Search Engine News

Vancouver forecast: light winds, unlimited visibility

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:00 GMT

The view from Whistler Mountain is something everyone should see: a range of rugged mountains, trails of snow, fir trees and placid lakes below. It's changed since I lived there some years back — there are many more houses, and far better chairlifts — but what remains is the rare feeling of being free, in nature, about to tear into peak snow.

In time for the Games in Vancouver and Whistler, we're thrilled to be bringing this view to the world through Street View on Google Maps. How were we able to gather imagery at 7,000 feet (2,000 meters)? The Street View team's constant experimenting yielded a snowmobile decked out with cameras to capture slope-level imagery of several runs on Whistler Blackcomb Mountains. The view from the top of 7th Heaven chairlift on Blackcomb and from the peak of Whistler are among my favourites, as are the top of the Dave Murray downhill, where the men's alpine skiing events will start, and the Peak 2 Peak gondola. (That's Whistler's new feat of engineering which takes skiers and riders from Whistler to Blackcomb.) With the Street View trike, we've also covered Whistler Village and Whistler Creekside at the mountains' bases. There's more about the snowmobile's journey and this imagery on the Google Lat Long Blog.

This imagery and many other tools are now ready to ride on our new website with information about the Games, available in 40 languages. We've combined up-to-date medal counts, news, event results and event schedules with rich visuals: 3D models and Street View imagery of the competition venues, plus new aerial imagery of the Vancouver-Whistler area. It's all in an iGoogle gadget, too. The site also connects you with real-time search results for the Games, local experts' Favourite Places and a special Picasa Web Albums gallery of featured photos from Vancouver — some submitted by users and others from Google News. Whether you're celebrating at home or in Vancouver, simply add a "wintergames2010" tag to your own photos in Picasa Web Albums, or use "wintergames2010" as the email subject if you're uploading from your mobile phone, and we'll feature the best ones.

As an extra treat for enthusiasts, check out the Google homepage from February 12 to 28 for a special doodle each day celebrating the Games. You can also get the most up-to-date medal counts, event results and schedules by doing a simple Google search. I'll be following [men's hockey] myself, and rooting for Team Canada.

Posted by Jonathan Lister, Managing Director and Head of Google Canada

Liveblogging the Google Social Event

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:55 GMT

Google is set to announce a new social tool at a 10:00 am event on its Mountain View campus. Due to the last-minute notice, we're not on the scene, but Google is providing a webcast via YouTube that we'll be using. Stay tuned for the liveblogging to start at 10 am or shortly thereafter…. Okay, so it's [...]

....

Ask/IAC Q4: Bleeding Money, But Hey, Online Ads are Doing Good!

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:49 GMT

Ask's parent company IAC posted $1B in losses largely because it wrote down the value of its search business. But, says the AP, this is actually good news for the online ad market (and not because a competitor is about to get out of the market)—because IAC didn't do as badly as expected.

No, because it beat estimates by 2¢ per share, a nine-figure loss “offered the latest indication that the online advertising market is improving,” as the AP says. IAC investors seemed to agree, since it the stock jumped four percent after the results were posted.

In the most recent quarter IAC took a $991.9 million impairment charge to account for decreased projections for revenue and profit growth at IAC's search properties, which include such Web sites as Ask.com and Dictionary.com.

However, there was some true good news in the report as well. Their search business (Ask, Citysearch, etc.) saw increased revenue (up 3%)—the first increase all year. And overall revenue was up, too—an increase of 5% to $367.2 million, beating analyst projections by 8%.

What do you think? Is this good news for the industry bad news for IAC, or good/bad news all around?

Free Ebook PDF Search Engine

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:34 GMT

Great PDF Search Engine. is a pdf search engine for PDF ebooks, manual, catalogs, sheets, forms and documents. Very basic - just pop in what you're looking for, and it returns a list of links. No real information other than title, which is a shame.

SMX West Networking Activities and Parties Scheduled

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:26 GMT

We've already highlighted the exceptional content and highly qualified presenters at SMX West. But there’s another aspect of the show that is just as important and valuable – networking. And with hundreds of companies sending delegates (so far), there are lots of people to network with! Keep reading to learn more about the networking opportunities and [...]

....

Weekly Search & Social News: 02/09/2010

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:24 GMT

Welcome to another edition of ‘7 Days of Search and Social‘ – I hope this edition finds you well and 2k10 is rocking so far (busy, but fun over here).

