Filipe C Santos
SEM, SEO and Internet Marketing Expert
Recommended
>Recommended Books on SEOSEO Tips Live
Folks, for those looking to sharpen their skills of find an elusive answer on any topic in SEO, I now introduce SEO Tips in the "Guides" section of the site. I've started the section with a handful of topics, with many more coming in the next week. Please feel free to send me your SEO, Social Media, Paid Search or other search marketing questions my way via the contact page form.
Paperless Postal Service
Zumbox is a very interesting service that has collected the ability to send electronic versions of traditional mailings in a visual format to anyone in the USA. The concept is meant to reduce paper use through the mail system to reduce our impact on the environment, reduce cost/waste and improve access by allowing users to get their mail on any computer anywhere in the world. This strikes me as extremely convenient.
Google Place Pages
The official Google Blog now states that every PLACE in the world now has its own webpage. The format of these pages will resemble: http://maps.google.com/places/us/city/street/ZIP/-business-name, which in many cases may include very simple info, but places reasoning to engage with Google to claim the listing(s) and potentially turn into an AdWords client.
• Currently there are 21 million small or medium sized local businesses spending on average, $4k per year on yellow pages advertising and other local advertising (~$25B annually)
• 75% of Internet users have used the internet in the past three months to look up a place on a map or to get driving directions
Worded a bit differently or concisely,
1. Lot's of money's being spent locally, by local business to get customers in their doors and buying a service or product
2. Users/Customers are increasingly their consumption of use of the internet and consulting with maps (from search engines and other sites) online to find their way around and to locate businesses to patronize
With time, those local business owners will also begin to direct some of that $4k per year to the providers of internet and mobile map services...
Google maps, now with the availability of the Place Pages makes it easier for users to find important information about businesses or places in a single, simple webpage without having to interrupt the search experience and prevents folks from getting side tracked on a mini expedition to determine whether or not a place is worth the visit. These place pages also include an entire page of rich details, like photos, videos, a Street View preview, nearby transit, reviews and related websites. According to Mike Sterling, Google is running a separate algorithm that ranks content providers like review sites within these pages, making it far more relevant for SEO's to also begin learnign how to best optimize these pages for clients through traditional natural search tactics and also with social marketing concepts.
While a benefit for users of Google Maps, you can’t help but notice that this will be a very compelling tool to help Google in its efforts to sell in to local brick and mortar businesses which may not have lacked a meaningful website or online presence prior. This also Puts Google Place Pages on the map with Yelp and Yodle to name a few. This also ensures that brick and mortar stores/locales are pulled online one way or another - which is a Win-Win scenario for both.
Search Engines Fail with Obama's Healthcare Speech
President Obama's Healthcare Speech Deserves Better Search
A string of comments to well known author and search analytics guru, Avinash Kaushik, concerning the difficulty of finding relevant and up to date information from the major search engines left much to be desired. In particular, people were responding the Obama's Healthcare speach - attempting to get to a site or video of the speech to no avail. As I mentioned in the response comments to Avinash, there truly is a problem linking the value percieved from what users want and the timing from which other mediums bring important topics to light - including mainstream media, to the web. Don't get me wrong, Algorythms have come along way and help to reduce blatant spam, along with some innocent bystanders, however, I'd like to stay on the positive side and say that perhaps this just means we have much work to do on all fronts as SEO's, users, search engines and businesses - to get data in all of it's presentable forms up to par.
Google Vs. On Demand Services
Google Takes on Demand Driven Movie Delivery
Google's YouTube service is currently in talks with movie studios to provide rentals online though the video website. This has some serious implications for Netflix and blockbuster which have competing online services to deliver movies through broadband connections, on demand. With broadband Internet adoption growing in households worldwide, along with wider funnels for data, consumers are able to enjoy this on demand delivery without flaw. As for searches conducted on Google and it's competitors Bing and Yahoo!, clearly this can help boost the visibility of movie data online. A short note about this also: advertising dollars to promote the videos after cinema release will probably go into this venue - adwords for example and clearly SEO.
June 2009 - Recent Google Updates
Recent Google Updates
Google made a slew of changes to their services and search algorythms. These are the ones published and in public knowledge at this point whcih are faily recent:
Twitter Monetization
Twitter Monetization Strategy : Defined
I had always wondered what the Twitter motive/monetization strategy was going to be (Thanks goes to http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/090623-142409 for the breakdown). The "trick" here for the Twitter model IMHO, is the integration of those context delivered advertisements by tweet or stream - that does not alienate or further complicate the experience and essence of using Twitter for most. Clearly I remember the same thing occuring with regard to banner ads many years ago, many businesses were forgoing the use of banner ads to both speed up the page load but to also appeal to users sensability of not being bombarded.
Matt Cutts - Big Brands in Natural Search
Google Engineer - Matt Cutt's Response to Video Question on Big Brands Competing in Natural Search
Recently, Matt Cutts from Google opened up a grab bag for questions to be answered in his weekly video series on YouTube. I finally got one of my questions aired and answered, but the response was lackluster - as expected. I respect the guy for his ability to discuss at length what he might and to express his views as an insider at Google, but certainly felt he did a poor job of tackling my question.
Ace Hardware - Holiday SEO for Homeowners
Ace Hardware Chain - Marketing on Labor Day for DIY is Great for SEO
Interestingly enough, a major hardware chain decided to create compelling content that could improve it's SEO efforts - namely taking the Labor Day holiday and serving up original content on a variety of DIY tips and articles such as, "How to Replace Your Showerhead" and "Hot to Lay a Brick Patio". The content is aimed at getting homeowners who have set time on the holiday to accomplish projects around the home - and who may be searching the web for tips or instructions on how to get the projects completed. It seems that this tactic has worked quite well for ACE Hardware since it's the tenth time they've employed a similar method.