What SEOs Must Learn from Adwords Folks

---

What SEOs Must Learn from Adwords Folks Posted: 14 Oct 2011 05:47 AM PDT Posted by Fryed7 This post was originally in YOUmoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc. AdWords folks. They're the traders of the online marketing world. They spend their time analyzing scoreboards, making little improvements and brainstorming their next ideas. They split-test their ideas, scale the best and ditch the best. In a world where scarce resources force them to make choices over budget, positioning and copy, they're having to think totally differently to SEOs. Rand posted back in 2008 about the disconnect between PPC spending and SEO spending. Despite the well documented differences in results, PPC is a science from the outset, but SEO still leaves lots to chance. AdWords folks live-and-die by the following five rules. Today, you're going to learn how to adopt them as an SEO and win: Perry Marshall once said that advertising is "one of the world's most wasteful and deceptive industries" since results from campaigns are so difficult to track. In an online world with universally simple, yet sophisticated analytics available, it's a totally different ball-game. Sure, you understand the concept of profit and yes it is the end goal, but not in the same way as AdWords folks where not making money is an unforgivable sin from the word go. SEO and Social Media agencies can still charge $5k for a campaign that may or may not affect the client's bottom line (spending is speculative), but an AdWords account manager can't spend $5 without being accountable for every penny. AdWords clients can see what money is being spent on, and the results - there's no excuse anymore. We're in the business of making money; whilst SEOs can be accountable, PPC folks are always accountable. We need to emulate PPC guys. You've used Google Analytics, but do you really know how to apply custom filters, advanced segmentation and setup tracking. Take Google's Conversion University course, take the exam and prove it to yourself. Get yourself used to regular feedback. Computer games master this regular 'pat on the back' - get Geckoboard or some equivalent setup to feedback regular metrics that matter. Pour through your Google Webmaster Tools, especially the 'Search queries' tab which gives similar statistics to what AdWords folks see on their dashboard. Next up, rule #2... PPC is still an investment - with each visitor (potential customer) you gain more and more user data. Direct marketers are conditioned to split-test mailings and harvest data to make continual improvements; AdWords and other PPC services make this even easier. Tim Ferris used AdWords tests to name his book, 'The 4-Hour Workweek', knowing he'd get more 'instinctual' responses than the perhaps group-influenced results from a focus group (plus, AdWords is so much more scalable). Yes, we spend our time doing tests, but we need to experiment like AdWords guys do as well, agonizing over their campaigns titles and numbers month on month. We don't talk about swipe files enough in SEO. When was the last time you tried editing and testing your title tags to improve your click-through rate? Go through your bookmarks and draw together a list organized by factor of your favourite, most inspirational sites for improving your SEO. Rand's Head-to-Head Presentation from ProSEO Boston consisted of little more than showing off his awesome swipe file and his concept mashup. Conversion rate optimizers put together awesome guides like this to help you on your website. Use the same tips and tactics to brainstorm and implement tests on your onpage SEO. Rule #3 next... Use words carefully. In the business of signup forms, calls to action, headlines, sub-headlines, and AdWords advertising copy... few words make a huge impact. As well as being the most viewed pieces content, often the content that most influences your visitors. Joshua Porter is an interface designer you need to be aware of. His advice - "The fastest way to improve your interface is to improve your copywriting" - applies just as much to your search campaign. Start with these basics for understanding microcopy. Look through all your title tags via SEOmoz PRO app or by downloading them with Xenu. Can you make them more relevant to your users? Can you add more trigger words? Phew! The last-but-one rule... SEO is like having an unlimited AdWords budget that harvests ~85% of the clicks from a given SERP, but that's a mixed blessing. Scarce resources, like a PPC budget force you to choose and optimize your input for maximum gain. Economics 101 in action. Its like the difference between a funded startup and a bootstrapped startup. Jason Fried of 37signals explains the first thing a bootstrapped company has to do is turn a profit - or the owners go hungry - whereas the funded startup needs to spend the money first. The PPC guy has to figure out and test where the money is, or they go hungry too... Bad times. Picture via Declubz Don't think of SEO as an unlimited AdWords budget, but as an expanded AdWords campaign. The profit discipline has still got to be there. Although SEO doesn't have direct costs-per-click, but it still is very expensive in terms of time. The trouble is it's too easy to spend time like you've got waiting on the results later. Don't. 37signals plan on 'what takes two weeks'. They expect results at the end of that. If something isn't possible in two weeks, the task is too big (cut it up instead) or focus on something that will deliver results. You need to watch this video like your next meal depends on it. Apply some 80-20 analysis to your SEO spending (both time and money). Where's the most money coming from? So if I cancelled 80% of next month's SEO budget, would you still meet your numbers? And finally...   "Revenue’s Vanity. Profit's Sanity." The same principles apply to search - traffic is vanity. Yes, it makes you feel good but you can't go to the bank with traffic figures. You only need highly-targeted visitors that convert into customers. When you're paying for each visitor to your website, boy are you going to try to extract the most value from each visitor. Not every visitor is a "hot" lead, so gaining their permission to follow up is essential. AdWords guys recognize the power of opt-in landing pages and follow-up marketing. Whilst landing pages used in a PPC campaign might not be the most linkable content, it is still important to build content that engages visitors in the prospecting process. Brainstorm alternative methods to maximize the value of your current search traffic. How can you capture their email address, and lead them to a sale? Is the offer not right for them? How can you link in alternative offers? Closing Thoughts AdWords is not expensive search marketing. It's direct marketing on steroids, and direct marketers appear to be the smartest guys in the business. It's a no-brainer to study them and apply what they know to SEO. So I may have accidentally, on purpose, published my public to-do list for getting good at SEO. And it's not like enough homework has been set already...! The beauty of SEO is it combines the creative, artistic side of marketing with the rigorous, science that is online marketing; what do you think? Is it worth peaking over the shoulders of our comrades in paid search? Do you like this post? Yes No