Last week was the kind of week a geek like me dies for. There were a ton of great blog posts, plenty of humour, lots of geeky IR stuff (including an IR post with profanity.. wicked cool!) and even a bunch of interesting patents. Actually, one of the longest search patent names I've ever seen. Truly a week that was a blast to follow. On that note…let's not waste more time with my idle banter, we're a lot to get to!

Lead Story

Help stop the madness!!

A few week’s ago some pals and I were joking via Twitter that there should be a dedicated place for ranting and otherwise going off. You see, I tend to keep a certain demeanour when writing this newsletter or even on my blog. Sure, ranting once in a while… but it’s not the same as losing it.

Just for sh*ts and giggle’s I poked around and noticed that SEObulls**t.com was available. The rest as you’ve likely figured out, is history.

Some of the first posts;

We’ve taken to calling it, ‘SEO Group Therapy’ in that it has become a place that is fostering discussions. An unexpected side effect. It is a (reasonably) open door policy for posters and I look forward to it’s continued growth. If you like your SEO stories with a bit of humour (and profanity at times), drop on by. Also be sure to follow us on Twitter and Grab the Badge!

And away…

Quick Nav Links – Talk of the Town – Geek Central – Social Search – Local SEO – Videos – Tools – Patents -

Talk of the town

My Many Words for Snow – speaking of profanity. The IR geeks are generally a more reserved bunch (or so I thought) until now. Seriously… it’s pretty funny. Read it. Takes 30 seconds.

Overcoming The SEO Challenges Of Huge Online Commerce Sites – ok sure, Eric said the dreaded ‘PR sculpting’ but at least it has a new spin (lol). All in all, still a worthy edition for those in ecom.

Relevance: Good for SEO, Good for YOU – Virginia has a nice little road map for relevance. I enjoyed this one as it was anti-geeky. Taking ‘relevance’ back to the thought level… Nice.

Google Fails 5th Grade Math Test – and hey, what’s a week without poking some fun at Googly? And who better than Michael VanDemar to take them to task?

A concise list of SEO black hat tactics – while Michael may not luv me no more, (something to do with the SEOBS blog hehe) I still do, so here’s his nearly weekly addition into the mix. For the record, I have mate in BH, just not a fan of it myself.

“Inkbait”: A Case Study In Linkability – Deb does some link bait deconstruction and (as always) gives us some good take-aways. Seriously, she’s more of a content strategists at times, not merely a link builder.

50 Ways To Lose Your Link – speaking of links, Julie had a list (yup, I hate ‘em, but this one ain’t too bad) of the many ways that outreach can go wrong.

Using the hReview Microformat for your Review Pages – did I metion microformats were important? Richard seems to be getting right into them over the last while… Bookmark this one as it is a’ coming!

Why it’s time to take the SEO industry seriously – ok, sure, the content is a little light. But how often will we see a major (non SEO) website actually not crapping on our collective heads? Print it out. Frame it.

Master Baiters Taking The Bait – since we’re all sh*ts and giggles this week, I thought I’d add Milt’s post that asks the pertinent question. Why to SEO Baiters always find a hungry fish?

The Benefits of a Targeted YouTube Distribution Strategy - a new addition to the newsletter are the guys at Reel SEO. Be sure to grab their feed and bookmark the site. We’ll be looking at VSEO more and more this year (part of a good universal search strategy right?).

Link Building Gems from User Behavior Patterns – and last but not least, was a great guest post on the Trail from Jennifer Van Iderstyne. She takes one of my fav topics (behavioural) and puts a link building spin on it. A fun ride.

Quick Nav Links – Talk of the Town – Geek Central – Social Search – Local SEO – Videos – Tools – Patents -

Search Geek Central

Cutts Corner;

Does Google remove the PageRank coming from links on pages that no longer exist?

Is speed more important than relevance?

Is Google Analytics data a factor in a page's ranking?

