The first factor of backlinks is very simple. The amount of backlinks, the more & the higher the number of backlinks pointing to your site or to your page, the better it will ranked. Especially Google is the one that pays most attention to this factor (well maybe other search engines also pay attention to the amount of backlinks you get). Every link to your site represents something like building credibility for your site. For example, people tend to link to things that they like and that they recommend to others. And Google loves this!!!

The whole philosophy behind backlinks is this: the more natural your backlink-profile looks, the better. In other words, aim for diversity when you build backlinks. You can’t go wrong with links from different sites, using variation of anchor text and placed in different contexts on the sites. It also doesn’t hurt to get some links low-authority sites and smaller blogs etc. As long as it doesn’t take you too much time to get those links, even low value links useful and make your overall link profile look more natural.

Check out our backlink packages and make your choice right now!

For an example, people searching for could type the word ‘plasma TV’ if they wanted a plasma television. But putting in a phrase like the ’42 Sony plasma TV 1080p’ would bring in only those who want to check out particular brand and the type of plasmas in this brand also the size is allocated. The searcher will find target results within no time and your website would have a potential buyer.

Written by Justin Jung, SEM SEO Expert

Unfortunately many search engine marketers have become obsessed with PageRank. They think that it is the perfect measuring tool for how a particular website is doing. They think that if your PageRank is low, then you are having problems. If it is high, then your site is doing great. Of course, PageRank doesn’t’ mean “how a page ranks”.

Remember that PageRank is not only one of many factors for search engines rankings but mozRank is also an important metric for predicting search engine rankings.
Written by Justin Jung, Managing Director of SEM Expertise

What does this mean? Well, it means that PageRank is only one of many factors that Google looks at.

Unfortunately many search engine marketers have become obsessed with PageRank. They think that it is the perfect measuring tool for how a particular website is doing. They think that if your PageRank is low, then you are having problems. If it is high, then your site is doing great.

This is not always true. In fact, it is rarely true.

What does this mean? This does not mean that PageRank is not important. If all things are equal (keyword content, keyword placement, etc.) on a website then the PageRank will make a difference. In other words, PageRank isn’t the only calculation Google makes to decide how high it will rank a page. Remember PageRank doesn’t’ mean “how a page ranks”

Written by Justin Jung, SEO Expert

The first way to find out if you have found the right SEO company is to see if you can find that company in any of the major search engines for important keywords. For example, when looking for an SEO agency in Toronto, check out their website first through googling. Does this SEO agency get their own website to rank high for important keywords in search engines among other SEO agencies? How are they planning to get your website on top if they can’t get themselves on top in search engines? SEO agencies should be able to use their own website as an example of their SEO ability. Would you pay a carpenter do your cabinets if his own cabinets are falling apart?

Experienced SEO companies are likely to have more knowledge about search engines than companies with less experience. Find out about how many websites the SEO company has been working for. A good way to find out an SEO company’s abilities is to look at their portfolio. Search Engine Optimization portfolios will provide you with a list of websites which they have designed and optimized. You can find out how well those websites rank for keywords in the search engines on your own. Or you can ask for examples of websites they have done SEO work for and where those sites rank for their important keywords.

In addition, some people who can understand about the concept of PageRank have become obsessed with PR. They think that it is the perfect SEO measuring tool for how a particular website is doing. Don’t care too much about Google PR. It doesn’t mean that you’ll get better search engine rankings and it doesn’t mean that you’ll get more visitors. Click here for more information about PageRank.

Written by Justin Jung, Managing Director of SEM Expertise

This happens because most of those sites are either not at all optimized or are not properly optimized for search engines. And one of the biggest reasons for a poorly optimized site is that many big companies believe that their brand names are strong enough for online and search engines.

Although their brand names are strong for online and search engines (in other words, they still rank top 10 for their brand names and some top keywords in search engines), they don’t realize the real power of the long tail keywords and the higher ROI for those long tail search terms than just top (general) keywords. For example, this group of long tail keyword phrases is more specific and focused which mean more convert to sales. And this set of long-tail keywords could generate as much (or more) traffic and revenue for a business than just the top or general keyword phrases if marketers understand how customers convert on the website. Any successful SEO strategy must focus on more than just the top ten keyword phrases.

