When a person searches for “kentucky fried chicken“, Google’s primary goal is to try to understand whether you’re in Kentucky looking for fried chicken or in New Jersey (like I am) looking for the local KFC. In a nutshell, that’s an example of how a searcher’s environment… their associations and place in the world give context to the search that’s taking place.
With that goal firmly in their sights, Google has helped move us from the world where rankings are driven by keyword density to one where context is king. They are looking for cues of what the searcher (you and I) is really looking for when they search for kentucky fried chicken. Take that same kind of richness of context and apply it to the text itself on your website. It has become increasingly important to ensure your website’s copy not only addresses your visitors’ core search, but their motivations and environment as well. What do I mean? In a simple example, when a person is interested in immigration, they also are likely to have questions or ideas about becoming a citizen, the naturalization process, getting a green card… legally, work in the US, visas, worker status, help and more. For both your user and your search engine rankings, this sort of in-depth understanding of the words and concepts related to your topic is key as we move into 2010 and 2011.
Great, Clay. You’ve proven you’re a nerd and like tangents (like Google does???). How can you put this sort of Latent Semantic Analysis (“LSA”) to work for me? I’ve found LSA is great for rankings but, more practically, it’s great for giving you ideas on where to go with your web content development. If you can tap in to the relationships and concepts associated with your topic, it makes it much easier to produce interesting copy that’s useful to your visitors.
Here’s how you can put LSA to work for you using “motorcycle accidents” as an example. Search for the phrase and note the first web URL they return that has good content on the landing page. Take that URL, copy it, and visit the Google Keyword Tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Under “How would you like to generate keyword ideas?” select the Website content radio button. Paste the URL into the input box and check the “Include other pages on my site linked from this URL” checkbox. Click to search and Google will go out and gather LSA ideas for you! The results returned include grouped keywords centered around concepts.
Move on to another top URL returned by Google: http://www.vtwinmama.com/accident_survivors.htm. Using the Google Keyword Tool on this URL, we get more keyword concepts like harley davidson, motorcycle safety, leather motorcycle jacket, motorcycle class and more. Each URL you research will return variants that are often useful. Of course, there is a lot of repetition of concepts like motorcycle accident attorneys and motorcycle safety but there are always gems in the results.
I haven’t seen it on TV yet, but the SearchEngineWatch Blog has put up notice that there’s a new Yahoo! television ad spot that’s supposed to start running soon. Here’s the video:
Did it excite you? *Yawn* was my reaction. Will this move the needle for Yahoo! search like Bing’s recent ad campaign?
One of the major changes in Google over the past few months is the increased implementation of customized search results. Publicized in July 2008 on the Official Google Blog, customized or personalized search results deliver website listings according to the searcher’s location, past & recent history. As Google states in some of their search results’ fine print,
When possible, Google will customize your search results based on location and/or recent search activity. Additionally, when you’re signed in to your Google Account, you may see even more relevant, useful results based on your web history.
This means that, if you search for securities lawyers, it will likely return lawyers within what Google determines to be your location. Another example would be that if you have searched for Philadelphia car accident lawyer in the past, visited a site and quickly returned to Google, it’s likely your quick abandonment of that site in the past will result in its demotion within your Google results in the future.
“Ok,” you say, “but everyone pretty well already knows that Google is customizing search results.” You’re right. There’s been a lot of chatter (1, 2, 3) about the issue for some time now. The extent to which they harvest & connect information is still to be determined but one thing is for sure: the idea of a “universal” set of search results is quickly becoming antiquated. SEO professionals have been talking about the use and uselessness of ranking reports for some time now, but the increased customization of search engine ranking pages now forces clients (like lawyers) to recognize that rankings vary, so website traffic and conversion of that traffic into a phone call or contact form submission is a much better, more quantifiable marker of success. As Mark Jackson with Search Engine Watch says,
“The best thing you can do now is to start focusing on a different measurement of success. Don’t focus on search engine rankings. Focus on ROI, conversions, and overall traffic.”
