SEO
Lost in the widespread hoopla over Google’s acquisition of mobile phone advertising firm AdMob was the company’s concurrent purchase of VoIP provider Gizmo5, which Search Engine Land’s Greg Sterling says will make Google Voice a stand-alone service.
Sterling writes that this could put the search giant into direct competition with VoIP market leader Skype, which boasts a worldwide user base of 480 million people. Search engine optimization (SEO) professionals must monitor Google’s move into the VoIP market closely, to ascertain what sort of SEO opportunities present themselves once Google Voice goes public.
Google already offers a Goog-411 service, effectively extending parts of its search functionality onto the mobile platform. This, coupled with the increasingly rapid adoption of Google’s Android cell phone OS, could give the company a solid bridgehead into the mobile market, creating new fields of opportunity for search engine optimization (SEO).
In another article about Google Voice, Sterling notes that consumer privacy advocates are troubled by the further expansion of Google’s data indexing, saying that the extent of the data collection raises questions about the security of personal information.
Business search engine optimization (SEO) is not, according to experts, a simple series of goods that can be purchased for increased performance, but a long-term investment whose benefits are often present but difficult to see.
Writing a guest column at Search Engine Land, Damien Bianchi says that some companies have trouble understanding the costs and benefits of search engine optimization (SEO) because the results are frequently not immediately apparent in the bottom line. Bianchi compares the process to implementing a new content management system: It can be bought, but it might take years for the benefits to become fully evident.
Bianchi says that a good search engine optimization (SEO) program depends on corporate infrastructure, design, localization and content, as well as a thorough understanding of the target search engines. Analytics software and close cooperation with IT departments can also help demonstrate the value of well-crafted SEO to skeptical executives.
Bianchi – among many others – also notes that the world of the search engine is constantly changing, and that successful search engine optimization (SEO) practitioners must always be on their toes for the latest developments.
Experts say that the most successful search engine optimization (SEO) efforts should begin before a character of code is written for a website. Every step of the way, SEO considerations must be addressed.
Keyword research, strategic planning, and a careful eye kept on web development tools are all part of the game for web designers hoping to successfully integrate search engine optimization (SEO) into their project, according to Eric Enge of Search Engine Watch. Enge also warns prospective webmasters that sites with effective SEO will require large quantities of quality content, or at the very least, smaller quantities of superlative content.
Enge recommends that two basic questions be answered before any work is done on a new or revamped website: First, what is the purpose of the website? And how does the firm that owns the website plan to market it? Poorly-planned and optimized sites are one potential consequence of a failure to answer these questions, according to Enge.
Search giant Google recently released an array of helpful tools for web developers, which could ease web design and make for more effective search engine optimization (SEO).
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We mentioned Google’s new social search in a previous news post, however now we feel we should go into more detail for our readers, as this seems like a hot topic for them.
Social Search – The Basics.
What is social search? For many this is a fairly new concept. Just a few short years ago, search itself was developed to access content easily. Search was effective and efficient and in light of its importance; search optimization at that time was pretty bland. Optimize your web property, setup your keyword list, markup and test ad copy, rinse repeat.
Now search has become much more…strategic. Honestly, without a well thought out search plan, it will be extremely difficult to succeed in the social search world. If you have a well thought out, integrated strategy in place your chances of success will increase dramatically.
Search has moved from a study in two dimensions (paid and organic) to a discipline with at least five or more activities (paid or organic search, video, Twitter, Facebook, and other social tools). With the addition of social networks, another set of dimensions come into play. These networks are driven by content development or client relationships.
Video Search
Frequently we hear that YouTube is the number two search engine. Sure that makes sense, considering the size and diversity of its massive content library, and the rate at which it expands. What’s even more interesting is the content that users are searching for.
Will you create videos that help consumers find and inform of your product? Create viral content videos that will ideally get passed along? Can you do both?
Twitter and Search
The recent PR surrounding the announcement that Google and Bing will be indexing tweets in search results should come as no surprise to anyone. To compete here means you must have a twitter strategy in place
If Google could be teaming with tweets about you or your product, then being involved on Twitter just got moved to the top of the to do list.
The Social Graph and Search
Similar to Twitter search, but highly more encompassing, is the broader category of social search: Social Search is Google Labs newest experiment. Your social graph is defined as the social networks you add to your Google profile. This should be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming months.
