Building Mailing Lists, List Building, Social Media, Niche Marketing

When businesses think about search and social media, a great deal of the time, they are thinking about traffic, customer engagement, and brand awareness. While these are all good things to consider, there may be more to that last one that you have spent much time thinking about.

Brand awareness goes beyond just having a random customer find your site in a set of search results or through a link from their Facebook news feed. Have you considered how channels like search and social media are used by media outlets and journalists? The fact of the matter is that journalists and bloggers alike utilize both to a great extent while covering their beats.

Do you take press coverage into consideration? Comment on this at WebProNews here.

Search and social both play significant roles in PR. This is a topic that WebProNews recently discussed with TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden. Odden calls journalists customers, and in many ways they should be treated as such when it comes to getting your product or site in front of their eyeballs.

Odden says to look at what it is you can do as a marketer to make it easier for the journalist to do their job. Optimize your content for what a journalist is looking for. This is one way you can potentially increase your media coverage, which can obviously increase brand awareness.

Odden makes a great point online journalists often having tighter deadlines, and turning to blogs and social networks for sources and quotes. For example, the real-time nature of a Twitter search might be just what a journalist or blogger need to find someone who’s talking about the subject they’re writing about, at nearly the moment they’re looking for it.

For that matter, Google’s real-time search can help for the same reason, and most journalists and bloggers frequently use Google to search for what they’re looking for. If what they’re looking for happens to be related to a newsy topic, they just might see Google’s real-time results literally before anything else. If that topic happens to be related to something you’re talking about, you just might end up in those results too. Google is also indexing updates from Facebook Pages here now, by the way.

The point is, if you are looking for increased media coverage, there are ways to increase your chances of getting in front of the right people, and it is certainly not limited to real-time search. Sometimes journalists/bloggers will simply tap their contacts within their social networks (or email of course) to find sources. This is as good a reason as any to engage in social media on a regular basis and network with lots of relevant people.

If attracting media attention is what you’re after, consider these five tips I offered in a SmallBusinessNewz article last year:

1. Do something that’s different – Simply do something that makes you stand out: something that gets people talking. If it creates enough buzz, the media coverage will likely follow.

2. Look for niche publications – the more niche the publication, the more likely they probably are to cover you.

3. Personalize your message – When you’re writing an email to a publication to talk about your business, for example, personalize the message for the specific person you’re contacting, so they know it’s not just a manufactured piece that you’re sending all over the web. Journalists like exclusivity.

4. Find multiple contacts – If you can find more than one contact for a particular publication, it may be wise to send your story pitch to them. This will increase the potential visibility among the publication’s staff.

5. Provide plenty of details – When sending such a pitch, it’s a good idea to include as many details about the product/story as possible. The more details available, the less research is required, and time is more valuable than ever, especially for a journalist.

Another piece of advice I would give is to not let your press center hold back your marketing opportunities. I’ve seen a lot of companies fail to keep their own press centers up to date with the latest news, even as big announcements are made, and even if they have issued press releases. Often times, these releases won’t even be available on the site until later. If you want to increase your chances of more media coverage, you should always have your latest news readily available in your press center, or via your blog – wherever you make announcements. And always provide contact info.

About the author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

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Thousands of free online marketing tools clamor for attention, with new ones popping up every week it seems. You know you should be doing more to reach out to your customers, but just researching which tools to use can be a vast time investment, even if they don’t require a big financial outlay.

Below is a compiled a list of the most popular (or most useful) low-cost or free small business marketing tools. You might be using some of them already, but you’re sure to find a couple that will round out your small business marketing toolkit nicely. And, if you’re just starting out marketing a new business online, this list may help point you in the right direction.

Directories

The Open Directory – A staple of the SEO crowd, this directory can be tricky to get into but well worth it for the link juice it passes along to your site.

Yahoo! Directory – It’s not free – this directory will set you back a couple hundred bucks a year – but it’s well worth it for inclusion.

Best of the Web Directory – This directory has been around a while and can pass along some good PageRank to your site.

Niche Directories

Find the directories in your industry that pass along good link building opportunities. Some examples to get you started: SBDGraphics.com for ad agencies, web developers, printers and other graphics professionals; sbdpro.com for small businesses and businesses that serve them; Cpapro.com for the accounting industry; SEOAlpaca.org for alpaca breeders, and so on.

Press Release Distribution Services

Marketwire – The most bang for your buck from an actual wire service, Marketwire’s prices are lower than PR Newswire and Businesswire. This newer service is built for powerful online exposure, and you’ll enjoy the full online distribution with any geographical AP wire distribution. (Sometimes you can get statewide wire distribution for nearly the same cost as only your local metropolitan area.) It’s great for building inbound links – just choose the SEO Enhanced option.

PRLog – A good-performing free press release distribution outlet, PRLog press releases rank really well and for a really long time if they are written with SEO copywriting best practices. Press releases include three links, though they are URL based (starting with http) rather than text anchor. PRLog also lets you create your own newsroom where all your press releases reside, as well as an “about us” page and product showcase area.

