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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, December 18

4 Top Ways to Ensure You Get Sales From Your Website

You may be wondering why your website's Top 10 search engine listings, aren't generating more sales?

The answer may well lie with your website itself. Your content, and your website's look and feel could be preventing visitors from becoming buyers. Your site needs to actually entice visitors into becoming paying customers, or at the very least move them in a direction of wanting to contact you for more information.

The question to ask yourself is 'Does my website have what it takes to keep visitors there for longer than 10 seconds?'

The psychology of buying is one where your customers come to you wondering whether you can service their intrinsic shopping needs. Are you perceived as a reputable company? Can you exclusively offer them great products? Can you offer these great products at great prices? Shoppers are interested in the benefits of doing business with you; that is, the benefits to themselves.

Below are a few suggestions for your website to ensure better sales results:

Keep your site up to date and add new content constantly. This will ensure that your website is relevant to those that are searching. It will also ensure that the visitor knows the latest products/services provided. Make sure to highlight new products and remove any promotion for products that you no longer stock.

Make it very clear what you sell and for how much near the top of your product page/s. There is nothing worse than having to work your way through a specific product page trying to find the information you need. It generally results in you giving up and looking elsewhere.

As a seller, you will not only lose a potential customer this time round, but also in the future, as they are bound to remember the negative experience, when they search in your area again.

Highlight your service elements that reinforce the purchase. This will include return policies, guarantees and warranties. By making these known it will ensure that the customer knows that you are a legitimate, trustworthy company, who they are more likely to purchase from.

Get someone else to review your site. You may think that your website looks great, but by getting an outsider to review it, they may find even more ways to improve the experience.

An addition to these suggestions:

Track Your Visitors Activity

A great way to find out if people are actually spending time on your site is to run a visitor tracking log program on your website. Detailed tracking software will enable you to monitor visitor trends and to uncover potential marketing problems before it's too late.

Analytics software will track the time visitors are spending on your website and where they navigate once there, helping you to better understand the value of your site to visitors outside of just sales and leads.

As a final message, the trick behind all of this is to focus on appealing to your target audience by making your site user-friendly, easy to navigate and using a professional look that suggests the visitor can trust you.

Hopefully, these hints have been helpful in ensuring that your website is just right so that you can get maximum sales. Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below.

Google, Yahoo & Ask.com Search Trends for 2007

Google, Yahoo! and Ask.com have released their end of year guides to the hottest online searches in 2007. The guides detail the fastest rising (and falling) search queries conducted throughout the year.

Google
Google's popular end of year roundup, the Google Zeitgeist, receives its own micro site on Google.com which can be seen here. Google break down their top searches into different categories, but provide an overall summary of the fastest rising and falling searches on Google.com.

Fastest Rising (global)

1. iphone
2. badoo
3. facebook
4. dailymotion
5. webkinz
6. youtube
7. ebuddy
8. second life
9. hi5
10. club penguin

Fastest Falling (global)

1. world cup*
2. mozart
3. fifa
4. rebelde*
5. kazaa
6. xanga
7. webdetente
8. sudoku
9. shakira
10. mp3
*featured in 2006 fastest-rising list

For U.S. residents, you may also be interested to see how your searching habits compare to that of the rest of the world.

Fastest Rising (U.S.)

1. iphone
2. webkinz
3. tmz
4. transformers
5. youtube
6. club penguin
7. myspace
8. heroes
9. facebook
10. anna nicole smith

Yahoo!
Yahoo! was the first search engine to release their "Top Trends in Search" report for 2007. Like Google, Yahoo! breaks down their top search queries into different categories.

