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miercuri, 10 septembrie 2014

Tune In: President Obama Addresses the Nation on ISIL

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Tune In: President Obama Addresses the Nation on ISIL

Tonight at 9:00 p.m. ET, from the State Floor of the White House, President Obama will address the nation on the threat of ISIL, and the United States' strategy to degrade and destroy the terrorist group.

Watch the President's address tonight at 9 p.m. ET at WhiteHouse.gov/live.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden meet with members of the National Security Council in the Situation Room of the White House. September 10, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Back to Fundamentals: 6 Untapped Keyword Sources that Will Boost Organic Traffic

Posted: 09 Sep 2014 05:15 PM PDT

Posted by neilpatel

I used to perform keyword research in the typical, perfunctory way—go to the Keyword Tool, type in some words, and punch out a list of terms.

Easy. Quick. Simple.

Today, things are different. The much-loved keyword tool has been replaced, long-tail keywords have the ascendancy, and it's harder to figure out what users are actually searching for.

The rules have changed, and so have the ways of playing the game. I still use the Keyword Planner, but I've also discovered a medley of not-so-obvious ways to get keywords that improve my organic traffic.

1. Wikipedia

Do you think of Wikipedia as just a massive encyclopedia? Think again. I use Wikipedia for keyword research.

How to Use Wikipedia for Keyword Research

Image from Search Engine Journal.

My process is pretty simple.

Step 1: Google inurl:Wikipedia and my topic. Or just Google the topic or head term. Wikipedia is often the first organic result.

Step 2: Look at the SERP to identify the most relevant terms and possible keywords within a Wikipedia entry.

Step 3: Open the entry in Wikipedia and identify the most relevant terms from the first few paragraphs, morphing them into longail iterations.

Step 4: Identify other relevant terms from Wikipedia's table of contents on the topic.

Step 5: Link to other associated Wikipedia to see related subjects, and identify even more keywords.

Wikipedia is the world's sixth most popular website, and ranks it at number #4 on Google's list. It boasts 310,000,000 unique visitors (20% of its traffic), and has 7,900,000,000 pageviews. All of this with absolutely no advertising.

In other words, Wikipedia has one of the best organic SEO strategies on the planet. Obviously, these are keywords that matter. Wikipedia's popularity shows us that people want information. It's like the greatest content marketing strategy ever, combining user-generated content with prolific publishing on a grand scale.

Do what Wikipedia does. Use the terms that people search for. You won't outrank Wikipedia, but you will start to rank organically for the longtail varieties that you discern from Wikipedia.

2. Google autocomplete

When you type stuff into Google's search bar, Google predicts your query and types it out for you. The feature has been around for a long time. The more time that goes by, the more intelligent the autocomplete algorithm becomes.

These autocomplete suggestions are all based on real user queries. They vary based on geographic location and language. However, in spite of the variation, autocomplete provides a fairly accurate representation of what people are looking for.

Here is why autocomplete is a killer source of keywords:

Step 1: It indicates some of the most popular keywords.

Step 2: It provides longtail suggestions.

Step 3: The keywords are ranked according to the "freshness layer" algorithm. That means that currently popular search terms will rank higher in the autocomplete list.

How do you use autocomplete for keyword research? Well, you can go about this the good old-fashioned spade and shovel way, like this:

Google 2014-08-11 13-50-24

Step 4: Open Google. To prevent Google from autocompleting previously-searched for terms, log out of Google or open an "incognito" window (Chrome: Shift + Cmnd + N).

Step 5: Type in your main keyword or longtail keyword E.g. "lawnmower."

Step 6: Write down the suggestions that appear in autocomplete.

Step 7: After you type in your main keyword or head term, type in "A" and write down the autocomplete suggestions.

Step 8: Repeat Step 7 for rest of the alphabet.

Or, you can do it the easy way, with Übersuggest. It's called"suggest on steroids." It will do all the work for you. The only downside is that it doesn't suggest keyword extensions based on search popularity.