PitchEngine – A relatively new PR-for-social-media site that promises to let you create and share press releases easily and for free and syndicate content to Google News. Lets you include HTML in your press release, so you can use keyword text anchor links. The site is marketing itself quite aggressively and will likely build a big presence quickly. The only catch is your release will disappear off the site after 30 days if you aren’t a paid member ($50/month for your own press room).

Email Marketing

AWeber – AWeber makes it easy to start building your email marketing list, if you haven’t already. For less than $20/month, you can build unlimited newsletter lists, send unlimited email blasts, and email unlimited autorespond messages to up to 500 subscribers/list. (Then it’s $29/month up to 2500 subscribers.) Also offers a recurring 30% commission – a pretty good affiliate program for a service you’ll appreciate enough to recommend to others. (Disclosure note: the link above is our affiliate link. We’ve been using the service for 3 years now, after trying out Constant Contact and researching about 20 other providers! Most either do autoresponders or email blasts/newsletters – not both.)

Content Sharing Websites

Squidoo – Create a lens around your business area. A good one with lots of information will even rank in the search engines and can bring traffic to your web site.

Scribd – Share your expert content like white papers and articles. You can make them available for free or sell them. You can submit documents in PowerPoint, Word, PDF and many other file formats.

SlideShare – Post your presentations and documents online for others to view and share. This is a great way to get exponential exposure for your sales or marketing materials – or share documents privately. See some tips for getting more visibility with SlideShare: http://bit.ly/aNXmS2

Flikr – Does your product or service translate well visually? Use this popular photo sharing site to get more eyeballs.

Blip.tv – A video-sharing alternative to YouTube, blip.tv lets you embed links in your descriptions and create a TV station showing all your videos in one spot.

Social Networks

Facebook – Create a page for your business. Feed your blog in. Start a group. Get fans. Advertise to targeted users if your products appeal to the Facebook crowd (which is basically everyone nowadays). See using the new Facebook business page layout to learn more. Stop by our page and become a fan, too!

MySpace – Take a second look at this medium for social networking. According to MarketingProfs, more than half of MySpace.com users are 35 or older. Explore using MySpace for your business.

LinkedIn – Like a virtual Rolodex. Build your professional profile, link up with other professionals, join groups or even start a group. Participating in Q&A’s related to your profession is a great way to build credibility and visibility.

Ning – Build your own social network around your business. You may even get your network into the search engine results pages. Learn more about using Ning for business. (http://bit.ly/amLKcE)

Read “Utlize Social Media to Gain Additional Exposure for Your Site” (http://bit.ly/bcoWEQ) for more information about social networks and how they can drive targeted traffic to your site.

Social Bookmarking

Digg – Getting your content on the home page of Digg is one way to bump up your web site’s traffic by thousands within minutes. This can result in valuable links to your site. Start with this beginner’s guide to Digg.

StumbleUpon – Build friends and send them your articles to rate. More thumbs up will get your article shown to more people outside your network and can result in thousands of visitors every day. Tips for using StumbleUpon.

Reddit – Even if your content gets buried on Digg, it can flourish on Reddit – which can be a catalyst for jumping to the home page of other social bookmarking sites. Learn more about the types of topics that do well on Reddit.

Blogs

Your own blog -

Write great content relevant to your business area that people will find useful. Use it to link to deep pages on your site to help them get indexed in the search engines. Build your thought leadership and let your customers get to know your business better. Try WordPress for an easy-to-use platform that’s also search engine friendly.

Others’ blogs -

Read and comment on other blogs in your industry. Use your comment signature to link back to your blog or web site. Build relationships online and spread the link love from your own blog to others’.

Twitter

Micro-blogging. Update your status daily or a couple times a week. Use keywords in your posts and profile to help gain followers on Twitter quickly. Link to your unique content in your updates and take advantage of the multitude of new applications created to help you manage your Twitter experience.

Affiliate Marketing

Post Affiliate Pro

Traditionally links generated through affiliate marketing have not been helpful for search engine optimization – until Post Affiliate Pro, that is. This easy-to-use affiliate program lets you set up a referral program in minutes and keeps your links simple and search engine friendly.

Technorati

Claim your blog at Technorati to make sure it’s indexed in the blog search engines and have your updates broadcast across the network.

Your Own Web Properties

Create A Knowledge Center

Build a content area on your site where you can add articles regularly. This can be as formal as white papers or case studies, but it can also work with less formal articles, as long as they further your company’s thought leadership position and credibility. They will also boost your search engine rankings if you contribute regularly and ensure your site architecture is optimized. See how we’re doing this with SEO Advantage’s new knowledge center.

PowerReviews

People are going to look up user reviews whether on your site or elsewhere – might as well take advantage of the user-generated content for additional search engine visibility. You’ll also rank higher in trust with your efforts at transparency.

