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Welcome to the ineedhits Search Engine Marketing blog, where we share the latest search engine and online marketing news, releases, industry trends and great DIY tips and advice.

We encourage you to get involved in our blog community - so share your opinions and experiences by leaving comments on our posts.

If you're looking for help with promoting your website - check out our range of affordable search engine marketing services.

Tuesday, January 30

What Do You Blog About?

Last week we asked - "Do You Have A Company Blog?" - and the majority of respondents said they were keen to start blogging...

So, this week we want to get all the people that are blogging (and planning to blog) to share the topics of their blogs. Give all the 'soon-to-be bloggers' an idea of your interests / subjects that the blogosphere covers. If we haven't included your favorite topic then send us a comment and put us straight. What interests you and why? Is there anything you think we should, or will, be seeing more of in the future?

YouTube's Plans to Share Revenue - Show Me the Money!

YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley announced at the World Economic Forum that the video sharing website had plans to start sharing revenue with the video creators that have made the website so successful.

Now before anyone quits their day jobs to pursue the big lights of a YouTube Video Creator's lifestyle, there is still a lack of information about what revenue the company plans on sharing, let alone what % of that revenue will be shared.

YouTube currently generates revenue from a range of advertising options, so it's still not clear whether the revenue will be shared from those sources or whether they will introduce a new form of advertising, such as pre-video ads as speculated by the BBC, to generate the shared revenue.

Either way, I'm sure the YouTube community will be happy to see some returns on their efforts. Considering YouTube's success has been based on the video prowess (both good and bad) of its millions of uploaders, it's comforting to see them planning on giving back to the community.

One debate that is sure to raise its head again is the copyright issue. If video creators start making money from content that was borrowed from other providers, then the revenue share should surely include the original content creator/s.

While no definitive timelines have been set for the YouTube revenue share plans, watch this space closely as there are thousands of video creators anxiously waiting to get their share of the YouTube revenue pie.

Google TV: The Early April Fools Joke

"How to Sign Up for GoogleTV Beta" is the title of Infinite Solutions' video tutorial now available on YouTube, and what a longwinded, involved way to sign up it is!
You must go into Gmail, send yourself an email, and then log in and out of Google until a GoogleTV icon appears in the Gmail logo! Now you have access to GoogleTV Beta!

The efforts of those who spent hours logging in and out of Google, and asking for help on YouTube, have been fruitless - GoogleTV is a hoax! Such was the flurry of activity and interest that even Google got involved issuing the following statement to Google Blogoscoped:

"Mark Erickson's "Infinite Solutions" segment highlights Gmail's seemingly "infinite" powers - from gobs of storage and lightning fast search to some of the best anti-spam action in the business (and how about that sweet Easter Egg cowbell in Gmail Chat?). Alas, Mark's "Google TV beta" is simply a figment of his fertile imagination. But great entertainment for all of us here at the Googleplex."

If the swarm of video views, comments and questions is anything to go by, then Google may have another project to work on! GoogleTV looks set to be a popular sidearm to the expanding empire. On a much smaller scale young Mark Erickson has done his bit to boost his company's brand image - after all it is a masterpiece of a hoax - even Google say so!

DIY Tip: Make Sitemaps Work for Your Website

Sitemaps are a great tool for webmasters, as they inform search engines of the pages within your website, how important each page is and the frequency with which you update them. Google was the first to offer an xml based sitemap service, but after the recent news that Yahoo! and Microsoft have endorsed the sitemaps standard, we thought it was a good idea to run through how to create and use sitemaps on your website.

Creating and Submitting a Sitemap
Creating an XML sitemap file is actually a lot easier than you may think. There are a bunch of free sitemap generators available that can make your XML file in a matter of seconds. Alternatively, if you have some XML knowledge and would prefer to make the file yourself, you can check out the protocol from sitemaps.org.