Keyword suggestion tool — Google suggest scraper — Übersuggest 2014-08-11 13-53-48

If you can get past the eye-popping UI, Übersuggest is a pretty awesome tool.

Keep in mind that Google is not going to provide suggestions for everything. As quoted in Search Engine Land, here is what the algorithm will filter out:

Hate- or violence-related suggestions
Personally identifiable information in suggestions
Porn & adult content-related suggestions
Legally mandated removals
Piracy-related suggestions

3. Google Related Searches

Since Google is the biggest search engine, we've got to take our cues from its mighty algorithm, imperfect and agonizing though it may be.

Google's related searches is a really easy way to snag some instant keyword research.

Step 1: Search for your keyword in Google.

Step 2: Scroll to the bottom, and ignore everything in between.

There, at the bottom is a harvest of keywords, ripe for the selection:

lawn mower - Google Search 2014-08-11 14-05-22

The idea is similar to Google suggest. However, instead of providing autocomplete suggestions, Google takes the keyword and mixes it up with other words. These other words may be at the end, at the beginning, or sprinkled throughout. These related searches might not even include the actual keyword, but are simply connected in a tangential way.

Whatever the case, you will undoubtedly find some keyword ideas from this list.

4. MetaGlossary.com

Not a whole lot of people know about MetaGlossary.com. You won't find a lot of information about the company itself, but you will find a ton of keyword ideas.

Here are the instructions. Not too hard.

MetaGlossary.com 2014-08-11 14-53-43

The whole point of the glossary is to provide definitions. But along with the many definitions, you'll get "related terms." That's what we're looking for.

When I type in "Search Engine Optimization," my head term, here's what I get:

Metaglossary.com - Definitions for "search engine optimization" 2014-08-11 14-56-26

All of those are potential keywords.

I can take this a step further by looking through the definitions. These can provide even more keyword fodder:

Metaglossary.com - Definitions for "search engine optimization" 2014-08-11 14-57-28

For this particular term, I found 117 definitions. That's enough to keep me busy for a while.

5. Competitor keywords

Another great way to get keyword ideas is to snag them from the competition.

Not only are you going to identify some great keywords, but you'll be able to gain these keywords ideas from the top-ranking organic sites in the SERPs.

Here's how to do it.

Step 1: Google your top keyword.

Step 2: Click the first organic result.

Step 3: View the page source (Chrome: Cmnd + Alt + u)

Step 4: Search for "<Title>". Identify any non-branded terms as possible keywords.

Step 5: Search for "<h1>". Identify any potential keywords in the H1 text.

Step 6: Search for "<keywords>". Identify any potential keywords that they have identified as such. Some websites have this, such as specific Wordpress themed sites, or WP sites using an SEO plugin. Most websites don't.

Step 7: Look at all the content and locate any additional longtail keywords or keyword variations.

The competitors that are first in the SERP for a given head term or longtail query are ranking high for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is their keyword selection. Sure, they may have good link profiles, but you can't rank for a keyword unless you actually have that keyword (or some variation thereof) on your page.

6. Amazon.com

Amazon.com is king of the ecommerce jungle, no questions asked.

Part of their power is that they have total domination of the organic search results for just about any purchase-related keyword. When your audience circles closer to a transactional search query, Amazon is ranking somewhere.

Why? They've got keywords—lots of them. And they have reviews—lots of them. This means one thing for you: Lots of keywords ideas.

Let me make a quick clarification. Not everyone is going to find keyword ideas on Amazon. This works best if you have a physical products, and obviously only if Amazon sells it.

Here's how to skim the cream off of Amazon's great keywords.

Step 1: Google your keyword.

Step 2: Locate the Amazon entry in the SERP.

Step 3: Click on the result to see the product/landing page on Google.

Step 4: Locate keywords in the following places.

-"Show results for" menu

-Main header

-Text underneath main header

-"## Results for" text.

-Breadcrumb

-Items listed

Here's a quick survey of where you can find these keywords. Notice the highlighted text.

