Keyword Research Tools & Techniques

Keyword Research Tools & Techniques
The SMX West 2009 session for “Keyword Research Tools & Tactics” featured speaker Christine Churchill from KeyRelevance. Christine spoke about the basics of keyword

Bing Offers Up Image Optimization Tips

Bing Offers Up Image Optimization Tips

Over on the Bing blog, Todd Schwartz is offering up some tips on optimizing your photos and graphics for image search. Schwartz says that Bing’s top image developer recommends the following:

• Name image files appropriately - For improved relevance, make sure that the file name describes the image appropriately.
• Alternative image text (alt text) matters - For increased optimization, make sure photos are properly described with alternative text tags, and ensure that test within any images is also
• Watch frame breaking - Sites that attempt to break frames make it more difficult for the image to display correctly within search. Make sure you’re testing your site against the search engines.

Wondering how important image search is? Schwartz addressed that very question as a panelist at the Image Search session at SES San Jose a few weeks back. He shared image search data from comScore for June 2009. Over 60 million searches produced more than 1 billion image searches. So yeah, I’d say that image search is pretty darn important.

What say you? Leave your thoughts on image search in the comments below.

How to Exponentially Boost Your Targeted Website Traffic

How to Exponentially Boost Your Targeted Website Traffic
Few things in an SEO’s life are sweeter than watching one page of a site hit pay dirt for a high-volume, high-relevance keyword in Google.

Microsoft Yahoo Deal Makes SES San Jose 2009 Must-Attend Event

Microsoft Yahoo Deal Makes SES San Jose 2009 Must-Attend Event

So, I’m sure you’ve already about the Microsoft-Yahoo deal. If you haven’t, check out the news stories and blog posts below:

It’s Official: Microsoft and Yahoo! Finally Strike Search Deal

It’s official: Microsoft-Yahoo ink 10-year search pact

Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal: The Most Important Facts (And Some Opinion)

But if you want to figure out what MicroHoo means for your search engine marketing campaign, including your search engine optimization and pay per click advertising programs, then Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2009 is a must-attend event. It was already the right place to be and August 10-14 was already the right time to be there. But now it is the hottest ticket in town.

For example, you might want to attend the session entitled, “Don’t Call it a Comeback: Semantic Technology and Search.” Among the speakers who will be there for Q&A are: Othar Hansson, Software Engineer, Google, Kevin Haas, Senior Engineering Manager, Yahoo!, Mark Johnson, Program Manager, Bing, and Dr. Tomasz Imielinski, EVP, Global Search & Answers, Ask.com. I imagine they are all busy preparing for the event.

Or, there’s the session entitled, “SEO Tools of the Trade: What’s in YOUR Toolbox?” Among the speakers are Rajesh Srivastava, Principal Group Program Manager, Bing, and David Roth, Director of Search Marketing, Yahoo!, Inc. Will they play nicely and share the same advice?

Or, there’s the session entitled, “Keeping it Local: The Convergence of Phones & Local Search.” Among the speakers are Josh Siegel, Product Manager, Mobile Local Search, Google, and Justin Jed, Group Product Manager, Bing Mobile. Will we see the SES version of PubCon’s Search Engine Smackdown?

Or, there’s the session entitled, “Keywords & Content: Search Marketing Foundations.” Among the speakers are Marc Canabou, Senior Director, Product Management Leader, Yahoo! Search Advertising, and Ari Levenfeld, Manager Client Services, Ask Sponsored Listings. Do you think they are updating their presentation as you are reading this?

Or, there’s the session entitled, “Credit Crunch: The Death of Last Click Attribution and its Impact on Paid Search Advertising.” Among the speakers is Mark Grote, Sr. Search Advertising Manager , Microsoft. Do you think you should be taking notes?

