Monday, November 30th, 2009
Hughes Exterminators has just begun their search engine optimization campaign with SEER Interactive. Hughes Exterminators specializes in commercial & home pest control solutions in Southern Florida.
Friday, November 27th, 2009
Couchbase, a dynamic startup that provides elastic data management software for web applications through their proprietary NoSQL and Membase Servers, has teamed up with SEER for their SEO campaign.
Monday, November 23rd, 2009
By now most of you know my ongoing love / hate affair with twitter, in my posting saying I hated it, then my post tell you I planned a amazing Chicago vacation using it, and now I am back to hate, sorry be being a flip flopper!
I have a couple thousand followers on twitter, which is great! As much as I advocate against attaching your ego to your twitter followers, as my followers grow I take that as a vote that I am putting something of value out there, more followers hopefully means I am doing something to attract and retain followers (since I am not one of those people who follows everyone back).
With that said, I recently had an issue with my blog, & I posted it here:
(Image removed)
With 2,000+ followers I honestly expected that I would have 4-5 responses of people who I hopefully help out with my posts, jumping to help me out. NOPE. Crickets, except for 1, luckily that 1 was all I needed!
(Image removed)
Jaamit thank you so much, hope all is well with you and the SEO team at Freshegg!
For the record, I may have met Jaamit, but we had never corresponded before and really didn’t know each other.
Darn, I gotta get some more programmers following me!
Thank God one person jumped in to help me out!
The hard facts that I have found from this experience are:
1 – How many people follow you means NOTHING if in your time of need some of them don’t / can’t help you.
2 – Sometimes, when you have a real issue you may have to post it 3-4 times (not more than once a day) to ensure that a larger percentage of your followers will see it, we all miss a TON of good tweets, even from our friends (this is what I think happened in my case).
3 – Growing followers is important because you can’t expect everyone you follow to know the answer to your questions, so growing your count is important and follower diversity is important.
4 – Answering people’s questions (especially those with some reach and well ranking blogs) is a GREAT way to build high quality links, they often link out and share the love, heck it worked for Jaamit he’s linked above, and he never asked for a thing, he just was willing to help a link back is my way of saying thanks!
The moral of this story is summed up in point 5.
5 – If you have the time, using search.twitter.com for commonly searched phrases in your industry. Then see if people are having problems with something you can EASILY help them out with. Answer their questions, is a great way to build quality followers and potentially links. I mentioned that way back in my link building with twitter post.
Easy enough, next time you are stumped in your linkbuilding strategy, think about going to Twitter search and seeing who is asking questions you can answer (in a non-salesly way)
Monday, November 23rd, 2009
By now most of you know my ongoing love / hate affair with twitter, in my posting saying I hated it, then my post tell you I planned a amazing Chicago vacation using it, and now I am back to hate, sorry be being a flip flopper!
I have a couple thousand followers on twitter, which is great! As much as I advocate against attaching your ego to your twitter followers, as my followers grow I take that as a vote that I am putting something of value out there, more followers hopefully means I am doing something to attract and retain followers (since I am not one of those people who follows everyone back).
With that said, I recently had an issue with my blog, & I posted it here:
(Image removed)
With 2,000+ followers I honestly expected that I would have 4-5 responses of people who I hopefully help out with my posts, jumping to help me out. NOPE. Crickets, except for 1, luckily that 1 was all I needed!
(Image removed)
Jaamit thank you so much, hope all is well with you and the SEO team at Freshegg!
For the record, I may have met Jaamit, but we had never corresponded before and really didn’t know each other.
Darn, I gotta get some more programmers following me!
Thank God one person jumped in to help me out!
The hard facts that I have found from this experience are:
1 How many people follow you means NOTHING if in your time of need some of them dont / can’t help you.
2 Sometimes, when you have a real issue you may have to post it 3-4 times (not more than once a day) to ensure that a larger percentage of your followers will see it, we all miss a TON of good tweets, even from our friends (this is what I think happened in my case).
3 Growing followers is important because you cant expect everyone you follow to know the answer to your questions, so growing your count is important and follower diversity is important.
4 Answering peoples questions (especially those with some reach and well ranking blogs) is a GREAT way to build high quality links, they often link out and share the love, heck it worked for Jaamit hes linked above, and he never asked for a thing, he just was willing to help a link back is my way of saying thanks!
The moral of this story is summed up in point 5.
5 If you have the time, using search.twitter.com for commonly searched phrases in your industry. Then see if people are having problems with something you can EASILY help them out with. Answer their questions, is a great way to build quality followers and potentially links. I mentioned that way back in my link building with twitter post.
Easy enough, next time you are stumped in your linkbuilding strategy, think about going to Twitter search and seeing who is asking questions you can answer (in a non-salesly way)
Thursday, November 19th, 2009
Site speed is becoming increasingly important in Google ranking with respect to both SEO and PPC so we wanted to share some of the tools & articles we’ve found recently that examine the impact of site speed from a few different angles.