News Stories - top 10 news stories

1. Saddam Hussein
2. Iran
3. Iraq
4. President George W. Bush
5. Oil and Gas prices
6. Barack Obama
7. Hillary Rodham Clinton
8. San Diego Fires
9. Afghanistan
10. Virginia Tech

Grass is Always Greener - top 10 environmental searches

1. Recycling
2. Global Warming
3. Freecycle
4. Earth
5. Pollution
6. Al Gore
7. Environmental Protection Agency
8. Live Earth
9. Hybrid Cars
10. Solar Energy

Celebrity Downslides - top 10 troubled stars

1. Britney Spears
2. Paris Hilton
3. Anna Nicole Smith
4. Vanessa Anne Hudgens
5. Nicole Richie
6. Amy Winehouse
7. Rosie O'Donnell
8. Tara Conner
9. Michael Vick
10. Owen Wilson

It's always hard to directly compare search engines as the categories used often differ somewhat, so for a full recap on the Yahoo! trends head over to the Yahoo! website: http://buzz.yahoo.com/toptrends2007/

Ask.com
While MSN are yet to release their 2007 trends, Ask.com have been the only major search engine to give an overall top 10 list, so here it is:

Ask.com's Top Searches of 2007

1. MySpace
2. Dictionary
3. Google
4. Themes
5. Area Codes
6. Cars
7. Weather
8. Games
9. Song Lyrics
10. Movies

Posted on the Ask.com blog, the list is followed by an interesting comment;

"Yep, MySpace was the big one...In fact, I believe it was #1 last year as well. Bebo? Orkut? Facebook? Nowhere to be found. The other nine are a pretty good survey of how people use the Internet.

...Including a certain competitor/partner in the #3 slot. But what can we say? Our list is as straight as it comes--we tell it like it is. And maybe--just maybe--if *other* search engines showed us their lists of top searches...we might see Ask.com in theirs as well."

For a full rundown on Ask.com top searchers, including other categories, visit the Ask.com blog.

So there you have it, the top searches you conducted during 2007. Do you think the lists accurately reflect online buzz during the year? We'd love to hear your thoughts!

Google to Challenge Wikipedia with Google Knol

Google have commenced testing for a new service called 'Google Knol' which will see the company compete with the likes of Wikipedia, Squidoo and Yahoo! Answers. Google Knol aims to be an information sharing resource similar to Wikipedia where users can contribute articles and have them rated by peers.

According to the Google blog, Knol stands for "unit of knowledge":

"A knol on a particular topic is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read. The goal is for knols to cover all topics, from scientific concepts, to medical information, from geographical and historical, to entertainment, from product information, to how-to-fix-it instructions. Google will not serve as an editor in any way, and will not bless any content. All editorial responsibilities and control will rest with the authors. "

A screenshot can be found below:

Source: Search Engine Land

As you can see from the picture, Google plans to highlight authors in this project, which it claims have been lost as information evolved on the web. Anyone will be free to write a knol, which others can comment on, rate, and contribute to if the primary author allows. Google will provide easy-to-use tools for writing, editing, etc, and it will provide free hosting of the content.

But the plans are not popular with everyone. SEO blogger, Aaron Wall has raised concerns regarding the project saying that the integration of Knol and search could be bias as Google wants knol's to be "the first thing someone searches for".

Given Wikipedia's commanding position on the web and domination of Google search results; it might be tough for Google Knol to quickly establish any market share. What do you think? - have a say in our blog comments.

Google Allows Publishers to Block Ads on Websites

Google is in the process of releasing the Ad Review Center, which allows you to easily control what Google Ads show up on your website. It allows publishers to manually approve or block ads that show on their site, so that only the most relevant ads appear. This means no more advertisements which are offensive or poorly targeted or even ads from your competitors.

The default setting in this feature will be "auto-allow" so ads will run unless you block them. Inside the Ad Review Center you can review all your ads at one time. Alternatively, you can manually review ads before they appear on your site; you'll then have 24 hours to review ads before they are automatically allowed to run on your site.

If you decide to block an ad you'll be asked for a reason and Google will give the feedback to advertisers, so they can use it to improve the quality and relevance of future ad campaigns.

The Ad Review Center will gradually be released to all publishers over the next few months. You'll know you have the feature when you see a green box at the top of your 'Competitive Ad Filter' page, which is located under the 'AdSense Setup' tab.