Or, there’s the session entitled, “Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues.” Among the speakers are Greg Grothaus, Search Quality Team, Google, Sasi Parthasarathy, Program Manager, Bing, Ivan Davtchev, Lead Product Manager, Search Relevance, Yahoo! Search. The moderator may need to keep this from turning into a tag-team wrestling event.

Or, there’s the sponsored session entitled, “Bing Toolbox: Your One-Stop Shop for Better ROI.” The speakers are Rajesh Srivastava, Principal Group Program Manager, Bing, and Alessandro Catorcini, Senior Program Manager, Bing. This has just become a must-attend session.

Or, there’s the afternoon keynote by Nicholas Fox, Business Product Management Director, AdWords, Google. I wouldn’t skip this one, if I were you.

Or, there’s the session entitled, “The BuyerSphere Project: Understanding B2B Buyer Patterns.” Among the speakers is Mark McMaster, Senior Planner of B2B and Technology Markets, Google. This was a must-attend session already, but now you will really need to run, not walk, to get a good seat.

Or, there’s the session entitled, “Real World Multivariate Testing.” Among the speakers is Trevor Claiborne, Product Marketing Manager, Google. What new messages will he be testing at this event?

Or, there’s the session entitled, “Ads in a Quality Score World.” Among the speakers are Tomaso Pozzi, Product Manager, Core Model & Optimization, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Jonathan Alferness, Group Product Manager, Google. I want a ringside seat for this one.

Or, there’s the session entitled, “The New Search ROI: Measuring More than Conversion.” Among the speakers is James Colborn, Director, Microsoft Advertising, Microsoft. I know James. I’m sure he’d rather be invited to the White House for a beer with the Google guy, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. So, he may just have to make the best of it at this pivotal time in the industry.

Or, there’s the session entitled, “Images & Search Engines: Getting the Full Picture.” Among the speakers are R.J. Pittman, Director of Product Management, Google, Todd Schwartz, Group Product Manager, Bing, Microsoft Corporation, and Kaushal Kurapati, Director of Product Management, Yahoo! Search. I want photos taken of this panel discussion.

Or, there’s the session entitled, “In-House SEO: Structuring the Organization for Success.” Among the speakers is Laura Lippay, Director of Technical Marketing, Yahoo! Do you think it’s too soon to ask if Microsoft-Yahoo are structuring their organizations for success?

Or, there’s the session entitled, “Search Becomes the Display OS.” Among the speakers are Rajas Moonka, Group Business Product Manager, Google Inc., and Josh Jacobs, Vice President and General Manager, Advertising Technology, Yahoo! Inc. Oh, boy, this is going to be great.

Now, the last time that “Microsoft-Yahoo deal” was a search term was back in February 2008. Microsoft Corp. had just announced that it had made a proposal to the Yahoo! Inc. Board of Directors to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion.

Since it was an unsolicited bid, nobody wanted to talk about MicroHoo when they turned up at SES London 2008 two weeks later.

But, this time the Microsoft-Yahoo deal is a done deal. So, I’m betting that everyone wants to talk about what MicroHoo means for the search engine marketing industry.

And since I was already planning to be at SES San Jose 2009, now I’m going to have to scramble to get seats in the front row.

YouTube Biz Blog Touts Social Media and Video Strategies Forum

YouTube Biz Blog Touts Social Media and Video Strategies Forum

How cool is this? On Monday, I posted “Social Media & Video Strategies To Be Held With SES San Jose:. It broke the news that ClickZ, YouTube and Google will be holding an event on August 11, 2009, in conjunction with SES San Jose 2009.

Then on Tuesday, the YouTube Biz Blog posted “Join Us at the SES Social Media & Video Strategies Forum.” Kristin Kovner, the Industry Marketing Manager at YouTube, said, “We’re excited to be a part of this first-time ever event. SES is one of the best places for businesses to learn about search; now that YouTube has millions of searches each day, it’s only fitting that ClickZ and SES are expanding the agenda to include a full day dedicated to video and social media.”

