October 18, 2006 The following is a link to a post at SEOMoz. Rand started to compile information for on-page optimization efforts, and provided all of us with this invaluable information.
Rand’s List of Search Engine Ranking Factors
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October 12, 2006 By Mark Spivey. Below are 11 practical reasons why streaming video should be considered as a vital marketing tool to add to a business website.
1. Limited Screen Space.
Computer screens have increased in size over the years but webmasters still have to deal with the problem getting all a client’s information presented above the bottom of the screen. It’s difficult enough to get prospects or customers to read anything without them having to scroll lengthy pages of text. Placing a prominent link to video content greatly reduces the amount of reading and web space needed (A lot can be said in a minute of video, 100 words or more).
2. Computer Screen Readability
Computer monitors have never particularly easy on the eyes. Screen LCDs are brighter and display more contrast than CRT (which is great for graphics but again not ideal for reading). So instead of giving your potential clients eyestrain and a headache, deliver the information using video, a much more user-friendly experience.
3. Scanning habits of visitors.
A large number of net users (around 70 percent) tend to scan and skim over material, rather than actually read it. Having a well presented streaming video that loads and begins playing quickly is a powerful way to encapsulate the main points of your business and transmit them in a memorable way.
4.Retention.
Studies have shown that only a small amount of read text (around 10 percent) is easily recalled by a reader. Audio is slightly better (20 percent), whereas Video, being both visual and audible has the highest ranking in memory retention studies (around 50 percent or higher). (If this is combined with actual interactive activity – ie doing, the result rises to around 80 percent). Also consider the following facts: 55% of a message meaning is derived from facial expression 38% of a message meaning is derived from gestures, body language, etc. From the above we can see it simply makes sense to add video to a business site.
5. Consistency of Message Delivery.
Because text is skimmed your overall message may not come across in a consistent way from one visitor to the next. When clients are left on their own to browse you really don’t know how much of your message they are getting. By presenting information in video, you deliver a consistent, error-free message without anything left out. The human voice, music and visual cues breaks through the concentration barrier and leaves a lasting impression of who you are and why your visitors should be customers. Content is King – Presentation is Queen.
6.The Phenomenon of Multitasking.
Time is vital in business and so most of us try and cram as much into the day as possible – doing several things at once (multitasking). Most of us are answering the phone, reading documents, creating reports etc etc. People want it short, and to the point (and we want to be able to grab their attention while they are doing other things!) If TV advertisers can effectively promote their products in thirty-second commercials during dinner, imagine what you can deliver in the same amount of professionally created video online.
7. Branding – Creating a Personality.
Successful businesses all have an image and personality and there is no better way to transmit that personality to your prospective clients than with video. Companies spend thousands of dollars on logos, slogans, printed material and website design. Using video is a powerful tool that effectively “glues” all these elements together. You see it, hear it and interact with it, creating a memory and a feel associated with that business. TV commercials have given Fast food chains, Banks and consumer electronics a corporate image. Online video can do exactly the same (at a tiny fraction of the cost of TV airtime 24hrs a day 7 days a week, worldwide).
8. Cost Effectiveness and ease of use.
Many business people make the assumption that multimedia solutions like video are expensive – but that is no longer the case. Recent developments have made streaming video tools accessible to even small budget companies with the flexibility not available in flash presentations which can be extremely labour intensive and cannot be viewed without the correct player. It is possible to create, adjust and present your video message with minimal equipment and low overheads and obtain a professional result. Further developments have made video viewable without the need of downloading and installing additional software (which by the way, is a guaranteed way to lose visitors).
9 Trust and association.
Video gives the visitor a picture of who you are. TV commercials that feature a celebrity or (even just the man or woman who runs the store) create trust – that is one reason why they sell. Buyers like to associate a name with a face and video does this better than any other medium available. To be able to see something “real” in a virtual world helps to solidify the viewer’s perception (hopefully positive) of you and your product or service.
