St. Petersburg Web Design Blog

Archive for the ‘Search Engine Marketing’ Category

Any of my SEO clients and many regular readers here know that researching what phrases people are actually searching for and how tough the competition is for those phrase is a very important part of any SEO campaign.  It usually the first step, in fact.

This video has some tips about how to gain a little more insight on how to get some keyphrase ideas.  More importantly, it has some off hand advice, which is actually great about integrating analytics and paid advertising into continuing campaigns.

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The SEO glossary has found a more permanent home at:

http://blog.texxsmith.com/web-design-references/seo-glossary

Please update your bookmarks and links.

Sometimes instinct and timing make a link building campaign just taking off. There are thousands of established directories with good page rank out there. Most of them pass far more page rank to the first links that are added. The ones that fill up the first page of each category. Most link building directories give these coveted spots to websites by the order they join. The first sites that are added to the database of inks are the ones that get listed first in the directory. Since this page is closer to the index page of the directory, it usually has a high page rank. To make a long complicated scientific story a short one, if your performing a link building campaign that involves directories (most do), you want to be one of the first to add your website to the directory.

Most ink builders are put off by the low page rank of these new directories. They are new after all that means there aren’t a lot of links to the site. Our research tells us that a great deal of these sites will fail or close or switch content focus within a year however. Our research tells us that this failure rate isn’t as high as one would think and that the ones that do not fail provide links that pass on lots of link juice within a year or less.

If your going for the big bang, i.e., a proper text link from a related directory, that has a high page rank, well it’s hardly ever going to happen, even if your willing to pay top dollar for these links. The best bet, is to get in on the ground floor of a web directory that you think is going to gain some good page rank (and be there for more than a few months).

With this in mind, I present: Deck Boards Directory, a collection of links to sites that related to the decking industry. Deck builders, decking supply companies, information about the decking, etc. I know it’s going to take off because of the market research and I happen to know the guy who made it, so I know it’s going to stick around for a while. So if you’re marketing a site related to decking or deck boards in some way, go there and get a link form them. They require a link back to them on a page of theirs somewhere, but that’s what you have to give a directory, is a link because they need link juice, just like you!

I always knew that click fraud was way more prevalent than what Google says it is (and they admit it’s above 30%!). But now we have evidence that Google themselves is defrauding their own advertisers by teaming with adware companies to redirect directly typed addresses into searches.
That’s a mouthful, what’s that mean?

That means Google, in certain cases, is taking a directly typed domain name and turning it into a search and then a click on and advertisement so they can charge the advertiser for something they wouldn’t normally have to pay for. This is called click fraud, even by Google’s own definition which states:

Invalid clicks are clicks generated by prohibited methods. Examples of invalid clicks may include repeated manual clicking or the use of robots, automated clicking tools, or other deceptive software. Invalid clicks are sometimes intended to artificially and/or maliciously drive up an advertiser’s clicks and or a publisher’s earnings. Sources of invalid clicks may include:

* Manual clicks intended to increase your advertising costs or to increase profits for website owners hosting your ads.
* Clicks by automated tools, robots, or other deceptive software.

The evidence is long and tangled, but here’s another article that explains this better (LINK). Techy version
Here’s a link to the evidence and original report (LINK). Very techy version

You just never know where the next big fundraiser is going up on the internet next. One things is for sure, putting more resources into your internet presence is a must just to keep up.

To all local and state level Politicians. It’s time to play catch up or loose it all to new challengers.
Here’s some younger republicans driving home the point that they can and will put more effort into internet marketing so as not to be bested in the future.

One thing they seem to be aware of is that 12-6 months before an election is the time to begin internet marketing in earnest.

Read about the Last big google update in the months right before an election that set this practice as a tradition with google and other search engines. It’s called the Florida Update (ironic name).

Note they are also touting only a few of the successes their opponents have been having by using internet marketing and great web applications to raise funds and get their message to the people. I can’t blame them, I like to talk about the future myself.

If your a local or state level politician in any party here in Florida. You need to contact us today. Why today? It takes time to develop an internet presence using natural search engine results. If you wait until right before an election, you will have to much more money into paid advertising, which people trust less.

Click Forensics has released their latest report on Click Fraud. Click Fraud effects people and businesses who buy “pay per click” advertisements on web sites and search engines like google. It becomes fraud when:

• It’s not a human doing the clicking
• It’s human who is doing the clicking but his or her only intend is to cause the advertiser to be charged for the click, not because they are interested in the content advertised

The two most common sources of click fraud are competitors who want to see your budget eaten up without any legitimate customers going to your site. They also get the added benefit of being able to bid on those keyphrases for much less money once your budget is blown. This is by far the most common type of click fraud.
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