Keyword - Competitor Link Building Example

While we all know that link building is a key component to any successful search engine optimization campaign.  Many people get stuck when it comes to the actual identification of potential link opportunities.  Here is a quick checklist for building a worksheet of potential link opportunities for yourself or your client based on keyword presence and competitive analysis:

Step 1: Identify your target keyword.
In this example, I am going to use the word "diploma frames" as my keyword target.  My goal is to find the top 50 websites that rank for this term (in Google for now), and use Google's link command to obtain a list of all inbound links per domain.

Step 2: Search for your Keyword and Record Top 50 Results
Some companies go for more or less results, but the top 50 usually represents the maximum threshold for how far a regular user will search, so 50 is where I stop.  If you use the advanced search functionality in Google, you can tailor your results so that the top 50 results appear as well.  Here are my top 10 results:

• http://www.framingsuccess.com/
• http://www.diplomaframe.com/
• http://www.diplomaframe.com/schools/corn/
• http://www.affordablediplomaframes.com/
• http://www.justdiplomaframes.com/
• http://www.herffjones.com/capgown/college/index.cfm?at=17&con=17
• http://www.universitycoop.com/
• http://www.collegegear.com/sf/stores/1246/
• http://www.collegegear.com/sf/stores/1210/
• http://www.wordyisms.com/
• http://www.wordyisms.com/page/W/CTGY/TX-UTA/AFFIL/uta
• http://www.framingachievement.com/

Now we have 10 websites to check backlinks in Google with in order to obtain new link opportunities (out of the top 50). Note that there were 3 duplicates listed in search results (which I like to note anyways for purposes of correlating information on each duplicate result)

Step 3: Use the link command in Google to obtain inbound links to these 10 results.
Search and list the web addresses that appear as search results for all inbound link searches to the top 50 websites found for "diploma frames".  Note that you may have to trim the results as a result of same domain links and it is known that Google does not show all inbound links, but (IMO) it does show a snapshot of (at least the type of) links that it values more than others. Here are the results for checking inbound links to all 10 of these results:

• link:www.framingsuccess.com (143 Results)
  
• link:www.diplomaframe.com (15 Results)
  
• link:www.affordablediplomaframes.com (7 Results)
• link:www.justdiplomaframes.com (4 Results)
  
• link:www.herffjones.com (59 Results)
• link:www.universitycoop.com (758 Results)
• link:www.collegegear.com (3210 Results)
  
• link:www.wordyisms.com (786 Results)
  
• link:www.framingachievement.com (62 Results)

Now you have over 5,000 possible link opportunities for your website, based on the current competition that is present in only the top 10 results for "diploma frames" in Google.  You also have a snapshot on where the competition is strongest online as well.  Your next step is compiling the results, identifying where a link opportunity for you is possible, and ultimately, obtaining new inbound links.

Additional Keyword - Competitor Link Building Ideas and Suggestions
Using Yahoo gives you an even more comprehensive look at inbound links, and AlltheWeb will allow you to automatically filter out same domain links.  Yahoo Site Explorer also lets you export the data into a tab-delimited file, which makes it handy for rapid formatting and organizational purposes.

Yahoo No Directory Tag Due in January 2007

Search Engine Roundtable reported this morning that Yahoo will be implementing a "No Yahoo Directory" Tag in their directory listings, hopefully in January.  This means that the traditional Yahoo Directory title that appears in directory submissions will not appear in standard search results and your traditional HTML browser title information should appear.  This comes on the heels of an announcement in October regarding a "NoODP" tag, which supported the removal the ODP Titles from Yahoo search results.

The core benefit to this is in the fact that webmasters and marketers will have more control of the messaging that appears in Yahoo search results, by way of the HTML title.  Proper messaging in the HTML title tag can help in a variety of ways, including:

• Better brand awareness and website association - having your brand/company name at the end or beginning of the HTML title helps enforce your name with the associated keyword
• Better click thru - research suggests that users searching specific keywords are more applicable to click results that have the keyword directly in the search title.  In addition, when the keyword is found in the search result, the keyword is presented in bold, adding additional relevance and support for clicking the result(s).

