USA SEO Pros: Reporting Industry News

Techcrunch’s CrunchUp a few days ago had an interesting panel on real-time search. The panel included SEO heavyweights like Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan and Google’s Matt Cutts. The discussion surrounded what real-time search is, and what companies like USA SEO Pros are striving for it to be.

It’s good to know what the big whigs of search are doing to stay with the times, and while some of the panel members seemed to avoid specific answers, others weren’t afraid to address the issue head-on.

Cutts from Google’s Web spam team was asked what approach Google is taking to attack the real-time search problem, and all he would say is that they’re working on it as they always have. This was very different from the answer Microsoft’s representative gave when he mentioned Bing’s integration of Twitter results, and specified that real-time search is something they are definitely focusing on.

A few other panel members made some good points when the group was discussing the definition of real-time search and exactly what it is. The consensus when defining real-time search seemed to be that it is a collection of the consciousness of the Internet, where as traditional search engines are the Internet’s memory. Where regular search engines will bring up what has happened in the past, real-time search brings up what is happening in the now. Real-time search is what the Internet is thinking, not what it used to think.

Another point that was brought up is that real-time search needs to distance itself from the rankings that traditional search engines use. While filters should be put in place to get rid of spam and the like, there should be no ranking system when it comes to real-time search results. This is obviously  a matter of debate, but as real-time search gains popularity, this debate will no doubt take place where it needs to, and the resolution that companies come to should be interesting.

Check out video of the panel while they were at CrunchUp below:

We just posted a great article on our main USA SEO Pros company blog about search engine market share and user loyalty. There have been a few articles coming out about how loyal searchers are to one search engine, and how that could work for or against Bing and the other Google competitors.

No one has come close to Google in terms of market share for a long time, so they’ll probably need to come up with something pretty unique in order to compete. The fight has long been for second place, and Yahoo! has held that spot for a while now, except for one day in early June when Bing took the #2 spot for less than a day.

Zack at USA SEO Pros has looked in to the concept of search engine loyalty and has posted a great blog about it. If you’re interested in the material, make sure to check it out, the link is at the beginning of this article.

If you’re interested in running your own Web site or doing anything involving search engine optimization, it’s a good idea to check out the YouTube videos Matt Cutts hosts. Cutts seems to be the embodiment of the Google algorithm, so anything he says should definitely be looked in to. The videos on this channel involve Cutts answering questions that people have asked concerning ways to get their Web sites ranking better on Google’s search engine.

These videos can be extremely helpful. Some of the stuff is just common sense, but there are dozens of videos, and chances are you’ll find something out you didn’t know before.

Cutts’ job title at Google is “Head of the Web Spam Team,” which doesn’t sound like “SEO Ambassador,” but that ends up being a good chunk of what he does. He can be seen attending most of the large search marketing conferences, and routinely gives presentations on how to properly rank well in search engines. Cutts also gives tips on what not to do while putting together pages on a Web site, since there are a variety of different penalties that can be enforced by engines like Google’s.

Below are a few different videos from the channel you can check out. If the content seems interesting, the link at the beginning of the post will take you to the channel that as all of the different video Matt Cutts has done so far. By the way, he has the same red shirt on in a lot of the videos, because he’ll do a series of videos, then publish one each day.

If you’re familiar with the Internet at all, you’ve most likely heard of YouTube. Heck, even television shows make references to it. Odds are, if you’re reading this, you’ve been on it a few times yourself. YouTube is changing how they feed us the ads of their sponsors. Having the ads stuffed down at the bottom is no longer working for them and they seem to think a new approach is needed. This brand new approach involves placing ads directly in whatever clip you’re trying to watch and giving you the option to watch a longer clip.

Oh wait, Hulu has already been doing this for months.

