Facebook and Bing Connect for a More Social Search

Yesterday Microsoft and Facebook announced that Microsoft is rolling out new features that will bring your Facebook 'experience' into Bing, their search engine. Could this mean that more people, particularly Facebook 'power users' may choose to use Bing over Google, currently the most popular search engine?

The new features include:

- "Facebook Profile Search" showing results from Facebook when you search on a name

- "Liked Results" Bing will include results based on things your Facebook Friends 'liked'

- You can change your Bing settings so that these features aren't shown in your results



and you can change your Facebook settings so that "You can prevent Bing from getting any info about you."

Google has been the most popular search engine by far for a number of years now, mainly because they do search so well. Some of their other products have taken off and become popular: Gmail, Chrome to an extent, and of course the Android mobile phone OS; but many of their other products have not done so well: Blogger is by far inferior to WordPress, Google Docs is far from displacing MS Office and Wave was a massive failure. Many people remain faithful regardless.

If the press coverage of the new Bing features carries on, and Facebook users start to go to Bing and find the integration very useful, this could mean a migration away from Google.

I think that if Facebook were to embed Bing search into it's interface it would make a greater impact, because it would then be right 'in the face' of the 500+ million Facebook users who would then get used to using Bing from an interface that they are very comfortable with.

Will Google be making another move to counteract this new development at Bing? Will they be bringing more personalised Twitter results into its search results? The recent development of Instant Search doesn't quite pack the punch of Bing's new features. Google has tried to include more personalised results by showing comments and starred results from your community of Google friends, but this community never really took off. I only have a couple of Google connections that show up in my search results, but I have hundreds of Facebook friends.

According to Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land, "Potentially, Google should be able to get all the same information that Bing gets." (http://searchengineland.com/bing-now-with-extra-facebook-see-what-your-friends-like-52848). So maybe Google will work on breaking the barriers that Facebook has set up to this and start to include such information themselves.

This development may drive more site owners to include 'Like' buttons on their sites and for more Facebook users to click 'Like' buttons. That raises another question: Are the majority of these 'Likes' because someone does actually like the site/post or because they know the owner/author or have we just gone 'Like' happy clicking away at all the 'Like' buttons we see? Will this development bring quality to Bing searches or bring the quality down more?

I still think Google is a better search engine but I may be using Bing more, especially for results where I think that a Friend's opinion is important (ie "restaurants in Cork Ireland"), but maybe not for searches for pure information (ie "who was Henry VIII's last wife"). For searches like that latter it's unlikely there will be many sites that Friends have 'liked' anyway.

Google Places (aka Google Local Business, Google Maps) have brought a lot to search in that people can find businesses that are in a specific location and then see reviews from a wider audience. In Ireland, this is still in its infancy as there are still issues with results shown and a low number of businesses submitting to the service; but in the US it's a very popular search feature.

Is there room in my life for two search engines? One for personalised searches and one for everything else?

See more about this from Bing:

- The Bing blog post (New Signals In Search: The Bing Social Layer)

- Bing's Overview of the new features http://www.discoverbing.com/facebook/

More about this from the Social Media/Search Engine journalists:

- http://mashable.com/2010/10/13/facebook-bing-social-search/

- http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/10/bing-friends-facebook/

- http://www.allfacebook.com/live-from-the-bing-facebook-event-2010-10

- http://www.fastcompany.com/1694805/five-things-you-should-know-about-the-new-bing-facebook-features

What do you think? Do you use Bing already? Will you be using Bing more now? Are personalised searches important to you? Please post your comments below.

Google Instant - Findings of our Panel of SEO Experts

On the 9th of September Krishna De and I organised a panel of SEO experts for an online discussion on the newly launched Google Instant and it's impact on business owners.

Thanks to John Ring, David Quaid, Jill Whalen and Joost de Valk for joining us on such short notice and to Jessica Bowman, who couldn't make the session, but provided some of her insights in advance. We were very lucky to get a great panel like this on such short notice.

View replay of webinar here:

The main view seemed to be that whilst the new interface will have an impact for many users, it probably will not be necessary for SEOs to change their strategies much -- but mostly it's a bit too early to tell and business owners shouldn't panic, but as Jill Whalen commented, "watch the analytics" and see if there is an impact.

"Rankings will stay the same. Behavior may change."

- from Google Instant Launch

In case you haven't heard - and may not have yet experienced it for yourself, Google Instant, is Google's new interface where search results appear on the screen as you type your query in the search box. It combines Google's auto-complete feature with showing relevant results as you type.

My advice to SEOs and site owners is to go back to the basics of SEO:

Ensure that the title and description tags are carefully crafted to attract a click from the user quickly. This new interface may mean that users will focus more on the top of the page and that it will be even more important to be at the top of listings. When developing Google Instant, Google's research via eye-tracking showed that users already focused mainly in the area around the search box. Your organic listings will also be competing with AdWords listings that appear above the organic listings, which also seem a bit more prominent with Google Instant.

As many listings will be dominated with universal search results (i.e. map of Local Business listings, image results, etc.), it's important to make sure that you are getting content into these results as well. Optimise your images, videos and blog posts; and don't forget to submit your own Local Business listing.

Look again at your keyphrase research and ensure that the phrases coming up in Google's auto-complete are in your list of targeted phrases. More focus on auto-complete with instant results will mean that more people will be searching on 'long tail' (more specific) phrases so these will be an important part of the list. On our panel, David Quaid stated that he believed that users will be corralled into using certain search phrases, those that come up in the auto-complete, which will be most likely. There was also concern expressed by many on the internet that bigger brands, that will come up quickly as users start to type, will get an even larger share of clickthroughs.

