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Monday, 30 April 2012

RKG Digital Marketing Report: Q4 2011 Released

Today we released the RKG Digital Marketing Report for the fourth quarter of 2011, offering data and analysis for paid search, SEO, CSEs, Facebook advertising and more.  We’ve taken steps to make sure our report is representative of the larger marketing fields covered so that it can serve as a credible benchmark for individual advertisers and offer insights into the numbers the major players like Google and Yahoo end up reporting in their financials.
Historically, our approach to quarterly analysis has been a strong predictor of the engines’ high-level performance and, if that connection holds, it looks like year-over-year growth in Q4 was the strongest it was for all of 2011.  RKG also takes pride in being on the forefront of uncovering and taking action on subtler industry trends and developments and we’ve included some of those as well.
We hope you’ll take the opportunity to download the full Digital Marketing Report, which features nearly 50 charts with our analysis. Among the highlights include:



Paid search spend growth accelerated in Q4 to a 31% year over year rate, up from 20.9% in Q3.  Higher click-through rates were the primary driver as impression growth was limited to 5.5% and cost-per-click declined 1.4% Y/Y.



Google paid search spend increased 38.5% Y/Y on a 46% increase in clicks.  One of the most interesting metrics in Q4 was CPC, which we saw decline 5.2% on Google.  Google hasn’t reported a CPC decline in eight quarters.

Bing and Yahoo non-brand paid search spend fell 6.1% Y/Y in Q4, an improvement from Q3 as 2010 comps weakened.

Google increased its search lead over Bing & Yahoo in Q4, generating 86.5% of paid clicks and 83.5% of organic search visits.

Mobile, including both smartphones and tablets, contributed 9.6% of paid and organic search traffic for the full fourth quarter of 2011, but surged to 14.2% of paid traffic at the end of the year.

Facebook generated 3.6% of referral traffic to sites on average in Q4 and 0.6% of all traffic, speaking to a large growth opportunity.


Google Product Listing Ads (PLAs) generated just 1.4% of our clients’ Google spend and 1.3% of their Google revenue in Q4 2010.  This year, PLAs grew sharply to make up 7.5% of Google spend and 8.4% of Google revenues in Q4.

state of search engine optimasion

I was recently asked to answer questions on the state of SEO and evolution of the industry. Answering questions like these can be a useful exercise. How do these ideas compare with your own? I’d encourage you to take the time to answer these types of questions every now and then.
This is obviously something that needs to be continually re-evaluated. It can be challenging to keep pace with the search industry, especially Google. (We love ya’ Bing!)

What is your perspective on the state of SEO?
Today, SEO is more about users than it is about machines. It’s more about visitors than robots (pro tip: it always has been). One of the errors companies and websites have made over the last several years is to put SEO above their users, their differentiators, and their real value and contributions online. At RKG, our approach to SEO can be summed up with these principles:
  1. First, make the best user experience possible. Contribute real value. Be compelling. Engage users.
  2. Then, maximize with SEO.
SEO makes a poor business model. But with the right business model, SEO can be a rocket ship and is truly one of the most efficient and cost-effective channels that exist in marketing today.

What are your SEO strategies and tactics?

Our strategies and tactics depend greatly upon the site and industry, but generally focus on four primary concepts:
  1. The crawl experience: technical SEO
  2. Indexation: maximizing, controlling and optimizing what URLs are included in the indexes
  3. SERP visibility: how highly URLs rank, especially in comparison to competitors and for important keyword categories
  4. Off-page signals: quality is generally more important than quantity when it comes to link building, but specific strategies and tactics vary. Social media and AuthorRank are increasingly becoming strong off-page validation signals as well.
Within these conceptual areas, SEO teams must develop content strategies, work with public relations teams, social media teams, development teams, user experience teams… you get the idea. Mobile, microformats, pagination, faceted navigation, internal linking, the list of specific tactics is long. There is much more to SEO than these four bullet points; they are meant to be concepts.
The paradox of SEO is such that, while SEO is more about users than it is about machines, technical SEO remains a deeply important area of the work.