Amazon.com: Bags & Cases: Electronics: Sleeves & Slipcases, Messenger Bags, Shoulder Bags, Backpacks & More 2014-08-11 14-28-16

You'll find even more keywords once you dive into individual products.

Pay special attention to these areas on product pages:

-"Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought"

-"Product Description"

-"Product Ads from External Websites"

-"Customer Questions & Answers." You'll find some nice query-like longtail keywords here.

-"Customer Reviews." Again, this is a great source of longtails.

Let Amazon be your guide. They're the biggest e-retailer around, and they have some great keyword clout going for them.

Conclusion

Keyword research is a basic skill for any SEO. The actual process of finding those keywords, however, does not require expensive tools, formula-driven methods, or an extremely limited pool of options.

I've used each of these methods for myself and my clients with incredible success.

What is your favorite source for finding great keywords?

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Market Report: Beds & Mattresses | Summer 2014

Posted: 09 Sep 2014 07:02 AM PDT

It’s been an busy summer here at White.net. We’ve been busy talking to new companies, launching new client websites, speaking at industry events, and even barbecuing.

In between all of this, we’ve also been digging into mountains of industry data to explore some new verticals and bring the intelligence and insights we discovered directly to you. Our quest to understand popular search landscapes led us to consider some less-highlighted, but nonetheless popular sectors.

Our chosen areas of interest have been informed by the sectors that we at White encountered in our everyday life, both at work and at home. As a result, this summer we’ve analysed the Beds & Mattresses sector.

Why?

Bed & mattress retailing is a growing sector.

According to research by the National Bed Federation, bed industry turnover was £570m in 2012, up from £516m the previous year* with 2,763,000 units sold in the first six months of 2013.**

It’s an industry where a growing number of retailers, both bricks and mortar and online-only, are entering the market, choice is increasing, and purchasing is becoming a journey rather than a transaction. Retailers are no longer selling just a product, they are selling a lifestyle to aspire to.

Beds are both a major purchase and an intimate purchase, so people need readily available information which allows them to understand the benefits of the money they are spending. They also need to feel sufficiently inspired by the product to want to spend the money so retailers need to appeal to their hearts as well as their heads.

Karl McKeever, Retail Consultant, quoted in Beds, May 2014 edition

Amongst our research you’ll find well-known brands such as Feather & Black, Tempur, Dreams and Silentnight. To find out who else made our organic top 25, download the market report today.

Here are just some of the insights you will find in the Beds & Mattresses Sector Report:

Organic Market Share of Search

Swedish retailer IKEA holds a 9.4% share of organic search in this sector. Find out who beat them to the top-spot in our organic visibility Top 25.

Of the specialist bed retailers ranked in our Organic Top 12, who has the most shops, and is that benefiting them online?

Online-only versus bricks & mortar retailers

76% of the top 25 organic domains have a physical store within the UK – are they dominating organic search? You’ve heard of Bensons For Beds and Dreams, but are you familiar with the rest of our top 25?

Ratings & Reviews

Only half of the top 12 sites are using Adwords Ratings Extensions. Find out how many are utilising Product Listing Ads (PLAs) and Paid Search Ads.

Industry-leading Brands

Tempur is the most searched for brand in the United Kingdom. Find out who is trailing them in organic search and their share of organic search.

Key Search Trends

Living space is decreasing, so are we looking to buy smaller beds? Find out what’s out of fashion and what’s selling in our Key Search Trends pages.

*Beds Magazine May 2014 (NBF data)

*Beds Magazine, May 2014 (ONS data)

The post Market Report: Beds & Mattresses | Summer 2014 appeared first on White.net.

Seth's Blog : 2 new articles

The value of access

Access to people

Access to capital

Access to technology

Access to infrastructure

Access to gatekeepers

Access to trust (and the benefit of the doubt)

Access to civilization

Access to energy

Access to information

Access to responsibility

Access to freedom

Some come from free markets, some come from societal infrastructure, some from technology.

So easy to undervalue, until you don't have them. I don't think we should be so quick to take these for granted.

