As you may have seen, Steve Ballmer unveiled Bing, Microsoft’s new search product today. Bing will begin rolling out internally to Microsoft employees today and will be unveiled to the public in the coming days. For more information on what Bing is all about, take a look at today’s post on the main Bing blog . So what does Bing mean to you as a webmaster? All good things; including an improved Webmaster Center with access to the tools you need to help drive more traffic and enhance your site. We have a few more updates up our sleeve including a brand new community site for all things Bing, which you will hear more about in the coming days. In the meantime, visit http://www.decisionengine...
Let’s just say it. Content is king. There. It’s done. That’s everything you need to know about improving page rank, right? Well… Content may be king, but as in modern monarchies, the king may not be the sole authority. Parliaments now rule, and they are made up of many constituent parts of society. And while the quality of your site’s content can have a leading role in helping you optimize your site’s organic ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs), it’s a multitude of constituent parts of your webpages that constitute the whole process of search engine optimization (SEO). But in this post, we’re talking about the king. King Content...
In a blog post last month , we identified the preferred method for providing feedback on any Live Search crawler issues you may have experienced. We would like to thank everyone for taking the time to provide us with this feedback and let you know what we have done on our end. But first, a little background. Our crawler, MSNBot, performs many different functions. We have blogged about our cloaking detection in the past, so I’m not giving away any secrets by saying that we are actively looking to identify and weed out spammers who are using cloaking in malicious ways. We’ve also introduced a new feed crawling function that will help provide fresh results. In addition to this, we are...
In my previous post on developing your keyword list, we discussed techniques and considerations for developing a list of relevant keywords and key phrases for the pages on your website that are highly specific and (hopefully) not overly competitive. All of this is effort is geared toward making your website stand out from the competition in search engine results pages (SERPs). But developing a list of great keywords is just the start. You now need to use them strategically in your web pages (especially the home page). The manner in which you implement your keywords can make the difference between mediocre success and optimal success. And I am all for optimal! Not all words are equal When search...
Mark Twain once famously said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” Twain never saw a webpage or performed search engine optimization (SEO) in his life, but his assessment of the importance of using the right words is, shall we say, illuminated. So why are words important in terms of SEO? Because users type them into search engines to try to find you! That’s what separates regular body text words from keywords. Focusing on the wrong keywords on your website may, at best, bring visitors who don’t see the relevance of and aren’t interested in what your site has to offer. At worst...
Quick note from the author: The closing teaser from my last post said the next post would cover building a toolbox. I’ve decided to take another tack on this and make references to tools as we go along in the series to keep the unfolding story as interesting, active, and relevant as possible. Sorry for the misdirection! – Rick --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Before you can begin to effectively optimize and market your website for your audience, you need to know who that audience is. Who are your website’s customers today? From which group can you effectively draw the most response, whether that be an online sale, a visit...
Are you going to be in the Bay area tomorrow? Do you have a vested interest in search marketing? Know any web developers? Well then, make sure drop in to the Microsoft technology center in Mountain View, CA for a hearty discussion of search marketing hosted Microsoft, with guest speakers: Vanessa Fox, famed creator of Google’s Webmaster Tools, and Sean Suchter, previous VP of Yahoo. Microsoft Campus in Mountain View Event : Jane & Robot SEO Meetup When : May 6, 2009 from 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm Where : 1065 La Avenida, Mountain View, California 94043 Bring all your search questions, and of course there will be plenty of food, drinks and opportunities for networking. Follow @janeandrobot...
I have a good friend who creates websites for personal users and small non-profits. When I told him about my new project, blogging about search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO), he wondered aloud, “Who in the world cares about that stuff? What does it matter? There are only so many Amazons in the world, anyway.” I was initially surprised by his reaction. But his comments got me thinking – what is the point of SEM? Does it only apply to the big players in the online business world? Does this stuff really matter to anyone? Of course, the answer isn’t as clear as those of you reading this blog might initially think. In reality, the answer is (as...