Just as importantly, the YouTube Biz Blog embedded the featured video on the SESConferenceExpo’s Channel on YouTube. Views of the video, which was uploaded four months ago, shot up immediately. You can see the video for youself below.

Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo

This illustrates the link between search and social media that I mentioned on Monday and Mike Grehan writes about in his cover story in the latest issue of SES Magazine.

Additional evidence can be found in research conducted by TubeMogul entitled “How do people discover videos online?” Here’s the gist of what they found:

– 45% of all videos are found on a video site, i.e. going to YouTube and doing a search or clicking around featured and related videos.
— 44% of all videos are found embedded in blogs.
— 6% of all videos are found with search engines, like Google.
— 2% of all videos are found in social networks, like Facebook.
— 2% of all videos found in social bookmarking sites.
— Less than 1% of all videos are found with video search engines, like Google Video.

So, optimizating the title, description and tags of your YouTube video is half of the success formula. But the other half is engaging what Google calls “the buzzing blogger community.”

I mentioned this a year ago at SES San Jose 2008 during a video interview with Liana Evans, who was then with KeyRelevance and is now with Serengeti Communications. Looking at it again a year later, I wouldn’t change a word. (And I can’t anyway.)

VSEO - Video Search Engine Optimization - with Greg Jarboe at SES San Jose 2008

So, stay tuned. Because this year’s events — as you can see in the SES San Jose 2009 agenda and the Social Media and Video Strategies agenda — are likely to demonstrate the link between search and social big time.

Submit Your Entries for the 2009 Search Engine Watch Awards

Submit Your Entries for the 2009 Search Engine Watch Awards

Since 1997, Search Engine Watch (SEW) has been keeping marketers and site owners informed about the world of search engine marketing through daily news and expert advice. Combined with Search Engine Strategies (SES), the leading international conference series, SEW and SES have guided search marketers of all skill levels through the fast changing and complex world of search for more than 10 years.

We’re adding to that guidance with the 2009 Search Engine Watch Awards. Submissions open today for these awards, which aim to recognize excellence, as well as inspire innovation and encourage new ideas in search marketing. The SEW Awards will honor outstanding search marketers and vendors, as judged by a panel of industry experts and the Search Engine Watch editorial staff.

There are 14 categories for the 2009 SEW Awards:

• Search Engine with Most Relevant Results
• Most Innovative New Search Engine)
• Best Search Engine Ad Platform
• Technology Platform Search Marketers Can’t Live Without
• Best SEM Technology Platform for SMBs
• Best Social Media Platform for Marketers
• Best Web Analytics Platform
• Most Innovative Use of Search Engine Optimization
• Most Innovative Paid Search Campaign
• Best Social Media Marketing Campaign
• Best Business-to-Business Search Marketing Campaign
• Best Use of Local Search
• Best Integration of Search with Other Media
• Most Effective Use of Web Analytics

Entrants may submit nominations for multiple categories, but each submission must focus on the four key areas of consideration:

1. Innovation in methodology and execution
2. Achieving success goals
3. Excellence in tactical execution
4. Overall approach and category relevance

Submissions will be accepted through July 17, 2009. The application fee is $145 per entry.

Winners will be announced at SES San Jose in August. Finalists will be notified by July 27, 2009, and will receive 1-day passes to the show for the day on which the winner in their category is announced.

Keywords Importance and Uses

Keywords Importance and Uses
The first step in the area of search engine marketing (SEM) is to understand the relevance & importance of keywords. Keywords are the starting blocks of a successful SEM campaign. Any Professional Sea…

YouTube Surpasses 100 Million U.S. Viewers for the First Time?

YouTube Surpasses 100 Million U.S. Viewers for the First Time?

This just handed me…according to an email from comScore about their press release distributed on PR Newswire and posted on their website, YouTube has just surpassed 100 million U.S. viewers for the first time. Ironically, there was no online video with the announcement.