This new feature is no doubt going to be a great benefit to all website owners who are sick of having those irrelevant ads appearing on their sites. Let us know what you think of this new Google feature by leaving a comment below.

Your Essential SEO Checklist for 2008 - More Top Rankings!

While many are using this time to reminisce about the year that was, here's a simple SEO check list for those of you that are already looking for bigger and better SEO results in 2008. If more free traffic from the search engines is your new year's resolution - then commit to these essentials:

1. Stop Stabbing in the Dark - Keyword Intelligence
Start 2008 with some intelligent keyword analysis. Find out what your potential customers are searching for and create your keyword hit list. Don't under estimate the value of long tail too - searchers are getting smarter and relying on longer keyword phrases to filter out irrelevant results.

2. Master Your Meta Data
Once you've got your keyword hit list, it's time to get your Meta data right (the code optimization at the foundation of good SEO). When reviewing your code, focus on the Meta elements that matter - "titles" and "descriptions" are where you get your real ranking value. So commit early to reviewing all your key web page's Meta tags - and avoid the usual pitfalls of keyword competition between your pages or even worse - duplicate tags across pages.

3. Search Engine Webmaster center Sign-ups
Since the search engines have been kind enough to provide site owners with free webmaster tools (i.e. Google Webmaster Center, Yahoo! Site Explorer, Live Search Webmaster portal), do yourself a favor and sign up. Verification is simple, and the indexing diagnostics and analysis should be a part of your regular monthly (or even weekly) reviews.

4. Liven up Your Link Building
Yes, confusion and controversy has reigned supreme in the link discussion over 2007, but one thing still remains - your links still drive your ranking. So in 2008, seek some serious link love.

Fee based links - there's still a range of important links that come at a cost which provide valuable link "juice" (e.g. Directories such as Yahoo!'s Directory). Whether we like it or not, they charge a fee for the process of reviewing submitted sites - and this scrutiny ensures the value of the listings and links.

Free links - there are many ways to get free relevant links back to your site, they just take time and perseverance. Whether you contact site owners directly, create affiliations with relevant industry groups, or create and post articles on other sites - they're all valuable additions to your SEO plan.

Earned links - there's nothing better than earned links. If you provide unique information or resources on your website that others find useful or relevant, then the links will come. This sort of content not only helps from the purpose of drawing in relevant links, but also helps establish your business as a serious operator in the industry. Good examples of this content includes glossaries, whitepapers, industry reports etc.

5. Commit to Creating Content
Top ranking is driven by fresh quality content. Whether you choose to create the content on your site, or elsewhere with a link back - regularly created relevant content keeps the search engine spiders crawling your website.

To start with, take your keyword hit list and give all your existing content the once over. If you've got low keyword density (i.e. not many of your hit list keywords are in your web page text), it's time to do some fresh copy writing.

Once you've covered off the web page copy essentials, commit the rest of the year to creating new content on your website. Even a couple of keyword rich new pages per month will make a significant difference to smaller websites - and there's no easier way to do this than with a blog (see: Embrace social SEO below)

6. Understand Your SEO Successes with Analytics
I'm amazed at how many people are still measuring their success with primitive hit counters or even worse, no analytics at all. Considering the range of free services out there - if you're not using a half decent website analytics service, then 2008 is the year to change! And more importantly - understand the proper measures of your success.

Successful SEO isn't always going to equal more sales, so make sure to track the right metrics such as rankings on your keyword hit list, and organic traffic from search engines (yes most analytics services will show you this metric).

7. Get Serious about Site Structure & Sitemaps
When was the last time you looked at your website structure? Website elements such as URLs and navigation between pages can play a major role in your SEO success. So use start of 2008 as a chance to review these site structure elements to ensure they are reinforcing your SEO goals. (i.e. do your URLs include relevant keywords, is there strong linkage between your web pages, and is your Sitemap up to date - assuming you have one).

