Facebook: Most Popular Search Term & Most Visited Website in 2010, Hitwise Says

Who said predictable? Facebook has overtaken Google.com as the most visited site in the US in 2010 and is the most searched keyword 2 years in a row...No wonder google is trying to crack the social media market, but what would happen if Facebook decided to do search? Something to keep an eye on in 2011.

Happy new year everybody and see you in 2011 for more SEO, search and online marketing joy!

Writing HTML Title Tags For Humans, Google & Bing

Back to SEO basics once again with this great article from Search Engine Land...today, all you need to know about title tags. As many people still seem to be confused by this core element of any SEO strategy, it is great to see a list of do's and dont's when writing title tags.

Think users AND search engines

Once thing to always remember is that while meta tags are great to improve your search engine rankings, they should also be useful for your website visitors. After all, visitors bring revenue, and without revenue there is no business.

Keep it simple

Although the temptation to over optimise your title tags is great, keep them simple, to the point and relevant to the page. Keyword stuffing doesn't work and will only confuse your visitors (and damage your rankings)

Keep it unique

Each page title should be unique and contain the same keywords as the page content itself. Keep things consistent, coherent and it'll all be fine

Stability is key

Meta tags including title tags do not need to be changed often, and frequent changes will potentially confuse search engine spiders. As long as you get your keyword research right there shouldn't be any need for you to revise your tags for a while. Of course you can tweak and refine as you go along, but refrain from updating your tags every month.

Feel free to share you title tags stories as I'm sure your experience will help others and until next time, have a great xmas!

SEM Trends For 2011: What To Expect & What To Do

Some very interesting insights into next year's trends. These demonstrate once again the need to understand cross channel marketing and ways to report on activities as the last click wins model is officially dying!

I'm really curious to see how Bing will perform in the UK market as this will definitely affect onsite optimisation for a lot of companies.

Back to SEO Basics With Keyword Research

As you probably know by now I'm a big fan of getting the basics right when doing SEO, so this article from High Rankings should be really helpful if you want to know more about keyword research.

How To Make Your Social Media Strategy Accountable

How To Make Your Social Media Strategy Accountable

Another great article from Search Engine Land which clearly shows that using social media tools is not enough in today's very competitive environment. Having a social media strategy with clear goals / objectives and detailed reporting is crucial to know what you're getting out of your marketing and where to improve.

blekko | slashtag search

Just playing around with a new search engine this morning after reading a bit about it in SEO newsletters recently.

More than the slashtag functionality which allows you to customise your searches, I have to say I'm very impressed with the SEO tool for each search results which gives you masses of info. Very similar to Google webmaster tools without the need to login or verify your site, so potentially fantastic for competitor research.

Have a go and let me know what you think.

blekko | slashtag search

Whatever happened to good old SEO?

I've been in the search marketing / SEO industry for quite a few years now (7 to be exact!) and as such I've seen things move from fairly straightforward onsite optimisation to complex link building and social media strategies.

When reflecting on this the other day, I started to feel nostalgic about the days when SEO was all about keyword research and making sure that your site was as optimised as possible avoiding black hat techniques. Call me old school, but to me, this was real SEO where you were rewarded for your hard work by good rankings.

The rise of link building

Now that link building has taken prominence in search engine algorithms (60 to 70% of rankings are based on this) the SEO game has completely changed, and agencies with a network of blog/forums/websites can guarantee you improved links and rankings in a very short space of time. While there's no denying that this strategy works, I've got to say that as an experienced SEO I find this slightly disappointing and very close to a grey hat technique.

I've got nothing against link building if it's done cleverly with good anchor text, relevant keywords and page rank analysis, but I think that by not assessing relevance of links Google is skewing its own results therefore providing searchers with inaccurate results.

So basically, a business with clever agencies (and big budgets) can reach top rankings for specific keywords and get more traffic than a potentially better company with less understanding of search marketing. And to me, that goes against the basic principles of SEO which are providing searchers with relevant results.

What about relevance?

Despite a lot of talk about relevance, LSI (latent semantic indexing) and contextual searches in the past few years, the major search engines still have to implement a lot of these theories into their algorithms. To Google and co, a link to your site with targeted anchor text from a website with a high page rank still matters, even if the site is not relevant to your activity. And until the engines start looking at the relevance of the link, keyword and website content in relation to your website, then there will be ways to fool them by creating thousands of irrelevant links.