Check out this video from Google called Lets Make the Web Faster, featuring interviews with Google engineering execs about site speed.
SiteSpeed Impact on SEO & PPC
SearchEngineLand posted an article recently called Site Speed, Googles Next Ranking Factor which gives more insight into the increasing importance of site speed on SEO & PPC performance. With respect to SEO, adding site speed to Googles algorithm of ranking factors means that fast loading sites could potentially rank higher than slow loading sites. With respect to PPC, load time is one of the factors that determines Quality Score.
What does this mean for your bottom line? Googles organic ranking algorithm already contains hundreds of factors, but if site speed is weighed more heavily in the future, it is possible that having a poor performing site could lead to a decrease in rankings, translating into fewer visitors and less revenue. For PPC, a slow loading site can cause Quality Score to drop, meaning that youll be paying higher CPCs and narrowing profit margins.
Site Speed Impact on the Consumer
Every Second Counts: How Website Performance Impacts Shopper Behavior, an article by Get Elastic, summarizes a study conducted recently by Forrester Research about the impact of site speed on the consumer.
The study proposes an acceptable threshold for acceptable web page response times of 2 seconds. Some repercussions for slow rendering websites include:
How to Improve Your Sites Speed
YSlow
If you would like to test your sites load time, try Yahoo!s YSlow, which analyzes web pages and determines why they are slow, based on Yahoo!s rules for high performance websites. YSlow is integrated with the Firebug web development tool, so youll need to install Firebug before getting started.
Here is a sneak peek of what kind of information YSlow provides, using Virgin Americas Virgin Unite website as an example
(Image currently not available)
Closure Tools
Google also recently added Closure Tools to Google Code Labs (a collection of developer products that are still in their formative stages). Closure Tools help developers build rich web applications with JavaScript that is powerful and efficient. Closure tools include:
A JavaScript optimizer that compiles JavaScript into compact, high performance code
A comprehensive JavaScript library
An easy templating system for Java & JavaScript
WebPageTest
WebPagTest.org is another tool that allows you easily to measure and analyze web page performance. Here is a peek at the kind of results this open source tool generates, using the same Virgin Unite homepage for the test:
(Image currently not available)
Lets Make The Web Faster!
Visit http://code.google.com/speed/ to access a variety of resources for improving site performance including:
Have any tools/resources you have used to determine/improve site speed? Post them here!
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
If you are running a Google AdWords account for your ecommerce store and you offer Paypal, you may be optimizing around incomplete data. Why? Because orders placed with Paypal are not automatically tracked in the AdWords interface.
When a customer completes a transaction using Paypal, their payment information is collected in Paypals domain, which means that they leave your store and dont return when their purchase is completed. Since they are not sent to your order confirmation page where your conversion tracking code is installed when the purchase is completed, the cookie the customer received when they clicked on your PPC ad is never passed back to the Google server and therefore the conversion isnt reported in the AdWords interface.
Here is an example of how the process works: Lets say that I am searching for flights and I click on a PPC ad for Southwest Airlines and I decide to pay using Paypal. Check out what happens:
(Image removed)
To illustrate how missing out on Paypal conversion & revenue data can result in lack of transparency leaving you unable to make well informed optimization decisions, check out the scenario below:
Lets say that on average, 20% of your total purchases are processed through Paypal. Here is a look at the revenue youll see in your reports with standard Google conversion tracking enabled (assuming youre using a dynamic variable to track revenue):
(Image removed)
Since were assuming in this example that Google is only capturing 80% of conversions and revenue (the remaining 20% being processed through Paypal), below is a look at the account with Paypal orders included:
(Image removed)
Actual revenue is $37,871. Without knowing that $7,574 is missing and which campaigns were generating this missing revenue, you would not have all of the data necessary to make solid optimization decisions, potentially pulling back or even pausing campaigns that dont appear to be doing well but actually are.
Installing Paypal Tracking in 5 simple steps
In order to track conversions generated through Paypal, youll need to have Buy Now buttons enabled. Setting them up is simple. Heres how:
1. From your Paypal account, Click the Merchant Tools tab and select Buy Now Buttons under Website Payments
2. Complete the fields then click Add More Options
3. In the Customize your Buyers Experience section, enter the URL of your order confirmation page** in the Successful Payment URL field.
**You will need to create a separate order confirmation page for Paypal order confirmations. This is where you will install the Google conversion tracking script.
4. Click Create Button Now
5. Copy the code in the HTML Code for Websites text box and paste it into the code of your website.
Viola!
Edit Existing Buy Now Buttons
If you already have Buy Now buttons enabled, youll just need to modify the code on the page where the button is installed.