Up till now, variables in the Yahoo search algorithm enabled Yahoo Directory titles to appear in search results in place of the strategic HTML Title. If the title did not contain the proper messaging as related to the keyword search (Yahoo Directory submissions frequently only contain the company names), then searches may be less likely to click the given result.

Here is the current forum discussion at WebmasterWorld. 

Update on Yahoo!'s Panama Upgrade

Following up Bob's review of Yahoo Panama, the Yahoo Search Marketing Blog posted a nice Panama FAQ that talks in detail about the Panama upgrade.  Good first steps for advertisers with questions.  Best of all, they are taking additional questions on the upgrade in the comments section of the post.

Review of Yahoo! Search Marketing’s New “Panama” Release

As a Google AdWords professional I’ve been involved in Paid Search Marketing for over 5 years. I even had to the opportunity to provide feedback to Yahoo! (which they didn’t disclose their real name) about the type of service features and advertiser would be looking for. Using these tools on a daily basis I’m always looking forward to new features or techniques they provide to speed along my day.

Yahoo Search Marketing Background
Yahoo’s purchase of Overture in 2003 signaled a serious intent to provide full service Internet Marketing using paid search, but what they didn’t do was address the advertiser’s basic needs for managing their ads. Yes, their “bid to position” is a simple model for many, but both Google and MSN’s bidding position by relevancy means a smart advertiser can obtain better ROI by top positions at lower costs. Yahoo’s search marketing platform suffered from outdated features and lacked new functionality such as:

• Regional ad targeting to display ads in defined countries or regions
• Dayparting where you can increase bid limits for peak buying times
• Ad rotation testing
• Advance reporting to allow studying which hours of the day peak sales occur or customized fields

Even MSN's new search marketing platform, released this year is beating Yahoo! in terms of features and functionality. An overhaul was long due, so for search advertisers the release of the Yahoo! Panama interface is a very welcomed development.

New Yahoo! Panama Features and Functionality
As a paid search advertiser your day can be very busy managing thousands of search terms and hundreds of ads or campaigns. Sometimes you need to react quickly to loss-revenue issues if spending spirals out of control as a result of click fraud or competitive pressures. The one thing you can’t afford is wasting time “digging” thru a website to find data about the state of your campaigns.  Ease of use and easy-to navigate functionality is key.

The first view when you log into your Yahoo! Search Marketing account is the dashboard that begins to address this. "I’m a big fan of web analytics, so even though I prefer web tracking outside of the tools Google or Yahoo provide, this doesn’t mean I don’t discount their conversion reporting." Quite the opposite, I live in their interfaces and view them as instruments for the driving the car, so having a customizable dashboard views is one of the “cool features”. Yahoo!’s new views means I can make faster turns when necessary. 

They are also incorporating a previously standalone service called "Search Optimizer" with a feature called the watch list. You can setup alerts at the campaign, ad level and even search term that provides time critical data if you’re Cost per Action is in danger. This helpful tool allows you to be more attentive of your top performing search terms, without having to spend lots of time actually doing it. And while mentioning managing costs, Yahoo! finally is on par with both Google and MSN by allowing ad campaign spending limits. Or to be more accurate they now allow multiple campaigns, which in the past they really only had one. That’s one feature I’ve been waiting on for quite some time.

Getting around the new interface is a big improvement and dare I say, even more intuitive than my long-term favorite Google! But there are still many features that I’d like to see from Yahoo!. One critical feature that is missing is the opportunity to bid on singular or plural variations of search terms. Rather odd limits of 50 negative search terms for the Advanced match (called broad in Google). Customized reports with the ability to do automatic mailings are a “would be nice to have” feature as well. Overall, the daily chore of managing a Yahoo! Search campaign will not be such a chore anymore.

Yahoo! is off to a good start with this new direction and when you combine the changes they will be making in the bidding structure, is a good time to concentrate your marketing efforts on the Yahoo! channel for the time being. Hopefully, since they have completely redesigned the system, waiting for new features will occur with more frequency than once every two years.

