Traffficum.com – Traffic for your website

Posts Tagged ‘com’

When we first get a client at SEO.com, one of the first things we check during our intake process is the client’s blog. Many of our clients come to us without a blog, and those that previously had one rarely use it. We often suggest adding a blog and using it as a marketing tool for the site. However, often when we make this suggestion, people get a glazed look in their eyes like they are hearing, but not really following us. For this reason, and for the simple fact that I am in the process of starting my very own personal/professional blog, I thought I would take the time to properly discuss what factors should be considered for anyone starting blog. Whether it is for a hobby, work/business, or personal purposes, these components are necessary for any new blog.

Think Ahead

The most import thing any new blogger can do when they want to take the plunge into the blogosphere is to make a plan. Take the time to understand why you want to blog, and more importantly, the style of blog you want to write. Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

• When do you plan on writing?
• Who do you want to read your blog?
• Are you in for the long haul?

Blogging takes a lot of time if you want it to be successful, but if you plan your strategy, you can save yourself a lot of headaches and possible regrets.

The Purpose

The first thing you want to do is pin down the purpose of your blog. Start by asking yourself, is the blog for existing clients, new customers, for the general benefit of your industry, or to open a window for people to see the quirky insides of your business? If you look at the SEO.com blog as an example, you’ll quickly see that it is for the general benefit of the SEO industry. As such, it has the potential to help our current clientele as well as potential clients understand the industry better.

If your company lacks personality (I say that nicely, of course), and you don’t feel that your office atmosphere can carry a good blog on its own, then an industry blog is a good option. (Note: Just because SEO.com has an industry based blog, don’t assume we lack personality. If you don’t believe me, come see our 3 foot hole in our wall from our recent Office Olympics.

Blog Mapping

Once you have decided who your audience is, map out the basics of your blog. This is an ideal time to list categories and write a number of initial posts to introduce your main subject. In addition, you’ll settle on the keywords your blog will target.

You can also work out a simple game-plan on how you want to interact with your readers. Figure out who will be your main writers, or if you want your entire company involved. Another option is for guest writers to contribute to your blog.

On the issue of choosing a topic, keep this in mind: “Will the topic you’re considering starting a blog about lend itself to being an ongoing project?” (ProBlogger.net) It is important that your topic is broad enough that you will have content to last, but yet not too broad that your blog loses focus.

Your Platform

When you get ready to put your blog together, you will notice that you have many options available for a blogging platform. VOX, LiveJournal, Typepad, Blogger, and WordPress are a few examples. Each platform has its own set of strengths and weaknesses.

Blogger and WordPress are the most popular platforms. Blogger is one of the easiest ways to set up a blog and can be an ideal solution for the person who doesn’t want to get too geeky with it. WordPress, though, is a preferred option for the individual who really wants full control over their blog. You will be able to get more involved with the technical side and tweak the blog to perfection. Check out this post by Nathan Blair on how WordPress can be a benefit for your SEO efforts.

Developing Content

The cliché “content is king” rings truer with a blog than any other aspect of a website. The problem is that this is also the hardest part about running a blog. You need to take to time to be informed about your topic. Do research to answer your own inquisitive mind, and then present your answers. In your blog mapping you may want to brainstorm what unique opinions or points of view you can offer on your particular subject.

Be Involved

One of the best ways to entice blog followers is to become involved in the online social community, and particularly the social media relating to your industry. Make regular comments on other blogs that relate to yours, this may also include competitors’ blogs and articles. Use Twitter and Facebook to find and follow people in your industry. If you are an expert in a certain field, you may also be asked to guest post on someone else’s blog where you can drop a shameless plug to yours. When it comes to connecting with people online you don’t want to be bashful.

Write Regularly

And finally, the most important thing to remember when starting your blog is to write regularly. This will do a number of things for you. One, people will get in the habit of checking your posts. With regular posting you can start to train your audience when to expect new insight from you. Whether it’s every hour, once a day, or once a week, if you make a habit of writing, your followers will make a habit of reading. Two, you will draw the attention of web-crawlers, and the search engines will index you more regularly (more on this topic by Scott Cowley).

By taking the time to conduct research and proper planning, your blog can become a major benefit for you and your company.

If you have other suggestions or things to consider when starting a blog please feel free to share in the comments section.

