'Net Features : optimization

SEO in Action: Optimizing White Papers

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 19:35:00 GMT

As search engines increase what informational assets to crawl, index and rank, so must search engine optimization professionals develop that content.

One of the most popular forms of content traditionally among B2B brands of course is the whitepaper and if you know what’s good for your bottom line website traffic numbers, you’ll not just be creating these assets already but optimizing them too. If not, let’s put SEO in action with these tips to optimize white papers, PDF-based reports and of course ebooks.

Research Audience Personas & Keywords: Starting with keyword research is certainly one way to ensure you’re white papers eventually get discovered, but consider reverse engineering the process and start with the ideal audience in mind instead. Who are your prospective readers (e.g. prospects or clients), what will they find of value (based on data from a variety of feedback channels), and what terms will they use in their queries to find it? Ultimately, all this information will be useful when producing the content as well as when it is distributed.

Develop & Optimize: When the research is complete, it’s time to get started developing and optimizing. Fortunately, white papers are much like websites in that they share many of the same optimization opportunities – from the file name and document titles to the text itself. SEOs also have the opportunity to embed keyword-based anchor text on links and optimize images with alt tags. Another opportunity to squeeze in a few more keywords into a document is within the headers and footers – each should have a link back to relevant content on a website.

Distribution: Before actually distributing, it’s important to have not just the content, but the meta content, the information that is used to market the product, service, or in this case whitepaper. Search engine optimization professionals need clear, concise, keyword-rich executive summaries and they need landing pages. The keyword research and audience personas again prove useful in this phase. Once these creative assets are in place, it’s time to start distributing. Social media posts, media pitches, email newsletters, press releases, infographics and more are opportunities to amplify awareness so hopefully you’ve make good decisions when it comes to research and development.

Weekend Warrior: Inbound Link Prospecting

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 19:00:00 GMT

It is unlikely you will find a website high on the SERPs for which the person or team responsible for that placement has not done the necessary competitive research. Link prospecting does not stop at knowing the sites to target; you also need to group those sites and pages, provide some definition on their value, and then formulate your approach. Let's take a data-driven look at inbound link prospecting.

Much of the discussion on how to actually build links, unfortunately, is shallow and void of any practical value. Personally, if I hear the phrase “quality content” one more time I might explode. Let’s mix it up by addressing real ways to target real valuable links, and how to go about actually doing it for a business’ benefit.

Read more on using data to acquire inbound links

Quora Optimization - Write Great Answers

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 18:00:00 GMT

Every once in a great while a new website emerges that warrants greater scrutiny – question and answer site Quora is one such player.

Whether you’re a fanboy or a basher of the service as it stands today, knowing how to optimize your experience certainly won’t hurt. What makes Quora interesting, particularly for Web marketers, is that much like a search engine ranks Web pages, Quora uses an algorithm to rank answers to questions. That means we can optimize!

Unlike its algorithmic cousins in the search engines, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo explained recently the company’s ranking algorithm, providing some interesting insights into how you might be able to receive more exposure on the site.

As you might imagine, Quora rewards those who provide the best answers – answers with more upvotes are ranking higher, and answers with more downvotes are ranking lower. It is also interesting to note that users who have written good answers in the past carry more weight and will be ranked higher, and votes from users who have written good answers in the past are also ranked higher.

If you’re worried about spammers gaming the system, Quora has got you covered. D’Angelo indicated that votes from people detected to be gaming the system through vote collusion for example will be ignored or minimized. Finally, being an admin or reviewer will not affect the scores in the Quora system.

All in all it is a very welcome sign that Quora is open about how its’ systems works. In the end, if you want your votes to have more weight, write good answers.

Optimizing for YouTube

John Fitzsimmons — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:12:00 GMT

SES NY Universal Search Session Notes (Part 2)

YouTube has grown to be such a phenomenon that optimizing for it alone requires its own in-depth review. So let’s take a look at what it takes to optimize video for YouTube.

What are realistic expectations?

70% of videos get at least 20 views
50% of videos get at least 100 views
Fewer than 20% of videos get more than 500 views
Fewer than 10% of videos get more than 1,500 views
3% of videos get more than 25,000 views
Around 1% of videos get more than 500,000 views

What about Video Production? What’s best for YouTube?

What is the best length for a YouTube Video?

A: Most popular videos tend to be much shorter than 10 minutes 52.3% of videos in the all time most popular category were between 3-5 minutes long. Median length of video clips in study was 2 minutes.

What category is best?

