Organic search results are as pure as the driven snow. Just ask any SEO (define) professional or any marketer who ever hired an SEO company.

OK, so perhaps there's a big area of wiggle room there. After all, for most non-brand term search queries, a searcher will probably be equally satisfied with any of the top decile of relevant results. When there are potentially thousands of relevant results, SEO practitioners do their best to give their clients the edge by moving their relevant results above nearly identically relevant results. So, how relevant does that really make organic results?

That question extends to paid search. Many Web users have long assumed that the organic results served up by search engine algorithms are more relevant to most users' queries than the paid results. Search engines have largely manufactured this perception because each engine seeks to endear itself to users as an honest broker whose neutral algorithms will unerringly separate the wheat from the chaff. Although the idea that organic results are pure is inherently appealing, in actuality the situation is much more complicated, and, in many instances, paid listings actually provide better, more useful results than organic ones. The more likely the query is to have commercial intent, the more often paid search trumps organic.

The Geotargeted Relevancy Gap

Paid listings consistently provide more relevant results than organic listings when a user makes a query with local intent, such as "plumber" or "office cleaning services." In this case, the search engine's ad server automatically geotargets paid results based on the user's IP address, which is mapped against a location database. So a user making such a search from New York will see paid listings for New York-based plumbers and janitors. Some engines also supplement the IP address geotargeting with profile-based targeting by using user-volunteered data. This can also be accomplished with reasonable accuracy by watching searchers' behavior over time and determining which geographies they select.

Organic listings, however, don't reflect the user's location unless the user types in an additional term to indicate one, such as "plumber NYC" or "plumber New York." Of course, the fact that organic results aren't geotargeted may not always produce less relevancy. If I'm researching the history of plumbing or whether U.S. plumbers belong to a union, I won't care about plumbers in my neighborhood. But for certain queries that clearly demonstrate a local intent, geotargeted paid listings may deliver more relevancy than organic ones. Unless the primary search engines implement a reliable geo meta tag or do a better job with the local results, paid listings will often be more relevant. Already a specialty of SEO is manipulating the local results that come up as part of the universal SERP (define).

The second instance in which paid listings may provide better relevancy than organic results is subtler. And it's a phenomenon caused by systemic structural biases affecting the way organic and paid listings are served. Organic results are, of course, subject to manipulation by wily SEO practitioners who are paid by their clients to secure the best ranking positions for their clients' sites. No one who practices SEO optimization likes to be labeled as a cheater or a manipulator, because many do provide a useful service to their clients by guiding them toward improving the search-engine friendliness of their sites and breaking the virtual tie between pages of nearly identical relevance. But many freely admit that they practice tricks and tactics that go beyond simple optimization and into the zone of manipulation. For them, the ends (getting top rankings for their clients) justify whatever means they use to trick the engines into thinking that a given site is more relevant than it actually is.

From: clickZ.com by Kevin Lee

UPLINK WEB DESIGNS & MARKETING

What happens when everyone knows everything about linking?

What happens when everyone uses the same 15,400 linking tools, and everyone has created the perfect back link profile, and everyone has properly tricked out anchor text, everyone has perfectly sculpted this, awesomely funneled that, cleverly silo’d this, no-followed that, etc., etc., etc?

What will matter then? Seriously, what will matter after the dust clears and 8 billion web sites are doing everything “right”? Before I answer that, an analogy.

A mother gives birth to five identical twins. Over the years she feeds them the same down to the last crumb. She cares for them the same, loves them the same. They sleep together in the same room. She buys them all identical toys, clothes, bikes, balls, and books. They receive the identical vaccines. They go on to the same schools, play the same sports, have the same teachers. Indeed, by the time they are 15 they are absolutely identical in every way and nobody can tell them apart.

On the high school track one day the coach lines up the five identical boys and tells them to run a race. One mile. Go. At the end of the race the five boys do not all finish first, there is a clear winner and loser, and three others in between. How can that happen? Every single thing about these boys has been identical. How could they all finish so…differently?

Back to my question. What will matter after the dust clears and 8 billion web sites are doing everything “right”? Who ranks first then? The answer is that the engines will do what they have to do, and just like our mile race, even with seemingly identical sites and links, the engines will rank somebody first, and somebody last.

But how? What will matter? Who will win?

All those tools that you and everyone else also used for link building, or SEO, or keyword selection, or content creation, or on-page optimization, or target site identification, or whatever, none of them will matter. The engines will just ignore all the identical signals that those 8 billion pages have so meticulously created. The engines will ignore them because they have to. Because at that point there is nothing significantly different enough to judge anyway.

