There are lots of developments out there that SEO folks are watching and talking about.  While they may not be important yet, they might become have an impact on your search engine rankings in the future.

Trust is a big SEO topic in the Blizzard Office.  Google has made it clear they want trustworthy sites to show up in their rankings.  Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the Internet is a cesspool.   While there are many factors that can affect your trust, here are a few worth reading more about:

• Does Including a Physical Address On Your Website Help Rankings? (by Michael Gray) Clearly, many untrustworthy sites lack of a physical address.   While an address does not appear to be a huge factor now, it could prove interesting for the many “virtual” businesses that don’t have a physical presence.

Wesley Fryer

• Is Page Load Speed Google’’s Next Organic Factor? (by Jeremy Bencken) It sure would make sense.  Slow websites are pretty irritating, and I wouldn’t mind if Google dinged them.
• Beyond Algorithms: A Librarian’s Guide to Finding Web Sites You Can Trust (by Karen G Schneider) is at Google’s Librarian Central.  This librarian says that, among other things, Librarian’s look at:
  • A site’s availability.  Uh, being down is a bad thing.  But this also means putting valuable content behind passwords or pocketbooks.
  • The site’s credibility.  Who owns, operates and writes the site’s content?
  • External Links: Broken links on your site kills its reputation! (uh oh… this blog has lots of those)
• Optimize Your Search Engine Listings for Improved CTR (by Chris Silver Smith) points out that Google may be posturing to give sites with higher CTRs a boost in their rankings.  Makes sense!  If people “vote” by clicking, then give the people what they want.

Click Thru Rate (CTR) is a hot topic because you can get more traffic from your existing presence by making it more appealing.  Increasing the CTR from search results, PPC search results, banner ads, listings sites, etc. is big business and becoming more important and accessible to small businesses.  One area of promise is the ability to enhance your listings in search engines with “rich content” that really catch the eye and provide useful information.

Last Year, Yahoo introduced SearchMonkey which was a way to add rich content to search engine listings.   These enhanced listings have increased Click Thru Rates by as much as 15%. Now, Google has introduced Rich Snippets.   Both SearchMonkey and Rich Snippets promise to let websites enhance the way they show up in search engines and increase CTRs.   This new opportunity is too new for most businesses… for now. But, keep you eye on this, because it promises to open up a new area to improve your online results.

Google Insights To Search offers… um, insights into several important elements of search.  While it is hard to predict what the data from this tool is exactly good for, I can imagine using it to get insights into geographic originations of search as well as seaonality of search.  Its usefulness is  limited by the fact that it only shareds results for widely used terms.

It lets you strain your data with several parameters:

• The Location of the Searcher
• The Keyword Phrase used
• The Timeframe
• By Category

In this example I created “outer banks”.  One thing I found was that I could get lots of different “insights” by changing the filters, search terms, etc.

Here is the overall traffic for that search term during the last year:

And the top 10 states that searches for outer banks originated:

These are the variations on the phrase during the specified time period: (more…)

Tracking competitors and determining the strength of their (and your) online presence has been a recent theme.  In the last week I have written about how to compare two website’s ranking strength and also compare their link strength and quality.

The harder question today is how do you compare and analyze local search? Local search is clearly a growing segment.   It is very fragmented, but, there is one powerhouse: Google.  There are a multitude of local search sites ranging from local.yahoo.com to yellow page sites (like superpages) to city guides (like CitySearch).

I certainly don’t have a clear answer… but I have a few ideas.  Here is how I evaluate a local business ranking for a typical hotel.

The first place I look is the Google’s 10-box.  This is the map and 10 businessess that typically show up at the top of a search like Charlotte Hotel:

Local Search 10 box

Clearly, being in this top 10 is important.  Businesses in the 10-box get a much higher exposure. Please note, the 10-box typically appears above the highly coveted #1 organic ranking.  The exact factors that cause a 10-box ranking are rarely agreed upon.  Better listings are often buried on page two! Your location to the center of town seems to help a lot here. (more…)

LinkVo0doo

LinkVoodoo has a Quality Score Calculator that detemines the strength and quality of a website.  It was born as a tool to help search engine marketers determine how good a website and therefore make a decision on whether to obtain a link.

While it is certainly handy for determining whether a site is worth obtaining a link from, it is also a pretty good overall indicator of any website’s online presence. I like to run a bunch of competitive websites through it to get an analysis of which competitors are the strongest or weakest, comparatively.   I find that it correlates very strongly with a website’s overall online presence. So, if you have to look at just one indicator of a websites online strength, LinkVoodoo might just be the tools.

LinkVoodoo Search Engine Tool

LinkVoodoo uses a weighted algorithm to calculate its score, making sure that important factors (like backlinks) are counted 10X more than minor factors (like Alexa Ranking). Here are their factors, in order of importance: (more…)

The SEMRush Keyword research tool is something every website marketer should know about.   You can use it to get a broad look at your “long tail” of keywords and compare it against your competitors.

SEMRush does a monthly search in Google for the top 30 Million keywords phrases — tracking 10 million domains and all their keyword phrase rankings.   Their free reports are good. Their paid reports are GREAT and start at $20 a month.  Blizzard is an affiliate of SEMRush.  An enthusiastic one!

I use SEMRush to see how a website stacks up to its competition in Google.  The first three things I compare are:

1. Overall search results from Google
2. Value of search results (if bought on PPC market)
3. Total number of keyword phrases represented (the longtail!)

Here is a sample taken from two Denver hotels - Magnolia Hotel and Hotel Monaco.

SEMrush screenshot for Magnolia Hotel in Denver

SEMrush screenshot for Hotel Monaco in Denver

The next thing I do is dive in and look at the long list of keyword phrases.  You must have the paid membership to really explore this.  Perusing a list of keyword phrases your competitors actually rank for is eye-opening.  I think this might be a good way to supplement conventional keyword research because it turns up new relevant and powerful keywords.

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Trent Blizzard is teaming up with the Horry-Georgetown Technical College to teach a seminar about Google: “Using Google to Market your Business”

Attendees will learn powerful tips, tools and tactics for search engine success.   The hands-on full day workshop is focused on the hospitality industry in general, and the hotels, resort and property manager segments in particular.  HGTC offers 6 Continuing Education Units.

This Google workshop is limited to 20 people and is expected to sell out.  Attendees should bring a laptop.  Sign Up Here

Attendees will learn:

• Industry research about search engines
• How Google works
• Tools for keyword research
• How to optimize their website
• How to build powerful referral links
• Tools for tracking results
• Tools for spying on your competitors

Details

• Where: Myrtle Beach, SC
• When: Wednesday, March 11, 2009,  8:30 -4:30
• Where: HGTC Conference & Business Center
• Cost: $199 per person   (more…)
  

How to Check Your Search Engine Ranking… the easy way!

Looking for a quick, easy and free online tool to check your Google rankings? Check out our SEO Tool Review of ExactFactor.

Simply type in your website, along with your main keywords, and ExactFactor will perform a simple analysis for you.

In just seconds, you’ll have a good idea of where you rank for each of your keywords. So what makes this tool different than other ranking checkers? We think it’s the fact that you really don’t have to do anything at all. Just sign up for a FREE account and you’ll be alerted when your position changes, as well as, when your competitors do too. You can also receive weekly reports, site analysis, and other advanced tools.

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