Archive for the ‘Search Marketing’ Category
Google Search Plus: 7 Things You Need to Know for Your SEO
My previous blog post about Google’s new Search Plus your world update was mostly critical – Having read a number of blog posts/articles and had a play around the new Google, I have now calmed down and come to the conclusion that: as a search engine marketer I should start thinking about how this beast actually works to best help our clients or our sites get found through the SERPs. So in essence, I am trying to be constructive here. Here are seven things you should know about Google Search Plus – they should definitely help improve your understanding and rankings on the new Google…voila:
Google Search ‘Plus’ Your Private Messages
“We’re transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships.”
I am not quite sure where to take off with this post – I was initially going to write about the high volatility of the organic search space in Google and that for businesses that heavily rely on search marketing as a core marketing channel for their sales funnel, more focus should be placed on paid search marketing; but Google seems to have pressed the button for me with their recent “Search plus your world‘ announcement.
It all started when most of us began to notice the infiltration of two or three additional Google+ powered entries in the organic results of some searches on Google late last year. Even, Dr.Pete from SEOMoz attempted to decipher Google’s ever changing Search Result Pages (SERPs) in this post and still got us wondering what the set structure of Google’s search result pages are in this day and age.
7 Premium SEO Tools Worth Paying For
SEO is a lot more complex than most people give it credit for. Many regard it as something akin to voodoo or alchemy. But SEO can be incredibly powerful and lucrative if you have the right tools for the job. That doesn’t mean you have to splurge on every piece of software you come across. Having prowled through the interwebs, trial and premium tested a number of tools out there, I have come up with this selection of MUST HAVE Paid SEO tools you should grab your wallets to purchase when the need arises.
First Google Toolbar PageRank Update in 2011 Taking Place Now….
What is the Blue Arrow on Google Search Results: Keyboard Nav
Have you noticed the new blue arrow on Google SERPs yet? It apparently is a new accessibility feature for keyboard navigation from Google Instant search results.
Does Google Instant Render SEO Dead? – 10 Reasons For and Against
As you may know already, Google unveiled a huge change to its search user interface called Google Instant on the 8th September. Google Instant aims to speed up a users search experience by loading search results as users type their queries. Google instant is certainly a game changer in the SEM world and so every SEO and PPC expert has an opinion on its long term effect in the search marketing scene. Here are 10 articles (each) for and against the impact Google Instant would have on not only SEO but PPC… Read More »
SEO Hierarchy of Needs
I can’t remember where I stumbled on this diagram but I just found it in one of my archives. It pretty much sums up the SEO process for a new website or redesigned site from start to finish. Starting from Keyword research for content development, then matching your keyword research to the actual site architecture and other on page elements like title, header, and meta description tags. You can’t escape from good usability and web design when it comes to SEO – pages need to load fast, breadcrumb navigation is a given and good website design also improves the average time visitors stay on your site (Google apparently takes note of this). Finally link building is the crown jewel of SEO. We need to continuously build quality inbound links to improve our search rankings and authority….so here you go voila
How to Use the Thesaurus to Kick Start Your Keyword Research
Thesaurus’ came in very handy when I was essay writing in Uni and are still very relevant to me as a search marketing professional today. The thesaurus is my number 1 keyword research tool and the perfect resource for finding synonyms or related keywords. The beauty of using a thesaurus is that a bulk of keyword research has been done for you by thesaurus publishers. My favourite online thesaurus site is Thesaurus.com. Visual Thesaurus is also a handy tool if you are after a visual representation of keyword relationships (but it requires an annual subscription of about $20). I’d rather keep things simple by sticking with Thesaurus.com. Better still, thesaurus.com used in combination with the AdWords Keyword Tool is a clincher for your keyword research efforts.
How to Use Thesaurus.com and AdWords Keyword Tool
Type in your keyword in Thesaurus.com (in this example I typed in “architect”) – it should generate a list of results
Copy the URL- I copied ”http://thesaurus.com/browse/architect” for this example
Go the AdWords Keyword Tool – then copy and paste the thesaursus URL in the website text field.
AdWords Keyword tool crawls the specific page on thesaurus.com and returns even more keyword results
This not only helps you leverage two very powerful keyword tools at the same time but also ensures that no stones are left unturned over the course of your keyword research.
Real Time Search Looks Impressive
Google finally unveiled its real-time search results today and I have to say that it is so darn impressive I’m blogging about it. So what is real-time search? Well, according to Google:
Now, immediately after conducting a search, you can see live updates from people on popular sites like Twitter and FriendFeed, as well as headlines from news and blog posts published just seconds before. When they are relevant, we’ll rank these latest results to show the freshest information right on the search results page.
Google real-time search does exactly what it says on the can by returning some really impressive real time results from a variety of news sites, blogs and social media sites like Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, MySpace and Identi.ca (although Facebook and MySpace updates are yet to implemented).
Apart from its highly accurate real time relevancy, the real appeal of Google’s real time search results to me is the natural flowing integration it has with Google’s other static search results.
How to Calculate Your PageRank
Although I am not a proponent of PageRank as one of the more important ranking factors in SEO, high page rank values are still a common factor across authoritative sites.
Achieving a ‘decent’ PageRank is still part of most SEO campaigns for newly launched websites. ‘Decent’ in my opinion could be termed as a PageRank of 3 and above. I have to say I’ve seen websites with PRs of 1-3 rank No.1 for highly competitive key phrases.
So if you are a PageRank junkie or just an SEO whose client requires a decent PR as a key performance indicator (KPI) for their project, here is a nice PageRank Calculator table that guides you on approximately how many links you would need to acquire to get your desired PageRank
| PR | Links for PR3 | Links for PR4 | Links for PR5 | Links for PR6 | Links for PR7 | Links for PR 8 |
| PR 1 | 555 | 3,055 | 16,803 | 92,414 | 508,277 | 2,795,522 |
| PR 2 | 101 | 555 | 3,055 | 16,803 | 92,414 | 508,277 |
| PR 3 | 18.5 | 101 | 555 | 3,055 | 16,803 | 92,414 |
| PR 4 | 3.5 | 18.5 | 101 | 555 | 3,055 | 16,803 |
| PR 5 | 1 | 3.5 | 18.5 | 101 | 555 | 3,055 |
| PR 6 | 0.5 | 1 | 3.5 | 18.5 | 101 | 555 |
| PR 7 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 1 | 3.5 | 18.5 | 101 |
| PR 8 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 1 | 3.5 | 18.5 |
| PR 9 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 1 | 3.5 |
| PR 10 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 1 |
So to get a PR5 for a newly setup website, you would need only 1 PR7 link or 101 PR4 links. And to get a site up to PR6, you would need 19 PR6 links or 4 PR7 links or a massive 555 PR4 links.