Weapons

Image SEO Tool - SEOish

Track Your Keyword Positions with SEO Ranking Monitor – SEJ

Keyword Research with Google Only: No Other Tools Needed – Search Engine People

Google Analytics Releases Mobile Search Tracking – SEP

6 Personas that Google Analytics can’t Track – SEOptimise

See More Information on Linked Pages with MashLogic - SEJ

Understanding Google Insights: You Can’t Estimate Traffic with It - SEJ

Using Sysomos to find Keywords for your SEO and SEM – Web Metrics Guru

Quick Nav Links – Talk of the Town – Geek Central – Social Search – Local SEO – Videos – Tools – Patents -

Search Patents

Google

Content identification expansion

Automatic completion of fragments of text

Multiple index based information retrieval system

Providing Posts to Discussion Threads in Response to a Search Query

Microsoft

Pseudo-anchor text extraction for vertical search

Recommendation system that identifies a valuable user action by mining data supplied by a plurality of users to find a correlation that suggests one or more actions for notification

Fast on-line learning of transformed hidden Markov models

Searching questions based on topic and focus

Clustering question search results based on topic and focus

Yahoo

Classifying documents using implicit feedback and query patterns

Building a research document based on implicit/explicit actions

/end SOSG session

Quick Nav Links – Talk of the Town – Geek Central – Social Search – Local SEO – Videos – Tools – Patents -

‘7 Days of Search and Social’ is a joint effort from Search Engine Journal and the SEO Training Dojo to bring you the latest in SEO and Social Search news. Each week (on Tuesdays) we’ll be posting the highlights of the most recent (SEO Geeks) newsletter here on Search Engine Journal.

Be sure to grab the SEJ feed for the latest or sign up to the SEO Dojo newsletter to get it straight to your inbox.

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Weekly Search & Social News: 02/09/2010

The Tuesday Signal

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:20 GMT

Tuesday, we hope, things will get back to normal after Super Bowl fever had subsided. Google is set to turn Gmail into a status updatin' machine, which positions it to compete directly with Twitter. I'll be posting this Signal an hour or so before the details emerge. I have an FM Board meeting this morning, (don't fear, it's all good...). So click this link for news of Google's Gmail moves.

Meanwhile, the past 24 hours has brought, as usual, all manner of linkworthy schtuff:

Loopt and Mobile Spinach Team Up for Location-Based Deals (Mashable) I'm watching this space. Hence the next item....

Beyond The Badge: Big Media Brands Strike Foursquare Deals (AdAge) It's early yet in this space. I expect a significant acquisition by one or two of the majors. Foursquare, for those of you playing at home, was started by folks who sold Dodgeball to Google, watched it go nowhere, left and started over. Of course, if they or others sell, it will retard (yes, I said it) development of a truly native marketing medium. Which would be sad. But not atypical. (Also, see this Bits post, and my post on "checking in" last week.)

Even After Super Bowl, Google Plays the Reluctant Advertiser (ClickZ) Look. I know I promised to write more about this earlier, but I kind of lost my zest for the topic. Google laid its cards on the table. Now lets see if it decides to keep playing the game. I doubt it.

Social Today Feels Like Search A Decade Ago: Lots Of Noise And Lots Of Spam (TC) Indeed, a good point. But not entirely apples to apples. The larger observation is entirely correct: There is a large, very large, opportunity in uniting all these competing platforms. However, it means folks have to play a bit more nicely. The way it's playing out right now, I don't see it being solved in the near term. NB: I don't think the regular joe six degrees pack has the same spam problems as Mike. That could change...

'Conversationalists' Climb Social Technographics Ladder (MarketingProfs/Forrester) (image at top left) Jeez, conversationalists? Whodathunk.

Social Media Marketing Best Practices (eMarketer) A plug for their paid report, but hey, the post is worth reading even if you don't want to pay.

Super Bowl Ads: Hulu’s Winners and Losers [STATS] (Mashable/Hulu) Google did pretty well. So was it worth $6 million? Even Google can't tell you that.

Google leaps language barrier with translator phone (Times of London) Fun. Early. But fun.

IAC Earnings: Search Revenues Up, But $1 Billion Impairment Charges

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:19 GMT

Despite loss, they beat the Street.

Click to read the rest of this post...

Anatomy of a Hands-on SEO Site Audit – Part 1

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:58 GMT

Welcome to part one in a series of articles on the anatomy of a hands-on SEO site audit! This was originally just going to be one article. But then my book-length article nature came up squarely against the awareness that true site audits can be extremely complex.

And as much as everyone just loves those cute little 9 steps to blah-de-blah, we all know already that such articles are rare for me to write anyhow. And this particular topic is one that I think comes to the top of the list as far as importance in our industry.