SurveyMonkey

Voting/polling/surveys. A tool of engagement that lets you gauge interest, measure customer satisfaction or just provide some fun. (People love to give their opinions.)

Awards and Contests

Enter them and host them. Winning an industry award can add to your credibility, and giving them out can get you lots of press coverage and links. Get creative.

Search Engine Optimization

Make sure your site architecture is optimized for maximum exposure in the search engines. Create link-building campaigns. Add to your content regularly. Enlist the services of a search engine optimization company to guide your efforts or handle implementation completely.

Research

Google

Designate the keywords you’d like to keep track of, and Google will send you alerts of news and pages indexed on those topics “as it happens” with Google News Alerts. You can also enter multiple terms at Google Trends to compare the general level of buzz around those terms.

AllTop

An “online magazine rack”, this site aggregates content and organizes it. Select your topics and have the latest content delivered to you, or just browse the site when you’re in research mode. Also, be sure to submit your site so it shows among the related content.

WordTracker

Find keywords with a more comprehensive tool than free pay-per-click research tools, which may skew results. A free trial will give you an idea of how it works.

Yahoo! Pipes

See who’s talking about your company or brand by pulling together RSS feeds from different sources around the Web using the beta Yahoo! Pipes. This handy video shows you how.

Analytics

You need to measure all your online marketing efforts. If you’re looking for a free analytics package, try Google Analytics or Yahoo! IndexTools. (Which is better?) However, you’ll probably want some help implementing and interpreting your analytics package to get the most from it – ask your SEO company if they offer this.

About The Author
Stone Reuning is president of SEO Advantage, a search engine optimization company that helps businesses harness the revenue generation potential of their websites. Referenced in books such as “Writing Web-Based Advertising Copy to Get the Sale” and the BusinessWeek bestseller “The New Rules of Marketing and PR”, http://www.seo-advantage.com/ offers information to help small businesses compete online.

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Linking is the mechanism that connects all the pages on the Internet. You’ve got links throughout your web site to let people navigate their way around. You may have links going out to other web sites that you think will be useful for your visitors. And hopefully you have links coming into your web site from independent sources.

All types of links can impact your search engine optimization results, helping determine where your web site shows up online. Though the hardest to control, inbound links pointing to your site can make the biggest impact.

At its most basic, the concept is that if several high-quality sites are linking to your web site, then Google and other search engines figure your site must be a popular, valuable resource – and they will be more likely to show it higher in their search results. In effect, your site receives “link juice” from other web pages that link to it.

However, it’s not enough to secure a couple links and then sit still. The Google PageRank algorithm looks at the pattern of links to your site as they build over time.

Building the right kind of links can bring a major payoff, while a wrong turn could get you penalized – and the Google Sandbox is not easy to dig out of.

Armed with a bit of knowledge and some creativity, you can build up valuable incoming links naturally and powerfully, avoiding the traps that plague amateurs.

Spice Up Your Links With Some Variety

There are all kinds of link farming schemes to grow links, and you need to run the other way from these. This is also called reciprocal linking, where you exchange links with other web sites that will then link to you on a mass scale. Warning: Google is onto this.

While it’s perfectly advantageous to link to high-quality sites that also link to you, the key here is to cultivate a natural mix of links over time.

Is it natural to suddenly have 100 links pointing to your site, all with the same text? Of course not. When people link to you naturally, they might use your business name (SEO Advantage) or some variation on a descriptive phrase (search optimization company). If too many similar links exist, it can signal that those links were generated artificially and potentially result in penalties.

Also consider which pages on your site inbound links point to. Your home page is probably going to get the most, but it’s natural to have links pointing to specific pages inside your web site, too. Cultivate links to your services, your blog, your news pages, your articles, etc., to help those pages get indexed and build their own PageRank. Called deep links, these can help bolster your site’s overall performance.

Some links also carry a title tag, which is indicated in the source code. This is a little too technical to go into detail here, but if you can influence this you’ll want both the link text and title to vary a bit among the links pointing to your site. Once again, the key is to grow your links in a natural pattern.

Not Every Link Carries The Same Value

Links from popular, established web sites usually carry the greatest value. That’s because they have high PageRank from plenty of other people already linking to them. A link from CNN.com, for example, will carry much more weight than a link from a free press release distribution site that few people know of. Likewise, a link from www.sbdpro.com will have a greater impact than a link from a directory that uses no-follow tags.

No-follow tags are the bane of naive link builders. It’s tempting to think you can just link to pages on your site from your Twitter tweets, Facebook and other social media applications. However, many of these sites as well as online ads and also some directories employ “no follow” tags that prevent the search engines from following a link to your site. In this case, it’s as if the link doesn’t exist in the eyes of the search engines. (That doesn’t mean the links aren’t valuable to people who find you and follow the link, it’s just not helping your web site show up in Google.)

So, How Can A Business Build Incoming Links Naturally?