5 Tips for Running a Successful Retargeting Campaign - Whiteboard Friday Posted: 13 Oct 2011 02:02 PM PDT Posted by Aaron Wheeler  You've already got a lot of visitors coming to your site through your SEO efforts, but how many of those visitors convert on their first visit? If your site is like most sites, less than 5%. Those visitors that don't convert the first time around might come back to your site, but why not make the decision easier for them? Use retargeting! There are a lot of great reasons to implement a retargeting campaign and, in that vein, there are a lot of steps involved in doing so. On this week's Whiteboard Friday, our very own Justin Vanning explains some of the tips and strategies he's used to create successful retargeting campaigns. Are you a retargeting wizard yourself? Tell us about your own tricks in the comments below!   Video Transcription Hey Mozzers, my name is Justin and I am pretty new here on the SEOmoz team. I work on the marketing team, and I'm responsible for all of our pay channels, so paid search, retargeting, pretty much anything that has a budget where we're trying to go and acquire new customers, that's what I work on. So I'm going to take a little bit of a breather from SEO. I know most of our Whiteboard Fridays have to do with SEO. I have a paid search background, a paid marketing background, so I'm going to stick to retargeting since that's what I know and hopefully can show all of you who are doing SEO why it's valuable to use retargeting and give you some tips. So for those of you who don't know what retargeting is, it's basically you serve a cookie, you serve a pixel on your site that's going to capture users who have visited it so that in the future when they're visiting different web properties, other websites, you can show your ads to those users because you know that they've actually been to a specific page on your site. So I'm not going to go too deep into what retargeting is or give some specifics on that because I think most people probably are aware of it. We've done a bunch of blog posts on it. I know Joanna wrote a bunch that if you're interested you can check out and you can kind of see the basics of retargeting. But what I want to focus on are just some five quick tips for running a successful retargeting campaign. The first one is to create highly relevant audiences. In retargeting, your audience is basically the group of people that you are capturing through the use of serving them a cookie. You're capturing those users, and you're putting them in a segment or an audience. So here at SEOmoz we use AdRoll as our retargeting platform, and they're great if any of you guys want to check them out. But the first thing that AdRoll offers, and I know some other retargeting platforms offer, is segmenting and filtering. So what this means is that you have the retargeting pixel on your entire site. So if a user visits your product page or your features page, they're going to be served that cookie, but what segmenting and filtering does is it lets you take a group of people and say, "I want to only create an audience from people who have been to our features page. I only want to create an audience of people who have checked out . . ." Let's say you're a snowboard retailer, and you only want to grab people who have looked at winter coats. Well, you can use segmenting to grab those users and put them in a highly relevant bucket so that when you're serving them retargeting ads when they're out on different websites, you know exactly who that audience is and what the best ad is going to be that they're going to respond to. So utilizing the segments and also utilizing filters to filter out people, like here at SEOmoz, we have Pro subscribers, so if I wanted to create an audience, I probably don't want to include our Pro subscribers in our retargeting campaign since they're already signed up. So I can use filtering to make sure that I'm filtering out anybody who's basically come to their login page or has gone to their Pro dashboard. The second point is utilizing all of your web properties. So what this is talking about is if you have a company blog, you have multiple sites that basically maybe you have two sites that are offering two different product sets, make sure that you're using your retargeting pixel and you're creating audiences in segments on all of your web properties. So if you have a blog that gets 20,000 visitors a month, even though they might not all necessarily be prospective customers, it's a great idea to use that blog, throw the retargeting pixel up there, and start capturing that audience that in future if you decide that you want to give that audience a particular message through banner ads, you can serve that to them. Then the third point under this is just to know your goals. Make sure that you know exactly what you're trying to do with your retargeting campaign. If you're trying to drive conversions, you want to make sure that your - what I'm going to speak about next in the conversion funnel - and make sure that you're keeping in mind what your conversion funnel is. If you're trying just to drive lead gen, to drive people signing up a form with information, make sure you know what that goal is of what you're doing. Maybe it's just brand awareness and staying in front of potential customers. So you can use retargeting to really do any of these different goals. It's just making sure you know what the goal is and structuring your campaign to meet that goal. The second tip is to utilize your conversion funnel. Every site's going to have probably a slightly different conversion funnel, but the basic one is you have these different steps that the prospective customer's going to go though as they are going from first being exposed to your brand or to your site to finally making a purchase, whether that's signing up for software that they're going to pay a monthly fee for, or if it's purchasing a T- shirt. There are going to be different levels in that funnel, but for this scenario, we're just going to say the first one is the awareness stage. That's when a customer is just kind of being exposed to your brand. The way that you can utilize this in retargeting is to, say that somebody just landed on our homepage and they never went anywhere else on our site, well if I have a segment or an audience that's set up just for the homepage and it's filtering out everything else, I can say, "Let's serve these people ads with just our logo and our company name because that's going to reinforce that brand." It's going to reinforce the fact that they know they've been to your site. They might not yet know exactly what you do. They might not know your full product set, so you can keep these ads more simple and just focus them on brand awareness. The second part of the conversion funnel is interest. This is somebody who's maybe looked around a little bit on your site. They've started looking at your product offerings. They've gotten a little bit more in depth into the conversion funnel. This is where if you're retargeting this specific audience, you would want to have ads with a specific product. So if somebody went to your - I keep bringing up snowboarding, but that's because I like to snowboarding - but if they were looking at actual snowboards, well then you could say, "In retargeting I want to serve them maybe ads that are going to talk about other snowboards that we offer." Or maybe we got a new line of snowboards in and you want to try to get that person to come back to your site, so you use that interest that you know that person has based on their behavior. The next step would be evaluation. These are potential customers that are in the evaluation phase and they're looking. They've been to your site. They've done a lot of looking around at different products or your different services, and they are currently evaluating whether or not they're going to become a customer. So at this point you want to have retargeting ads that