Another Hopeful Call for the Death of SEO
April 5th, 2011 - Posted by admin
Every couple of weeks, some prominent theoretician, academic, businessman, or pundit calls for the “death of SEO”. Either they think it should die, or that it’s already dieing. This article is likely to be met with downright rioting by my fellow SEO professionals here in Indiana, but here it is nonetheless. Fellow Indiana based SEO professionals, this is what I’ve been talking about!
The latest version of this ‘SEO is a black art and ruins the online world for the common man (and journalist)’ mantra comes from the Ivy League of all places. Richard J. Tofel has written an article for Harvard’s Nieman Foundation entitled, “Someday the sun will set on SEO – and the business of news will be better for it”. Pretty provocative title for a guy who is writing for the art rather than the traffic, huh?
The irony of the title aside, the Ivy Leaguer’s article is truly terrible. He makes a lot of very vague predictions based on nothing more than an evolution of technology (I assume he thinks SEO isn’t ever-evolving) and his own feeling that SEO has negatively affected the news business. Cute, certainly provocative, but nothing we have not heard before. Next.
SEO Monopoly is the practice of monopolizing the search results under one or more keywords.
No Comments » | Posted in Uncategorized Top Ten
March 2nd, 2011 - Posted by admin
There is a common belief out there that Google’s search style is perhaps making search engine results pages over-competitive. The first ten links in a set of Google results receive many times the amount of traffic that links on the second or third pages receive. This means placement in the top ten links is very valuable.
If your company doesn’t show up at or near the top of Google’s results, it’s invisible. A survey last May by the online advertising network Chitika found that the No. 1 search result drew over one-third of all traffic the results generated — twice as much as No. 2, three times the traffic of No. 3. Being on the first page of rankings was critical. Even No. 10, at the bottom of page 1, drew nearly two and a half times the traffic of No. 11, at the top of the second page.
There are a host of reasons why you want your company to show up in the top ten, and even more reasons to have it show up in the first five. With all of that said, this article goes over the JC Penny and Overstock.com controversies that occurred in the last few weeks, wherein those companies made use of questionable SEO tactics in order to benefit from increased traffic. I’m sure some companies in Indiana are guilty of this same tactic and don’t even know it–hopefully they learn their lesson by reading instead of by experiencing.
The latest SEO technique is forming an SEO Monopoly No Comments » | Posted in Uncategorized Paid Search Shows Growth
January 19th, 2011 - Posted by admin
Search engine optimization is not directly related to the paid search industry–but, generally speaking, what is good for one is good for the other. If the search industry remains strong and relevant, then both industries will continue to thrive. Paid search is occasionally used, too, in search engine optimization campaigns. This report out from Brafton suggests that the paid search industry had not just a good quarter, but also a good year.
Search engine marketing showed 23 percent year-over-year growth in 2010, and 18 percent quarter-over-quarter growth during the last quarter of the year. This suggests that search marketing is going to be a competitive necessity in 2011.
The report goes on to make a few predictions about how the paid search market will look in 2011. It estimates 15-20% growth is what will occur in 2011. That seems a little steep to some, but I wouldn’t doubt it. If we can count on the paid search industry growing–look for the SEO industry to grow too.
Forming an SEO Monopoly is the most powerful thing a company can do to center themselves in the organic search results. No Comments » | Posted in Uncategorized Localization Becomes Key
December 23rd, 2010 - Posted by admin
One of the most important things to consider when creating search engine optimization strategy is how will the links look to local searchers. This is called localized content–and it can be all important when one is doing SEO, especially if the client is a local business. Localization is now a key part of how Google measures which links will appear first in search results.
When you perform a search at Google or Bing, the results are significantly influenced by your physical location, even on queries where you don’t specify a location. So if you’re in New York and you search for [pizza], or [hot tubs] or [DMV], your results will be very different than if you do the same searches in San Diego.
Localized results help searchers to find what they want around them. This way, when they search for “pizza”, they don’t receive search results for pizzerias in New York simply because those pizzerias are frequented by more people and are linked by more people than the local pizzeria in Podunk, Wyoming.
SEO Monopoly is an incredibly powerful form of SEO No Comments » | Posted in Uncategorized EU Looks into Google’s Operations
December 3rd, 2010 - Posted by admin
Search Engine Optimization is an industry that has come about largely because of the prominence of Google. Indeed, the industry’s success is inextricably linked to Google–the company that has for so long dominated the search industry. So it is bad news that the European Union is investigating Google for monopolistic infractions regarding SEO and paid search tactics.
In a move expected by some marketing and SEO or paid-search experts, the European Commission (EU) has opened an antitrust investigation into allegations that Google abused its dominant position in online search results for paid and organic. Complaints of unfair treatment in unpaid and paid search results, as well as preferential placement of Google’s services, prompted the formal probe.
Both the allegations and the investigations should concern anyone who is a client of, or professional in, the industry of search engine optimization. The result, either way, could do the industry considerable damage. Let us hope that Google is cleared of any wrong-doing and continues to operate innocently.
Many in the SEO community argue that there is no greater from of SEO than forming an SEO Monopoly under niche keywords. No Comments » | Posted in Uncategorized Hello world!
November 25th, 2010 - Posted by admin
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
In an SEO Monopoly a company is attempting to control multiple sites on the front page of the search results. Each of these sites have some way of highlighting the parent company, usually, through the form of posts or text ads. 1 Comment » | Posted in Uncategorized