Onsite SEO still matters

Despite all of this, onsite optimisation with good keyword research, internal links, metadata optimisation, alt tags, title tags and all the rest still matters. These elements should remain a priority for all SEOs out there, so keep flying the flag!

A the industry evolves, so must I, but I'll never forget my SEO roots as they are what I enjoy the most in my job.

What's your experience with SEO? are you frustrated with link building? How do you feel about the industry changes?

Google instant - what's your view?

If you work in SEO (and even if you don't), you've probably heard about the launch of Google Instant. While the impact of this tool on SEO activities and online marketing as a whole has not been fully assessed yet, it led to some interesting and funny challenges for Google ( Good news lesbians - Google Instant may soon suggest you).

While I have not been able to test Instant yet, reading about it and looking at the Google intro video for it, I do feel that it could be a rather annoying feature for searchers. And Google being Google, it comes as a default setting, so unless you change your preferences, it'll remain there.
From an online marketing/SEO standpoint I am reserving judgment until I see results on paid and organic results, especially for businesses who rely heavily on these channels for revenue.

Did you get a chance to test Instant? What's your take on it?

Bing...and the Yahoo is gone

Well not totally gone actually, just 25% gone to be precise. Yahoo announced this week that 25% of its natural results are now coming from Bing, the first step of a planned transition (read more here).
Call me cynical, but is this going to make a difference on the way most SEOs work? somehow I don't think so as Google's dominance of the market means it will still remain the benchmark when optimising your site. And personally I've never been too impressed with Bing's results...but still, it is a big change in the industry so let's keep an eye on things over the next few weeks/months.

How do you feel about this transition? is this going to affect your work?

Want to make some money? join me for some usability testing

I'm in the process of running usability tests for a website I'm working on, so if you fancy making some easy money, join now on Rochelle Dancel's blog (thanks Rochelle for hosting the form!)

Search marketing management - which tools to use

Across my years in the online marketing and SEO/PPC industry, I've moved from a very hands-on approach to more strategic roles involving a lot of agency management.
I've now reached a point in my career where I need to assess and recommend agencies for specific projects, and search marketing is an area where choosing an agency can very often decide the fate of a business because of its impact on revenue and ultimately profits.

With so many agencies competing in the same space, you need to have clear objectives and budgets before even starting your search. Get as many quotes as necessary to get good points of comparison, and don't forget to ask for references.

I've recently been introduced to a company called SearchIgnite (SI), and I have to say that I've so far been more than impressed by the solution they are offering. At its core, SI is a paid search bid management & optimisation platform, but it also offer multi channel tracking (paid,organic, social media...)as well as a very advanced forecasting tool.

• Paid search forecasting

This tool is the one I'm the one I'm most interested in as after an initial running period of 3 to 4 weeks, search marketers can accurately start forecasting paid results based on variables such as budgets, CPA, expected conversions or actions....To put it simply, if you'd like to know how a 10% increase in your paid budget is going to affect your signups or sales, you just have to enter the data into the tool to get a prediction. This provides answers that even finance directors or board members cannot contest when looking at your paid budgets, and it also gives you more flexibility in planning.

• Click path analysis vs last click wins

Another great feature is the click path analysis. A lot of paid search management tools work on a last click wins basis (where the action following a click on a paid ad is attributed the search leading to that click). While there is nothing fundamentally wrong with this model, it does however mean that you're not getting the full story on what your visitors have done or searched for prior to that last click. For example, a visitor could have started his research with a very generic keyword, then moved on to a more specific search (long tail) and finally converted on a brand term. If you take the last click wins model, then you'll probably invest more budget on brand terms, but by doing so you may be missing out on all the visitors who did a search for generic keywords.
Click path analysis allows you to find out exactly the path researchers have taken before converting, whether it is organic or paid, allowing you to pinpoint areas in which to invest your spend.

• Bid management

This is what all paid search management tools will do and it can be done manually or fully automated, depending on your requirements. From my point of view, I'm quite happy to let paid search experts manage this part of the process as it is really time consuming . But whatever the solution you use, make sure the settings are right for your business.

As I'm about to get my hands on the SearchIgnite platform in the next few days, I'll let you know how I get on. In the meantime, feel free to let me know which search management tools you use and what you like about them.

Google layout changes...for the best?

Google has officially rolled out its SERP new layout, and at first glance, I'm not entirely convinced by this new presentation.
I guess it's like everything else, as time goes I'll probably just get used to the new layout and there must be a very clever explanation behind the update...but why change something that is so familiar to millions of people across the world?
More information and a comprehensive list of changes:

http://www.reelseo.com/googles-search-result-pages/
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/google-design-turned-up-notch.html

What do you think? do you like this new look?

