Deep Ripples

Get The Keywords Right

deepripples — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:06:00 +0000

I’m not a complete newbie to the SEO sandbox. I’ve always considered myself to be knowledgeable enough to be dangerous, but not a whole lot more. I’ve helped clients to high level SEO tactics, and I knew how to utilize Google Keyword tools. Heck, I even beat out everyone to the #1 spot for Angelina Jolie joins Twitter. But now that I’m into SEO consulting full time, it’s a completely new animal. No longer does dangerous work for a skill set, I need to be deadly.

So the first thing I was thrown to the wolves on in my search for becoming deadly was keyword research. Keyword research is one of the most important, valuable, and high-return activities in the search engine optimization and marketing fields. Here is the dumbed down version of what keyword research is: figuring out what words and combination of words consumers are typing into search engines to find your product or service.

When you utilize search engine tools like Google Keywords, you can get mounds of data that show you analytics on the traffic inside of the search engine to each word and combinations of words around your product or service. But word of warning before you get deep into the analytics: don’t assume you know what your keywords are. Best practice advice is to ping your network (ask friends) that would be a potential searcher for your product or service and ask them what they’d type in the search box. You could save yourself time and money with 30 minutes of proof research. Google Keywords and other tools can most likely point you in the direction of other keywords, but an organic approach of asking those in your social sphere what they’d type into search is something that beats any tool.

A mistake you want to avoid when asking your social graph, or generating your own discovery reports of keyword research, is to think and ask in the mindset of transactional queries, not navigational or informational queries. Here is how you remember the differences of the three:

Navigational – searching for a website they don’t know the exact URL but want to find
Informational – searching for more specific information, but it’s purely an information grab
Transactional – searching for something with the intent on a transaction — whether a new free account (you gain their personal information like email), or a $100,000 sports car

Businesses are interested in more business. 2,000 new views a month that can be tracked to 20 new sales, is not better than 200 new views a month that can be tracked to 40 new sales. The end game is always about acquiring new clients and making new sales. Big visit numbers are only as good as the sales numbers that follow. Thus, Transactional searchers are the kind of searchers that you as a business should be interested in. I like dumbing things down, (even if for only myself) so let’s dumb down our searchers:

Navigational — Wonderer’s
Informational — Learners
Transactional — Buyers

Now that we know what keyword research is, finding out how consumers are searching for your product or service — and the mind set we should be in when researching our keywords, Buyers; we have our first notch on our belt moving from dangerous to deadly in SEO.

The New Guy

Going After The Long Tail

deepripples — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:23:43 +0000

One of the techniques used in search marketing these days involves using keywords that target would-be customers who show up “late” in the purchasing process. They often search for specific items, and employ specific keywords phrases known as long tail keywords due to their statistical distribution. The challenge for website owners and operators is to learn what those keywords are to convert page views to sales.

The long tail is a type of statistical distribution where a high-frequency population is followed by a low-frequency population that gradually drops–or “tails”–off. The long tail as it applies to keyword research is using extensions of central, high volume keyword phrases to include all keyword permutations and their relevant phrases. This, in turn, leads to a potentially higher number of visits based on both random and highly specific searches. Even though the individual words that lie within that long tail don’t account for much traffic on their own, taking the tail as a whole can lead to traffic greater than the sum of the parts.

In most cases, very specific searches are more likely to lead to sales than general searches that tend to focus on the type of research consumers typically conduct on their own prior to making a decision to purchase. That’s because many people in the market have already narrowed their preferences based on earlier research.

Take, for example, the Google search engine. Google’s preeminence is due at least in part to using algorithms to determine the value of content—what search results best answer a user’s questions. A default search in Google uses the “and” operator in Boolean logic. This means that, unless otherwise specified, keywords are linked by the conjunction that includes everything in the search. Putting long tail keywords to use here, then, is the practice of attracting visitors who make infrequent queries on a site but often have something very specific in mind.

One of the main appeals of long-tail search engine marketing is the ability to broaden the reach of marketing to include low-frequency consumers. For example, most users when researching performance enhancing substances for body building might simply type in “steroids.” Others might be more specific, with such keywords as “steroid alternatives” and still others might search under “legal steroid alternatives.” Allowing for these variations – by employing a mix of short, mid-length and longer phrases– are often used by websites to cover these bases. To that end, each page would have a unique title, a unique description Meta tag, and h1 header tag, and a body content that highlights a specific offering by using the chosen long tailed keyword(s).

When ranking sites, the Google algorithm looks for sites that have multiple pages. From both the search engine’s and the real world searcher’s perspective, the site looks more substantial. Those other pages need only be variations of a site’s main offerings, but each could be focused on a specific “long tail” niche.

Ultimately, do your own research is invaluable to any aspect of Internet marketing. As that applies to long tail keywords, that means finding what keywords generate enough traffic to be worth pursuing. This should be combined with researching what the competition to learn what keywords you will be able to see ranked based on the sites you are up against.