• Email to a friend •

Functional jewelry

Watches and eyeglasses have morphed into devices that many choose to spend time and money on, becoming not just tools, but a form of identity.

We could extend this a bit to handbags and to cars, but the number of items that qualify as functional jewelry is fairly small--and the market for each is huge, far bigger than if the only use was as a tool.

Apple has long flirted around the edges of this psychological sweetspot, and the reaction to yesterday's watch is fascinating to see.

1. What does this remind me of? is a key question people ask. Certain glasses make people look smart, because they remind us of librarians and scholars. Some cars remind us of movie chase scenes or funerals... If you're going to put something on my wrist, it's going to remind me of a watch. What sort of watch? The Pulsar my grandfather wore in 1973? A 175,000 euro Franck Muller Tourbillion, with complications?

Marketers rarely get the chance to start completely fresh, to say, "this reminds you of nothing, start here."

2. Do people like me wear something like this? is the challenge that the Google glass had (a challenge at which, so far, they have completely failed). Remember when bigshots used to wear Mont Blanc pens (oh, another bit of functional jewelry) in the outside pockets of their Armani suits? They didn't need a fountain pen that handy... it was a badge, a label, something the tribe did.

3. What story do I tell myself when I put this on? is the core of the fancy wristwatch marketing promise, because, after all, most people aren't going to realize quite how much you paid.

4. Do I want this to be noticed or invisible? is the fork in the road for all of this. You can buy a car or glasses or a watch that no one will comment on, remember or criticize. Or you can say, "look at this, look at me."

The iPhone and the iPod weren't launched as functional jewelry, they were pocketable tech, designed to be a tool for a user seeking a digital good-taste experience, but not originally thought of as jewelry. White headphones and phone cases and then Beats transformed these devices into a chance for individuals to wear a label and a message and tell a story (to themselves and to others) about their importance and tool choice.

The challenge the Apple watch faces right now is that there are only three of them. And successful jewelry is never, ever mass. Even engagement rings come in 10,000 varieties.

So, as technology people continue to eye the magical fashion business with envy, they're going to have to either change our culture, to create a 1984-style future in which all jewelry is the same jewelry, for all knowledge workers, slave to their devices, or they need to shift gears and understand that people are sometimes more like peacocks, eager for their own plumage, stories and narratives.

Or they could just make tools that are hard to live without.

• Email to a friend •

marți, 9 septembrie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Odds of Venezuelan Default Within 5 Years Hits 63%; Investors Realize Venezuela May Run Out of Money
Average Workweek Back at Pre-Recession Levels: What About the Obamacare Effect?
US Obesity Rates Exceed 20% in Every State; Care to Supersize That?

Odds of Venezuelan Default Within 5 Years Hits 63%; Investors Realize Venezuela May Run Out of Money

Posted: 09 Sep 2014 05:30 PM PDT

Venezuela has nice oil reserves but the government is spending more cash than it receives from pumping oil.

Investors are finally starting to realize Venezuela may run out of money and will be forced to default on bonds.

Please consider Venezuelan Bond Rout Deepens as Default Specter Raised

Venezuelan debt traders are beginning to consider the possibility the country may run out of money.

The cost of insuring the country's foreign-currency bonds against non-payment soared yesterday by the most since the aftermath of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s collapse in 2008 to 14.25 percentage points, the most expensive in the world.

While most analysts and investors expect Venezuela and its state-owned oil company to make $5.3 billion in bond payments coming due next month, concern is mounting the country may find itself without enough cash to service debt as soon as next year as foreign reserves drop to an 11-year low and oil prices sink. The nation's notes tumbled yesterday after Ricardo Hausmann, a Venezuelan-born economist at Harvard University, questioned the government's decision to keep paying bondholders in the face of shortages of everything from basic medicine to toilet paper.

"The bond market is finally beginning to wake up" to the possibility of Venezuela defaulting, David Rees, an economist at Capital Economics in London, said by phone. He predicts the country could default as soon as this year.

