by Chris Silver Smith

As you may be aware, Bing is now powering the Yahoo! search engine.

We’ve been watching this development since it emerged and comparing results.

For the most part, the organic keyword listings on Yahoo SERPs match up with Bing’s one-to-one, but we do see a few notable differences. (more…)

by Chris Silver Smith

For a while now, I’ve been covering how Google’s increasing focus upon quality measurements are steadily translating into actual ranking factors. Four years ago, I first conjectured that Usability could supplant SEO. Back then, we could see that Google’s human evaluators added quality ratings into the mix, affecting page rankings. Since then, Google added helpful tools for usability testing and page speed diagnostics. This year they’ve continued this progression by incorporating page speed as a ranking factor and the recent “Mayday Update” apparently shifted some ranking factor weighting from keyword relevancy to quality criteria.

Considering Google’s desire to quantify and assess elements of quality in webpages, what are some other possible things which they might attempt to algorithmically measure and base rankings upon?

One possible area which occurs to me is in testing the text body of pages, particularly that of the main body of articles and blog posts. (more…)

by Chris Silver Smith

At the SMX Advanced conference in Seattle last week, the keynote session with Matt Cutts has become an expected feature, but it’s also one of the most highly anticipated and attended sessions of the entire conference. The search engines love to take advantage of search marketing conferences to make major announcements, and Matt Cutts has been known to drop both major and minor bombshells during these sessions. For instance, during last year’s session, he stated that the practice of “link-sculpting” (using “nofollow” parameters on links to advantageously design the flow of PageRank within a site) was now pointless, because Google had implemented nofollow such that it did not conserve PageRank, but instead a nofollowed link merely evaporated PR.

It was clear at this year’s “You & A With Matt Cutts” that he and Danny Sullivan had planned in advance to launch directly into addressing one of the top most-recent issues of interest to webmasters: the “Mayday Update” — so-named because the algorithmic shift occurred roughly around the first week of May, and because affected webmasters were left with a helpless feeling after their pages dropped in rank for long-tail search queries.

Matt and Danny opened the session in a really jocular fashion by wearing inflatable life-jackets, as a nod to the Mayday algo change. They followed that up by handing each other caffeine-free sodas, which they quickly deprecated in favor of fully-caffeinated Coca-Colas. (As you may know, Google began rolling out an infrastructure/processing change this year, called “Caffeine”, which allows Google to rapidly absorb fresh content, process it for ranking purposes, and display the new content in SERPs. Some webmasters who were concerned over the Mayday Update had wondered whether it might have been caused as some side effect of the Caffeine change.)

After the lifejackets and soda hijinks were over, Matt stated clearly and seriously that the Mayday Update was separate from and in no way caused by the Caffeine change. His statements further underscored statements he’d made earlier online. According to him, the ranking algorithm development team had decided, after consideration and testing, to publish a change based upon some “quality factors”, reducing the rankings of some deeper content pages for longer-tail queries.

Just as Vanessa Fox had opined in her piece on the Mayday Update, the weighting for keyword relevancy factors was likely reduced some in comparison to quality factors.

One thing that Matt suggested to those who wished to counteract Mayday’s effects was (more…)

by Chris Silver Smith

One of the most basic, and effective ranking signals used by all major search engines is the text put into a page’s TITLE tags. The element is so foundational, and so strong that it’s one of the first things that any organic search marketer recommends for non-optimized sites, yet few people know how to do it really effectively. Here’s a few tips for formulating titles that work for a great many common types of webpages.

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by Chris Silver Smith

Christine Churchill, President of KeyRelevance, and Chris Silver Smith, Director of Optimization Strategies at KeyRelevance, will be speaking at various sessions at this year’s SMX Advanced conference in Seattle, Washington.

June 8:

• Pump Up Those Conversions! (Christine Churchill)
• Twitter, Real Time Search & Real Time SEO (Chris Silver Smith)

June 9:

• What You Don’t Know About You Tube (Chris Silver Smith)

We’ll also be helping with moderation on a few sessions, yet to be determined.

SMX Advanced is known for the bleeding-edge search marketing tactics presented, catering to an audience of agencies and experienced in-house marketers, and we expect this one will be no exception!

Be sure to get registered right away if you haven’t already, since the organizers keep this one sharply limited and it’s expected to sell out.

Note added after publication:
Christine Churchill will also be speaking at SMX Advanced London scheduled for 17 & 18 May.