After creating a sitemap, you need to submit it to relevant search engines. At this stage, only Google and Yahoo! accept sitemap submissions with MSN still undergoing some testing of the service. To submit to these search engines you will need a Google / Yahoo! account. You can then use the following links to submit your sitemaps:
Google: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/siteoverview
Yahoo!: https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com

Sitemap Statistics
Submitting a sitemap will also give you access to a great range of webmaster tools. As Google was the first to introduce the standard, let me run through some of the statistics that are available from Google's Webmaster Tools.

Diagnostics:
The diagnostics tab allows webmasters to get information on how the Google spider accesses their site. It includes options for setting the preferred domain for a website and changing the rate at which Google crawls the site.

Statistics:
The statistics section provides an overview on how your website performs in search results. It gives an overview of the most popular keywords used to find your site and shows a ranking of your average top position for each. It also shows the most used keywords in both your content and links from other websites.

Because sitemaps offer an easy way of informing search engines about new or hard to find content on your site, you should definitely consider adding a sitemap file to your site, especially if you add new pages or update content frequently.

Google Updates for Webmasters - 29th Jan 2007

Welcome to our new blog series - Google Updates for Webmasters. These weekly posts will provide a quick review on developments that can impact your website's success in the king of search engines - Google.

In this week's update, we discuss Google's work around Googlebombs as recently covered by Matt Cutts, and provide some insight into the Badware Warnings that Google is presenting in their search results.

Googlebombs
As ominous as the name is, Googlebombs (or linkbombs as they are referred to when not in conjunction with Google) are not as serious to website owners as they might sound. They are pranks where people try to make other websites rank for meaningless or totally obscure search terms or keywords.

While not overly prevalent, Googlebombs do work against Google's commitment to relevant results. As Matt Cutts put it in his post:

"Because these pranks are normally for phrases that are well off the beaten path, they haven't been a very high priority for us. But over time, we've seen more people assume that they are Google's opinion, or that Google has hand-coded the results for these Googlebombed queries. That's not true, and it seemed like it was worth trying to correct that misperception. So a few of us who work here got together and came up with an algorithm that minimizes the impact of many Googlebombs."

Google have released a revised algorithm that should reduce the impact of such queries, but as with all computer driven processes, there is still the risk that the occasional prank will make it into the results. If you see one, Google are accepting feedback via Google Web Search Help Group.

Badware Warnings
In response to concerns from webmasters regarding malware warnings on their listings in Google's search results, Phil Harton has provided some background information in the Google Webmaster Central blog.

The Badware Warnings are aimed at reducing the risk to searchers of being directed to websites that compromise the users' computer security. If you think your website has been flagged, or would like to check its status, you can do so by setting up an account at Google Webmaster Tools. Within your account, a warning will be provided if your website has been flagged as Badware.

Cleaning your website of any malicious software is not usually as simple as fixing a bit of code, but Google are looking to provide additional information for website owners who have fallen victim to such security breaches. The challenge being to avoid giving malicious website owners the information needed to avoid Google's detection software.

If you feel you have been flagged unfairly, you can appeal your Badware status by emailing appeals@stopbadware.org.

Tuesday, January 23

Should You Put All Your Eggs Into One Basket?

Are you putting your entire search engine marketing budget into Google? This is not necessarily the best thing for your website traffic and conversion.

We know that Google provides a great system with good conversion tracking and an easy to use interface, not to mention an audience that dwarfs the competitors in terms of search volume. However if you spend the majority of your budget on Google, how will you ever know the potential returns available from the other pay-per-click options available?

Now if Google is working for you and your returns are good then I recommend continuing with them, but it's always worth expanding the reach of your search marketing campaigns.

Not all users will have Google as their home pages and use Google for search; there is MSN, Yahoo, AOL and Ask.com to name a few. Yes, these sites are smaller in terms of traffic, but they may have other benefits such as users that fit different demographics; access to untapped markets, and that may well be just what your website needs.

I'm not saying that you should spread your budget so thinly that monitoring all the campaigns becomes a nightmare, but how about using some of your Google budget on other search engines and testing the returns that you receive. If it works then you can allocate more of your budget to them or if not then you can just revert back to the all mighty Google.