SEO software - a quick review

I've recently had to do some research into SEO audit tools for my job, and since this is something I haven't really talked about before, thought it was worth a post. This should help remind SEO beginners that there is software out there to help if you're not an SEO wizard!

In the past I've used Axandra IBP and webCEO and found them very useful tools, so i'll focus on these today.

Why use SEO software?

As many of you will know if you've worked on SEO before, even though some tasks are very straightforward, optimising a site can be very time consuming...and this is where SEO software comes in.
Both IBP and webCEO include functionality that allow you to assess your site for search engine friendliness based on the most common variables included in search algorithms, saving you a lot of time in research.

What features are available?

Both solutions offer a wide range of features, from search engine ranking analysis against chosen keywords to technical audit (code structure, w3c compliance, kw density, metadata).
One of the biggest benefits is that alongside analysis, you also get recommendations on how to improve your site, both for onsite and offsite variables (link analysis and link builders are part of the packages).
Both software also offer keyword research tools which are essential to any SEO, with IBP offering Wordtracker as part of the deal.
Here's a fully comprehensive comparison chart which should give you all the information you need about the features

How much does it cost?

webCEo offers a free version and IBP starts at €250 for the standard solution so affordability should not be an issue.

One thing to bear in mind with both tools is that the cost only includes 3 months worth of free search engine updates, so you'll need to buy updates on a regular basis to get the most accurate results for rankings.

Which one to choose?

While I'm only referring to 2 different tools here, the market is full of similar options, so the choice is yours. However, having used both IBP and webCEO in the past, I do think they are some of the best available.
From a user interface/usability point of view, I do have a preference for IBP, but webCEO is slightly cheaper and offers a few extra features that could make a difference if you're looking for deeper analysis.

Whether you're new to SEO or need a tool for ongoing improvements, SEO software are great time savers and will help you maximise the impact of your site in SERPs. They should also save you a lot of money if you can't afford a search marketing agency audit.

The S factor - how site speed can now influence your rankings

Google confirmed on Friday that site speed is now part of their algorithm along around 200 other variables.
Although this was announced a few months ago, it's worth checking if your site could suffer from this change. One of the best ways to do so is to use the Google Webmaster Tools - the diagnostics functionality should give you some very valuable insights into your website and how it performs.
If you're using any rich media on your site such as Flash, animated images or videos, make sure they are fully optimised and compressed as they will affetc your pages load time.

The easy way to do keyword research

Who said you need expensive tools and agencies to do keyword research?
A very good article on Search Engine Land about the use of SERPs to find out more about keywords
http://searchengineland.com/3-ways-to-use-googles-search-results-for-keyword-research-39474

Keyword research has always been a long and complicated process, especially if you don't have the right tools, but with a bit of common sense you can get a lot of information directly from the results page in the main search engines.

Search engine indexation and crawling made easy

Another great article on SEOmoz, well worth a read to understand spiders' behaviour.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/an-illustrated-guide-to-matt-cutts-comments-on-crawling-indexation

How to achieve a successful website relaunch - tips to get it right

Relaunching, redesigning or updating a website is always tricky for businesses as it carries a certain element of risk for both customers and search engines.
While it is possible to fix broken elements after launch, it is always best to try and get it right first time, so here are a few tips to ensure a smooth transition from your current website to your new shiny one.