Personally, I believe this to be a step in a better direction for YouTube in terms of profit. As secure as investors felt before about placing ads with YouTube, they’ll feel even more secure in the fact that the user will have to take an active part to expedite the process of watching the clip/show they wanted to watch. Even if you choose to watch the smaller ads throughout the show, the user has to make notice of whatever ad is being placed there.

Frequenting Hulu quite often, when running into those ads, the longer ad at the beginning seems a lot more favorable than those interruptions while watching. According to TechCrunch, they won’t always be ads. Just someone who really wants their video to become viral. Really makes one wonder exactly how much something like that would even cost and how much people are out there with an excessive amount of spare change to throw around.

All in all, YouTube (and moreover Google) seems to be behind the times in terms of this little ad-dition to their site, but at least they’re taking a step in a better direction. If Hulu comes up with something more brilliant than this before Google does, I will be sorely disappointed. While I’m sure that users will be angry over this in the short term, people will quickly realize that if they’d like to keep it running, the site has to show some profitability or it’ll quickly go to the wayside and ask for donations.

And I’ve never seen those business models turn out well.

It would seem that the king of the Internet might have plans of becoming king of the seas. Google has filed a patent for what is being called a “water-based data center,” which means they would be putting many of their servers and network centers on ships and sending them out to sea.

This would allow Google to have their servers all around the world and have their services a lot closer to many places that are still without servers. Many people all around the world would get data at a much faster rate.  Now, I know this might sound a little crazy and to tell the truth, it sounded crazy to me at first. The more I got to read about it though, the more it sounded like a cool idea.

Not only is Google thinking about moving to the seas, but they have also come up with a way to cut cost and maybe become the most environmentally friendly company of the 21st century. In the patent that was filed, it shows a system that would generate power just by the water hitting the side of the ships the servers are on.  I am sure there is a lot more to it than that, and it is a very cool idea.

On top of all the power that would be saved, the cooling of the servers would also be a lot easier with all of that cold ocean water around, but this plan does not come without its draw backs. If Google were to do this, they would be putting themselves out in international waters. This means they would not be protected by the U.S. or any other nation.

There is also the means of staying connected to the web while at sea, since being linked to satellites is still too slow for most practical uses. I believe their best bet would be to stay connected by running wires from the anchored ship to the land, but even that comes with a lot of maintenance.  All in all it should be fun to see what comes of this, and most of all, see if any other companies start to move out to the seas as well.

One of the questions I’m asked most frequently is, “How do I get better Google rankings for my business?” While the answer to that question can be very complicated, a lot of people who ask me this seem to think I’ll be able to tell them something quickly that will fix all of their problems.

The truth is, it takes a good amount of knowledge, some consistent work, and a little bit a creativity to get the results you’re looking for. It’s not as simple as a quick fix, and in today’s search engines, it takes more than some content and a good product. Ranking your business on Google can be especially tricky, since this is the search engine that a lot of people go after. You need to have your website optimized in order to have a chance to compete on a search engine like Google.

One of the problems with getting your website optimized, is that the rules what you you should do to increase your rankings can change from day to day. Search engines are changing their algorithms all the time, which means if you aren’t staying on top of the updates, your site can suffer some unexpected penalties. A good way to combat this is to hire an SEO firm where their job is to stay on top of these changes, so they can optimize your site accordingly.

Google is a very competitive search engine, so getting good rankings for the key phrases you want can be very difficult without some professional help. Unfortunately, a lot of companies charge large amounts to help you get the rankings you need. Some firms charge as high as six figures to get your business ranking on top of the search engines. This kind of price might work well for top-shelf large businesses, but what about small ones? That’s where USA SEO Pros comes in.

We focus on search engine optimization for all kinds of companies, including small businesses. And in addition to our SEO services, we also provide companies with the other Internet marketing services they may need. Make sure to check us out if you’re looking for SEO services, but can’t see why you’d need to spend five of six figures on your campaign.

It’s a joy to be in the changing industry of SEO, and it was very refreshing to see what was going on during the second day of the Search Marketing Expo (SMX) Advanced conference. We also covering the first day of SMX yesterday.