answer any of their lingering questions. So, good things here would be maybe to reinforce if you had won an award for your product and to reinforce that in your retargeting ads that are going after this audience. Maybe it's to talk about if you have a lifetime warrantee and none of your competitors do, at this point you would maybe want to bring that up in your retargeting ads. The next step is the decision phase. That's when the customer is literally about to buy whatever the product or the service is that you're offering. Maybe they've made it to your cart page and they haven't actually converted into a purchase or a paying subscriber. So at this point you would want to serve these types of customers ads that show particular promos and discounts. Let's say your product normally is $99 a month, but you're going to run it for $79 a month. So it's a great way to go after that audience of people who have made it really far in the conversion funnel, but haven't converted, by creating ads that are speaking specifically to kind of that last step to get them over the hurdle of, "Should I become a customer or not?" Then the final step is after somebody has purchased the product you want to . . . you can use targeting in some creative ways after the purchase to basically say, "Okay, this person purchased a snowboard. They didn't buy bindings or boots from our company. Let's serve them retargeting ads that have products that we know are similar to what they already bought and that we think they're going to have interest in, and try to use that purchase behavior to create the ads and create the retargeting campaign that's going to go after that specific segment. The third tip is to avoid banner fatigue. In retargeting, if you set up a retargeting campaign and you're not careful, it's definitely easy to have it where your ads are literally just following people who have been to your site and they're following them from site to site to site. It can get a little creepy. People get weirded out by that. I know experts usually say that 7 to 12 ads per month is the ideal range that you want your banner ads to be showing up to people who are in your retargeting audiences. So whether you have to turn down the frequency of how often your ads are showing, if you want to cap your impressions to one per user per day, you can use some different things in most retargeting tools to make sure that you're not just bombarding people with banners ads. You don't want to create just the negative feeling that you're constantly following them or that you're desperate for a sale. The other tip under here is to just rotate your creative constantly. I think having a portfolio of creative that is kind of a living, breathing portfolio of multiple creatives, between static, between animating. Like I said earlier is that people are going to be seeing these ads frequently, and you don't want them to keep seeing the exact same ad, or the exact same call to action, or the exact same offer. So I think rotating these ads constantly, whether you're doing different campaigns to hit customers at different points in the conversion funnel, making sure that you have multiple ads that can speak to exactly where that customer's at and where you want them to be in the conversion funnel. The fourth tip would be optimizing your landing pages. As most of you know, from whether you're doing paid search, you're doing other channels that landing page optimization is crucial to making sure that if you show your ad to a potential customer and they click on it, that's the first step. You want to make sure that you have compelling creative to get them to click, but once they actually perform that click and they get to your site, you want to make sure that you're not losing them for a second time. Keeping in mind, all of these people who are in your retargeting audiences are usually going to be people who haven't made a purchase, unless you've going after this segment of people who did make a purchase and you're trying to get them to come back. For the most part you're going to be going after people who probably haven't purchased on their first visit to the site. So you want to make sure that your landing page is optimized to speak to them. If somebody's in the decision phase of the process, you know they've already been to your product or your features page. They have a lot of information. You don't want to drop them on your homepage. You don't want to drop them back on your "About Us" page when they're at that phase in the process. You want to make sure you're getting them to as few clicks as possible to the actual conversion point. The other thing that I like to do is just to constantly test and make sure that you're using creative copy. There are things you can do where you can create your custom landing pages for your retargeting campaigns that thank the user for coming back. You know that they've already been to your site. So having the first thing they see, copy that says, "Thank you for taking for taking another look at our site. Thank you for taking a look at our products." Those types of things can be effective to give you that extra bump in conversions. Then the fifth and final tip is to have patience and continually test. Retargeting is definitely more of a marathon than a race. If you set it up, you're really excited, you get your campaign up and running, you're probably going to be a little bit disheartened as soon as it gets up and running because it's slow to really build. Retargeting, it needs time. As your campaign is running, you're serving more impressions to the same users over and over. So you're reinforcing your brand, you're reinforcing your promotion, your offers, your products. The longer that your retargeting campaigns run, the more successful they're going to be. It doesn't mean you can set it up and just forget about it. You definitely have to test. Testing creative, testing offers, testing landing pages, all of those things are really important, and they're really simple to do if you're using a good retargeting platform where you can just do A/B testing. You can have a creative with your mascot versus a creative without your mascot. You can have creative that is strongly pushing a call to action to sign up for a free trial or to buy a product, or you can try to tone that language back and see which one performs better. So I think at the end of the day if you're testing your ad copy, you're testing your creative, you're testing your landing pages and constantly building that data set of metrics to create what decisions you're going to make in the future, and you are constantly learning from the retargeting campaign, I think that's the most effective way to run retargeting. So these are some of the tips that I've learned in previous jobs and here at SEOmoz, and will continue to learn moving forward. Retargeting is something that I think the more you do it, the more you can learn from it. So I don't think you'll ever get to a point where you feel like you're 100%, you know everything there is to know about retargeting, but it's a great channel to use. It really is the best way, I feel like, to get the customers that have been to your site, whether they've come there organically through SEO. You're spending all your time in SEO and you're driving traffic to your site. Why not use retargeting to try and go after that 95%, 97%, 98% of the people who get to your site and never actually convert on that first visit. Retargeting is a great way to let you go and stay in front of those people. When they're out surfing on the Web, doing things on the Web, you can stay in front of them and remind them of your brand, remind them of your products, and hopefully get them to come back. That's all I have for you. I hope that was helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me through email. My email is listed on the SEOmoz site. Thanks a lot, guys. Video transcription by Speechpad.com Do you like this post? Yes No