If you haven't already optimised the speed of your pages loading, after Google's announcement earlier in the year that speed will impact on ranking, this would be a good time to check again. See Joost's post at http://yoast.com/site-speed-ranking-factor/.

On our panel, John Ring provided some great advice for AdWords advertisers, his area of expertise. His main point is that it's important for you to review your keyphrases and ad copy carefully now (in a similar manner to SEO advice above); and to watch analytics to see if this change impacts your results. There is concern that the number of impressions will shoot up and that users will be clicking on more generic phrases as they'll show up first (opposite to what is expected for for organic searches).

Have a listen to the replay and check out the great discussion on the topic. Get in touch if you'd like any further advice or assistance on making sure your site will get best results.

Here's a few helpful links:

- Google's Page on Google Instant
- Google Webmaster Blog post on Google Instant
- Matt Cutts' Thoughts on Google Instant
- Skitzzo's Google Instant Alphabet (for fun, showing what comes first for each letter of the alphabet)

Thanks to Krishna for moderating so well and handling the technical side of everything.

Google Instant - Webinar: What does it mean for Your Business?

I'm delighted to announce that later today I will be presenting a webinar with Krishna De of Biz Growth News entitled "Get the Inside Track on Google Instant and What it Means for Your Business"

The webinar will begin at 5pm BST (12pm ET) today 9th September 2010. You can register at http://www.bgn.bz/gweb.

Yesterday Google Launched it's next generation of search, Google Instant, where search results appear on the screen as you type your query in the search box. It combines Google's auto-complete feature with showing relevant results as you type. There was lot of talk about this new development on social media channels so we thought it would be a good idea to hold this session to discuss the facts and how Google Instant will impact on business owners.

In the session we will cover:

1. What Google Instant is and how it is being rolled out

2. What it means for site owners and digital marketing managers

3. What it means for users

4. What the implications are for businesses using Google Adwords

5. What actions we should take, if any, as a result of this new enhancement to Google Search.

and more...

We may also have a couple of special guests on hand.

Hope you can make it this evening.

Where can you get good information on Search Engine Optimization?

It's one of my pet peeves that there is so much unreliable information on the internet -- regarding online marketing in particular. So people looking for good information may come across a less informed article and take that as the best advice. It doesn't work for them and so they think that online marketing is rubbish.

Sometimes you just need a bit of common sense to tell you that an article is unreliable - "If it looks too good to be true, then it is too good to be true." It helps to look for articles that provide facts and collates information from a number of different sources, as opposed to what appears to be just the authors own opinion on a topic -- unless that author is considered to be an authority on the topic -- but most trusted authorities do provide back-up and other points of view on these topics anyway, or will come out and say 'in my opinion'.

Deciding which of the information is reliable is even harder if you are completely new to this topic. I advise people to look at a number of resources and in this way can see more clearly what are the tried and trusted techniques and what is just hype -- or just plain mis-information!

Debra Mastaler, who can legitimately be called a link building expert and knows a good bit about SEO and SEM has a bit of a rant in her most recent post "If It's Too Good To Be Fricking Link True..." I agree 100% with her statement:

How people make their living is no concern of mine and I get that our industry has gotten crowded making it necessary for people to be creative in their advertising efforts but – I do raise an eyebrow when I see things being pitched as the ” Ultimate Handbook” or the “Definitive Guide” and some of the information in the so-called guide is blatantly wrong.

She does list 17 sites/blogs/forums where you can get up-to-date information on what's going on in the SEO/SEM industry:

SEOBook Forum (membership required)
Webmaster World
High Rankings Forum
SEO Refugee
Cre8asite Forum
Search Engine Roundtable
Search Engine Journal
Sphinn
Search Engine Land
Search Engine Watch
Search Engine Guide
SEO DoJo (membership)
UK SEO Forum
V7N Forum
BlackHat Forum ( yep!)
Wicked Fire
Small Business Trends

I've followed a number of these sites over the years and I learned much of what I know about SEO via Jill Whalen's High Ranking Forum. I was really pleased to see Search Engine Journal on the list, since I've just started to contribute there (phew).

Don't forget that Google Webmaster Central provides a lot of information - "straight from the horses mouth" - and it's presented in an easy to use and understand format.

With even more 'experts' popping up all over the place on Twitter and other social networking channels it can be very difficult to choose who to follow and who to pass by. There is a lot of good information out there about search engine optimization and search engine marketing, it's just that you may have to sift through a bit of rubbish to find the good stuff -- but I hope you find my advice and Debra's list a help to get you started.

Google's Real Time Search & More News from O'Mahony Donnelly

Google Announces "innovations in the areas of real-time, mobile and social search"

Tuesday night I watched the webcast of Google's "search event" which they hold whenever they announce any significant changes in the services and products they are offering. This time the big, and I mean BIG, announcement was the launch of Google's "Real Time Search". Google has partnered with Twitter, Facebook and MySpace (and a few others) to bring posts from these networks into its search results. Users will now be able select to see the "Latest" search results and this will bring these posts into the results.

This development has confirmed to me that I've made the right choice to focus even more on Search Engine Optimisation and Social Media Marketing, offering more related services and training. The users ability to select 'Latest' and other time periods to see results from will make it even more important for website owners to also have a presence on these social networking channels; as well as blogs, news sites, etc. that also fall into the "more recent" category. Read more: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/relevance-meets-real-time-web.html

Contact me if you'd like to know more about Google Real Time Search and how you can ensure that you come up in relevant, real time searches.