The following are three top reasons for why a site is either poorly optimized or not at all optimized for search engines.

Cause the webmaster says he knows SEO

One of the biggest reasons for a poorly optimized site is that someone in-house is functioning as the company’s online marketing expert. I have visited companies that are such well recognized organizations by people and their technology team that handles hardware, operations support, and software support also functions as their website development, graphics design, and online marketing team. Or the administrative assistant is the web master too. You can just imagine the success of their online marketing or SEO campaign. Many webmasters believe and claim that they know how to do search engine optimization. Most times they don’t. In the past, Search Engine Optimization used to be easy. Webmasters would stuff keywords in metatags and submit the site repeatedly to search engines and called this search engine optimization. repeated basis could get your site banned from search engine listings.

Search Engine algorithms are more complex nowadays. A webmaster is most cases is not qualified to do SEO as he or she is generally not experienced nor abreast of all the latest trends in search engine marketing (SEM).

A webmaster generally also has another job within the company. That means that he is she is not able to devote time to create or maintain a robust search engine optimization campaign.
The end result is a poorly optimized website that leaves everyone within the company with the perception that SEO just doesn’t work for them.

Cause SEO is too expensive

Search Engine Optimization costs vary tremendously based on the expertise, experience, and exact offering. There are many who offer low cost SEO on a $100 per month basis and there are others who will charge $20K per month to run a campaign. So how would you determine what it would make sense to spend for your SEO campaign?

That determination is made based on understanding the offering, the expertise, and the experience levels of the SEO providers. Most of the time, your website can be optimized for around $10K. It is the most cost effective marketing activity when compared to direct mail, banner ads, booths at trade booths, and advertisements in local or national magazines, radio, or television.

Cause SEO ROI is difficult to calculate

Regardless of popular belief it is possible to calculate ROI for your SEO campaign.
To calculate ROI, all you need to know is:
1. How many people are searching for your products or services
2. The number of increased visitors and the conversion rate for those visitors for the terms
that your website was optimized for
3. The average cost of each of your products or services

Once you know this, you can easily determine the ROI of what you spent.

I always say to my clients and prospects, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM) in general is not rocket science. BUT, neither is it something that everyone can do without having the proper knowledge and the time to focus on it.

If you don’t have the ‘marketing wavelength’, the skills, the background, and the time to spend on it, search engine marketing can seem like a worthless exercise. Search Engine Marketing (which includes SEO) is not a one-time activity nor can it be done when you find the time. Like any other marketing program, it must be focused and conducted on an ongoing basis to get the most benefit, long-term.

If you would like to learn more about our SEM / SEO services, please contact us.

We provide Search Engine Oprimzation / Marketing solutions that work!

Posted by Justin Jung

Google’s Universal search combines various different search results on the same search result page which makes this algorithm tweak the most radical in Google’s history.

As a result of this algorithm change web owners can’t only rely on optimizing their links and web page content. It’s also important to optimize images, videos, press releases, blogs and local business listings in order to increase visibility on Google’s Universal search.

Key Factors for Video Optimization

These are the key factors for optimizing videos for Google Universal.

Video Submission

The first step in getting your videos optimized for Google Universal is submitting your videos to various video hosting providers such as YouTube and Metacafe. These websites are to videos what web directories are to websites.

When uploading your videos to a video hosting provider website, there are a few things to consider for Video Optimization such as;

Video File Name

Name your video files something relevant to the video. If your video is about a Industry Related Name a relevant name could be “industry-related-title.avi”

Video Title Name

When uploading your video, make sure that you give your content a relevant title name. The title of your file will help search engines identify and rank your content.

Using the Industry Example as an example your title could be “Video Title Example Similar to a title tag of a website”

Video Description

The description field is the perfect place for you to include a keyword-rich description about your content. If your video focus on certain style dress or designer this should be included in your description.

Permissions

You have the option to make your video either private or public. If you would like to take advantage of Google Universal and the powers of viral marketing then you should make your video viewed publicly.

Tagging

Some video hosting providers (such as YouTube) allow you to tag your videos meaning that you may assign keyword rich tags or labels making your video searchable by category. Make sure to tag your videos with keyword rich text related to your video when given the opportunity to do so.

