Want to Improve Page Rank? Try Ritual Sacrifice

DILBERT by Scott Adams

SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Want to Improve Page Rank? Try Ritual Sacrifice”, url: “http://www.yieldsoftware.com/2010/02/want-to-improve-page-rank-try-ritual-sacrifice/” });

Aardvark, an Awesome Wave and a Good Buzz

Google’s Social Revolution

Last week’s announcement of Google’s (relatively small) acquisition of Aardvark, the real-time social Q&A start-up, received a fair amount of buzz.  Which was on top of the abundant buzz generated by Google’s release of Google Buzz.  Which, of course, follows last year’s buzz about Google Wave.

Though Wave, a social collaboration tool, is kind of uber-geeky and not particularly intuitive, Google Buzz draws on a now well-known metaphor: the news feed.  And while it has generated some early heat around privacy issues, Google Buzz (in its most current form – they’ve been updating it nearly daily in response to user reactions) draws on your Gmail and chat contacts to form an instant social graph.  That graph enables you to stay connected with your contacts in much the same way you would via Facebook or Twitter (or, more accurately, FriendFeed before…

Seven Steps to Get Your Website Caffeinated

Preparing for Google Caffeine

In 2010, Google’s search results are becoming more focused on results that are fast, fresh and visual.   Now is your chance to get your website ready to make sure you are part of Google’s first page crowd in 2010.

1) Are You Fast?

Google is going to judge you based on how fast your web pages load.  You should aim to have your page load in 3 seconds or less.

If you are clocking in at over 3 seconds you might try some of the following techniques (which your web master or website designer can help you with):  use CSS; limit the amount of Flash on the site; use image heights and widths; check for broken links; compress your JavaScript and CSS; cut back on cookies; review server or hosting provider performance; and remove…

Synonyms, Search and SEO

Or the “Picture” vs. “Photo” Duel

In the Official Google Blog today, Steve Baker gives some (frankly unusual) insight into how it is Google’s algorithms deal with semantics, specifically synonyms.  As he points out in his post, it’s kind of funny and amazing what computers are good at, and what they’re not:

An irony of computer science is that tasks humans struggle with can be performed easily by computer programs, but tasks humans can perform effortlessly remain difficult for computers. We can write a computer program to beat the very best human chess players, but we can’t write a program to identify objects in a photo or understand a sentence with anywhere near the precision of even a child.

But because Google’s primary directive is to produce search results most relevant to the query you typed into the search box,…

All that Google Stuff is Too Technical for Me

or “If I had a dollar for every time I heard this…”

But we say Hogwash!

Yes, there are lots of advanced features and complexities to online advertising, but you don’t have to use them. You can get started in a very simple and quick manner.

Here’s your step-by-step guide for using Google to start getting more business today:

1) Go to Google’s Keyword Tool

a.  Select the “Website Content” option
b.  Enter the URL of your home page
c.  Scroll to the bottom and click the link to export the results to Excel

2) Create a Google AdWords Account (if you don’t have one)

3) Create your first campaign in your AdWords Account

a. Create Ad Groups from your Excel export

i. The common terms column translates into your ad groups – create one ad group for each unique common term

b. Put Keywords into your Ad Groups

i.…

Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Marketing (Part II)

Looking at Reach and Engagement

In my last post, I talked about how to get your team involved in evaluating your 2009 marketing efforts. In part two of this series of preparing your marketing plans for 2010, I cover how to evaluate “reach” and “engagement.”

“Reach” is the new word for “awareness.” Others call it your “sphere of influence” or “thought leadership.” Basically, you want to measure the tactics you used to make people aware of your company / products / services – and these tactics aren’t limited to social media.  Why?  Because social media, your Website, and offline tactics such as speaking gigs or print ads often influence each other. Some things to consider when measuring “reach” include:

Social media – The number of followers you have on Twitter, fans on Facebook, or connections on LinkedIn.

Website – The increase…

How to Get a Great Quality Score

Three Key Steps to Get into the “In” Crowd

Quality Score is an important component of Google pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. A great quality score will get your ads better exposure and actually save you money (which are the advertisers in Google’s “in” crowd). Conversely, if you let your quality score slip, Google will actually penalize you by increasing the cost for each click on your PPC ads (that would be the not “in” crowd). So, it’s time to spend some quality time on your quality score.

One of the most effective actions you can take to get a great quality score is to have “tightly knit” ad groups. That sounds easy enough.

However, the interpretations of “tightly knit ad group” we see varies quite a bit and is frequently the largest contributing factor to a poor quality score. Who…

But Google, that Keyword IS Relevant

Nothing frustrates a marketer more than when their golden keyword, that is, in fact, their product or service, has a quality score of two or one from Google, usually accompanied by this lovely message: “Rarely shown due to low quality score.” When you click for more info on how to fix it, Google says the keyword just is not relevant and you should delete it.

Outrage!

Can’t Google see this keyword is in all of my ads and it’s all over my landing pages? This is the core of my business!

How could this possibly be?

With a little investigation, we usually find that proper account structure and maintenance have not been in place, and have left the advertiser in a punished state — Google has effectively issued a restraining order and your ads are no longer allowed to…

Google Social Search is Live

Social Graph Content in Search Results

Moving quickly to capitalize on its growing relationship with Twitter, Google is now publicly testing a new search feature called Social Search.  Available now via Google Labs, Social Search triangulates your contacts in your Gmail chat buddies, your Gmail contacts friends, family and co-worker groups, and people you’re publicly connected to on other social sites (such as Twitter and FriendFeed), which Google calls your Social Circle, to find social media those folks may have produced that relates to your search query.

In a blog post at Google Labs, Google’s Matt Cutts says you should login and do a search:

If there’s relevant web content written by people in your social circle, it will automatically show up at the bottom of your search results under a section called “Results from people in your…

Facebook, Google to Add Music

Naming that Tune Gets a Lot Easier

The New York Times Bits blog (see our blog roll on the right) said it has inside scoop that Google will announce a new music service next week in L.A.  They report:

Several reports today indicate that Google is set to introduce a music service at an event at the iconic Capitol Records building in Hollywood on Oct. 28. The service, we’ve confirmed from three people briefed on the details, will offer searchers a better way to find and sample music on Google — much in the same way people can get detailed financial information about a company from Google Finance.

According to this and other reports, Google is teaming up with iLike (which is owned by MySpace, which, in turn, is owned by Fox/News Corp.), Lala and Imeem.  For folks who search…