We can apply this to Search Engine Optimization, too, as was nicely done in an article on Search Engine Watch called “SEO is Both Science and Art” by Mark Jackson. He provides a clear definition of science that I am reducing to “a systematized knowledge of a subject”. There are many on-line sources for this kind of knowledge for SEO, although Mark does point out that there is a lot of bad information out there in addition to some good stuff.

The science of SEO would of course include using the right platform for your website. Fast loading and easy to navigate are but two of the requirements for the platform. Good content is essential and that includes grammar, spelling and relevance to visitors to the site.  Properly setting up the onsite meta data and analytics for tracking is also part of the science.

Art, according to the SEW article, involves the use of skill and creative imagination. One of the most important requirements for SEO is figuring out which keywords to target.  Online tools abound that give variations of key word phrases and search volume. Of the hundreds of phrases that may be relevant to the content on the site, choosing which to target at any given stage of  the SEO campaign is an art. Finding the prhases that web surfers use to find the product or service, and staying away from the industry jargon the web site owner thinks they use is part of this. Deciding on which long tail phrases and which competitive phrases to target is more involved that applying a mathematical formula to the data and skimming the ‘right’ numbers.

Once those phrases are chosen and agreed upon, each page of the site needs a keyword strategy based on content. This strategy needs to be revisited during the campaign as analytics information is collected and analyzed for what is working well, and what could use a few tweaks. This is a process, based on an understanding of the analytics, looking at trends over time, and not just a snapshot of numbers at any point in time. It involves creative thinking to tie all of this together with a general marketing program for the brand, while keeping the performance of the site and the satisfaction of the visitors to the site in mind.

In order to raise your web site to be a productive member of your brand family and of the internet society, go ahead and read the (good) information on Search Engine Optimization, but find that SEO artist who can take those principles and put them to work for the benefit of your site and brand.

Photo Credits: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1367221, http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1157754

Regina Sillitti is Project Coordinator for Dinkum Interactive. She has worked in programming, design, business analysis and quality assurance. Her background in design and data processing give her a unique perspective on client - tech translation. You can reach her at regina@dinkuminteractive.com, or find her on Twitter, @ReginaSillitti.

If you check that chart, you’ll notice some of the latest updates have some reference to a Panda. Initially arriving Feb 23rd, 2011 Panda was a big ‘un. Someone suggested 12% of all websites would be impacted. Hardest hit were the content-heavy websites, in particular those they deemed to contain low quality content. Plus, the real key here was that it seemed to target whole website content instead of individual pages. So now a bunch of low quality pages that didn’t matter, were suddenly pulling down overall website rankings. I observed at a distance, a team that helped to bring a website hit by the initial Panda back to life, but at that time we didn’t see any significant damage to client websites. It wasn’t until Panda 2.5 that we saw one of ours impacted. Overall traffic remained strong, in fact it had never been higher, unfortunately some of their top level keyword phrases took a hit which affected overall conversions. There were a few tell-tale signs that we immediately launched into fixing but it was an unusual update that also meant far more questions than answers. Also hit were some very popular and what many may consider to be good quality websites with solid content which made it even more puzzling.

So I  suggest that the task has become more than “create good content” and in fact I think there are quite a few other factors that have slipped under the radar from this update and as a result of this update. As always, we like to push the importance of looking at all elements of your web presence but there appears to be some quicker fixes that we’ve noticed have had an impact.

Analyze your Site Architecture – this has been overlooked for a long time as designers and developers have been given the responsibility of also creating and implementing the structure. It’s not always a bad thing but sometimes it’s flawed from the start, other times sees the website expanding over time and the structure not able to keep up. So now with Google looking at the website as a whole, it’s more important than ever to be aware of your website flow. These guys help explain better than I can.

Clean up Content – I already mentioned this but it does seem to be a big part of the Panda update so it’s important to reiterate the need to do some cleaning. If you have content that is 6 clicks away from the home page, noindex it, get rid of it or move it to the new structure you have already started working on.

Webmaster Tools – I’m assuming you’ve already been poring through your webmaster info. While much of the data is pretty iffy, it does offer some useful insight in some areas. Certainly the crawl errors and the broken links data is important and make sure to go and fix as many as possible.

Stay Fresh – a good chunk of websites that were hit seemed to be older and more dormant. Google has always rewarded freshness and this seems even more important. Regular updates of content, video, audio etc all create value to both users and search engines so stop neglecting it.