Since a lot my day centers around what attorney is found for what keyword, this issue is extremely important to me and SEO agencies like the one I work in. Most law firms are still absolutely focused on rankings and what they show up for. The SEO Ranking Report is a standard, expected part of legal and almost any other type of SEO services. Most agencies are prepared to deliver the traffic and conversion metrics, but the client conversations to re-set ranking display expectations will be very difficult. Imagine trying to explain to a client that they’re not showing up when they search Google because they (themselves) have searched it too much without clicking on their own listing?
Anyone with any thoughts? Oh, and what am I, as a user of the Bruce Clay SEOToolSet, supposed to think about their dedication to the quality of their ranking report product when Bruce Clay himself is reporting the imminent demise of the ranking report?
A question that I sometimes encounter: “Is my site optimized for the ______ (Firefox, Opera, etc.) web browser? ” Now, with Google’s Chrome browser entering the fray, it’s bound to spawn a whole new round of the same question. This kind of browser optimization should always be checked but, before you invest hours into re-coding your site to work correctly in Firefox or Chrome, you should know the market share to balance your consideration.
StatCounter.com is a wonderful, free web analytics program that is highly recommended. Who knew they had a blog? Well they do and, in it, they’ve revealed the latest stats on Global Browser Market Share, as it has been claimed by Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and “Other” top browsers (Flock, Opera, etc.):
Very interesting that it’s Firefox and “other” users who presumably compose the 1.15% now claimed by Google Chrome. To me, it indicates first adopters are the only ones using Chrome so far. The numbers for Firefox (at 21.26% on September 4, 2008) are more intriguing… there may be some “techie” skew in the sample set but not much. Chrome’s numbers show us that. At approximately 20% of market share, Firefox has nearly doubled its user base since my recollection of one year ago.
Chrome and Firefox share the same Mozilla browser core, so there shouldn’t be any major difference in the way they render your pages. The message is clear, though, if you have an error in Firefox, you should invest the time and labor to fix it for the sake of 20% of market. If a Chrome-specific error arises, explore what browser optimization would be necessary to fix the issue, but take a wait and see approach for the next few weeks.
Ultimately, if you’re not able to correct a browser-specific issue, a USER-AGENT browser redirect will be necessary with different landing pages for different browser versions.
It’s July 4th, so I was out in my garage working on my car, listening to WABC 770. A radio ad for search engine optimization (SEO) came on, believe it or not. This post isn’t about the permeation of SEO into the fabric of B2B but, rather, about the guarantee offered in the ad. (I really thought these guarantees had gone away a long time ago.) The provider’s SEO guarantee was this: if they don’t get top 10 rankings for you you don’t pay again until they do. Sounds good, right? This pitch has been around for at least 8 years – when I first encountered it. What’s the trick?
The firm guarantees that you pay them and, if after 90 days, they don’t have top 10 rankings for X of your keywords on the top search engines, you don’t pay until they do. The SEO guarantee “trick” lies within the small print.
Let’s say you have 100 keywords. They’ll guarantee 10, maybe 20 top ten rankings. Ok, so count on them being the worst keywords on your list. But even that’s not so bad. The big payoff (for them) is in the definition of “top search engines”: you think Google, Yahoo and MSN. They will define the group as something like Google, Yahoo, MSN, Looksmart, Lycos, Dogpile and other lesser engines. The problem(s):
the “B level” search engines included easily give the SEO firm the rankings they need to satisfy the guarantee… with little value to the site owner
even #3 search engine MSN can easily show rankings in 90 days, but it delivers less traffic volume than will satisfy most site owners
there is often the ability for the SEO firm to simply pay for sponsored search “rankings” to satisfy the guarantee
So buyer beware…
I’m sure not all SEO guarantees are a rip off… although Google recommends that you reject them, clearly stating “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings…” And we won’t even get into how SEO is about more than rankings (it’s about ROI). But I wanted to make lawyers and other search engine optimization service consumers aware of how guaranteeing rankings should be a warning sign, not reassurance.