Fifteen College Credits

This series of articles isn't going to be a comprehensive how-to covering every single aspect of the process, since that could easily take up an entire fully matriculated college semester. So what I share here today, and in future follow-up articles, should be used as a foundation – more like a check-list of tasks with enough detail along the way to be like a nice succulent rack of ribs, slathered in the best seasoning you've ever had.

And where I believe it will be beneficial, I'll also offer some insights into the broader mind-set of why I go about the audit process the way I do, based on the notion that a proper process will lead to a much higher level of success in business, and in turn, personal happiness. Because the more successful we each are, and the happier we as individuals are, the better we, as an industry will become. Both from a human perspective and from the added respect we gain from our clients and SEO h8ers.

So once again, I invite you to go get a large cup of your favorite caffeinated beverage, kick back, and enjoy!

The Value of Hands On Audits

Everyone goes about the process of an SEO site audit differently. Some people rely on various tools or software to do the heavy lifting. Personally, I prefer to do most everything in a hands-on approach. I charge anywhere from $750 for a small to mid-size site, $2,000 to $3,000 or more for a complex site in a highly competitive field, and as much as $5,000 if it's what I consider a “mega-site” -one that's got (or will need) tens of thousands of pages. So I figure the client deserves the kind of attention to detail that such a method brings.

Also, when relying on software or someone else's tool, you may actually miss some very important information, or even be led to conclusions that aren't necessarily based on real world fact. This can be especially true when doing the competitive analysis, though it's just as likely if you get lost in the hype that comes with some of those tools.

You may disagree with me on that concept. Personally, I think things like keyword density percentages, KPI scores, and competitor intelligence that comes from software (either in a downloaded install or an online service) are only as accurate as the logic that went into it, and more important to me, I've never once found such a “solution” that I couldn't bust wide open as being wildly inaccurate at least some of the time when running tests against some of my biggest clients. (Sites that have hundreds of thousands or even millions of visitors).

In any case, I've consistently found that my hands-on approach gets stellar results, so until someone can show me a reason to do otherwise, I'll continue to take the path that's worked so well for me in the past.

Audits Are Useless Without Action Plans

In every audit I perform, I provide details on my findings – what works, what doesn't. And I always provide action items – literally laying out the map of how to overcome issues I've discovered. That's one of the reasons I charge the fees I do for my work. Before I had the luxury of cherry-picking my clients, I charged my fee because there was no guarantee that the client wouldn't then turn around and find someone else who would charge a fraction of my rate to execute my plan.

And in those situations, if I give away my audit/action plan for free or on the cheap, many clients would freak out reading the last couple pages of it where I detail the costs of implementing that plan. Usually because my “free” or “low cost” audit caused them to think or reinforced their already existing belief that SEO is easy.

These days, I get the rates I do because my audits and action plans are the lion's share of what I do. Probably 80% of my work comes from agencies who hire me either exclusively for this work, or for this work followed by overseeing the team that does implement (either that agencies team or their end client's team). It also helps that I wasn't afraid to charge the rates I do. I no longer live in fear mentality when it comes to that topic. Instead, I operate based on value pricing.

A Quality Audit & Action Plan Sets Healthy Expectations

By being as detailed as I am in this, it literally opens peoples eyes to what the causes were if they were in the SERP basement. It's also a reality check on what the true competitive landscape consists of, which is usually something most business owners don't have a clue about. And it also shows how many things need to be addressed, and the complexity of some of it.

All of which puts them in the “this is more serious than we ever considered” frame of mind that's critical to their not labeling me as either a wanna-be hack or as someone out to rip them off. By the time we get through even a fraction of that final document, clients inevitably have a much higher level of respect for my expertise. They're much more open to trusting that they hired the right person. And even if they went into this process with some ridiculously under-inflated expectation as to budgets, they're then much more capable now of loosening those marketing purse-strings.

Not Everyone Can Afford Executing Every Recommended Action Item

The reality is that I often run into situations where clients have fixed-budget constraints. Either because the cash-flow just isn't there, or because their in-house number crunchers are more skilled at arguing against spending than they (usually a marketing department) are at arguing in favor of spending.

Alternately, some businesses are already in deep financial trouble and getting better results from their web presence is a last-ditch effort to salvage an otherwise failing company. As much as this type of business owner / manager had already pinned their hopes on this process, they often learn it's going to be impossible to do everything (you can't take out a business loan for marketing when you've already lost all your investors or creditors).