In the source of the page where you display a Buy it Now button, install the following code between the exiting form tags:
(Image removed)
**Make sure that you install the Google conversion tracking script on the new order confirmation page youve created.
Tracking Revenue with Paypal
The steps above will allow you to record conversions using a static variable. If you would like to generate revenue data using a dynamic variable, youll need to take a few extra steps. Youll also need to have knowledge of CGI (or hire someone who does) which will enable you to generate a dynamic webpage.
Each time a purchase is made on your site using Paypal, data about that purchase is automatically sent to the order confirmation page you specify to Paypal. This data (such as total order value) is sent in a CGI POST and in order to be able to capture this information, your order confirmation page URL needs to be dynamic.
First, create a new Google Purchase/Sale conversion tracking script using totalValue instead of the dynamic shopping cart variable you would normally use to capture an order subtotal/total value.
If youve never generated or installed a code using a dynamic variable, Google has a great video tutorial that explains the process step by step.
Once the Google conversion code is created, youll need to create another code for dynamically generating your conversion confirmation page. The page must be able to do the following:
* Extract the amount parameter from the CGI POST
* Set the JavaScript variable totalValue (that you entered into the Value field when generating the Google conversion code) equal to the amount parameter from the CGI POST
* Include the JavaScript code snippet generated in the AdWords interface between the body tags
Google has a great whitepaper on conversion tracking with detailed instructions on setting up conversion tracking for third party shopping carts including Paypal, eBay & More. Check it out here.
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
It’s very possible your link juice is leaking. From discontinued products to press releases from years back, below are 7 ways to cork the leak and make the most of your existing site.
1. Newsletter Archives: Even if you don’t have any, there’s still value at the end of this for you.
Check the PR & backlinks coming into old newsletters. Newsletters could be several years old and are waiting for internal linking. Find some decent anchor text in them and links into the pages you’re targeting now. The four readers a 2004 newsletter attracts each year will not mind. Are there links you can strip out of them to lower the amount of links on the page? Check that too.
Oh you don’t have a newsletter archive? While it may take some time, why not see if there is some adspace available on old newsletters. I’m sure there’s plenty of companies out there that would gladly pimp out their old newsletters for a few extra bucks.
2. Webmaster Tools:
The Not Found section, pictured below, shows all of the pages that Google can no longer find. It also shows the number of links pointing to each page. Are there any pages that can be redirected to an updated page that’s currently being targeted? Are there any pages that could be 301 redirected to the homepage? Webmaster tools is one of the few places where Google truly tells you what’s up.
3. Press Release Services
There are dozens of press release services available for when you want to spread you big news. While these aren’t internal links as the post says, these are entirely under your control….unless you’re unaware.
Answer the following questions before using an unfamiliar or new service:
- Does the release level you’re selecting allow for links?
- Does it allow for custom anchor text or only absolute links?
- Is there a certain text threshold required before the release qualifies for links?
- Are there different character limit levels that could allow more links in the release? (eg: under 500 allows 1 link, 501 – 1000 allows 2 links)
- Are links not allowed in the opening paragraph? This is important when other sites pick up the release and only list the first 250 characters or so.
- Are any weird redirects placed on links?
When you’re paying for a release, you want to make the most of your linking opportunity within it. Don’t be misled by the stipulations some release sites have listed above.
4. Unused Websites:
Whether they were purchased for a contest that is now over, purchased for the common site misspelling or whatever reason, there are often stagnant links that aren’t being used to their fullest potential. As Laura mentioned in a previous post about Starbucks, they STILL have not linked over an old contest page that has hundreds of external links. While Starbucks probably doesn’t need the links from this contest to rank, 99% of other companies do. So…
- Find old websites
- 301 redirect any misspelling or duplicate content sites not being used to your original site.
- 301 redirect old contest sites to a related page or back to your homepage.
- Benefit from corking your link juice.
5. Old Press Releases:
We covered new press releases, but what if you have an internal press release section that’s dated back for years?
- Find releases with value (backlinks, PR, still cached somewhat frequently)
- Search for anchor text you can use & link it up to currently targeted pages
- Strip out old unnecessary links
- Reward yourself by reading about awkward office conversations.
6. Duplicate pages splitting link value:
Again, this is something that can be solved by digging into WMTools. Google lists out in the HTML Suggestions tab under Diagnostics where your site has duplicate title tags. If the engines don’t like duplicate content and they are reporting on the pages that have duplicate title tags, checking out the pages could lead you to find duplicates caused by capitalization in the urls (eg: examplesite.com/Bananarama vs examplesite.com/bananarama)
Link value could be split, especially if your url structure isn’t consistent across the site.
7. Secure pages & Non WWW vs WWW:
The last one is less involved than all the others, but seven is such a nice number. Make sure https pages aren’t showing up and that the non-www version is being 301 redirect to the www version or vice versa.
There are dozens of ways to get the most out of your existing links. Drop some favorites as comments if so moved.