At the conference, they covered many things that are good to keep in mind, and touched on good habits that everyone should keep in mind when working on Web sites. There were two things that I got the most joy out of reading, the first was how to better add flash in to a site and not lose out on all the rankings. I am someone that enjoys the look and feel of a good flash site and likes adding audio and video, and I like to learn new things that will allow me to do this and not lose rankings. To add to it, most major search engines are also working hard to index sites that are composed mostly of flash. In my mind this just makes for an all around better web experience, but it is still far from being perfect and not for every site.

The other interesting thing covered at SMX was conducting an SEO Audit and the many sides to consider in doing so. The presentation was very well laid out and gave many tips to consider when performing an audit on a site. Some of the tips included looking at URLs, site navigation and site latency. There is also a great list of tools that were talked about that can help you in your quest of making the most search friendly pages. I would have to say that the key to having a good audit is being able to keep proper track of problems and what actions you tried to do to correct the problem. This will let you see over time what has worked and what effect everything had. Sometimes it will not just be one thing keeping you from getting high rankings, but it will be a few small factors working together that have a negative effect on the site you are working on.

I think that every SEO tech out there can take a little comfort in knowing that most true techs out there are dealing with the same issues. This conference shows just how true that is. I would say if you have been in the business for years or are just starting out, reading the articles at searchmarketingexpo.com are well worth the time. I know I have enjoyed the experience and can’t wait to see what others have to say about it.

With the first day of SMX (Search Marketing Expo) Advanced passing, there were a few things that were of interest from an SEO point of view. The “SEO Ranking Factors In 2009” was one of these things. A lot of what we already know still holds true and other SMX events like the one in London covered some of the information, but there were some tweaks to how search engine giant Google is going to be looking at things. There is a lot of speculation into Google’s future algorithm concerning links: 47 percent of people believe that the importance of links will decline while of course, still retaining at least some importance.

The URL, Title and Alt text came up as the most important on-page factors according to Rand Fishkin. Images having alt text are not only better for page validation, but seem to have a correlation with high rankings. In their words though, “Correlation is NOT causation,” which is important to note. Personally, I find it funny that Outspoken Media has this bit of information on their site, and fails validation through W3C’s Validation Markup Service for not having alt text in their images. Even a blank alt text would have gotten them out of that pinch.

A bit of information that may interest people is the data from SEOmoz concerning their view of Google’s algorithm:

• Trust authority of host domain - 25 percent
• Link population of specific page - 22 percent
• Anchor text of external links - 20 percent
• On page keyword use - 15 percent
• Traffic and CTR data - 7 percent
• Social graph metrics - 6 percent
• Hosting and registration - 5 percent

What concerns me the most is trust authority of host domain. For those just getting into setting up their own site with the hope of getting on page one of Google, this list of just how trustworthy a host domain is definitely not readily accessible. Setting these hosting providers up with a numerical value seems like it would be something Google would just sell to the highest bidder. Those in the know of numerical values would abuse it, setting up where the authority was highest. Godaddy is likely on the list of one of the higher providers since they’re mainstream enough to have sponsored NASCAR.

Another bit of information that is sure to hurt a lot of sites out there such as Squidoo is the possibility that Google may change their Nofollow algorithm. SELand broke it down very simply:

“…if you have $10 in authority to spend on those ten links, and you block 5 of them, the other 5 aren’t going to get $2 each. They’re still getting $1. It’s just that the other $5 you thought you were saving is now going to waste.”

The sculpting that sites do to give more authority to certain things rather than others is going to lose effect. Making site owners modify their sites accordingly without sculpting, since it won’t hold as much weight.

On a final note, it seems that MSN’s new project Bing is sponsoring two of the time blocks for SMX. A small pittance for the trouble to have caused many over the personal and business tracking of ranks over keywords. Looking at Bing, it doesn’t seem any different from MSN’s old design when it came down to the submission.