Adding Videos to Your Website

After uploading your video content to the appropriate social media outlets it is also good practice to include videos on your site as well.

Views and Ratings

Having a high number of views and positive feedback on your videos by users is something Search Engines consider when ranking your video content. Try encouraging people to view and rate your videos. Significant interactions with users on social media sites will help your videos rank well on Google Universal.

Written by Justin Jung, SEO Expert

Good SEO Experts are not easy to hire (of course, The truly good SEO experts are usually very expensive) and can you picture yourself calling Steve Fanous, (one of the best SEO Expert) and ask him to make a website for you? I don’t know if he would even talk to you and surely if you can convince him to make a site for you, he would charge a fortune to do it. So, the very best experts are not available for taking jobs.

The real SEO Experts do some consulting jobs and mostly work on their own website, that is what usually happens. I am not an exception to this rule, so, I am my best client. I do get websites in the first pages of Google for competitive niches all the time, so I can define myself more of an Internet Marketer than a SEO Consultant.

Why am I saying all this?? Because I would recommend you to be really careful of all the scams you can find in the SEO world, people claiming impossible things like miracle exchange links programs, and so many things around, you cannot even imagine. Good Luck!

posted by Justin Jung, SEO Expert

SEM Expertise, President and Founder, Justin Jung is one of the most knowledgeable and experience search engine marketing & optimization (SEM SEO) experts, Internet entrepreneurs and consultants around and he has been in the game since 2001. He realized that any business can benefit from the Internet and finally decided that the Internet marketing was the right business for him. Now he owns several sites and makes a good living with. He lives in Toronto, where he takes care of his clients, as a SEO/SEM expert. Most of his sites are currently in the first pages of Google. Lately he got involved in promoting one of his sites and social media sites because he consider web 2.0 the future.

That’s where Social Media Agency comes in! Social Media Agency (subsidiary of SEM Expertise Inc.) is the Original^® Social Media Agency that develops, implements and manages both social media optimization and social media marketing campaigns.

The goal behind Social Media Agency’s social media marketing / optimization services are to put your company in a position to tap into the two-way conversation naturally happening between you and your customers. Our services are designed to show you where people are talking about you, the areas where you can best get involved, and the tactics you should use to help increase brand awareness.

We recently made it to Facebook! We welcome you to visit our official SEM Expertise Facebook page and hope you’ll “Become a Fan” if you’re a Facebook member.

Let us know if you find it useful! What else should we add to our Facebook page?

We also welcome you to visit our official SEM Expertise Twitter page and hope you’ll “follow us on Twitter”.

Posted by Justin Jung, Managing Director of SEM Expertise, Inc.

On the following link you can find the original article.
Click! Weekly, What a Joke – Top 40 Canadian Online Marketers of 2009?

Last Week, Click! Weekly released their list of “Top 40 Canadian Online Marketers of 2009″ which can be found here. After reading the list, I thought it funny how inaccurate it is. Click! Weekly, your stock is down ….. way down!

Being a “Top Canadian Online Marketer” is more then just working for a company that has it’s logo on the side of it’s building. With the exception of maybe 2 or 3 people on this list, I don’t think anybody else deserves to be there. Being in the online marketing industry for the past 8 years, I have seen a number of incredibly smart, creative, innovative and true Canadian online marketers and I’m sorry to burst your bubble corporate Canada, but your not it!

I am not the type to discredit somebody without merit. The reality is that through a couple of search engine marketing agencies in Canada, I have personally done Online Marketing consulting work with several people and companies on this list. Things such as helping them with their search engine optimization, pay per click and social media campaigns. I have also created proposals for people and companies on this list which was essentially telling them how terrible their online marketing is. You got to love the irony!

Of course I am in no way taking anything away from anybody who was included on this list. I am sure they are all brilliant people, however there is a difference between marketing and online marketing. To become a true online marketer you need to have deep web marketing experience. If you look up the Linkedin profiles of most of the people on Click! Weekly’s list, you will see that they have no web marketing experience. They only have “corporate” experience.

The idea of good web marketing to corporate Canada is using Google Adwords. Spending thousands of dollars a month on Google Adwords doesn’t make you an expert in online marketing. I have seen several pay per click campaigns from big companies that aren’t even optimized properly and have terrible setups. These campaigns spend much more then they should, but they get by on over spending precise dollars.

