Yesterday we discussed how the number of results in the search results and
the number of queries conducted were good ways to determine how complex it will
be to garner high rankings at popular search engines. Today let's look at the
variables of the website that you will be competing with and how their strength
(or lack thereof) plays a role in the difficulty of ranking for specific
keywords. Two very important factors are the age of the domains on the SERPs as
well as their overall link strength.
Age of the Domains: Gone are the days when registering a new website
and appearing a few days later for competitive keywords was possible.
Increasingly, the age of domains is playing a significant part in how well (or
more precisely how quickly) sites will rank for competitive terms and
phrases. If you plan on launching a new site, keep your fingers crossed that
your domain (or the domain you are working on) is at least several years old, or
that you've been aging domains properly the past few years and that you can
leverage one for a specific keyword if necessary. To find out how "aged" the
domain you are competing against actually are, use this
Whois Domain tool or the
Website
Magazine Whois Domain Tool and look for "record created on". That will give
you a good idea of what you are up against when it comes to keyword difficultly
and domain age.
Overall Link Strength: Google has made link building a business in
itself. If you didn't know, there are people in the SEO world whose sole
function is to acquire links from related properties for the purpose of moving a
particular site up in the search results pages. Over time, these link builders
realize that the links they build must be of high quality, for example a link
from Wikipedia and DMOZ are incredibly valuable. As such, the Google PageRank of
websites you are competing against is an important measuring stick in
determining how difficult it will be to generate high rankings. One popular free
way to get a handle on the overall link strength of a site is
MarketLeap, a free tool that
helps web professionals benchmark against other sites when it comes to inbound
link popularity. Website Magazine also has made available a tool to
determine overall link popularity at Google, MSN and Yahoo.
Spellr.us is a website tool that is
getting some attention in the blogosphere, even though it's only in
"beta-invite" mode. The solution spell checks websites and
provides a monitoring service that regularly checks your website for spelling
mistakes. Sounds pretty good, right? If you've got hundreds or thousands of web
pages and are continually cranking out new content, a solution like this make
some sense. So how much does it cost? Spellr.us is apparently looking at pricing
models as in the registration they are asking what users would pay for a service
(less than $50 or more than $50). For that price range, it better be pretty darn
good considering the variety of free resources available to web professionals
already. In fact, most offline and online document creation tools like Microsoft
Word or Google Docs already have spell check built in.
The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced that the
estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the first quarter of 2008 (adjusted
for seasonal variation, but not for price changes) was $33.8 billion, an
increase of 0.8 percent (±1.0%) from the fourth quarter of 2007. Has e-commerce reached critical mass? The ± 1.0% margin of error may indicate that the good times have come to a screeching halt. That or the recession has reached the retail Web.
Total retail
sales for the first quarter of 2008 were estimated at $1,024.2 billion, an
increase of 0.1 percent (±0.2%) from the fourth quarter of 2007. The first
quarter 2008 e-commerce estimate increased 13.6 percent (±1.2%) from the first
quarter of 2007 while total retail sales increased 2.8 percent (±0.2%) in the
same period. E-commerce sales in the first quarter of 2008 accounted for 3.3
percent of total sales.
SimpleScripts, a one-click script installer for web hosts, has announced over
30,000 installs in its first month. Pretty impressive, considering the
stranglehold solutions like Fantastico has on the open-source market.
The system offers web hosts the ability to provide quick and easy installations
of popular applications including blogs like WordPress, photo albums
like CopperMine, online stores such as ZenCart of Magento, message
forums like phpBB, wikis like PmWiki and TikiWiki, and more) for
their clients and relieves the host of any maintenance burdens in the process.
"We maintain the entire system on our own server clusters," said Matt Heaton
owner of SimpleScripts. "We built this system to allow web hosts the ability to
offer a simple, fast and self maintained auto-installation system."
SimpleScripts is designed to work on multiple hosting platforms and as of today,
the system is compatible with CPanel, Plesk, VPS and dedicated server hosting.
Matt Heaton has integrated SimpleScripts for all of the 900,000 plus domains
hosted with his companies: BlueHost, HostMonster and FastDomain. These companies
are currently averaging over 30,000 SimpleScripts installations per month.