You are subscribed to email updates from SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

White House Tweetup: "Totally Worth It"

Your Daily Snapshot for Friday, October 14, 2011   White House Tweetup: "Totally Worth It" Yesterday we hosted the largest White House Tweetup to date -- a chance for hundreds of our Facebook fans and Twitter followers to attend the Arrival Ceremony for the Official Visit of the Republic of Korea on the South Lawn of the White House and tweet all about it. Check out more photos and video on Whitehouse.gov: Behind-the-Scenes Video: What's on the Menu for the State Dinner? Photo Gallery: President Lee Myung-bak of the Republic of Korea: Official Visit  President Barack Obama and President Lee Myung-bak of the Republic of Korea greet guests during the State Arrival Ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House, Oct. 13, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) In Case You Missed It Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog. West Wing Week: 10/14/11 or "We Go Together" Your guide to everything that's happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. President Obama and President Lee of South Korea Hold a Joint Press Conference President Obama and President Lee of South Korea take questions from the press in the East Room of the White House. South Korea State Dinner: What’s on the Menu? Go behind the scenes in the White House Kitchen as the chefs prepare tonight's official State Dinner Today's Schedule All times are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). 10:30 AM: The President departs the White House en route Joint Base Andrews 10:45 AM: The President departs Joint Base Andrews en route Detroit, Michigan 12:05 PM: The President arrives in Detroit, Michigan 1:30 PM: The President and President Lee tour General Motors Orion Assembly 1:50 PM: The President and President Lee deliver remarks on the trade agreement with South Korea 3:40 PM: The President departs Detroit, Michigan en route Joint Base Andrews 5:05 PM: The President arrives Joint Base Andrews 9:20 PM: The President arrives the White House  Indicates events that will be live streamed on WhiteHouse.gov/Live Get Updates Sign up for the Daily Snapshot Stay Connected     Facebook Twitter YouTube Flickr iTunes        This email was sent to e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com Manage Subscriptions for e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com Sign Up for Updates from the White House Unsubscribe e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com | Privacy Policy Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111