Prioritizing Tasks Sometimes Saves The Day

Because of this, I will quite often assign a priority scale to each action item, with the tasks most likely to get the biggest bang for the buck getting the highest priority. When I do this, however, I make it crystal clear, in writing, that for each task not acted upon, the results process will take that much longer, and under certain circumstances, may mean focusing on only achieving some of the desired goals at all.

Know The Situation Before You Commit

While we can't always know when a prospective client is already beyond hope, there are some key things you can do to gauge how solvent a prospective client is or how likely they are to become that proverbial nightmare client.

For example, when first speaking with a prospect, I explain that I'm just so busy with existing work that it could be a month before I can perform the audit, and (depending on the size of the site or the depth of competition) that implementing the plan / seeing real results could take three to six months.

That dialogue is essential, because it's the easiest way up front to find out if they're in desperation mode already or not. If the response you get is something like “is there any way you can do it sooner”, or “Really? That long?” or “We can't wait that long”, or – “your rate seems too high”, my best advise to you, my industry colleagues, is to immediately ask for an explanation as to why they said that.

Couple that with a fee that is value based rather than desperation based (caving in and saying “I need this client, so I'll charge them half my normal rate”), and the overwhelming majority of prospective clients who are already in business failure mode will show themselves.

Being Empathetic Without Being Codependent

Now just because I advocate what some might consider high rates, it's not that I don't empathize with such people. In fact, most of us know what it's like to have, at some point, been struggling in business. So we can appreciate when someone needs a break. And from time to time, I do discount my rates. Yet I don't discount them by more than 10 or 15% with a new client anymore. Instead, if I'm in a generous mood, I may even offer to spread my payment structure out an extra payment. I won't, however, get lost in my compassion, because every time I have, I've paid the price on a stress level.

Remember – we're not talking about pro-bono work now – which is something I do throughout the year. Except in those situations, I will seek out the prospective client instead of offering that to someone who contacts me for help.

The Cost Of Failure To Assess

Failure to clarify such statements will, more often than not, result in your taking on a true nightmare client. Someone who will pepper you with dozens of phone calls or email messages on a daily basis. Or, in the worst scenario, blame you for every delay. Even when they themselves fail to get back to you in a timely manner. And eventually, those quite often turn into clients who start yelling and screaming that you've cost them thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars in lost revenue.

Some of you are nodding your heads in understanding. You've been there, so you know it's true. Others of you may think “that wouldn't happen to me”.

At this point I was going to get all philosophical, but instead, I'll just say this – if you think you're invulnerable to it, you're probably even more vulnerable.

It's Not Ego, It's Good Business Sense

For every prospective client who will, from day one, appreciate, respect and value your services, there are many more who won't. That's a result of human nature and the economy we now live in.

So you're going to need to be able to filter out those who won't value or respect or appreciate your services. So you can get to working sooner with those who will.

And if you're going to show up with your integrity, and your skills, in a way that could potentially help your clients make tons of money by getting them high up in the search engines and through increased conversions from site visits, you will deserve that happiness and that success. Because you'll have earned it.

Beyond Psychology – Where To Begin

Okay so let's say you get it – you understand the importance of doing your best to only take on clients who appreciate the work. Where do you go from there? Well, the audit, of course! Now, every audit is NOT going to be the same. Auditing a five page web site in a very niche market is going to be a lot less complicated than if it were a site that sells products and has competitors like Amazon. Yet the fundamentals are the same. So let's start with the fundamentals.

The Focused and Methodical Mind-Set

A long time ago, I was in the Military Police. And in our training, we were taught to be focused and methodical. Of course that was important when I was facing down a suspect with my .45 in my hand, ready to shoot ( uh, that's a 45 caliber pistol – ask me some time about what it was like in those situations…).

Yet even though a site audit isn't that off-the-charts life-on-the-line intense, being focused and methodical always pays off. During an audit it helps to better ensure you're not going to be distracted – that you'll notice patterns more readily, and that you'll cover more, if not all, of the bases.

Curiosity Killed The Cat But Rewards The Consultant

As someone who ended up in charge of Crime Prevention, I also learned the value of being curious. If something you're looking at triggers an intuitive “that's odd” moment, stop. Right there. Whatever it is in your mind that you recognize as triggering that feeling, lock it in your mind. Make a note of it in writing.

Even if it turns out to be nothing, it's better to stop and check. And the extra act of writing it down will ensure that you don't just blow it off or get side-tracked and forget. Worst case that happens is you scrap that notation afterward.

