But don’t let your SEO efforts stop there. Searchers on the internet are becoming more particular – they don’t want to comb through so many results. Many know that general keywords give them irrelevant returns. So searchers are using sentences, different phrases that have been used before, and more specific inquiries to try to get to the information they want.

This creates an opportunity for you as a businesses. Although these longer keywords – or more correctly, keyword phrases don’t get the large number of hits individually, combined together, they now drive half of internet traffic. More than half of the searchers on the internet use three or more words to get what they want.

So as a marketer on the internet, look at your primary keywords and then begin creating phrases that include those words, but are more specific and unique to your business. Between 20 and 25 percent of Google’s searches are unique – they’ve never been searched in exactly that way before. So you want to grab whatever part of that search you can and attempt to make it relevant to your site.

As you become more specific, you have fewer pages competing for those longer phrases, and that means your site has a better chance of being seen.

Use the shorter keywords you’ve already established as being relevant, and interlink those words with longer phrases. If your site sells tulip bulbs, for example, you likely have already chosen the keywords “tulip bulbs” to market with SEO.

Now, optimize those keywords by building on them. Pick up more traffic by integrating such phrases as “authentic Holland tulip bulbs,” “biggest blossoms tulip bulbs,” “black tulip bulbs,” “how to plant tulip bulbs,” and “how do I find good tulip bulbs.”

Besides displaying your products for sale, consider building short (200 – 300 word) content pages answering queries, then also feature products on those pages. Have easy links to the rest of your site, and make an attractive landing page. Link to your related pages.

As with all SEO, you’ll need to do continual revisions and updates to stay ahead of the search game, but using long tailed keywords to help capture those millions of unique searches that may drive more hits to your site.

“I’ll add you on Facebook!”

“Hey, we are Orkut friends!”

“I’ll subscribe to your RSS feed right away!”

You will agree, these are some of the most touted phrases that we use when we “network”. However, this is not the way the journey had begun. The transformation from toys to tools was a revolution that brought out a whole new “Social Economy” in “Social Networks”.

Emotions have been replaced by emoticons, expressions have given way to smileys and the English Language has seen drastic reforms in the present era. Yes, we are using a super condensed and more “expressive” way of communication, thanks to social networking.

Facebook, Orkut, Twitter and many others took birth in the World Wide Web and primarily made their presence felt as networking toys. Little did we realize then, about the enormous networking capabilities they had. Soon, along with inviting our near ones to hang out at a party, we were “inviting” them to our online profiles on these websites. There were friends, friends of friends; can I say an online “big bang”?

Yes, the concept might be surreal, but the sheer fascination and excitement to be a part of this revolution paved way for the dynamics of theses toys to mutate into tools. It would be quite difficult to point out the exact period when this transformation took place, but you knew it was there when you were networking more online rather than calling up or e-mailing the same people. Your business cards and identities changed during this era and now included information of your online profiles or networks.

“Human networks” is the word of the hour. We have been consistent in synthesizing our conversations through these digitally woven, close environments, with a wide array of inbound and outbound hyperlinks dominating our online presence. We are scheduling meetings, hanging out, having conversations, sharing interests, making a social statement in a world of our own. All these worlds come together in the digital universe. The good news is, we are getting addicted to it every day and striving to reach its epitome.

“To err is human…” What is human? Is it an online Avatar or the one who sits behind it and controls its actions? Are our online counterparts facing an identity crisis?

The principles associated with this new social economy have brought about the tools in toys and I am now a part of it. The trick of the trade is to propel your identity towards the proper direction and your intended audience.

Welcome to the world of social networking once again…have you noticed the change?

There are a number of misconceptions in selecting the right and relevant keywords, which, if not checked, can ruin the entire optimization process. Among the various misconceptions, the most common one is that bigger keywords are better. However, this is not true always. Suppose you are a life coach and you are trying to optimize your personal life-coaching website. Therefore, in this case, you can use “life coach” as the appropriate keyword for the site, which is small yet carries a lot of meaning to it.

Keywords should be very specific and should flawlessly relate to the products or the services that are being offered. One can even use keywords in phrases, but the phrases should be in small meaningful sentence format. Moreover, keywords should be such that have high frequency demands and low competition. High keyword frequency can also be defined as those, which are entered in the search bar while searching in any search engine and can draw high traffic. On the other hand, low keyword competition indicates lower number of websites using the same keywords to draw visitors.