SEOptimise

---

Website architecture for SEO: learning the basics Posted: 13 Oct 2011 07:12 AM PDT This post was written as a response to a direct request from @mitchholt. Apologies for the delay, but we thought it’s better 2 months late than never! Website architecture is an important part of the overall search engine optimisation strategy. There is a large volume of literature covering the importance of website architecture with two separate perspectives, both of which are extremely important for effective website optimisation. The first perspective is focused on the user and the user requirements; the other is focused on the search engine bots and the flow of 'link juice' (I will explain what link juice is and its role in SEO below). As a webmaster it is imperative that you get them both spot-on. Anecdotal evidence shows that there is a direct correlation between the two. When the user experience improves, so does the distribution of 'link juice' and vice versa. In this post I will be focusing primarily on the flow of 'link juice' and how you could use your website architecture to accomplish this. Before we continue, it may be worth having an understanding of how 'link juice' works. There are many great resources that cover this topic, but for the purposes of this post I'll provide an explanation with an analogy (please be forewarned that my use of analogies isn't my strongest of skills; having said that, I'm giving it a go anyway!). Links that point to your website bring along with them benefit to your site. A link to your site is similar to a vote. The benefit of all these links that point toward your site is what is known as 'link juice'. Imagine for a moment the flow of water for the purpose of irrigation; the similitude of link juice here is that of water. Just as crops require water to grow, individual webpages require link juice to rank for search queries on search engine results pages (SERPs). The lack of water flowing into crops can result in the destruction of crops. Similarly the lack of link juice passing onto webpages can severely hinder its ability to rank and even get indexed by search engines. Similarly to how farmers distribute the flow of water to all their crops, good website architecture helps the flow of link juice to all your webpages, helping them rank well. Most often websites with architectural issues will behave similarly to a dam. All its link juice will be blocked at the website's homepage, which wouldn't allow the flow of link juice to its category, subcategory and content pages. Recently here at SEOptimise, we encountered this very problem with one of our clients. They were receiving thousands of links directed to their homepage but an entire section of their website was not indexed and nor did it pass any link juice to its category or content pages. They were not taking advantage of the vast amounts of link juice they were receiving due to poor website architecture (among other issues). Therefore, not only is it important to obtain high quality links (or link juice) to your site, but it is equally important to cash in on link juice to help bolster the ranking ability of all your webpages. I hope my (attempt at an) analogy helped you grasp the concept of link juice and how it ties in with website architecture. So how do you make sure your website architecture is SEO friendly? Below you’ll find a list of basic yet powerful list of tips that can help optimise the flow of link juice throughout your site. Inspect your site's global navigation Most websites receive the highest number of backlinks to their homepage. Therefore, in terms of link juice, homepages are generally rich. The medium by which link juice is distributed to the rest of the site is the global navigation menu. The global navigation helps link all category pages from the homepage. In order to find common issues with the global navigation, disable JavaScript on your web browser (this will allow you to see what search engines see) and check if the global navigation still works. If it doesn't, then this is cause for concern and should be addressed immediately. The most SEO friendly global navigation menus appear as standard HTML unordered lists. Also observe if all the major sections of your website are linked to from the global navigation. As mentioned earlier, all major sections of your website must be taking advantage of the homepage link juice. Category and subcategory pages Generally when a website has a sizeable number of webpages it is only logical to separate these pages by category. These pages serve two key purposes; first they need to be useful for users. For this, not only will you need to make sure it's simple for users to navigate through to content pages but you will also need to make sure that there is enough unique and useful content on these pages. Webmasters must put at least a minimal amount of effort into making these pages linkworthy. Second, they need to act as 'link juice' routers. The links that they receive from the homepage need to be distributed to the content pages. In fact, if optimised cleverly and strategically, category pages have a strong chance of ranking on the SERPs for extremely competitive keywords. Content Pages Content pages are the reason your visitors arrived at your site. In order to provide the greatest 'link juice' benefit to your content pages, make sure the number of clicks to your content page is as minimal as possible (don't hide your content 6-7 clicks away from the homepage). Also, in addition to making the content extremely relevant, you should make sure you make it easy for search engines to figure out the purpose of the page. In order to leave clues for search engines you can use the following: • Title tags • URL • The actual content and • Images Title tags Make sure your most relevant and targeted keywords are placed within the title tag of the page. Search engines generally display only 60-70 characters from the title tags on their search results page, so it is considered good practice to make sure you stick to this character limit. Personally, if the target keyword is extremely competitive I would place these keywords ahead of their brand name. URL URL structure is important because they're a great clue for search engine bots to make sense of the site's information hierarchy. www.ExampleJewelleryStore.com/jewellery/engagement/rings/blue-sapphire-rings/ The above URL clearly defines the architectural hierarchy of the site. It lets the search engine know that this page is specific to blue sapphire engagement rings (not merely the stone). However, URLs that look like the following are not so clear about their architectural hierarchy or about defining the purpose of the page. www.ExampleJewelleryStoreNumberTwo.com/products/sh01453868 Content Although this is a no brainer, it is surprising as to how little thought is put into the actual content of many websites. Make sure content is unique and targets specific keywords. This does not mean stuffing your content with keywords, but make sure that the targeted keywords appear on your content naturally. It is also worth pointing out that attention should be given to spellings and grammar. See "Time to brush up on your grammar" for more on this subject. Images Of late, there's been much written about image optimisation and its correlation to attaining high rankings on SERPs, especially on image searches. Therefore it is best practice to include the alt text attribute in all HTML code for images for all publicly accessible pages. This attribute declares what text should be displayed if the user is unable to view the image. Therefore you should make sure you include keyword rich and descriptive alt text. These tips should stand you in good stead when planning your site architecture. It's obviously worth noting that website architecture is only part of the whole SEO process (albeit an important one). There are many more techniques and tips on improving website architecture. I would love to hear your thoughts, views and tips too. If I fell short in covering certain parts of this subject please feel free to question and discuss within the comments below. I have also provided a list of some great resources for if you want to do some additional reading on this topic. Sources: Fishkin, R. (2007). PageRank, Link Patterns & the New Flow of Link Juice. Available: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/pagerank-link-patterns-the-new-flow-of-link-juice. Last accessed 08th Oct 2011. Baxter, R. (2011). Successful Site Architecture for SEO [SES London 2011]. Available: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/site-architecture-for-seo. Last accessed 08h Oct 2011. Google (2011). Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. Available: http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en//webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf. Last accessed 09 Oct 2011. Dover, D. (2011). Search engine optimisation secrets. Canada: Wiley. Morville, P. & Rosenfeld, L. (2007). Information architecture for the web. 3rd ed. USA: O'Reily. Image credit:  Britanglishman on Flickr © SEOptimise - Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. Website architecture for SEO: learning the basics Related posts: Can You Get a New Domain Ranking Using Just Facebook Likes & Tweets? Top 10 Retail SEO Mistakes UK Brands Are Still Making Why Not All Shopping Search Engines Have Lost in the UK Google Panda/Quality Update

You are subscribed to email updates from SEOptimise » blog To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

Seth's Blog : Skinnier

Skinnier

So many things that would have been money losers then can be profitable today.

When you run your own concert, selling tickets online and renting the theatre out yourself, you might be able to keep 85 cents of every dollar your audience spends on a ticket. In the current system, by the time the box office, Ticketmaster, the stagehands, the promoters and everyone else takes a cut, you might end up with literally nothing.