8. Get Social with Web 2.0 SEO
The last item on the SEO checklist for 2008 is the social web. It's one of the greatest tools for SEO and as it generally costs no more than a bit of your time on regular basis - it is a must if you're serious about your rankings. There's a lot of social media to get lost in, so to focus your initial strategies, get started with the following:

1. Set-up your own blog: It's a simple way to create new keyword rich and relevant content for your website and relatively simple to integrate.

2. Social bookmark all your content: many social bookmark services (i.e. del.icio.us) get crawled by the search engines and will provide some useful links back to your site.

3. Engage in the Industry Conversations: Make it a weekly ritual to visit your favorite industry blogs. Then on a regular basis actually contribute to the conversations by adding relevant useful comments. Engaging commenting not only builds your profile, but can also provide valuable links back to your website.

Okay, so this is not the definitive list of SEO strategies (that would be a much longer article), but as 2008 draws rapidly closer, if you commit to at least all of the above on a regular basis in 2008 - then you're sure to get much closer to your ranking goals.

Monday, December 17

Google Adds "Content Analysis" to Webmaster Central

In an effort to help site owners address some of the basics of code based SEO for better indexing, Google has introduced "Content Analysis" into Webmaster Central.

Google Webmaster Central is a great resource for any website owner focused on their Google listings and rankings. This latest addition will provide some great foundation insights into the way Google is viewing the Meta Data and content of your web pages.

As Google pointed out on the release blog post:

"Content analysis contains feedback about issues that may impact the user experience or that may make it difficult for Google to crawl and index pages on your site. By reviewing the areas we've highlighted, you can help eliminate potential issues that could affect your site's ability to be crawled and indexed. This results in better indexing of your site by Google and other search engines."

The Content Analysis summary which can be found in the diagnostics section of Webmaster Central addresses three core areas:

Title problems: Highlighting any potential issues with missing or repeated web page title tags.
Meta description problems: Detailing issues with missing duplicate or other Meta description problems.
Non-indexable content: Providing a list of pages that containing non-indexable content, such as images, videos, flash files etc.

While the information provided may not be overly valuable to webmasters who are quite advanced with their SEO, it is a handy tool for less savvy site owners, especially considering the impact such elements have on Google's indexing and ranking of sites. To check your site's content analysis - head over to Webmaster Central now.

Tuesday, December 11

Google Ranks AltaVista as Number One "Search Engine"

Just for fun, I thought it would be interesting to compare how Google, Yahoo! and other top search engines rank in search results. I entered the term "search engine" into Google, Yahoo!, MSN and Ask.com to see how each site faired in their respective search results; and the results are surprising.

Google's Pick: AltaVista
You think Google would rank themselves as the number one search engine, but Google's number one rank for the term "search engine" was AltaVista.

Google also ranks dogpile.com, Yahoo!, and MSN on the first page of results, but I didn't find any mention of Google.com, only Google.co.uk on the second page.

Yahoo! Picks Yahoo!
As you would expect, Yahoo! lists search.yahoo.com as the number one result for the term "search engine" - although they do recommend searching for "google search engine"!

Yahoo! features Google in the second spot with AltaVista also getting a mention on the first page. Ask.com gets the number eleven spot, with MSN lagging behind at number twenty six.

MSN Chooses Google
MSN has Google claiming the number one rank, followed by Ask.com second.

MSN also lists AltaVista and Yahoo! in the third and fourth spots respectively, but doesn't list their own search engine, search.live.com anywhere in the first 3 pages of results.

Ask.com
Ask lists their own search engine, Ask.com as the number one result.

Interestingly, they do not list Google or MSN at all within the first 3 pages of results, with Yahoo! only getting a mention as the thirty sixth search result.

Based on the recent search stats, one would expect the results to be listed Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com in that order. While none of the major search engines seem to have reflected this, I guess they don't really want to be sending traffic to their competitors.

Final Verdict
If I had to pick a winner for which search engine returned the most relevant results in this test, I would have to choose MSN. The Live.com search engine returned three of the top four search engines in the first four search results - which is more than any of their competitors.