Antonio Gulli, the technology team lead in Ask.com's European R&D center is leaving Ask.com after serving for four years. At Ask.com, Antonio worked on:

 

• Image Search
• News and Blog search
• Video News Search
• DailyBeast
• Core Web Search Infrastructure
• RealTime Fresh Web Ranking
• Core Frontend Platform for UK

Here was Antonio's bio prior to joining Ask.com:

'Antonio was the creator of the first Italian Search engine in 1998, Arianna, and he was CEO/CTO of Ideare (sold to Tiscali S.p.a. in 2001) where he created products such as audio, video, and image search. Antonio has recently been working on a PhD in Pisa, researching the areas of Information Retrieval, Web Clustering, and Web Ranking technologies. You can explore his areas of research and play with the applications that he has developed at http://www.di.unipi.it/~gulli/.'

Microsoft has released a new MSN Toolbar which is powered by Microsoft's new search engine, Bing, reported the Bing team on Twitter. Check out the new Toolbar at toolbar.msn.com.

Here is a screen capture:

Of late, some UK Google users have been noticing that search results pages are showing more results from .com sites as compared to earlier. Apparently, users with .co.uk sites are used to get better ranking in Google, thus they assume that .co.uk sites are more relevant to their geographic location. Well, this is quite normal in some cases that the .co.uk sites are more relevant to UK searchers, however, this may not be the case always!

Google's Matt Cutts has posted a video in which he answers to a question from a user- “Why are the UK SERPS still really poor with irrelevant non UK sites (US/Aus/NZ) ranking very high on Google.co.uk since early June?”

But, recently Cutts said through a post in his blog that he has received some criticism regarding his answer in the above video.

“There’s a couple effects going on:

- first, we’ve been making changes that make it much more likely to see .coms in the UK. I’d say that’s 80-90% of the changes that people are seeing. Most of the generic TLDs (.com, .net, etc.) that are showing up now are .com sites like tescofinance.com and churchill.com that are relevant to the UK even though they don’t end in a .co.uk.

- I’ve been following some of the examples people have pointed out. I remember kiva.org in particular was mentioned and that probably is off-topic for the UK. I dug into that one, and it was an unrelated ranking experiment that was going on that we changed.”

Are you being kept in the dark by your current SEO firm? Do you wish the communication lines were a little more open? It’s too bad that some SEO companies view communication and sharing as a conflict of interest rather than an opportunity for reinforced, attack-at-all-sides teamwork. Amazingly, some SEOs believe clients would only stick around long enough to find out their methods and then bolt! In sharp contrast, SEO.com has found that as we share valuable information and resources with our clients, it builds the relationship and they achieve greater success.

I love the work I do at SEO.com. It is a privilege to work at one of the best, if not the best, SEO firms out there. We have consistently helped our clients rank on page 1 of Google (which holds about 70% of the search engine market share) for multiple targeted keywords. Each day I marvel at the methods we employ to help our customers achieve their desired conversion goals. I quickly gained great trust and admiration for SEO.com for many reasons, but especially for how transparent and open we are with our clients in regards to the methods and tools we use to help them.

At first, I was taken-back by it and wondered why any successful company would consider sharing valuable company tools, intellectual property, methods and training with a client who could choose to go out on their own and mimic the same techniques. But I quickly realized that there was no genuine risk and it is one of the reasons why we are so effective.

There are no big secrets in Search Engine Optimization. The work is very transparent, and most anyone can do it. Quality optimization only takes a lot of time, knowledge, dedication and skill, and that’s where an SEO firm comes in. We work for hours a day doing the tasks that anyone with SEO knowledge could do-because we have the time, and the training, to do it. We spend multiple hours every day doing keyword research, looking at our clients’ competitors, link-building and offering site optimization recommendations.

Every now and then we all need to be brave and do something different. We have to break the molds and stereotypes to step out of the norm and stop following the crowd if we want to be special and set apart. I’m proud to work for a company that does this. Many SEO firms simply do the basics for their clients. SEO.com is great at the basics too, but we also do things no other firm will-transparency with clients being only one example.

For example, a current client of SEO.com has seen phenomenal results in the year they have employed our services. During their first six months online they had no sales and only a handful of page visits. As a result of this failure, two of their four investors backed out, and the remaining two investors began desperately searching for a new firm. During their first month working with SEO.com they had 15 sales. By the third week of the second month they had between 5 – 6 sales a day. By the third month they began asking questions about what we were doing and how we were doing it. They even asked if we could show them our SEO methods, so we could work together as a team. We gladly shared the information with them. By the sixth month they were experiencing between 400 and 500 visits to their site every day and a dramatic increase in sales. At the end of their initial six-month contract they decided to double the amount of work we were doing for them and renew the agreement. Today they average between 1200 to 1300 visits and 30 to 40 sales each day!