Online Marketing Workshops & Training

In 2009 we've started a series of workshops on Blogging, Social Media Marketing and other online marketing techniques; which we will continue in 2010. I am also available to provide one-to-one training. See a description of the workshops: http://www.e-business.ie/online-marketing-workshops.html

If you are involved in a networking or other business group, I'd love to spread the word on the value of Social Media for Business and can tailor a talk to the specific group.

West Cork Open Coffee

Wednesday 9th December, 12.30pm

Celtic Ross Hotel, Rosscarbery

I've been involved in organising a new networking group for the area which is open to all who are interested in business. There's no fee or commitment, just come along and you may pick up make some good contacts and some good ideas for running your business. This month's meeting will feature a brain storming event on "Cash Flow and Dealing with Slow/Bad Debtors".

See more on the website http://www.westcorkopencoffee.com.

Show Your Business Week

Bank of Ireland, Pearse Street, Clonakilty

Thursday 10th December, 10am - 4pm

I will be "showing my business" during this time. If you are in town please stop in and say hello.

For more information on my services visit http://www.e-business.ie

Link Building: more than just Link Exchanges

For years people have known that the number of links into your sites effects your rankings on search engines, such as Google (see their page on Google Friendly Sites). Thus started the mad dash to get as many links into a site as possible; through all sorts of tactics, but mainly looking for sites that had an "add a link" button. That brought the masses of spam emails of people sending thousands of emails to any address they could find requesting a link exchange. Sadly, this is still going on, even though we've found out that you need more than just a large amount of links to improve search engine rankings.

Now it is understood that is not just the quantity of links that's important, but that the 'quality' of the links is most important. The site needs to be relevant to the topic and well ranked itself to bring any value to your site. There's a long list of other considerations where there's much debate on if they are relevant or how relevant, but are at least good to keep in mind: the Google PageRank of the page, the number of links on the page, using three way links instead of direct exchanges, etc. There are other factors to consider: your own internal linking structure, link text, etc.

So a good Link Building Programme, while not rocket science, takes a lot of thought and time. In this blog, I've given advice for running your own link building programme (see category Link Building), but while link exchanges are a way to get some links into your site, there are more efficient and effective ways to get links into your site; ways that will also help boost the overall presence of your site on the Internet.

I've spent many nights trawling the Internet looking for good link exchanges for clients, always thinking that there must be an easier way. All the easier ways, though, were dodgy paid links or link farms that were not going to get you quality links or may get you penalised or banned on search engines. Forums and articles on the topic across the net all pretty much said that it just takes time to develop this. When I went to the Search Engine Strategies conference in London this February I decided that Link Building would be one of the things to focus on while there. In many of the panels and talks, Link Building was discussed with all pretty much saying that, yes, it is still important and, no, there are no magic tricks to getting sites to link to you. The highlight of the conference, apart from having lunch with Jill Whalen, was the Link Building Panel.

While this panel didn't give out any magic Link Building Techniques they did confirm that while link exchanges are a good way to get started, you need to get creative in getting more quality links and that the focus should be on the content and quality of the site involved.

- Social networking sites and blogs have now become very important for link building, not just because they may bring valuable links to your site (in fact pages that can only be seen after login won't get indexed by search engines and bring no link value), but they can spread the word about your site more easily than your standard site which in turn may get you a valuable link to your site.

- Articles and Guest Posting on Blogs are a way that you can further push your site. Again you need to find quality, suitable sites.

- Explore other types of sites and media that suit your topic: YouTube, for example is one of the most searched on websites. You can create videos to promote your business, more easily than you probably think. There's also image site, podcasts, etc.

- Other kinds of publicity, online and offline: One of the most interesting stories on the panel was from Dutch Link Strategist Peter van der Graaf, who had set up a PR 'stunt' just prior to the last World Cup. A client had wanted to bring more soccer related traffic into his site prior to the World Cup. The online marketing company set up a 'demonstration', outside the Dutch soccer team's training camp, by women protesting the amount of time their men spend watching soccer - calling for the cancellation of the World Cup. A Brazilian news agency picked up on the story and it started getting mentioned on web sites across the world, eventually getting a spot on the CNN site -- and that online marketing company had one very happy client. So this shows us that a bit of creativity can take you a long way. Some times this sort of 'Website PR' can come for free. Take Dublin web developer Jason Roe. His post on his blog about how he nearly found a way to get a free Ryanair flight, received strong comments from Ryanair staff and the Irish blogging community did not take it kindly. This story was noted on blogs and news sites all across Ireland and Europe, and, like the Dutch story, was picked up and posted on the CNN website (and here I am talking about it again here 5 months later).

None of these techniques are anywhere as boring as trawling the Internet in the wee hours of the morning, trying to craft non-spammy sounding link request emails and begging, begging, begging.

So define your target audience and what sites they go to on the Internet -- and get creative. Don't forget, that having a great site yourself, with a wealth of good content related to your business/organisation is going to better attract the best partners in this task.

If you would like a kick start, check out my workshop "Hands On: Your Own Website PR Campaign". The next one takes place on Friday 7th August, in our Clonakilty offices. The workshop is limited to 5 people so that we can work one on one and actually set up your own campaign on the morning.

Google Won't Ring You About Advertising on Their Website

Now it seems obvious to those of us experienced in online marketing and dealing with Google, but it has to be said clearly GOOGLE WILL NOT RING YOU ABOUT ADVERTISING ON THEIR WEBSITE.

A few years back, just after Google set up their European operations in Dublin, a prospective client told me that Google had contacted her and were going to help her manage a Google AdWords campaign. I assumed it was legitimate. I didn't look into it further at the time, they weren't clients and were choosing to do this rather than use my SEO services so I didn't think much about it.

