SEO & PPC E-consultancy Rountable Discussion
March 31, 2007
E-consultancy rountable briefings are usually a worthy read. Take the SEO or PPC ones for example. They require registration but are free and take a look into changes in the SEM marketplace and it is specifically related to UK search.
Here are some highlights:
- The UK market for Search Engine Marketing was worth an estimated £1.41 billion in 2006, according to E-consultancy.
- Shortage of talent continues to be an issue "¦ there are not enough knowledgeable SEO people to go around.
- Growth of Social Media Optimisation and tracking "“ understanding the impact of social media on brand perception and search rankings.
- Before embarking on social media optimisation, it is important to understand the possible return on investment.
- Spending specifically on Paid Search amounted to £1.26 billion in 2006, equivalent to 90% of the total spent on Search Engine Marketing. Paid Search is becoming more like SEO due to importance of landing page quality.
- The landing page quality score introduced by Google means that paid search is increasingly becoming like natural search (search engine optimisation) "It really is bridging the gap between PPC and SEO" .
- Search has become much more granular than just looking at keywords. It is also important to look at demographics, time of day and other factors relating to the searcher's profile."Click profiles will become more valuable."
- Ideally, advertisers should treat Paid Search as a cost of sale rather than allowing budget to dry up to the detriment of the company when there there is still excellent ROI to be made.
- A lot of the SEO companies, such as Spannerworks, are offering social media optimisation services. "Traditional PR people often don't have a clue about online PR."
Link Growth - Ideas, Knowledge & Experience
March 27, 2007
As I am sure you will agree, link building is a core part of almost every SEO campaign. Without the knowledge it's difficult in applying link building ideas. Likewise without the ideas, it's hard to standout in a crowd and be noticed. And of course without the actual hands on experience, it can be more of a case of trial and error in determining which link building techniques & ideas will really work.
Link Building Knowledge
There are plenty of helping hands to assist in our own link building efforts. Staying up-to-date is the key to success "“ here are a few important posts in the last month or so.
1) The Relationship between Content & Link Growth
Rand Fishkin over at SeoMoz is continuing to unearth plenty of SEO gems. His content & link growth post is just one of many. He looks into the shift patterns for the acquisition of links and the production of content with regards to relevancy and authority of a site over time.
He identifies the following key areas:
Content growth patterns - how often does a particular site tend to add new pages
Content update patterns - how often are documents edited and updated
Link growth patterns - how often are new links pointing to the site
Link stagnation patterns - does the number of links to the site stagnate or decrease
Rand goes on to provide some useful real life examples and how the 'links to new content' ratio can pay a significant part in establishing perceived trust by search engines.
2) Understanding Link Reputation
Another interesting link building read is Eric Ward's Understanding Link Reputation. The post looks at a site's reputation and trust from a search engines perspective based on its linking history. Again this relates to Rand's post outlining shift patterns for the collection of links over time and how your site builds up link trust/reputation.
3) The Perfect Link
Matt Magee shares his wealth of knowledge and attempts to define the perfect link. He first points out that links can not only help with ranking in search engines, but also in referring traffic and not to mention branding too.
In Matt's quest for the perfect link, he considers 4 types of links:
Type of Link #1: With Whom?
Options: one-way, reciprocal, 3-way, 4-way "¦ 400-way, etc.Type of Link #2: How'd You Get It?
Options: paid or earnedType of Link #3: Format
Options: text or non-text (image, Flash, etc.)Type of Link #4: Placed Where?
Options: sitewide placement or unique location(s)
The article is a worthy read for any SEO "“ and also gives lots more guidance for things to look for when targeting link building.
4) Google Anchor Link Reporting
Google's Webmaster Central is now showing the exact phrase used in the anchor text to your site.
Google blurb “"¦enhanced the information we provide and will show you the complete phrases sites use to link to you, not just individual words. And we’ve expanded the number we show to 100″ courtesy of SearchEngineLand.
5) Link Development: 10 Questions by 5 Experts
SugarRae's massive Q&As with some of the big guns of Link building is a must read if you can still find a space to digest the 6600 worded beast. If you have not read it all and are a little linked up, then I recommend it for a single sitting all by itself.
Update - Try these beefy lists for size too.
Link Building Ideas
In the world of link building, if knowledge is King, then ideas must surely be Queen. Generating link building ideas is where SEO takes a leap away from its geeky routes and towards a more fun & creative aspect.
You may wish to take a logical walkthrough to linkbaiting for some ideas. For a more comprehensive guide why not spend sometime reading the various enormous linkbait lists. There really are heaps of ways to acquire links, sometimes they can be straightforward and other times it requires a little bit more of lateral thinking "“ but hey, this is where it gets all the more interesting!
AdWords Winter Update
March 10, 2007
There has been quite a bit happening in the last month or so with Google AdWords, so here is a quick overview of the most significant news:
AdWords Editor 3.0 now available
Even though I don't use AdWords editor on a day-to-day basis, I do find it really useful especially for bulk changes or for setting up new campaigns. I have found the latest update of benefit tool, the changes this time are subtle, although it's continuing to improve all the time.
AdWords Keywords Search Tool Showing Search Volumes per Month
This is very much at the rumours stage, but it appears that Google is to offer a similar feature to Yahoo Overture Inventory Keyword Search "“ whereby search volume estimates are given for keywords for a given month. Currently a rating of 1 to 5 is given for search volumes, so let's hope Google gives us that extra bit of detail we all crave.
Google Content Network Ads to Show Sites URLs
Google plans to start showing publishers urls to AdWords advertisers, so you can see exactly where your ads are showing on the Google Network. Up until now you can only get this information from raw logs. I highlighted a Google Analytics hack for this back in December, and although this is a very useful addition to the armoury, I do not think it is as thorough as it could be "“ so I certainly welcome AdWords becoming more open.
Quality Score Update
Last month saw the latest quality score updates going live and you can also see a report (Great, Ok, Poor) of how various keywords are performing by customising columns within your AdWords account to show the quality score status. Many advertisers were seeing bugs with the launch of the quality score update, although this seems to have settled down now.