Apart from these facts about getting the right keywords, let me share some basic tips that would definitely help you to select the perfect set of keywords for your website. The foremost thing is that you will have to learn to think like a nonprofessional. You might have a thorough knowledge about your industry, but this might not be the case with everyone around. So, while framing the keywords, try to use those words or phrases that a nonprofessional would use who knows nothing about this industry. At the same time, you need to think in an expert’s point of view as well! The product or the service you are offering might need the use of some specific keywords, which the layman would definitely not know. Therefore, it is better to have a balanced perception of both.

So, whenever you are optimizing your website, always remember to pay extra heed to keyword selection, as you certainly know by now, that it is a very important part of this whole optimization process. If you use some rational steps, keeping in mind some basic facts, success might take some time to come. However once it is there, it’s going to be a long lasting one for sure.

Content should be proper and of high quality: Websites having good quality content in it will definitely attract more users. Among all the points I discussed till now, I think, this is THE most important factor that helps in optimizing websites. Users can very well differentiate between good, mediocre and bad content. In order to make your content better, make sure its free from any grammatical, spelling or some other errors. Try to incorporate words or phrases in the content, which you think, users will mostly use as keywords while searching for a particular topic.

Anchor text should be given equal importance: Those who do not have an idea about what exactly anchor text is, let me throw some light on this. Anchor text is clickable texts you see as link, in a page. Many of you might take this point as “not so important” one. However, if anyone asks me, I will surely say that it holds equal importance, as the anchor texts help users and Google to know about the page it is directing to. You can have an internal link on your page, which is directed to some other page of your own site, or you might have an external link as well, which is directed to a page of some other website. Whatever may be the case, your anchor text should be such, that the users, as well as Google, can easily follow it, in order to have an idea about the page it is linking to. It is always good to use a bit descriptive, creative anchor texts of two-three words, or a phrase, rather than using some common words or text as “click here”.

Use of heading tags properly: What a heading tag typically does is to highlight the  content of a web page. As known by all, heading tags appear to be bigger in size than the normal text and this helps the users to locate the important components of a page very easily. However, one should know about the definite ways of using these heading tags. One can use multiple heading tags in a single page, and if they are used in a proper way, it gives the page a hierarchical framing, which in turn, helps the users to go through the contents with ease.  At the same time, use of too many headings unnecessarily not only makes it unprofessional, but at the same time, it makes Google and users confused as to where the content started and where it ended.

However, this is not all. There are few more important aspects, which I think are equally important that requires further discussion. So, do check out my next post.  I am not done yet!

Ages ago Aaron Wall made a short post promoting a friends online web tool. In the post Aaron suggested, given Page Rank’s infrequent updates and old data that the date Google last cached your site was a better indication of how much Google “trusted” your site than the green strip in the Google Toolbar.

It got me thinking, quarterly updates of Page Rank with data from who knows when, while quite useful isn’t the most reliable indication of how respected you are in the halls of the Googleplex. With the rise of blogs, RSS, social media & user generated content how long ago the search engine spiders visited your site probably is pretty good indication of how important your site is.

So time dust of Excel and see if there is any evidence to prove Aaron’s hunch. The test was simple, three simple generic key phrases, take the first page of the Google.com search engine results page and see if the more recently cached pages appeared higher up the results.

Test One – “Movie Trailers”
First up “Movie Trailers” Apple’s trailer site was in top position and the cache theory seemed to hold water through the first 6 results. However after this it all got a bit messier. In seventh place joeblo.com was the most recently indexed site. To complicate matters further it was followed by movie-trailers.com which was indexed ages ago and seems to be an expired domain. Bellow these sites, at the bottom of the first page; movies.monstersandcritics.com/trailers/ was indexed more recently than the 5th and 6th place results. Hardly conclusive but the results seemed to follow the general trend.

Test Two – “Global Warming”
The key phrase “Movie Trailers” features regularly updated pages from some of the biggest online players, so for my second phrase I felt something a phrase likely to turn up more static authority pages with lower search volumes would be good test. Partially inspired by the SEO World Championship from back in the day. I opted for “global warming”. Surprise, Surprise, Wikipedia in top place. Here we have the opposite of “Movie Trailers” the lower order is arranged nicely in order of cache date but the top results aren’t following the pattern I was hoping for.

Test Three – “Brighton Function Rooms”
For the third query I thought I’d go nice and niche with “Brighton Function Rooms” A lot less traffic than the previous queries and fewer indexed pages. The results were a bit spammy with plenty of Adsense reliant directories. Unfortunately the results deviated from the “Most Recent Cache Date = Most Trusted” formula more than any of my three queries. The dates were all over the place some really recently indexed others up to six weeks old.