10 It’s a well known medium that is still unique enough to attract attention.
While text, plain pictures (and even flash to a degree) have become commonplace and “ho hum” in the net, online video still attracts significant attention (who can resist opening a link “Watch Video”?) There is still a fascination with this media which works in the advertiser’s favor.
11 And finally… You can effectively demonstrate your product.
Ever try to describe to a customer how your product works, how easy it is to use, special features, etc with just text? – it can often be very difficult. Nothing beats a customer seeing a product or service they are interested in going through it’s paces. Video is the only medium that gives the prospective customer a real life illustration of the what, how and why operations of your goods and services. When a customer understands a product and how it will benefit them, they are more inclined to purchase.
About The Author
Mark Spivey is a Helloworld independent affiliate with experience in the music, radio multimedia and online sales industry. His business offers powerful, advanced, online multimedia and communication tools that are user friendly, affordable and highly effective. For more information visit:
http://www.helloworld.com/communicate
http://www.getworldpassport.com/communicate
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October 9, 2006 In my position as a consultant on SEO, I seem to be getting an increase in the amount of customers asking why their designer had not considered the changes I suggest. Some of these questions are usually followed by “that jerk. I’ve been dealing with his crap for too long.” So are there really that many bad designers out there? I say no. Here’s why… SEO is a very analytical and tedious process, and in most cases deals solely with black and white. Most SEO specialist care not for the aesthetics of a site, giving only worry to how well it is written and how it functions on a search engine. I seem to have grown into this position because of it’s appeal to the nerd in me. I was great at math growing up, and I became a programmer in low level compile languages at an early age. My brain seems to like things that can be measured and assigned a number. I can give you all sorts of neat little formulas on finding the weight and height of a dog. But please don’t ask me to draw one. One of my best friends and co-workers is a website designer. He can do some really neat things with animation and design programs, and implement them into a site making some of the nicest pages I get to see online. He grew up in a very artistic environment, learning to play multiple musical instruments at an early age, and becoming a painter later in his life. He could create on canvas the most beautiful landscape, but when we argue on politics and I give him the middle finger as I walk away, I can almost see him trying to count. So what does this mean? Who is a better person to employ with your website? Should you fire the designer that didn’t do a good job on getting your site seen? My answer is this. If you are number 1 on Google under a specified search term, but your site looks like a 3 year old drew it with a crayon and scanned it into the computer, how well do you think your sales will be? And if have you the best looking site on the Internet, but nobody even sees it, what then? You need to have a touch of both. There are designers out there that do have a mind for SEO, and vice versa for SEO Specialists, but in order to get the best out of your online investment, you will really need to implement the workings of both. In a perfect world, you cold get both in the same step, and some companies offer this, but can get a little costly. Usually you already have a site and need someone to optimize it, working with your current designer. The nice thing about our industry (that of creating an online presence) is that there is usually a mutual respect, and to work with a designer is usually not a difficult task. There are some that feel threatened one a client introduces someone into an already established relationship, but that usually fades once it is made clear on what you are hired to do.
So to all you out there that have a site designed, and a designer on call, and call me wanting to know why your site is not doing well in respect to traffic and should you fire your designer, realize what you hired that designer for in the first place.
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October 7, 2006 I recently read forum post on the three signs of a nightmare client, and was thinking, “wow, I get a lot of problems from customers wanting too much for too little.” I thought it would be a good idea to talk about time and return.
It starts with the submission. Google is known to have the longer time period of the three big boys. I haven’t really had a problem with them, and usually get my sites indexed in about a week or 2. Every once in a while it takes about 4 or 5 weeks, but that also has a lot to do with a lack of a full site. (that’s a killer by the way. I learned the hard way. Don’t start submitting and marketing a half-built site). DMOZ should be your main submission goal. Being human-edited though, it can take some serious time to be indexed. Sometimes as long as 18 months. Yeah, no shit. But it is also used by a number of search engines as a means of including a site.