A: The one the fits your topic, but most popular are:

Entertainment

Sports

Music

comedy

News and Politics

Is it wise to let viewers rate the video?

A: Yes! Most videos earn 4+ ratings, and viewers watch rated videos.

When is the best time to upload a video?

A:

Upload during the week

Plan to upload on Wednesday or Thursday

Submit your video between 12p.m. and 1 p.m. in time zone where you want it viewed

Be sure to allow time for YouTube to process the video – don’t expect instant results

What is the best resolution for Videos on YouTube?

A: YouTube displays video at 425 (width) by 355 (height). For best results render as close as you can to this without creating massive files.

Steps for YouTube Optimization

Create an optimized channel – branded visually
Socialize the channel – use the community
Optimize each video submitted
Seek subscribers – they are the key to views
Seek ratings – they are the key to prominence
Aim to be page 1 – “Featured, Most Viewed, Most Discussed, and Top Favorites” – each requires a slightly different focus of activity

Tips for Optimizing YouTube Tags

Use Relevant Tags -- Make sure your tags are relevant to your content.
Use Tags Like Keywords -- Spread tags across your clips. Using a variety of relevant tags on many clips can increase long tail searches.
Use Adjectives -- As with text search, they help users makes choices.
Include YouTube Category Tags -- This will help pin your video to a category.
Match Tags in Title and Description -- Use tags as you would primary keywords in a page optimization.
Omit Stop Words -- Remember tags are not long sentence like phrases.

Optimizing your channel

One suggestion: Do a promo as your main video on your channel! Offer something!

Tips for Socialization

Your Profile is ‘Your Channel”. Treat it as if you are a TV channel that must build viewers for its shows. Your videos are the shows.

Build a friends network concurrent with posting of first video. These contacts can be anyone familiar or likely to view the videos on YouTube. Keeping recent is important so line the connections up early.

Ask friends to subscribe to your videos and view them – drives most viewed, do it ASAP to drive featured

Subscribe to others’ videos via their channels.

Rate other videos and ask your friends/subscribers to rate yours – to drive top favorites. The votes count in the relevancy algorithm.

Write comments and include notes and links that point to your video if relevant; otherwise it is spam

Join groups that are interested in the topics that are in the videos – there are lots of groups, once in a group use the group to expand the video’s friends and contacts lists.

Next up Hot Tips and Tactics (More notes on the SES NY Universal Search Sessions)

Credits for these notes and for an excellent session on Universal Search are due to Greg Jarboe Search Engine Optimization Public Relations, and Amanda Watlington, Search for Profit. Not enough can be said about how informative this session was and how appreciative the search world is to their efforts.

Dante Monteverde, Website Magazine Contributor is a Search Strategist specializing in Search Engine Optimization. He founded SpiderBait.com in 1996 and has over 10 years of SEO experience. Visit SpiderBait's SEO Expert blog: www.spiderbait.com/seo-expert for more useful resources on a variety of search topics.

Optimizing for Universal Search

John Fitzsimmons — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:14:00 GMT

SES NY Universal Search Session Notes (Part 1)

Why is universal search important? It’s the next evolution of Search Engine results. And since people’s eyes scan from top left the Universal results are going to be the first thing they see. A study from an earlier Universal session at SES NY showed that currently 17% of Google searches result in some type of universal search being displayed. That number is expected to increase.

Another interesting observation is that, in terms of news stories, Universal search sends traffic directly to the news sources rather than to the Google news page. And optimization is not too difficult. Just target the key terms of the story –

Who: Company and executive names
What: Brands, products, categories and industry
When: Business and financial news
Where: Places
Why: Pictures, photos, pics, images, diagrams, cartoons, illustrations, logos, and videos
How: training videos

So what can you do to optimize for universal search? One strategy is to try to get ahead of the curve by ranking for non-competitive keywords. But regardless of the keywords you target; optimizing for Universal search requires planning. Here are some things to help you begin that plan:

Review all of the types of files that you have both on your site and available to you – images, pdfs, audio, video, etc. Google currently uses 13 types of file formats in their results beyond html. Yahoo uses 7 types beyond HTML. Go to Google and Yahoo and use the “invisible” tabs for additional ideas – maps, predicts – are examples.

Review the status of your overall optimization. If you are struggling with the basics of html optimization because of your cms or other site challenges, consider optimizing for YouTube, flickr, maps, etc. that don’t require spidering. If you have the basics down revisit how you are handling images, pdfs, or other elements.