Or consider a hardcover book that costs $20. By the time the bookstore keeps half, the publisher keeps a share for the risk she takes, and don't forget shipping and returns... there might only be $2 left for the author. With an ebook, the author might keep as much as $14 a copy... More if he hosts the store and sells it as a PDF.

A hairdresser with direct relationships with customers can give up the storefront location and make more money by charging less and cutting the hair in her home.

A newspaper can happily support a few reporters and an ad guy if it gives up the paper, the offices and the rest of the trappings.

Too often, we look at the new thing and demand to know how it supports the old thing. Perhaps, though, the question is, how does the new thing allow us to think skinnier.

 

• Email to a friend •

More Recent Articles

• The atomic method of creating a Powerpoint presentation
• First, make rice
• Open conversations (or close them)
• Which are you?
• "...but what really blew me away..."

[You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog.]

Don't want to get this email anymore? Click the link below to unsubscribe.

---

Click here to safely unsubscribe from "Seth's Blog." Click here to view mailing archives, here to change your preferences, or here to subscribe

---

---

Your requested content delivery powered by FeedBlitz, LLC, 9 Thoreau Way, Sudbury, MA 01776, USA. +1.978.776.9498

 

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

---

• "Moral Obligation" to JP Morgan and Bondholders? Please be Serious!
• Italy Prime Minister Calls for Vote of Confidence after Losing Routine Budget Vote; Italian Bond Yield Surges to 5.82%, No Support Except by ECB
• Congressional Approval Rating Drops to 13%, Ties Record Low; Mish's Congressional Scorecard
• Capital Shortfall Estimates of European Banks Range from 8 to 413 Billion Euros; EU to Offer Additional Extend-and-Pretend Time