In SEO, stepping out of the norm is usually rewarded with highly-desired results. Clients like to be kept in the loop. They like to know what is going on-especially with their money. Communication is the key. Our success and growth as a company are the result of a number of different variables, but the level of transparency and openness SEO.com offers its clients certainly deserves due credit.

Yahoo recently launched its new and improved homepage for web users. For months the forthcoming of Yahoo homepage had been known, but it was released yesterday around 4:30 Eastern.

Here’s the screenshot of the previous Yahoo homepage :

However, Yahoo will not replace the older homepage for now, rather an opt-in choice will be provided for interested users. Here’s the new Yahoo homepage:

The new homepage is less cluttered as there are lesser buttons and modules. Even the search option is somewhat more prominent. In the new design, search has been integrated into the rest of the page and is more visible.

In the previous homepage, left column of Yahoo properties was a static list but now it’s a customizable menu that turns into an RSS reader or dashboard. Users also have the option to add or remove applications. Yahoo has also created a wide range of widgets for launch, but users can add any third party site with RSS feed capability. As a result, third party developers can add their own application to the gallery.

Tapan Bhat, Yahoo executive, states that “Yahoo will recommend widgets to users based on their browsing and click-stream behavior. The process of adding or removing “applications” is simple and basically involves a single click.”

For instance, if a user takes the mouse over “My Favorites” application, a new window will open, which will allow him to see the site as well as the content.

The right side of the window contains a new and contextually relevant ad unit that can be targeted to the content of the page. Yahoo gave the example of a movie opening targeting users looking up movie showtimes from a Yahoo movies application.

With the help of the new sliding fun-to-serious scale users will be able to adjust the news that they view on their Yahoo’s homepage.

Yahoo has also started “bucket testing” a new look and feel for search results that informs users about what’s happening on the homepage.

Here’s an image showing Search Monkey widgets that effectively turns into search filters:

The new Yahoo homepage will be released first to U.S users, followed by the UK, India, France and other countries thereafter.

The Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum names SEO.com as the 17th top young company in Utah at the annual “Top 25 Under Five Awards.” SEO.com was selected because of its rapid growth and strong influence in the Internet marketing industry. The Utah SEO company is also garnering national attention for its search engine optimization services.

PROVO, Utah (July 9, 2009) – The Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum awarded SEO.com, a Web site optimization firm, as Utah’s 17th best up-and-coming business in its 10th annual “Top 25 Under Five Awards.”

“We are truly honored and excited to be included in this prestigious list of up-and-coming businesses. We have great plans for the future of SEO.com, and it is really encouraging to receive this kind of recognition early on,” said Dave Bascom, founder and CEO of SEO.com.

Crowds gathered into the Novell building in Provo, Utah to celebrate and honor entrepreneurs and some of the state’s top companies under five years old. In a bright contrast to the current economic struggle, optimism reigned here where companies were boasting both recent and future success.

The Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum (UVEF) recognizes the best emerging companies in the state of Utah based on profit, job creation, job quality and growth. The event’s purpose is to promote companies that may become industry leaders in the state, the region and globally. This year’s winner was Zagg, Inc., a designer, manufacturer and distributer of clear coverings and accessories for electronic and hand-held devices. Some of the past award winners include Omniture and Xango.

Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert praised the winners during his keynote address, discussing the strength of entrepreneurship in the state and the positive affect it has on the entire economy.

“I can’t say enough good about the business community here,” Herbert said. “The private sector creates jobs and is the lifeblood of the community. Utah is a great place to live and a great place to do business.”

SEO.com was recognized among the top 20 because of its swift growth, having increased more than 300 percent in the last year alone. Since its launch in June, 2007, SEO.com has hired more than 40 employees and helped numerous clients climb to the top of the search engines. Currently, SEO.com has nearly 100 clients that range from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies.

About UVEF
UVEF is a volunteer non-profit support group linking entrepreneurs to Money, Markets, and Mentors. Celebrating 20 years of new business success, UVEF empowers current and future business leaders to thrive in today’s competitive market. The organization provides real-world, practical educational and valuable resources on how to access needed capital, attract new customers and tap into industry experts. For information on upcoming meetings, speakers, and membership, visit www.uvef.net.

About SEO.com
SEO.com is an Internet marketing firm that specializes in organic search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising (PPC) management. SEO.com has helped numerous clients climb to the top of Google for their targeted keywords. Clients range from small, startup businesses to Fortune 100 companies.

In my last post, How to Create a Huge Keyword List, I suggested to spy on your competition for keyword ideas. Well, today I want to delve a little further into that topic, and give you some techniques and tools for doing just that.