What do you believe are the biggest threats to organic traffic growth?
The biggest threat to lack of SEO growth is lack of SEO implementation. Time and again, when we see companies fall short in their SEO programs it’s because the SEO programs have not been given sufficient resources. It comes down to this: get things done. Recommendations are worthless without action.

How do you envision your SEO services/tactics evolving over the next 2-3 years?
Our SEO strategies are constantly evolving. The industry and search engines change almost daily, so evolution and adaptation is the rule, not the exception. There is nothing stable in SEO. That said, the concepts that have been tried and proven since Google came into existence still matter most: content is king, users are king, quality SEO is the only sustainable strategy, and buying links and using trickery and shortcuts introduce excessive risk and have short-term, unsustainable value. We do not take shortcuts. We invest in long-term strategies that keep our clients sheltered from unnecessary risk.

Barcelona says Messi 1 goal shy of club record


Barcelona says Messi 1 goal shy of club record

Lionel Messi:
Barcelona says a review of Cesar Rodriguez's club record goal tally has left Lionel Messi one goal shy of matching the 57-year-old record.
Barcelona collaborated with La Vanguardia newspaper to verify the exact number of official goals scored by Cesar turned up 232 and not the 235 figure previously used.
Messi has 231 goals and the Argentina forward can match or break the mark in Tuesday's Spanish league game against Granada.
Barcelona says the study analyzed and compared all match reports from Cesar's Barcelona career with La Vanguardia's historical database.
Messi, the three-time world player of the year, has 51 goals in all competitions this season.

MU legend Yorke picks Barcelona to win Champions League, United in EPL


MU legend Yorke picks Barcelona to win Champions League, United in EPL


Dwight Yorke: Former Manchester United striker. Tribunnews.com
Former Manchester United striker Dwight Yorke says that he picked Barcelona to win this season’s UEFA Champions League and the Manchester ‘Red Devils’ United squad to be victorious in the English Premier League.
“Clearly Barcelona, because of what they’re doing…they got the best players in the world,” Yorke told selected media, including The Jakarta Post, on Wednesday evening at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Jakarta.
Yorke went on to call Barcelona’s Lionel Messi the greatest striker in this era.
“But my all-time favorite would be the German’s Bayern Munich. I just like the balance of the team,” he added.
As a true Red Devil, Yorke definitely expected United to win this English Premier League season.
“We’ve done great. City had the upper hand for maybe six months…they’ve been phenomenal and some players have been fantastic…the best team in the league sometimes.
“But I think United is showing Championship-quality in the past two, three months in sustaining the pressure consistently on City. They have never been in the position where United has been…United seems
to get it right every time, and City is still trying to get it.”

Thursday, 12 April 2012

SEO SHOULD BE INVISIBLE TOO


In many ways, the message of an “over-optimization penalty” by Google is their way of saying you’re doomed without a real business model. In another sense, it sends the message that SEO is important enough that you have to get it right. SEO should be taken seriously, and hackneyed work won’t cut the mustard.

How We Approach SEO

Our approach to SEO has always emphasized that it should be deliberately unnoticeable. What do I mean by that? Simple: SEO should be unseen, when it’s done well, and only noticeable to other SEOs. It should not be overt. It should not take precedence over more important aspects of a site, like the site’s brand message, its purpose, its user experience, and its value proposition. We can distill this to a simple concept:
  1. First, make the best user experience possible. Make a great product. Have something truly valuable.
  2. Next, maximize it for SEO.

SEO should be an invisible layer beneath a strong user experience, a beautiful site, and a clear, coherent message and purpose.

This makes the risk of falling to an over-optimization penalty simple to avoid. If a site has no real purpose, save leveraging weaknesses in search engine algorithms; if a site has no clear business model, other than finding inefficiencies in the market; if a site has no clear value, other than ranking highly for long-tail terms and passing traffic along while taking a few bucks; if any of these cases are present, the model is not sustainable. SEO should never take prominence over more important aspects of a site, especially its business model. It’s in these situations that a site should be worried about its future.

‘Over-optimization’ May Not Be New
It’s likely Google has already looked at this area before, and is simply calling out publicly some of the things its been doing for several years (while naming it something new). We’ve recommended against what we call “SEO footers” (the long, below-the-fold-forever, exact anchor text matching nonsense) for several years. I believe strongly that links within these low-quality types of ‘shingle’ or ‘stub’ page elements get devalued, at best, and possibly even contribute to lower organic scoring for a website. Reasonable Surfer Patent, anyone?