Latest Search Market Share Report

According to a report released Monday by Internet metrics company comScore, Google and Yahoo gained slightly in overall search market share (0.3 and 0.1% respectively), while MSN dropped by 0.2%.  As of October, Google now processes 45.4% of all searches on the Internet.  Yahoo ranks second at 28.2% and MSN a distant third at 11.7%.  Holding their own, Ask.com sits at 5.8%.

I personally can't help rooting for Ask.com to overtake MSN by the end of Q1 2007 (of course this statement brings a recent post in SEOMoz to mind).

Big Three Support For A Sitemaps Protocol

Its worth noting that the big three search engines, Google, Yahoo and MSN are joining together to collaborate on a unified sitemaps program.  You can find out more of the program at sitemaps.org, which is offered under the terms of the Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.  This post is one the myriad of posts out there on the topic, so to find more information and commentary, here's a link to Google's official announcement on their webmaster blog and Yahoo's post as well..

 

Google Increases Market Share By Providing Better Search

The latest statistics from Hitwise are in for May, and as the title says: "Google Crushes Competition" with almost a 60% hold on the search market.  With MSN Adcenter finally unveiled, and Yahoo looking to significantly revamp it's own search advertising toolsets by the beginning of the 4th quarter, it will be interesting to see if this hold can continue through 2007. 

But the additional significance to this infers one other underlying theme: Google organic search is better.  At least better than MSN and Yahoo for the time being.  More people use it because more people find the results they want when using Google versus the rest of the industry. This is the soft-sell of the industry - organic search results establish the value of where people search.   Better organic search leads to more visitors entering queries, leading to more people ultimately clicking search advertisements.  While providing a more efficient advertising engine will help the bottom line quarter to quarter (and the stock price), it will not help the competition gain market share.  If search engines like Yahoo and MSN really want to attract more visitors, the answer lies in improving organic search.

Consider the following factors:

• Brand Loyalty: Pew Internet & American Life Project's (PIALP) 2005 study of multiple search engine use shows that 48% of users use 2 or 3 search engines, and 44% use only one engine.  But, of that 44%, a study from ICrossing in coordination with Harris Interactive shows that only 13% of total users (or one-third of the single search engine user base) use Google exclusively.  This compares to 10% favoring MSN and 7% using Yahoo.  We may see a shift as one can infer that MSN has a higher share based on being the default search application for Windows-based PC's and Dell's new partnership integrating Google Search Technology into Dell PC's, but the fact of the matter is that you would assume a higher brand loyalty to Google, given a 60% total market share for clicks.
  
• Consumer Confidence:  The same study by PIALP shows that 68% of searches believe that search engines produce "fair and unbiased sources of information" and 92% of users are confident in their ability to "search" for the information they want.  So, users not only trust search results to be effective, for the most part, but also are comfortable in using search tools to find their results.
  
• PPC as a percentage of Clicks: Over 75% of all B2B searchers use organic results over paid results, according to a 2004 study by Enquiro.  And JupiterResearch confirms approximately a 70% share of clicks for organic results versus paid results for the market as a whole.
  
• Awareness of Paid Advertisements and The Users Willingness to Put Up With Them
  Maybe Yahoo should consider this statistic as they continue the integration of search results and paid placement/paid advertisement.  54% of Google users are aware of paid ads (as they are clearly titled and organized), while 42% are aware in Yahoo, and 36% in MSN.  The startling statistic is that, according to PIALP, 45% of users would stop using a search engine, if they weren't clear about which results were paid or organic.

In Summary:

• Brand loyalty between engines is not very high - and users will use multiple search engines to get results they want
• Users are comfortable with search engine technology in general
• Organic search results drive at least 70% of all search traffic by search engines
• There is a distinct statistical argument against merging commercial, paid advertising directly into organic results.  Users want unbiased search results.

If search engines like MSN and Yahoo really want to make a dent in the search market, it's through an investment in better organic search that will lead the way through the long-term.  Optimizing paid advertising helps with the bottom line today, but focusing on this at the exclusion of organic search improvement ignores the opportunity to attract a larger percentage of clicks from an audience that is constantly demanding better organic search and not necessarily better advertisements.