The mix of links created out on the web pointing back at your web site should avoid skewing toward any particular type. A good mix that you can influence may include:

• Directories – Professional organizations, online communities and forums, business directories, etc. can all potentially provide good links to your site. There are several premium directories that are staples in an SEO firm’s link building toolkit, like DMOZ.org. Keep in mind that your listing itself should be optimized in order to reap the full link juice benefits.

• Press Releases – Writing and submitting press releases online can help you get your news in front of more people and build links to your site. (Be sure to use best practices for writing and evaluate carefully your outlets for good links).

• Blogs – Link to relevant pages on your site from your blog. Build relationships online with other bloggers, too, and they may want to link back to you! Active blogs with high visibility and large followings are going to be your best bet, but you can mix it up over time targeting lesser known bloggers, too. Keep in mind that as other sites grow in PageRank, the value passed to your site will also grow.

• Create Some Link Bait – Make sure your content is so fascinating or funny that people will want to tell others about it. This is the ultimate for building naturally growing incoming links but of course hard to do.

A sample schedule could mean every month you líst your site in two good dírectories, link to interior site pages from a couple relevant posts in your blog, distribute one press release to news sites, and write one great article that other people may want to link to and then let them know about it.

A word about selecting outlets is in order, too. You’ll need to carefully assess each place you target in order to determine the link value they can pass onto you. For example, different press release submission sites and directories can offer you a wide variety in link value. This can be time-consuming to determine but worth it when your site’s PageRank starts to climb. (Find some information on how to evaluate outlets in this article on press release optimization.

See Who’s Linking To Your Web Site

You can see all the links pointing to your site via a couple handy tools online. Go to Google.com to see who Google is crediting with a link to you. Enter in the search box [link:www.yourwebaddress.com] without the brackets.

Not all your links are going to show here, though, but you can use Google’s free webmaster tools for more in-depth research if you’re inclined. You can also use the free Yahoo! Site Explorer to see what links Yahoo! shows pointing at your site.

Every month, make it a part of your link-building strategy to check for any new links and build relationships with more web properties. After all, a link is a compliment and a great way to network in addition to an important way to build value for your web site.

About The Author
Stone Reuning is president of SEO Advantage, a search engine optimization company that helps businesses harness the revenue generation potential of their websites. Referenced in books such as “Writing Web-Based Advertising Copy to Get the Sale” and the BusinessWeek bestseller “The New Rules of Marketing and PR”, http://www.seo-advantage.com offers information to help small businesses content online.

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Google Doesn’t Care if You USED to Get Links

You may have gotten some good links in the past, but don’t count on them helping you forever. Old links go stale in the eyes of Google.

Do you still get links to old content? Tell us why you think that is.

Google’s Matt Cutts responded to a user-submitted question asking if Google removes PageRank coming from links on pages that no longer exist (for example, GeoCities pages that have been shut down). The answer to this question is unsurprisingly yes, but Cutts makes a statement within his response that may not be so obvious to everybody.

“In order to prevent things from becoming stale, we tend to use the current link graph, rather than a link graph of all of time,” he says. (Emphasis added)

Now, this isn’t exactly news, and to the seasoned search professional, probably not much of a revelation. However, to the average business owner looking to improve search engine performance (and not necessarily adapting to theever-changing ways of SEO), it could be something that really hasn’t resonated. Businesses have always been told about the power of links, but even if you got a lot of significant links a year or two ago, that doesn’t mean your content will continue to perform well based on that.  WebProNews has discussed the value of “link velocity” and Google’s need for freshness in the past:

Link velocity refers to the speed at which new links to a webpage are formed, and by this term we may gain some new and vital insight. Historically, great bursts of new links to a specific page has been considered a red flag, the quickest way to identify a spammer trying to manipulate the results by creating the appearance of user trust. This led to Google’s famous assaults on link farms and paid link directories.

But the Web has changed, become more of a live Web than a static document Web. We have the advent of social bookmarking, embedded videos, links, buttons, and badges, social networks, real-time networks like Twitter and Friendfeed. Certainly the age of a website is still an indication of success and trustworthiness, but in an environment of live, real time updating, the age of a link as well as the slowing velocity of incoming links may be indicators of stale content in a world that values freshness.

Do you think link freshness should play a role in search engine rankings? Let Chris and WebProNews know.

So how do you keep getting “fresh” links?

If you want fresh links, there are a number of things you can do. For one, keep putting out content. Write content that has staying power. You can link to your old content when appropriate. Always promote the sharing of your content. Include buttons to make it easy for people to share your content on their social network of choice. You may want to make sure your old content is presented in the same template as your new content so it has the same sharing features. People still may find their way to that old content, and they may want to share it if encouraged.

Go back over old content, and look for stuff that is still relevant. You can update stories with new posts adding a fresher take, linking to the original. Encourage readers to follow the link and read the original article, which they may then link to themselves.

Leave commenting on for ongoing discussion. This can keep an old post relevant. Just because you wrote an article a year ago, does not mean that people will still not add to it, and sometimes people will link to articles based on comments that are left.