Nevertheless, this is big news. According to the January 2009 data release today by the comScore Video Metrix service, more than 147 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 101 videos per viewer in January. This means 76.8% of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed 14.8 billion online videos during the month.

That’s more people than watched Super Bowl XLIII on NBC!

According to comScore, the duration of the average online video was 3.5 minutes. This means that the average online video viewer watched 356 minutes of video in January — approximately 6 hours a month.

That’s more time than the Super Bowl pre-game, game and post-game coverage combined — including the half-time show!

Leading the way was YouTube. You remember them. The video sharing site that Google acquired for $1.65 billion back in the fall of 2006.

100.9 million viewers watched 6.3 billion videos on YouTube.com in January — 62.6 videos per viewer that month. That’s makes YouTube the top U.S. video property. YouTube.com also accounted for more than 99% of the 6.4 billion videos viewed at Google Sites. This means the number of videos viewed at Google Video is now round off error.

And Yahoo! Video, which began as a video search engine, was launched in February 2008 with a new focus on Yahoo-hosted video only. In other words, it became a video sharing site — like YouTube.

So, I think it’s time to declare that video search engines are dead. They were killed by their siblings, video sharing sites. Even MySpace, which ranks second with 473 million videos viewed in January, is a video sharing site.

Since neither YouTube nor MySpace crawl the video on your website or blog, I think it is also time to declare that video search engine optimization is dead. You might still want to optimize your videos for YouTube, but if you don’t upload them to YouTube, they will never be found in a YouTube search.

And YouTube search is just one of many ways that people discover videos on YouTube. I talked about this at SES London 2009 — Li Evans of Key Relevance interviewed me about this surprising outcome afterwords. Check out the video interview below.

Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR discusses YouTube and Video Marketing

I plan to share this case study again at SES New York 2009 — at the “Video Search Engine Optimization: 2009 and Beyond” session. Yes, this session will look at “how video search engine optimization (VSEO) has become the most important new use of search engine optimization today.”

Hey, the description was written before the news was just handed to me. So, this should make for a pretty interesting discussion. Li is on the panel again, along with Gregory Markel, the Founder/President of Infuse Creative, Henry Hall, the Senior Product Manager of Microsoft Live Search, and Matthew Liu, the Product Manager of YouTube Sponsored Videos. The moderator is Jeff Ferguson, SES Advisory Board member and Director of Online Marketing at Napster.

Come early to get a front row seat. Or sit in the back or along the side of the room, near an electrical outlet, if you plan to live blog the session. Or, heck, just Tweet about it on your cell phone. The death of video search engines and video search engine optimization are going to be hot topics.

Higher Education and Travel Industry Headed to SES London 2009

Higher Education and Travel Industry Headed to SES London 2009

According to the organizers of SES London 2009, it looks like attendance will be up this year. While this may come as a surprise to some, Matt McGowan, Publisher of the conference series in addition to its sister sites ClickZ and Search Engine Watch, says, “Attendance figures are up 11% compared to last year, which is not surprising as businesses invest more of their budgets in digital marketing.”

He adds, “What’s noticeable this year however is the increase in representation from the education and travel industries. Delegates from these two sectors have increased by 10% (Education) and 16% (Travel). Many of Europe’s leading universities are sending people to SES London – from web managers to researchers. Similarly, established travel companies and tour operators are, as always, well represented, but this year has seen an increase in representation from the smaller, more niche, travel companies. The figures suggest that these two sectors will see significant growth in digital marketing spend this year.”

On this side of the pond, universities have seen grad school applications and enrollments increase as government funding and endowments have declined. This prompted Brandeis University to announce it would close the Rose Art Museum and turn it into a study and research center.

So, I can see why higher education on both sides of the pond is interested in finding more cost-effective ways to drive traffic to college and university websites than mailing out more college brochures. One of the first things I’d recommend is registering for the Google Online Marketing Challenge, which is open to any higher education institution, anywhere in the world.