Yahoo Partners with eBay - The Competitive Landscape May Shift

In the news today, Yahoo and eBay, joining forces to provide collaborative services amongst two of the largest, most trafficked sites on the World Wide Web (first and fifth respectively - according to Alexa traffic data).  The search landscape is changing, as market leaders look to partner with other major content providers, integrating search technology, cross-linking ad networks, and offering collaborative services. 

Yahoo Redesigns It's Home Page

Have you seen the latest home page for Yahoo?  I personally like it - but I am more of a fan of the clean, straight-forward look.  I always enjoyed Google and was never much of a fan of the bolder MSN colors.  It just seemed too cluttered.  Yahoo originally started filtered the home page into IE user views and I really had a negative reaction at first.  It was a little too "in your face" when it first came out. Fortunately for them (if Yahoo cares much), my font settings are really strange in IE, so that was half the problem.  Now that they have roled out the beta home page for Firefox, it looks a lot nicer. 

The only problem I had when I viewed the site in IE, which is now addressed with my traditional setting in Firefox, is that I could not identify my specific Yahoo services anymore - such as Finance, Sports and Mail.  I still think they could do a better job highlighting them, or repositioning them based on the template, but it looks much better than before. 

Here's my one question:  Why can't users simply have the ability to modify content that appears - a la My Yahoo - right on the home page?  I would imagine that more people would accept these type of services - customization, personalization etc, if they were right in front of you.  Statistics indicate that less than 1% of all Yahoo traffic actually uses My Yahoo*, which may or may not be because of privacy issues.  Wouldn't it be more user-friendly if I could just get my personalized content right on the home page?  Yahoo already offers the ability to sign in - which gives you your weather, email notification and specific Yahoo services highlighted, so the next logical step - RSS for content, aggregated service highlights etc, should not be too much of a jump (should it?). 

I use Yahoo everyday and use My Yahoo only when I remember, but to have all of my news, services (I'm addicted to fantasy baseball and football, and use Finance regularly) and features right there, plus my Small Business account information, whenever I load up Firefox, I may never have to use another portal service again.

More Conversation on MSN acquiring Yahoo

What started out as a light post to see if I could gather some real commentary has turned into a full-blown media story.  CNN/Money issued an article this morning hinting at a possible acquisition of Yahoo! stock by Microsoft in order to increase market share in the search industry. 

Is it possible?  Perhaps.  But MSN s spending a lot of resources building their own PPC and search platform, so this would appear to be a complete market share play.  The chatter hit Webmaster World this morning as well.  Here's a thread with some thoughts on the subject.

Pubcon 2006 - Thoughts and Review

Some thoughts on Pubcon 2006 here in Boston this April.

First - I definitely want to travel out of state for the next SEO conference I go to.  Too much temptation to handle pressing work related material versus actually learning from the industry.

Things I didn't do and wish I did do:

1. I missed Malcolm Gladwell's speech - heard that he is an excellent presenter and gave a nice opening presentation
2. Should have hit some of the Affiliate sessions, heard that there was a nice buzz going on there.
3. Everyone who went to "Forensic and Competitive Intelligence" thought it was a great session.  I'll be looking forward to the PPT's and information, but wish I had made it as well
4. While I did get to meet some really fantastic individuals, I still could have met more - won't make the same mistake next year or next conference

Thoughts and Opinions:

• I attended both link building presentations (Tuesdays and Wednesday's).  The first was alright - it's hard to break down a person/company's website in 10 minutes or so.  Peter Davis gave a nice breakdown on some of the material on his Web Marketing Blog.  I can empathize with the one SEO who was having problems getting material/cooperation from the Pharma client - I don't think the situation is an unusual one.  Wednesday's was better as it related to actual do's and don't about linking in general.  I felt all 4 speakers did a great job in their presentations
• Great blog session to open up Wednesday morning.  It was enjoyable to hear three popular and influential bloggers talk about their motivation, opinions on blogging and miscellaneous thoughts on the blogosphere.  I can't say that I had read Robert Scoble's blog before, but really enjoyed his candor and am now a regular reader because of it. 
• I was impressed with the Public Relations session, especially given the fact that two of the presenters, Robin Liss and Lawrence Coburn really gave some personal examples of what has made their businesses successful.  Both were great presenters as well and I am glad I decided to head to that session.
• Finally, it is always exciting to meet intelligent people in search and Internet marketing/development.  Best of luck in the future and I'm sure we'll be in touch.