"Moral Obligation" to JP Morgan and Bondholders? Please be Serious! Posted: 13 Oct 2011 09:37 PM PDT It's been a long time since I have been in open praise of Democrats anywhere, but this story makes me want to stand up and salute: Jefferson County Democratic Lawmakers May Derail Debt Deal The Democratic half of the Alabama Legislature's 25-member Jefferson County delegation opposes a settlement with holders of $3.14 billion in debt, throwing the deal in doubt, according to three lawmakers. Democratic state Representatives Patricia Todd, John Rogers and Mary Moore said in phone interviews this week that most of the delegation dislikes the terms of the deal. Their party in particular will oppose bills necessary for its success because they believe it gouges the poor, who would have to pay higher fees. In Alabama, one lawmaker can block legislation pertaining to a county, thanks to a tradition of "local courtesy." Without a settlement, Jefferson County might file the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history as early as December. Commissioners avoided a filing Sept. 16 by voting 4-1 for a deal with creditors, who agreed to concessions worth $1.1 billion. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), which arranged most of the debt, would take the biggest loss. Jefferson County and its creditors set the end of this week as a deadline for an agreement. Officials had said they hoped to have a final draft by Oct. 15. At today's meeting, however, lawmakers said they wouldn't support the proposal's sewer-rate increases. Not one spoke in favor of the deal. Kenneth Klee, the county's bankruptcy lawyer, told the lawmakers that a Jefferson County filing "would be like Chernobyl" for bond ratings in Alabama. The settlement calls for three annual sewer-rate increases of as much as 8.2 percent, followed by annual boosts of no more than 3.25 percent. It requires the Legislature to approve "moral obligation" backing for new sewer debt and to create an independent authority -- a so-called government utility service commission -- to operate the system. It also requires a fix for a hole in the county operating revenue caused when a judge struck down a tax on wages. Democratic lawmakers oppose the rate increases, a provision relieving JPMorgan of legal liability and the sewer authority, which Rogers said "is going to make somebody very, very wealthy on the backs of poor people." I am not in favor of a "moral obligation" to bondholders, especially JP Morgan, especially when I believe JP Morgan's actions with Jefferson county constituted fraud. Flashback May 23, 2008: Fraud, Antitrust Investigation Involving JPMorgan, Jefferson County This case has been lingering for years. This is what I said at the time ... Clear Case Of Fraud I am not an attorney but the facts presented suggest there is a clear case of fraud. Jefferson County should walk away from those deals and/or sue JPMorgan for fraud and antitrust violations. JPMorgan for its part would be smart to absolve Jefferson County of those deals because there is no way for it to win. Even if JPMorgan won a lawsuit vs. Jefferson County, the county could simply declare bankruptcy. The county wanted to declare bankruptcy but misguided fools in the Alabama legislature chose to bail out JP Morgan and bondholders instead of doing the right thing. Fortunately the Democratic half of the Alabama Legislature's 25-member Jefferson County delegation is standing up to absurd "moral obligation" talk as well as ridiculous talk of "Chernobyl" bond ratings for Alabama. Bankruptcy is not only in the best interest of Jefferson County taxpayers, it is also what JP Morgan and the bondholders deserve. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Italy Prime Minister Calls for Vote of Confidence after Losing Routine Budget Vote; Italian Bond Yield Surges to 5.82%, No Support Except by ECB Posted: 13 Oct 2011 04:44 PM PDT After losing a routine parliamentary vote on the budget, Silvio Berlusconi, the very annoyed prime minister of Italy called for a vote of confidence. The vote is expected on Friday. I believe Berlusconi may lose a close vote. If not, he will be discarded by March. Link if above video does not play: Berlusconi calls confidence vote on his government Berlusconi stakes his fate on confidence vote in parliament The Guardian reports Berlusconi stakes his fate on confidence vote in parliament Silvio Berlusconi is to stake the fate of his government and his own political future on a confidence vote in parliament on Friday. Standing before a half-empty chamber boycotted by the opposition, he appealed on Thursday for support from the chamber of deputies, the lower house of the Italian parliament, saying: "There are no alternatives." Berlusconi decided to seek a vote of confidence after losing a crucial division on the public accounts earlier this week. The result of the confidence vote is due at around 11.30am GMT on Friday. To survive, the government needs only to secure more votes than the opposition. If it loses, it is constitutionally bound to resign. All but six deputies were missing from the opposition benches when the prime minister got up to speak, the main opposition parties having decided to stay away from the debate in protest at Berlusconi's refusal to step down. Under mounting pressure from the courts, where he is a defendant in three trials, the prime minister leads an increasingly fractious party. Unusually for a conservative government, Berlusconi's is under open attack from the leading bosses' federation, Confindustria. Alarm over the state of the economy also helps to explain the emergence in recent weeks of critical factions in the PdL, notably one centred on a former minister, Claudio Scajola, who resigned last year in an alleged corruption scandal. Scajola said he and his followers would support the government on Friday and the PdL's parliamentary business managers appeared confident they could muster enough votes in the 630-member chamber. There has been widespread media speculation that rebels in the Northern League and Berlusconi's own party would prefer to wait until January before delivering a fatal blow to the government. That could clear the way for an election in the spring – before taxpayers start to feel the full effects of the tax rises and spending cuts imposed in recent months. But with Berlusconi's approval rating below 25% in the polls, the right has a vast amount of ground to make up. Futile Fight to Survive Deutsche Well reports In parliament, and in court, Berlusconi is fighting to survive Even by the standards of Berlusconi's roller-coaster ride in politics, the billionaire's grip on power is hanging by a thread. The "parliamentary accident" he mentioned in his speech took place earlier this week, when his weakened coalition lost a key parliamentary vote on the budget by one ballot. This defeat led to opposition calls for Berlusconi to resign and presidential encouragement that he put his government's stability to the test. After the vote, amid cheers from the opposition, a clearly furious Berlsuconi shoved past Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti, who showed up just seconds too late to cast what would have been the decisive ballot. Tension between the two was already high; Tremonti has been pushing for unpopular reforms in his bid to shore up Italy's finances, at a time when Berlsuconi's top priority is clinging to his position. Court complications Berlusconi is also under personal pressure in Italy's courts, facing four separate trials and allegations ranging from fraud to paying for sex with a minor. Given the constant flow of revelations from his now-infamous "bunga bunga" sex parties, more cases could be in the pipeline. This, coupled with the country's economic woes, has put the prime minister's popularity rating at an all-time low. Berlusconi's speech was primarily a rallying cry aimed at his supporters - many of the opposition parties boycotted the address - ahead of Friday's vote of confidence, the second his government will have faced this year. Amid the widening rifts among erstwhile allies, economists and business leaders have suggested that an interim government of some type should take over as Italy fights a national debt approaching 120 percent of gross domestic product. Should Berlsuconi's government lose Friday's vote, the premier would be obliged to resign. Italian Government Bond Yields Surge to 5.82% Inquiring minds note the selloff in Italian and Greek Bonds. Bear in mind the ECB stepped in yesterday to purchase 6.18 billion euros of bonds. Without ECB support, Italian bonds yields would be North of 7%. Well over half the rally (declining yields) when the ECB first stepped in has been taken back. Greece 1-Year Government Bonds Less than two