Meanwhile, here in Boston, we’ve had 49 inches of snow dumped on us – more than double the normal snowfall at this point in the winter and even more than the normal snowfall for the entire winter season. So, I can also understand why the travel industry sees search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) turning “the winter of our discontent” into “glorious summer” in the coming year.

Despite last year’s economic conditions, travel spending by domestic and international visitors in 2008 increased 5.2%, to $778.2 billion, according to the Travel Industry Association. Heck, I can’t begin to describe the looks I get from my wife when I lamely explain that I “have to” go to London to speak at conference, blog about the event for Search Engine Watch, and conduct video interviews from the show. Hey, it’s a business trip.

So, when we all get together Feb. 17-20, 2009, at the Business Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, Islington, I need a little help. For the European universities in attendance, my daughter is planning to spend a semester abroad next year. What do you have for an art major? And for the travel companies who will be at SES London 2009, my wife is looking for someplace sunny, where she can forget about the sleet, wind and bitter cold. (If I’m lucky, she might even bring me along.)

I’m speaking at the sessions on Online Video Update - The Next Wave, News Search SEO, and Beyond Linkbait: Getting Authoritative Mentions Online. Just come up after the session and introduce yourself.

If we haven’t met before, I’ve been called “the bearded guy you’d vote least-likely-to-be-in-public relations” by one industry observer. Or, I’m the bearded buy below who was interviewed by Li Evans of Key Relevance at SES San Jose 2008.

VSEO - Video Search Engine Optimization - with Greg Jarboe

Oh, and if you are from an art school in a sunny place like Spain or Italy, let me know all about the programs you offer. Who knows, I may even be able to come back from SES London 2009 a hero, instead of a zero.

YouTube Attracts 100 Million U.S. Online Video Viewers in October 2008

YouTube Attracts 100 Million U.S. Online Video Viewers in October 2008

The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC discusses some under reported “Holy Mackerel” stories each evening. Well, I’d like to share a “Holy Mackerel” story from SES Chicago 2008.

I’m one of the speakers at the Video Search Engine Optimization session on Wednesday, Dec. 10, from 12:45 to 2:00 p.m. And tonight, I did a double-check to see if there was any last-minute news about online video that I should be aware of before tomorrow’s panel.

And I read this: “YouTube Attracts 100 Million U.S. Online Video Viewers in October 2008.” Holy Mackerel!

Here are the details: According to comScore Video Metrix, more than 147 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 92 videos per viewer in October. Google Sites attracted a record 100 million online video viewers, or more than two out of every three Internet users who watched video during the month. This means that Google Sites once again ranked as the top U.S. video property with nearly 5.4 billion videos viewed, with YouTube.com accounting for more than 98% of all videos viewed at the property.

Specifically, 99.5 million viewers watched 5.3 billion videos on YouTube.com (53.2 videos per viewer).

But, YouTube isn’t a video search engine. It is a video sharing site. Which means that YouTube doesn’t crawl the videos on your website. You need to upload your videos to YouTube in order for them to be found when someone conducts a “YouTube Search.”

Fortunately, I have a YouTube case study to present at tomorrow’s session. It’s a follow-on story that I shared at SES San Jose on a similar panel. Li Evans of KeyRelevance interviewed me after that session a couple of months ago. So, you can see that this “Holy Mackerel” story has been told before.

VSEO - Video Search Engine Optimization - with Greg Jarboe

Still, I can’t tell you how many times people ask me how to optimize video for Google Video. Ummm. How do I say this? If YouTube is accounting for more than 98% of all videos viewed at Google Sites, then Google Video accounts for less than 2%. Right?

So, video search engine optimization appears to be round-off error. What is more important is optimizing video for YouTube. That’s what I plan to talk about tomorrow. It may be a little surprising. But no more surprising than the latest data from comScore.

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