The Vizion Search Engine Optimization Blog
- 2009Dec29AdWords Keyword Tool
Upon the new release of the Google Adwords interface, you can see that it comes complete with ‘Opportunities’, including suggestions on keywords that could be added to your campaigns. At first glance, this seems to be nothing unique. Google has always given us free keyword suggestions, right? It seems that they simply put the keyword tool in the API to save us the step of going to our Favorites folder (or typing it into the browser). Well, there is a little more to it than that.
The new API gives you an option that reads ‘Increase traffic with these keywords’. You then have the option to go to the “Opportunities” portion of Adwords and to obtain pre-selected keywords that Google has already done the work on for you. You see, this is no longer a process of getting into a generalized keyword tool that is out there, this is different. It’s a much better ‘fit’ for your campaigns because it researches what keywords you already have and doesn’t duplicate your efforts. It breaks down keyword lists as according to the adgroups that you have already set up. Factors that it takes into consideration: budget, keywords, and previous campaign performance. This is [...]- 2009Dec18In SEO, A Picture Is Not Always Worth A Thousand Words
I thought this post was necessary as I have had at least two clients this week come to me with the idea of ditching some of their text content in favor of a more image-based site. The problem is that it isn’t just this week, the insanity of the holidays or even the phase of the moon. I often hear clients mention that they would like to offer a more “user-friendly” site with many more images instead of provided the recommended amount of body copy, preferably 250+ on the homepage and 150+ on internal pages.
- 2009Nov11Adwords Quality Score Determined- Even Before Activating the Keywords!
Have you ever gone through all the phases of setup with your Google campaigns- geo, bid amounts, daily budgets, etc. and then come to find that your Quality Score has already been assigned? This isn’t the way I originally pictured the Quality Score to work. It should gather data relative to your specific campaign/ adgroup/ keywords/ landing page and then assign a score, right?
One factor that I left out above is the CTR (click-through rate), as that’s one of the most important factors when Google is determining the Quality Score. This led to my curiousity as to why my leywords were assigned a Quality Score, even though they haven’t recieved any impressions yet.
Here’s the key, and here’s how Google assigns a Quality Score (even before keyword activation). Historical data. Other advertisers have used these keywords before, and Google is able to take an estimate from their performance and assign it a ’starting score’. Being that each account performs differently and according to their own dynamics, chances are that you will not stick with this initial scoring. It is simply the first step to your Quality Score.
So, lets say that you load your keywords and come to find that your starting [...]- 2009Oct30Five Tips for Website Visitor Retention
We all work hard enough in search marketing to get visitors to our sites. To make these site visits beneficial, we want visitors to peruse our content, understand the offerings and calls to action, and to then convert. Sounds pretty easy, right? Well, I don’t usually write about the things that people are doing correctly.- 2009Oct29Bing Happenings…
Ever since Bings launch, I have used it some, and my experience with is has been pleasant. News reports state that it’s the fastest growing search engine. Currently, it only holds about 11% of the search marketing industry. Google is still at a whopping 65%- but Bings growth has averaged (month to month) about 20%. This is phenomenal.
Bing has put alot of focus on ‘Bing Travel’. A nice shortcut to finding great deals, which seemingly seems to simplify orbitz.com’s efforts. You can look for last minute deals, cheapest flights, you can even sign up to recieve the specified deals to your own email address.
http://www.bing.com/travel/Bings Visual Search offers a newer, innovative method of search
You arrive at http://www.bing.com/visualsearch
I clicked ‘politicians’. On the left, you see in the menu bar with other potential search terms you may want to see- visually. When I clicked ‘Presidents Cabinet’, there came pics of all the presidents cabinet complete with names. Clicking on one of these pics takes [...]- 2009Oct29Landing Pages
One small change can have a very different effect. Even if it is just a change in font, color of background or the color of your submit/order button. Never be afraid to test out different pages.
- 2009Oct27How to Set Up a Twitter Account
You’ve probably heard people talking about Twitter. It’s all over the news, on the radio, and even on some television commercials: “follow us on Twitter”, they say. Twitter is a popular social media web site that allows you to post “tweets” to those who follow you. It is a popular microblogging platform, and it even integrates with many mobile phones now, like the iPhone.So, how do you set up a Twitter account? Here are the steps required in order to set up a Twitter account.
In order to set up the Twitter account, you will need to go to http://twitter.com/signup
On the signup page, enter your name and your preferred username.
Enter the desired password, email address for the account, and the captcha code.
Click on “create my account”.
You will need to confirm the email address (they will send you a confirmation email).
Once you have confirmed the email address, you can begin customizing the account.
Go to the https://twitter.com/account/settings to start customizing the account.
At a minimum, Vizion Interactive suggests that [...]- 2009Oct23Vizion Halloween Contest Ends in One Week!
Earlier this month Vizion launched a spooky contest and is looking for your SEO Horror Stories.
In this case, the SEO Horror Story contest is looking for you to submit an SEO Horror Story - Mark Jackson explains it all very well here.
We’re looking for Search Engine Optimization Horror Stories – extreme examples of cases where Search Engine Optimization efforts have failed.
So, what will you get when you submit your SEO Horror Story? The first twenty submissions will receive a copy of “The Unfair Advantage Book on Winning the Search Engine Wars” for free. That book also comes with a three month membership to SearchEngineNews.com and access to the Planet Ocean “Site Strength Indicator tool”. If you take the time to submit your own SEO Horror Story and you’re one of the first 20 submissions, getting that book and access to the “Site Strength Indicator Tool” is definitely worth your time and effort. Planet Ocean does a great job at telling you everything you need to know and may even show you where your SEO efforts failed in the past, so you can correct [...]
- 2009Oct20How to Add Links to Your LinkedIn Profile
For Search Engine Optimization purposes, we need to continually get additional links to our web sites. In order to get more outgoing links to your web site from other trusted web sites, you might want to turn to a web site like LinkedIn. This site is an online networking tool that helps you discover inside connections to recommended job candidates, industry experts and business partners. Many of your employees might already be using LinkedIn as a networking tool. But they may not have links from their profiles to your web site.
By showing your employees (or adding your own links) to the LinkedIn profile, you can increase the number of links to your company’s web site. Here is how to add links to your LinkedIn profile. If you have not registered for LinkedIn, I suggest you do so now. If you do not have an account, you’ll need to register, confirm your email address, and start filling out your profile. For this simple task of adding links to your profile, I’m assuming that you already have a profile set up.
1. First, you need to log into Linkedin.
2. On the left side, you’ll see some links:
- 2009Oct19Search Engine Optimization Tip 35: Use the Google Wonder Wheel
This is Search Engine Optimization tip number 35 in our continuing series of Search Engine Optimization tips. All of these search engine optimization tips are meant to be specific in nature, they will not take that long to review, and are directly to the point. This search engine optimization tip has to do with finding using the Google Wonder wheel, a part of the search options Google announced (a while back) to find out what Google thinks about your web site.
The Google Wonder wheel is a search option that you can use to find out what keyword phrases Google is currently associating with your web site. You can also use it to find related keyword phrases to a keyword phrase you’re targeting, but in this search engine optimization tip I’m going to look specifically at VizionInteractive.com, and see the keyword phrases that Google thinks is related to that domain name. Here is how you use this search engine optimization technique:
1. To access the Google Wonder wheel, you will first need to perform a search at Google like this:
2. Click on the “Show options…” link and you will see [...]
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