Has Cache Killed Page Rank?
Aaron’s prediction wasn’t quite as simple to prove as I’d hoped. The sites most recently cached weren’t the highest in the rankings. However I don’t think this entirely discounts the theory. My test only checked how recently the pages had been cached, not how frequently. Some of the sites in my test might have been spidered recently but been waiting weeks for their visit from the bots. I haven’t given up on the idea, I’m going to try and test the cache frequency see if Page Rank really is dead.

]]> http://www.webdatasource.com/2008/11/has-google-cache-killed-page-rank/feed/ 0 http://www.webdatasource.com/2008/10/is-your-keyword-research-methodology-up-to-scratch/ http://www.webdatasource.com/2008/10/is-your-keyword-research-methodology-up-to-scratch/#comments Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:01:21 +0000 Kelvin http://www.sitevisibility.co.uk/blog/?p=198 There’s no avoiding how fundamental keyword research is to the natural search marketing process. Without it how will you know if your site is sending the right relevance signals to search engines? Without them how will you measure your performance? (Admittedly ranking reports are rapidly becoming less and less relevant though they still have a place in most clients KPIs) How will you know you’re looking at the right competitors when carrying out back link analysis?

We know that timing and layers all play their role, but knowing when to do something and how are the true qualifications of developing results that transcend just being a part that ultimately serve the whole. Building and leveraging website authority is on of such things which is why we encourage you to follow the links to these posts from the past for further elaboration on the topic.

• Authority Sites and Authority Site Building (how to leverage website authority)
• Phrase Rank and Trust Rank (Looking beyond just links)
• Don’t Just Build Links, Build Trust
• How to Improve Search Engine Placement (and Develop Authority) for Your Site
• Combining SEO with Time and Authority

It’s not just about code, links or content it’s all about building website authority and gaining the trust of search engines.

Once authority is attained, all of the SEO techniques and tactics you glean from other facets of search engine optimization work that much easier. Particularly when targeting moderate to competitive phrases since most of the keywords you simply mention on a page become low hanging fruit and rise to the top of the SERPs (search engine result pages) based on the virtue of the reputation your site has accrued.

It’s not always the tip of the iceberg that matters, its what is beneath that you should concern yourself with. They always say age before beauty. Well in this case it’s build authority and trust before trying to scale competitive rankings.

There is no shame in being where you are at, you just need to know so you can gauge the impact your website has, so you can condition it into a website capable of attaining the lofty goals you establish, despite how competitive the arena may be.

The three entities involved in PPC advertising are the visitor, the host that carries the advertisement and the advertiser, who has advertised a product or service on the host website, usually a leading search engine. In this form of advertising, advertisers have to bid on keywords and phrases. Whenever someone searches a product or service using certain keywords, the search result page will feature those advertisements which contain the keywords using which the visitor actually searched in the first place.

The internet is fast becoming the battle ground for business to garner their share of the market. With increasing internet usage, people around the world are searching for all sorts of products and services online these days. It has therefore become important for almost every business to have a significant online presence. Merely having an online presence though will not guarantee business. Websites need to attract traffic and this is where PPC advertising steps in.

PPC advertising is growing rapidly at a mind boggling pace. Its popularity can be gauged from the fact that out of the total amount of money that is spent on search engine advertising, a whopping 81% is spent on PPC advertising. These figures do not come as a surprise to those businesses that have benefited from PPC advertising. There are several success stories of businesses that have been able to make the most out of PPC advertising campaigns.

The key reasons for the popularity of PPC advertising include:

1. The risk involved is low since the investment is minimal.
2. These advertising programs are fast to implement when compared to other media.
3. Advertisers can manipulate ad positions and also control costs with them.
4. Instantaneous results are a good possibility with PPC advertising.
5. PPC advertisements give an opportunity for businesses to test their products for online marketing feasibility.

PPC: A Brief History

Contrary to popular perception PPC advertisements are not a recent phenomenon. They have been in existence for well over a decade now. The term was increasingly heard during the mid 1990s when the dotcom boom happened. One of the companies that pioneered the concept was goto.com which later on was rechristened Overture. In 2003 Yahoo took over Overture. The actual PPC scene began to see hectic activities once Google launched its ‘Ad Words solution to PPC. Almost every major search engine is into this form of advertising these days.

