Search Engine Optimization

Reduce the size of your text content, with a special emphasis on the elements that are common to every page on your website such as the JavaScript and the CSS(cascading style sheets). There’s a handy online CSS compressor which offers three levels of CSS compression. I recently discovered it and used it to compress the style sheet of one of our client’s website

You can do something similar to the JavaScript with this online JavaScript compressor From the original idea of Douglas Crockford.

Customer: “I want to download the Internet. Do I need a bigger hard disk?”Download the Internet here

Last time we mentioned the use of keyword research for marketing. Not for SEO or PPC, but research into intentions covered within keywords.

The tactic was to take a keyword and add a question to see actual results being searched(more here):

• What
• Why
• Where
• How
• Who
• Is

I’d like to add more:

• Which
• When
• Does
• Did
• Are
• Whose

We use Google Keyword Tool, WordTracker(SEO Book) and Keyword Discovery for our keyword marketing research.

Keyword Discovery(KWD) refuses to recognize questions in front of the keywords. With KWD we take a different approach and search for long tail. Long tail gives even longer tails allowing you to find potential concerns & questions. Do not place too much faith in KWD though – it has very noisy database for keyword marketing research.

After you mine questions generated by Google and Word Tracker(SEO Book) you can start relating them. You will find that a lot of questions essentially mean the same thing. Pile up keywords that imply to the same question and leave them there. It will help you with linguistics in the long run, as different visitors use different languages.

For example: “what drives credit card rates” & “where do credit card rates come from” – both mean the same thing, but are phrased differently.

For a writer, this means a chance to identify and input both versions into to the copy, not for the sake of SEO, but rather to trigger linguistic recognition and relate to the reader, since people use different words to communicate.

After you pile up keywords into groups, you will start seeing that different keywords are very closely related to each other, implying that searchers using those keyword will:

• Get to the next stage in search and ask those questions.
• Expect to see it, have an intention of finding it.
• Will get back to refine search.
• Mean the same intent, but with different language/means.

For example:

Keyword Marketing Research Scenario:

“what drives credit card rates” – person wants to know what drives the rates so he can predict them in the future, by looking at the cause.

“credit card rate history” – Look at the history to either see if he is getting a good deal or compare different vendors. He may also be looking at history to try and predict future rates

“credit card rates predictions” – this one is obvious.

As you can see keywords can be somewhat related. We can group them closely together, but not combine. This will help us with the copy and website flow.

So far the analysis of keyword list is based largely on assumptions. The next step is to head out to discussion boards.

Forums & Keywords for Marketing Research

Forums are great for mining questions and concerns. For every 10 customers there’s 1 that will head to forums and ask the question( ok i just made that up, but you get the point). Though their personal story might be different, there’s a high chance they care about the same thing as other people who did not bother posting.

Key here is to identify questions customers have and relate them to the keywords. If keyword and forum questions are related, this means people have Googled it and asked on forums. Forums give you bigger advantage, since you to see details of those questions and a little stories behind it. Don’t get too detailed. We’re after general stuff.

We usually copy & paste it to the keyword list, helping us to drill into the target deeper.

All of the research is based on the topic that you or we do not know too deep. Deep research will help us to write content that people can relate to and build a long term website structure that does a good job at getting people to take action.

Good luck with your keyword marketing research.

Google announced today It will be splitting Perfomics into 2 separate companies: Affiliate Marketing and Search Marketing, while selling off Search Marketing division to a 3rd party company. Earlier Danny Sullivan asked Google in an open letter to do so and they have reacted few weeks later.

Search Engine Land covers.

Google Blog:

“It’s clear to us that we do not want to be in the search engine marketing business. Maintaining objectivity in both search and advertising is paramount to Google’s mission and core to the trust we ask from our users. For this reason, we plan to sell the Performics search marketing business to a third party. We believe this will allow us to maintain objectivity and the search marketing business to continue to grow and innovate and serve its customers. While we have not yet identified a buyer, we’ve received preliminary interest from a number of our current partners. Search Marketing will continue to run as a separate entity until the division is sold.”

We also did a column on the topic, not too pleased with the fact that Google will be a search engine marketing firm.

Quick reaction is an indicator to Google’s sync with the community, good job.

Microsoft New Search Engine Strategy that Will Topple Google

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced today that Microsoft will launch a new initiative codename EdiSearch. Program will feature large editor camps throughout third world countries such as: China, Indonesia, Liberia, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Tunisia.

The aim is to hire vast number of human editors at low wages. In Ballmer’s own words:

“We’ve been in planning for quite some time. The decision will uplift Live Search results above all other search engines. We are planning to open at least 10 camps in China, 2000 people each and 5 camps with 500-1000 people in Somalia, Ethiopia Sierra Leone by July 2008. I believe the EdiSearch initiative will allow us to offer better search results and unmatched experience to the end user.”

The major concern here is in linguistics, as Microsoft will have to educate English to more then 10.000 workers.

Free Search Engine Labour By China

From an interview by Wallstreet with Microsoft insider, it was revealed that around 5000 of Chinese editors will come from concentration camps. Workers will be largely civilian protesters who have disobeyed Chinese government. Insider stated that the deal is struck with Hu Jintao(chinese dictator) directly and that the Chinese government will receive stakes at Microsoft.

This opens a window for Microsoft to virtually humanize search at no cost as countries such as China can provide free or almost free labour, with 14+ hour shifts. He also revealed that 4 editor camps are almost finished in China and the recruitment process has already started.

Key players are going to be military and prison officers, who will supervise and keep order throughout the camps. Officers are exclusively provided to Microsoft by Hu Jintao dictator.

The Solution To Fight Google

The EdiSearch project is a very hard move against Google, as it will face some of the toughest competition in history. It will most likely take Microsoft some time to get the quality aspect going, however, we do not complain about our appliances and electronics, which are pretty high quality. It will be a matter of time before Microsoft figures quality standards and offers competitive product to Google.

Happy April Fools!