Keep It Simple. Keep It Smart.
Really, it’s nothing new. Keep doing what you’re doing: having a purpose on the web bigger than monetizing via SEO. Then monetize it wisely with smart SEO. It’s what we’ve been doing at RKG, and what we’ll continue to do: helping real companies with value succeed online.

SEO is simple. Stop trying to make it more difficult.

how to success in seo your site


John Wooden, the greatest basketball coach ever, never talked to his teams about winning. He talked to them about preparation and about the process of becoming a great team.

Wooden’s philosophy on coaching (and life) is summed up in the “Pyramid of Success,” which beats the tail off all that Self-Help Guru junk you see peddled in books, on blogs, on daytime chat shows, and on late night TV. I was lucky to hear Coach Wooden speak about the Pyramid of Success while I was a student at Pepperdine University; to this day, it’s one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard. (Seriously, if you don’t know what his Pyramid of Success is, visit CoachJohnWooden.com.)

What’s all this have to do with SEO and online marketing? Well, the best SEOs don’t talk to their clients about rankings; they talk about the process of making great web sites that earn traffic and convert visitors into customers. They talk about the process of creating great content that attracts links like bees to honey.

I would never compare myself to John Wooden, but I do like teaching others about online marketing. So, with that in mind, and inspired by the great coach, here is the....

SEO Success Pyramid


What’s It All Mean?

Commitment: Every successful project I’ve ever worked on has involved a client whose team is enthusiastic and engaged. Whether you’re big or small, one uninterested department or person can sabotage everything.

Planning: Success in any pursuit begins with setting goals and developing a plan to achieve them — detailing the strategies and tactics you’ll use, the people and resources needed, and so forth. Search marketing is no different. Read: Planning an SEO Campaign

Product/Service: Although you can fool some people into buying crap for a while, real long-term success involves a product or service that people want or need. There’s no substitute for quality.

Education/Information: You’re a business owner; you don’t need to become an SEO expert. But you’ll succeed faster if you have access to great information. And as fast as the search marketing industry changes, ongoing access to intelligent information is critical.

Patience: True, there are exceptions every now and then, but for the vast majority of companies big or small, search marketing is a process that takes time to implement correctly. There are no short cuts, no quick fixes. Success almost always takes many months, if not a year or more.

Design & Usability: Yes, there are some ugly sites that make lots of money; but there are more that don’t. Your best bet is to have a web site that’s attractive and easy to use. Get out of your customers’ way and let them do what they came to your site to do.

Keyword Research: If you target the wrong keywords, you’re doomed to fail. You’ve heard that a million times, I hope. More than that, you also need to know what to do with your keywords.

Analytics: How will you know you’re successful if you have no way of measuring what you’ve done? Measure, analyze, adjust strategies and tactics as needed.

Tools: Having access to appropriate SEO tools can give you an advantage over the competition. Of course, more important than the tools is knowing how to interpret the data they provide.

Crawlability: A search engine cannot index pages that its spider cannot crawl. Be careful with the Flash movies, the complicated DHTML and javascript, the robots.txt file, etc. Here are 5 common crawlability mistakes you need to know about.

Content: This can take many forms: a blog, articles, videos, a FAQ page, or even user-generated content like product/service reviews. When you get this one right, you’ll have an easier time getting…

Links: Your great content isn’t going to rank well without links, preferably from relevant, quality sites. I brain-dumped (almost) everything I know about links early last year.

Social/Local Findability: Let me explain this since I might be inventing a new term. Social Media Marketing and Local Search are musts. The size and scope of your company may dictate which you emphasize more, but neither should be ignored. Local SEO is a must for most small businesses, but social media can work, too. Bigger companies that target an audience more than a location will find social media offers a lot of opportunities. In either case, the goal is findability. You want customers to be able to find you as easily as possible, and you can do this on social media sites that make local networking easier.