There are still plenty of questions and speculation. Bouncerate has been identified as a possible metric but I’ve not seen it as a factor (though trying to improve this is always a good idea). Nor have I ever seen any improvements from a fully validated website (though it’s also a good goal). For a lot of folks, it’s simply back to basics. Reacquaint yourselves with Google’s guidelines and start creating good, solid content.

PaulFleming is co-founder and VP of Interactive Services for Dinkum Interactive. A trained teacher, Paul has worked in a variety of forms of Internet Marketing but with a focus on SEO. Originally from Australia, he now resides in Philadelphia with his wife and 2 ankle-biters.

This concept makes perfect sense for application development, but it’s also a great similitude for how we approach SEO.  While I’m not an SEO expert (that title belongs to our resident Paul Fleming), I spend a good chunk of my time helping our clients understand it and keep current with the trends and developments.

A common question, which I received from three different clients this week, is to ask how we research keywords to determine if they are relevant and worth targeting.  In essence: what makes a good keyword or phrase?

There are two parts to it, and the first is neatly answered by the concept of desire paths.

1. Usage – Just like with a desire path, a good keyword is one that is actually used by a real live person (in our case, a prospect).  A few years ago we had a client that wanted to correct us each time we proposed “non profit” as a keyword in phrases for their campaign.  They insisted that the correct spelling was “nonprofit”!  However, correct or not, qualified prospects were already using the spelling “non profit” so we had to position ourselves in front of them using the terminology (or path) that they were intentionally using.  So, first step: look at the tracks and trails on the ground and see what people are searching for, and if those phrases are relevant to the campaign.
2. Competition – There are lots of wonderful keywords out there that are simply too competitive to target, especially at the beginning of a campaign.  High rankings for valuable terms like “rare books” or “christian university” take time, money, energy, and a bit of magic to attain.  So, with each keyword research revision, we present both the number of searches for a particular term and the number of competitors in the marketplace that might also be targeting the same term.

The desire paths metaphor applies to other elements of internet marketing as well, including social media investments, email marketing scheduling, paid search advertising, platform usage, etc.  You shouldn’t solely follow your customers around, waiting to see what they are interested in (I’m reminded of a Rupert Murdoch quote that “We don’t deal in market share. We create the market.”).  However, it’s always good to know what they think is the shortest path from point to point – you may just find yourself meeting them halfway.

Jacob Smith is a Senior Project Manager and Web Strategist with Dinkum Interactive and has led over 150 high-level consulting and website development projects over the last 10 years. He is active in both the internet and cultural communities, and served on the board of Philly Car Share, a nonprofit and one of the largest car sharing organization in the United States until helping engineer its sale to Enterprise Holdings in the summer of 2011. Originally from Southern California, Jacob and his wife, Meghan, now live in Center City Philadelphia with their young sons Rory and Duncan.

By the time we have explained the importance of choosing relevant keywords, they are on board with wanting to rank the raw data to put their best SEO foot forward with good meta data. Sometimes we struggle with content, but even when we struggle, the client understands the need for well written, user friendly, valuable, keyword rich content throughout their site.

Now comes the hard part. All of this work is just the beginning of the campaign.  ”What do you mean just the beginning?” they ask. “We wrote compelling content, you optimized the site, now we just wait for the visitors to click through!” Maybe it is a symptom of the instant gratification we have come to expect in most other aspects of modern life. Or maybe, just maybe, I have not been successful at educating some clients about the ongoing aspect of SEO.  Recently I read an article on Search Engine Watch that used an expression that I feel really spoke to the issue at hand. On page optimization “buys you a ticket to the competition” but your online strategy helps you win it.

In other words, you can’t hope to become visible and win the hearts and minds of human visitors, until you have made the site friendly to spiders, and valuable to humans.  But that is just opening the door.  Online marketing, link building, paying attention to local search, all  get you over the threshold and into the arena.

Keyword strategy is not a ranking factor, according to the author, Eric Enge, but it makes sure you are in the right game.  Without a well optimized site, search engines have trouble finding you, and if search engines can’t find you for relevant searches, the all important human visitors can’t find you either!

I am going to work on my client education strategy, to make sure it clearly includes the long term nature of SEO, the importance of keywords and good content, not as a ranking factor, but as a relevance factor, and the importance of fresh content, via blogs, articles, press releases, video, social media mentions, bookmarks, and everything else relevant to a given campaign, to keep the site on the radar of the search engine spiders and human visitors.

