Thursday, January 22, 2009

Section 2: Around the Net in Search Marketing

, January 22, 2009 Subscribe | Back Issues | Reply to Editor | MediaPost Home

What Can People Teach A Web Crawler?
SEO by the Sea
Search engine Web crawlers can learn from people perusing sites, according to Bill Slawski, who points to Yahoo patent application No. 20090019354 to demonstrate and detail his point. The patent abstract reads: "A user's browsing activities on a Web site are captured. The user's browsing activities includes affixing labels to Web pages and filling out forms. The captured activities are analyzed for patterns."

Slawski provides insight on how user/site interaction could assist webmasters, manual reviewers and content subscribers. He also defines two types of Web crawling: free and focused. He describes approaches for each, pointing to problems with focused crawling, and why and when a search engine might use one approach over the other. - Read the whole story...

Cost-Per-Lead At What Cost?
Search Engine Land
Continually reducing cost-per-lead, defining the cost/volume relationship, finding the efficient marketing curve, and determining the optimal cost for the lead are among the topics Patricia Hursh addresses in this post. "It's amazing how few companies can tell you what an online lead is really worth," she writes, laying out the problem and then providing the solution.

Hursh believes there is an "optimal lead cost" for each company -- and establishing the correct cost-per-lead model means testing the market relationship between volume and cost. Return on investment (ROI) drives this, she writes. Determining this metrics give any company a "big advantage over their competition when navigating the marketing efficiency curve." - Read the whole story...

Getting More From Web Site Optimizer
Google AdWords
In the first of a series on doing more with less resources, Amanda Kelly details how to get more conversions related to sales, form fills and account sign-ups from your Web site. It's no secret that one way to increase sales without increasing budgets is to convert a higher percentage of visitors to your Web site. So, Kelly tells us how to pay for the same number of clicks, but have a higher percentage of them turn into customers.

One way to do this is with Website Optimizer, a free Google tool that allows you to compare multiple versions of a Web page and statistically determine the version that performs best. For instance, Kelly explains, you can create two different landing pages, one with four small pictures versus a page with one large picture, and "scientifically determine" the design that has the highest conversion rate. "Sometimes small changes, like changing the size of an image or the wording of a special promotion, can improve conversion rates by 10, 20, or even 50%," she writes. - Read the whole story...

SEO's Glory Days?
E-consultancy
Patricio Robles disputes Mike Grehan's blog post on ClickZ last week that asserts "SEO's glory days are over. And we should get over it. Nobody is online looking for content." In a synopsis of the post, Robles admits Grehan makes "some valid points" based on the fact social media has become "extremely" important and has changed the way many people use the Internet to consume and produce content.

"But this is not an either/or proposition," Robles writes. "It's not community or content." Whether content takes the form of text, video or photos, it remains a vital part of building an audience. Robles, who believes SEO remains in its infancy, provides insights on increasing Web site traffic with SEO across many kinds of content. - Read the whole story...

Steve Plunkett's SEO Experiments
Search Engine Journal
In an interview with Ann Smarty, SEO guru Steve Plunkett runs down the most important rules one should follow when running an SEO experiment. "My actually job title should be 'SEO scientist' instead of 'director of Internet marketing,"' Plunkett says, because he sits in his office daily, turns up the music and experiments. "I am running about 70+ experiments right now," he adds.

The rules range from documenting all facts prior to conducting the experiment, to either retesting or modifying experiments if additional variables introduce themselves prior to completion. Other topics discussed include keyword-rich internal anchor text and over-optimization, common mistakes people make when conducting SEO experiments, and some of the eight experiments Plunkett began before leaving the office two weeks prior to New Year's Eve. - Read the whole story...



Search Insider - Around the Net for Thursday, January 22, 2009
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?sfa=ed&t=44&d=2009-1-22

 

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