True online marketers get down and dirty in the trenches. They fight for every visitor they can get. They maximize every aspect of the web and keep up to date with the rapidity changing industry. They spend hours coming up with new keywords, new techniques for traffic, finding new outlets and new optimization strategies that will help them increase their traffic, even if it’s just by 1 person a day. It’s a war out there!!!!!

What Online Marketing skills it should take to be on Click! Weekly’s list

Click Weekly if your reading pay close attention;

Your Own Website – what true web marketer doesn’t have his own site? Online marketing is all about trial and error and if you don’t have your own site, you have nothing.

Google Analytic’s – you need to be able to install, track and most importantly read the data that Analytics is giving to you. Your web strategy could change drastically based on this information.

Search Engine Optimization – Is your site search engine friendly? Is your traffic increasing without paying for it? What are your primary keywords? What are your long tail keywords? You need to know SEO or this business is not for you.

Social Media – Twitter, Youtube, Digg, Facebook, Stumbleupon are just some of the social networking outlets that can help you spread your content like wildfire. Each of these outlets require their own strategies, techniques and creative thinking to be successful. Do you know how to increase your Twitter followers? Can you get your Youtube videos optimized for Google? Is your content included in the Stumbleupon rotation? Do you know how many Diggs it takes to get on the front page of digg.com? Can you create a Facebook fan page?

Google Adwords – Anybody can set up an Adwords campaign, but is it optimized properly? What is your quality score? Have you decreased your CPC from last month? Does your landing page have a clear call to action? Your spending money here, you might as well spend it right.

Google Webmaster Tools – This is like your Google bat phone. Your website can communicate with Google through this area. If you are a serious online marketer, you should be familiar with this tool.

Linkedin Profile – This is an example of how a true online marketer would think. A real online marketer will use his Linkedin profile as a weapon. They would optimize it for searches by including keywords beside their name (e.g Name – SEO, SEM, Social Media), add as much content to their profile as possible and utilize all the outbound links they can get their hands on.

Compare for yourself

So who do I think deserves to be on this list? Check out Justin Jung’s Linkedin profile. I have worked with Justin on several occasions and he is a true Canadian Online Marketer. I know for a fact that he has also helped a number of these companies on this list with their online marketing campaigns. Justin Jung is an example of a Online Marketer, whereas most people on Click Weekly’s list are just Marketing managers. There is a big difference between the two. Don’t take it from me. Compare their Linkedin profiles for yourself and you will see exactly what I mean.

Click! Weekly if you are going to come up with a list, do it properly. It’s not always a popularity contest and credit shouldn’t always go to the person who buys you the most expensive dinner. There are better ways to create an accurate list such as screening some of these people with a series of online marketing questions on SEO, PPC, Social Media and Analytics.

I understand that there was a nomination process and that maybe some of the people who are deserving may not have been nominated, however a little research on the internet through Google, or Linkedin would have brought up some amazing people to consider. I’m surprised that a website such as Click! Weekly that is on the hunt for the top online marketers, wouldn’t use online as part of their own research.

Click Weekly, I am sure that there are several Canadian Online Marketers that will not take you seriously anymore. For those highly skilled, creative and amazing people who are out there battling it out everyday in the online world, keep doing what you are doing the world is yours.

Article Written by Steve Fanous

How to See Google Results (Adwords Ads & Organic Results) in Different Countries from Your Location.

Sometimes, when you are advertising in Google Adwords to a specific country for example USA and you are from UK you will not be able to see AD’s from US but just from UK. That is a major concern for many adwords advertisers. When you are geo-targeting a country that you are not resident you should check for the competitors and see where your ad is placed or what your competitors are doing. There is a small tip on how you can see other countries AD’s:

Let’s assume that this is the Google URL result:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=googlelady&btnG=Google+Search

This is the default version of Google results from your Country IP. But we want to check results that adwords advertisers are doing for USA only:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=US&q=googlelady&btnG=Google+Search

Check out the bold “&gl=US” this means that you want to see the version of Google results (Adwords AdS & Organic Results) from USA. But this only works if adwords advertisers add in general “USA” but in case they add by “state” or “city” you will not be able to see their results. Here is the list of countries operators that you can use:

• &gl=US United States
• &gl=UK United Kingdom
• &gl=CO Colombia
• &gl=CA Canada
• &gl=AU Australia
• &gl=PK Pakistan
• &gl=LB Lebanon
• Use any country abreviattion

Preview Google AdWords in Other States & CountriesGoogle AdWords has come out with a new location targeting ad preview tool which lets advertisers see how their ads are served in other physical locations. Classic scenario, your agency is based in Philadelphia, your client is out of Tampa and the Google AdWords ads are being targeted to the Chicago area.