Content is king, but maybe we haven’t done a good enough job explaining WHY!

If you have client education tips, I would love to hear from you.

Photo Credits:  http://www.sxc.hu/photo/762140 , http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1254879 

Regina Sillitti is Project Coordinator for Dinkum Interactive. She has worked in programming, design, business analysis and quality assurance. Her background in design and data processing give her a unique perspective on client - tech translation. You can reach her at regina@dinkuminteractive.com, or find her on Twitter, @ReginaSillitti.

This week, a client asked me to explain ‘why’. I’d suggested a press release topic and he wasn’t sure about it. “What would the focus be?” he asked. “I want to make sure that we’re adding to our message, not diluting it.” It was an absolutely valid question because the purpose of press releases has changed.

Previously, a press release was written only for editors and producers of newspapers, radio or TV to generate interest in a topic. It was just one part of building a relationship between the publicist and editor. Working as a journalist for ABC Radio in Australia, I’d receive many press releases every day but I’d only read the ones I thought could be of interest to the program (often based on the headline) or if it came from a publicist I trusted. Plenty went straight to the trash.

Today, press releases have a dual function. They still arrive in the inboxes of editors but are also important for search engine optimization. And the thing about search engines is they don’t read press releases the same way editors do. The algorithm used to determine which content is more relevant is complex and frequently changing. It’s based on a combination of factors including keywords, inbound links, long-tail searches and so on.

My client has excellent relationships with editors and he doesn’t want to dilute his message by sending out too many press releases and possibly putting them off. I understand and respect that. Search engines don’t operate in the same way and if you want to appear higher in searches, you need to speak their language.

Take-home message: the purpose of press releases has changed. And the strategy needs to change as well. My advice is to maintain relationships with editors and target your releases to them. But remember that the social media world operates in a very different way and you need to think about this space as well.

Photo Credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1287369

Jennifer Fleming is Specialist Content Writer at Dinkum Interactive. With a background in journalism, Jennifer is a best-selling writer, writing coach and media strategist. You can reach her at jennifer@dinkuminteractive.com.

1. Communicate one idea per release
The most effective press releases have one announcement or idea to share. It could be an award, company restructure, event, or breakthrough. If you have too many ideas in one release, the information can be lost. Keep it clear and logical. If there are several ideas to share, write more press releases.

2. Write for your audience, not your peers
One of the biggest mistakes people make when writing a press release is writing for their peers rather than their audience. They write to impress their colleagues rather than thinking about the best way to communicate with their target audience. Be careful of acronyms and assuming knowledge. Explain the ‘why’ – why is your award/company restructure/event/breakthrough interesting for your target audience. How will it affect their lives? If you put yourself into their headspace, you’re more likely to communicate more effectively.

3. Use quotes
I like to include quotes in my press releases. I find it warms up a release and is helpful in conveying emotion – it’s a real person responding to an award/company restructure/event/breakthrough. Because it’s a quote, the text can’t be altered. Other parts of your release might be moved around a bit if picked up by a publication. Your quotes are solid.

4. Put time into the headline
Many news editors, journalists, and bloggers will only have time to read the subject or headline of your press release. If the headline attracts their interest, they’ll read on. If it doesn’t, your release could be headed straight for the trash. Communicate clearly, concisely, and creatively (without going overboard).

5. Company and contact details
It’s a good idea to include short information about the company at the bottom of the release. Always include contact information in case the story is picked up and the editor or journalist wants more information.

On a final note, if you know how to do search engine optimization, employ those techniques to ensure search engines are attracted to your text. Do a keyword analysis and emphasize hyperlinks but not at the expense of good, readable copy. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, the team at Dinkum Interactive can help – it’s our bread and butter and we love it.

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1277878

Jennifer Fleming is Specialist Content Writer at Dinkum Interactive. With a background in journalism, Jennifer is a best-selling writer, writing coach and media strategist. You can reach her at jennifer@dinkuminteractive.com.

So let’s assume that you’ve taken care of the SEO essentials for your sit.  This news certainly presents an opportunity to rise higher in the rankings.  In most cases, implementation is not difficult. Let’s have a look at some of the options available.

Wibya – by far the easiest and only mildly obtrusive, wibya places a social media bar at the bottom of your website and remains there even when a user moves from page to page. It takes about 10 seconds to sign up and just as many to add to your website and they have a bunch of options from free to $30/month. We’ve witnessed the influence it exerts with our very own eyes so we know it works.