Microsoft to Buy Yahoo

A recent article in Forbes over the overvaluation of Google speculates that Yahoo, the long-time and distant second fiddle in the search industry, and much lower valued in terms of stock price, could be a possible acquisition target for Microsoft, the third tier engine in the industry (but far behind at around 10% market share).  This comes from the comments of UBS Analyst Benjamin Schachter, but is also based on the relatively low stock price of Yahoo at the moment, and assumes the price does not appreciate considerably in the near future.

Would it make sense? 

It seems unlikely given the fact that Microsoft has invested so much in their own search technology, infrastructure and in new developments.  MSN is also slated to unveil it's own investment in PPC later this summer.  The merger would also force two companies to consolidate Interent product lines (potentially) such as email, personal pages, groups and other services.

But we know that both companies have been reasonably successful at merging acquisitions before.  Also, it was not too long ago that MSN Search was driven by the Inktomi search technology that Yahoo acquired, and we know who currently runs the MSN PPC ad network. 

An interesting article and theory for those of us in the SEO world, as it relates to managing the success of our clients across the three major engines.

Search Engine Ranking Factors

Adding to the previous post, SEOmoz has a great SEO article which lists over 50 various factors, disbuted and undisbuted, that will or may affect search engine rankings.  They are broken down by importance, deviation, and consensus, as well as adding commentary and description.  Best of all, the contributors to the article include industry leaders such as Danny Sullivan, Dan Theis and Jill Whalen. 

The article makes two good points in that first, "...it is impossible to say for certain which of these items affects which search engine or how important the factors are individually..." and second "These represent the opinions of myself ...and those who have checked the work of this document".  That being said, it's a great resource for SEO both long and short-term. 

More Thought on Google Finance

As I took more time to go through the Google Finance website, I wanted to point out that there are some very cool tools found once you get to the stock/financial information pages.  Features such as the drag feature of historical stock price information, mouseover pictures and a decent organizational layout, help make the entire subsite more appealing. 

That being said, I still feel that the overall useability of the site is lacking.  Users are not, and should not have to guess at what something does.  Because I am used to some of the Google feature sets, it makes sense that certain funcationality works the way it does.  That being said, it's not obvious to all users.

The overall summation lies in this question: At what point are these new beta programs really about bringing value to the end user, the customer, or the company?  With so many new beta programs, designs and new features, it feels like the underlying mission is just bringing more PR and traffic to the general website, without delivering (at least yet) the long-term value solutions that keep users loyal.  Don't get me wrong, I find some of the beta ideas to be great - Sitemaps, Maps, Local etc - just not all of them.

Google Enters The Financial Portal Space

Just released, Google has entered the financial space as it unveils Google Finance.  With an estimated 11 million visitors per year, the primary rival, Yahoo, is without a doubt the most popular of all financial portals and its interesting to note that a large portion of data driven information on the new Google site is taken directly frm Yahoo.

As a user of Yahoo Finance on a regular basis, my first impressions of the new Google site are poor at best.  It looks like someone simply stuck a few RSS feeds on a landing page and popped a couple Yahoo charts into at the top.  While it may become a tool of choice in the future, there's nothing yet to deter me from the larger sites, offering more tools, financial advice and free analysis, credit, charts and (surprisingly) relevant advertisements.  I can't even view my portfolio from the main landing page.

Yahoo's Next Update is...

...

Exactly - it seems to be dragging completely.  I recently posted to a WMW thread in regards to the fact that completely new material seems to be stuck in some sort of aging system, similar to the Google Sandbox theory.  Interestingly enough, it seems that it is more specific to a new website than an existing one. 

For example, I've been working with two websites that have done complete rewrites of their URL's in the past two months.  Both sites changes have taken effect.  I have one completely new site, which to this date only shows 6 pages of the over 300 to be listed.  I am speculating that there is an aging sequence being attributed here, based on the fact that it is a completely new website.

