SEO Blog

For anyone using Twitter, the ability to analyse their data is made very easy, dare I say enjoyable, with Twitter Analyzer.

This free service provides an overview of your Twitter activity, for example, the number of “Tweets” on a given day and the reach of your readers.

(more…)

Bing continues to confound its critics and rivals with impressive statistical data just a couple of weeks after it was first launched. In the latest statistics provided by comScore, it has seen a 3% rise in both searcher penetration and share of search result pages, to leave it at 16.7% and 12.1% respectively for the week ending 12/06/2009.

It will certainly be interesting to keep an eye on the rise of Bing and where it eventually levels off. Google of course remain well out in front, but rivals like Yahoo and Ask may well be looking like also-rans if they’re unable to gain back some momentum from the marauding Microsoft Bing.

(more…)

The need for keeping content fresh and relevant is instilled in all SEO professionals. Regular moderation is required in order to ensure that everything on your site is as it’s supposed to be, just as we highlighted in an earlier post titled Craigslist & Facebook Highlight the Need for Standards in Content.

Unfortunately, this is a point that has been further highlighted by Richard Baxter. In a piece written for SEOgadget, he discusses how his Google rankings took a nosedive. What was the reason for this capitulation? Simple, inappropriate comments on his blog posts.

(more…)

Holiday Calling Ltd was established in 2007 to offer the consumer an online one-stop-shop for planning, creating and booking independent holidays.

We are delighted to announce Impact Media have been appointed as the company’s professional Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Partner, to implement and manage the SEO Strategy for both Ibiza Calling and Mallorca Calling.

To find out more about how Impact Media can raise your online profile please visit our SEO Services page.

As mentioned recently in our post entitled Facebook Overtakes MySpace in US Social Networking Superiority, MySpace have bucked the trend of resurgent social media sites and have actually seen widespread drops in membership and visitor numbers.

Whilst they still maintain a solid second position, the plight of the once runaway leader has never been more graphically illustrated than with today’s announcement that they will be laying off 30% of their staff.

(more…)

Just as with the Google Define: functionality, the calculator is extremely simple to use and remarkably effective tool. Like many of the search quirks found on Google, the calculator is accessible just by using the conventional search bar to perform your maths for you.

It can work out some reasonably complex problems too, so don’t be afraid to test it. Whether you put in the calculation numerically or textually, Google will almost instantaneously provide you with an accurate answer.

So if you’re forever misplacing your calculator and need a quick sum working out, look no further than Google. It’s quick, it’s accessible and it’s easy to use.

Google Webmaster Tools now allows site owners to notify Google if you’ve changed domains. This “change of address” tool will update the search index for 180 days by which point your new domain should have been crawled and indexed.

Moving Domain

The standard rules apply though, i.e. should still use a 301 permanent redirect for your old site to new domain. See Google’s own guidelines for moving an old to new domain.

The Iranian political crisis has exemplified the growing shift away from conventional media. With journalists almost universally barred from entering Tehran, meaningful news reports have been few and far between, particularly on television.

Social media, or as Jeff Pulver referred to it “now media”, has once again shown itself to be a powerful voice, and one that isn’t easily silenced. Twitter has very much lead the way in the reporting of the Iran electoral upheaval. With people caught up in the turmoil being able to provide firsthand accounts of what is going on, news is able to proliferate across the Internet in seconds.
(more…)

Just when you though the world of search engines might quieten down a little, along comes Hunch. Bing was touted as the first ‘decision engine’, but it appears Hunch has gone one step further and has made a mockery of that claim barely two weeks after it was released.

This search decision engine isn’t simply about feeding visitors endless websites, which may or may not contain the answers to their queries. Hunch takes a slightly different approach, you type in your keywords and find a question that matches your requirements. It then takes you through a series of questions, until finally reaching a conclusion. This is presented, not in the form of a website, but as a straightforward answer, sometimes with a link to a useful online resource – Wikipedia for example/.

(more…)

Matt Cutts and the Webspam Team at Google have been hard at work in recent weeks. Invariably most of their ‘major’ announcements have coincided with news proliferating from other sources that is either detrimental towards Google, or positive about their rivals, notably Bing.

