Filed under: SEO - SEM GENERAL
I regularly read SEOmoz (am also a subscriber to the Pro tools, which are nice) and happened to have come across a really eye-opening post today. Define competitors a step by step process – This is one of those marketing aspects to SEO I really like! I have oftentimes gone to those stakeholders who own various product pages or websites and asked them who their indirect competitors are and their direct competitors. This should not be overlooked at all and anyone in marketing today (yes, especially those involved in “print” or offline marketing) should really understand this and apply these basic tactics.
The indirect competitors are those that you might not normally think of when someone asks who your competition is. These are found when going to Google and typing in some of your most important keywords (non-branded of course) and see who comes up in those first few rankings. These are as important to note as your direct competitors are.
Get to know all your competition and optimize, link build and focus on displacing them. Good Luck and enjoy the good read!
May 14, 2010
You may have already heard the latest from Google, but with the new Caffeine update page load speed is now coming to reality.
Here are some great proven ways to reduce your page load time (Most I got from attending the SMX West Conference in Santa Clara!)
1. Go to Google’s code articles area for some real helpful insight.
2. Speed increases conversions! Time on site and page views do reduce bounce rat! Actually Google presented this case study, but if you think of your own behavior, do you hang on a site that takes 10 seconds to load? I know I don’t).
3. Server Side Caching is good!
4. GZip compression – seems an obvious choice.
5. Image compression
6. Externalize as much JS and CSS as makes sense.
7. Using CSS Sprites (Amazon does this) csssprites.org/
8. Use of Squid, very inexpensive, and my favorite because it makes the site IP appear as though it’s “in country” and not in middle-of-nowhere-usa.
Should be a regular part of your developer’s build process!
April 13, 2010
This topic might not be a revelation to some of you, but to others “conversion optimization” is often overlooked in our industry. One of the more frustrating things I encounter are those either deep in the SEO industry, (I’m talking about those that have been around for years), or those who supposedly know marketing, and haven’t thought beyond the keyword rank. You know, those who report only on their highly ranked keywords and show not much more than this. Yes, anyone can rank really well in the SERPs on any keyword, it’s the “what occurs after that they don’t often think of.
Most think, “well that’s the developer’s problem” or “I just get the visitors to click through, it’s now up to the product owner to do the rest”. Well, guess what folks, you the SEO, play a very valuable role here too. Your job is to help the visitor find, and get to what they need, in as few clicks as possible.
- Think like a visitor – try real hard, I promise you it does work. How would you feel about this page or site?
- How would that same visitor rate your navigational interface? A fairly high bounce rate plays a huge role in the poor navigability. Think in terms of 3 clicks or less, and not more if possible.
- How busy is your landing page? Is it so busy you get lost or real confused?
- Look to Amazon.com as the leader in conversion optimization for e commerce.
- Have you checked out your competitor’s pages? What is they do right? Do some of those ideas seem clear and simple or something you might be able to apply?
- Make it as simple as possible for your visitors to find and buy what they need right away! Do not make them guess where a product might live.
- Start with your Meta Descriptions tags (which should all be unique on each page). Do they really describe your pages and help your visitors to convert to the right pages? If so, you will find yourself with great targeted visitors – the quality visitors how will buy.
- Another no-brainer is to look at those keywords your visitors are typing in your internal site search. Are they trying to find things you have no content for?
- Really know your audience. Often they aren’t thinking the way you, an internal corporate marketer who uses company acronyms and lingo, they are possibly using different keywords or phrases you might not be.
- Remember, like SEO, this too is an ongoing process.
You want to know the secret to real ROI in SEO? I can tell you conversion optimization is a real ingredient here. Give it a go – crack on and share your ideas!
March 28, 2010
When putting together a newly revised executive report I can think of some good metrics that must be included such as CPC, Engine Impression Share, Quality Score Data, and competitive review to name a few. Keep in mind this is an “executive report” you don’t want to load the report up with too many numbers and metrics that are really only necessary to the day to day campaign manager.
So, what sort of executive reports have you created? What have you learned to avoid and most importantly what has really been the must have metric that gets called out in the CEO meetings?Source: Efficient Frontier
August 12, 2009
I want to forewarn anyone reading this, this is strictly my opinion and I feel the need to share it. I attended just the first day of SES NYC, this is my third time attending this conference now. I have to say that really not much has changed and I was pretty disappointed. I do realize it’s a very heavy prospecting and networking event. If you have never been, buckle up! This is really not a place where the advanced SEO person can go in sit in on a session and walk away feeling like they learned something new. (more…)
March 25, 2009
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