Earlier this year our receptionist said that Google had contacted her husband about setting up an AdWords campaign for his very small website. As I've gained a lot more experience in dealing with Google and using AdWords, it was obvious to me then that it wouldn't be the case. Shortly after this, Twitter friend @whatswhat_sian (Sian Phillips), started posting about a company that was contacting businesses listed on her online directory WhatsWhat.ie offering a similar deal. Then they contacted her, not realising she had copped on to them. Read her post about it. She was really adamant about getting the word out on this and there was a piece in the Sunday Business Post by Adrian Weckler Rogue 'Google' firm targets Irish SMEs.

I didn't take too much notice again, but then today they rang a client of mine, who had the sense to tell them they needed to ring me. Again, she thought they were calling from Google. I rang them back myself and it was indeed the company that Sian was talking about, UK based Matchmaker Marketing. You can Google the name if you want to see their site and also notice on Google a long list of sites with posts by people concerned about them, like:
- http://www.t2.ie/blog/?p=270
- http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=88096

When I rang the number given to my client, he did answer the phone "Matchmaker Marketing" and said that he did not claim to my client that he was from Google, but that he was a reseller for Google. He also claimed that they were the only company licensed to use the Google logo, but very little of what he said rang true with me. As he saw that I was not going to avail of their services he said that I was wasting his time - rich for someone that does cold call sales for a living.

My fear is that this sort of 'marketing' will turn people off of Google AdWords and other online advertising that has potential to increase sales. A lot of companies set up and manage Google AdWords and other pay per click online advertising campaigns, some successfully and others not so successfully, but a potential customer has the right to be dealt with in an honest and straight forward manner.

You may have to pay a good amount for a successful campaign, especially if you are hiring an experienced professional, but it may bring you more sales to justify the cost. Because of this you should do a bit of research before you select a company to manage your online marketing campaign. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

- Get references from the company and talk to their customers about the results that were actually gained from the campaign.
* What was the return on the amount spent?
* Did the company communicate well what their objectives were?
* Where they comfortable dealing with the company?

- Do you want a company to manage the campaign for you completely or just set it up so that you can manage it yourself over the long term?

- Does the company have experience with PPC advertising in your specific industry or similar industries?

- Do you need a company that can do SEO as well as PPC - and perhaps changes to your site as well?

- Can you set up the campaign yourself? The AdWords system is made to be very user friendly and there is a lot of information available via Google and other sites on how to manage a successful campaign. It does take time and you may be better off spending to at least get the campaign set up by someone with experience.

The following are also important points to consider:

- Organic search listings are the ones that you do NOT pay for. To get good results with these you need to certain things on your website and boost your sites popularity through relevant links to do this. Pay per click advertising campaigns will not get you higher organic search results, though it can boost awareness of your site. If a company claims this, question everything they are saying.

- No one can guarantee that you will get on first page or top of organic or pay per click listings - especially not the organic listings. Some companies get away with guaranteeing that you'll be top for pay per click advertising listings by 1) bidding very high for the the phrase to be certain to outbid all others (which isn't financially sustainable over a long period of time) or 2) bidding on very uncompetitive and unpopular search phrases that no one else would be bidding on. This does not give you much potential for a good return on the amount spent. Most legitimate online marketing companies will not use the word "guarantee" because it has such a bad connotation in this area.

- Google does run a "Google Advertising Professional" Programme.

A person can become a "Qualified Individual" by doing the following:
"1. Sign up for the programme successfully and be in good standing. This means that you have accepted the Rules of Use and are not in violation of them.
2. Manage at least one AdWords account (yours or someone else's) in My Client Centre for 90 days.
3. Build and maintain at least US$1000 (or your local currency equivalent) total spend for your or your team's My Client Centre account during the 90-day period.
4. Pass the Google Advertising Professional Exam. We suggest that you take the exam after you meet the above requirements. However, you can take the exam at any time."

A company can become a "Qualified Company" by doing the following:
"1. Have a billing and mailing address in a country where company qualification is available.
2. Employ at least two Qualified Individuals in the programme. Individuals must be qualified under the main company-registered My Client Centre account and not their own account. See the requirements for becoming a Qualified Individual.
3. Build and maintain the minimum 90-day required total client spend (spend requirements vary by country) for the company's My Client Centre account."

See more in Google's section on AdWords Professionals.

It is not that difficult to achieve qualification as long as you have clients with the budget to do AdWords and know the basics on how to run an account to pass the exam. Qualification has nothing to do with bringing good results for your customers in these campaigns.

If you feel that you do need to work with an "AdWords Qualified Professional" you can confirm that they are indeed qualified by checking that they have a Professional Status page, which they would normally link to from the Google AdWords Professional logo on their own site.

- Some web development companies push AdWords over optimizing your site for better organic search results. Why?

* Google used to give commissions for AdWords spend, but they no longer do so. This was a big incentive for developers to push the AdWords in the past.
* It is a way to give a quick boost of traffic to your site when optimization for organic results (SEO) may take months.
* They don't have the skills/time/desire to do optimization for organic search results. I actually saw this stated on a web development company site yesterday and thought the honesty was refreshing.

I agree that AdWords can be a good way to get started while waiting for organic results. I also feel that AdWords can be a good part of an overall online marketing campaign, as part of the "big picture". But you don't need to hire a Qualified Professional. A local online marketing professional may be able to get you just a good results as well as being someone that you trust better than someone "up the country". I am not a Qualified AdWords professional. This is just because I have not reached that spending requirement in the required time period. This is because most of my clients are smaller businesses with smaller online marketing budgets and we've chosen to concentrate on getting better organic results.

So you may choose to work with Matchmaker Marketing, they have a lot of customers and maybe some of them are getting results, but you then have to keep in mind the type of company you are dealing with and make your own mind up.

