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Search Marketing Expo Toronto Recap

Jason — Tue, 03 May 2011 15:35:22 +0000

SMX Toronto is a conference held annually for Search Engine and Social Media marketing and professionals of all skill levels and experience. This conference features a star-studded cast of industry experts and pioneers who share their tips, ideas, solutions and insights about marketing in the new digital space. Topics included Search, pay per click campaigns, online reviews, the emergence of mobile and Social Media marketing techniques and best practices. Helen and I attended this two-day conference which promised education, networking and inspiration. The conference was split into two sections – Helen attended the SEO driven portion of SMX Toronto while I was drawn to the Social Media side. Here are my favorite quotes, stats and takeaways from the conference.

Search

Google makes 200-300 changes every year – and they kill off 2/3 of their initiatives.
Google’s efficiency with Search saves us about 350 million hours per year.
BING stands for “Bing Is Not Google”
There are more searches made on Twitter each month than Yahoo! And Bing combined
Google Instant isn’t changing the way people Search, but the way they read the results. With Instant, searchers rarely look past the top 5 results.
Google Instant decreased time to click by 50%
SEO is not just about rankings, it’s about conversions
3 key success factors for Search: Relevance, Speed and Usefulness
The average search query on Google today is 4.3 words
Over 50% of queries are over 3 words in length – and 2/3 of them yield no exact match
Local Search queries are up 54% year over year.
YouTube is the 2^nd most popular Search Engine on the planet
When optimizing videos, follow similar SEO practices – links always matter!
Multi-lingual SEO is a whole other ball game. Adidas faced many challenges with international campaigns which included SEO for 19 languages and the use of slang terms
With multi-lingual SEO, you can’t just translate keywords. You need to consider different dialects of languages in different regions
Your homepage is not a consumer’s first impression of your brand online. It’s what they see on a Search Engine Results Page.
Go after those who are actively searching for you, stop searching for them.
Are you optimizing your landing page? Bring users to where they want to be. Stop sending them on a wild goose chase.
Always add negative keywords into your PPC campaigns.

Social Media

There are over 1 billion Social Media users worldwide spending 2 billion minutes a month
25% of activity on Facebook is from a mobile device
Facebook is becoming a bigger enemy to Google than Microsoft is.
Three often overlooked YouTube Ranking factors: 1) Increase of views over time 2) Quantity of inbound links 3) Inclusion of video in playlists
When it comes to Social Media don’t ask What – ask Why? “What” is a tactic, “Why” is a strategy.
Foursquare experienced 3400% growth in 2010
When creating a Facebook Deal consider the “What if’s”. What if 500 people claim a 50% off deal? Can you support your deals?
The 4 pillars of Location Based Strategy: Context, Location, Social Interaction and Platforms

Mobile

101 million smartphones were sold in Q4 of 2010 compared to only 94 million PC’s
2011 will be the year of mobile – expect for it to really take off
A major difficulty faced with mobile advertising is the discrepancy between a user’s location vs. their destination.
Is your website optimized for mobile? If not, do it.
All 5 of Google’s strategic initiatives for 2011 revolve around mobile
544.6 million text messages were sent in Q2 of 2010

Online Reviews

62% of consumers read reviews online before making a purchase
62% of people trust online ratings and reviews of people they don’t know
18% of people who were contacted by a company after they had left a negative review ended up buying more from that company in the future
33% of those mentioned above removed their negative review, and 34% went on to write a positive review about their experience.
A bad review online shouldn’t be seen as a threat. It is a great opportunity to address the problem, satisfy that customer, and show others that you care.

Quotes

“How do you demand innovation, creativity and radical rethinking if you can’t imagine it?” – Avinash Kaushik
“My three year old son will look at a keyboard the a same way I look at a rotary phone” – Mitch Joel
“Plugging your computer into a phone line to get Internet ten years ago was so barbaric. Look how far we’ve come.” – Mitch Joel
“Your brand isn’t what you say it is, it’s what Google says it is.” – Chris Anderson
“Never do anything in marketing that doesn’t add economic value to your company.” – Mitch Joel
“Incorporate your digital marketing efforts into your marketing mix. Think “with” not “instead of”.”
“Just because someone is on Facebook all day it doesn’t make them a Social Media Marketing expert. I turn the lights on when I walk into a room, am I an electrician? No. “ – Mitch Joel
“Display will grow into a $200 billion market” – Eric Schmidt
“Search is the connection between intent and content.” – Bill Barnes

That’s all folks! Two days of intense sessions with lots of great insights and takeaways. Have you considered these strategies when it comes to marketing your business online?

