I have written several posts on Quality Score, but I recently found two articles on the subject that make it worth revisiting. Quality Score is Google’s way of assessing how relevant your paid search keywords are to the searchers you’re targeting. 

This article by by Craig Danuloff discusses  in monetary terms what the real costs of a low-quality-score are and this recent article, also by by Danuloff suggests 5 Steps to Improve Your Quality Score.

SEM ppc, quality score, SEM

This is very cool and while it wouldn’t be appropriate for every ad, there are places were this could be very helpful. Sitelinks enable you to link to multiple services within a single ad. Imagine company listings for a business like My SEO firm with direct links to services like Search Optimization, Internet Marketing, and Website Audits. I am not sure how this will play into Google’s quality score algorithm, but I am sure this aspect hasn’t been overlooked. The downside, it only works when your ad is in the top-most spot:

This image from RustyBrick:

Here’s where the sitelinks are added in the campaign settings:

SEM

Increasingly people are going on-line, not only for phone number and addresses, but for reviews and recommendations. Website’s not only give you the opportunity to list the standard phonebook info like you’re address, when you’re open and years in business, but also detailed information and photos about your products and services. You can explain who you are and why someone should do business with you. You can post videos not only about your company, but about the work you have performed and of happy customers.

Even my wife, who shunned the digital world including email until a couple of years ago, now spends many hours on-line. As for me, the only time I go to the phonebook is for an older company that I think might not have a web site, and even then, I will go to an online phonebook first.

This article lists the results of a recent study and highlights where people are going for local business information, The article also chronicles the shifts that have occurred over the last three years. http://searchenginewatch.com/3635350

If the phonebook isn’t dead, it is fading fast.

SEM

Yahoo announced at the SMX East conference yesterday that they were no longer using meta keywords. In the report Yahoo stated that they had announced this earlier in the year - but apparently no one outside Yahoo got the memo. While none of the major engines now support meta keywords, I still recommend using them in all your pages. There are a lot of spiders crawling the web that still use this information to categorize your content and can result in back-links to your site.

SEM key phrases, keywords, Yahoo

I just read a great article by Ian Lurie at Coversation Marketing titled Things You Don’t Know About Your Customers. Perhaps more aptly named Things to remember when designing a website, its a great read with clear points we all need to remember. In summary:

1. Reading onscreen is hard, for everyone.
   • Use short paragraphs.
   • Use short lines.
   • Use wide line spacing and nice margins.
   • Use dark text on a light background. 
   • Scrolling up-and-down is OK
   • Use lists.
2. They browse in an F-shape
3. They can’t remember your web address (being at the top of search results for your name means nothing)
4. They don’t search for your name (they search for answers to problems)
5. They don’t want to log in (or anything standing between them and their goal)
6. They don’t want an ‘experience’ (simple is better)
7. They do want your newsletter (make it prevalent and easy to sign-up)
8. They don’t care how clever you are. (just the facts please)
9. They aren’t enticed by mystery.
10. They get lost a lot (make navigation easy, redundant, and extend to your 404 pages)
11. They aren’t using cell phones  (at least not in big numbers)
12. They still use Internet Explorer (so be sure it works in IE)
13. They’re using big monitors. (so don’t create 800 X 600 layouts)
14. They need to want (create desire)

SEM, SEO content tips, designing a website

Duplicate Content has long been an issue with webmasters and is cause for concern because duplicating content dilutes your ranking in search results. Perhaps the most common cause of having duplicate content is in allowing both www. and non www versions of your site to exist. However, another place where I see duplicate content occur is when a customer has multiple domain names pointing to the same content. When you use multiple domain names, and there are good reasons to do this, you should pick a preferred URL and ensure that any secondary domains are 301 redirected to that URL.

In this video, Google’s Greg Grothaus does a great job explaining duplicate content problems and solutions ranging from 301 redirects to canonical tags.

I have previously blogged about how 301 redirects can prevent common problems from diluting the search engine ranking for your site. However, there are however a number of situations that create duplicate content concerns that are more difficult address. Webmasters now have additional tools to deal with duplicate content through Google’s Webmaster Tools panel. Through this addition to webmaster tools, Google Lets You Tell Them Which URL Parameters To Ignore. This will a great help, especially for many large dynamic sites.

SEO 301 redirects, Canonical, duplicate content, Linking, SEO, spidering, www

Alice Brown Design
www.alicebrown.info

Web Designer, Web Resources

Full service Internet marketing agency including web design/development/maintenance, e-commerce, multimedia, email marketing, ad campaigns, search optimization, and webinar/web conference production.

Scott Bennett
256.858.8022 or 256.527.NETT (6388)
www.netcentric-tech.com

Web Designer, Web Developer, Web Resources