May 17:

• Keyword Research: Beyond the Ordinary (Christine Churchill)

May 18:

• The Art of Measuring Local and Mobile Search Results(Christine Churchill)

Christine will also be moderating the Top Ten Customised Search Analytics Reports and QA Moderating the Advanced Tactics for Promoting YouTube Videos and Search Ad Quality Under the Microscope Sessions.

By Chris Silver Smith

My article covering how Google’s fixation with Usability reveals local search ranking factors published yesterday on Search Engine Land. In it, I described a number of common website elements which few-to-no marketers have ever cited as ranking signals. Some of these elements, such as whether or not a site may have employee profile pages, or whether a site displays prices for products and services offered, might be controversial in search engine marketing circles.

CNN's homepage checked with Google Page Speed - Google introduced Site Speed as a new ranking factor in 2010, and provided tools like this Page Speed extension in FireFox to assist webmasters with Usability improvements.

Other elements I described have been cited by other experts as beneficial for search marketing, even though they may’ve recommended them for reasons other than those I outlined. Inclusion of images, maps and locations pages make sense for multiple reasons in local business websites.

The thought and methodology behind coming up with these factors is sound, and has allowed me to successfully predict present and future search engine optimization factors where others have not. It makes logical sense that while Google is interested in Usability, they will seek ways to quantify and measure it on websites, just as they have done with Site Speed. And some very easy usability elements to quantify include common website elements such as the About Us, Contact Us, and Locations pages.

Back in 2006, I began predicting that the practice of Search Engine Optimization might become replaced by Usability. Unquestionably, this change is occuring to some degree right now.

I’ve known a lot of top corporations which are involved in very sophisticated paid search marketing and search engine optimization, but few of them are also including usability testing and user-centered design considerations when performing a site redesign. Google has tried to make the importance of user-experience abundantly clear by actually going public with their adoption of page load times in determining search result rankings, but many companies are still not connecting the dots.

Here at KeyRelevance, we have long prioritized usability in our assessments of web sites’ design. When companies contract with us to audit their websites, we offer both a Technical Website Review as well as a Usability Review. However, many companies eschew our Usability Reviews or dismiss them as less-important.

For some reason, people often react to usability recommendations from experts in an emotional way, rather like how a portion of the population avoids going to their doctors for a yearly physical. For some companies, there are already so many dependencies and requirements going into web design projects that they can’t include more without losing impetus. For others, individuals with authority over projects have egos which do not want to lose discretionary control over project decisions which could be altered if usability research ran counter to what they desire to do.

Usability testing can be the difference between a design that becomes highly popular versus one which is rapidly forgotten. Google itself is an example of how user-centered design will translate into success. More design options can be scientifically decided, honing down to interfaces which will maximize ease-of-use and enjoyment-of-use. Instead of being avoided, usability testing should be embraced — after all, in the business world we’re looking to increase the potential for success in our company projects, right?

Knowing Google’s heavy focus upon usability factors, consider that if you’re not doing iterative Usability testing and adjustment for User-Experience, you really may not be doing “Advanced SEO”.

If you’d like a thorough Usability Audit of your site, contact Key Relevance today to schedule our review and get a report of items to consider before your next sitewide redesign is completed.

Also, check out some of the free tools that Google has been providing to help you with portions of usability analysis. Try out Google Browser Size, Google Page Speed, and look at the Site Speed reports in Google Webmaster Tools for your website.

by Mike Churchill

As interest in Bing continues, and with the pending launch of the Microsoft/Yahoo paid search partnership, advertising in Microsoft adCenter PPC is becoming more viable. One concern is that adCenter does not allow one to opt-in/opt-out of their Search Network Partners. Here is a breakdown of the big three and their options for Ad Placement. On all three ad platforms, advertising on the Search or Content Network is optional on a campaign-by-campaign basis. Once you decide to use a given network, however, the details begin to vary:
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by Chris Silver Smith

Yesterday, I went down to Dallas’s famous Texas Stadium to film and photograph its widely-publicised demolition. I often film and photograph events near me as practice and example for search engine optimization. In this case, my optimization work was fairly straightforward, and the results were spectacular. Here’s the video I shot of the Texas Stadium Implosion:

(This wasn’t the first Dallas Cowboys Football-related spectacle I’ve covered – I previously photographed the tragedy of the collapse of the Dallas Cowboys practice field roof near where I live.)