Share old posts through social networks if they are still about relevant topics. You don’t want to just start flooding your Twitter account with tweets to all of your old content, but if you have an older article that is relevant to a current discussion, you may share it, as your take on the subject. A follower who has not seen it before, or perhaps has forgotten about it, may find it worth linking to themselves. Can you think of other ways to get more link value out of old content?

Do you get fresh links for old content? Why do you think that is? Share your thoughts with WebProNews.

Related Articles:

> Google’s Treatment of Twitter and Facebook Links
> How Press Releases Can Be Great For Search
> Link Building for Bing Rankings: Dos and Don’ts

About the author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

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Today’s websites are more complex than ever before. Many contain a wealth of information visitors can use to answer their questions and learn what they need to know before contacting a company or making a purchase online.

But with all the information and features packed into many of today’s websites, it can also be more difficult for site visitors to first of all determine whether or not a website will contain the information they need and then find it on the website. Installing a site search box can provide several advantages to help your site visitors – and also benefit your marketing function in the process.

Site Search Satisfies the Customer’s “I Want It Now” Attitude

Installing an internal site search box can help visitors find what they need more quickly. With web users still looking to find what they need as fast as possible, confusing navigation and cluttered design are more likely than ever to prompt an “on-to-the-next-site” response.

Internal site search is undoubtedly the quickest way for someone to find what they’re looking for on a large and complex site. An internal site search helps visitors get around navigational structures that may be confusing to them. This is especially important for sites that are constantly adding new content. As the site continues to grow, many users will find the site search function to be a valuable tool in helping them find what they need.

Site Search Makes a Website More Customer Centric

Installing an internal site search also means you can transform your website from a static “one size fits all” style to a more “customer-centric” approach. More and more, websites need to simultaneously cater to different types of website users – knowledge seekers, prospects, buyers and long-term customers. Internal site search helps you do this, as it helps those seeking knowledge find and assess your resources more easily.

Site Search Appeals to the “Searcher” Type of Site Visitor

Different people prefer different types of navigation tools. For example, if someone uses a search engine like Google to arrive at your website, they are more likely to prefer the same search method for finding information within your website. It’s not uncommon for site visitors to look immediately for the site search box when they arrive at a website.

Site Search Arms Marketers With Data

Marketers can benefit tremendously from installing an internal site search function. With the right analytic tool, internal site search can provide a wealth of information about who visits your site and how they navigate around it.

Site search data can provide insight into customer desires, intent, and behavior. While a customer might tell a different story if asked for feedback in a focus group or online survey, for example, site search data can reveal exactly which pages they looked for and found, which searches intrigued them to continue reading as well as those that prompted them to leave the site. This will contribute to the conversation when analyzing conversion rate performance across content and site sections.

Site Search Provides Insight into Personas and Usability Issues

Site search can provide usability data without the expense of setting up testing facilities. When the usage data and click path from real users is saved and available for viewing and analysis anytime, a marketer can see where searchers encountered difficulty. Looking at this data across multiple users can give clues to areas of the site that require updating and expansion, for example.

Adding typical searched on phrases to flesh out descriptions of the various personas using your site can also help enrich the entire web team’s understanding of the types of people using the site. This information will be particularly helpful to any copywriters who are preparing content for selling pages and product descriptions, etc.

Site Search Brings Ideas for New Products

Users’ searches can even inspire new product offerings. If you see that many visitors are searching your site for a particular type of product or service that you don’t yet provide, it may be time to consider developing an offering to serve that underserved need. Especially if your site is already bringing traffic for those particular searches, your company may do well to act on this informal market research.

Site Search Reveals New Keywords

You may end up finding new keywords you weren’t aware of, allowing you the chance to tweak your content so more users will find the information they need on your site. Perhaps some of your pages that you feel are relevant to a specific topic are missing a few of the terms people are actually searching on. In that case, you’ll have the option to add them as appropriate and further refine your content, making it even more targeted to your users.

In addition, those keywords can be added to your search marketing campaigns, perhaps offering a chance to reach a wider audience on the Internet than originally anticipated. In order for your company to remain competitive online, you need to be open to the new ways people are finding and disseminating information. Site search is an exciting utility for websites looking to evolve their websites according to user demands.

Editor’s Note: So, if you want to add search to your website, what are your options? There are a number of free and commercial solutions available on the Web but below are several of the former:

Services:
Atomz
PicoSearch
FusionBot
Google Custom Search

Scripts/Software:
Perlfect Search
WebDevelopersNotes.com – Provides 2 pages of site search solutions.
Resource Index – Numerous Perl and PHP search scripts can be found here for DIY webmasters.

About The Author
SEO Advantage is a search engine optimization company that helps businesses harness the revenue generation potential of their websites. Find us referenced in books such as Writing Web-Based Advertising Copy to Get the Sale and the BusinessWeek bestseller The New Rules of Marketing & PR. Visit www.seo-advantage.com today for more information.