Late on yesterday evening, Matt Cutts posted a new blog article concerning the ongoing PageRank Sculpting controversy. In this, he essentially suggests that the nofollow rule is largely redundant apart from those sites that you really wouldn’t vouch for. Cutts suggests that building quality links and providing a website that is of a high enough standard to encourage users to link back, is the way forward.

(more…)

Local search plays a big part in online business, so recent updates to Google Local Business Centre will be welcomed by most companies with an online presence.

This free service has been used by hundreds of thousands of businesses throughout the world, providing an extra search dynamic to their SEO structure. When consumers search for a service and a location, just as I have below with ‘Florists in Portsmouth’, they will ordinarily receive the standard results along with a local map and a breakdown of the outlets in that area; which is where the Local Business Centre comes in.
(more…)

To maintain a fresh and interesting blog these days you need a good source of top quality news sources. Whilst the big guns out there – TechCrunch, Econsultancy and Mashable to name but a few – dedicate time to researching and resourcing the very latest in breaking news, much of the industry remains dependent on re-spinning the latest articles with their own insight.

But with a greater emphasis placed on the immediacy of news, is an RSS feed to most efficient way of unearthing breaking stories any more? RSS will always have a place, it’s where you can go straight to a certain blog and get everything you need in one hit, whilst of course being informed about updates. However, Twitter has now stolen quite a good deal of its thunder.

(more…)

Firefox have now started allowing “Add-on Collections” which is a great way for users of Firefox to share, or make public, their favourite plugins (add-ons) for a give topic.

One of those to already be made available is a “Best of Breed Firefox Collection for SEO and Internet Marketers” from Andy Beard. Andy’s assembled some very useful plugins here in one collection so you could add them all or just view the list and add individually. Enjoy!

Welcome to part two of our look at the socialisation of media and the movement away from traditional formats. Click on the following link for part one of Changing Media Landscape: The Rise of Social Media.

In the last few weeks alone we have continued to see just how social media is becoming a source of real-time news and interactivity. Politics have stirred up a number of stories, from the MPs expenses scandal to the humbling election defeats for Labour – particularly at the hands of the BNP. Earlier in the week a story emerged from The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which revealed that politician Mir-Hossein Mousavi was using Facebook and other social media sites to communicate with young voters.
(more…)

Google recently launched Web Elements. This new service allows Webmasters to quickly and easily add different dynamic functionality to any web page.

The current “Elements” include:

• Calendar
• Conversation (comments direct on your site)
• Custom Search
• Maps
• Custom News
• Presentations
• Spreadsheets
• Video News

Obviously, these expand upon the functionality already used with Adsense and YouTube video.

Website owners wanting to freshen up a site or develop new ways to communicate and engage with visitors should find some useful tools at Google Web Elements.

This is the first in a series of articles on the various applications that Google currently provide. We all know about Google Earth, Mail and of course Search, but there are many more tools that some users may not be quite so aware of; which will hopefully shed some light on in the coming weeks.

The first of these is the extremely simple, yet incredibly useful Google ‘Define:’. When using the site, whether in your toolbar or the main Google search screen, simply type in ‘define:’ followed by a word – for example ‘define: incredulity’. Once you’ve filled in the search, you should get an answer that looks something like the graphic below.

Whilst it may not be the most complex of procedures, this feature is an incredibly invaluable resource, particularly for a quick reference. It’ll provide answers from a number of sources ordinarily, with a small definition accompanying the URL of the site who provided the information.

Define: is certainly one of those tools that make Google such a useful one-stop referencing site. It’s also one that other search engines will need to better if they are to make a real dent in Google’s domination of the current market.

A good barometer for what is and what isn’t important in the world of SEO is whether or not Google are talking about it. Despite the emergence of Bing and perennial rivals Yahoo, Google remains the dominant force in the world of search engines. So when their Webmaster Central Blog starts talking about the importance of Sitemaps, it’s probably time to listen.