So now you are in Google and have submitted to DMOZ, why is your site not on page one? Because there are almost 50 million other sites out there in the same category. I used to often get a customer’s pissed off call because I have been working on their site for about 2 weeks and they are not number 1 on Google when searching for “car.” Yeah….that’s odd. I say “used” because I have learned a few lessons in my young life, and am now secure enough to turn a potential customer away. With so many sites out there, you have to prove yourself. You have to prove that your site is relevant and important and should be ranked well. We have been talking about this and will continue to do so in detail, but this article is on time, not optimization details. Anyway, you have to have an optimized site (which takes time), and you have to get link popularity (which takes even more time when done legitimately). Also, a new site has to compete with sites that have been in the search engines for a great amount of time. It’s not always the determining factor, but tenure can have an effect on a site’s ranking. It’s the Internet. It takes time. Do yourself a favor and let your future customer know what to expect up front. I usually tell my customer’s that the design and initial optimization of a site shouldn’t be longer than 2 or three months. (keep in mind this is an average on a fairly simple site). At which point I continue with SEO maintenance and link building. We also do some neat things with press releases and other marketing tactics that are really opening some doors for us and in turn our customers. I advise that you should see some form of substantial result at 6 months. At 10 – 12 months, the customer’s expectations should have been met. Some of you don’t have customer’s as much as you consult for a larger company. This consultation involves just that, consulting, and the lack of actual implementation yourself. Advise your customer, after a change has been made, for better or worse, there should be some change at about 3 – 4 weeks. This is often plenty of time for a re crawl and redetermination of ranking. Obviously, there are exceptions to every rule, and again, this is a loose timeline. I try to stick to this standard to keep me safe though. If things are great early, you have a happy customer and you are done. If things are half way done 3 months too late, you have a mad customer that will tell everyone they contact, and you are still stressing the work on a site. Not a good situation.
Well, I hope this helps with the time issue.
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October 7, 2006 We shall now go into the actual code of your site. “Code” is used loosely here as HTML is actually a mark-up language, but we aren’t here to talk that. HTML is the language used to create your website. Even if you have a software that makes a site in a strictly interface or visual environment, it still makes HTML in some fashion, whether you see it or not. Knowing SEO doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to know HTML like the back of your hand, but it certainly helps to at least know some of the basics. If you wanna good beginning tutorial about HTML or a few other website development languages, check out Tizag. When a search engine looks at your site, there are a lot of variables that go into the determination of your ranking. One thing can be how well your site is written. Well, not so much that, but how few errors and problems your code creates. You will want to try to be mindful of what tags and methods are accepted, and which ones are not. You don’t want to make use of any methods that keep a search engine from seeing everything on your site. This can make them loose faith in your page and in return give you a lower ranking than the next guy. You can check out the latest of the accepted methods by visiting w3.org. It can really be as simple as having too much code where code is not needed. This is one thing to be mindful when creating a website in any sort of point-and-click environment like Dreamweaver or Front Page. These are both decent products, but create a lot of unnecessary code that will slow or stop a search engine browser. This will also affect your loading time, and that can bug a potential customer into leaving your site before you get a chance to show your goods. One of the first things to be sure of is the Doctype. The Doctype is mandatory for most mark-up languages. It is an explanation of the type of language used in the site for the search engine browser. You will want to make sure that you are including the appropriate Doctype, which can be validated here at w3.org. HTML should also be kept “clean.” What I mean by this, is make sure that you don’t have a lot of code that is not doing anything and has absolutely no need. Make things easy to read. As complex as the program that determines ranking is, the crawler is very simple. It can’t go through too much work to get the information it needs, so don’t try to make it. This is also true for the content on your page. Try to get to the good stuff as soon in your code as possible. This will show to the search engines faster and make things easier on them…those lazy crawlers. Hmmm….perhaps my kids learned this from Google. Don’t make repeating movements like trying to bold an H1 tag. It’s already bold and it won’t help you to double it up.
