Archive for the ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ Category
ICANN Conference in Sydney
Sydney will play host to the ICANN Conference this June, and enrollment is now open to Domain Registrars, Service Providers, and the community at large.
ICANN is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, and whilst ICANN has little to do with Internet Marketing and Search Engines, they play the single most responsible role on the Internet, by managing the policies pertaining to the domain name system, as well as IP Addressing.
ICANN Conferences are a great networking opportunity for those in the industry, and a great way to learn about new developments to policy and emerging technologies.
Many of the key topics at this years conference in Sydney will include the new TLDs, IPSec, IPv6 and DNS Fast Fluxing (a high-tech method of updating nameservers every few seconds to avoid detection and being shut down - this is commonly used by phishers and spammers).
This year’s ICANN conference is open for enrollment and runs from June 21st - 26th June 2009 in Sydney.
For information and details on how to enrol, visit syd.icann.org
SEO Snake Oil
I was reading an article on ‘SEO Snake Oil‘ recently posted to Search Engine Watch, and recall that isn’t the first time I’ve heard of Search Engine Optimisation being referred to as ‘Snake Oil’ , a derogatory term used by Chinese medicine practitioners for medicines or potions that make false promises, or in more modern times, the idea that the product being sold simply doesn’t do what it claims to.
The article from SearchEngineWatch defends the industry, and deals with the bad publicity and issues that Search Engine Optimisation Companies are facing in trying to promote their business, and build or retain confidence and good-will in their business.
Unfortunately there are SEO Practitioners in the market who either make false claims, or overestimate what they’re capable of delivering, or take your money and do very minimal work with very little impact on increasing traffic (the very goal of SEO). Given the price tag on some SEO Campaigns, it is understandable that some companies would have a hard time parting with their advertising dollars without assurances.
Search Engine News believes that Education is the key to building consumer confidence in SEO. Just as anyone can mow their own lawn themselves, or choose to pay for a mowing company to do it for them, a business owner can choose to do some research on SEO and online marketing and attempt to implement it themselves, or they can pay a professional to do it for them.
A few important things to remember about SEO and Online Marketing:
A good SEO Campaign may take 6 months to mature and show positive signs of success, but SEO can often be a long-term and evolving project which should be maintained and revisited regularly.
SEO is not a silver bullet. SEO is only one part of your online marketing campaign, and may take a while before you start seeing results. Ultimately, SEO is a preferred method of attracting customers through the web, because once you have a high-ranking site, visitors clicking on your link are free.
SEO is a bit more than having a few links pointed at your site, adjusting your link structure and adding content.
PPC can offer instant return on investment, but can be quite expensive, and requires close attention to ensure you aren’t bleeding your whole budget into a campaign that might be delivering very little return. You can extend your PPC Campaign through to the Google Content Network to have your adverts featured on Content-Rich websites that deal with your subject matter, product or service, and these Content Network ads are then directly targeted at your audience, with a much higher number of impressions, and often a much lower cost per click than traditional PPC displayed in the SERPs.
Online Marketing isn’t just SEO and PPC. Online Marketing may involve engaging with your audience through Social Networking, Newsletters, Viral Marketing and much more.
SEO is never guaranteed. Search Engine Optimisation can be considered a smart, but risky strategy for your business. Google and other Search Engines may change their algorithm, resulting in your rank being wiped overnight.
There is also the age-old saying “if you build a bigger mouse-trap, they’ll build a bigger mouse”, and in this I’m highlighting that you can spend months on an SEO project getting your site to the top, but if you sit on it and do little work beyond that project, changes in algorithm and other companies “out-seo’ing” your campaign may result in you losing your rank.
To protect yourself from bad SEO, be sure to follow Google Webmaster Guidelines, or check that your Search Engine Provider uses ethical search engine optimisation techniques.
To help retain your high rank in the SERPs, remember that new content is the key, so a daily or weekly blog update will keep Google and your visitors coming back to the site again and again, and as long as you spend an hour or so each week doing minor updates to content on your site, and focus on a little on-site and off-site SEO, that should help you retain your high rank.
For more info on the SEO Snake Oil article, and a very good defense for the SEO Industry, check SearchEngineWatch.com
Splash Pages, Why they’re bad for Search
Remember the early days of internet usage? I’m not talking back in the 70s or 80s when internet used to be very basic HTML websites and text-based bulletin boards, I’m thinking more along the lines of the late 90s and early 21st century when the internet was becoming mass-market, and people first started experiencing the web and it’s potential.
The early days of web publishing saw an abundance of terrible looking websites churned out by Frontpage and worse, MS Publisher. The thought of a yellow-text website on blue background makes me want to cringe.
Fortunately for many of us, new content management systems and web design packages are standards compliant and pre-loaded with many visually appealing sites that can be built and published by even the most inexperienced internet user.
But despite all of the great lengths we’ve gone since the days of ugly websites, I’m still seeing a lot of websites that present “spash” pages, or intro pages to visitors upon first visit to their website.
I too have been guilty of using splash pages, and despite being a little outdated and unprofessional (if not done properly), splash pages can be bad for search marketing.
For starters, splash pages are generally presented in GIF, JPEG or Flash multimedia images, and search engines for the most part index text, which is where most of your search marketing efforts lie.
Due to the lack of text, a search engine is generally unable to determine the page relevance to search terms and categorised data on your website, so therefore the spash page is likely to have a much poorer page rank (or none at all) when compared to other pages on your site that are loaded with relevant information and key words.
You ideally want your homepage/start page to be the first thing that a visitor sees when they land on your page, and you want this information to rank well.
Internet users are very savvy, they use tabbed browsing and skim through information on many pages to quickly find the data they need.
If you’re presenting a splash page to a person who has clicked through a search engine, they need to wait or make an additional click to get through to the information, and you can’t afford to be adding these hurdles to your visitors, especially when you’ve paid for them to click on your advertised link in the search engines.
Additionally, pagerank is usually much lower due to the lack of information on the splash page when compared to other pages on your site that actually do contain relevant information and keywords, this is where you want to attain higher page rank and have your visitors land when they click on your link or paid advertisement.
Tip: remove your landing page and present your visitors with relevant information as soon as possible and you’re likely to attract their attention long enough that they stay on the page and find what they’re looking for, or in many cases, find the product or service they’ve been searching for, which will hopefully convert to a sale.
Be on the lookout later this week for more news from search king related to landing pages, part of a good search advertising campaign.