Of course, it’s not exactly an industry secret that Sitemaps are an integral part of general SEO. However, with a three-fold rise in Sitemap submissions online last year and Google openly acknowledging (based on their earlier research) that they can help to get your site pages indexed quicker, it does make sense to implement one as soon as possible.
(more…)

On reading the headline ‘SEO Copywriting is Dead! Here’s Proof…’  this morning, I was understandably a little taken aback. As a copywriter working in the online marketing sector, SEO is invariably a large part of what I do personally, and of course what Impact Media do as a company.

But behind the headline, there is in fact a very good series of arguments that suggest heavily optimised copy is no longer the force it once was. Whilst some of the points within this article may be stronger than others, the key message is one of quality above keywords.
(more…)

Barely a day goes by currently without someone talking about the new Microsoft Bing search engine. Some of it positive, a good deal of it negative. But the word of mouth campaign that appears to be happening is seemingly getting under the skin of a few of the rival execs.

Yahoo executive Carol Bartz hasn’t pulled any punches in her damning criticism of Microsoft and Bing itself. She had this to say about Statcounter’s results that found Bing had overtaken Yahoo last week (as we reported in the post Bing Leapfrogs Yahoo! in First Week) “They didn’t beat us by much. It was one day. I think it’s gosh maybe it was in Omaha some place; It was some small area.”

(more…)

Continuing our series of entries on how modern technology is altering the way in which we use and perceive the media; today’s entry is the first of a two part segment on the rise of social media.

As with every epochal shift, the move away from the distant traditional media towards that of the highly interactive, user-generated social media, has taken many by surprise. Whilst some resolutely maintain that it is just a passing fad which offers little benefit to society, others have followed the groundswell and embraced it.

(more…)

With the three major search engines battling for brand domination, the actual rankings and results are becoming increasingly overlooked. So how do you go about picking the search engine that genuinely provides the results you want on demand each and every time?

Well that is where BlindSearch comes in. It’s not bulletproof, particularly when it comes to searching for local sites (as I tried), however it does give a decent and completely blind interpretation of which search results are best for your needs.

(more…)

Google continue to haemorrhage key staff at an alarming rate. Today Business Insider announced that Google Adwords Operations Chief Grady Burnett is to jump ship and move to Facebook to head up their advertising arm.

Burnett’s departure is one of many high profile cases over the past few months, which have included David Rosenblatt, Tim Armstrong (CEO of AOL) and the suitably named Larry Brilliant, who was in charge of Google’s philanthropic section and now works for Skoll in a similar role. So maybe all isn’t as peaceful as it seems on the good ship Google. That said, ambition and skill set poaching are probably more accountable than any real underlying issue.

(more…)

WebProNews, courtesy of statistics provided by Statcounter, today announced that Microsoft Bing has leapfrogged Yahoo as the number two search engine.

As reported earlier in the week in ‘The Birth of the ‘Decision Engine’: Microsoft Bing Goes Live’, Bing isn’t a Google-killer, not yet at any rate. The primary objective was instead to oust the current incumbents of the second most popular search engine spot; something they appear to have done with remarkable ease and swiftness.

(more…)

Social Media site Digg is introducing a new scheme for their advertisers. Revolving around the basic premise of Digg, where users are encouraged to vote for websites, blog posts and other articles of interest, this ad ranking system will charge companies based on the popularity of their advertisements.

The idea, according the Digg blog, is to provide a better experience for its users. Innovative advertisers will be rewarded with lowered costs whilst those who prove less popular will be effectively priced out of the game.

(more…)

We hope that you enjoy reading the information in our blog. It’s intended to be a mix of information for anyone interested in search engine marketing, together with observations and news stories related to the Internet and “search” in particular. We also use it, of course, to announce news related to Impact Media such as when a new client chooses us for their SEO or PPC management.

However, if you’ve read through the information in our blog and are still hungry for more, you really should pay a visit to the BIGLIST of Search Marketing Blogs.

BIGLIST of Search Marketing Blogs

This is a comprehensive resource listing some of the most popular blogs related to the search engine marketing industry and has over 400 entries at the time of writing this post.