Be ruthless in your evaluations, but be kind to yourself. For example, for you your business in the past there was no compelling reason to optimize images, now there is!

Look for the low-hanging fruit. These will yield the most bang for your effort. Maybe it’s the pdfs, maybe products, maybe maps. Build the systems and plan for optimization of other elements. For example, how will you handle images going forward?

Determine whether it makes sense for your business to fill the gaps in how you face universal search. Is video appropriate? What about audio? Develop a plan of action for moving forward based on your needs not just what the engines show.

Draw baseline data to ascertain in your current performance. It’s helpful for making the case for doing more. Then, monitor the change.

Here are some Quick Tips for Optimizing for Universal Search:

Optimizing for Flickr

Title – keyword-rich
Caption – Meaningful
Tags – use like keywords
Links
To other photos
To other sources
Anchor text – Use it to help define
Keywords in caption and title should be reflected in the tags

Video Optimization

Challenges

Many formats for video production and players still Vying for prominence with users

Most users do not know where to look for video – there is a lot of niche market video

YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo! and Brightcove get most attention

Professionally done video competes for attention with consumer-generated video

As more video is optimized, users will be able to find video more easily

Monetization schemes are ill-defined

Video Formats

QuickTime Movie (mov)

Windows Media Video (wmv)

AVI Video (avi)

MPEG Video (mpg, mpeg)

Windows Media Video (asf)

MPEG-4 Video (mp4, mpeg4)

Mobile Video (3gpp, 3gp, 3g2)

Matroska Format (mkv)

Flash Player Video (flv)

DVD Video (vob)

Ogg Format (ogm)

Nullsoft Video (nsv)

Optimizing Video Files

Offer video in multiple formats – for high and low bandwidth.

Optimize video files by encoding ID3 tags with full metadata.

Be sure that you don’t lose the ID3 tags as you save to multiple formats

Use keyword rich filenames for videos.

Create video thumbnails for maximum punch.

Protect copyright with watermarks and visible cues

Submit your video to the video search engines.

Place video offering prominently on your site navigation

Create a video sitemap for Google. Note: the XML schemas can assign a thumbnail. The thumbnail is very important as far as user selection on the SERP’s.

Optimizing On-Site Videos

Create video with branding in it

Create site map – video blog with RSS feed for distribution is easiest

Create tags to identify subject

Write clear Titles and descriptions

Create landing pages for each video

Be sure to offer a player on your site

Offer viral marketing opportunities for video distribution

There were so many good tips at the Universal Search Sessions we couldn't fit them in one post. Next up, Optimizing for YouTube (See what SES NY Universal Search Sessions had to say!)

Credits for these notes and for an excellent session on Universal Search are due to Greg Jarboe Search Engine Optimization Public Relations, and Amanda Watlington, Search for Profit. Not enough can be said about how informative this session was and how appreciative the search world is to their efforts.

Dante Monteverde, Website Magazine Contributor is a Search Strategist specializing; in Search Engine Optimization. He founded SpiderBait.com in 1996 and has over 10 years of SEO experience. Visit SpiderBait's SEO Expert blog: www.spiderbait.com/seo-expert for more useful resources on a variety of search topics.

WideMile's Multivariate Optimization Platform

Administrator — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:28:00 GMT

Widemile announced at SES New York today the beta availability of its third-generation optimization platform, a browser-based application which helps online marketers maximize campaign performance by testing and optimizing landing pages and other web content for higher conversion rates. Twelve partners will use the new platform on behalf of their clients including Ascentium, Avenue A | Razorfish, BrandDigital, Closed Loop Marketing, DDB Worldwide, Palazzo Intercreative, Pop, Portent Interactive, Red Bricks Media, SolutionSet, TMP Direct, and ZeroDash1.

"After years of intense development, we’re thrilled to now make our optimization technology and expertise available to leading search and interactive marketing firms," said Robert Bergquist, Widemile CEO and President. “Advertisers, big and small, rely on their agencies for online strategy, creative development, search expertise, media planning, and other marketing guidance and support. Campaign optimization is highly complementary to these core agency services. We are working with our partners to spread the use of optimization and drive improved returns on ad spend and client website performance.”

Website Magazine contributor Dante Monteverde interviewed WideMile's Bergquist at Ad:Tech in New York.

Testing and Optimization: SiteSpect, CSN Stores Study

Administrator — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:20:00 GMT

SiteSpect has helped leading online retailer CSN Stores increase their sales by 7% by utilizing their non-obtrusive website conversion optimization technology....(read more)