Curiosity Sometimes Pays Off Big

Later in this series, when I'm talking about evaluating inbound links, I'll share with you a crime that was being perpetrated against one of my biggest clients, for an extended period. A crime that potentially involves serious theft of business. And how, in my beginning of the year audit this past week, I discovered it. All because I had one of those “that's odd” moments and locked it into my memory.

Well, maybe I won't reveal that exact situation, because it's currently going through the legal process, and I have not been given permission to discuss the exact facts of this case. At least not yet.

In any case, let's just say that paying attention to those bumps in the audit process can sometimes pay off in crazy-wow-holy-cannoli ways.

Documenting Your Findings

In order to keep proper records of my findings, I rely on a handful of resources. Feel free to use whatever record-keeping method and resource that best works for you. It's important however, to take notes and gather data in one consistent manner each time. I use:

MS Word
Excel
Photoshop
ScreenGrab for Firefox

As I'm reviewing various aspects of a site's optimization or lack thereof, and of competitor sites and keyword lists, by having each of these open from the start, I can quickly cut and paste, build lists, take screen-captures and annotate them.

Break It Into Groups

When I perform an SEO site audit, I don't stay on one page and record all my findings for that page. Instead, I split out optimization elements and look at that one element across multiple points. So for example, if I'm looking at the home page Title tag, I'll then jump to the next page's Title, and another after that.

If a site has sub-directories or has funnels of content, I always check the Title on at least one or two pages in each section before I make any broad assumption.

Only after I've recorded my findings for that one element across multiple points will I then go back and take on the next element.

No Need to Go Insanely Overboard

Now some people might think that an audit that is thorough has to involve reviewing every single optimization element on every single page of a site. Or every single inbound link. Or twenty competitor sites. And this may be why some people opt to use software or web based tools to do this work.

The fact is though, even at the rates I charge just for my audits, I'm not going to review every single element on every page, or every link or every competitor. There's no need to do so. Well, there's no need that I've personally ever felt. Maybe because I see patterns better than others, or I've just been lucky in making assumptions after seeing what I believe to be a pattern.

Yet the bottom line here is that since this is ONLY an audit, if I've reviewed ten page Titles across ten different pages, at least one or two in each section of the site, and I've noted that there are flaws in the optimization of all or most of those, then it's a good enough indicator to me that the whole site has page Title problems.

And THAT is what I need to document. The fact that I've found a consistent issue with less than ideally optimized page Titles.

Record Your Findings In Digestible Chunks

Okay – so lets say I've found a flawed page Title issue. When I record that finding in my audit doc, I'll provide a brief description, and then the URL for two or maybe three of those, but no more. Just enough to show the client “hey – I believe this is a problem and here's the proof”.

With things like Titles, I also like to then show examples of how I would change them, given the opportunity.

So in this situation, the entry might end up like this:

Being Specific Without Teaching SEO

Note in the example above, I don't bother to explain how I determined that recommended page Title? That's because a site Audit isn't supposed to be an advanced course in SEO. It's to point out problems and recommend methods of solution.

If a client is curious to know how I came to my recommendation, we'll discuss that during the phone or in-person review of the audit, but only in broad terms. Because I expect my clients to trust that I know what I'm talking about, not teach them my business. That's not why they're hiring me.

Building Your Case, Not Giving Away The Farm

By using these methods, what I'm doing is building my case as to the fact that there are clearly flaws in the existing optimization, and that there is a clearly defined plan of action to resolve these.

And because I show enough depth, and a few actual examples, I then set the scenario for later on, where, at the end of the audit, I drop the line-item proposal on the client. Like:

Thorough Keyword Research – 15 hours
Implementation of Proper Page Title Seeding across all top tier pages – 4 hours
SEO Category title Automation (CMS Change) – 15 Hours
Training Client in selecting proper implementation of keywords at the Category and Product Level – 4 hours
Follow-Up Review of Client implementation – 2 hours
After-Implementation Evaluation of Action Plan Success – 4 hours
Etc
Etc

Only The Beginning

Of course, this is only the start of the SEO Site Audit process that I've consistently used to great success for the last few years. In Part 2, I'll offer more insight and methods that I use in my audits, but hopefully you've found this a great start. And please – let me know what you think!