Learning from your competition is one of the best ways to get keyword suggestions. One of the great things about marketing online, is your competition is right in front of you, and can’t hide everything they’re doing. Here are a few ways to get keyword ideas from your competition:

1- Inspect Meta Tags
This technique doesn’t always work because enough sites have learned that meta keywords are not as important as they used to be. If your competition is still using meta keywords, it is a very easy way to get an idea of what keywords they’re targeting.

You can use SEOBook.com’s SEO XRay (part of SEO for Firefox) and easily see this information. Just do a right click and choose “SEO For Firefox”, then SEO XRay. Or you can always just look at the source code and find it there.

2- BacklinkWatch.com
I find this tool is hit and miss, but sometimes you can get some really good information from it. Just go to BacklinkWatch.com and type in the URL you want to check. It can take a while to load everything, but this tool will provide a list of pages that are linking to the site and the anchor text of some of the links. The anchor text is what you should be looking at for ideas.

3- Google AdWords Keyword Tool
You can use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to get suggestions for keywords based on the URL. Just choose the option “Website content,” type in your competitors URL, and see what suggestions it gives you. This can be a great way to brainstorm other keyword ideas as well.

4- Yahoo! Site Explorer and SEO Link Analysis
This is one of my favorite techniques to see what keywords your competition is using in their anchor links from other sites. First, you’ll need to download and install the Firefox plugin SEO Link Analysis by Joost de Valk. Then, go to Yahoo! and type “site:www.whateversite.com” into the search bar. This will take you to the Yahoo! Site Explorer.

Once the site explorer comes up, click on the button that says “Inlinks.” Once the next page loads, change the first dropdown menu to say “Except from this domain.” Here’s a shot of what the results look like with the SEO Link Analysis plugin working:

This plugin shows you what the PR and anchor of the links are. As you go through the list of links, you’ll be able to see what keyword phrases they are using as anchors from other sites. Chances are you’ll find a lot of your competition’s main keyword phrases this way.

5- Other Tools
There are a bunch of websites that offer to provide your competitors AdWords lists and other information. I don’t really believe them; but I figure you can use some of them for ideas. So, before you go spending a lot of money on a software program that claims to steal your competitor’s keyword list, understand that it’s a marketing ploy. Get some ideas from their free tools, if they have any, then leave them alone and don’t waste your money.

Here are some more credible sites that provide useful information:

• SpyFu.com
• Compete.com
• QuantCast.com

Of course, there are other ways of spying on your competition that I haven’t covered in this post. If you have tools or techniques that you have found helpful, please share them in the comments below!

Early this month I promised a post detailing the uses of the # in SEO. Here it is.

As I have mentioned before the hash is often overlooked, if at all used, by SEOs. A very unfortunate thing because it can not only help solve duplicate content issues but help you consolidate the link juice from all the URLs with duplicate content. How is this possible?

According to Randfish’s whiteboard Friday videos “Complex Content Issues” and “Using the Hash” the power of the hash lies in the fact that search engines ignore anything in the URL after the hash sigh. For example if you have a URL such as www.example.com/#10, instead of indexing the contents of this specific URL it will instead point to and index the contents of www.example.com. This is a very useful thing in SEO because this way you can get search engines to ignore pages whose content you don’t want to be indexed such as those with duplicate content. This is especially important if you have massive duplicates because all the links pointing to URLs with hashes will instead pass the link juice to the main URL, which in our case is www.example.com.

As Rand said some applications of the hash include:

• canonicalization;
• management of affiliate links; and
• ability to show limited content.

Of course with every good thing comes a problem. One potential problem with the use of the # is that for single page version of content broken into sections/chapters using the # will result in suceeding sections not being indexed. For example if we have a tutorial on SEO you can expect that it will be long. To make it easy for those that prefer reading the tutorial as a single page we can chop down the tutorial into sections. Hence we can get the following URLs:

www.tutorial.com (This will probably contain the introduction)
www.tutorial.com/#topic1 (will contain the first topic)
www.tutorial.com/#topic2 (will contain the next topic and so on)

As you can see the good thing about this is that link juice from links to the other  sections of the tutorial will instead be passed on to the main URL, www.tutorial.com. The problem with this is that since the search engines will ignore anything after the # it will NOT index the content of all the sections with the hash in their URLs. In essence only the introduction’s content (or whatever is in www.tutorial.com) will be indexed. As Rand pointed out though this shouldn’t be a real problem IF all your target keywords are already found in the introduction, which will of course require conciseness and good keyword selection on your part.

a

The Power of the Hash # in SEO