My video’s quality actually wasn’t all that hot, I must admit. The demolition was to occur a little after daybreak, at near 7:00 a.m., and it was cloudy. I did try to get a vantage point as close as possible where there was very little jockeying for position from the crowd of thousands who showed to witness the event. I also planned ahead sufficiently to prepare by bringing a folding chair, allowing me to stand above the crowd around me.

But, I was unsure how long the demolition would take – things like this can be unpredictable. So, I set my camera (a Nikon Coolpix S51 that I’ve used all the way around the world) to a little lower resolution, “small size 320″, instead of higher resolution. This gave me more minutes of film time, and allowed me room to shoot some photos as well.

Even considering that my video was not of the highest quality of those posted for the demolition, and even though some others had better vantage points, my video became one of the top two most popular posted on YouTube, ranking in searches there as well as within Google, under Universal Search. So, how did I accomplish it in one day flat?

It starts with the title – I predicted that people would search for both “Texas Stadium Implosion” as well as “Texas Stadium Demolition” to find this content. So, I included BOTH of those terms in the title. I also wanted to include “Dallas Cowboys” in it, and try to describe it compellingly to increase clickthroughs, so I mentioned “Epic”. Here’s the title I engineered to attempt to target many of the most popular search query combinations people might use in trying to find videos of the explosion:

“Texas Stadium Demolition – The Epic Dallas Cowboys’ Texas Stadium Implosion!”

Second, I gave the video a keyword-rich description which further reinforced each of the main keyword phrases I was targeting. I custom-wrote the description, mentioning a small amount of the facts outlined in the Wikipedia article for the Texas Stadium.

One subtlety of the description was my inclusion of a link over to my personal blog, where I’d written a matching blog post about the experience, “Texas Stadium Implosion – Huge Demolition Event“. This allowed people who came across the video to read up my longer description of the whole deal.

In YouTube, I did a few other things as well. I specified which of the three video stills would be used as the thumbnail preview for the vid when it appears in search results (oh, how I wish they’d allow more choices or would allow one to upload a custom image for that).

I also set loosest requirements for user interactions with the video page, allowing people to rapidly interact with the page with instant gratification. Allowing instant gratification in this manner can encourage more and faster user-interactions with the page such as comments, video responses, voting on comments, ratings, embedding and syndication. While setting loose requirements often makes major corporations very nervous, my settings show how enabling rapid interactions can push the success of a video, since many of these YouTube components are signals for user-interest and therefore rankings. Having these interactions appear rapidly is more vital under Google’s RealTime Search algorithms.

Finally, I also set the Date to display “Today”, and associated the video with the map location of the Texas Stadium in Irving, allowing the vid to essentially be geocoded to appear in local search results in Google Maps.

Outside of YouTube, I twittered about the Texas Stadium implosion frequently, and also posted my still photos of it on Flickr at “Texas Stadium Implosion“.

In my blog post about the demolition, I embedded the video. I also linked to the video from the Flickr images and from my Twitter updates. I later blogged again from another blog, posting “Texas Stadium Demolition Case Study – YouTube Still Tops For Video Promotion” on Natural Search Blog.

What were the results? Well, the video has had over 55,000 views yesterday, and over a hundred comments!

My Texas Stadium video appears prominently in various related Google Search results:

It also appears prominently within various YouTube search results, allowing people seeking it to find it easily and interact with it further:

Google automatically is generating a Google Trends graph now, highlighting how “Texas Stadium implosion video” is now one of the top-five trending phrases today:

As further evidence that Google has found the terms to be important, Google’s Real-Time Search Results interface has automatically kicked in, scrolling away Twitter and blog mentions of the event:

All this to show that achieving top rankings in YouTube and Google search results for video search is not rocket science! There are a few other subtle things that I did in performing the video optimizations, but I’ve outlined many of the most-impactful ones in this article.

To get Google Real-Time Search to sing in harmony with keyword search and YouTube search, it’s vital to post content as rapidly as possible as the related search terms first begin trending. It’s also vital to perform solid video SEO, and to encourage rapid/frequent user-generated content on the video’s main page in YouTube.

I know that many of you reading this who are building video optimization tactics for promoting major corporation websites are probably concerned about whether you are too vulnerable to malicious comments on your video pages – and this is a valid concern! If you read the comments on my video page, you’ll see that people have used foul language, insulted one another, gotten into arguments, posted conspiracy theories, etc.