Google is launching a new product today that will allow users to find recently updated public online postings by a person’s network of friends, colleagues or media sources.
The goal of “Social Search,” available starting this afternoon at www.google.com/experimental, is to find relevant postings on Twitter, in blogs or other public web content published by a user’s circle of online colleagues.
Social Search would highlight content posted by those people every time a user does a Google search.
“We want to return a lot more relevant results to users, results that are either offered or linked by their social circle,” said Google Fellow Amit Singhal.
A Social Search query for “Bridge School Benefit,” Neil Young’s annual acoustic fundraiser in Mountain View, wouldn’t just produce the home page for the concert. It would also highlight any tweets, blog postings or newspaper reviews produced by a user’s designated network of friends or media souces.
Google considers today’s launch an experiment and is asking users for feedback. But the company says the results it had using Social Search internally were “exciting” because they allow web users to save time by finding content posted by the people or sources they are most interested in.
Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, demonstrated a version of Social Search at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco last week. “I think it demonstrates our commitment to innovating in search,” Mayer said last week.The new product, executives said, is “completely separate” from the agreement Google announced last week to make available up-to-the-minute search results of Twitter postings. However, content available through that Twitter deal could be used to improve Social Search down the road.
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Maybe the idea of using Bing for search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t such a big deal after all.
While many have touted the importance of a Microhoo deal which would give Bing and Yahoo a significant portion of the search engine market and make the combined entity more important in the world of search engine optimization (SEO), it seems that Bing has hit a snag.
According to figures released last week from StatCounter, Bing saw its market share in the U.S. and around the globe drop for the first time since it was unveiled earlier this year. In what may make matters worse for the Microsoft/Yahoo partnership, Yahoo also saw its U.S. market share drop more than a full percentage point in September.
Both Yahoo and Bing’s drop appears to be a direct gain for search behemoth Google. According to StatCounter, a combined Bing/Yahoo search presence had 20.14 percent of the U.S. search market in August, compared to 77.83 percent for Google. But in September, Yahoo and Bing saw their share drop to 17.91 percent while Google increased to 80.08 percent.
“The trend has been downwards for Bing since mid-August,” said StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen. “The wheels haven’t fallen off but the underlying trend must be a little worrying for Microsoft.”
However, it may be too early to count out Bing as last month Nielsen reported that the Microsoft product held 10 percent of the search engine market.
Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) on Monday launched an enhancement to Bing that allows users of the search engine to find certain items by viewing images instead of sifting through pages of text-based Internet links.
For instance, a search on HDTVs yields rows of images of flat-panel televisions. The results can be grouped by manufacturer, display technology, screen size, and resolution. Similarly, a query on new cars renders pictures of various models that are sortable by automaker, mileage, price, and vehicle type.
At present, Bing’s visual search engine is in the beta stage and is limited to several search categories predetermined by Microsoft. But company officials believe the technology has big potential and could help Microsoft close the gap with market leader Google.
“It’s clear that images play a big part in helping consumers with a variety of search activities,” said Bing product manager Todd Schwartz, in a blog post Monday. A study by Microsoft found that consumers can process image results 20% faster than text-only search results, according to Schwartz.
“Visual search is a new way to formulate and refine your search queries through imagery, particularly for sets of results that tend to be more structured,” wrote Schwartz. “What you’ll see is an amazing new visual search experience,” said Schwartz.
Bing’s visual search capability, which is powered by Microsoft’s Silverlight Web display technology, is the latest sign that Redmond is pulling out all the stops in its effort to catch Google. The company in July announced a far-reaching deal with Yahoo under which Bing will become the primary search engine on Yahoo’s Web properties while Microsoft gains the right to add search technology previously developed by Yahoo to Bing.
Still, Microsoft has, to put it mildly, its work cut out. Google holds about 83% of the worldwide search market, according to the most recent numbers from market watcher Net Applications. Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) holds 7%, while Microsoft, mostly through Bing, owns a mere 3.5%.
Microsoft isn’t giving up. In his blog, Schwartz said the software maker will roll out more new Bing features—including additional visual search capabilities–in the coming months.
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Although many high school students researching colleges head to the web for information, most universities do a poor job of search engine optimization (SEO), according to research from WordStream.
The company says that 15 universities are “excelling at SEO,” while the vast majority of other schools in the country are failing when it comes to using search engine optimization (SEO).
