Posts Tagged ‘SEO / SEM Research’

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Color psychology is an area of research which explores how colors affect human emotions and behavior. The direct applicability of this information to professional marketing has long been known and continues to be a cornerstone of advertising development.
In fact, at its core, advertising is simply the art and science of influencing human behavior via impersonal mediums such as printed ads.

Color psychology, as an area of academic research, lacks a coherent, accepted body of knowledge; however, information gleaned from marketing professionals who have put the principles of color psychology into real-world application, can provide some heavy artillery for your web marketing arsenal.

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About a month ago Stoney came to me to discuss a writing project he was working on. The project was to develop a keyword research handbook that was truly definitive. He asked me to organize the material he had and possibly contribute some of my own. At first I figured that we would be putting together an SEO tutorial on basic keyword research. Introductory level information is generally the norm within the industry, especially for publicly available works.

As I was working my way through a first read-through I quickly realized that Stoney was doing something different here. This was not another seo intro or cursory treatment. Stoney was discussing the real-deal nuts-n-bolts of advanced keyword research. The systems that he has perfected over the years and uses himself. Real SEO info!

I began editing the rough document and adding my own contributions and notes to Stoney’s very practical and functional approach to keyword research. Generally I tend towards the technical aspects of SEO: underlying mathematics, IR, library science, etc. This often works out to be a nice fit as Stoney’s practical approach to SEO very much compliments my own and vice-versa. The Keyword Research Guide was no exception and I am fortunate to have been able to contribute some of my own best practices and personal keyword research techniques to this great treatment of the subject.

The final product is a completely original and uniquely functional guide to professional keyword research as only a seasoned search optimization professional could produce.

Whether you are an SEO novice; still wet behind the ears, or a decorated veteran of the search wars:
Read this Keyword Research Guide…
Because its time to upgrade your skills.

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Our fearless leader and CEO of Pole Position Marketing, Stoney deGeyter, is teaching a class at Truckee Meadows Community College (TMCC) here in Reno, Nevada. Launched in 1998, PPM is Reno’s leading search engine optimization and website marketing firm. For nearly a decade, Stoney has provided local and global business owners increased website visibility, top search engine rankings, and boosted online conversions.
Registration has begun for “Website Marketing Performance Strategies,” an intensive 12-hour course, taught in four three-hour segments, covering all facets of online marketing including:

• Building a Search Engine friendly website
• In depth keyword research
• Understanding a Search Engine
• On- and off-page search engine optimization (aka SEO)
• Google AdWords and Pay-Per-Click campaigns
• Link building strategies
• Tracking your traffic and understanding stats

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Ironing out the finer details of role transitioning for our client’s campaigns was the focus of a recent meeting here at the office. During our open discussion I sketched a simple diagram to help myself understand the progression of individual roles during the campaign life cycle. When I presented my humble diagram, the team responded very positively and Stoney suggested that I share it on the EMP Blog. Below is my final draft of the diagram which illustrates the following information:

• The logical progression of primary campaign strategies
• How these strategies map onto a simple supply-demand model of search activity
• The objectives of both the search marketer and the searcher in regards to supply-demand
• The diagram demonstrates the mutually supportive relationship that exists between the searcher’s informational need and the SEM’s approach furnishing viable information, while supporting the client’s goals. A Win/Win/Win situation.

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Stoney and I had a humorous exchange concerning an individual who had been dubbed an “SEO Expert”. A visit to the website of the search guru is what made the whole thing very comical. Unless I missed the boat somewhere and the new cutting edge trend in SEO is webpages that are unreadable (lack of contrast between background and text), require 2 full page widths of horizontal scrolling to view and contain no meta data.

This got me thinking about what it is to be an “expert”, in any profession really, but more so what that means in the SEO arena which has several inherent qualities that pose some unique obstacles for establishing credible expertise standards industry-wide. Let’s break this problem down a little and maybe we can gain some insight.

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I thought it might be interesting if I share some of my most treasured and frequently used web-based SEO tools. If you find something useful to you; return the favor and post one of your favorite webmaster/SEO related tools.

Text Analysis Tools:

• Web Vocabulary Profiler: An awesome text disambiguation suite.
• Textalyser: An old favorite for quick and easy text stats.

Search Tweaked:

• Search Mash: Google’s experiment with search result integration.
• GMBMG: Give me back my Google furnishes “pure” or non spammy versions of Google search results..

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Visit any SEO forum and undoubtedly you will find a heated discussion of Google’s dreaded “Sandbox” amongst the threads. The Sandbox is a well known, but as of yet unconfirmed aging delay implemented by Google; generally for newly indexed websites. The sandbox is experienced as an inability to rank for nearly any search phrase including one’s own domain name. The sandbox effect appears to have a widely varying time frame, with some websites being sandboxed for as little as 1 month, while others are sandboxed for as much as a year and lengths of up to 18 months have been reported.

Background
The sandbox is thought to be related to a March, 31st 2005 Google patent filing (Application #20050071741: Information Retrieval Based Upon Historical Data.). The patent document describes a variety of methods for scoring documents using temporal data which is stored in a document profile. The sandbox is quite possibly an aging delay which allows Google to build a historical profile for newly indexed websites.

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Keyword research is the single most important aspect of any search optimization campaign, without exception. The keyword research process brings to light information that is both beneficial and directly applicable to many aspects of nearly any business. The actual keyword selection process must be undertaken with great care as each keyword represents an important business goal.

The most common criterion employed for keyword selection include:

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I finally got the full results in the mail for the online marketing class I taught at our local community college. I was graded on a scale of 1-5 with 1 being “strongly disagree” to 5 being “strongly agree”.

Shows knowledge of this subject
average: 5.0

OK, so at least I know what I’m talking about. Though I have to admit that it’s not often hard to convey superior knowledge to a group of people who know little to nothing about a particular topic. It’s more important that they actually learn something!

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Last week I posted about looking for good SEOs. I was surprised by the response I got from that post, as many SEOs contacted us willing to do some outsourcing. And by and large, many of them appear to be the real deal. So I guess there are a lot of good SEOs out there willing to sub-contract, it’s just not that easy to find them all.

Posts on Craigslist and the help wanted threads of some of the major forums have always gotten us a response, albeit a small one. But the best response I’ve gotten has come from the previous post noted above which also got picked up about over at Search Engine Guide (thanks Jen!)

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