Archive for May, 2007

Domaining is becoming more popular these days. There’s a mindset that thinks buying a second domain and linking to your main domain will help your rankings in the Search Engine’s. And, it certainly is possible if done correctly. However, if this is just being done as a pure SEO play, I wouldn’t recommended it.

You should have a serious purpose for the second domain for this strategy to even have any effect. And, it’d be best to use an aged domain, with different registration information.

Some uses for the second domain might be to use it to create a microsite, and/or another ecommerce site, then slap some links on there to your main domain. If you’re reusing an old website, perhaps you could redirect or reuse the existing URL’s.

Try not to have to change the domain owner registration. And, register it for a long time…like 10 years plus. Host it on a different IP address than your main domain. And, fill it with great content. Perhaps use it as a company blog of some sort. It might be fun to use it as an experiment in Predictive SEO.

But, if you’re just using it to just boost your main domain in the rankings, then once again…I wouldn’t recommend it. You’d be better off using your resources and budget to develop and executing a custom SEO Strategy. If you don’t have in-house resources, or expertise, you might want to consider using an SEO Consultant.

How many people search for definitions on Google? Google will define a word if you type into the Search box a phrase like: “what is”, or “define” before the term you want defined.

I don’t have any research data on how many people search using the [define:] search query. Here is an example for the definition of Search Engine Marketing using the define: query.

When you ask Google a question using “What is”, the Web Definition appears above the Natural Search results. Sometimes Google includes Web Definitions just under the One Box. Although, the One Box has gone away and it’s now Google Universal Search.

As you can see, besides having the capacity to drive incremental website traffic, it is quite possible that a person looking for a definition can come to your website and convert into a buyer, subscriber, etc.

Here are a few SEO variables I’m testing:

- Colons vs hyphens.
- Spacing.
- Bold vs Italicize
- Not using “Glossary” in the URL.
- Whether it provides a lift in the SERP’s to mention the specific type of glossary, such as SEO Glossary in the URL string?
- Word Count between the body tags.
- The amount of definitions on a page.
- The importance of Link Popularity for Web Definitions.
- The usual elements like Title tag, Description, H1, etc.

I just created my Glossary and I’m still playing around with it testing what works (and what doesn’t work). I’ll blog about the results of my experimentation & traffic volume from web definitions in a future post.

Let’s start off with the size of the mobile market. You might guess that Mobile Search is not all that big. Well, compared to Web Search, that’s right. But, there is definitely a sizable market, and a audience to target.

The research firm M:Metrics provides mobile search data and demographic information. According to M:Metrics, there are approximately 11.2 million mobile searchers in the U.S. as of February 2007.

So, of that 11.2 million, who is searching on what Mobile Search Engine? After seeing the numbers, apparently the Mobile Search Market Share is very similar to Web Search.

46.7% of mobile searchers use Google.
35.4% use Yahoo.
7.2% use MSN.

Furthermore, 61.9% of mobile searchers are male, and 77.8 % of mobile searchers are between the ages of 18-44.

Roughly 26% of Mobile Searchers earn over $100,000/year.

Yahoo recently introduced OneSearch. In my opinion, it looks much nicer and is easier to use as a searcher than Google Mobile Ads. Although, as usual…Google makes it very easy to create a Mobile Search Campaign. Just log into Adwords, and create a campaign, and when creating the ad, you can choose between a: Text ad | Image ad | Local business ad | Mobile text ad | Click-to-play video ad.

Mobile Search is often used by people on the go, looking for a location, like a restaurant or movie.

Additionally, there is not a lot of competition for keyword bidding. That means cheaper keyword buys. To run a small test, it is safe to generate 20 keywords and allocate something like 1% of your Search Engine Marketing budget (Obviously this depends on how large or small your total budget is). Expect higher conversions, but just don’t expect much volume.

The mobile ad market is growing quickly, and is expected to be worth $11.3 billion in 2011, according to a recent report from Informa.

Overall Keyword Prices (CPC’s ) have been somewhat stable for the last 3 quarters according to Fathom’s Keyword Price Index. The index is based what Fathom Online measures from 20,000 keywords across multiple industries.

Is this really a true representation of the actual Keyword Price Climate? Or, is it just a measure of the average CPC across Fathom’s entire client base?

How accurate is the Keyword Price Index®?

We all know that the primary objective of a Search campaign dictates how you manage that campaign. For example, in a Branding campaign the primary objective is visibility. Usually, that a position-based success metric, and the Avg CPC is not as an important criteria. The avg CPC is watched and managed but the campaign success won’t be measured by a low avg cpc. It’s all about Awareness and findability.

Perhaps Fathom’s Keyword Price Index® is weighted more heavily on Branding campaigns?

Fathom Online Chairman and CEO Dean DeBiase said, “In watching keyword prices closely, it is clear that everything a company does before and after the bid is more important than any one particular keyword bid.”

Is this somewhat of a disclaimer, and a hint that YOUR keywords prices could vary significantly from HIS depending on your campaign objectives, and your expertise managing SEM campaigns?

Their official disclaimer says,” Fathom Online notes that the index is a representative sample and that actual market prices of keywords may vary greatly depending on a variety of marketplace factors.”

So, does their Keyword Price Index tell us ANYTHING?

It’s nice that we know their “Keyword Price Index” is based on multiple industries. But, that’s not enough to gauge the accuracy as a true index. It would be helpful if we knew what percentage of the index was based on Branding Campaigns vs Direct Response campaigns. What percentage of the campaign is based on long tail keywords? What composition of the index is using single-words, 2-word phrases, and 3-word phrases?

It’ll be interesting to watch the Did-it Conversion Index once it launches, and observe the correlation between these 2 indexes.

Here is a Social Media Optimization tutorial, beginning with a Benefit/Risk evaluation:

Benefits:
A successful campaign can mean:
1) Brand Awareness
2) Brand Engagement ( pages viewed, time on site)
3) Publicity
4) High amount of traffic to your website
5) Conversions
6) Good ROI
7) Inbound Link Generation

Social Media enables the marketer to create a conversation with the target audience. Social Media can spread across multiple mediums very quickly, and increase your advertising “reach“. Social Media is trackable & measurable, so you can calculate an ROI.

Risks:
1) No guarantee the article submission will become “popular” and make it to the homepage of the Social Media site.
2) Backlash at the advertiser for some reason.

Key Factors of a Social Media Optimization:
1) Focus on a specific Social media site (eg: Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, etc).
2) Target your audience.
3) Development & Creation of quality content with a hook (humor, shock, news, etc).
4) Track, and Measure conversions to calculate ROI.
5) No guarantees the submission will hit the 1st page. A good track record is 1 in 3 submissions hit frontpage. That’s in my opinion with no industry research to back me up. Just a guesstimate.

The creation of quality content can’t be over emphasized.

Does it matter who submits the article? Maybe yes, maybe no. Powerposters definitely have a track record of submissions reaching the homepage. But, if the article is quality content, and strategically written, then it has a good chance of making the homepage without the use of a Digg Powerposter.

What determines if the Social Media campaign is successful? That really depends what the business objectives are. If it is part of direct response, then possibly a good ROI. Perhaps the business objectives are Branding. So, maybe it’s measuring awareness of a new brand or product, or Brand engagement. Perhaps the objective is to generate inbound links to assist in the website’s overall SEO objectives.

According to eMarketer: The buzz around collaborative Web 2.0 technologies keeps growing.