Unfortunately Google will NOT set up your AdWords campaign themselves. Online marketing is just not that easy, but I am giving a workshop "Hands On: Your Own Pay Per Click Advertising Campaign" on the 2nd of October. In the half day workshop I will take you step by step through setting up and managing your own Google AdWords campaign. Click here for more details.

Google Providing Workshops for Small Businesses in Ireland, or just some PR?

I caught an interview on RTE Radio 1's Morning Ireland show with a Google staff member discussing workshops they are providing to help teach businesses how to be more competitive using the internet. I had a feeling that this would be a way for them to push their AdWords pay per click advertising programme, as that is their main way of getting revenue.

Google may be resorting to publicising this on our national broadcaster as many small businesses are finding that as more competitors are using the AdWords programmes they are having to spend more to get the same results that they did a year ago. I'm getting more and more emails from website owners asking about getting better organic search results, as PPC advertising is getting too costly. It's likely that as more and more businesses become savvy about search engine optimization and online advertising it will be harder, and more expensive, to get the top positions that will better ensure a good level of visitors to the site. As an SEO expert, I guess you wouldn't be suprised that I think that you should prioritise your spending on SEO to help get good results in the longterm -- over PPC which will need to be continually paid out. Overall I do think a mix of both can be good for you online marketing.

Back to the workshops. Morning Ireland, who referred to the workshop as "Survival of the Fastest", posted a link to the website of the Small Firms Association, who Google are running the workshops with. There is only one Google workshop listed there and it's fully booked:

• April 16th: SFA/Google Online Advertising & Adwords (Advanced Knowledge) (Free of charge and includes Lunch!)

Ah-ha! Googled and found an RTE news story about on "Survival of the Fastest" that was from yesterday 9th April 2009! It seems that Ronan Harris, director of online sales and operations at Google, addressed participants at a Small Firms Association event. "Harris said: 'Survival of the Fastest is the new game in town. It is the companies that ignore trends such as technological advances and shifts in customer behaviour that are finding their markets eaten into by nimbler, hungrier rivals.'" (Nothing mentioned in that piece about workshops.)

Further searching on the SFA site shows that there was a basic AdWords course yesterday, so this must be the event Ronan Harris was speaking at. Seems that the Google and/or SFA PR machines are in overdrive and causing a bit of confusion! Morning Ireland also posted the email address press-ie@google.com, so I await further details. I do hope that this bit of PR wasn't just to promote a couple annual workshops that are already fully booked!

Please comment here if you know of any other workshops at Google, because I'd love to go! I know there are a number of other AdWords workshops (mainly in Dublin), but it'd be great to hear it from 'the horses mouth' and get a look inside the offices of Google.

Google becomes more local - not so much in Ireland, though

Official Google Blog: Google becomes more local but they don't talk about the fact that this is really only shown for certain geographic regions - definitely US and UK. Local results also came up when I searched for 'restaurants munich', 'restaurants paris' and 'restaurants prague'; but not for 'restaurants dublin' (or 'restaurants lisbon')

At Search Enging Strategies London I asked a Google employee taking part in a session on Blogs and Feeds (this area being relevant to the local searches because of the ability to add product feeds into these local searches) when the service would be used more outside the US and UK - Ireland exactly? She said that it is not a priority and there is no proposed timing for it.

I get really frustrated hearing all the hype about Local Search, but not really getting the effects of it for Ireland - for personal and professional reaons.

Is it too much to ask Google to at least be aware of this fact in their blog posts and other articles so that they note exactly where these features are available and where they are not?

Keyword Research to Identify and Reach Your Target Market

'Keywords' or 'search phrases' are the phrases that people enter when doing searches on the internet on search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. 'Target Keyphrase Research' provides you with a list of search phrases, relevant to your business, that have been used on search engines during a certain period of time. Target Keyword Research is the first step on any new project we take on, including work for existing websites.

In one sense your Target Keyword Research is a powerful marketing tool, as it gives you insight into what people need, want or want to know about on the internet related to the products/services/information you provide. Because of this it makes sense to develop the content on your site based on this research.

More commonly Target Keyword Research is used in Search Engine Optimization in order to be sure to use popular search phrases in the best way so that your website will come up higher in search engine results for searches on these phrases. This is a very important step in Search Engine Optimization, but you must also be sure to use the phrases effectively on the site for best results.

Keyword Research is not only important for traditional brochure style websites. It is important for any pages on the web that you want indexed by search engines: e-commerce sites, blogs, newsletters, etc.

Keyword Research Tools

• Wordtracker - For years I used multiple Keyword Research Tools, but Wordtracker was the most used. Wordtracker is a UK based company, but until a couple years ago, they only provided US based research results. The Keyword Universe Tool was excellent to come up with variations on the phrases that we came up with ourselves. A couple of years ago, when Wordtracker added it's database of UK searches, they also rolled out a new tool Keyword Researcher that streamlines the steps to do the research and made it easier to handle multiple projects. Both services allow you to dig deep to come up with a full listing of keyphrases and then also obtain the number of times the phrase appeared on selected search engines. An annual subscription to Wordtracker costs $329 and a monthly subscription for $59. You can take a free 7 day trial first to see if you like the service.
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  UPDATE 09 April 2009: How's this for timing? @wordtracker just tweeted a link to an article on their site "The SEO Pro's Secret Path" with some helpful information on Keyword Research, especially on how to use their tool to do it. There's some interesting tips on finding initial phrases to start with: trade publications, competitor sites, your site statistics, etc. Worth a look.
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  

• Google AdWords Keyword Tool is provided by Google to help AdWords users to select the phrases they bid on, but it is available for anyone to use. As Wordtracker didn't provide UK data until a couple of years ago, and I never felt that UK database was very good, I also researched on the Overture UK Keyword Tool. Overture was a very popular Pay Per Click advertising system that fed into Yahoo and a number of other high traffic sites. In October 2007 that tool came down, so I started using the Google AdWords tool for comparison.
  
