Friday

Behavioral Marketing/Targeting And Search Engines!

"Behavioral Targeting is a technique used by online publishers and advertisers to increase the effectiveness of their campaigns. The idea is to observe a user’s online behavior anonymously and then serve the most relevant advertisement based on their behavior. Theoretically, this helps advertisers deliver their online advertisement to the users who are most likely to be influenced by them."

In Behavioral marketing, adverts are shown to consumer based on their behavior on Internet, rather than by the content of pages they visit. For example if a person decide to buy a car he start visiting different sites that are dealing in car sales. Many pages are there on a site which have very generic info about cars for instance take example of a pages having info about car history or history of companies manufacturing car. If ads are shown on this page based on the content of that page they are useless to that person. Rather than ads of car prices or car selling websites get more attention by that person. Thus here comes Behavioral marketing, by which advertiser and marketers show ads to person based on his browsing history.


Behavioral Marketing and SEO

Benefits Of Behavioral Marketing
Imagine a user visits a site and does a search for a particular brand of vehicle that you sell. With behavioral marketing, your ads can follow the user around from site to site, increasing the likeliness of him or her clicking your ad. With behaviroal marketing, your ad apears based on content what the user is doing, instead of content od teh page, he is visiting. This results in great improvement in your conversion ratio.


Behavioral Targeting Marketing and SEO

Google has started using Behavioral targeting . All the services Google offering have an option to Personalize, which is basically for that purpose. Google is using this personalized data for Adwords Service. Google had filed two patents for that purpose some time ago in 2005. Here they are

1 = Determining ad targeting information and/or ad creative information using past search queries(LINK)

2 = Results based personalization of advertisements in a search engine(LINK)

Google is naming its Behavioral Marketing as INTENT-BASED cause of privacy issues. Google's ad feature uses referrer information rather than cookies to track user queries.

There was a great buzz in 2006 about Microsoft using Behavioral Targeting. Some time ago Microsoft acquires aQuantive(LINK) for $6 Billion for Behavioral Marketing purpose. aQuantive uses behavioral targeting for showing ads. You can have a little demo of behavioral targeting by using Microsoft AdCenter Lab(LINK) . This make s confirm Microsoft is already in the game or will be in near future.

Now Yahoo moving in this game by recently acquiring ad network company BlueLithium(LINK). BlueLithium is the 5th largest ad network in the US and 2nd largest in the UK with 145 million unique visitors each month. BlueLithium use Behavioral Marketing for showing ads. Its targeting capabilities based on

  • Behavioral targeting
  • Demographic targeting
  • Contextual targeting (choose from 16 content channels)
  • Geo targeting
  • Zip code
  • Day part
  • Operating system type

Here is an interesting demo of How Behavioral targeting companies shows ads.. (LINK)

Negative Aspect Of Behavioral Marketing
It obviously raises the privacy concern. Your whole data is open to such companies which can be used negatively too. Example of such thing is release of private data of a user by AOL in 2006. So what do YOU think of this issue? Is it OK or ....

Thursday

8 Must Have SEO Fire Fox Addons

There are countless add-ons for fire fox commonly known as Firefox extensions on the web. Luckily among these extensions there are many to help us in our SEO Process. Here are the best SEO Fire Fox Extension suggested by most SEOz. If you know any more of those extensions that you think can do some real help in optimization process of a site suggest it via comments and ill add it in the list.

seo-tips


Firebug 1.05
Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.

seo-firefox-extensions

Save As Image 1.044
Adds the ability to save a page, frame, or part of either as an image. Useful for showing people bugs in a website, creating a snapshot of design progress, or perhaps even creating a gallery of websites. This extension can't capture flash/shockwave content.

seo-firefox-extensions

SEOpen 0.8
Current SEOpen features are all accessed through right-clicking an open area on a web page or by using the new toolbar; they include: Yahoo Backlinks, Pages in Yahoo Index, Google Backlinks, Google Cache, Pages in Google index, Google Translate to English, Google Related, PageRank Check, MSN Backlinks, Pages in MSN Index, Alexa Overview, Alexa Traffic, Alexa , related Alexa Backlinks, "Mass Check" multiple sources at once, Check DMOZ Inclusion, Keyword Density, Page Size Checker, HTML Validator, Server Header Viewer. Wayback Machine, Check robots.txt, Whois Info

seo-firefox-extensions

SearchStatus
For every site you visit using, SearchStatus lets you view its Google PageRank, Google Category, Alexa popularity ranking, Compete.com ranking, Alexa incoming links, Alexa related links and backward links from Google, Yahoo! and MSN.

seo-firefox-extensions

SEO for Firefox
This tool is unique in that it shows SEO data points right in the SERPs! That is very, very cool. Here is a list of what it gathers:

Google PageRank, Yahoo! linkdomain, Yahoo! .edu linkdomain, Yahoo! .edu link, Yahoo! .gov linkdomain, Yahoo! link, del.icio.us bookmarks, Technorati Links, Alexa rank, Google Pages indexed, Cached Page, dmoz link, Bloglines subscriber, Yahoo ditrectory Listing, WhoIs Data.