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RDFa Could Play an Increasingly Big Role in Search

RDFa, which stands for Resource Description Framework in attributes, is a W3C recommendation, which adds a set of attribute level extensions to XHTML for embedding rich metadata within web documents. While not everyone believes that W3C standards are incredibly necessary to operate a successful site, some see a great deal of potential for search engine optimization in RDFa.

In fact, this is the topic of a current WebProWorld thread, which was started by Dave Lauretti of MoreStar, who asks, “Are you working the RDFa Framework into your SEO campaigns?” He writes, “Now under certain conditions and with certain search strings on both Google and Yahoo we can find instances where the RDFa framework integrated within a website can enhance their listing in the search results.”

Lauretti refers to an article from last summer at A List Apart, by Mark Birbeck who said that Google was beginning to process RDFa and Microformats as it indexes sites, using the parsed data to enhance the display of search results with “rich snippets”. This results in the Google results you see like this:

“It’s a simple change to the display of search results, yet our experiments have shown that users find the new data valuable — if they see useful and relevant information from the page, they are more likely to click through,” Google said upon the launch of rich snippets.

Google says it is experimenting with markup for business and location data, but that it doesn’t currently display this information, unless the business or organization is part of a review (hence the results in the above example). But when review information is marked up in the body of a web page, Google can identify it and may make it available in search results. When review information is shown in search results, this can of course entice users to click through to the page (one of the many reasons to treat customers right and monitor your reputation).

Currently Google uses RDFa for reviews, but this search also displays the date of the review, the star rating, the author and the price range of an iPod, as Lauretti points out.

Best Buy’s lead web development engineer reported that by adding RDFa the company saw improved ranking for respective pages. They saw a 30% increase in traffic, and Yahoo evidently observed a 15% increase in click-through rates.(via Steven Pemberton)

Implications for SEO

I’m not going to get into the technical side of RDFa here (see resources listed later in the article), but I would like to get into some of the implications that Google’s use of RDFa could have on SEO practices. For one, rich snippets can show specific information related to products that are searched for. For example, a result for a movie search could bring up information like:

- Run time
- Release Date
- Rating
- Theaters that are showing it

“The implementation of RDFa not only gives more information about products or services but also increases the visibility of these in the latest generations of search engines, recommender systems and other applications,” Lauretti tells WebProNews. “If accuracy is an issue when it comes to search and search results then pages with RDFa will get better rankings as there would be little to question regarding the page theme.” (Source) He provides the following chart containing examples of the types of data that could potentially be displayed with RDFa:

“It is obvious that search marketers and SEOs will be utilizing this ability for themselves and their clients,” says Lauretti. Take contact information specifically. “Using RDFa in your contact information clarifies to the search engine that the text within your contact block of code is indeed contact information.” He says in this same light, “people information” can be displayed in the search results (usually social networking info). You could potentially show manufacturer information or author information.

RDFa actually has implications beyond just Google’s regular web search.
With respect to Google’s Image search, the owner of images can also use RDFa to provide license information about the images they own. Google currently allows image searchers to have images displayed based on license type, and using RDFa with your images lets the search bots know under which licenses you are making your images available (Via Mark Birbeck). There is also RDFa support for video.

Following are some resources where you can learn more about RDFa and how to implement it:

Google Introduces Rich Snippets
Introduction to RDFa
RDFa Primer
About RDFa (Google Webmaster Central)
RDFa to Provide Image License Info
RDFa Microformat Tagging For Your Website
For Businesses and Organizations
About Review Data (Google Webmaster Central)

Google’s Matt Cutts has said in the past that Google has been kind of “white listing” sites to get rich snippets, as Google feels they are appropriate, but as they grow more confident that such snippets don’t hurt the user experience, then Google will likely roll the ability out more and more broadly. This is one thing to keep an eye on as the year progresses, and is why those in the WebProWorld thread believe RDFa will become a bigger topic of discussion in 2010.

WebProNews would like to thank Dave Lauretti, who contributed some findings to this piece.

Update: As I pieced together this article, Google coincidentally announced support for rich snippets for Events.

Related Articles:

> Get Your Breadcrumbs in Google for More Links in Results
> Google Makes it Easier to Tell Where Results Originate From
> Get More Links in Your Actual Google Results

About the author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

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Here is an interesting article written by Titus Hoskins that I personally have seen some of the effects of. If you do ANY internet marketing at all, I feel that this is a MUST READ ……..

Next year may just prove to be one of the most challenging times for pursuing online or Internet marketing on the web. It may just be a watershed moment for many marketers struggling to keep abreast of all the different factors which have come into play in recent months. Most of these changes will stem from two main sources for potential upheaval: the first being the New FTC (Federal Trade Commission) Guidelines regarding Testimonials and Endorsements and the second being “ALL” the recent changes within Google.