Here’s a funny side note: When I had first heard of Bing, typing bing.com directly into the URL bar brought up nothing. But searching for Bing on Google and clicking on their link made it work. Good job Bing.

Not much video has been released from SMX Advanced 2009 yet, but there are other videos like this one with Matt Cutts from SMX events earlier in the year.

While the Search Marketing Expo (SMX) continues in Seattle today, some people are overlooking an equally important presentation that was given by Matt Cutts a few days ago at Wordpress’ WordCamp in San Fransisco.

The presentation that Matt Cutts gave at WordCamp has a lot of very helpful tips for bloggers who need to get an idea of what search engine optimization is all about. During the presentation, Cutts had a 50-slide slide-show about what SEO is, what to do, what not to do, and what he personally does on his own blog. Cutts showed the plugins he uses on his own Wordpress blog, and yes, he uses Wordpress, not the Google blog network.

Some of the stuff that Cutts talked about is obvious to more experienced SEOs, but it’s a short presentation that can’t hurt to check out. We at USASEOPros already do most of what Cutts was talking about, but it’s always good to be reminded by he who is the embodiment of the Google algorithm.

Basically, Cutts said to create good content, which is what you can expect from someone who works for Google. If you look and listen closely however, you can pick out some tips that go beyond what Cutts is paid to say. The slide-show presentation suggested learning how to identify and use alternate key phrases in your content, optimizing URLs, getting feed data, and a few other things that can be seen over at his blog. One person that should definitely be followed if you’re interested in SEO is Matt Cutts, but take what he says with a grain of salt: he is kind of the enemey of SEO.

The WordCamp event is for developers and users who want to know more about the product they’re involved with. It doesn’t matter whether you use the .org or .com version of Wordpress, both could benifit from the event. It was great to see that Cutts was there to throw in the knowledge he has, and there were also other speakers there to talk about non-SEO topics.

The SMX (Search Marketing Expo) has already made its stop in London this year, and some interesting tips were brought up during the event. There have been several posts that list some of the more helpful tips that were discussed, and we’ll summarize some of those in this post. USASEOPros already does most of these things, but a lot of people seem to be behind the times. It’s important to keep on top of the SEO community, or it’ll leave you behind pretty quickly.

One of the posts about SMX London is a list of quotes from the event and it can definitely be helpful for marketers and SEOs. Most of these quotes come from two people who really seem to know what they’re talking about when it comes to SEO: Rand Fishkin (from the SEO authority SEOmoz) and Patrick Altoft (from Branded3). They both had some very interesting (and sometimes obvious) things to say that people should think about.

One of my favorite quotes from Rand is, “Alexa data is slightly better than random guessing.” This has always seemed to be the case, but for some reason a lot of people still believe that Alexa is an authoritative source for data that they don’t actually produce. One of the more obvious, but still little-known facts that Rand covered was that Google devalues links in sidebars and footers. If you want a link to have power, make sure to put it in the main body.

Patrick had some good things to say at the event as well, and one of the quotes that stuck out to me in the article was, “It doesn’t matter if a link is paid for or not. Important is if the end product looks like a paid link or not.” The debate between whether or not buying links is kosher has been argued for a while, and this is an interesting outlook on the situation. While Patrick obviously doesn’t mind buying links, he brings up a good point: make sure they don’t obviously look like they’ve been bought if you do decide to go that route.

A different blog post includes an attendee’s notes that he wrote up after going to the event. The post lists 41 tips that he heard while listening to presentations, and there’s some good stuff in there. Some of the better tips in the list include paying attention how your competitor’s site is set up for SEO, and also optimizing for popular misspellings (but make sure to do this in a professional way.

For an Internet marketing, the SMX events can be a great benefit to your profession. The events happen all across the globe, so when you’re unable to attend one, it’s great to see that other people are willing to spread the knowledge like the creators of the above two posts do.