Are You A Link Whore?

Eric Ward is a well known expert on linking tactics and his latest article talks about some of the tactics that companies are using to enhance their linking relationships. He is clear in condemning all these tactics.

"It's because these tactics make the web experience worse and simply don't work."

He does concede that some of the tactics he disapproves of will have a short-term impact on ranking, but his position is that they are not constructuve or beneficial over the long term.

His position is consistent with what we have been preaching in the Internet Marketing Clinic for years, which is, "put good content on your site that people will want to see and you will succeed." His advice is cast specifically in terms of linking strategies, but the basic idea is that practices that make sense andprovide value to web users will prove to be the best for the long term success of your site.

Google | Fuzzy maths | Economist.com

Unfortunately, I think this link will require a login. If you have a subscription to The Economist, it makes a great read.

"Danny Sullivan, the editor of Search Engine Watch, an online industry newsletter, ranks Google as the best search engine, Yahoo! as second-best, Ask (the re-named Ask Jeeves) third, and Microsoft's MSN last among the big four. Google's share of searches has gone up almost every month of the past year. Including those on AOL, an internet portal that uses Google's search technology, Google had half of all searches in March. Excluding AOL, the figure was 43%. This is why people "google" rather than, say, "yahoo" their driving directions, dates and recipes. "

This article is a great overview of Google and where it is in the marketplace right now. The authors talk about how dominant Google is in the search engine space, but also cover the expansion of services that Google keeps introducing and the impact that has on their performance and their reputation.

In addition to its dominance of the search engines, its market performance is also a tribute to its success:

"These two interlocking “engines”—the search algorithms coupled with the advertising algorithms—are the motor that powers Google's growth in revenues ($6.1 billion last year) and profits ($1.5 billion), as well as its $117 billion market capitalisation."

Relevancy Rules in Top Sponsored Ads

Notes from an eye tracking study confirm that organic listings are still the most relevant for most searchers!

"Here's what we took from the numbers. On Google, although over 80% of searchers started in the top sponsored, only 26% found something relevant and compelling enough to click on, and remember, these were commercial, product oriented searches. On Yahoo, 84% started in top sponsored, but in Yahoo�s case, about 30% stuck around and clicked an ad. And with MSN, something entirely different was going on. It seems that MSN users have a bad case of banner blindness when it comes to top sponsored ads."

This blog points out that searchers focus initially on the sponsored ads at the top of the page (since our natural focal point on a new page is at the upper left of the page). It goes on to say that, although searchers focus first on the ads, they don't primarily choose to follow the ads with a click. In other words, even though they look first at the sponsored ads, they still choose to click on the organic listings!

Just How Important Are Top Rankings?

Another insight to the iProspect study:

"As I've explained time and time again to small business owners, there's something to be said for going after the long tail. I've given dozens of companies examples of what I call 'alternative keyword targeting.' The idea here is to skip over the super popular, super competitive phrases that apply to your market and to go after the highly specific, less competitive phrases instead"

This observer points out an important factor in marketing that we continually emphasize in our Internet Marketing Clinic, which is, pay attention to the long list of keywords that are relevant to your business.

There are several important reasons for this statement.

• It is typically easier to rank on more specific, less frequently used terms.
• These terms may also reflect a more targeted searcher, which is better for your business.
• Your ability to provide material on your target page that responds directly to the query string is better when it is more focused.
• Ranking on more terms that are related will help you to rank on the more competitive terms.

Once again we see that effective marketing on theInternet involves a longer view than just ranking on top terms, and persistence will pay off.

Searcher Behavior Research Update

"If you're not ranking well for your desired search terms, brand names and other important key words and phrases, you're missing out on significant, highly qualified traffic."

A new study from iProspect provides insight to searcher behavior that is of interest to web masters. The full study is available for download.

While the major point is highlighted above, the findings show that searcher behavior has changed in the four years since the last study in 2002. The numbers reveal something of the strategies that searchers are using to find what they are looking for in the dramatically increasing amount of information available on the web. Understanding these strategies is important to making your site work more effectively in attracting the traffic that is going to boost your business.

One of the really interesting observations in the report says, "Apparently there is still a segment of end-users who think 'industry leadership' is a component of what search engines use to rank search results, and both online and traditional marketers can use this perception to their advantage." To paraphrase this observation, if you rank high, you are an industry leader! Think about what that can mean for your business!!

While there are no easy answers (it still takes hard, persistent work to be successful), our weekly Internet Marketing clinic at the University of Houston Small Business Development Center will help you to understand what you need to do to master this constantly changing game.