ShareThis – I feel like these guys have been around forever.  They were once our default go-to but their button options started feeling a little stale when there were so many other, much slicker options. Well now it’s a different story as they have updated their selection.  Also, their additional analytics and branding options add value. Easily customize your buttons on most platforms, including easy WordPress and Blogger integration and place the code in the appropriate location on your website.

Sharedaddy (by WordPress) is seemingly the default option for WordPress users (and there are plenty of them).  This plugin is slick and easy.

AddThis is the self-proclaimed #1 Bookmarking and Social Sharing website and while this is most likely the case, it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that their popularity is waning. That said, it looks like they’ve rolled out accompanying analytics which is a very valuable resource. Again, a super simple setup.

AddToAny is also a pretty popular choice with alot of options, possibly too many. Mouseover the button and a long list of sharing options pop up. Again, it is simple to implement.

Overall we see much better reaction to larger buttons with fewer options. Twitter, Facebook and maybe LinkedIn should probably be the only options plus possibly the opportunity for a much larger list. Try a few options and perform some split testing if you must but including these options on your website, especially your blog, has become the norm and as stated, will help your search visibility. Personally I like ShareThis as my main choice but of course we’re constantly experimenting and exploring other options particularly on different layouts, designs and audiences. We suggest you do the same and stop back to let us know what you find out.

PaulFleming is co-founder and VP of Interactive Services for Dinkum Interactive. A trained teacher, Paul has worked in a variety of forms of Internet Marketing but with a focus on SEO. Originally from Australia, he now resides in Philadelphia with his wife and 2 ankle-biters.

WordPress is a favorite among developers and SEOs because it’s so powerful, flexible, and well developed/supported. However, it’s a favorite among end users because it’s simple to use. This is due in no small part to the wonderful User Interface (UI) created by the team at WordPress and Happy Cog.

WordPress continues to grow in features, and as such it’s getting a bit harder each day to claim that it is truly a “simple” program to use for the average person. I tried this the other day during a training session for a newly launched website, and then proceeded to map out the various custom fields and settings needed for a common task that the user would need to perform (in this case, adding a new video for sale to the website, along with pricing details and such).

But in order to get the most out of WordPress, or simply to not feel confused at times, you should take the time to customize the system to your needs. Here are my top five tips for any person that uses WordPress to update their website:

1. Screen Options – definitely don’t ignore this little tab, which floats on the top right of your screen. For each section in WordPress (dashboard, pages, posts) you can customize some things. My favorite one is on the “Pages” section; make sure to adjust the number of pages to show on one screen. Even moderate sites can have more than 20, the default, and clicking through pages to find the page you want to edit it very annoying!

2. Change Your Name – WordPress is highly personal, since it was first developed for bloggers. This aspects threads itself throughout many WordPress sites, so it’s good to click on your user profile in the top right of the screen and adjust some of the default settings, such as how to display your name, whether or not you prefer the plain text, or if you want to enable the new admin toolbar (yes, do it!).

3. Show the Kitchen Sink – Many users complain that they can’t find the formatting tool they need because they didn’t realize they could show (or hide) the “kitchen sink” of tools.

4. Use the full screen mode – Getting around to writing for your blog or website is difficult enough. Don’t make it harder on yourself by letting your screen be a jumble of custom fields, publishing stats, and navigation settings. Click on the blue “Toggle Full screen Mode” to work on your post or page in a nice, clean environment.

5. Visit the Bar – WordPress 3.1, the latest and greatest version, includes a wonderful feature for websites that run on WordPress: the new admin bar. Once you login (and if you’ve not disabled the admin bar in your profile settings, see point #2), you’ll be able to navigate to your site and gain immediate access to edit a page, post or other common setting from the top of your screen. No more search through pages to find what you want to edit or update.

Feel free to let me know about your favorite WordPress options and configurations, I’m always happy to discover something about this great system that I didn’t know about before!

Jacob Smith is a Senior Project Manager and Web Strategist with Dinkum Interactive and has led over 150 high-level consulting and website development projects over the last 10 years. He is active in both the internet and cultural communities, and served on the board of Philly Car Share, a nonprofit and one of the largest car sharing organization in the United States until helping engineer its sale to Enterprise Holdings in the summer of 2011. Originally from Southern California, Jacob and his wife, Meghan, now live in Center City Philadelphia with their young sons Rory and Duncan.