You may be pleasantly surprised at the results because of fewer competitors. If everyone does this then maybe we can halt the increasing market power Google has over search, which at the moment is around 57% of the paid search market, and put some downward pressure on the increasingly high click prices. Here's to a future of affordable and fairer pay-per-click!

Google Updates Personalized Homepages

It appears that Google have, just this minute, updated the look and feel of their personalized homepages. Feeds are now time, date stamped and open to show a excerpt of each article.

Many readers display their feeds in this manner, and Google Personalized Homepages have finally realized this sorely needed functionality. For Google this may also result in fewer people leaving the site as they aren't immediately directed away when clicking on a feed link.
Admittedly, I'm not a big fan of having to open new windows to view articles or having to continuously "Home" back to Google after being taken here, there and everywhere when I click on an article.

It's amazing how such small changes can have such a dramatic affect on usability and user experience. Useability is generally very subjective - what may work for you may not do so for me, and no doubt Google will aim keep pushing their version of the personalized user experience!

Top 6 Reasons Why Your Company Needs a Blog

Building a blog is a great way for a company to provide value to their customers, either by providing them with interesting content, or giving them another way to interact with the company. Here at ineedhits, we love blogging and think businesses large and small should get involved, so here are our top 6 reasons why every company should blog.

1. It's Free
There are heaps of free blog providers out there, with blogger and wordpress being amongst the most popular. The features provided are quite powerful allowing users to customize almost all elements of the blog including layout, templates, sidebars and much more.

2. Search Engines Love Blogs
Writing keyword rich articles is a great way to drive more traffic to your site. After a while, search engines may begin to rank your articles amongst the top search results, as was the case with our breaking story on Australian company Orion. Aside from this, search engines love websites that expand their content regularly, so writing relevant blog articles is a great way to show search engines your providing real value to users.

3. They Provide an Avenue for Customer Interaction
Blog comments provide a great avenue for customers to leave feedback, both positive and negative, which provides businesses with valuable information to improve their products or services. Apart from feedback, comments allow users to share opinions and can create a community feel to the blog which will have people coming back for more.

4. You are Likely to Sell More Products/Services
It's a simple equation,
providing users with more value + driving extra traffic to your site = increased sales
This formula holds true in just about all areas of online business, so its only natural that starting a company blog should increase sales.

5. They Facilitate Viral Marketing
Informative or thought provoking posts can spread around the internet in days. As our case study on Blendtec highlighted, creating interesting content has the ability to capture a worldwide audience of millions. Submit interesting content to sites like Digg.com and watch your traffic grow.

6. They Position You as an Expert
Providing insight into relevant topics makes companies an authority figure within the marketplace. This helps to enhance company credibility and should encourage users to subscribe to your feeds.

As you have probably guessed, we think blogging is great - But we want to know what YOU think! Vote in our poll below and let us know if you have a company blog:

Wikipedia Fights Black Hat SEO with "nofollow"

Wikipedia, the trusted authority for many of our information and research needs, has been forced to implement the "nofollow" attribute across the board on all its external links. According to the Wikipedia Talk, the initiative should help combat the growing issue of link spam on the site.

The "nofollow" attribute was first introduced to fight against the issue of blog comment spam. "nofollow" is simply a directive for search engine spiders. While the spiders can see the link, the attribute informs them not to follow the link, hence removing the value of its placement.

While the link spam issue needs to be addressed, many netizens believe that blanket implementation of the "nofollow" attribute goes against many of the principles of community and web 2.0. Considering Wikipedia is the poster child of the revolution, this doesn't reflect well on the movement.

Wikipedia's rise to popularity and authority has been driven by the community both in terms of content and inbound links. The people that have helped to build the social web icon will now be feeling left out in the cold - with the value of their Wikipedia inbound links removed.

The consequences of this move are far reaching, as all the top search engines like Google and Yahoo! place significant value on relevant inbound links - and they don't get much more valuable than a Wikipedia inbound link.

