Search Engine Optimization

You will soon be able to get the Vista upscale version at 319$ instead of 399$, the upgrade version at 219$ instead of 259$ and the Home Premium version at 129$ instead of 159$.

Happy Shopping!

Yes, Windows Vista is already a year old. Microsoft proudly said they sold more than 100 million copies of Vista throughout the world since it has been launched.

But are the customers happy?

Not really. Many retailers said that more and more people ask for Windows XP instead of Vista when buying a new PC or laptop.

This insatisfaction towards Vista might be caused by the system that requires a lot of memory which is too demanding for old computers.

I’m personnaly not satisfied with Vista. I recently bought a laptop and it’s just too damn slow. Files are taking way too much time to load.

And you, what do you think of Vista?

Microsoft launched a beta version of its new software suite and a second version is under way. SEO Roundtable has a nice set of first pictures.

The question that comes to mind right away(I’m not the first one to ask it).

Why is it called rank? Why is it green? Why so obvious? =).

SEO Moz Had an Interview with Eytan Seidman from Microsoft Live team, where they mentioned Webmaster tools among other good stuff. Here is the highlight in relation to the Webtools.

“Webmasters are a critical piece of our success. Fundamentally it is webmasters who provide us the content that makes our engine useful to end consumers. We think that if we can forge a closer relationship with webmasters we can accomplish two things. First, we can help webmasters understand how Live Search is beneficial to their business and where they might be able to improve to get better results.”

Way to go Microsoft, seems like they are on the right track. The questions I have, how much will this affect the amount of traffic Microsoft gets from the average Joe, and where does Yahoo stand. Is Yahoo thinking in the same direction? How will that affect them?

Webmaster tools are a good link bait and looks like Microsoft is not giving up just yet, we just have to wait until the time Google buys Microsoft =).

A couple of months ago, in a hunt for search engine optimization tips, I came across a data mining company called Hitwise. Established in 1997 it has become well known in search engine optimization and internet marketing circles for its unsurpassed ability to report on virtually any website.

I have not had a chance to try its services, but from information provided by search engine experts and presentations offered by the company itself it was not hard to draw out its benefits, which are truly overwhelming.

So What Does it Do?

Let me get to the bottom line. Hitwise allows you find out vital information for your search engine optimization efforts gathered from any website of your choice. It allows you to see what keywords surfers are using to find you, what websites they are coming from and where do they go after leaving your website. However, the most delicious and exciting treat of this fine food so to speak, is the ability to do run the same analysis on any website of your choice. I guess you got my hint =)

According an article written by Terri Wells of SEO Chat(a wonderful search engine optimization source), full suite of this research colossus costs around $50.000 – $60.000, depending on a number of people it is licensed to. It features a full spectrum search engine and marketing analysis of over a million websites in 160.000 industries.

Not being too budget friendly to any medium or small sized companies doing its best in a big pond of search engine optimization and internet marketing, Hitwise decided to release reports on any one given site for a price ranging more or less 800$.

Know Search Engine Optimization and Marketing Scheme of Your Competition – Inside Out.

You can compare how well your search engine optimization efforts are doing against your biggest competitors, as well as learn who is doing well and who is behind by analyzing the keywords from which they are getting the most traffic, what are the most profitable, and how many visitor are coming from paid listings. Grab a calculator, find out an average cost per click all across the web for their target – vuala you know the PPC budget of your competitors over the years and months passed, weeks to come.

You can see what websites your rivals are getting traffic from, on what pages visitors spend the most time, how many of them convert and what they do after(sold or not). This can give an idea of what you need to improve in your search engine optimization campaign, since you can see the exact site they visit after leaving yours.

Hitwise also prompts you with preset questions in particular areas to source out the market you might’ve overlooked, or suggest an affiliate who sends the most traffic in your or similar field, a feature not available in a report.

Apart from search engine optimization data, Hitwise also provides a detailed demographics and lifestyle overview including but to no extent all:

• Gender
• Age
• House Hold income
• Region
• Race
• Religion

And countless others

Don’t ask me who came up with the terms, he must really in love with himself =)

This feature is partly included in a one time report and provides truly a remarkable insight for any internet marketer.

Hitwise provides information for any site’s traffic performance over a period of time, which is presented in a form of a graph. Feature present in both versions, but its full power revealed in a full suite, where you can narrow down the time period by years, months, weeks and so on and see how well your competition did in their search engine optimization in the past. The graph is X & Y based, with time on the X axis and parentage of search engine traffic on Y. As the line goes up and down over months, you can guess seasonal trends of the products offered by the website. In a full version you are able to hover over, and see what caused the rise, which can be a review, a new product or increase in search engine optimization.

As I mentioned above you see can the exact key phrases which drive the most traffic to the site, something invaluable to any search engine optimization expert, since you are literally taking all the work your competition did in an effort to optimize their site.

By the way, as you guessed a lot of people are not very happy with this conduct, which is perfectly understandable, but as long as it is not ruled by the Justice Department as being illegal, there is not much anyone can do but to jump on a ride and open up a wallet.

Marketing on Steroids – Top Performers in Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization Know it.

It is not hard to imagine the value of this wonderful tool, but who are the true lucky search engine optimization expert users of this data beast?

That is right, they are the biggest 500. As stated on the Hitwise site, clients include
HSBC, AXA, Google, eBay, CBS News, IKEA, MTV, Qantas. Ask.com gets a slice of the pie as well. For some reason US Army just crossed my mind, as bizarre as it sounds, pentagon got marketers too, but did they jump on a SEO ride yet?

So the bottom line is this, if you want to take your search engine optimization and internet marketing to the next level and know without the shadow of the doubt everything your competition is hiding from you – Hitwise is a way to go. Costing $800 a report, it is well worth the value asked for it, though not full the potential, but have you got $60.000?

I think I know what I’m going to ask Santa for this Christmas =)

PS
I used a sample for this review provided by Hitwise here.
Here is a 5 minute overview of its powerful tools in action.
Not affiliated with Hitwise in any way.