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Search Marketing Expo Toronto Recap is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Why use Google Analytics for SEO?

Helen — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 10:56:42 +0000

If you are wondering if Google Analytics can be beneficial for search engine optimization, the answer is “yes”. Google Analytics (GA) is a web-based metrics tool offered by Google. It provides important SEO data – that can be used to optimize your site for search. And… there is no charge for this web analytics software.

Here are five good SEO reasons to use Google Analytics:

1. Search Engine Traffic
Google Analytics tracks search engine traffic to your site. This captured data tells you how many of your site visitors arrived via engines as well as the how your search traffic ranks compared to your other traffic sources (direct traffic / referring sites). It also identifies the engines (i.e. Google, Yahoo! Bing) and who sent the most traffic. By default, GA tracks more than 20 different search engines. There is also a breakdown available between paid and non-paid keyword driven traffic.

2. Keywords
In addition to automatically tracking search engine sources, Google Analytics tracks keywords that send search traffic to your site. This data tells you which keywords / keyword phrases were used by your site’s visitors and ranks them according to popularity. You can drill down further to determine more details for each keyword including statistics on organic and paid search.

3. Content Performance
Since optimizing content for search is the basics of search engine optimization, tracking page performance is essential. Google Analytics tracks data on which web pages attract site visitors and displays them in order of which are performing the best (listed by URL). You can also view this data by Page Title. The Content Drilldown report provides a list of top pages based on content sections within your website. Top Landing Pages, sent by search engines traffic can also be identified, as well as data on how well they perform.

4. Campaign Tracking
This is a more advanced feature than the above three, as it needs to be set up. Google Analytics can do campaign tracking. This includes Google AdWords by default. However you can also track any search marketing (as well as offline) campaigns. Campaign tracking is implemented by using link tagging (a unique URL to identify each marketing source).

5. Site Search
Likely the most overlooked – yet a real valuable source of SEO data. This is only for those sites that have a search box and allow web visitors to do an internal search to find information. Google Analytics can track these search terms as well a search term refinements at the site level. This requires set up as well.

Accessing the data, of course, is only the first step in the web analytics process. You need to measure, analyze, test and modify – always working towards your desired outcomes.

If you do not have Google Analytics installed on your website or if you are not monitoring your site outcomes, it is time to get started.

Recent Post: Google Analytics Qualified Professional Helen Faber

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Why use Google Analytics for SEO? is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

What is the Greenest Search Engine?

Jason — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:14:02 +0000

The issue of sustainability is an ever growing concern in our society. Now more than ever people, and companies are faced with the daunting task of “going green”. Everywhere you go people are asking “how sustainable is this?” and “what will the carbon footprint be?” And so they should – this is a pressing issue that our society needs to address. This week a colleague of mine, and a Fan of WebFuel’s on Facebook, asked me “What is the greenest Search Engine?” I was left sitting there thinking to myself, “How have I never thought of this before?” So I did a little research.

To my surprise, there are quite a few “green Search Engines” out there – here are some of them.

Green Maven is a Search Engine that searches the “green web” – meaning that they help searchers find green websites.

Ecocho is summed up by it’s slogan – “You Search, We Grow Trees.” That is exactly what they do. This Search Engine, that is powered by Yahoo, will plant two trees for every 1000 searches made.

Blackle is creative and effective – they are basically Google with the lights turned off. Blackle saves energy by using a Google with a black background, which uses significantly less energy than a white background would on a typical computer monitor. Other similar black background Search Engines include Eco-Find, Earthle and Groonle.

There are literally dozens of other similar Green Search Engines out there – but typically they are small, and the results are not too relevant. So that brings us to the big guys – Google, Yahoo and Bing – which one is the greenest? Well, it wasn’t a tough decision for me.

Google

Does this surprise anybody – really? Google has always been known for their proactive, innovative practices. So why wouldn’t sustainability be one of them? Google has long been a supporter of “Going Green”, a value that is mirrored by their everyday business.

The first thing to note with Google is that they are huge, so their data centers will naturally use more energy than those of smaller Search Engines. Google knows this, so they strive to decrease their carbon footprint, encourage efficient computing ,and promote a green workplace.

Reducing Carbon Footprint

In recent years, Google has made strong efforts to use cleaner, cheaper energy sources. They have made significant investments into renewable energy start-ups, as well into alternative energy source projects such as wind farms and solar installations. In fact, Google’s headquarters is home to one of the largest solar installations in the United States.

