July 2009 - BPWrap

Content May Be The SEO King But Check The Palace Architecture

Where should effort go to be highly visible in keyword searches with Google? A precise answer probably demands an evaluation of all the Google Search Engine Ranking Factors like that done by SEOmoz. However the Google search debate normally seems to revolve around Content or Links.

Mark Jackson stated quite categorically The Golden Rule of SEO: Content is King. Aaron Wall also commented that although there are those who push for linking, Content is King when you get down to it.

The debate is ongoing and there are even those who stay on the fence and declare both content and inbound linking is king.

How should you budget your effort then in trying to improve rankings in Google keyword searches? Should it be equal effort on content and links or some other ratio?

That is a false dichotomy since there is another equally important website dimension that does not even feature in this debate. Indeed if you look at the hot issues in the past two months in SEO, that third dimension has been the one the experts have been talking about. The third leg of the tripod is the website architecture. It deserves equal effort as illustrated in the following table, which is derived from a chart in an article on Key SEO Services. In this table, the Plus value is a reminder of the Upsides that can be created by working on this aspect. The Minus value indicates the Downsides if this aspect is handled poorly.

Triple Power SEO
Architecture	Content	Links

Plus – Visibility	Plus – Appeal	Plus – Authority
Minus – Barriers to search engines	Minus – Spam	Minus – Penalties

Monitor >> Measure >> Manage >> Improve

It is somewhat surprising website architecture gets so little air time given its importance. It can be complex but a great deal of improvement can be obtained with very simple methods. It is likely that the vast majority of websites that do not perform well in Google keyword searches suffer from website architecture problems. Yet much progress can be made with some of the most basic tools.

For example, the Xenu Link Sleuth (TM) will find broken links on web sites, which can be a major problem for the search engine spiders. It crawls the website in exactly the way a search engine spider does. Google itself provides a great deal of information through its Google Webmaster Tools website. If you have Google Analytics or Google Adsense ads on your website, then both give statistics that often pinpoint problems in the website architecture. Efforts put into correction efforts will have clear and certain results, unlike those hoped for when efforts go into content or links.

The aim of this article was to discuss the high level allocation of effort rather than to provide a compendium of website architecture problem areas and solutions. If you need assistance then a group like the Web Marketing Group would meet your needs. For further reading, we can recommend an article by Richard Baxter, Diagnose Critical Website Architecture Issues for SEO. He also has a slide show of the presentation he gave at SMX London 2009 on the same topic. It’s very good value if you want pointers on how to put effort into this priority SEO dimension.

Google, Apple In Conflict While Microsoft, Yahoo Agree

All the headlines this morning confirm that Microsoft, Yahoo agree on long-sought search deal:

Microsoft Corp. has finally roped Yahoo Inc. into an Internet search partnership, capping a convoluted pursuit that dragged on for years and finally setting the stage for them to make a joint assault against the dominance of Google Inc.

The 10-year deal announced Wednesday gives Microsoft access to the Internet’s second-largest search engine audience, adding a potentially potent weapon to the software maker’s Internet arsenal as it tries to better confront Google, which is by far the leader in online search and advertising. Microsoft didn’t have to give Yahoo an upfront payment to make it happen, as many Yahoo investors had hoped.

It will take up to 2 years to get put in place, so don’t expect sudden changes. It’s the kind of headline to yawn about.

There’s another headline that really should be getting all the attention: Google Pulls Apple from Search Results. Since it is the kind of headline that cool thought may attempt to bury, here is the start of the story:

Perhaps the final paragraph of the story, although humorous, may correctly indicate the seriousness of this item:

Some industry analysts think the retaliatory moves could result in all-out war like back in 1939, when a Polish sausage company stopped using pork from Germany. In response Germany invaded. “We don’t want another situation like that,” said Bank of America’s George Pendry.

It all confirms that the company which has set as its high ideal to catalogue all knowledge while doing no evil is driven by the advertising bottom line. Relevancy of results takes second place to that.

Microsoft and Yahoo! Link-Up Targets Google (news.sky.com)

Wot No Google Local Search

Wot No

Local Search

The character on the right appeared in the most unusual places during Word War II asking similar very basic questions. You might have called him Kilroy if you are in the US or Chad if you are in the UK.

The comment is particularly surprising currently since there is a great deal of discussion and concern about Google Local Search and how it works. You may therefore be a little surprised to find that it does not exist. It is widely acknowledged that providing local results when people search for stores or suppliers is very important. Not least because you can then show relevant advertising close to the point of purchase decision.

It is even more surprising because the opposition does provide local search facilities. Just type in local.yahoo.com and you will be shown the following search screen.

It is very similar to the format for a Yellow Pages search for local suppliers. It would seem to be the natural way to help people find what they are looking for in their neighbourhood.