  I started using the Google AdWords Keyword Tool while managing AdWords campaigns for clients. Until recently Google provided very limted information on the number of searches. They provided on a scale 1-5 which phrases were most popular, but you didn't get more concrete data on the actual numbers searching. This was still helpful on a basic level, particularly as Google has been the most popular search engine over the years. The Google AdWords Tool became even more valuable in the past couple years when they added a feature to get results for visitors from a specific region. As I am based in Ireland, this is particularly useful. In the past year, they have started showing data more related to the actual numbers of searches, to make this a more comprehensive tool -- and it's FREE! I don't think that I will be renewing my Wordtracker account.

• Keyword Discovery is another Keyword Tool that I haven't tried but it sounds very similar to Wordtracker. This service costs from $599.40/year ($69.95/month) to $4,455/year ($495/month) for the Enterprise package which allows a much higher number of searches and API access.
  

Using Keywords in Your Website

So now you probably have hundreds, if not thousands, of phrases related to your products/services. What do you do now?

• Review the list and automatically delete any phrases that do not relate to your business.
• Highlight the phrases that very specifically relate to your business (i.e. 'Search Engine Optimization Clonakilty West Cork Ireland' for me)
• Take your site map (for existing or planned site) and assign the keyphrases to target on each page.
  ** The phrase must be related to the content you plan to have on the page, because you do actually have to use the phrase on the page. (I'll cover how to properly use the phrases in a future post.)
  ** I select one popular phrase and two less popular, but related, phrases for each page.
• If there are phrases left on your list that are relevant to your business that haven't been assigned to any page, plan to write new pages with content based on these phrases. If a number of people are searching on this phrase related to your business then it's probably worth having a page about it on your website.

Prioritising the Keyphrases Used on Your Site

As it will probably be a big job to write/re-write content for your site, prioritise the work by how popular and/or relevant the phrases are. I've seen many people that never fully optimised their sites because they just saw it as one big block of work they never got around to doing!

• Most of the extremely popular keyphrases may not be the best for you to target as they may be too general (i.e. 'search engine' vs. 'search engine optimization' or even 'search engine optimization ireland'). Be sure that the phrases you selected are specifically related to what you are offering/talking about on the page. Don't get tempted to target very popular phrases in hopes of getting millions of visitors to the page. Besides the fact that it probably won't be very successful on search engines, you'd be less likely to sell to the visitors that come through the very general phrases - as there is a lower chance that you are offering what they are looking for.
• For many clients we started out using the regional version of a phrase as the primary keyphrase, if there was enough projected traffic for just the regional phrase. As we showed success for that phrase we then targetted the national/general version of the phrase on that page, with the regional phrase secondary (i.e. test out 'search engine optimization cork' first, then after seeing good results target 'search engine optimization ireland') If the regional and national/general phrases are both very popular, and/or the national/general version is just as related to your site, it would be better to target the phrases on separate pages so that you can be competitive for both.
• The Long Tail is a theory that while 20% of searches are made using the very popular phrases; 80% of searches are made using a large variety of less popular, more specific, phrases. (Looking at the stats of a well optimised site will confirm this as the information on the keywords used to reach the site will go on for pages and pages.) While the number of people searching on each of these phrases is far less than the popular phrases, added together they make up a much larger percentage. Another reason this is so significant is that, as mentioned above, you are more likely to interest and make a sale to a visitor that found you via a search very specific to what you are offering.
• KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Indicator) is a statistic that many people will tell you to ignore. It's based on the number of searches made of a phrase and the number of pages targeting that phrase on a specific search engine. Both Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery include this statistic in their results. Phrases with high KEI rating may be excellent niche phrases -- but only if very relevant to your topic. It wouldn't be wise to ignore other relevant phrases because of a low KEI rating. So KEI is only a useful statistic when used with other factors in mind.
• If Plurals, Misspellings and Regionally Used Words come up on your list with any popularity, you must target them separately to the more commonly used version of the words, but be sure to keep your target audience in mind and make a common sense check on whether they'd use these derivations or not. In some cases you may find that the derivations are actually more popular than the 'root' word (i.e. 'hotels' is normally more popular than 'hotel').
  

In your goal to improve your search engine rankings, it's very easy to overly focus on all these words and numbers -- and lose sight that this is a good way to guide you to the information that your target market is looking for. So be organised in your research, use your site map, prioritise and don't lose sight of the fact that these searches are being made by individuals that are interested in what you have to offer, so talk to them in their own terms!

Choosing a Web Development Firm

Yet again, I've heard from someone who has received very bad service from, not one, but two, web development companies. I hate this because it gives the person a lack of confidence in the industry. Here are some of the most common issues:

1) My web designer had gone bust/moved away/changed professions/is no where to be found -- and I cannot update my website.
I saw this a lot in the early days when there were a lot of students doing web design and a lot of people moving in and out of the area from other countries, but it is still happening today.
- Get references/referrals for your prospective web development company and make sure that you are confident in the stability of the company.
- Get the login details (no reason why you shouldn't have them).
- Make sure your domain registration is in your name and has your contact details.

2) My web design company says that Search Engine Optimization doesn't work and that SEO people are cowboys just trying to get your money.
Everybody is entitled to his or her opinion, but we can show the proven results of our Search Engine Optimization techniques and have clients that would be happy to tell you about it.