• Plan, plan, plan
  While this may seem obvious to some of you, good planning is probably about 80% of the success of any update. if you know what needs to be done, by whom and in which time frame, the chances of getting it wrong are drastically reduced. So invest in a good project management tool like Microsoft Project and start documenting each step of the process. If you lead a team, make sure they are all aware of the tasks
• Content
  When writing copy for your site, think about users first. Whatever you write needs to make sense to them, so keep it clear, concise and web friendly (write around 300 words per page, use bullet points). For SEO purposes, avoid duplicate content as it could be considered as spam and get you banned from search engine results pages. Remember, for users and search engines alike, content is king.
• Know your keywords
  Make sure you do some keyword research to target the most relevant keywords for your market. Once you have them, integrate them within your content, titles, descriptions and keyword tags, in your URLs, ALT text, H Tags and anchor links (links within the content to other pages of your site). Again, one basic principle is to use keywords cleverly so that your page is not only built for search engines but also for visitors.
  Doing some keyword mapping can help you focus the content of your site by matching unique keywords to unique pages.
• Technical requirements
  List all of your technical requirements for the build as early as possible during the process so that your web developer or technical team can start the work. Communication is key here if you want to deliver your project on time.
  Keep your javascript and css files clean and outside of the code for each page and limit page load time as search engines are likely to take it into consideration in their algorithms this year.
• Navigation / Site map
  Having a clear idea of the structure of your site and the navigation early on will allow you to focus your efforts in the right areas. Draw your sitemap and basic navigation to ensure that things are as clear and easy as possible. Try and keep navigation to a maximum of 3 levels so that visitors can find the content they want within a few clicks.
• Usability / accessibility
  In competitive environments, websites need to be as usable as possible as you only have a few seconds to impress your visitors. As mentioned above, good navigation will help you achieve good usability. Think about your design elements, position of your calls to action, words you use.
  Don't forget to think about accessibility too for visually impaired users by allowing your site's fonts to resize properly and by making the code as clean as possible. Complying to W3C standards is a good starting point for accessibility.
• 301 redirects
  Search engines like consistency, so when relaunching, make it as easy as possible for them to understand what's going on. To ensure your new pages benefit from your current site's history and link popularity, implement page by page 301 redirects. This simply means permanently redirecting each page of your site to a new page on the new site.
• Domain name, site URL
  If your current domain has been in use for a few years, make sure to continue using it as search engines consider domain history for rankings. If using a new domain, it may take you longer to achieve good rankings again.
• Testing, testing, testing
  Finally, test your site at every step of the build to make sure it matches your requirements. organise some usability testing sessions and analyse results carefully to refine everything.
  once live, continue testing so that you get the best performance on an ongoing basis.

There are a lot of elements to consider when updating a website, but the items above should be a good starting point and will hoepfully put you on the right tracks.

The weird and wonderful world of website testing

Since it's still January, happy new web year!
I was thinking about posting SEO new year resolutions today, but I think a lot of other blogs have already done that in a very good way, so let's tackle another very important (and sometimes neglected) element of a good online marketing strategy; website testing and particularly split testing.

What is website testing?
Website testing can take many forms, such as usability testing, UI/UX (user interface, user experience), technical tests or content tests such as A/B testing and multivariate testing.
Testing is a way to ensure that everything on your website is as it should be and that visitors can find what they're looking for.
While it should be logical for any business to do regular tests, assumptions and views of business employees are very often relied upon instead of looking at visitors and potential customers' opinions and needs.

Why implement split testing?
In difficult economic times, ecommerce businesses need to make sure they get the best ROI (return on investment) from their marketing and overall spend, and it is therefore crucial to ensure the highest level of conversion on your website. Many sites experience bottlenecks in their sales funnel on specific pages and changes in content, calls to action and offers can often have a dramatic impact on conversions.

Which methods to use?
I've recently been more exposed to the different tools available for testing, so here is a quick overview of the 2 main content testing methods:

• A/B testing - with this method 2 pages are used concurrently and displayed to different users in equal numbers. The 2 pages are matched with a common conversion point (payment confirmation page, sign up page....) and conversion results are compared to decide which page is performing better than the other. This method is very useful when testing new designs as it will very quickly highlight what works best for your visitors.
• Multivariate testing - this is a more complex tool which allows businesses to dynamically change predefined elements of a page in order to test their performance against conversion points. The changeable elements are predefined and will be displayed according to specific rules until the best performing combination is identified.
  This method can be used to test content as well as graphic elements and can very often lead to dramatic improvements in conversions.

One thing to remember with these methods is that results will only be significant if you test the right pages, so identifying what to test plays a key part in the testing methodology.

Which tools to use?
There are a lot of tools available on the market, but if you're new to split testing, I'd advise to go with an agency at first to get a better understanding of how testing works, and how to set everything up.

For those of you who are more experienced, then Google Optimizer provides a very good structure to start testing as long as you have access to the html code of your website as testing requires the implementation of tracking tags within your site.
When looking at agencies, make sure to choose the right one for you as the most advanced solutions will be out of reach for most SMEs (from £100k +/year!). Some Google accredited providers will offer much more affordable testing services.

I am due to meet a few agencies to discuss split testing this week so I'll let you know what you can expect if you're considering testing yourself.
I think it's time to end this post and while I do realise that the content above only covers a small part of what can be tested on a website, I hope it helps you get a good overview of the basics.
Enjoy your Sunday.