Second Google Video: How to Use Alt Tags

My Google video post last week was very popular with readers, so I've decided to post a follow up with Google's latest search marketing video. This week's video covers using alt tags correctly and how they can help get you more exposure on the web.

Again, for those who can't view the clip, here is a quick summary below:

Computers are not great at recognizing what an image is and what it contains. Often, the source code for the image doesn't give much information at all. For example:

<img src="DSC00042.JPG">

This doesn't provide any useful information to Google to try and categorize the image. Instead, Google wants website owners to provide a short description for each image so they can understand which keywords are related to the image.

Matt explains that if the above image was a picture of a cat with some yarn, an alt tag can be used as follows:

<img src="DSC00042.JPG" alt="My cat with some yarn">

He then explains that fewer than 25 keywords are usually enough to describe most images and website owners should use alt tags for all images on their website. It's very easy to do, helps your accessibility and informs Google what's contained in your image.

Monday, December 10

Link Value Factors - The Experts Have Their Say

With all the controversy surrounding linking at the moment, it was timely that someone put the link debate into context. Wiep Knol, a manager of Link Marketing from the Netherlands, has paneled 17 SEO and link building experts to draft an important list of Link Quality Factors.

The panel was provided with just under 40 different link characteristics to rate - which they did on various 5 point scales. Some were general link factors, some on-page elements, some on-domain factors and some negative considerations (dampening factors).

The surveying was based on the premise that search engines judge links for traffic (not just PR juice) and opinions rated accordingly. Below are the ratings as the experts voted. For the ful run-down of each experts opinions on each - visit Wiep's blog for a full review (worth the read).

The Link Factors

Anchor Text - the text within a hyperlink
Age of Link
Type of Link - image, text
Surrounding Text - giving link context
Number of Links - one link vs site wide links
Location of Link - as displayed on the page
Reciprocity - is there a link back to the site
Target Page - aimed at homepage or deeper pages
Location of Link in Source Code - how far into the source code is the link

The On Page Factors

Page authority - the number of inbound links
Amount of outbound links
Total links on the page - total number of inbound and outbound links
Page authority - the number of internal links
Relevance of other links
Age of the Page
Page Relevance - the relevance of the page content
Quality of other outbound links
Amount of non linking content on the page
URL of the page - the relevance of keyword in the web address
Page Relevance - the relevance of words out of context
Page Authority - PageRank
Last date of page edit
Page Type - html, aspx, php etc

The On Domain Factors

Domain authority - quality of backlinks to the site
Age of domain
Relevant Authority - rankings on relevant keywords
Domain authority - number of backlinks
Domain Authority - PageRank
Domain Authority - rankings on irrelevant keywords
Domain relevance - the words making up the domain name
TLD - type of domain (eg. ".com", ".edu", ".gov" etc)
Alexa Ranking

The Negative Factors
For the negative factors - head over to Wiep's post

For anyone who ever thought effective link building was easy - think again. The list above highlights the myriad of factors that are at play. More importantly it shows that link building is a highly involved process that won't necessarily generate top results overnight.

Thanks to Wiep for undertaking the survey and bringing focus back to the important factors behind link quality.

Google Charts API- Include Embedded Charts In Your Webpage Easily

Last week, Google released the new Google Charts API, which will make it even easier to put dynamic charts into your webpage.

In response to a URL, the Google Chart API will create an image in PNG format. There are several different types of charts available, including: bar charts, line graphics, scatter plots, pie charts and Venn diagraphs.

These images can be easily inserted into a webpage by embedding a URL within an img tag, so that when the page is displayed in a browser, the Chart API leaves the image within the page.

This new Google feature was originally created by the team at Google in Zurich for use internally. You may recognize the charts, as they have appeared in Google Video and Google Finance numerous times and now Google has made it available to everyone.