It also places extra links at the top of the SERP for the following:

Google Trends, SEO Book Keyword Research Tool, Overture View Bid, Google Traffic Estimator, Google Keyword Sandbox.

seo-firefox-extensions

The Rankquest SEO Toolbar
The Rankquest SEO Toolbar provides you quick access to more than 30 intuitive SEO tools. Once you download and install the SEO Toolbar you are only one or two clicks away from carrying out most of your day to day SEO operations.

seo-firefox-extensions

LinkChecker 0.6.1
Check webpage links at a glance with simple color coding. Ditch those massive listings of bad links that provide no context and add LinkChecker to your arsenal of web development tools today.

seo-firefox-extensions

X-Ray 0.8.1
When applied to a page it can help you see how the document was constructed without having to go back and forth between the sourcecode and the page in your browser. Is that list made of li, dd or p elements? Is that an h3 tag or just some bolded text? X-Ray shows you what's beneath the surface of the page

seo-firefox-extensions

Enjoy the Addons and add in comments if you know other ones that are useful.

firefox internet blog weblog firefox addons

Wednesday

OnPage SEO Factors

The most important On Page optimization techniques include content optimization, the title-tag, several META-Tags, headlines & text decoration, alt- and title-attributes and continuous actualization.
(1) Content Optimization
This is a tough one, because you should of course concentrate on your user and easy readability, but you always have to have an eye on the search engines as well. For your users it's clear what a certain page is about if it's written in the headline, but for search engines it's better to repeat the important keywords several times. So you have to strike the right balance:

  • Concentrate on your users first
    That's what the website is about - you don't sell your products or services to search engines but to people. And if they don't get what you're saying or find it hard to read through your website they very likely hit the back button of their browser and visit your competition.
  • Then modify for search engines
    If you got your text together go over it again and try to get some more keywords and phrases in where they fit and make sense. There is no certain amount or percentage that is best, just make sure to just use them a couple of times. The best ways to avoid using them too often are to use different words and phrases and to create some lists. Lists are always good to bring in some keywords.
(2) TITLE-Tag
It is displayed at the top of your browser and it is also used as the title of your website in the SERPs. Therefore you should take your time and think about the best title for your page. Important aspects of the title-tag:
  1. Give every page of your website its own title and don't use one title for the whole website.
  2. It should contain no more than around 10-12 words.
  3. Think of it as a short ad copy, because that's basically it when users see them on the SERPs.
(3) META-Tags
META-Tags are not as important any more as they used to be. That's basically because people started using them to spam search engines - especially the keyword-tag was heavily used for that. Nevertheless there are still some important META-Tags you should use. The description-tag is probably the most important META-Tag. It is displayed in the SERPs and you should select it as carefully as the title-tag. Important aspects of the description-tag:
  1. Give every page of your website its own description and don't use one description for the whole website.
  2. The description -tag is one of the few meta-tags that still positively influences your website's ranking, so it's good to use your most important keywords in it.
  3. It should contain not more than around 25-30 words.
  4. Think of it as a short ad copy, because that's basically it when users see them on the SERPs.
The NOODP-Tag is quite new and tells the search engines to don't use the title- and description-tags they find if you have an entry at the DMOZ. This is especially helpful of you are not satisfied with the tags there, or you want to change them. Everyone who ever had something to do with changes at the DMOZ knows that we are not talking about days or weeks if it comes to how long that can take.

So if you use the NOODP-Tag you are basically telling the search engines that they must not use the data from DMOZ entry, but instead, use the tags that are currently on your website. It's said that Google may ignore the general NOODP-Tag!

The robots-tag is used to tell the search engines (e.g. spiders or robots) what they shall do with your website. Possible entries are index, follow, noindex and nofollow - whereas index/noindex tells the search engine whether to index the page or not noindex/nofollow tells them to follow the links or not.

(4) Headlines and text decoration
Headlines should not only be used to structure your content and keep it easy to read, but also for SEO reasons. Search engines tend to give headlines between H1, H2, etc tags more relevancy - H1 being the most relevant headline. Just like the headlines also other text decorations can help search engines identify the most important party of your website. Use bold, italic or bold italic to mark some text where it's useful and also try to create some lists with bullets. Everything of course with an eye on your defined keywords and phrases.