Live social polling forum BuzzDash has
launched a publisher partner program. The solution offers website owners a way
to drive "incremental traffic" and brand exposure while providing BuzzDash users
with related, additional content on select polls. These related links on co-branded polls direct users to
relevant original content on a publisher’s Web site. This happens in a few way;
BuzzDash create polls based on content at the partner site, partner can suggest
polls (dubbed buzzbites) or partners can create their own.
“We think users will enjoy probing deeper into back story on our polls from
the country’s most trusted media sources. Publishers, meanwhile, get what they
want most – additional traffic from an audience they may not be reaching today,”
said David Gerken, CEO of BuzzDash.
The advantage BuzzDash has in distributing its technology is obviously the
greater mind share among website owners and increased traffic to its own website.
Sounds like a good idea for your own website, doesn't it?
What are the factors that influence the difficulty of achieving high rankings on
certain search terms and phrases? As you can imagine, "difficulty" is a moving
target with many factors but over time professional SEO's have uncovered a few
primary indicators. Over the next few days, we'll explore how you can determine
keyword SEO complexity for your own website promotions. We'll start today off
with two factors, the number of searches conducted each day, and the number or
results that appear when a query is performed.
- Number of searches for the previous day:
Most SEO's have had clients that say they would like to be first on popular
search engines for obscure search phrases/keywords such as 'North Dakota weather
widget'. Savvy SEO's will say "OK, no problem". If no one is searching for a
particular word or phrase, then it's usually pretty simple to achieve high
rankings. With some basic on page optimization and a handful of inbound links
you'll get there pretty quickly. Those keywords with more searches are obviously
going to be a little more difficult. If you don't know how many searches the
keywords you are optimizing for are receiving, then check out the
free keyword suggestion tool
at WordTracker.Using this tool we found that the keyword "widget"
results in over 3,000 searches a day, "weather widget" had 90 searches per day
and "North Dakota weather widget" had, you guessed it, zero searches per day.
- Number of total results appearing upon query:
There are no hard and fast rules in determining keyword complexity in search
engine optimization, but one of the ways that SEO's can quickly determine how
hard it is going to be and consequently how long it is going to take is to look
at the number of results returned upon conducting a query. All popular search
engines provide this information at the top of search results (see below). The
best way to use this information is to compare two search terms or phrases in an
apples to apples comparison. For example, "north dakota weather widgets" has
19,200 results, while "widgets" has over 92 million results. The
perfect fit for this SEO campaign may be to focus on weather widgets.
Tomorrow we'll look at how to use specific search commands such as "allintitle"
to determine keyword complexity.
Greasemonkey is a Mozilla Firefox extension that allows users to install a
script that makes modifications to the way Web pages look and act. The advantage
for Web users of all levels is that an additional layer of functionality can be
added - from price comparison within Amazon web pages to completely stripping
Facebook of its advertising - scary, huh? GreaseMonkey however isn't just for a
run-of-the-mill Web user, it adds a much improved experience for Web
professionals too.
Let's take a look at some of the most helpful
Greasemonkey
scripts and see what they can do for your productivity and success!
Those involved directly with analytics always have the same conversation - "Where should the analytics code be placed?" Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting are in pursuit of a formal answer and have tested the placement of the same analytics code within the top and bottom of a web page. Check out the detailed
post on testing analytics code placement here.
Enge and his team are suggesting that if page load time is fast (total page load time of under 3 or 4 seconds), then javascript code should be kept at the bottom. This will remove any risk related to analytics vendor downtime. According to the post, "The small loss of data you see in this scenario should not be a significant factor in the value of your analytics data."
If your page load time is a bit slower however (4 seconds or more), consider placing your analytics Javascript at the top of your web page. "Your data loss will be larger, and also the nature of the lost data may start to differ."
Good advice!
Google announced it will begin accepting third-party advertising tags on the Google content network (Adsense) in North America. This will enable advertisers to work with approved third parties (see below) to server and track display ads, including rich media ads.