I believe use of the "nofollow" by wikipedia will only be a temporary fix for the link spam issue, while more research is undertaken to develop a more sustainable solution.

It will be interesting to see what impact this does have on website rankings; especially those that have relied on Wikipedia for inbound link value. If this is you - let us know how it impacts your website...

Yahoo! Confirms Search Index Update

Yahoo! Search blog (www.ysearchblog.com) confirmed on Friday that an index update is currently underway. This follows hot on the heals of Google's recent Backlink and PR update. A double whammy for many website owners to kick start 2007.

According to Priyank Garg on the Yahoo! Search Blog:

"We are in the process of rolling out some changes to our search results. As usual, you may be seeing some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages that are included in the index throughout this process. This update began last night and should be complete very soon.

Keep the feedback coming!"

As is the case with all search index and data updates, the forums and communities are alive with feedback, with most of it generally negative. Complaints range from spammy/irrelevant content in the top rankings, to incorrect listings in the SERPs, and everything in between.

At this stage, we've actually seen improvements in our rankings on many of our core keywords. So hopefully the update will start to reward website owners using best practice SEO and link building tactics. Why not share how the update has impacted your site's Yahoo! ranking?

Tuesday, January 16

Optimizing Images for Search Engine Success

Images are a great way to brighten any web page. To anyone browsing your site, an image may be worth a thousand words but to a search engine spider, they can be the equivalent of a black hole. There are numerous ways to prevent this and actually optimize your images for search engines.

Alt / Title Tags
These nifty little tags sit within the image source code on a page and should be a succinct summary of what the image displays. Not only are they a great way to add some keyword rich content to an image but they also give viewers the image description, should the image not load!

Clever Captions
Surrounding your image with related content or a descriptive caption is necessary. Not only does it provide those browsing your site a link between subject matter and image, but it gives search engines a reference for the image.

Image file name
This may seem simple but it's amazing how few people actually bother to give their images a relevant file name. To anyone, let alone a search engine, 1234.JPG means absolutely nothing. Pink-snapper.JPG, on the other hand is obvious! On the same note, don't spam your image file names and tags, it's something search engines may pick up on and it's not clever marketing!

Good quality images
There's no point in using an image if it's not good quality. No matter how much you may optimize a poor quality picture it will mean nothing to the users on your site and is simply a waste of space.

Page Optimization
Another obvious point but very important nonetheless! Optimize the page holding the image with Meta data, description and title tags. Keep content keyword rich and relevant, for both search engines and your users.

Image File Management
Keep graphics and pictures in an 'Image' folder on your server in an organized manner, rather than hosted online. This will guarantee that they are always available for display (although the best of us suffer 'technical difficulty' at some stage or another!) and keep your image source code clean. If they are hosted by an online image gallery or sharing site then make sure it is reputable, and won't randomly go offline or have difficulties.

Expand Your Audience
Encourage audience diversity and traffic by using images that relate to your site content but that are original, or a little different. For example, a fishing site uses images of fish and fishing tackle to display their products. Images of beautiful rivers and lakes around the world, boats or reefs are also relevant to the site content, and encourage a greater diversity in traffic as people search for these pictures online.

Images can be a deal maker or breaker for your website. They need to be seen by the search engines, and browsers, in order to work for, not against, you!

Google, Yahoo! Dominate Search in December 2006

Google and Yahoo! have continued to dominate online search in December 06, with both posting slight increases over the competition. Google managed to increase its market share by 0.4% from November 06, while Yahoo! posted a slightly lower increase of 0.3%.

According to comScore's monthly qSearch analysis, Google and Yahoo! were the only search engines to post positive growth, as others let their market share slip slightly. Both Microsoft and Ask.com saw their share decrease 0.5% and 0.1% respectively, while the Time Warner Network also posted a drop of 0.2%.

Americans conducted 6.7 billion online searches in December, which is up 1% on November. Annual search growth rates also continued to rise, up 30% on the same time in 2005.