How do you see the ads that users in Chicago are seeing?

Google AdWords has come to the rescue:

Visit www.google.com/adpreview

posted by Justin Jung, SEM expert ]]> http://www.semexpertise.com/how-to-see-google-results-adwords-ads-organic-results-in-different-countries/feed/ 0 http://www.semexpertise.com/understanding-google-adwords-ad-rank-quality-score-cpc-ctr/ http://www.semexpertise.com/understanding-google-adwords-ad-rank-quality-score-cpc-ctr/#comments Sat, 21 Mar 2009 01:31:50 +0000 Justin Jung http://www.semexpertise.com/?p=509 Ads are positioned on search and content pages based on their Ad Rank. The ad with the highest Ad Rank can improve your ad’s position and reduce your actual CPC (Cost per Click).

Ad Rank = CPC Bid x Quality Score

CPC Bid is the Maximum Cost-per-click (Max. CPC) you are willing to pay for a single click when your keyword triggers your ad.

Quality Score for Google and the search network is a dynamic metric assigned to each of your keywords. The Quality Score for Ad Rank on Google and the search network is determined by:

• The historical click through rate (CTR) of the keyword and the matched ad on Google; if the ad is appearing on a search network page, its CTR on that search network partner is also considered. Your account history, which is measured by the CTR of all the ads and keywords in your account
• The historical CTR of the display URLs in the ad group
• The relevance of the keyword to the ads in its ad group
• The relevance of the keyword and the matched ad to the search query
• Your account’s performance in the geographical region where the ad will be shown
• Other relevance factors

Ad Rank = Max. CPC Bid x Quality Score

In the example above with 4 different advertisers, the Ad Rank of advertiser B’s ad is determined by:

Ad Rank (of B) = Max. CPC (of B) x Quality Score (of B)

Ad Rank = Max. CPC Bid x Quality Score

In the example above with 3 ads, the Actual CPC of advertiser A’s ad is calculated as:

Actual CPC (of A) x Quality Score (of A) = Max. CPC (of B) x Quality Score (of B)
where
Actual CPC (of A) = Ad Rank (of B) / Quality Score (of A)

Relevant keywords and ad copy, a high CTR on Google, and a high Maximum CPC (CPC Bid) will improve the ranking of your ad.

You can even take your ad ranking one step further. Once your ad exceeds a certain Quality Score and CPC Bid threshold, it is eligible to appear above Google’s organic search results as opposed to on the right hand side. At any given time, up to a total of 3 ads are eligible for ranking above the organic search results.

Choosing the Right PPC (AdWords) Campaign Manager:

Google is the world’s best and most effective search engine. But when it comes to managing Pay per Click (PPC) campaigns, they just can’t match the level of expertise and sophistication offered by Search Engine Marketing (SEM) experts like the SEM Expertise team. Despite their search prowess, Google employs a macro level campaign management style that results in more general keywords but no long tail keywords (for example, regarding the Bank’s PPC campaign, the “banking account application”, “online personal banking account” could be long tail keywords while the “banking” would be a general keyword). And although general keywords can generate a lot of Web traffic, long tail keywords have greater potential for generating qualified Web traffic. Google’s solution to driving traffic is often simply to increase spending. While they’re well versed on the importance of achieving high quality scores, they’re unlikely to have an in-depth understanding of your business.

Leveraging the Power of SEM
Professional SEM experts like the SEM Expertise team focus on a combination of General and Qualified traffic, to drive the best and most relevant search results. Their Search Practice Leads take the time to acquire a more intimate understanding of your business, thereby enabling you to add more long tail key words to your campaigns and attain better conversion rates and significantly higher qualified traffic. For example, SEM Expertise® that is a leading Search Engine Marketing firm employs both a macro and micro PPC campaign management approach – and focuses not only on your quality score, but also on internet user behavior – producing campaigns that are always in synch with your marketing goals.