Cool thing is, YouTube provides robust tools for controlling your video pages. You can delete these comments and also go back to change the setting to require that all comments and “video responses” get moderated and approved by you prior to publishing. So, for corporate work, I’d suggest initially allowing the loose interaction rules until your video really goes hot, then circle back around to delete comments you don’t want to appear and tighten the posting to enable your moderation. In this way, you can achieve popular content, then after your video is established, sanitize any content you dislike and lock it down to keep further from appearing. So, your risk of negativity is very temporary.

Using an interlocking strategy of social media, realtime search tactics, and solid video SEO will allow you to maximize the success of your video content, giving you a significant weapon to use in your online marketing arsenal.

by Chris Silver Smith

So, if you’re feeling intimidated by how Google Maps works, and can’t figure out what to do to get them to rank your website higher in the search results, I’ve got a tip for you. This tip is mainly for small-to-medium businesses who are pretty new to online marketing, and this is simply one of the simplest ways to get listed higher than you currently may be.

This tip is really pretty simple: Claim your business listing!

Yes, that’s right! If you merely claim your business in Google Maps, this factor alone can help you rank higher than other businesses which have not claimed their own listings in Google. This is an open secret amongst local search marketers!

This is one of the FEW ranking factors within Google Maps which Google itself has actually publicly STATED will benefit rankings by some degree. From surveying hundreds and thousands of listings in many cities, I can confirm that this ranking factor appears to be very influential.

There are a few reasons why Google rewards businesses which claim their listings. First, listings claimed by their owners contain information which Google and consumers can trust better — Google obtains business listings from a great many sources, and a common problem is that old, stale and defunct business listings get into directories, but it’s hard to figure out what needs fixing without getting input from the business owners.

Second, Google wants to expand information they have about businesses, so when you’ve claimed your listing, be sure to add in other information about your company within the Google Local Business Center interfaces.

Third, Google desires to get lots of small businesses to be very familiar with them, so that one day you might become self-serve advertising clients and purchase some of their ads.

There are other incentives to claim your listing, too. Businesses which claim their listings in Google have a better chance of achieving “Landmark Icon” status, enabling them to appear on more map views when users browse their area.

Also, Google has sent claimed listings “Favorite Places” decals which can enable consumers who pass by your store to grab a digital address to your Place Page in Google Maps with their cellphones.

So, if you haven’t done so already, claim your business in Google Maps and begin reaping the rewards!

by Chris Silver Smith

There are so many social media sites out there that a common problem amongst marketers is coming up with ways to effectively manage many multiple accounts. While individuals involved in social media for personal use may only have a handful of sites they’ve registered with, and only two or three that they really frequent, marketers may desire to interact with dozens of services.

From a marketing standpoint, this poses a significant problem. Marketers desire to promote via as many channels as possible in order to target demographic groups loyal to different ones. As you increase the number of unique social media channels, however, it becomes more labor-intensive, and the Law of Diminishing Returns kicks in at some point. For a small business, the correspondingly lower return on investment hits pretty quickly.

Enter a whiz-bang new service that addresses this need: dlvr.it, currently in beta, brought to us by the people who made Pheedo.

Dlvr.it enables you to take one or more RSS feed sources, and then set them to automatically deliver to some of the most common social media sites out there: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Identi.ca.

I’ve tried out a few different services for accomplishing this sort of delivery before, including Pingdom and Twitterfeed, but I find dlvr.it to be superior. For example, Twitterfeed has been very klunky to try to configure, and I’ve found to be very, very slow at sending updates out. By contrast, dlvr.it provides a number of fine-tuning settings to allow you to specify frequency of checking feeds for updates, and when set at the most-frequent update checks it will publish status updates within minutes of a feed.

The Filters settings are even better – allowing you to make the service distribute posts according to criteria such as if a feed update uses a certain Category or if it contains a certain keyword sequence within the text or title, etc. So, for instance, I contribute to a few different group blogs, such as SEM Clubhouse, and for my Facebook and LinkedIn updates I might only wish to have the blog posts distributed which I’ve personally written. So, I could set a Filter that checks to see if the SEMClubhouse RSS feed update contains the “by Chris Silver Smith” attribution within the post and only deliver if the character string is present.

Now, dlvr.it has only recently been launched into beta service, so it will be interesting to see if it starts having any sorts of lagtime issues as I’ve seen with other services that have been in production for longer, and likely have more users to excuse what may be their growing pains. Also, it’ll be great to see if dlvr.it begins to broaden out to allow more social media sites for you to integrate your feeds into.

But, it seems clear that dlvr.it may be the current best-in-class for social media syndication services, and will be an invaluable tool for marketers to use for social media optimization.

Write once, and automatically deliver many!