Super Extra Special Bonus Revealed

Now for those of you who hadn't followed the comment thread in my last how-to article, Taking Front End SEO to the Next Level, I need to congratulate Michel Leconte one of the geniuses behind SEO Toaster, for having discovered the answer to that article's “Super Extra Special Bonus SEO Technique #739” challenge.

In that article, I included a next-level method I use within the illustrations but hadn't revealed it as far as a description in the article itself.

Michel guessed “i guess variations of the last sentence qualifying size, resolution is not simply a coincidence, each/all/this depending on nav level.”

He was referring to the fact that in a product catalog online, whenever possible, I like to include one or more sentences within the descriptive content for each category, sub-category and product, where that text is automatically inserted and uses a pre-determined keyword seeding process. Doing this ensures that even when the client tasks a 10 year old to manually write the product descriptions, we get at least some well-written text that has the keywords in it. And also, we vary up the writing from category to sub-category to product level as well, to reduce the likelihood of duplicate content.

So kudos to Michel!

Alan Bleiweiss has been an Internet professional since 1995, managing client projects valued at upwards of $2,000,000.00. Just a few of his most notable clients through the years have included PCH.com, WeightWatchers.com, and Starkist.com. Follow him on Twitter @AlanBleiweiss , read his blog at Search Marketing Wisdom, and be sure to read his column here at SearchEngineJournal.com the 2nd and 4th Tuesday each month.

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Anatomy of a Hands-on SEO Site Audit – Part 1

IAC Q4 Earnings: Search Growth 3% But Takes $1 Billion Loss On Ask.com

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:48 GMT

IAC, the parent company of Ask.com, reported their fourth quarter earnings today and overall, it was a good quarter of revenue for IAC, being up 5% year-over-year in revenue. On the income side of the balance sheet, IAC was up 47% from Q4 of 2008 to Q4 2009. Search, which includes Ask.com, was [...]

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Google "Save Us From Berlusconi" Spam?

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:22 GMT

I spotted a very weird Google Webmaster Help thread that I honestly do not fully understand. If you search for URLs containing the words "Save Us From Berlusconi" in that order, in Google, you will find almost 4 million matches....

Please Email This Article; Researchers Say You’ll Feel Better

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:12 GMT

If fear, scandal, sex, and humor sell newspapers, it stands to reason that those topics would make for the most popular articles on news sites and blogs. Right?

Wrong!

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have intensively studied the New York Times list of most-e-mailed articles and discovered that it was an entirely unexpected emotion that caused the average reader to share an article.

“Emotion in general leads to transmission, and awe is quite a strong emotion,” [Dr. Berger] said. “If I’ve just read this story that changes the way I understand the world and myself, I want to talk to others about what it means. I want to proselytize and share the feeling of awe. If you read the article and feel the same emotion, it will bring us closer together.”

Apparently science-themed articles were among the most popular, with RNA, deer optics, paleontology and cosmology, among those most emailed.

Now, while the study appears to be very well constructed, there's just one major flaw that I see here:

These were New York Times readers!

While we have many wonderful NYT readers that visit Marketing Pilgrim each day, I'd say that our general demographic is not quite the same. That said, you may want to consider how closely you mimic the NYT's writing style. Here's what worked for them:

More emotional stories were more likely to be e-mailed, the researchers found, and positive articles were shared more than negative ones. Longer articles generally did better than shorter articles, although Dr. Berger said that might just be because the longer articles were about more engaging topics.

For me, I think I'll stick to scaremongering, controversial studies, and wild rumors!

When Not To Use Canonical Tags With Pagination

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:09 GMT

When Google announced support for the canonical tag just about a year ago, webmasters were excited for the possibilities of a serving a 301 redirect to spiders but not users. But when should you not use it? A Google Webmaster...

Share Well With Others: How To Get Social Content To Go Viral

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:04 GMT

Promoting content in social media is only half the battle. Once it is in the face of thousands of visitors, there needs to be some sort of emotional and psychological drive to get them to share that content with others. This is key in creating a “snowball effect” that will build perpetual motion to reach [...]

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Upcoming Google AdSense Webinars

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:03 GMT

Google's Ashley posted a thread at Google AdSense Help forums announcing upcoming AdSense Webinars. The upcoming webinars include: AdSense Optimization Basics - Wednesday, February 10, 2010 5:00 pm GMT/ 9am PSTAdvanced Optimization - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 5:00 pm GMT/9am...

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