Out of the Fog Marketing

One of the largest behind-the-scenes updates to Google's search technology in three years is in the works. On August 10th, Google quietly began soliciting feedback for "Caffeine," a new system for Web searching that is being tested.

Google makes almost constant changes to its search algorithms and infrastructure, but it hasn't made an update of this magnitude since 2006, said Matt Cutts, a principal engineer at Google who is considered one of the driving forces behind the company's approach to search.

Preview Caffeine to see how it might affect your company's search result rankings. So far we have not seen a huge difference in rankings for Clarity Quest's site or our clients' sites. In all cases tested so far, the changes were actually positive for us. I credit this to the fact we build links the correct way through public relations, social media and rich content.

Feel free to post your comments to let us know what you are seeing.

Labels: Google Caffeine, Internet marketing, link building for SEO, SEO

Companies just entering the world of search engine optimization are often floored when we tell them that just putting up a website--even with all the best on-page optimization-- will not get high organic search rankings for highly competitive terms. You must build back links - links from other web pages, preferably high quality ones, back to your website.

You can check your sites' back link count on Marketleap's link popularity tool or any number of free online tools.

Most web marketing agencies can help you with an initial back link building campaign and then can outline a plan on how to build more back links over time. Some of our favorites are:

1. Write a blog and back link to it
2. Comment on blog posts with high quality that allow website URLs in the comment post line.
3. Write informative articles and submit them to articles banks such as www.ezinearticles.com and www.buzzle.com .
4. Distribute press releases over reputable wires or through prweb.com. In addition to wire distribution, make sure your local or industry press gets the release. Back links in any online media coverage you get is far more valuable than the wire service link.
5. Create Squidoo lenses.
6. Submit your site to free online directories. We hire interns from our local university to do this.
   

Labels: backlinks, link building for SEO, marketleap, website design

Despite the myriad of advertising and marketing agency sites that look glitzy but don't even rank on Google for a single target keyword, websites can be interesting, polished and highly-ranked in search engines. If you are looking for a web design firm that will help you get online leads, make sure their own site ranks well for keywords as well as looks great.

Read Wordtracker's article "Are Web Designers Clueless about SEO?" for some interesting insights.

Labels: google web design, link building for SEO, michigan web design

Get a free high quality back link to your website by creating a personal and domain page at Aboutus.org.
The Wiki-based site pages get very quickly indexed by Google. If you have not created or edited a Wiki page before it can take a little time to learn the system, but there is a handy tutorial on the site.

Labels: about us, backlinks, build backlinks, link building for SEO

One of our clients recently had their website completely ripped off by a company which offers similar services in another state. When confronted by phone, they admitted guilt and took the site down right away. So at least in the end they did the right thing.

If we didn't find this content, the client could have lost a year's worth of organic search work and some amazing ranking because Google could have placed the page in the supplemental results due to duplicate content.

How do you find out if portions of your site are being plagiarized? Check out tools such as Copyscape. They have a free tool which lets you check for duplicated content from your site.

I'd be interested in finding additional applications which do the same thing.

Thanks to Andrew at YourSearchAdvisor for his help with this.

Labels: copyscape, duplicate content, filtering, link building for SEO, organic search, SEM, web copyright, web theives

Using local geography in your online key phrases can be an extremely effective tactic when your business wants to rank for competitive keywords. By exploring local search, small business owners and marketers can benefit from both direct lead generation and general brand awareness.

Recent research by the Kelsey Group reported that 70% of Americans consult the web before making local buying decisions, while 36% of search engine queries now request local results. We use geographically-rich terms for many of our clients. Vision Computer Solutions would have a tough time ranking for "computer repair" but ranks on Google page one for "Michigan computer repair".

Daniel at Wordtracker wrote a great article covering more on the long tail of local search.

Labels: better marketing presentations, link building for SEO, local business listing, long tail search, michigan

You gotta love when the web teaches you a new lesson. We had a call yesterday from a great Michigan-based prospect and when I asked him where he found us, it wasn't Google. Gasp. It was a very long tail search term on Yahoo! organic results. A term I didn't even know our firm was ranked #1 for on Yahoo! Gasp again.

Yes, this was a very tech-savvy individual. Yes, it was a technically sophisticated company. Then I remember the early adopters all used Yahoo! first. My first web-based email account in the mid-nineties was a Yahoo! account which I own to this day.

So Yahoo!, I'll give you your due from now on. Yes only 15% of technology buyers search on you vs. Google, but that's still a really big number.

Oh and by the way, that Yahoo! ranking was due to the fact we wrote great text and coded our site properly - amazing how that works.

Labels: link building for SEO, long tail search, Michigan SEO, yahoo search rankings

There's a great blog post on Essential Keystrokes about driving traffic to your blog by linking to stories on major news websites such as CNN. Basically, the service Sphere.com connects traditional news media stories with posts in the blogosphere.

Labels: blogs, link building for SEO, news, sphere.com

A number of respected SEO experts have lately been somewhat negative on the use of press releases as part of internet marketing campaigns. Press releases with keyword-rich titles do work - a little better on Yahoo! than Google, but they work.
Here's an example... if you type "michigan marketing firm" into Yahoo! Search you'll see the Clarity Quest website at #2. However, check out #1 - it's a PR Web link to a press release we issued back in June 2007!
Now I don't recommend you fabricate topics for a release or issue junk releases. There should be an actual news story as the basis for the releases. But completely ignoring SEO PR as part of your internet marketing strategy is a mistake.

Labels: Internet marketing, link building for SEO, press releases., SEO press release, web marketing

A few weeks ago we created a Squidoo lens on outsource marketing departments. So was it worth the time and effort? You bet. The lens shows up as page rank of #4 on Yahoo! and #8 on Google. Not bad for an hour of work.

Labels: improve search engine rankings, link building for SEO, squidoo

We've recently setup a lens on Squidoo on the benefits of strategic outsourcing of a marketing department. I'll be monitoring the effectiveness of this lens in driving traffic to this blog and overall lead generation. I'll report back in a couple of months on its effectiveness.

Labels: link building for SEO, outsource marketing department, squidoo, squidoo lens

Business networking sites such as Linked In are only moderately successful at getting new leads or contact for small businesses. However, I advise clients to encourage all their employees to get a Linked In profile for 2 different reasons:
1) Individuals can insert their company's website URL which is a great quality backlink to your website helping to increase your search engine rankings;
2) Potential clients really do search for your name and look at testimonials/references.

Labels: business social networking, link building for SEO, SEO backlinks