The minimum price for click which is popularly referred to as ‘cost per click’ varies from one search engine to another. It also depends on the competition involved for a particular keyword list or phrase. It is for this reason that particular keywords and phrases are known to cost more on leading search engines.

Steps Involved in an Effective PPC Advertising Campaign

Although PPC advertising can look a relatively simple process, there are several issues that you will need to deal with once you decide on an advertising campaign. From choosing the right keywords to designing an attractive landing page, you will need to take care of several aspects.

A PPC Ad.
Several businesses have taken advantage of PPC advertising to make profits. With proper planning, you can implement a meaningful PPC advertising campaign, which can in turn mean more profits to your business. Let us look at the steps involved in making an effective PPC advertising campaign.

1. Selection of the appropriate keywords or phrases is the first step involved in PPC advertising. Remember, keywords and phrases are the cornerstones of success in a PPC advertising campaign. They are the foundation on which the entire campaign is built upon and developed. If you are already advertising on other media, then you also need to ensure that your PPC advertising campaign also complements them too.
2. Before you implement your PPC advertising campaign, you must first of all decide your budget. Proper planning will ensure that you do not overspend, while at the same time get effective results from your advertising campaign.
3. You must be clear as to who your target consumers are. This way you will ensure that you reach potential consumers through effective advertisements.
4. One way to target your target consumers would be to decide on a niche. Even if your niche market were to be small, a well directed and created PPC advertising campaigns can work wonders for your niche business area.
5. It is not enough if you just advertise and then assume that it would be effective in getting more business. You should constantly monitor your PPC advertising campaign. Always remember that the internet is a dynamic place, where things change very fast. You therefore need to make sure that your PPC campaign is in tune with the changing trends.
6. You must have a close look at statistical reports that are associated with your online advertising campaign. This will help you gauge the effectiveness of your PPC advertising campaign.
7. The best way to go about creating a PPC advertising campaign would be to hire the services of professionals. This is so because they will be experienced in creating the right copy or content for your PPC advertisement. A well written and concise copy can make the difference between success and failure in a PPC advertising campaign.
8. Along with working on your PPC advertisement, you should also simultaneously make sure that your website is attractive and easy to navigate, since your PPC advertisement will be leading web visitors to your website.

This form of advertising ensures a win-win situation of all the parties involved and it is no wonder that it is growing at a rapid rate. With increasing internet connections, the future holds immense possibilities for PPC advertising.

Have you ever wanted to know when politicians are lying? A startup called RealScoop thinks it can nail it down for you in real-time with the help of voice analysis technology that it claims, is used widely in law enforcement and fraud prevention.

Dubbed the Believability Meter, RealScoop’s analysis technology analyzes over 100 vocal elements of the human voice and performs over 1,000 calculations per second to find out if a politician or celebrity is telling the truth.

The site itself features a bunch of videos collected from outside sources that are played in its own player. The player features a meter that changes dynamically as it analyzes what’s being said. If it believes the person is lying, the meter turns red and moves towards the “highly questionable” area. If it believes the person is telling the truth, the meter stays green and in the “believable” section.

I watched a few of the videos on the site and found it questionable, to say the least. Maybe there is some real evidence to prove that this sort of technology can tell if a person is lying or not, but let’s face it — there’s no way to prove it and I’m not sure, after watching the videos, how a person can go from believable to questionable by uttering a few simple phrases like “uh.”

I’m sure the highly political among us will find value in this to help prove their point that the candidates they support are telling the truth and those they do not are lying, but the more objective among us will see this for what it is: pure rubbish.

]]> http://www.webdatasource.com/2008/09/realscoop-tells-you-when-politicians-and-celebrities-are-lying/feed/ 0 http://www.webdatasource.com/2008/09/politics-never-smelled-so-tweet/ http://www.webdatasource.com/2008/09/politics-never-smelled-so-tweet/#comments Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:27:23 +0000 By Saul Hansell http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=1561 If Senators John McCain and Barack Obama actually do debate Friday night, you will be able to watch what thousands of viewers think of their verbal sparring almost as they talk. Twitter, the service that lets techno-hipsters broadcast their thoughts in 140-character bursts, is setting up a special politics page to make it easy to tune into the chatter.

At midnight Thursday, the company is launching election.twitter.com, the first specialized section of its site. Like Twitter's main service, it is dominated by a big white box. But instead of typing an answer to What are you doing? the election site asks, What do you think?