After the dust clears, the thing you have that singularly defines you and only you, that small point of difference, be it visible like a broken toe or invisible like asthma, it will alter your “content” just enough so that whether you are an identical brother or an identical site, you will have something you can build on that’s yours alone.

It’s what’s yours alone that will determine who wins the race and the rank.

From: searchengineland.com by Eric Ward

UPLINK WEB DESIGNS & MARKETING

So, ready to learn (or be reminded of) a secret Internet marketing tip? Ready to increase the amount of targeted traffic to your website? Ready to increase your conversion rates and your sales? Ok! So, let me tell you about this great online marketing tip.

Let me set the stage...

1) On average, the first time someone goes to the Internet to look for something (be it a service or a product), what they are looking for is information. In other words, they begin the process of gathering information about that service or product. That's the beauty of the Internet. The information is all right there at your fingertips.

2) Part of this first step is to read reviews, testimonials, etc. about that product or service. Basically, learning about it's reputation. After all, that's how trust is created online.

3) The next step the Internet searcher then takes is to look through the top 2 or 3 websites that he kept finding in his research. Let's say he searched 10 different sources. And in those 10 different sources he kept seeing the same 2 websites mentioned with positive comments. With that kind of reputation, he's going to go to those websites and research further. More than likely, his purchase will be from one of those 2 websites.

What's The Secret Internet Marketing Tip?

Setting your website up to gather that online reputation.

Here's how you can do it.

1) Testimonials on your website - this is actually one of the least effective methods because it's perceived as being controlled by you. Of course, every business owner will only put positive testimonials on their website! But, it doesn't hurt to have them on there, either. And it's easy enough to get positive testimonials from your clients to put on the website.

2) Blogs - when you write an article and post it on your blog - others have the opportunity to comment on that post. Those comments, and your responses help to build your reputation. Viewers will see how you respond to questions, statements, criticism, etc.

3) Google Map Reviews - when you're listed on Google Maps, viewers can write a review about you, your product, your service. It's free, and I would encourage you to ask your clients to write those reviews!

4) Social Media - use the groups at social media programs like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Connect with your clients via those programs and they can provide you with recommendations, reviews, etc.

By creating a space on your website for testimonials and reviews from your clients, AND creating other spots online for viewers to find information ABOUT you, your product, your service, you begin to build that very valuable online reputation.

From: promotionworld.com by Esther C Kane

UPLINK WEB DESIGNS & MARKETING

The paid search market continues growing month-over-month and margins are shrinking. However, the majority of companies seem to avoid moving into SEO despite the popularity of the overall market size. Unless one jealous executive decides to react to another company that's doing well in their exclusive space.

SEO doesn't require a huge investment, unless you're working with a top-tier agency that charges an excessive amount of money to have a new hire learn how to do SEO at your company's expense in time and wasted resources.

Have you looked at your paid search bill lately? I've been shocked to see some of the bills that are being paid by many different companies and many different markets.

One option to see where your site lies and to figure out if the cost is too high is to have an audit performed of your site. Many SEO firms don't offer these services, except at a very expensive level. However, you can look at a consultant to come in and provide a one-time audit to help you see where you are and what it will take to get some decent exposure.

Often times, a simple rewrite of your URL structure can be enough to move your site into a position to be indexed by the search engines. Commonly, most front-end Web developers will fix a few sets of page types throughout the site. However, the search engines provide a score to the whole site that will determine what will be indexed due to site accessibility.

Thus, it's important not to just fix a few pages and try to hit up as many pages as possible. By skimping on the complete fix, you can create a large problem. For example, if all of your category pages leading up to your product or service pages are not properly built, but the product pages are properly constructed. The product pages will still not rank well, since the category pages will not allow the search engines to pass enough credit to these end pages in order to push them up in the rankings.

Other small issues that you can look at to see if you're moving in the right direction. Check to make sure that your navigation and pages are properly built with text links and easy to understand text. This can really help improve your site's accessibility to search engines.

Get an overall idea of how hard it is to navigate to pages on your site. Many sites mistakenly think that all users will search to find the pages on your site. In many cases, you're right. But search engines aren't populating your search engine with queries to find data.

They're measuring the experience from landing on the home page and navigating to different parts of the site. Thus, if a user has to click more than six times to find any page, it's most likely that it will never be included in the search results at a level where they can be found.

You may be thinking, "Well, that shouldn't be a problem. I'm putting everything in my Google Sitemap file." Yes, this will expose the page to the search engine, but it won't push it up in the results because they're still measuring the user experience from your home page. Thus, make sure that you are covering all of your bases.

From: www.searchenginewatch.com by Aaron Shear

UPLINK WEB DESIGNS & MARKETING