weeks ago the Central bank of France insisted there were no toxic debts in French banks. This prompted me to write on September 25 Desperate Times Lead to Desperate Lies; Europe Weighs the Weightless; Even Citigroup Sees the Lies Are central bankers and politicians really as stupid as they sound or are they pathological liars who simply cannot help it? Check out these preposterous lies by Bank of France Governor Christian Noyer as quoted by Bloomberg in Noyer Sees 'Absolutely No Reason' to Use Bank Backstop Noyer Lies "I'm extremely confident" in French banks because "we know them very well. We know their balance sheets, their risk assessments. We know they have no toxic assets." There is "absolutely no reason" to activate a support system for the nation's banks that was set up during the financial crisis in 2008. Markets "are over-reacting," he said. "They need to come back to a sense of reality." All of those are blatantly preposterous. However, lie number 1 has to be one of the top lies of the year. "French banks have no toxic assets"?! For starters, what about Greek bonds about to take a 50% haircut or more in default? That lie is so ridiculous no one on the planet can possibly believe it. On October 3, Dexia bank became the First Casualty of Greek Default. Stupid lies (or blatant idiocy as stated by Noyer) only to be proven false a week later, does nothing for the credibility of the ECB or the Bank of France. Mistrust is everywhere and lies foster that mistrust. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Congressional Approval Rating Drops to 13%, Ties Record Low; Mish's Congressional Scorecard Posted: 13 Oct 2011 11:43 AM PDT The latest Gallup monthly poll shows Congress' Approval Ties All-Time Low at 13% The percentage of Americans who approve of the job Congress is doing returned to 13% in October, matching the all-time Gallup low on this measure, first recorded in December 2010 and repeated in August. click on chart for sharper image Congress' approval has been low all year, registering below 20% each month since June. The latest results are based on a Gallup poll conducted Oct. 6-9. Behind the recent rock-bottom ratings is subpar approval from all three party groups. Republicans' and independents' approval of Congress in 2011 has consistently been below 25%, and more often below 20%. After averaging 24% from January through July, Democrats' approval fell sharply in August, to 15%, and has remained lower than that since. Currently, Republicans' and Democrats' approval of Congress is identical, at 14%, similar to the 13% among independents. Clearly people are unhappy, and it's primarily about jobs. Secondarily it's about Congressional bickering and not getting anything done about the deficit (or anything else). Congressional Scorecard There have been no structural reforms and no desperately needed repeal of Davis-Bacon. No legislators brought right-to-work laws as a bargaining chip in the budget negotiations. Lobbyists effectively write our legislation. There are no pending measures for campaign finance reforms The bank reforms that did pass have been both toothless and useless. The healthcare bill that passed is a disaster Attempts to reform Medicare failed Military spending is extraordinarily wasteful but Congress likes to funnel wasteful spending to their districts to create jobs No one believes either party will rein in deficit spending (and they won't) Congressional compromise amounts to spending more on the military in return for spending more on social programs. Economically we can afford neither. Factor into the picture a jobless non-recovery with real wages falling, and the Congressional approval rating is both easy to understand and well deserved. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Capital Shortfall Estimates of European Banks Range from 8 to 413 Billion Euros; EU to Offer Additional Extend-and-Pretend Time Posted: 13 Oct 2011 09:20 AM PDT In the latest extend-and-pretend move by European officials, the EU may offer banks time to hit new capital target European banks could get up to six months to strengthen their capital under plans aimed at halting the region's debt crisis, giving them time to raise funds privately in the hope of averting another damaging credit crunch. EU officials said on Thursday that weak banks may get the extra time to bolster their balance sheets after a rapid health check currently underway. The European Banking Authority, which is assessing banks' capital needs, is likely to mark down the value of banks' holdings of sovereign debt to market value and require lenders to hold a 9 percent core Tier 1 capital ratio, an EU source told Reuters. Deutsche Bank, Germany's flagship lender, would need 9 billion euros in fresh equity to reach that level, two people with direct knowledge of the bank's finances said on Thursday. Deutsche Bank declined to comment, but in separate remarks the bank's chief executive Josef Ackermann said it would do all it could to avoid a forced recapitalization and added it had enough funds of its own to cope with a crisis. Setting the bar at 9 percent would leave European banks with a capital shortfall of about 260 billion euros, based on a two-year recession and applying current market prices to holdings of Greek, Irish, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish government bonds, according to Reuters Breakingviews data. Greece's banks could have to raise over 30 billion euros under the plan, as they face big losses on their holdings of domestic bonds. Banks are facing losses of 39 percent on their Greek bonds under a private sector rescue plan agreed in July, above the original estimate of a 21 percent hit, due to a rise in Greece's risk profile. Greek banks could endure a loss of up to 30 percent on the bonds but could not stand significantly bigger haircuts, which would also hurt the economy, Greek banking sources said. European leaders are still discussing the recapitalization plans, with many details still subject to change, and face intense lobbying from banks and some countries who say it is too harsh. Proposals are expected to be presented to a meeting of European leaders on October 23. The new standard is likely to be a 9 percent core tier 1 ratio, a key measure of a bank's financial health, based on a tighter definition of capital than used now, although not as strict as that under new Basel III rules when in full force Analysts at Credit Suisse said a 9 percent capital level would leave banks in need of 220 billion euros, with RBS, Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas most in need. Note that 39% haircut figure on Greek bonds. Although up from 21% in July, it is far too low. Anything under 50% is preposterous and 80% or higher losses would not be surprising in the least. Capital Shortfall Estimates of European Banks Range from 8 to 413 Billion Euros The Wall Street Journal reports widely varying analyst ranges in its article European Banks Face New Scrutiny Over Capital Needs Analyst Estimates Citigroup estimates there is a capital shortfall of between €64 billion and €216 billion for banks to achieve a minimum core Tier 1 ratio of 7% to 9%, respectively. Credit Suisse came up with a similar figure of €220 billion for the potential 9% scenario. Analysts at Espirito Santo said write-downs at current market prices on Greek, Portuguese, Irish, Italian and Spanish bonds, along with a higher minimum capital ratio of around 9%, could require as much as €413 billion in new capital across the sector. Merrill Lynch analysts in turn came up with estimates of between €7.6 billion and €143 billion in required capital for the region's major banks, depending on various scenarios. These ranges provide more questions than answers. Moreover, low-end lowball estimates such as €7.6 billion by Merrill Lynch are preposterous under all but the most ludicrous scenarios in the third round of "stress-free" tests now underway. Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Josef Ackermann says it isn't clear recapitalization efforts will help solve the crisis. Hey, let's just not recognize any bank losses ever. Addendum: Zero Hedge has some interesting charts of capital shortfalls as estimated by Credit Suisse. Commentary and charts below from Credit Suisse. No link provided. Click on charts for sharper image. One of our conclusions was that the overall European banking sector is facing a €400bn capital shortfall which compares to a current market cap of €541bn. The table below details the breakdown of our estimated capital shortfall. Figure 6: European banks – Capital deficit in CS 'accelerated sovereign shock Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

You are subscribed to email updates from Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610