Reputation Management: It’s imperative to know what people are saying about your company. This isn’t just for Big Business, either: An old client of mine runs the only roller skating rink in our area, yet is probably losing business because they have a couple negative reviews on a certain Local Search site. Given the growing influence of user reviews, knowing how to manage your reputation is a must.

Trust: In my first post of 2007, I said trust is the No. 1 factor, and nothing has changed since then. Trusted domains are powerful domains. When you have trust, from users and search engines, you’re on the way to search marketing success. Don’t miss this more recent article: Why Trust Matters & How To Earn It.

As you climb the pyramid, you’ll find buzz/word-of-mouth marketing or maybe community helping you along. To a large degree, these are two sides of the same coin. It’s the people factor, the human element that often separates the winners and losers in search marketing. Get people talking positively about you, whether it be one-to-one conversation among friends or in the larger setting of an online community, and you’ll climb the pyramid that much faster.

Doing SEO? Do It Gently


This is a great article by Adam Audette, one that I have to share now rather than just wait for the link roundup at the end of the month:

SEO Should Be Invisible.

If you’re doing SEO in 2012, you have to do it gently … quietly … invisibly.

Less is more.

I actually told a client within the past 2-3 weeks, “Stop worrying so much about SEO.” It was a situation where I felt the focus needed to be on the user, not the search engine. I think with an established website that’s what SEO has become — more about the user and user signals than about the search engine and (traditional) search engine signals.

So much SEO is ugly because the person doing it is using a hammer, when the better tool is a paintbrush.

The hammer just pounds the hell out of a web page. BAM! Title tag. BAM! Keywords. BAM! Anchor text. BAM! More keywords. BAM! Optimize that image alt text. BAM! BAM! BAM!

SEO is important. It’s a must for any business that’s serious about long-term online success. But it can be way overdone. As I said many years ago, in one of the first posts on this blog, moderation in all things — it’s one of my mom’s favorite sayings.

Or, as Adam Audette put it in that great article this week:
SEO should be unseen, when it’s done well, and only noticeable to other SEOs. It should not be overt. It should not take precedence over more important aspects of a site, like the site’s brand message, its purpose, its user experience, and its value proposition.

Discovery adds Question Phrases keyword


At the suggestion of one of its customers, Keyword Discovery has added “Question Phrases” to its list of searchable databases. This means you can now enter a keyword and, rather than get back related keywords, you get a list of related questions that searchers have asked. Question Phrases appears as the last choice on the “Databases” dropdown of the main search page:
This is cool because it’s a great and easy way to get new content ideas. Imagine you’re a dermatologist who wants to add articles to your web site, or needs new ideas for blogs posts. Just type in a general word like “acne,” and Keyword Discovery returns a list of questions that searchers have asked. It’s like having an instant focus group telling you what questions they have about your products, service, or industry.
A tool like this works best when you enter very broad, general terms. The list above shows results for the word “acne.” You want to enter short-tail phrases so KD can give you back long-tail questions.

WordTracker has a similar question tool, and together these both make a great addition to your ability to do highly targeted keyword research specifically with content development in mind.

How to Choose the Right Category in Google’s Local Listings


One of the most important things a small business can do with its listing in the Google Local Business Center is choose the right category(ies). In fact, “Associating LBL w/Proper Categories” scored very highly in last year’s Local Search Ranking Factors survey (see image at right).

Mike Blumenthal, aka Professor Maps, has just released a tool that he previewed last week at GetListed Local University in Spokane. It’s a searchable database of categories in Google’s Local Business Center. If you’re not sure how to choose the right category for your business, this tool makes it easier so you can get your listing correct right from the start.

You can access the tool here. And here’s Mike’s brief explanation of how it works.

Keyword Suggestion & List Generator Tool


If you do a lot of keyword research — especially for PPC — you might want to check out a new tool called BulkWords. It combines a keyword suggestion tool and a keyword list generator into one interface that’s easy to use, not to mention easy on the eyes.

There are three parts that make up the tool:

  • Keyword suggestions from Google. This functions pretty similarly to Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool. It shows search volume numbers from the Google tool (although some of the “last month” numbers were different in my testing from what Google shows).
  • List builder. This is where you start building keyword lists either by drag-and-drop from the suggestions above, or by typing in your own keywords.
  • Keyword lists. After you’re done building keywords, the green button compiles them into lists that can be exported for use on Google, Bing, or Yahoo.