CSS is a very good way to manage the layout of your site easily and effectively. CSS will also help to keep your code clean as you can keep a separate CSS file that your page will call to for design information. Make use of this as much as you can. And try to make use of the external CSS when at all possible. Putting CSS in the HEAD of the site adds a lot of code, and thus making for a messy bed. More on learning CSS can also be found on Tizag.
JavaScript is also a great language that can give your site that extra spice it needs. JS is used a lot for pretty buttons and flashy things, but is also cool for actions like games and such. This can also be called from another file often and should be. If you have to use some in the HEAD of your site, try to make sure it is below your meta information. An error in either CSS or JS can cause a search engine to not even see what comes after it.
It’s a good idea to be sure that your site is acceptable by the search engines browsers. A good tool to check for errors and warning can be found here at Site Report Card. You don’t want any errors at all, and as few warnings as possible. Things like Flash and some other methods aren’t really covered, so may show as a warning. But not likely an error, so a warning here and there might be OK. You really want to score a 10 all across the board.
Again, a lot of “easy” website development programs are great for the beginner. But if you want to do the best for your site that you can, it would really help to learn a little HTML and CSS. Perhaps build what you want with a simple-to-use creator, and go through the code with a little knowledge and clean what you can. It will help a great deal and make you SEO life a lot easier.
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October 9, 2006 In creating a website we try to desperately to make something aesthetically pleasing, and there are so many methods to that madness. But the prettier the page, often means the more code we have to implement. More code equals less SEO friendly. Some things, in fact, will create a page that is not “crawler friendly,” and thus create problems when trying to get a site indexed or ranked. You want the crawlers (robots, spiders, se’s, whatever) to have as easy a time as possible. So let’s touch on a few things that will make a world of difference.
Robots tag vs. Robots.txt file
The robots.txt file is used in regard to directing a search engine. Not so much on where to go, as where not to go. You can use it to tell a search engine not to index a certain page or pages, or not to follow certain links. This is usually the case where there is confidential information you wouldn’t want a search engine to index, but can sometimes inadvertently cause a page to not be crawled at all. You will want to be careful in your robots.txt creation to avoid preventing a crawler on your site. This has, many times, been the cause for a site not being indexed. The same holds true for the robots tag. The robots tag is a little less customizable, and is rarely needed because most people put it on “index, follow” which is the default anyway.
JavaScript
A lot of cool functions and graphics can be achieved with the use of JavaScript. The problem is that sometimes the use requires a lot of code to be placed in the HEAD of the site. Though the code is ignored by the search engines, they still have to drudge through all of it to get to the readable code. Some search engines have a timeout or a maximum character read before they will just leave and move to the next site. It’s best to call the JavaScript from an outside file if at all possible. Also, be mindful that an error in JavaScript can cause a crawler to stop completely, again, moving to the next site. So, just be mindful of the extra stuff you put on your site. Try to keep the code clean and prevent a possible problem. Just remember that the crawler for a search engines has a great deal of work to do. It has to be fast, efficient, and simple. This simplicity means that it’s not going to work too hard to get what it needs before it gives up.