It might not be surprising that some of the top schools using search engine optimization (SEO) are online universities. According to WordStream, Philadelphia’s Drexel University is the top school for its use of SEO, but the online colleges of University of Phoenix, Capella University, Canyon College, Western Governors University American Sentinel University and Northcentral University all rank high.
With the exception of a few traditional schools like Pennsylvania State University and Gonzaga University, WordStream’s Ken Lyons says most schools are losing their online visibility to other websites.
“What I found to be completely bewildering is how the bulk of college websites are outranked by aggregate degree guides or list sites,” Lyons writes on the WordStream blog. “As such, they have to resort to paid search to get listed in the SERPs because they’re inept at SEO. Seriously, college websites (because of their .edu status) are branded, trusted, authoritative, powerful domains and should be able to outrank sites like nursingdegreeguide.org with ease. Yet even with this clear advantage, they still come up short.”
Colleges aren’t the only organizations that can use search engine optimization (SEO) to recruit people. A recent whitepaper from SharkStrike found that using SEO can help companies recruit better candidates for their job openings. 
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A new report on consumer satisfaction with search engines and Internet portals says we like them more they now than this time last year. Of the major engines, only last-place AOL improved its score. The big winner? “All others.”
The American Consumer Satisfaction Index compares customer satisfaction among and across a number of companies and e-business and other sectors. It was released earlier today.
In the quarterly rankings, conducted since 2000, all the major search engines/portals have improved their scores over time, with only Ask.com and AOL now below their highest historic rankings.
Overall, Google leads the pack, with an 86 percent satisfaction rating, the same as last year. Ranked number 2 is “all others” with 78 percent, up 2.6 percent from a year ago. AOL improved by 1.4 percent to a 70 percent satisfaction rating. (See chart for details).
The survey was conducted before the announcement of Microsoft’s Bing search engine as well as the deal that replaces Yahoo search with Bing.
Among the industries surveyed, Internet Portals & Search Engines did quite well, with an overall 83 percent satisfaction rate, up 3.8 percent from last year, based on the strong showing by “all others” and the 1.4 percent improvement by AOL.
Internet News and Information ranked 71.5 percent overall satisfaction. Only USA Today showed improvement, up 1.4 percent to 74 precent. The category leader was “all others” at 75 percent. That left the New York Times, MSNBC, and ABCNews sites all showing significant decreases in consumer satisfaction over the past 12 months.
Comparing tech to other industries: Automobiles received an 84 percent satisfaction rating; Electronics (TV/DVD/VCR) 83 percent; and Major Appliances, 81 percent.
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Over the past few months, Google has been working on optimizing its search engine architecture for better, faster results. For some this may seem ridiculous: isn’t Google already the fastest and most reliable search engine out there? Perhaps, but Google isn’t about to rest on its laurels; it’s committed to evolution.
The secret project is named Caffeine — a wink at its speed increase — and is designed to “push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness, and other dimensions.” Right now anybody can try out its coffee-amped powers. But don’t expect a mind-blowing spectacle of change: Caffeine’s tweaks are all under the hood. I Googled myself using both Caffeine and the ordinary search and found no difference between the two. “Most users won’t notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so we’re opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback,” Google wrote in a blog post.
If you’re dissatisfied with your new and improved search results, Google wants to know. Check out the bottom of your search page and you’ll see a link asking “Dissatisfied? Help us improve.” Click there and submit feedback on Caffeine. Google is always looking to improve its systems — hence why everything stays in beta forever — and could use a shout-out.
Matt Cutts, a Google software engineer, worked on Caffeine before its release and gave some Q&A on his blog. Cutts even answers the question that is likely on many minds: is Google giving itself a makeover in response to Microsoft’s Bing? The answer is no. “I love competition in search and want lots of it, but this change has been in the works for months,” Cutts wrote. “I think the best way for Google to do well in search is to continue what we’ve done for the last decade or so: focus relentlessly on pushing our search quality forward.”
I’m not sure I believe that statement. Yes, Google has undoubtedly been working on Caffeine for months, but Microsoft has been building Bing for a while, too.
The test of Caffeine’s success rests on whether or not people will care and understand, and if the changes prove more substantial than a few additional pages of faster results.
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ABOUT
My name is Kyle Kazak and I am the CEO and President of Kazak Media, a local Internet marketing firm that specializes in web design, local SEO, and pay per click management. We are located in Petaluma, CA, USA.