Google’s PPC (AdWords) Management:
- Macro-level campaign management
- Cursory knowledge of your business
- Boilerplate solutions
- General keywords to generate high traffic

SEM Experts’ PPC Approach:
- Micro and macro campaign management mix
- In-depth knowledge of your business and marketing goals
- Focus on Quality Score and User Behaviors
- More qualified traffic leading to better conversions

written by Justin Jung, SEM Expert

1. Simplify the system for buying and selling display ads: For example, our DoubleClick ad serving products help advertisers and publishers manage campaigns and ad formats across thousands of websites and from thousands of advertisers.

2. Deliver better performance that advertisers and agencies can measure: We’re building a host of new features to help advertisers to run display ad campaigns across the Google Content Network (comprising hundreds of thousands of AdSense partner sites) and on YouTube. We’re also developing better measurement and reporting technology so they can figure out what’s working and what’s not.

3. Open up the ecosystem: We want to democratize access to display advertising and make it accessible and open, like search advertising. We recently launched the Display Ad Builder to help businesses easily set up and run display ad campaigns. 80% of advertisers who use that product have never run a display ad campaign before.

check out the video below;

Hundreds of thousands of advertisers use search advertising — short, highly relevant text ads alongside search results on Google and other search engines — to grow their businesses. Thanks to a decade of innovation, search advertising is an open platform that allows businesses to easily connect with customers.

As you browse the web today, you’ll also see “display advertising,” such as videos, images and interactive ads. Like search ads, these connect users with products, services and ideas that interest them. For advertisers, display ads are vital in boosting awareness and sales. For websites and online publishers, they help fund investments in online content and the web services that we all use.

But with a multitude of display ad formats, and thousands of websites, it often takes thousands of hours for advertisers to plan and manage their display ad campaigns. With this complexity, lots of advertisers today just don’t bother, or don’t invest as much as they would like.

On the other side of the equation, some publishers are left with up to 80% of their ad space unsold. It’s like airlines flying with their planes mostly empty. And for the ad space that they do sell, publishers also have to deal with the complexity of managing thousands of advertisers and campaigns.

We believe that a better system built on better technology can help grow the display advertising pie and benefit everyone.

Google has been working hard to put these principles into practice, and today we’re excited to announce the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange, a step towards creating a more open display advertising ecosystem for everyone. The Ad Exchange is a real-time marketplace that helps large online publishers on one side; and ad networks and agency networks on the other, buy and sell display advertising space.

These publishers and ad networks manage and represent large volumes of ads and ad space from lots of advertisers and websites. By bringing them together in an open marketplace in which prices are set in a real-time auction, the Ad Exchange enables display ads and ad space to be allocated much more efficiently. This improves returns for advertisers and enables publishers to get the most value out of their online content.

An explanation of the Ad Exchange is here (PDF). You can read in more detail about the features of the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange on the DoubleClick blog.

AdWords advertisers will be able to run ads on sites in the Ad Exchange, using their existing AdWords interface. This means more high quality sites for AdWords advertisers to run display ads on. Similarly, our AdSense publishers will benefit from more high-quality display advertisers coming through the Ad Exchange. You can read more about these benefits on the AdWords Blog and the AdSense Blog.

Why do most companies turn to Search Engine Marketing and away from other marketing channels when they slash budgets? It is because Search Engine Marketing is a cost-effective marketing tool, 100% measurable campaign and unbeatable ROI.  A lot of traditional media is hit and hope, with most TV & Print campaigns having no tracking mechanism whatsoever. Direct marketing is a little better in this respect, but nothing compare to the clear metrics you get with search engine marketing. Whether it’s organic search (SEO) , PPC advertising, local search optimization or social media optimization can tell you how your customers are finding you, what they are doing when they have and most importantly, if they are spending their money with you.  In addition, other traditional channels such as print advertising, direct mail, etc nothing deliver Return on Investment like Search Engine Marketing.  For example, $50k spend on newspaper advertising might get you a single full page spread and, at best, a few hundred thousand eyeballs for a couple of seconds. However, $50k spent on Search Engine Optimization will get you tens of thousands of visitors (your potential customers) a day for years to come.