Thank you, Mr. Roboto. (I really couldn’t resist)
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October 9, 2006 When optimizing a site, we are faced with many daunting tasks. It’s hard enough to generally optimize a page for “the search engines.” But when we say “the search engine,” what are we talking about. Obviously Google, Yahoo!, and MSN carry many differences, so optimizing for one would not necessarily yield results in another. So what do each of these main players in the search engine business care about most? Google Google gives some consideration to content, meaning that your site should provide a good amount of information. Keyword stuffing is quite useless in this case, as the Google crawler doesn’t even look at keywords. The biggest thing with Google is to be sure you aren’t using any “black hat” methods like hidden text. They seem to be the best at finding and penalizing for these methods. The next biggest thing is link popularity. Google gives so much consideration to this, that webmasters all over the world are complaining about the lack of real relevance when searching on Google. To be honest, Google gives such a low consideration to the meta tags, that I am wondering why I mention them in a consultation. But then I remember that there are indeed other search engines. MSN MSN places a very large emphasis on the description tag. If that is well written and relevant to the site, you can almost count on MSN’s love. The give next priority to the title tag and content on the site. They don’t seem to be as concerned with link popularity as Google, which is actually why, in my opinion, MSN returns better results when searching. (I can’t believe I just plugged a Micro$oft product, but it’s true) Yahoo! Well, now we come to something that may be changing quite a bit. A month ago I could say that Yahoo! places most of it’s consideration on the Title tag, then on the content of the page. But there are reports that they will be moving towards the link popularity idea. There are even more reports that they will be giving consideration to only relevant and worthy links, so that will make it a little better than Google, but I really don’t know how much consideration it will be getting. In the mean time, we will stick with the idea that title is most important, followed by the content on the site and good use of the title tag. Synopsis In Order of importance. Google * Link Popularity * Content * Readability MSN * Description * Content with good use of the description Yahoo! * Title tag * Content with good use of the title words * May be giving more emphasis on link popularity All in all, we should be optimizing for every search engine. Sure, Google sees a lot of traffic, but closing 2 other doors of substantial opportunity just to keep one open is silly. Besides, there isn’t really anything that one search engine would require that would hamper rankings in another, so there is no reason not to consider all of them.
I hope this helps to clear up a lot of questions. Everyone has their search engine preference so this should help answer some of those questions.
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October 9, 2006 I seem to be in a real “talk about marketing” mood this week. To continue with this theme, I want to take a small amount of time to discuss marketing on forums. Forums, in my opinion, can provide some of the best information. You can ask a question (which is rare because if you have a question, odds are that someone else did too and already asked it) and get an answer from many different sources with many different points of view, providing with a good source of information. Because forums are so convenient and informative, they are everywhere. I am hard pressed to find a topic that is not touched on almost specifically in a forum. Because of these reasons, they seem to gain and retain a loyal following. I have about 5 forums on my Google homepage that I visit more than 3 times a day each. And because of their wide range of topics and visibility, they offer an opportunity to help drive traffic to your site. But there is a right and a wrong way to do this.
The wrong way first. People on forums are there for a reason. To share ideas, help others, provide information, or be in search for ideas, help, or information. The very last thing I want to see when searching my favorite forum (unless it is an appropriate topic) is a shameless plug for someone’s own company. I hate seeing a post for “This has got to be the best site ever” posted by the webmaster of that site. Not only will this likely get the post removed, but you will also risk a ban from the forum, and more importantly, leave a bitter taste in the mouths of an online community, and with the exception of my Fiance, very few things are more dangerous than that. I mentioned “unless it is an appropriate topic.” The forums I visit know of the importance of getting your message out there, and provide categories for such a thing. This not only helps those who want to make use of forums for marketing, but keeps the other topics clean of such annoyances, thus providing a further service. WebPro World does this, and I can see that they probably have and retain more, happier members because of it.
The right way. If you want to make use of a forum to help promote yourself, then you should do so while simultaneously providing a bit of help. A good idea is to go to your favorite search engine, and search for “your topic forums.” This will give you a wide range of forums to choose from. Find one that fits you, and become a member. Be sure to read their rules about posting and signatures. If allowed, make a signature with a link to your site. Then do a search for a topic on something to which you can provide a service. Write an article that will provide information to help others, and politely provide information on your site. Be a little heavier on the information part. Like your website, you main goal should to be to provide a service/product/assistance to the online world. In this environment, you will do this with an offer of free help.
To recap, make use of the avenues provided on the web, but don’t be too pushy. Try to be the car salesman who provides his name, and then waits to offer help. Don’t be that car guy that follows you around, telling you things about a car that you don’t want to know, offering his “assistance” that you don’t want, and promising deals that you don’t care about. I often provide these guys with the best possible location in which they can shove their deals.
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