Venezuela's bonds fell 4.4 percent yesterday, pushing the extra yield investors demand to own the nation's debt instead of U.S. Treasuries to a six-month high of 11.95 percentage points, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The country's notes now yield 3.31 percentage points more than debt from similarly rated Ukraine.

The probability of Venezuela missing a payment on its bonds in the next five years rose four percentage points to 63 percent yesterday, according to traders in the credit-default swaps market. The cost of insuring Venezuela's debt passed Argentina's after that country missed a July 30 payment deadline, causing trading to be suspended.

I have been talking about this possibility for quite some time and consider default on foreign-denominated bonds to be the baseline scenario.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Average Workweek Back at Pre-Recession Levels: What About the Obamacare Effect?

Posted: 09 Sep 2014 11:45 AM PDT

A chart of hours worked shows the average work week has returned to pre-recession levels.

Average Work Week

Moreover, note that the number of part-time jobs has been relative steady in the recovery.

Employed Usually Working Part Time

What About the Obamacare Effect?

The Obama administration uses the above charts to make the claim Obamacare did not lead to a reduction in hours worked.

Obama is wrong.

For detailed analysis, please consider The Worst Job Stat Continues To Get Even Worse by Jed Graham at Investor's Business Daily.

Amid all the focus on boosting the minimum wage and legislating living wages, virtually no one seems to have noticed what is happening to the workweek in low-wage industries.

Since December 2012, private industries paying up to about $14.50 an hour have added, on net, 972,000 nonsupervisory jobs with an average workweek of a mere 17.7 hours, an IBD analysis finds.

That doesn't mean new employees are being hired for such few hours. Rather, it reflects a combination of reduced hours in existing jobs and short workweeks for newly created jobs.

Overall, in these low-wage industries which employ 30 million rank-and-file workers, the average workweek shrank to 27.3 hours per week in July, an IBD analysis shows. That's the shortest workweek on record, except for this past February, when mid-month blizzards wreaked havoc during the Bureau of Labor Statistics survey week.

The conventional wisdom among economists is that there's been no apparent shift to part-time work and that ObamaCare's employer mandate hasn't led to shorter workweeks.

But shorter hours clocked by nonmanagers in low-wage industries are being obscured because the rest of the workforce is now clocking a longer average workweek than even before the recession started.

For low-wage industry workers, on the other hand, the recovery in the workweek from a then-record low 27.5 hours in mid-2009 began to reverse in the latter half of 2012, and it's been pretty much all downhill since then.

Evidence points to ObamaCare as an important factor in the shrinking workweek.

Tale of Two Recoveries

At first glance it may appear the above chart is in conflict with the chart of people usually working part time. However, there is no discrepancy.

The BLS defines part time as less than 35 hours. Low wage industries had a lot of part-timers working 32 hours.

Under Obamacare, the threshold of part-time jobs is 30 hours. Obama made that change on purpose to force more businesses to offer healthcare.

Instead, busiunesses cut hours. It was the hours of the already part-timers that got cut, and that explains why there was no spike in part time employment.

The Obamacare effect is very real as the above chart shows.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

US Obesity Rates Exceed 20% in Every State; Care to Supersize That?

Posted: 09 Sep 2014 12:37 AM PDT

Obesity rates in the US are soaring along with healthcare costs: A New Study Shows US Adult Obesity Rates Exceed 20% in Every State with at least 30% of adults are obese in more than 20 states.

Rates of adult obesity increased in six US states and fell in none last year, and in more states than ever – 20 – at least 30% of adults are obese, according to an analysis released on Thursday.

The conclusions were reported by the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and were based on federal government data. They suggest the problem may be worsening despite widespread publicity about the nation's obesity epidemic, from First Lady Michelle Obama and many others, plus countless programs to address it.

From 2011 to 2012, by comparison, the rate of obesity increased in only one state.

The 2013 adult obesity rate exceeds 20% in every state, while 42 have rates above 25%. For the first time two states, Mississippi and West Virginia, rose above 35%. The year before, 13 states were above 30% and 41 had rates of at least 25%.

Adult obesity rates increased last year in Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, New Jersey, Tennessee and Wyoming.

Obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more, where BMI is calculated by dividing weight (in kilograms) by height (in meters) squared. Overweight is defined as a BMI of 25 to 29.9.

Obesity Math

Obesity math says divide weight in kilograms by height in meters squared. The average person may struggle to convert kilograms to pounds, and height in meters to height in feet and inches.

Not to fear, the American Cancer Society has a nifty BMI Calculator that will do just that.

Olive Garden Offers 7 Weeks Unlimited Pasta for $100

While pondering your BMI score, inquiring minds may wish to consider Olive Garden Offers 7 Weeks Unlimited Pasta for $100.

Olive Garden is about to try a pretty outlandish gimmick to lure folks in the door: pasta up the wazoo.

They're not calling it that, of course. But on Monday, the casual dining chain whose business has seriously softened in recent years, will announce plans for its first-ever "Never Ending Pasta Pass" -- which, for $100, gives the holder the right to consume all of the pasta, salad, bread and Coca-Cola branded soft drinks that they can stuff down for seven weeks.

But you may need to act fast. Only 1,000 of these pasta passes will be sold -- beginning Monday at 3 p.m. ET -- online via the Olive Garden web site. Nothing like being one of 1,000 VIP's who can gorge on pasta for 49 days in a row. The PR stunt piggybacks with the chain's annual "Never Ending Pasta Bowl" promo, Sept. 22 through Nov. 9., which lets folks eat all the pasta they want for $9.99.

There's been a recent rash of all-you-can eat promotions in casual dining. Little wonder. In a struggling industry, these promos tend to generate social media buzz and boost customer visits. In July, TGI Friday's rolled out an "Endless Appetizers" promotion that let folks chow down all the appetizers they wanted for $10. Red Lobster, the former sister company to Olive Garden, is in the midst of its "Endless Shrimp" fest, which fetches about $15.99, depending on location. And Outback currently has a $15.99 Steak and Unlimited Shrimp promo.

Last year during its "Never Ending Pasta Bowl" promotion, Olive Garden served 13 million bowls, says Spenchian. "It's our most popular and most requested promotion," he says. And, he notes, the 800-store chain hopes to attract more attention to the promotion by tacking-on the $100 Never Ending Pasta Pass.

Olive Garden Update

Olive Garden says 1,000 Never Ending Pasta Passes sold out within 45 minutes.

Care to Supersize That?

What percentage of fast food restaurants comes from up-sizing or super-sizing orders? Just asking .. I don't have the answer.

Confessions

I actually like Olive Garden. The unlimited salad bowl is fantastic. Moreover, you can cut out a ton of calories by getting their lite dressing rather than their regular dressing. Not only that, it actually tastes better in my opinion.

Olive Garden "Lite" has 60% fewer calories. Instead of "Supersize me?" Olive Garden should ask "Care to try our lite dressing with 60% fewer calories?"

I like it so much that I order bottles of Olive Garden Lite on Amazon.

I also like Olive Garden breadsticks, but now eat one instead of several. And I have gone to grilled foods instead of fried.

Recommendation: Try the Olive Garden grilled salmon.

Mish Results

By giving up carbs, not fat, I lost about 30 pounds in a year, most of it rapidly. And I maintained that for over a year.

I am still not where I want to be. My BMI is 24.6, just inside the normal category.

I would like to get my BMI down to about 22-23 which would be a loss of another 10-12 pounds or so, fluctuating between 150-155 pounds.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

miercuri, 10 septembrie 2014

Tune In: President Obama Addresses the Nation on ISIL

Back to Fundamentals: 6 Untapped Keyword Sources that Will Boost Organic Traffic

Back to Fundamentals: 6 Untapped Keyword Sources that Will Boost Organic Traffic

1. Wikipedia

2. Google autocomplete

3. Google Related Searches

4. MetaGlossary.com

5. Competitor keywords

6. Amazon.com

Conclusion

Market Report: Beds & Mattresses | Summer 2014

Market Report: Beds & Mattresses | Summer 2014

Why?