Actually, we already have the new FTC Guidelines which came into effect on Dec. 1st of 2009, but how these new rules are enforced will play out in the coming year as test-cases are brought to court. Basically, these new rules call for absolute disclosure and full transparency regarding Testimonials and Endorsements when a product or service is being offered for sale. Any business (monetary) relationship between the endorser and the company must be made known to the potential buyer. Obviously for those in online or affiliate marketing this could have a great impact if these new rules are strictly enforced. Just imagine all the website owners and bloggers who slap a few banners or affiliate links on their sites to cover hosting or operating costs… will they now have to disclose all these business arrangements?

For professional affiliate marketers and the companies/products they’re promoting, these new guidelines could cause potential headaches and/or legal ramifications since a general blanket disclaimer on their sites will no longer be suffice. To help solve this problem, many of the major companies are now placing an “affiliate” tag on all their banners and making it obvious a business relationship exists with its affiliates. In addition, many online marketers are placing additional disclaimers, affiliate seals and in other ways making it known certain links are indeed affiliate links and a relationship does exist with the product and/or services being promoted.

With these new guidelines, another big issue is email marketing, one of the major marketing techniques of most online marketers. Will a full disclosure be necessary for every email sales pitch? Savvy web marketers know the key to increased sales is in the “follow-up” and the “cookie-ing” of potential buyers; how will the new Guidelines affect this very effective marketing practice? How all these new rules or guidelines play out will make next year a very interesting one for marketing on the web.

Despite this, perhaps the greatest cause for upheaval in the coming year will be Google. There are countless reasons why Google will be a major game changer in 2010 for online marketing. Ever since Bing and more recently the potential Bing/Yahoo competition, Google has gone into complete overdrive, implementing new changes and debuting new programs like there was no tomorrow.

First, we have Google Caffeine which Google is introducing (full force) early in the new year. Google Caffeine, which is a major overhaul of its search engine, will no doubt cause many a marketer some sleepless nights as the total fall-out becomes evident. Other Google updates in the past (Florida Update comes readily to mind) have wreaked havoc on many top ranking sites, but this time Google is doing things a little differently and have even given webmasters a beta version of the new search engine. Still, rightly or wrongly, many online marketers are bracing themselves for the full impact of Caffeine. Will it mean smooth sailing or a stomach sickening roller-coaster ride for marketers and webmasters?

Second, we have the introduction of “Real Time” search which will be featured in Google’s SERPs. This will make the social media sites like Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace… much more important. Again, the implications for online marketers could be enormous since many can now reach the first page through a different route. Will it also mean more “Real Time” spam? But more importantly, will it mean a greater marketing opportunity for the online marketer who exploits it?

Third, we are seeing Google moving more and more towards “Visual Search” with the introduction of Google Goggles for mobile phones. Just take a picture and you get the Google results instantly – no typing, just point and click. Just envision countless clueless teenagers or more importantly helpless shoppers suddenly being empowered with knowledge and wisdom. Could do more for education since the invention of the printed word and the info-commercial combined. Talk about scary! But will the implications for web marketing be just as revolutionary and enlightening?

Fourth, Google has made it known through its spokesperson Matt Cutts, that site-loading times will be a ranking factor in the new improved Google. Also, proper and correct page coding will also be more important if you want your site to be at full advantage. Broken links will be a big “No-No”, while linking out to important related sites a big plus. All this is only logical, Google’s main product is and has always been its search results, anything which improves those results and provides a more pleasing experience for the Google user should be front and center. Obviously, one way for Google to stay on top, is to provide the best search results to its users.

Fifth, in order to please the end-user, Google is also moving more towards “Personalized Search” which will make SEO and ranking in the top spot for your chosen keywords a total nightmare for many professional SEOs and online marketers. If everyone can choose their own top results, isn’t SEO more or less, a lame duck? Again, the ramifications of personalized search will further play out in 2010, but will professional marketers like what they see?

Finally, while no one would argue Google is King of the Hill when it comes to online search, will all these new changes strengthen or weaken Google’s grip? Will the combined Bing/Yahoo be able to give this giant some much needed competition? Or will Google’s main competition come from an unlikely source, such as big name multi-national corporations who are moving their operations online. Can these big-name keyworded domains start directly pulling in the majority of the web’s traffic, making all search engines secondary? As people become more web savvy, will they go directly to what they’re looking for on the web, bypassing the search engines altogether – including the mighty Google? Such a scenario could have greater consequences for the affiliate marketer since a direct line to a company’s site or product will obviously mean less sales for the online marketer, who really works in coordination with the search engines, either through organic search or PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising in these same search engines.

Overall, the new FTC Guidelines and recent changes to Google, will make next year one of the most interesting times to be pitching anything online. Throw into this the full effect that a combined Bing/Yahoo might bring to the table, and you have the recipe for a tumultuous white knuckle ride, until the dust finally settles and marketers make adjustments like they always do. Until then, hold on because things will probably get a little hectic for many web marketers before we see the light at the end of the tunnel.