(5) TITLE and ALT Attributes
Title - and alt - attributes are used to describe text-links and images. It's not only for search engine reasons you should use them, but also for accessibility. They are shown if you move the mouse over links and images. Besides, the alt-attribute is shown if the image isn't (yet) loaded.

(6) Keep it up-to-date
Search engines always want new content, so feed them! Not only your website will grow automatically if you always add something to it, but also search engines tend to spider your website more often if they always find something new.

Originally BY Martin Muehl : LINK

Tuesday

Google Video Units

Google just announced the availability of Google Video Units. Video Units are the videos from YouTube partners having adds within them. The ads within the video unit are targeted based on a combination of the video content and the publisher’s site content or you can chose the categories. Video units may display two types of ads:

  • Text overlay ads, which are displayed in the bottom 20% of the video as it plays
  • Companion ads, which appear above the video content within the player
The ads displayed can be either contextually targeted or site-targeted, and may be paid on either a cost-per-click or cost-per-thousand impressions basis. The new video units are customizable and look better than the standard YouTube player.

Google Video Unit

Google has previously begun placing video ads on sites that are part of the AdSense network and YouTube too has been experimented recently to test ads that played during the video, its first time that Google offering to blend ads with YouTube content.

Here is the official press release by Google. LINK
And On Adsense Blog. LINK

Sunday

Links Vault - Getting Links That Helps Your Site

These Queries are originally given by Rand Fishkin at seomoz blog entitled as LONG LIST OF LINK SEARCHES.

I am posting its most important queries again cause of its extreme importance and value in link building campaign. Some tools are also include, which helps to automate these queries.

Taking keyword example of "website design"

Directory Search Terms

* website design directory
* intitle:directory "website design "
* inurl:directory "website design "
* website design directory
* website design * directory
* directory * website design
* website design catalog (this term ranges in value and may not have much here)
* website design catalog
* "list of website designing sites"
* "list * website design"
* "list * website design * sites"
* website design websites
* website design sites
* "website design sites"
* "website design websites"
* "recommended links" website design
* "recommended sites" website design
* "favorite links" website design
* "favorite sites" website design

When submitting to directories rememer these key points.

Directory Submission Guideline

Blog & Forum Searches

* website design forum
* website designing forum
* "website designing forum"
* intitle:forum website designing
* inurl:forum website designing
* website designing blog
* intitle:blog website designing
* inurl:blog website designing
* "add comment" website designing
* "post comment" website designing
* website designing members
* website designing join
* website designing tag
* intitle:tag website designing
* intitle:post website designing
* website designing group
* intitle:group website designing

Submit-Type Searches

* website design "add url"
* website design "add site"
* website design "add website"
* website design "add your site"
* website design "add a url"
* website design "add * url"
* website design "add * site"
* website design "add * website"
* website design "submit url"
* website design "submit site"
* website design "submit website"
* website design "submit your site"
* website design "submit a url"
* website design "submit * url"
* website design "submit * site"
* website design "submit * website"
* website design "suggest url"
* website design "suggest site"
* website design "suggest website"
* website design "suggest your site"
* website design "suggest a url"
* website design "suggest * url"
* website design "suggest * site"
* website design "suggest * website"

Advance Operators
intitle:"website design" inanchor:"website design"
intitle:add+url "website design"
intitle:submit+your+site "website design"
intitle:add+your+site "website design"

For Link Exchange
Use these queries to get Link Exchange Partners for your website

LINK EXCHANGE QUERIES

TOOLS

Yahoo Site Explorer - Take top five results from Google and explore those urls
Back Link Watch Tool
Search Social Book Mark Sites Tool
Link Search Tool - Automated Tool For Above Queries

The original post can be found here: LINK

MSN Live Webmaster Portal

So after Google Webmaster Central and Yahoo Site Explorer, SEO'z and webmasters are waiting for something similar from Microsoft and here it is at-last...Live Search Webmaster Portal. It is definitely a good effort from MSN to take SEO seriously. As reporting in their Official Blog, MSN Webmaster Portal initially offers

  • Troubleshooting tools to ensure MSN Bot is effectively crawling and indexing your site
  • Sitemap creation, submission and ping tools
  • Statistics about your website
  • Consolidation of content submission resources
  • New content and community resources

Since its Beta version also not available publicly instead Microsoft invite people to send emails to participate and enjoy that beta version of their webmaster portal. The email is : lswmp@microsoft.com

Here is the original post on Microsoft official blog. LINK