Efficient Computing

It takes a lot of energy to run the largest Search Engine in the World – and the majority of that energy is needed to run the data centers. However, Google claims that their data centers are the most efficient in the World, using about half of the energy of a typical data center. As a result, the energy used per search is extremely small – about 1kJ of energy per search query, which translates to 0.2k of C02. Okay…so how much is that really? Let’s put that number into perspective. A daily newspaper printed on 100% recycled paper would create the same amount of C02 emissions as 850 Google searches. I’m pretty sure you could get your daily news in less than 850 searches.

Sustainability is not only good for the environment, but also good for business for Google. Their efficiency has allowed them to save costs and become the industry leader that they are today. Here is a example of the energy use for Google’s servers and data centers compared to the average.

Green Employee Program

Google’s Green Employee Program was designed to promote green habits within the organization to decrease their overall carbon footprint.

So whether it’s biking to work, eating locally grown food, or working in a building powered by solar panels, Google truly encourages their employees to be green.

Google’s continuous innovation will only make them more efficient. Take their newest feature, Google Instant for example. Instant will save searchers time by delivering Search Engine results as the user types. It is estimated by Google that Instant will save 350 hours of search in Instant’s first year.

Have you taken steps to reduce your own carbon footprint?

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What is the Greenest Search Engine? is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Is your business getting found in a Canadian search?

Helen — Sun, 10 May 2009 20:04:39 +0000

Having web presence is only the first step in getting found in a search. The next step is appearing in a search engine results page in Google or the other major search engines. If you are a Canadian company and/or you are targeting the Canadian market, you will need to get found in a country-specific search.

Not sure? Here are two very simple tests:

1. Country-specific search engines
Using Google Canada, try a basic search for your “business name” (in quotes). Ensure that you select “pages from Canada”. Google.ca also offers searches in French (français). Test this option as well if applicable. You can also conduct this test using Yahoo! Canada (select “Canada only”) and MSN / Live Search Canada (select “only from Canada”).

Does your website appear in the search results? And… are you getting high rankings?

2. Country-specific search traffic
Using Google Analytics, or your web analytics program, check which countries your search traffic is coming from. If you want to get found by Canadians, you should see these results in your Map Overlay and country-specific data. You can even drill down to find out the language used in the search (English or French).

Are your site visitors coming from Canada? And… what language are they using in a search (if applicable)?

Geo-targeting is at the core of local search engine optimization. It is also known as country-specific search engine optimization. This is an important, not to be overlooked, aspect in both the build of your site – as well as in Internet marketing.

Is your business getting found in a Canadian search? is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

What is Social Media?

Helen — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 15:24:27 +0000

Social Media, also commonly known as “New Media”, has become widely popular over the past few years. And… no, it is not just a fad. In 2009, you will need to pay close attention to Social Media as it will continue to become more prominent on the web.

So what is Social Media exactly?

Social Media is online communication, or web-based conversations, that are centered on user interaction within unique communities around shared interests.

All social software enables user-generated (consumer-generated) content and depending on which tool is used, it can also include photos, videos and audio.

Social Media includes: social networks, blogs, wikis, podcasts, forums, content communities and microblogging.

Here are a few examples of Social Media sites (with lots of Google “juice”):

1. Facebook “helps you connect and share with the people in your life”.
Popularity: Currently has over 130 million active users. (January 2009)

2. LinkedIn is another social networking site but focused on the business side.
Popularity: Over 34 million professionals use this site. (January 2009)

3. YouTube is a video sharing website.
Popularity: 3rd most visited site (after Yahoo! and Google – Janurary 2009).

Are you overlooking Social Media in your online marketing campaign?

What is Social Media? is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

SEO Checklist: Top Ten for 2009

Helen — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:29:03 +0000

It’s a New Year! What a great time to take a fresh look at your SEO strategies. While search engine optimization should be an ongoing process throughout the year, reviewing some core elements is too often overlooked. By addressing all of the strategies outlined in the checklist, you will be well on your way to improving your website’s visibility in the search engines.

Here is the WebFuel Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Checklist:

1. Domain Name Ownership
Review your domain name registration and ensure that it does not expire. This is likely the most important item on the checklist. No rights to use your domain name equals no live website. Just imagine what that would do to your search engine visibility. While you are checking your domain status, register the other extensions (.ca, .com, .org, .net) if available. This is known as Google insurance.

2. Reliable Hosting
It likely goes without saying, but a site that is down due to hosting issues does not help your Internet visibility. Ensure that you have engaged a reliable company to provide you with hosting services. There is software (some free) that can track uptime as well as alert you if your site goes down. Being live 24/7 is a must.