About The Author
Titus Hoskins is a full time online affiliate marketer. His livelihood is derived from & dependent upon search engine marketing & daily monitoring of targeted keywords, mainly within Google. He runs numerous sites, including: Free Marketing Tools & Internet Marketing Tools
Titus Hoskins Copyright 2009. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

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Google To Begin Rolling Out Caffeine Update After Holidays

Update: Out at PubCon in Las Vegas, Mike McDonald of WebProNews discussed the rolling out of the Caffeine update further with popular search enthusiast Barry Schwartz:

Original Article (by Chris Crum)
It appears that the effects of Google’s Caffeine update may be felt sooner rather than later. That is if you really do feel the effects at all.

If you are unfamiliar with Caffeine, it is an algorithm update that Google announced in the summer. Upon the announcement, Google’s Matt Cutts said, “The Caffeine update isn’t about making some UI changes here or there. Currently, even power users won’t notice much of a difference at all. This update is primarily under the hood: we’re rewriting the foundation of some of our infrastructure.” Cutts told WebProNews about Caffeine in the following interview:

When Caffeine was introduced, so was a sandbox, where people could play around with Caffeine based search results, and get a look at how rankings were altered (if at all), and try to get a feel for how it was going to go. Now that sandbox has closed up shop, it looks like the Caffeine update will be live in Google search before too long. It will start after the holidays at least though.

“I know that webmasters can get anxious around this time of year, so I wanted to reassure site owners that the full Caffeine roll out will happen after the holidays,” says Cutts on his blog. “Caffeine will go live at one data center so that we can continue to collect data and improve the technology, but I don’t expect Caffeine to go live at additional data centers until after the holidays are over. Most searchers wouldn’t immediately notice any changes with Caffeine, but going slowly not only gives us time to collect feedback and improve, but will also minimize the stress on webmasters during the holidays.”

The announcement at what used to be the Caffeine sandbox reads:

Of course as people tested Caffeine via the sandbox, many of them blogged about their results and findings. The general consensus seemed to be that Caffeine is fast and utilizes real-time search a great deal. Given Google’s frequent announcements related to speed, and a recently announced deal with Twitter, speed and real-time search seem like logical updates to Google search results.

When SEOBook’s Aaron Wall tested Caffeine, he said he thought there was:

- an increased weighting on domain authority & some authoritative tag type pages ranking (like Technorati tag pages + Facebook tag pages), as well as pages on sites like Scribd ranking for some long tail queries based mostly on domain authority and sorta spammy on page text

- perhaps slightly more weight on exact match domain names

- perhaps a bit better understanding of related words / synonyms

- tuning down some of the exposure for video & some universal search results

This stuff should not necessarily be taken as gospel. These are just the results and speculations of individuals from tests of a product that was only introduced (for testing purposes), let alone finalized. It is what it is.

As the Caffeine update rolls out, there will no doubt be more and more mystery unraveled as search industry professionals scramble to stay ahead of the game, and Google drops subtle hints from time to time. It’s going to be interesting to see where Caffeine takes the world’s most popular search engine.

Have you tested Caffeine? What do you think about the update? Share your findings with SiteProNews.

About the Author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Twitter: @CCrum237

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Google announced yesterday that it has been working on a project called “Caffeine” that will re-write the architecture for Google’s Web search. As Matt Cutts shares exclusively with WebProNews, Caffeine is comparable to the “Big Daddy Update” back in 2005, which consisted of changes to the way Google crawls and indexes websites.

How much of an impact will Caffeine have on results? Matt says there will, hopefully, not be a big difference. Google will integrate Caffeine slowly and take user feedback into consideration.

Matt says, “If we push forward as fast as we can, double down on innovation and try to do the best that we can, [and] do the right thing for users, everything else will work out.”

This infrastructure modification will lay the foundation for future indexing changes and will also allow for the expansion of website speed and size. Incidentally, it could even provide a stronger architecture for potential real-time and semantic efforts.

If you would like to try Caffeine, you can check it out at: http://www2.sandbox.google.com.

Stay tuned to WebProNews as we continue to bring you exclusive coverage from SES San Jose 2009.

About This Article:
This article was provided via WPN Videos – Balancing Blogs And Twitter on August 11th, 2009

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You know that domain name that you don’t want anyone to know that you own?

The one that you’re either testing out some SEO stuff that’s in the “gray hat” area?

The one you don’t want your competitors to know that you own?

The one you’ve been considering for sending spam emails?

Yeah, that one.

Well, the Ninth Circuit court of appeals just ruled that using any kind of domain privacy service could get you into legal trouble:

Simply using a domain privacy service doesn’t make you a criminal, but the ruling appears to suggest that the use of such a service-especially in the use of sending spam emails-could be interpreted as trying to evade identification.

You probably don’t have to worry about the local sheriff knocking on your door, but as far as this ruling goes, no matter what your intentions, concealing your ownership of a domain is-by the letter of the law-material falsification.

Legal eagles, feel free to weigh in with your expert opinions!

About the Author:
Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts.

Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.

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