3) My web designer says that SEO doesn't work and that I should pay for Google AdWords.
I think Google AdWords are great, but should only be a compliment to good search engine results that you don't pay for (aka 'Organic Search Engine Results'). This person may genuinely think that SEO doesn't work, because he hasn't been doing it right; or perhaps doesn't have the time, so is suggesting an easy way out. Sometimes it takes awhile for your organic results to start showing, so AdWords are a good way to get a quicker start, especially if you are in a highly competitive area.

4) I paid a lot for my website and I'm not getting any enquiries.
When hiring your web development company:
- Ask upfront what exactly you are getting for the money - graphic design, copywriting, search engine optimization work, link building, content management system, after care support, etc. We offer different level packages - from basic to complete Search Engine Optimization, etc..
- All of our sites are created in a Search Engine Friendly manner, but you will get better results if you take the full package -- as it takes more time and utilises different levels of expertise.

5) My IT guy did my website, but it's not really like I wanted it.
That's what you get for hiring an IT guy to do your website :-) (Sorry IT guys/gals) Same goes for graphic designers that do websites and copy shop people that do websites... There are plenty of people that used to be IT technicians/graphic designers, etc. that now do web development full time and that's a different story. In this new industry, most of us had previous careers (I was in printing). You need to use someone that does web development full time, day in and day out, to ensure that you are getting the level of expertise you need for a successful site.

6) I paid a lot for my website now I have to go back and pay the web designer every time I want to make a change.
Did you discuss getting a Content Mangement System or Web Maintenance Service as part of what you paid for? If not, you paid for the initial development of the site and any after care is additional.
- To avoid surprises, ask before you start your project, what the costs are to update the site after it's completed.
- If you think you will want to make changes yourself after the site is completed, then consider getting a Content Mangement System included in your website -- balance out its cost vs. the cost of paying for each change.
- If you don't have time/desire to make your own chages ask about a Web Maintenance Service; it should save some money and perhaps provide some other additional services (phone support, priority changes, etc.)

Other tips for hiring a web development company:

- Look at their portfolio of sites and see if they can provide the type of site you are looking for.

- Do get referrals and check references. Your website is very important to your business, so don't leave it to chance.

- Select a professional web design company. It's not worth saving by hiring a student (sorry students), if you cannot update your site in a year when they've moved away or changed careers.

- Don't get a friend or relative to do your site, unless they are experienced in doing this. Even then, do you want to take a chance on ruining your relationship over your site!

- Don't believe everything you hear -- unless I tell you, of course :-). Like I said before everyone is entitled to their opinion, but beware of someone that has read a few articles and thinks he knows it all. Get a second or third opinion.

- For the most effective and efficient web development project, you will need a clear idea of your own business goals and the goal of your website. We work closely with our clients to work out a site plan and the content, depending on the services you have selected us for, but not all web development companies will do this and will need strong direction from you.

As I said before, your web site is important and you should make sure that you select the web development company that will bring you the best results with it.

For more on my company and our services, visit www.e-business.ie

Link Building - The DIY Way

For best results on search engines, you need a number of incoming links from sites that are related in topic to yours and that do well on search engines themselves. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've seen proof of this in the sites that I've developed. All other things being equal, the sites with more, better links get better results in search engines.

We offer Link Building as one of our Search Engine Optimization Services, but getting links is not brain surgery, there are no magic tricks or dodgy methods to get the job done -- it just takes hard work, perservence and a bit of organisation (to keep you from going insane). Many of our clients hire us to do this for them, but you can do it yourself:

1. Identify the key phrases that you are targeting on your site. (What phrases do people search on looking for your business?)
2. Search on those phrases on Google (or your preferred search engine, but Google is the most used by far) and see which sites rank well for those phrases. These would be the best link partners. If there are directories that you can submit your site to for free, submit to those straight away. If there are competiting sites that you don't want to link from/to, check to see who is linking to them (they may be good link partners for you, too).
   
3. Contact the owner or webmaster to request a link. Keep in mind that these people probably get a lot of requests for links by email so you want your message to be personalised and direct. (I will follow this up with a specific post on wording your request letter as it is very important). Also keep in mind that the owner may need to pay someone to update the links page so may not be able to do so immediately.
4. As you receive positive responses add the links to your site as requested. You can have a links page for this, but it is more effective if the links are on a related page (car hire site on a transportation page, wedding services on a hotel's wedding page, etc.). File away the negative responses to be sure that you don't contact them again.
5. In two weeks time, send a gentle reminder to the sites that have not responded. If it is someone you know, perhaps located in your area, you may want to give a ring -- if you think it's appropriate. As I said, site owners get a lot of these requests and often put them to the side and forget about them, a reminder may help, but you don't want to annoy.
6. Use a spreadsheet to keep track of the sites that you've identified, contact details, each time you've contacted each and the responses received. (You can get very detailed with this, but keep it simple so you don't get too bogged down with it.)
   

A few things you should not do:

1. Don't request links from random sites -- it's best if the site is related to the content of your own.
2. Don't accept a link from a site that is going to put you on a page buried way down in the site where no search engines or visitors will find you. It's not worth your effort. Instead try to negotiate the best placement possible. This will usually depend on the quality and ranking of your own site, but you may have something else to offer.
3. Don't 'blackmail' a prospective link partner by saying, "I've already added your link to my site. If I don't hear back from you in two weeks, we will remove your site." That will probably just annoy the person. Don't forget that you are asking them for a favour so you cannot expect to always get a response.
   