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The Google Report: PageRank, Supplemental Results and More

After posting recently on the changes in Google Backlink counts, PageRank and indexed web pages noted by webmasters, Matt Cutts has issued a Google Infrastructure Report.

Here's a summary of his post:

PageRank & Backlinks
The Google PageRank scores shown on the toolbar and in other locations are currently being updated. Matt suggests this shouldn't impact rankings, as the scores are already being used in the ranking process. This data push will also see Google operators such as link: and info: updated. So this would explain the Backlink count updates that webmasters have been noticing.

Supplemental Results
The situation where the site: command was displaying supplemental results ahead of regular results has been resolved. Matt reinforced the fact that supplemental results are not a penalty, and that they are determined by a web page's PageRank. He expects the supplemental results to get fresher and provide more traffic for website owners.

For those of you with supplemental results Matt stated:
"The approach I'd recommend in that case is to use solid white-hat SEO to get high-quality links (e.g. editorially given by other sites on the basis of merit)."

Homepages not Displayed in Country Specific Google Queries
An issue that was supposedly addressed in December which saw homepages not being displayed in country specific Google results is being addressed also. If you were to run a site:yourdomain.com operation in google.co.uk, the homepage would be displayed, however if you were to narrow the settings to UK specific sites, the homepage would not be displayed. The fix being worked on will resolve this issue.

So it appears the Google backlink count, PageRank and page indexing issues that were being discussed in the forums are actually a part of some official Google work being carried out. If you want the detailed explanation of what's going on, visit Matt Cutt's blog for the full run down.

Paying Per Job Applicant

The world certainly has become a different place. From the days of dropping resumes to potential employers, and posting tons out through the mail, to now, where we have websites dedicated to posting jobs. Some people are employed without ever dealing with the employer.

With the ever growing popularity of pay per click advertising, Coca Cola has found an even better way to post job listings, yes, pay-per-click. They pay, every time a potential applicant clicks on one of their ads placed on Google AdWords, specifically on job search results on Google.

If worked out on average click prices then they could easily save themselves heaps of money by not paying fees to job sites but rather paying per click.

Let's see:
Assuming a click price of 30cents and 300 clicks per month then they would pay approximately $90, assuming a conversion rate of 1% (very poor) that's 3 applications. For a job board posting you can pay as much as $419 per month (careerbuilder.com) for a job listing, which as you can see is quite a lot more and still does not guarantee a successful job applicant.

With pay-per-click advertising there is also the option of turning off your ad when you find an appropriate candidate, which can save you a lot of wasted money. I mean what's the point in having jobs posted when they are no longer available to applicants. There is nothing worse than seeing that perfect job that you would love to apply for only to notice that it is too late to apply.

With this new recruitment strategy, I'm sure the job sites will need to become more flexible with their pricing to hold onto the companies that can target their own recruitment campaigns using pay per click advertising.

Monday, January 15

Apple Shoots the Messenger - Bloggers Beware

Apple has a reputation of giving a bloggers a legal hard time. In the wake of their new iPhone release, Apple have been putting the squeeze on bloggers reporting about an unauthorized Windows Mobile phone skin that resembles the iPhone interface.

Apple's legal heavyweights were quick to send out a "cease and desist" notice to a blogger just reporting on the creative activities of someone else. The blogger, namely Paul O'Brien, merely linked to the website providing the Windows Mobile skin with a simple screenshot supporting his copy.

This case of taking aim at the messenger goes against all the strengths of web 2.0 and blogging. Fair enough if you want to fight the source of the issue (the designer), but sending your legal hound dogs after the journalist/blogger (considering the post wasn't negative in any way), is simply nonsense.

Oh well, as you can see by the flurry of blogging activity about their bullying tactics, Apple have made no friends in the blogosphere by attacking one of our own. And they will soon learn the impact that social media has on the reputation of a company.

While the action won't kill the Apple brand, hopefully the volume of negative blog buzz will encourage them to embrace social commentary and blogging rather than stifle it.