Archive for the ‘Search Engine Optimization’ Category

Google just updated the page rank two days ago, so please check it out to see if you website are getting some Google love!

Don’t know how to check Google Page Rank?

Just download the google toolbar and you’ll see.

Don’t know what page rank is? Um… sorry this blog is not for you.

Technorati Tags: Google Page Rank, internet marketing, SEO, Google,

Yahoo Search Engine has just launched a series of new changes to its search function. The most notable change to it is the addition of Yahoo! Search Assist.

Quoting from Yahoo:

Most of you have already seen the real-time query suggestions we launched on Yahoo.com in July. Yahoo! Search Assist kicks it up a notch, bringing those suggestions to the search results page, along with related concepts that give users a point-and-click query refinement capability that enables them to explore a subject area they may be unfamiliar with.

One thing you’ll find when you use our new search experience is that Search Assist “automagically” drops down from the search box on the results page when it senses that you’re having difficulty formulating a query. But it only shows up when you need it or ask for it. It then offers real-time suggestions and concepts to explore, just like on Yahoo.com. We did this to avoid a common complaint about assistance technologies offered by other search engines — the “persistent assistance” that puts suggestions on the page regardless of whether a user wants or needs them.

Yahoo have been testing Search Assist over the past few months and they have seen significant improvements in user satisfaction from those tests. One metric we found was a 61% increase in successful task completion when users had Search Assist as part of their search experience.

I see these changes as positive for Yahoo and definitely closes the gap in terms of its usability with Google. It seems to me that Yahoo is taking a different route from Google by launching this search assist. What Google is trying to do is to understand searching behavior and come up with the suggestions themselves, where here Yahoo is trying to rely on the user to further refine the search results. This is certainly interesting to see how it pans out as to which model do searchers prefer and see if Google really has the ability to UNDERSTAND completely searching behavior and provide accurate suggestions.

Technorati Tags: Yahoo, Google, search engine, yahoo search, SEO,

Besides being an ecommerce entrepreneur, I sometimes provide consultation for business friends for their internet marketing like SEO and Google adwords management.

One of the first questions I get the most is - do I need an Adwords consultant?

The answer is yes.

Many business owners with a new online presence thought Google adwords is simply straight forward bidding on some keywords, writting some ads, and put it on Google. This cannot be farther away from the truth.

The truth is, a successful Google Adwords campaign require detail research of prospects’ search behavior, careful planning of adgroups, thorough copywriting of ads, choosing of landing page and conversion funnel, plus ongoing monitoring and split testing.

I recommend that if you’re serious about expanding your online business or using internet marketing to grow your company - go get an Adwords Consultant and outsource your PPC!

(Am I taking on new client? Not really at the moment, but you can email me to see when I’ll be available.)

Technorati Tags: Google, PPC, adwords consultant, adwords, internet marketing, adwords consultant

Ok, I’m talking about link exchange.

It used to be the case that you can just do 2 way link exchanges with other websites and achieve high ranking. Since 2006, Google has catched on to that and devalued the links generated from 2-way link exchanges.

As a result, I’ve seen lately a lot more link exchange schemes that involve 3 way exchanges. In essence, instead of website A linking to B and B to A (2-way) - website A will link to B, B to C, and C back to A. This way, it is much harder for the search engine to detect so all 3 parties will get a lot of quality links.

To add on to that, a lot of these link exchange schemes encourage the exchange of articles with link embedded in them to take advantage of the Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) of Google. I wonder how long it’ll take for Google to catch on this time. For now, I’ll be taking advantage of this and advice you to do so too.

Technorati Tags: Search Engine Optimization, Link Building, Google, Marketing consultant