With Microsoft’s new entrant Bing, you can also arrive at a somewhat minimal local search page by typing in local.bing.com. This is presumably a work in progress since it is somewhat sparse and even enigmatic.

Now try to get a Google Local Search by typing local.google.com and you are in for a disappointment. Here is what you see.

The word local does not appear at all. Google has decided that you really preferred to do a search among their Maps. Indeed it is impossible to find a link to Local Search on any of the desktop PC search pages.

Google has accepted the much bigger challenge of trying to guess in the Universal Search Page whether or not you may wish to be seeing local results. If Google guesses this is so, then towards the top of the search results they will show a block of local services that may fit your search. Why they have gone this route, only they can say.

The only place you can find a link to Local Search is on the Mobile Search Results web page as shown on the right. Even then, you are just served up a list of local results without any opportunity to give a more precise indication of where you are located. Given the interest in Local Search and the need to get it right, this guessing on the part of Google hardly seems adequate, since it is not very reliable. Perhaps it is time for Google to follow the others and provide the obvious way for people to do Local Searches.

Designing Websites That Perform

A website is not something that should merely be seen like a sculpture without any objective to influence potential prospects to take appropriate actions. Instead it should be a website that performs.

To do that it must have strengths in a number of areas. The following lists some of the more important:

Immediate visual impact
Visibility in the search engines for appropriate key words
Good usability so that visitors easily navigate the website to find what they need
Persuadability so that visitors take appropriate actions moving them towards purchasing
Credibility so that visitors feel a sense of trust in the company.

These features must be considered in designing the website: they cannot be added later.

To do this requires a particular kind of web design company that has all the necessary skills. An example of such a company is Primeview, which provides full services for arizona web design. That includes a strong emphasis on arizona seo, since this is critical in ensuring high website traffic.

Although search engines work particularly with the text content of websites, that does not imply a drabness for the websites created as you can see from Primeview’s cool before and after gallery. If you are in Arizona, this would certainly be a company worth reviewing if you are looking for full service web design that will create a website that will help you achieve your business goals.

Stopping Twitter Spam

Almost any online service can be overrun by spam and Twitter is proving to be a lucrative field for such activities. Twitter Search that identifies Trending Topics is a major target here and very recent actions force the question: Should Twitter moderate Trending Tropics to prevent spamming?

This is the specific case that triggered this:

For the second time in a month, offensive terms have made it on to Twitter Trending Topics. In both cases, Twitter didn’t remove the offensive terms until after they spent some time at the top of Trending Topics. This time, the attack appears to have been carried out by the infamous 4chan group. ReadWriteWeb asks a legitimate question: Maybe Twitter Trends Shouldn’t Be Entirely Automated?

If you wish to do your bit in avoiding spam, then there is good general advice available on Avoiding Twitter Spam. If you suspect that a particular account is a spammer then you should report them to Spam Watch.

Saying no to Spam is even easier if you use the TweetDeck platform and use their spam button. With just one click, you can delete the message from view, block the user and report them to Twitter.

The tools for Avoiding Twitter Spammers are getting more effective all the time. Firstly, you can use Topify to give you more information on your followers, that will allow you to more quickly identify potential spammers. It is in beta at the moment so you will need to wait for an invite. Once you get the invite, Topify will ask for your e-mail and make sure it is you, then give you a new e-mail via Topify to enter on your Twitter account.

A more precise tool to identify spammers is TwitChuck. You simply fill in the name of the person you are wondering about, and TwitChuck goes through a surprisingly detailed list to arrive at their spam grade. Here is the information for bwelford:

Perhaps you should follow the TwitChuck recommendation and follow me.
I assure you TwitChuck has it right: I am not a spammer.

BPWrap At A New Location

This SMM blog, BPWrap, after five years has moved to a new home. It had been located at a Cre8asite Forum’s subdomain (blog.cre8asite.net/bwelford) since it started in March 2004. At its inception for four days it was called BWrap. Almost instantly it was noted that the name was already in use, so the name was switched to BPWrap.

There are disadvantages in having such a complex URL as a location so finally it is now to be found at its new domain, BPWrap.com.

At the old location there is still an htaccess file which arranges a 301 permanent redirect to this new location. This maintained the search engine visibility throughout the switch and ensures continuing high rankings in keyword searches.

The only minor dissatisfaction is that the Google Toolbar PageRank indicator has not yet returned to the 4 or 5 level that has been seen recently. This visual indicator is not updated frequently so it may be a month or two before the correct value is showing.

If in your blog or your website, you linked to any of the BPWrap posts, it would be most helpful if you would ensure the correct URL is now showing. Visitors do not get lost in using the old URL but this will help confirm the switch with the search engines. We look forward to many more years of providing insights and revelations on the Internet marketing world from this new home.

Update

A Search Engine Journal article, URL Structure: The Closer to the Root – the Better?, provides a pleasing confirmation of the wisdom of this move.

Triple Power SEO

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