We take clients by the hand and help them navigate most of the points he covers.  There are two points however, that each blogger needs to figure out how to handle on their own.  The first is content. We all know, Content is King, and I have a feeling that scares some people away from the idea of blogging. Let me reassure you, if you are running a business, or your part of the business, you have content. It may just be too familiar to you, since you deal with it every day.  What is common place for you is information that your clients are probably searching for. If you install and maintain pools, talk about pool chemicals, pool maintenance, or opening the pool for the season.  If you are in a creative industry, talk about a creative challenge and how you met it, talk about seasonal displays, talk about choosing the right color scheme. You get the idea. Keep track of the questions your customers ask you and use a few posts to answer the questions.

Lee talks about creating themes for different days of the week, and that can be helpful for some bloggers with a tendency for writers block.  Your themes will depend on your business. His suggestions included Social Monday, and Rant Thursday, among others. Keep an eye on your industry news, and set aside topics that correspond to your theme days, then when it is time to write, you have information at your fingertips. Even better, assign different people to different themes, and have them write a few posts that you can then schedule for publication in the future.  That way, if everyone gets busy for a little while, you have content at the ready to get you over the busy times.

The last point in Lee’s list is the Who.  Not the band, but who is behind the blog. One way to highlight the Who is to append information about the author at the end of the post.  Also, make it a point to discover your ‘voice’ when writing.  This takes time and practice, but you will know when you find it and it will actually make it easier for you to write sincere posts.  Your readers will be able to tell, too, and will respond to the real person behind the business.

Have you found your voice? How have you been able to tap the content around you for informative posts? Let us know in the comments, and happy blogging!

The Who behind this post is Regina Sillitti, Project Coordinator for Dinkum Interactive. She has worked in programming, design, business analysis and quality assurance. Her background in design and data processing give her a unique perspective on client – tech translation. You can reach her at regina@dinkuminteractive.com.

Photo Credits:

• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/770472
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/418215

Regina Sillitti is Project Coordinator for Dinkum Interactive. She has worked in programming, design, business analysis and quality assurance. Her background in design and data processing give her a unique perspective on client - tech translation. You can reach her at regina@dinkuminteractive.com, or find her on Twitter, @ReginaSillitti.

In the last couple of weeks, Search Engine Optimization has made the news! I expect to read about SEO on blogs posted by fellow practitioners. But Bob Garfield, of On the Media on National Public Radio hosted an interview radio show segment on this very topic called “How to Cheat Google.” He interviewed David Segal, writer for the New York Times, who recently wrote about J.C. Penney and their search engine optimization campaign.

First Garfield explained a study indicating that a third of people click only on the first hit when they search online. Another third of internet searchers click on the second through fifth hits. This led to his assertion that top placement on Google may make the difference between success or failure for an online retailer.

After setting the stage, he talked about SEO and Google’s PageRank algorithm, using terms like “guerilla war” for position and “art and science” of manipulating pagerank, which was his definition of SEO. He also referred to Google’s algorithm for determining pagerank as the most important piece of software on the internet. Obviously with the fate of companies hanging in the balance, that must seem to be the case.

We always explain to our clients from the beginning of their campaign that SEO is part art and part science. The science part involves making sure the website is technically sound and easily navigated, as well as populating the site with quality, relevant content that visitors find useful. The art portion involves identifying keyword phrases, writing copy that makes the best use of those phrases, and writing and distributing quality online content that is distributed through other relevant channels to raise the visibility of the website on the internet. Done correctly, this organic process takes time, is not manipulative, and higher rankings build naturally as content is created and shared on the site and on other places on the internet.

One of the positive things I heard in this segment was raised by David Segal, when explaining that Google changes their algorithm about 500 times a year. He also mentioned that since Google is quite secretive about what makes up their algorithm, that there are people constantly experimenting to see what the changes mean on an ongoing basis. Part of what we do at Dinkum involves experimentation, and trial and error. If we use these phrases what happens to visitor numbers? If we distribute a press release using this means, what results can we measure? How do these things affect the conversion goals for the website?

We will enjoy SEO’s 15 minutes of fame, but keep working with our clients to improve the quality of their sites, thereby improving the quality of search results without trying to game the system.

Regina Sillitti is Project Coordinator for Dinkum Interactive. She has worked in programming, design, business analysis and quality assurance. Her background in design and data processing give her a unique perspective on client - tech translation. You can reach her at regina@dinkuminteractive.com, or find her on Twitter, @ReginaSillitti.