4. Don't pay to be listed on a directory unless it is the definitive directory for your industry or region; has proven results on search engines, with stats or a known profile to back it up; and you get a link back to your site. I usually only advise my clients to pay for a Yahoo Directory Listing ($299/year). This is a valuable link in Google's eyes and worth the investment, especially if you don't have a number of other quality links.
5. Don't get involved with sites or businesses requesting/offering paid links or link farm. Search engines, Google in particular, consider this an undesireable way to get links and may ignore the link or even worse, penalise or ban your site. Read Google's article on Link Schemes.
   

As professionals doing this for our clients, we have a more refined technique, but I think it's best to advise you to keep it simple so that you can get going and start getting those links. If you are ready for a bit more of the lesson, here are two more things to keep in mind:

PageRank

1. This is one of Google's methods to determine the importance of a webpage considering "over 500 million variables and 2 billion terms". Each web page gets a PageRank (PR) of 0-10 (5 is pretty good, more than that is very good). "Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results." (Read more on Google's Technology Overiew Page.)
2. For this reason it is beneficial for you to try to raise the PageRank of the pages on your site, by getting links from sites that have higher PageRanks. It's important not to get too obsessed with this, but if you get links for sites that are all PR0-2 it wont be as helpful as sites that are 3 and above.
3. How do you know what PageRank a page has? You can download the Google Toolbar for your web browser and change the settings to show PageRank and you will then see the green bar. Many experts feel that this isn't the true PageRank that Google uses, but it will at least give you guide. If the bar is greyed it means that there is no PageRank, which is the case for very new sites. PR0 often means the site has been live for awhile, but there are no links to the page. (You can also see the published PageRank for pages in the Google Directory but it would be more work to search through that for all the sites.)

Link Text

1. Search Engines track the text of links and it is best to use your targeted search phrases in the text of links to your site. When targetting 'web design' -- web design is better link text than www.e-business.ie or O'Mahony Donnelly so I ask for people to link back to me that way. Perhaps 'Web Design by O'Mahony Donnelly'
2. When requesting a link, indicate how you would like your link added. Not all sites will honour this request. Many have their own style of adding links (either just the business name or domain name), but many will understand and follow your request.
3. Make sure you add links to your site in the way requested by the other party -- as long as it isn't too long or over powering to your page. Loads of people ask you to put really long descriptions. If you are trying to do a concise listing, just indicate this to them and they probably will be satisfied if you do the main link text they way they'd like.

The best way to get links? To have an interesting, informative, up to date site -- and everyone will want to link to your site.

If you are exhausted already after just reading this article find out about our Link Building Service.

New Site - dreamcakes.ie - Getting Results First Week Online

I warn clients upfront that their site will not really do well in search engine results for any time from 3-12 months (maybe even longer for sites in very competitive industries: holiday accommodation, property, etc.). The site www.dreamcakes.ie launched on the 31st of October, just in time for a Wedding Fair that the client was attending. On 2nd November, the site got 3 visits via Google!! And in the past two weeks, since the launch 202 visits (15.35% direct traffic, 18.81% referring sites and 65.84% search engines)!

When the first contact form submission went through a couple days after the site went live, I thought, "Oh, no, the spammers have got us already!" but it was a genuine enquiry for a birthday cake.

In the past I had noticed that it seemed that Google's 'sandbox', that holds new sites out of search results for a certain period of time, applies mainly to the primary search phrases (or most competitive phrases) you are targeting on the site and that the new sites were getting results for many other phrases used throughout the site -- but never at this level.

Of course there are many factors that determine your search engine results -- strength of the competitors sites, when google does it's crawl, number of visitors searching on your target phrases, etc. Perhaps these were all working in our favour.

One other thing that benefited this site -- a number of our existing clients were in related industries (weddings & gifts) so we were able to add links from those sites so the site could get a very good start.

So for all those sceptics that think that SEO doesn't work -- our Search Engine Placement strategy definitely works. While I am confident that we are using the best techniques for best search engine placement for our clients and have achieved excellent results for them -- this is the first time I have seen such a quick result!!!

Read more: Search Engine Optimization - or contact me for more information on how we can achieve these results for you!

More Phishing Emails - 'Google AdWords Alert'

Do not click any links in this email or reply with any of your login details!!!!

There has certainly been a rise in these kinds of emails. Maybe with the bad economic conditions, more people are turning to these evil tactics to make ends meet!!!!

Search Engine Submission Services. Why?

Why are web development and search engine optimization companies still offering 'Search Engine Submission Services'? Sites (pages, actually) get into the search engines when their automated 'bots' find their pages through links on sites that are already in the search engines.

Per Google - http://www.google.com/addurl/ - "We add and update new sites to our index each time we crawl the web, and we invite you to submit your URL here. We do not add all submitted URLs to our index, and we cannot make any predictions or guarantees about when or if they will appear. " So you can submit it, but it doesn't mean it's going to show in the listings any quicker than if you got a few good links into the site straight away, which would be better for your results anyway.

You can submit sites to web directories -- and this can be a good way to getting links on the web for search engines to then find you. I don't recommend paying for a submission unless it is a well known site with a lot of traffic or highly regarded and seen as necessary for your specific industry. I do recommend to my clients that they pay for a listing in the Yahoo Directory ($299/year) for at least the first year. The Yahoo directory used to bring a lot of traffic into my sites, but since they now feature their own search engine, the directory isn't used as much -- but Google still picks up those links and seesm to give them fairly good weight.

Perhaps these web dev companies are promoting this service because the clients are not as up to date on the industry (why would they be?) and keep asking for this service. I have one client that kept saying, "Have you submitted my site to search engines?" and I kept reminding him that it wasn't necessary.

A little bit of information can be a dangerous thing.