BulkWords is free to use. You don’t need an account unless you want to save your lists for future use.

Talking Content Strategy Tomorrow on #seochat


I’m quite honored to be the guest tomorrow on the weekly #seochat on Twitter, where we’ll be discussing Content Strategies for 2012 and beyond. I’m imagining that we’ll discuss article and blog content ideas, inspiration, and stuff like that. Should be fun.
It starts at 9:00 pm ET/6:00 pm PT and you can follow/join the conversation by watching the #seochat hashtag on Twitter

seo service




I have been working seriously for more than three weeks, but it seems that I have no luck anymore. All I do couldn’t push my position up to the high level. I think my direct competitor, another seo contest evil science article, is really unbeatable. I am sorry just talking about him because he’s the only reasonable target that I can take over within this seo contest. It’s a pity actually. As you all know, there are two leaders here, firstly is evil science, then secondly is Muhammad Ahmed. In my personal opinion, facing Hellas, the evil science is hard. While I should also think about the top leader. Is it still possible to take the lead?
No one knows but Google. As I said above, yet another oes tsetnoc seo contest by evil science is unbeatable. I am not talking about nonsense at the moment, but just trying to be realistic since evil science seo contest strategy is very uncommon compared to another seo contest participant. Well, now the question is how to beat evil science? Other people used to advise me to buy some backlinks from authority websites, yet another seo contest evil science is unbeatable if we’re just purchasing such inbound links. In my personal opinion, there should any other tips to take evil science position over. Yet, I never know what it is so that I can’t implement it for my oes tsetnoc entry.
Now, what I can do is just keeping to write some new articles then blog commenting for a while. If another seo contest by evil science were not that tough and not unbeatable, perhaps I can rank higher soon. Yet, the fact is different. So, I prefer to wait any miracle falling down from the sky hahaha….

Impact of Aceh Earthquake April, 2012


Impact of Aceh Earthquake


Small tsunamis hit Indonesia and Thailand, with waves of up to 80 centimetres in Aceh, but there were no reports of damage or casualties.A huge earthquake and strong aftershocks struck off Indonesia's Sumatra island on Wednesday, triggering an Indian Ocean-wide tsunami alert that sent terrified people fleeing from the coast.
US seismologists then cancelled the tsunami warning, saying the quakes had generated only small waves and were nowhere near the scale of the disasters that struck Asia in 2004 and Japan last year.
11:10pm: India has lifted a national tsunami warning, saying the danger has now passed.
10:46pm: The Indian Ocean tsunami watch has been cancelled. The Tsunami Warning Centre says sea level readings indicate that "the threat has diminished or is over for most areas."
10:37pm: The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre says a tsunami watch is now in effect for Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Maldives and more interestingly, the UK.
10:26pm: A few thousand people have been evacuated to higher ground from parts of India's Andaman and Nicobar islands in preparation for tsunami waves up to 3.9 metres high, officials say.
10:21pm: At least three tsunamis of up to 80 centimetres have hit Indonesia's coast, the Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency says.
10:18pm: Tanzania and Kenya have now issued tsunami alerts along their coastlines.
10:08pm: The US Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre says damage across the Indian Ocean basin is not expected.
"We don't expect damage basin-wide, but there is danger nearby the source. So the tsunami danger is to the coastlines closest to the earthquake, which would be northern Sumatra," geophysicist Barry Hirshorn said.
10:06pm: The French island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean has issued a medium-level tsunami alert.
10:01pm: Reporter Helen Brown spoke to ABC News 24 from Jakarta a little while ago:

