Posts Tagged ‘The Web’

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There are two kinds of duplicate content: content that is duplicated on multiple websites sites and content that is duplicated on multiple pages of a single site. I believe the search engines treat each differently and, of course, there may be different standards applied duplicate content within each of these two main differentiations, depending on the cause and instance.

Please note that I’ve not done any in-depth testing of this issue so everything I’m presenting here are my own theories. But I think as far as untested theories go, it’s pretty solid.

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Audio feed[audio:http://www.polepositionmarketing.com/emp/blog-audio/breaking-seo.mp3]

Over the past ten years the mindset of SEO has evolved significantly. In the early years, website optimization was considered more of an IT expense handled by computer geeks. But over the years, businesses (and SEOs) began to change their frame of mind, realizing that search engine optimization was much closer to traditional marketing than they had thought.

After all, SEO is about getting exposure. Whether that is through on-page optimization, link building, social media, etc., the idea is to get as many targeted eyeballs on a site as possible. But that itself isn’t enough, because once the eyeballs are on the site the website has to make some money too. So now SEOs focus on usability (enhancing the visitor/shopper’s experience on the site) and conversions (getting sales, leads, subscribers, etc.). Exposure only brings traffic, usability allows the visitors to find the information they need, but ultimately it’s the conversions that matter most.

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Audio feed[audio:http://www.polepositionmarketing.com/emp/blog-audio/seo-site-review3.mp3]

When putting the framework for a solid optimization campaign, you have to spend some time evaluating various aspects of your site. This evaluation gives you an idea of any shortcomings the site has, what will be required to overcome the competition, and will then allow you to map out an effective strategy for success. But there is more to the evaluation than just looking at how the website currently performs in the on- and off-page analyses.

In the first two parts of this series, I addressed which on- and off-page elements that need to be analyzed in order for you to determine the actions necessary to create a successful campaign. But before this type of analysis is performed, there is another crucial aspect that should be analyzed first.

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Audio feed[audio:http://www.polepositionmarketing.com/emp/blog-audio/soe-site-review2.mp3]

Whether you are putting together a proposal for a client or assessing your own needs, you need to be able to accurately predict how much time, energy and effort will be necessary to build a successful SEO campaign. Of course, in order to predict the time involvement, you need to first know the strengths and weaknesses of the website, which will then help you determine what will need to be done to accomplish your goals and make the site a viable competitor.

Last week, I went over several areas that need to be considered and analyzed in order to accurately put together a framework for a workable SEO campaign. I’ll finish that list today before moving on to part three, where we’ll discuss the goals of the campaign – another vital aspect.

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I couldn’t help but post something about this potential shake up in the search engine industry. Yesterday, Microsoft offered $44.6 billion to take over Yahoo and all its assets. Yahoo has yet to accept the offer and is currently wrestling with pros and cons.

Truth be told, I’ve always been a big Yahoo fan. They have been my portal homepage for over seven years and still are to this day. Although on a daily basis I use more services from Google, I still have an affection towards Yahoo.

What would a combined Yahoo / Microsoft look? Hard to say. Yahoo and Microsoft offer many of the same products related to finance, news, video, how-to, etc. Yahoo does have many brands that MSN would most likely keep including Flickr, MyBlogLog, Del.icio.us, etc. A few key questions floating around the web are what will happen to Yahoo Mail, IM, the homepage, and paid search. I hope that MSN decides to integrate into Yahoo and not vice versa. I am not and have never really been an MSN fan and it would be wise of Microsoft to keep the Yahoo brand as it is much stronger than that of MSN. In addition, Yahoo currently has nearly 20% of the search sphere, whereas MSN is hovering around 5%. Keep Yahoo, I say.

SEO

• Rewriting the Beginner’s Guide to SEO: Redirection, Server & Hosting Issues

Copywriting

• Four Easy Ways to Create Innovative Content With Interactivity
• The Anorexic Writer
• How to Stop Procrastination: Seven Tips for Getting Things Done
• Conversations, not Advertising Hype
• Video: Want to Double Conversions? I have two words for you… multivariate testing
• SEO Basics: Copywriting for the Web
• How to Hold Yourself Accountable As a Writer

Social Media Click here to keep learning

Audio feed[audio:http://www.polepositionmarketing.com/emp/blog-audio/usability-review.mp3]

Performing a complete website review is rarely easy. I’ve found that you can start a site analysis intending to spend just a few minutes looking over it only to find that it quickly spirals into a multi-hour marathon of research. Complete website reviews can be time consuming and often produce many more hours of work beyond that.

One of the problems is that people tend want to skip right to search engine optimization forgetting that users matter. Many people want to rush into the marketing without realizing that the website itself is part of the marketing process. This is a shame.

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Audio feed[audio:http://www.polepositionmarketing.com/emp/blog-audio/accessibility.mp3]

As more and more users gain access to the web, it becomes increasingly important to ensure that your website is accessible to all, not just a few. Just as businesses must comply with the American Disabilities Act to ensure proper access to customers with disabilities, businesses should do all they can to make their websites accessible to all users regardless of the means in which they access the site.

And of course not all accessibility issues involve meeting the needs of the disabled. What must be considered is the growing number of users that now access websites through non-traditional means, whether it be mobile phones or with images turned off. These users can still be your target audience, and ensuring your site can be used through alternate avenues is essential to capturing that audience.

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I recently read a post on Technology Review noting the new Google Knol project and its potential competition to Wikipedia as the web’s main authoritative web site. Google’s Knol aims to differientiate itself from Wikipedia by not allowing the public to update articles within the site. Rather Knol will use individual authors with their creditials displayed within the article. Knol aims to perfect what Wikipedia started – an online resource written by professionals. What also makes Knol unique is the ability for users to ‘vote’ on articles covering the same subject. According to Udi Manber, a V.P. of engineering, “for many topics, there will likely be competing knols on the same subject. Competition of ideas is a good thing.”

Tech. Review noted that Wikipedia had differing views about the usefulness of this idea:

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I received the following link request email and laughed. What does this person hope to get out of this? Did I sign up for an email joke of the day?

Email Verbatim:

Hello Sir,

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