3. Crawl & Index Friendly
Making certain that your site stays live is the foundation of the SEO process. The next step is to ensure that your website design, including the navigation system, is spiderable so that search engines can crawl and index your web pages. Do a check. Test using Google and the other major search engines.

4. Robots.txt
Review and update your robots.txt file. This is usually the most overlooked item on the checklist. The robots.txt file tells search engine crawlers what content you do not want crawled. Not everything in your site should be found in a search.

5. Search Engine Submissions
If you haven’t already done so, submit your XML sitemap to Google. You can do this via your Google Webmaster Tools account. While there is no need to submit to the major search engines (they find you), you should take this opportunity to review what industry-related engines exist (always new ones). And… of course, submit your URL.

6. Content Review
Yes – content is still King. After all, this is what generates the possibility of appearing in search results. Content review should include checking for content starved pages, outdated information, as well as building new content pages – if required. Copywriting revisions should also include adding keywords and addressing internal lingo (not what people search for).

7. Social Media
Now think beyond just your website and explore Social Media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube. Even if they are currently not a good fit for your particular business, create a company profile (just in case). Once again, this is also known as Google insurance.

8. Online Reputation
Don’t just control your company profile beyond your site. Manage your reputation on the Internet as well. To get started, simply Google your company name, brand, key people etc… and review the search results. Again, there is lots of software available to track what is being said on the web – some are fee-based and others are free (Google Alerts). And… of course you can hire a company that specializes in monitoring and keeping your online reputation clean.

9. Web Analytics
Review your filters, goals and conversions to ensure that they are in place as well as your system to analyze the data. If you don’t have a program installed to track your web visitors, put this on the top of your “to do” list. Google Analytics is a powerful tool – and it is free!

10. SEO Site Audit
If you haven’t already done so, budget for a search engine optimization (SEO) site audit. In a nutshell, an audit lets you know what is working, what is not – and how to proceed. It also gives you a baseline to track your search findability over time. This is likely the best investment you can make when it comes to the web.

The predication for the web is continued strong growth in 2009. Ensure that this is the year that your online visibility is managed and improved.

SEO Checklist: Top Ten for 2009 is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Who is the King of Search for 2008?

Helen — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:36:35 +0000

It’s the end of the year and a good time to look at how the search engines are ranking. According to comScore, Nielsen and Hitwise, Google snags the top search market share in 2008.

Currently, the five most popular search engines are:

1. Google
2. Yahoo!
3. MSN/Windows
4. Ask.com
5. AOL

*The ranking is based on the total number of searches conducted. US data. Source: comScore.

Google remains the king of search with 63.5% share of searches. Yahoo is a distant second with 20.4% followed by MSN/Windows Live 8.3%, Ask.com 4.0% and AOL 3.8%.

How Google-friendly is your website?

Who is the King of Search for 2008? is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

What is a search engine?

Helen — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 19:57:21 +0000

A search engine is a software program that is designed to provide web searchers with relevant information from the Internet based on their search query.

In the simplest terms, crawler or spider-based search engines perform the same tasks. They find, index and provide search results driven by relevancy algorithms. Each search engines’ formula however is unique. That is why performing the exact same search using different search engines often produces different results.

Currently, the most popular web search engines include Google, Yahoo! and MSN / Live search.

What is a search engine? is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Who do we use for search?

Helen — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:06:24 +0000

You are likely familiar with the major commercial search engines – Yahoo! Search, Google, MSN Search and Ask.com. Why is this important? It is only possible to get found in a search, when these engines crawl and index your website.
So… who is the King of Search?

It is still Google – and they have increased their market share. Hitwise just reported US searches for the month of August 2008. Here are their findings:

Google: 71.01%
Yahoo! Search: 18.26%
MSN Search: 5.32%*
Ask.com: 3.45%
Getting found in a Google search, just became even more important!

Who do we use for search? is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

What is PPC?

Helen — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:48:52 +0000

In the search engine visibility field, PPC is an acronym for Pay-Per-Click. It is a type of search engine marketing that is also commonly known as Pay-Per-Click Advertising and Paid Search Advertising. PPC is an Internet advertising method whereby advertisers pay only when their ad is clicked on and web visitors go to their site.

PPC search engines ads are driven by keyword searches that are bid on by the advertiser. These sponsored ads (also known a sponsored links) can be displayed on search engines, advertising networks and content websites.

Popular PPC Search Engines include:

Google AdWords
Yahoo! Search Marketing
Microsoft adCenter

While the set up of text ads are a simple and relatively quick process, a good understanding is required to manage an effective campaign and to get a good return on investment (ROI).

What is PPC? is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel