Internet marketing: The Beginning of the End of Search Engine Optimization
February 9, 2011 | 6 Comments
One of the constants in life is change, and this is especially true in this Internet age. It is either you evolve, or you dissolve; nothing stays the same.
As far as Internet marketing is concerned, times have really changed. Before, online marketers were obsessed with learning any tips and tricks available in order to get favorable listings in the search engines. But now, the trend seems to veer towards unconventional Internet marketing strategies.
Instead of being trapped in the complicated mechanics of search engine optimization (SEO), the wave is now flowing towards the more accurate and humanized features of user-driven indexing systems.
Right now, you may be thinking: Huh? What do you mean ‘humanized’? Worry not. Let us now analyze how Internet marketing has evolved.
Search engine optimization – the beginning of the end
Search engine optimization, or SEO, has dominated the Internet marketing industry for many years. It is widely accepted that more than 80% of your website traffic will come from the search engines. Although not many online marketers have come forward to back that claim, getting a good position in the search engines is still the way to go.
But search engines are not 100% perfect. They rely on robotic spiders to crawl through every single webpage on the Internet. These spiders will then index the pages according to the algorithms prescribed by the respective search engines.
There is nothing wrong with the process here. But the problem is that everything is automated. The robotic spiders cannot think like a human, therefore everything is either black or white to them; there is nothing in between. They might even list your web pages in the wrong category without your knowledge!
Humanized features of user-driven indexing system
User-driven indexing systems are totally different from the algorithms of SEO. Since the features are humanized, the users are able to classify websites under appropriate categories, or more commonly known as tags. This feature is so much more reliable than the approach of the spiders, because these websites are seen by actual human eyes.
Exit SEO, enter social bookmarking websites
Social bookmarking websites are the most popular kinds of user-driven indexing systems. There are a lot of these websites available on the Internet today, and they are very widely visited websites, if their Alexa rankings are anything to go by. Some of the more popular and hot Social bookmarking websites are Technorati, Furl and Feedmarker.
So what exactly are social bookmarking websites?
While surfing the net, when you see a website that catches your attention, you will add the URL of that site to your favorites under your ‘My Favorites’ folder on your web browser. With a click of your mouse, the URL is saved on your hard drive. This whole process is known as bookmarking.
Social bookmarking websites work pretty much the same way. But instead of saving a URL on your hard drive, you will be able to save it on a web server, under an appropriate tag. For example, if you come across an interesting dating website, you can save the website address under the tag ‘dating’.
Another interesting feature of social bookmarking websites is that you can share your list of ‘tagged’ websites with other users. If some of them are looking for dating websites, you can do your bit to help them by sharing your list with them. How cool is that?
How can Social Bookmarking benefit Internet marketers?
This exciting new technique can benefit fellow Internet marketing professionals in the following ways:
1. It will soon replace the search engines
This is a frightening prospect. Some experts are predicting that social bookmarking will soon replace the search engines as the information finding process of choice by most Internet users. The best way to take advantage of this growing phenomenon is to start using its features as early as today. Google and Yahoo!, you have been warned.
2. It can easily be manipulated
Social bookmarking is so much easier to manipulate. You have all the freedom in the world to place all your favorite websites in any desired tags without going through the sickening algorithms of the search engines.
3. The potential of tags
Tags are widely considered as the ‘keywords for the new Internet age’. They are now beginning to establish an interconnectivity that will soon cover many platforms and channels. If you want to dominate certain specific tags, then social bookmarking websites can be your launching platform.
Social bookmarking is destined to be the next big thing in Internet marketing. The current phenomenon that has taken the Internet by storm is blogging, and those who have taken early advantage are now reaping handsome rewards.
If you do not want to miss out on the next big thing, then now is the time for you to embark on the bookmarking adventure so that you are one step ahead of your competitors.
Wyatt Lee
http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/internet-marketing-the-beginning-of-the-end-of-search-engine-optimization-65437.html
Live From Madison Square Garden, SEO Vs Sem!
October 31, 2009 | 2 Comments
A great evening in Manhattan, a fantastic atmosphere in Madison Square Garden. Web business people is waiting this match for a long time. One side there is Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing on the other, both seems fit and there is desire to win on face. Last years both sides challenged to other but they never came to face to face. Before the match starts, lets take a short look to their career, strength and weaknesses.
Called SEO is short term of Search Engine Optimization. A milestone in web business since the search engines are the main source for web users before they buy services or products online. Finest and most trustable data source with their high indexing capacity and different logical algos working on the back round may depend on your rankings while results are listed. As most web users do not look much after the 3rd pages of results, web business owners are directly influenced. A web surfer can be your client if your web site is ranked at the top of search results but how you get listed at the top of a major engine? Even there are different algos powering the search engines the main theory is mostly same, simple algo stands on location and frequency. A crawl base search engines use spiders a web site and classifies with different principles to define the ranking. A fact about algo can be changed or improved for search quality. I’am sure all professionals will remember Florida Update on Google. Indeed it was an earchquake more than an update, many results were changed or disappeared on Google, some high rankings even lost from the index. Actually general Google algo is formulated as Relevance Score , PageRank , Local Score with other tweaking , tuning or filtering aspects. Main development point of a search algo is how much off page factors are important and their degrees take part in your algo. The theory on here is not giving much control to webmasters with on page factors .Other search engines do not use Page Rank since Page Rank is a trademark which belongs to Google. Avoiding any spamming , manipulation trials, over optimization or even cloaked content, engines are modifying or changing the degrees ,adding new variables on their algo time to time but all work done is to provide higher search relevancy and quality for users. (Relevance score is SEO efforts, Page Rank is Link building efforts for Google and Local Score is links from expert documents) As seen from the formula, SEO efforts only work on relevance score and vary your ranking 10% if you hired a SEO professional but this can increase 18% if your SEO is master level. I would like to talk about Yahoo and Live search engines’ secrets either but as mentioned they are my professional secrets for now, if you don’t know these, its impossible to get top results on Yahoo or Live.
Search Engine Marketing (Pay Per Click) is paid inclusions as seen Sponsored Results on engines based on pay per click. This marketing tool has been increased enormously in these years, even with expensive per click rates. In some keywords or phrases a click may cost 10€ ( online dating industry) whether visit converts to a lead or not. Ads buyers are ready to pay these high per click bills because SEM efforts bring more revenue than they spent. How this technology works while displaying the ads? Lets say few words about Google Adwords. Google has 2 different networks such as search network and content network. Search network means Google powered search results that you may see on any website with a search bar using Google’s search technology. Content network is different spidering technology and matching the search query and web site content. If you have a web site with high quality and useful content, you may apply and get involved Google’s Adsense network to make money. Google will classify your content and display related ads when a search query is matched as you have probably seen Ads by Google on web.
If SEO and SEM are powerful marketing tools which is the best and effective on sales conversion rates? This is the fatal question, both have advantages changing to the case, then lets compare:
A)In SEM, your web site does not need a change in most cases. If you want high conversion rates, a SEM professional should prepare high quality landing page is necessary only, not your entire design. On the other hand SEO may require some major design changes to get good spidering by engines.
B)PPC Ads charged when clicked only, displaying your ads will not cost you anything but poor Click Through Rates will increase your minimum per click costs. SEO visits are free of charge as visitors comes by clicking the natural search results from a search engine. Most visitors likely to trust a site they find on a search engine, they feel like natural results have been approved by the search engine.
C) SEM brings very quick results to analyze your campaign while SEO effects can take long time on ranking. On Adwords, just 15 minutes is enough to display your campaign on screen but SEO results may take up to 3 months on engine’s ranking.
D) ROI and Conversion rates are higher in SEM because you may design different landing pages according to your major products or services with price charts, feature comparison tables .However in SEO, you can not make these much because your most powerful PR page is your homepage so your sub pages which includes your product specification will not get listed higher than your main page.
E) Targeting is easy in SEM with campaign settings option. You may target national ,regional or international geographical areas depending on your shipping options. Google has features to promote your local business with accessing your business address or just selecting distribution area on Google Map. Another useful tool is matching options are enables you to select broad ,phrase,exacxt or negative matches while displaying your ads.When you prefer SEO, you can not prepare different target pages as they will be sub pages and will not get listed higher than your main page as above.
F) SEM limits you with your budget because your ads campaign will stop displaying when your daily, keywords or monthly budget is reached while SEO results longer even months after optimization work is done.
Finally who wins this match? Well, this depends on your expectation, budget and targets from your campaigns. As long years professional , I dont have a preference . Each business needs different campaigns, you may select to attract new clients in both tools while achieving your corporate targets.
Ladies and Gentlemen, unforgettable match is about to start in Madison Square Garden, please sit back and watch this.
Erkan Meydanlioglu,Mr
http://www.articlesbase.com/online-business-articles/live-from-madison-square-garden-seo-vs-sem-120682.html
Seo Techniques ~ Increasing Page Rank Through Web Directories
October 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment
When a typical individual surfs the internet, he or she will more than likely use a search engine like Google or Yahoo!Search to proceed with the search for specific information. After a result is returned by the search engine, this typical individual is likely going to click the link at the top of the page or at least a link found on the first page. The awareness of this leads many web masters to hire search engine optimization professionals to increase their page rank. A higher page rank means more web traffic for a web site.
— Page rank and search engine algorithms —
A high page rank is attained if the search engine finds the web site relevant to the specific keyword query made by a web surfer, and search engines have certain criteria for ranking the millions of web sites in their indexes. To be on top of the results page or to have a high page rank therefore, a web site must fulfill the criteria set out by the search engines. Search engine optimization professionals make a study of the search engine’s search algorithms and try to incorporate these algorithms into a web site’s pages.
— Link popularity as a criterion for search engine ranking —
One important criterion that search engines use to rank the pages in their indexes is link popularity. The logic lies in the supposition that the more other relevant sites link back to a web site, the more significant its content would be to the individual initiating the query. Thus, the higher the link popularity of a web site is, the higher the web site’s page rank deserves to be.
Link popularity is measured by the volume and quality of one-way links to a web site. A web site attains link popularity when it has many links from other web sites that are related to it. If a web master wishes to increase web site’s link popularity, he or she should solicit one-way links from other web sites, and it is better if the web master solicits these links from web sites that are directly related to his or her web site content. Thus, a web master of a travel web site is well advised if he or she seeks one-way links from other travel web sites or other sites that offer travel information. Another means to increase link popularity would be one-way links from web directories.
— Web directories —
Web directories are usually industry specific. They are an organized collection of links to web sites that belong in the same field. There are web directories for adult dating sites, there are web directories for travel-related sites and so on and so forth. Web directories also usually have sub directories. The links are typically classified into specific fields within a comprehensive industry; and more often than not, there are sub-categories for states, cities, and/or zip codes.
Web directories are a popular means of obtaining one-way links, and links that come from web directories carry much weight in link popularity, and thus, page ranking.
— Submitting to web directories —
To maximize the impact of web directory listings to page rank, the web master must choose the web directory carefully. The bigger and the more reputable the web directory is, the higher is the impact of a listing on page rank. It is also important to ensure that the link is submitted under the most appropriate heading or category of the web directory. Search engines look at the company your link keeps, so the more relevant the links around you in the directory are, the higher your page rank becomes.
David Bain
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/seo-techniques-increasing-page-rank-through-web-directories-137968.html
Seo Techniques ~ Increasing Page Rank Through Web Directories
October 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment
When a typical individual surfs the internet, he or she will more than likely use a search engine like Google or Yahoo!Search to proceed with the search for specific information. After a result is returned by the search engine, this typical individual is likely going to click the link at the top of the page or at least a link found on the first page. The awareness of this leads many web masters to hire search engine optimization professionals to increase their page rank. A higher page rank means more web traffic for a web site.
— Page rank and search engine algorithms —
A high page rank is attained if the search engine finds the web site relevant to the specific keyword query made by a web surfer, and search engines have certain criteria for ranking the millions of web sites in their indexes. To be on top of the results page or to have a high page rank therefore, a web site must fulfill the criteria set out by the search engines. Search engine optimization professionals make a study of the search engine’s search algorithms and try to incorporate these algorithms into a web site’s pages.
— Link popularity as a criterion for search engine ranking —
One important criterion that search engines use to rank the pages in their indexes is link popularity. The logic lies in the supposition that the more other relevant sites link back to a web site, the more significant its content would be to the individual initiating the query. Thus, the higher the link popularity of a web site is, the higher the web site’s page rank deserves to be.
Link popularity is measured by the volume and quality of one-way links to a web site. A web site attains link popularity when it has many links from other web sites that are related to it. If a web master wishes to increase web site’s link popularity, he or she should solicit one-way links from other web sites, and it is better if the web master solicits these links from web sites that are directly related to his or her web site content. Thus, a web master of a travel web site is well advised if he or she seeks one-way links from other travel web sites or other sites that offer travel information. Another means to increase link popularity would be one-way links from web directories.
— Web directories —
Web directories are usually industry specific. They are an organized collection of links to web sites that belong in the same field. There are web directories for adult dating sites, there are web directories for travel-related sites and so on and so forth. Web directories also usually have sub directories. The links are typically classified into specific fields within a comprehensive industry; and more often than not, there are sub-categories for states, cities, and/or zip codes.
Web directories are a popular means of obtaining one-way links, and links that come from web directories carry much weight in link popularity, and thus, page ranking.
— Submitting to web directories —
To maximize the impact of web directory listings to page rank, the web master must choose the web directory carefully. The bigger and the more reputable the web directory is, the higher is the impact of a listing on page rank. It is also important to ensure that the link is submitted under the most appropriate heading or category of the web directory. Search engines look at the company your link keeps, so the more relevant the links around you in the directory are, the higher your page rank becomes.
David Bain
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/seo-techniques-increasing-page-rank-through-web-directories-137968.html