The Emergence of Facilitating The Crawl

Lloyd Braun, head of the Yahoo Media Group, talked about the importance of user-generated content in relation to Yahoo's media strategy in an article published by the NY Times yesterday.  While the major uproar in relation to this had to do with the fact that a year ago, it was the goal for Yahoo to be the generator of such media content, the undertone identifies a critical component in relation to search engine optimization and the major search players, Yahoo and Google. More and more, it is becoming apparent that they would like us to show them, or give them, our content, versus the reliance on their own technology, awesome as it may be, to find everything out there in the "Internet Universe". 

Consider Braun's statement: "I now get excited about user-generated content the way I used to get excited about thinking about what television shows would work.".  Think about the tools (albeit mostly commercial) that Yahoo has been developing in the past year to help webmasters submit content to Yahoo.  We've always had the Yahoo Directory, but we know have Sponsored Search, Search Submit Express, the Yahoo Publisher Network, 360 and their own Ask Experts center.

Google allows webmasters to send content to them through all sorts of new developments.  Google Sitemaps continues to be a more mature technology for alerting the search engine to new and updated information on a website.  We have seen specific examples of rapid site updates in their search index which I feel is directly correlated to the use of a Google sitemap (in conjunction with other strategies of course).  Google Base gives website owners and content owners the ability to send the search engine any information on products, services, announcements, thoughts - anything.  Authors have the ability to tag their content with the keywords that they feel are relevant to the descriptions of their offerings.  Other tools Google offers that enable users to provide them content (for free mind you) include Blogger and the new Google Page Creator.

Search is becomine a much more sophisticated market to be in and webmasters can not only rely on the search spider to come to their website, pick up content, and place it in their index.  New tools and technologies by search giants such as Yahoo and Google provide greater opportunities to get your message out to the public faster and more effectively.  Remember when there was a list of about 12 submission forms users could use to submit URL's to search engines? 

Yahoo Publisher Network

Interested in learning more about RSS? 

The Yahoo Publisher network gives you a comprehensive guide to RSS (Really Simple Syndication), what it is, why use it, and resources and information.  Most importantly (at least for Yahoo) it gives you information on how to add your RSS feed to the Yahoo Publisher Network itself.  Please note that it usually takes a few weeks for the feed to get picked up and listed in the Yahoo results. 

Here's a link to submit your feed directly: http://publisher.yahoo.com/rss_guide/submit.php

The Yahoo Publisher Network is currently a beta project being driven by Yahoo to allow content relevant advertisments through providers.  It is very similar to Google Adsense. 

More Thoughts on Reciprocal Linking

If you find these postings and wonder where some of the information we (as professional SEO's) get this knowledge, I invite you to take a look at High Rankings from Jill Whalen.  I don't have any experience working with her, but in reading some of the material that she publishes, it just makes sense - whether you are in the game purely for the financial rewards, or you are just a student of online marketing practices.  Specifically, her latest High Rankings Newsletter touches on the subject of "Triangular Linking" and what that may mean for SEO improvement in the world of link building.

OK - enough on the promotion - we have a business to run here as well!

A big point we miss in relation to SEO and to Link Building is in defining what the point is in general.  Link building should not solely be for building search ranking presense.  There has to be some value to the end user, especially in the realm of Link Exchange.  If I run a pet shopping website, and I swap links with my local pet sitting service, it may make sense - especially if I have a local audience and I feel that there is value to them obtaining information on the pet sitting service.  Don't simply consider the link building initiative for directories and guides purely for SEO, consider it in a way to build your audience base through online advertising.  We tell our clients to list themselves in the Yahoo Directory, not necessarily because it will help their search rankings, but because it can be a valuable component to their online advertising initiatives. 

Consider this the next time you are thinking about building links for your site, regardless of the method you are using:  What are your primary objectives for creating, submitting or trading the link?  If the user of your site is not at the top of your reasons, you may want to reconsider why your are doing so.

Yahoo Advertises on Google

If you enter the term "Search Marketing" in Google, guess who appears somewhere between 1 and 10 in the Adwords PPC space?  Well, at least they know where to go for traffic...

Just to be safe, I queried "Google Advertising" on Yahoo - and found that Adwords does indeed appear in the top 5.  Not as big of a deal I suppose - since brand protection becomes important.