Not too long ago, search engine optimizers (SEOs) urged Internet marketers to swap links with other sites in order to enhance their PageRank or ‘authority’ in the eyes of the search engines. This, in turn, would help their sites achieve higher search engine listings and thereby generate more website traffic.

Unfortunately, the search engines caught on and began to detect overt link swaps, and any other kind of linking between sites that seemed unrelated to each other.

That said, most SEOs believe the search engines still regard inbound links from related, authoritative sites as the primary indicator of a site’s relevance for a given search phrase. Which, in turn, is the key determinant of where that site ranks in the natural or organic search engine listings.

So if you still need inbound links… but swapping links is generally out of the question… how do you get ‘em?

In short, focus on the idea of ATTRACTING links. In other words, do whatever it takes to get the right people (websites) saying the right things about you (giving you links). To do this, generate the kind of content that people want to talk about (and link to).

Some ideas for doing this are to:

• Write newsworthy or interesting content on a blog;
• Create a wiki i.e. categorized, helpful information for your niche or industry;
• Write articles for other authoritative, high profile sites (and include your link!); and
• Distribute press releases that include links back to your site.

For anyone using or planning to Google’s keyword tool to select keywords for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes: DON’T.

In a recent blog post, Michael Van De Mar points out that Google’s Keyword Tool External (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) is designed to help people select appropriate keywords to target for pay-per-click (PPC) advertising purposes, but the keywords generated do NOT necessarily reflect what keywords people are searching on in general.

He drew this conclusion after optimizing his webpages for the words suggested by the Google tool. Indeed, he achieved high rankings in the natural search engine listings on both Yahoo and Google, but got minimal clicks. His conclusion: Google’s keyword tool may indicate which keywords are worth targeting for PPC purposes, but NOT for SEO purposes.

The reasons? Firstly, the words generated by Google’s Keyword Tool External are based on data on Google’s search network, which includes everything from Ask.com to parked webpages, not on what people are searching on using the Google search engine, much less any other search engine. Secondly the keyword tool gives worldwide, not regional, numbers.

I agree with Mr Van De Mar. I don’t recommend using Google’s keyword tool for choosing keywords for which to optimize your webpages. Certainly not when there are better tools available, such as Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery. However, the tool CAN be useful for REFINING your SEO strategy. For example, if you know what keywords are being highly contested (indicated by high bid prices) that’s a sign that there is value in those keywords.

Source: Michael Van De Mar, “Why The Google Keyword Tool Is Useless For SEO, Even With Exact Numbers”, Smackdown, July 15, 2008

Amit Singhal, Google Fellow in charge of the ranking team at Google, has just issued a blog post explaining Google’s approach to ranking sites in its organic or natural search engine listings.

The three principles underpinning its approach are:

1. Best locally relevant results served globally.
2. Keep it simple.
3. No manual intervention.

According to Mr Singhal, the first principle is that every user query should generate the most relevant results. The second principle is that despite the temptation to let complexity creep into the system, Google should strive to keep its system simple without compromising on the quality of results.

The third principle is that the final ordering of the results should be decided by algorithms using the contributions of the greater Internet community, not manually by Google. Google also believes that any need to manually adjust results is symptomatic of a greater need to improve its algorithm, and that if improving the algorithm improves one query, it will also improve an entire class of queries. The only scope for manual intervention relates to sites that violate Google’s policies (i.e. policies relating to such matters as legal compliance).

Not sure that Amit’s post adds much to our general understanding of how Google’s algorithm works… but he has left a carrot dangling: he has promised to explain the technologies behind Google’s ranking, and give examples of several state-of-the-art ranking techniques in action, in a later post.

We’ll keep you posted right here in Kikabink News.

Source: Amit Singhal, “Introduction to Google Ranking”, Google Blog, July 9, 2008

Here’s the final insight from the research by Enquiro and MarketingSherpa that we’ve been discussing over the past few days.

Firstly, let’s recap the previously mentioned insights:

1. Search engine searchers quickly scan or skim the results page;
2. If a listing attracts their attention, they typically spend less than a second (0.7 seconds) reading it; and
3. Almost no-one looks at the right side of the page.

Because of all this, there’s every chance that searchers will miss you if you only have one listing in the results.

Therefore… you need your listing to show up in more than one place on a results page!

Plus, according to MarketingSherpa, people differ as to how they read and click on search results. There are actually five different patterns searchers tend to use depending on where they are in the sales/educational cycle:

• The Quick Click
• The Linear Scan
• The Golden Triangle Scan
• The Deliberate Scan
• The Pickup Search

It follows then, that your search engine marketing (SEM) efforts should be focused on achieving multiple listings per page! Ideally, this means having more than one listing in the natural
results. But it also means running a cost-effective pay-per-click campaign.

While it’s tempting to think that you won’t need to run a pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaign if you have high rankings in the organic search engine results, the aforementioned research indicates that you will LOSE potential leads if you don’t do both.

Or, looked at in reverse, by having a greater presence on any given search engine result page (SERP) you’ll have a better chance of capturing the attention of your typical 0.7 second search engine user!

Source: Anne Holland, “Search Engine Marketing: Top Five Eye-Tracking Laboratory Test Results”, MarketingSherpa, January 4, 2006