Written by Justin Jung, SEM Expert

A new search engine – recently released in beta format – will provide stiff competition to top dogs such as Google and Yahoo, its creators suggest.

MelZoo.com transforms the look of the typical search page to appeal to pay-per-click advertisers.

Its new search engine has a unique interface that lists search results on the left side of the page, and displays previews of the Web page corresponding to each search result on the right side.

When users place the mouse over a search result URL, an image of that Web site appears on the right side of the page, in real-time.

“For years people have been using text-only search engines but people are visual-based thinkers, not text-based,” said MelZoo CEO Alex De Backer. “The visual preview will improve productivity and accuracy.”

The design seeks to improve the speed of the search process by saving searchers the time and effort of clicking back and forth between Web site listings and the search engine.

Users no longer click on unusable search results, and don’t need to open multiple tabs and pages. This also increases page load speed, De Backer said…..

However some industry analysts are skeptical about its potential impact.

At least one industry insider says the split screen is certainly a “very nice feature”, which in theory could improve conversion rates for advertisers.

But the site isn’t likely to get big enough traffic volumes to make marketers want to shift serious advertising dollars to it from behemoths such as Google or Yahoo, according to Larry Stopa, president of e-Power Marketing, a search engine marketing firm in Oshkosh Wisconsin.

“There’s so much name recognition for the other search engines, and searchers are resilient to change, so it would certainly be a tall hurdle.”

A Canadian expert echoes Stopa’s skepticism, and suggests the visual preview isn’t necessarily such a hot feature.

“Users are not patient, they just like to click – they’re not interested in looking at a results page that looks like their e-mail Inbox,” says Justin Jung, founder of SEM Expertise, a Toronto-based company that improves Web site traffic to many Canadian financial institutions.

The evidence Justin provides for his argument comes from the character limits offered to advertisers in Web page descriptions on search results pages.

Yahoo used to limit advertisers to 250 characters when describing the Web page for search results, whereas Google’s limit has always been 70. Recently, however, Yahoo reduced their character limit – finding that people don’t really read the descriptions anyway.

“From my experience, users just look at the title and judge whether it’s worthwhile from there – they don’t want to read through anymore info,” Justin Jung said. “I don’t think MelZoo understands that trend in search engine marketing.”

Another problem Justin Jung points to is that even if users did want to read more information before clicking, searchers won’t be attracted to the site unless the algorithm is better than competitor’s.

Google’s main advantage, he says, is that it concentrates on its search algorithm first. This makes Google much more user-focused than advertiser-focused, he said, noting that while the look of the interface is important, it’s not the most important factor.

And if the visual preview does take off, it wouldn’t be difficult or expensive for other search engines to copy.

“When you take good care of the user, you also take good care of the advertiser – that’s what MelZoo has to remember. And that’s why Yahoo hasn’t been as successful,” he says. “Yahoo has a much nicer interface than Google’s, which is quite simple, but their algorithm isn’t as efficient as Google’s.

The preview may be helpful for luring advertisers, but advertisers won’t invest unless the traffic numbers are high, he said. And advertisers will also want an analytics portfolio with pay-per-click fees to help them better understand where their traffic is coming from and how to better invest their money.

Still in their testing phase, MelZoo has not released an analytics strategy or developed their ad platform for advertisers.

This article is from ITbusiness.ca

By: Michelle MacLeod

Google recently launched SearchWiki , its customizable search function. Since then there has been plenty of speculation that Google have long term plans to use this information to influence organic results. Google previously admitted to Search Engine Land that they were “not closing any doors” to the idea of using this information and Marissa Mayer made mention of this again at Le Web yesterday.

According to TechCrunch, who covered the Google executive’s talk, Mayer spoke about using SearchWiki data to at least make obvious changes, the example given being that if “thousands of people” were to remove the page from their personal results, Google would be likely to make a change.

The point she was making seems to be that Google feel personalisation is part of the future for search in general and that that is why they have introduced SearchWiki but, if they have all this wonderful data about what people like, why not use it to produce better results?

