You Don’t Search Like “They” Do…

If you’re reading this post, you undoubtedly have a little more experience behind the mouse than your average Internet user. You probably fall into the “expert user” category.

That’s a great thing and an absolute necessity for anyone who’s trying to make a living online. However, it means you’re using the Internet and search engines in a way that’s wholly different than the guy who gets home from work and decides to hop online to find a local Chinese joint that has sweet and sour pork on the menu and is willing to deliver to his neighborhood.

While you search with quotation marks and limit results to certain site types because of your understanding of the search engines, he might hunt and peck “http://www.google.com” into his browser and then go through the laborious process of slowly but surely tapping out “chinese restaurant with sweet and sour pork in Newbie Heights, NY”.

Why are we mentioning this? Well, it’s not to make fun of the poor guy who’s probably gonna wade through three pages of complete crappola before digging out his phone book and ordering a sausage pizza in a fit of frustration.

It’s because we need to think about the way people actually use search as we optimize our pages and test for competition. When we wrongly fall into a pattern of believing that our search experience is anything like “their” search experience, we accidentally distance ourselves from the reality of the standard user experience.

The next time you need to find something, try to do it intuitively and simply. Act like the average user on your first go-through. You’ll be surprised at how lousy the results probably are. And that might just give you a few ideas of how you can structure your projects, what kind of keywords you should be going after, and how you should structure content for those keywords.

SEO for Search Engines other than Google? Going After Smaller Fish Makes Sense.

Most discussions of search engine optimization focus on ranking highly for Google searches.  There’s a good reason for that.  Google is the big fish in the search engine pond.  You can add up all of the searches done through all other searches engines and that total wouldn’t even come close to the level of action Google gets.  As of October, Google claimed over 70% of total search activity.

So, should any webmaster really develop an interest or strategy for SEO that’s focused on anything other than improving Google performance?

Surprisingly, the answer is “yes”.  And there are a few good reasons why it makes sense to go after better SERPs at “secondary” search engines like Yahoo.

First, improving SEO for Google isn’t mutually exclusive with efforts designed to improve standings at Yahoo, MSN or other search engines.  The things you do to improve your standing at Yahoo aren’t going to hurt you on Google.  In fact, they’re probably going to help you with the Big G, too.  

Second, Google still isn’t the place for nearly 30% of all searches.  Focusing on a search engine like Yahoo, which gets only around 17% of all searches while being the closest thing to a Google rival might seem like a waste of time until you wrap your brain around just how many searches are still taking place there.  Sure, Google’s numbers dwarf those of Yahoo, but we’re still talking about huge numbers.

Third, so many serious webmasters are focused almost wholly on Google SEO.  That may create opportunities to move up in the ranks at other engines in a less competitive environment.  The return on investment for your SEO efforts can actually be higher when you’re trying to move up the ladder at Yahoo simply because the level of work involved to do so is slight relative to that necessary to “dominate” Google.

The differences between Google SEO and SEO for other engines aren’t that extensive.  What works for one will generally help for all.  However, search engine optimization planning that’s organized particularly for the “lesser” engines can make a big difference in a short period.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to catch a record-breaking fish.  However, it’s sometimes tough to land that trophy catch.  In those circumstances, the happiest fishermen (and fisherwomen) are those who’ve secured enough smaller fish to guarantee a supper.

SERPS and Other Traffic Attractors

Moving to the top in search engine results pages (SERPS) is a way to attract more traffic and potential customers to your website. It all starts with the basic strategy of optimizing keywords and keyword phrases to attract the search engines.  But don’t mistake a high page rank according to SERPS as the best or only way to increase traffic.

SERPS are just one way to bring in traffic, but search engines themselves are more focused in evaluating your content to ensure relevancy, depth, and continual refreshment of content than just directing traffic to you. That’s what they are really starved for and websites that offer all of this will rise quicker in the SERPS. And that’s why you need to have a multi-faceted strategy to really succeed. Search engines will reward you for attracting traffic in a variety of ways.

Capitalizing on content is a great way to optimize your search results and gain those relevant clicks that are most likely to convert to paying customers. Read more

Is the ‘Cuil’ Search Engine Cool?

If you’re keeping up with developments in the business of search engines, you already know about Cuil (pronounced “cool”). If not, then let me tell you what I’ve learned about this latest search engine that was created by ex-Google employees who played a key role in Google’s success.

Cuil is fairly new in the business, but its’ owners and developers are not. It’s a SE that is trying to give Google some Read more