Third-party tags were not accepted in the past as Google dis not have a process for reviewing ads to make sure they complied with their
format standards and policies. Now that that's in place, Ad servers, rich media ad agencies and resarhc firms can go through a certification process that ensures the highest level of advertiser service and user experience. Advertisers and agencies now have the ability to serve ads and measure performance through these certified third parties (
more will be certified in the future):
Advertiser ad servers: DoubleClick (DFA), Mediaplex
Rich media agencies: DoubleClick Rich Media, Eyeblaster, EyeWonder, Interpolls, PointRoll, Unicast
Research firms: Dynamic Logic, IAG Research, InsightExpress, Factor TG
"Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in."
Micheal Coreleone, The Godrather (Part III)
The seemingly never-ending Yahoo-Microsoft battle has taken another twist. Just
weeks after withdrawing its $47.5 billion offer to buy Yahoo, Microsoft said
that it and Yahoo are discussing a transaction (not an acquisition mind you) of
all of Yahoo. No details were provided by Microsoft, and Yahoo released another
annoyingly vague statement saying it was considering a "number of
value-maximizing strategic alternatives" and would evaluate any Microsoft
proposal.
The ongoing saga is either dramatic or melodramatic depending on who you are and
who you know. But does it really matter? My commentary in Website Magazine's May
issue may shed some light on these high profile happenings and claims that
what's truly important is...you.
Read Yahoocrosoft,
Microhoo and The Importance of You now.
Most of our readers already know, but the digital edition of Website Magazine is now available in all its glorious flipbook fashion. The digital edition enables readers to easily search for content in all past issues, email articles to friends and colleagues and even print for later review. Access to the digital archive is free (
quick registration required) and will remain that way in the future - just like the print edition. But the best part? One of our subscribers summed it up nicely - "you get stuff in the online version that isn't in the paper version." Well said.
Review the digital edition of Website Magazine now.
Latest Digital Issue
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It is widely believed that the first press release was issued over
100 years ago by Ivy Lee on behalf of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which
had just suffered a tragic accident. The press release was issued to
prevent alternate versions of the accident from being spread among the
press. And, 100 years later the intent of a press release hasn’t
changed. It remains a valuable resource in any marketer’s tool kit. But
its importance in the Internet age and the world of search engine
optimization has never been greater.
Read Milind Mody's article now - Effective Press Releases and
Distribution Channels. |
WM is giving away another 4GB iPhone!
If you currently receive Website magazine (in print or digital), simply
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and update your existing subscription information. Completing these few
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Simply request your
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The upcoming drawing will be held on July 10th, 2008, so stay tuned to
the
Website
Magazine blog to see if you won! The winner will be notified the day of the
drawing. Questions? Use the
Website Magazine contact form and a member of our support staff will be in
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A little more on the Apple iPhone:
 |
- Revolutionary Phone:
iPhone redefines what a mobile phone can do. Tap a number to make a call. Listen to voicemail in any order with Visual Voicemail
-
Widescreen iPod: It's the best iPod ever. Enjoy music, videos, and more on the 3.5-inch color display, and browse by album artwork with Cover Flow.
-
Breakthrough Internet Device:
iPhone features a rich HTML email client and Safari, the most advanced web browser ever on a portable device.
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If you own or manage a business, you are constantly looking for ways to maximize
the marketing power of your business without spending a fortune on advertising.
Local online directories are an effective and inexpensive way for potential
clients to find you on the Internet and may be the most cost-effective marketing
there is. The salient point of online advertising is for your site to get
noticed and for viewers to visit your site so that they’ll be inclined to send
their business your way!
Read the rest of Website Magazine Local Thursday contributor Nick Stamoulis'
post on saving money and driving traffic to your site or business with
local
online directories - definitely check it out now!
At any given time, there are thousands of domains for sale on the Web’s largest
auction marketplace (eBay). Some are listed by individuals looking to unload
domains for a quick buck, while others are professional domainers with thousands
of Web properties – this is their business and by all accounts it’s working, as
there is no lack of activity within this venue for buyers and sellers.
If you're interested in leveraging eBay to buy and sell domains, read the first
part of Website Magazine's series appearing in the
digital edition of Website
Magazine and, of course, online -
read it now!