9:55pm: The ABC's Richard Lindell spoke from India a short time ago.
"Authorities say that given the location of the earthquake, it can take quite a while for a tsunami to travel. So they are remaining on alert," he told News 24.
"They're saying that the warnings will remain in place for a couple of hours still, and it's really as a precaution to make sure that given the location of the earthquake, that aftershocks and a tsunami doesn't come later on.
"At the moment, warnings are in place, but it really is a precautionary measure."
9:36pm: The US Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre reissues an Indian Ocean tsunami alert following the aftershocks.
9:32pm: Indonesia's geophysics agency says there has been another aftershock of 8.3 off Aceh.
9:23pm: South-east Asia correspondent Zoe Daniel (@seacorro) has reported from Bangkok on the panic following the tsunami alert.
She says eyewitnesses along the Andaman Coast reported sharply receding water, but others say it was merely low tide. Tourists and residents have evacuated as a precaution after sirens sounded in six provinces along the Thai coast and people are waiting on hillsides around the island.
9:16pm: Indonesia's geophysics agency now says there has been another aftershock off Aceh of 8.1 magnitude, with the potential of a tsunami to follow.
9:15pm: The USGS records an 8.2-magnitude aftershock off Sumatra island, while Indonesia's geophysics agency says it has extended Aceh's tsunami warning by two hours.
8.58pm: Witness tells Reuters agency that sea water at Simeulue Island near epicentre of quake has been receding by about 10 metres.
8:54pm: Indonesia officials report aftershocks in Aceh include a 8.8-magnitude tremor; a new tsunami warning is issued.
8:34pm: @Kirstenmildren posted this photo from Thailand on Twitter. "#tsunami alert: friends at Krabi evacuated to higher ground. Nice sunset at least."

8.33pm: Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre says a tsunami measuring 17 centimetres has been generated in the Indian Ocean and is headed for Aceh.
8.28pm: India adds the southern coastal states of Kerala and Orissa to a tsunami warning along with Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
A more urgent red alert warning was earlier issued for the Andaman and Nicobar islands, located in the Indian Ocean.
8.22pm: Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono uses address on national television to say "so far, there is no tsunami threat".
He added that the country remained on alert.
"The situation in Aceh is under control, there's a little bit of panic but people can go to higher ground," he said, adding that he had ordered a disaster relief team to fly to Aceh.

8.20pm: The international airport on the southern Thai tourist island of Phuket has been closed.
People in Phuket, Krabi, Ranong, Phangnga, Trang and Satun were earlier ordered to move to higher ground because of a possible tsunami.
8.19pm: Malaysian authorities issue a tsunami alert and urge evacuations along its west coast.
"We have declared a tsunami alert along the west coast of the peninsula. We have ordered immediate evacuation of residents along the coastal states of Perlis, Kedah, Langkawi, Penang and Perak," a Malaysian official told AFP.
7.49pm: Thai National Disaster Prevention Centre warns of tsunami, orders people in six coastal provinces to move to higher ground.
7.46pm: Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency reports a 6.5-magnitude aftershock.
7.34pm: Sri Lanka issues an island-wide tsunami warning.
7.33pm: Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency is sending a rescue team to Aceh, as the quake knocked out the province's electricity and sent locals scrambling for higher ground.
"The quake was felt very strongly. Electricity is down, there's traffic jams to access higher ground. Sirens and Koran recitals from mosques are everywhere," said agency spokesman Sutopo.
7.28pm: Thailand urges people on the Andaman coast to move to safe areas.
7.19pm: Indonesia's geophysics agency says it has not received reports of damage from the quake or detected a rise in water levels.
7.13pm: US Geological Survey revises quake off Indonesia downward to 8.7 magnitude from 8.9.

How to Register Site or blog to 70 Search Engines at once




Why we must Register / Submit Blog to Search Engines?
Of course to our blogimmediately indexed in search engines or search engines, so it can be found by those who may find articles that happened to be on our blog. By registering your blog insearch engines then it will increase the number of inbound visitors to our blog. Should be done periodically submit URL, but do not go overboard diligent because later could be considered spam let alone the same search engine.


To register your website to 70 search engine is easy to please follow this way


List your website / blog to 40search engines at once (google, yahoo, MSN, etc.), the steps:
  • Go to site http://www.submitexpress.com/free-submission.html
  • Type the url website / blog (under the heading FREE SUBMISSIONS), do not forgetto use the     'http://' eg http://domain.com, then click CONTINUE.
  • Fill in the email (valid email) in the column you are available
  • Enter the security code script / secret at the bottom, click on SUBMIT
  • completed



After 2 days, check out (digoogle / yahoo) if the website / blog you have read or not, ifnot repeat STEP 2 above until it works....nice blogging :)

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