exactly that with an online service known as GoogSpy. GoogSpy is a free research tool that will tell you what keywords your competitors are bidding on.

This tool tracks over 500,000 keywords every day from Google and then loads this goldmine of information into the GoogSpy.com database. Using this tool, you can browse by company or by search term.

This tool is extremely powerful. Unfortunately, many people take it for granted. This service basically hands you a business strategy on a silver platter. Maybe we should just keep this one to ourselves and enjoy the benefits of being one step ahead of our competition.

For example, let's say you wanted to do some in-depth research on Overstock.com, one of the largest companies online. You would simply go to googspy.com and type in overstock.com. You will then be shown thousands of words that this company bids on. These keywords are proven profít generators. Research like this would normally cost thousands of dollars, but they are providing it free of charge.

If you want to find keywords with high conversion rates, simply type in words such as buy and purchase. You will be shown keyword phrases that are bid on that include the words buy or purchase. These are very lucrative keyword phrases because the person who types in "buy sony playstation 2" knows exactly what they want. They're not just looking around, they are in buying mode. These are the type of keywords you want to bid on. Using GoogSpy, you can uncover these hidden gems in seconds.

Other high-converting keyword phrases include brand names and product names. Type in the keyword "camera" and you will find thousands of different brands and product names for cameras. These keywords are some of the best keywords because of their high conversion rate.


6. Internal Links Within Content

The navigation of your site is a crucial element of your search engine optimization campaign. Each link within your navigational structure should correlate with a keyphrase that you are trying to rank for.

However, you can also include internal links within your content. For example, let's say you have written an article about online marketing. Within the article are a number of keyword phrases. Some of these phrases include "link popularity" and "web site traffíc". If you have other articles within your site that pertain to these topics, then you should definitely link those keyword phrases to those articles. By doing this, you can increase the link popularity of other pages within the same site.

There are very few sites that take advantage of this optimization technique. By doing this, you enable the search engines to find and index much more of your site. These internal links also contribute to a higher ranking because of the anchor text that is used.

Many people only think of inbound links from outside websites when trying to raise their link popularity. However, the internal link structure is also a major ranking factor.


7. Using Your Log Files for SEO

Your server logs reveal very important information about your site. If you learn to use them properly, they can quickly help to maximize your site's traffíc and conversion rates.

One of the most valuable pieces of information found in your log files are search phrases. The log files will tell you exactly which keywords people are using to find your website.

Once you have optimized a page, the log files will tell you how people are finding that page and what keywords they are searching for to get there. If you find that people are using keywords that you hadn't thought of to get to a certain page, it would probably be in your best interest to further optimize that page for those keywords.

You might also want to create a new page optimized for that particular term. This is especially true if a new page would enable you to serve better information on the phrase being searched for.

In addition, by looking at how your site is found organically, you can determine whether the same keyword phrases belong in your paid search campaigns. Only choose the ones that are highly relevant. You will find that these keyword phrases have the best conversion rate.

source by
http://www.ifergan.org/seo-optimization-tips/7-advanced-seo-tactics.html