That seems a reasonable suggestion but how could they actually use this data? Google have been in the search game, fighting spammers for too long to jump in head first and make SearchWiki data a major part of their search algorithms so don’t expect to see that any time soon. The system would be too easily “gamed” by black hat SEOs in a similar way to the way social media sites such as Digg are abused now. It’s far more likely that it would be subtly added in as a minor ranking factor or used to flag sites up to human quality evaluators. With testing over time it may be then become a larger ranking factor, or not.

Google have given the impression here that they are using all the information at their disposal to improve the quality of their organic search results which is understandable. So what are the implications? Google has always maintained that it does not use information from Google Analytics as a factor in organic search results but it’s easy to see how the wealth of data collected from sites could be used effectively in this way.

Not every site uses Google analytics so perhaps that wouldn’t be fair or perfect anyway but Google has huge amounts of information on which pages are clicked in their results. They know how soon users return to search again or click another link from the same results. This can be used to calculate a bounce rate i.e. number of users who click that link then only look at one page before moving away from the site. It also gives a good idea of how long people spend on that page. Removing a page that had thousands of clicks, a 99% bounce rate and time on page of under 3 seconds might be a better signal to lower a pages ranking than relying on people’s opinions on SearchWiki.

Google is, for good reasons, secretive about the factors it uses to rank sites for organic search. There is a possibility that bounce rates etc. are being used already to rank sites. We wouldn’t expect Google to tell anyone and it can be very difficult to test for minor ranking factors when there are so many others involved.

For any site, factors like bounce rates and time spent on the page are important to the overall health of the site and should really go hand in hand with good SEO practice. Improving site content and many other white hat SEO factors will automatically improve a site in these areas and this should be the aim of any site with long term goals. Perhaps using bounce rates and other analytics factors wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all. If they’re not being used already.

posted by Justin Jung, SEO Expert

1) Make sure your URL’s are as SEO friendly as possible.
Avoid all those “=” and “?” marks. Use mod re-write to re-create these URL’s to a more seo friendly format. Also, if the URL includes the keyword phrase for that page, that’s extra bonuses!

2) Keyword research should be the absolute basis of any website design project. It should be the very first thing that you do with your client. You’ll be surprised how many more pages and information you’ll be able to get from your client if you can show them what their target audience is looking for.

3) Use semantic tags on every website page. If you’re not familiar with these tags, read this list of semantic tags outlining all the semantic tags. These are not tags that are used in the section, instead, these are tags used within the body of text. They’re very helpful with search engines and how they understand the content of your website pages.

4) Avoid using flash for your navigation, if possible. I know, I know, you want to show your client your flash design, beautiful menus, etc, but the truth is search engines still have trouble reading flash files and they simply will not follow the links from the navigation menu if it’s written in flash.

5) Don’t forget the alt tags on your images. They should be not only descriptive of the image but use the keyword phrase for the page as well.

6) If you use an image to replace text – know that the search engines will not count the text in that image towards the text of the page. So if you think you can use an image instead of an <h1> tag – you’re doing a dis service to your client.

7) Optimize your graphics. You want the pages to load as quickly as possible. I can’t tell you how many times I leave a website only because it’s loading slowly.

Use anchor text links within the content of the site. In other words, if you have one page focused on the phrase “divorce attorney” – within the content of a website page (other than the one marketing the phrase “divorce attorney”) you want to try and refer to the divorce attorney page by using the phrase “divorce attorney” and hyperlinking it to that page.

9) Make sure the hosting company has a 301 re-direct set up (usually they’re 200 redirects). The issue is that with a 200 re-direct, the search engines actually index 2 websites instead of one. One version that’s indexed is with the www and the second version that’s indexed is without the www. So, www.abc.com and abc.com are indexed as 2 separate websites. The problem with this is that the search engines see duplicate content. Both websites are exactly the same. It’s so simple to ensure a 301 re-direct, it just doesn’t make sense NOT to use it.

10) Don’t use or tags unless they’re on the keyword phrases for the website page. These tags give the phrase that they’re on some extra points (in the eyes of the search engines) so use the CSS styling instead.

So, for the web designers out there, do yourself a favor and give your business an edge by offering SEO services with your web design skills. Your clients will benefit greatly from it! If you can’t find the time to learn or implement these techniques, then contact a reputable SEO firm that can work with you.

posted by Justin Jung, SEO Consultant