If you would like to learn more about Google Charts API, then check out the Developer's Guide website. It is here that you can learn about the processes and codes used when making these charts. Once you understand the basics, you will be making your own great charts in no time. Let us know what you think of this new Google feature by leaving a comment below.

$12.6 Billion to Be Spent On Local Online Ads In 2008

New statistics from the US last week claim that local online advertising is worth $8.5 billion. This number consists of local search, local banners and local video.

Research completed by Virginia based Borrell Associates, a research and consulting firm that tracks local advertising, predicts that local search will grow substantially to become almost 50% of the total local online spend next year, which is projected to reach $12.6 billion. It is anticipated that local search spending alone will grow from roughly $2.5 billion to $5 billion in 2008.

Borrell also expects local video spending to roughly triple from just over $400 million today to $1.27 billion next year, while banner- type advertising will see growth of only 9% and that "The Big Three" classified categories (jobs, cars, real estate) will have a 37.7 percent share of all online ad spending in 2008.

This research also concluded that the local business categories which have the highest online penetration rates as a percentage of total ad spend are:

Recruitment
Real estate
Computer-related services
DotCom Businesses
Auto marketing
Miscellaneous retail

If this article has inspired you to increase your online marketing efforts to target your local area, then look no further than Local Search Listing which is the quickest way to tap into local search engine traffic, with submission to 46 local search engines including Google, Yahoo and Yellow Pages.

Google & Yahoo! Updating Search Results - Simultaneously!

Both Google and Yahoo! have decided to provide website owners with a "holiday season treat" by updating their respective search results (SERPs) - simultaneously!

Both the major search engines have been executing some algorithm changes causing the usual ranking turmoil for webmasters and site owners over the last week.

While Google has made no formal announcement, the subtle mention of some tweaks associated to the new site links enhancement "twice the sitelinks" might have been the clue.

Site owners have been sharing mixed stories in the forums, with one reporting his listing dropped from being ranked 19th to outside 1000 - overnight. Others are suggesting their listings have been up and down in a matter of days. Here's a couple of the other comments at webmasterworld:

"...My biggest site has been jumping from SERP#1 to SERP#-16-20 and back several times..."

"...my ranking is fluctating and in whole there is loss in visitors..."

Yahoo! on the other hand announced the changes with the release of its X-Robots-Tag support. According to their post:

"...we'll be rolling out additional changes to our crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms over the next few days. We expect the update will be completed early next week, but you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages in the index during this process."

At this critical time of year for most online businesses, these index and ranking updates will be an unwelcome surprise. Have you seen your rankings change over the last week? - if so, share your experiences.

Wednesday, December 5

Google Releases Video Explaining Search Results

Popular Google blogger Matt Cutt's has just released a video describing the different features of a Google search result. Matt is the head of Google's webspam team and filmed the video early last week while visiting Google's Kirkland office.

The video gives a quick rundown on the different areas of Google search results and explains how they work and where Google gets the data for each element. The video can be viewed below:

For those who prefer a text version, here is a brief summary of the clip:

Title - Usually the title of your website but Google can use listings from the Open Directory Project if it deems this to be more relevant. Matt also gives an SEO tip that webmasters should aim to use relevant keywords in their title tag.

Snippet - This text can be taken from the meta description tag, the Open Directory Project or from text on the webpage. Google may take text from anywhere on the page in an effort to serve the most relevant data.

Plus Box - The plus box can provide additional information such as stock quotes or address information if it is relevant for a particular search.

URL - The URL line displays the websites web address, Cached link and some other relevant links. The cached link shows when the webpage was last crawled by Google spiders as well as its content at this time. This can be useful if the actual URL is down or under maintenance.

Bolding - Google bolds the search term throughout search results so users can determine how relevant the website may be to their query.

Site links - These links provide additional sub-pages from the URL as determined by Google spiders. There is no money involved with these links and they are strictly determined by Google's algorithm.

I hope Matt's video helped you understand the different areas of Google search results. If you have any questions, or want to get indexed in Google in only 7 days, please leave a comment below!