What Does It Take To Rank Around Here?

deepripples — Tue, 11 May 2010 15:02:07 +0000

In the already fast moving world of the Internet, the issue of search engine ranking is among the most mercurial. Early on, many commercial websites that remain competitive today found that it is better to stay on top of developments rather than role with the punches. As early as 1997, search engine companies noticed that webmasters were trying to rank high—or early–in organic search results, and that some were going so far as to manipulate their rankings by cramming web pages with superfluous keywords.

Although the “ .com” designation is short for “commerce,” if people were to believe their web searches returned only advertisements, Internet use would have fallen early on. Since the success of a search engine is gauged by its ability to find the most relevant results to a given search, allowing those results to be false would cause users to look elsewhere for their information.

Where the search engines zig, webmasters and others in the search engine optimization business often zag. Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft’s Bing, do not disclose the algorithms they use to rank pages. A study of the patents each company holds on the search techniques, however, is one way to deduce how they function. And that seems to have been the case, judging by the number of methods devised to ensure placement “up top.”Google and Yahoo!, for instance, use programs known as web crawler to find locate pages for their search results. Any pages already linked from indexed pages by other search engines need not to be submitted, as they are found automatically.

Yahoo!, for instance, uses a paid submission service that sets crawling for a set fee or a cost per click on the website in question. Rival search engine Google in 2005 announced that it could tailor search results based on a logged-in user’s preferences. In 2007, it announced a campaign aimed at limiting paid links that transfer PageRank. Byh 2009, Google announced that it had taken measures to limit the effects of PageRank “sculpting” by using of the so-called “nofollow” attribute on linked pages. The latest news from Google is that it is working on a change in its algorithm that is meant to be unnoticeable by most users, one that is meant to expedite the time it takes to index a site and make it searchable. And that’s just one search engine.

Ranking Methods

Some websites use both “organic,” or unpaid, methods to rank sites, and the more traditional pay per click model. Typically, the higher a site appears in a search results list, the more hits it will receive. The used of organic marketing is one way some businesses see higher rankings and more traffic from search engines. By aligning keywords and phrases in a context that is relevant to their offerings, these sites are ensuring more traffic through search engine referrals and by repeat customer traffic. Although organic and pay per click methods are often used by companies that fine tune their search engine optimization campaigns to different search engines, the use of organic search marketing, for the present at least, seems to be the safer ethical and monetary bet, at least in the foreseeable future. In Internet terms, that’s a few weeks, at best. The clock is ticking.

Organic Search Listings the New HR Tool

deepripples — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:14:13 +0000

Obviously, ranking high in the Google organic search results, or any of the search engines for that matter, is helpful for businesses trying to sell products and services on the web. But that isn’t all.

Organic search is a powerful tool for the HR professional.

Resumes will soon be a thing of the past ( soon is a relative term ). They simply aren’t needed. One of any number of social media profiles can accomplish the same thing. Actually, a good HR person, or whoever is researching potential employees or job applicants, can use the search engine to come up with a composite of multiple social media profiles for a person.

From professional profiles like those on LinkedIn to the personal profiles on MySpace or Facebook, there’s a ton of information out there on job candidates (and current employees). Some of that info is manageable by the person (i.e. personal profiles) while some of it is generated by others a la online review (i.e. Blog Post: My Psycho Ex Boss).

Some people take advantage of personal CV tools like VisualCV.com. They may also create their website to serve as a personal resume/dossier/portfolio/CV/whatever.

Who will find the information first? The hirer or the hire-ee ?

Help For Small Business

deepripples — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:38:35 +0000

Not everything the government does is bad. There are helpful resources at Business.gov. Check out our profile.

They have a small business community where you can interact with other small biz owners. You can also get help with things like:

finding loans and grants
becoming an LLC
info on licenses and permits
registering a DBA
tax info

It’s nice when the government helps small biz. After all, they ( I mean WE.) are the backbone of the economy.

Visit Business.gov

deepripples — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:01:36 +0000

Google Goggles

Simply amazing. Won’t get anything done today. Where’s my phone?

What Is Organic Search Marketing?

deepripples — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:25:34 +0000

Good News: Thousands of people are asking for what you have to offer

Great News: most of them will end up buying it

Not So Great News: it will probably be from someone else.

That’s where an organic search marketing company can help!

Organic search marketing services begin with insuring the on-page SEO of a website is tuned up. Is the way the site is built, the stuff behind the scenes, helping or hampering the search engine spiders? In other words, can Google index the site? What about Bing or Yahoo?

Do the search engines know what the website is about? Do they have to guess or have them been told? Page title may be one of the most critical things to get right. The page title tells the engine what that page is about. What about keyword usage? Know what keywords ought to be used? (BTW, any web design firm that isn’t asking for keyword information or offering to do the research is not doing their due diligence)

The rest of organic search marketing is primarily about link building and content publishing. The site needs content that bother users and Google find relevant and authoritative. Links from external sites tell the search engines how popular the site is (popular usually means useful).

Any of the first page position in Google’s SERPs (search engine results) is valuable. Obviously, the positions above “the fold” are the most valuable (extremely so). No legitimate SEO company will guarantee first page listings but, depending on the level of competition within the specific market and the condition of the site to begin with, it is safe to say that an expert SEO or SEM firm can greatly improve search engine ranking.

Organic search marketing is the place to begin for anyone wanting to succeed with internet marketing.