Prepping for localized and personalized results

Your Weekly Step Forth into the World of Search Engines

SEO News From StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc.
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2004

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Highlights of the Week: Prepping for localized and personalized results

small businesses can gain from search engine innovations

A lot of pixel space has been used to describe the directions the business of search appears to be going in. Recent innovations and acquisitions by the leading search firms are redefining what search looks like, how we access search, and the boundaries within which our searches are conducted. Applications designed to promote contextual delivery of advertising, localization and the personalization of individual search requests are available and installed on tens of millions of PCs. Search has become big business and that fact has introduced big-business realities to the field. smaller businesses and advertisers however, should remember that the core product continues to revolve around their free listings. In other words, the field of play has gotten a lot larger but the core rules of effecting search results have not really changed. What has changed is there is a greater number of opportunities for organic placements and the ways engines find and look at sites.

The core databases compiled by Googlebot, Slurp, Fluffy and other common spiders are huge and they are not going away. Nearly every website on the Internet that has incoming links and has not excluded spiders by choice or design gets spidered and included in these databases. As long as your site is open to spiders, it has a chance to get strong rankings under relevant keyword phrases. Search engines are also busy absorbing information from lists previously compiled by print directories, chambers of commerce, municipalities, state records, satellites, and other info-rich sources. As the ultimate data-miners, the search engines are digging feverishly and fearlessly into core-databases they did not have access to before. The walls of these data-mines are shored up by deals such as the recent advertising partnership between BellSouth and Google.

If you are in business and have a commercial telephone number, you're business address is known to Google-Local, can be made known to Yahoo-Local and is available for anyone to know if they perform a local-search. It is important to remember the major search engines rely on the provision of free listings while they make money off the delivery of paid-advertising. As long as free listings remain the core product offered by the major search engines, organic optimization will continue to produce results for small business websites.

There are a number of minor elements SEOs are starting to apply to websites that provide identification and contact information designed for local and personalized search.

The first and most important is full address and contact information. This contact information should include unit numbers, full zip or postal codes, telephone area codes (as well as 1-800#'s) and should even name the nation the business resides in.

Next, affiliations between businesses should be mentioned on websites with shared links between businesses doing business with each other. This is an important key-step that needs to be handled very carefully. Links between websites should always be relevant and should always be placed with the intention of helping searchers as well as search engine spiders. As search moves local and local search evolves, regional affiliations should have the power to drive both spiders and traffic. Providing information to search engines in the optimal manner is what SEO is all about. Local and personalized search applications will work much like search engines always have but will be looking at information in different ways.

For example, a wholesale distributor based in Chicago Illinois might be the common supplier for hundreds of retailers in Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio and Michigan. These basic business supply lines can create a web of interlinking regional sites that are relevant to each other through the common product distributor.

As a service to its' clients, links from the supplier to retailers are beneficial on several levels aside from being helpful with traditional organic listings at Google and Yahoo. This system provides easily followed paths for spiders to track. As this regional network of sites links to each other, a mini-cluster of sorts is formed providing search engines with several distinct pieces of information about the sites networked together. This information will be helpful in dealing with the effects of personalized and localized results in the future.

As each site lists full contact information, the search engines are told that the wholesaler supplies businesses located in the southern Great Lake states. The mini-cluster also tells search engines that the retailers are topically related to each other and serve a common market. As localized search evolves in several incarnations, topical, regional linking will almost certainly become more important.

Lastly, the mini-cluster should prove helpful as user-specific personalized search evolves. Compiling specific user information involves a lot of tracking. The search engines are very interested in knowing who you are and what you're looking for. To figure this out, the search engines look at a number of factors, including tracing link-networks relating to sites frequently visited by individual searchers. By providing a relevant link-network the wholesaler assists all its customers by telling search engines that there are several retailers located in the 53209 zip code serving residents of the Milwaukee area. It also tells search engines that people in the 414 area code can purchase products at several retailers in that area. When unique searchers located in this region are looking for Blue Widgets, this network should help produce the supplier's customers in personalized search results.

Personalization of search results is going to have a massive impact on advertising. When considering the implications of personalized search, one must think so far outside the box, they need to think outside the monitor as well.

Barring any major stories arising, next week's feature will examine at the development of personalization in the industry. Hopefully we'll be able to shed some more light on how Google, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves are creating personalized search applications and what content they are looking at. Until then, this would be a great time to start loving your regional neighbors.

Jim Hedger, SEO Emeritus

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Major Player Updates: Yahoo Updates

Yahoo to entertain as well as inform

Yahoo's newest executive is used to producing offers that no-one could refuse. Yesterday, Yahoo announced the hiring of former ABC producer Lloyd Braun as head of its media and entertainment division.

Braun was the brains behind shows such as HBO's hit "The Sopranos" and this year's surprise ABC hits, "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives". Due to low network ratings, Braun lost his job at the network last April, before the debut of either show.

Braun is said to be trying to interest the TV, music and movie industries in distributing their content exclusively on Yahoo. He is also rumoured to be developing original programming content for Yahoo's 90-million monthly visitors.

In hiring Braun, who practiced entertainment law before developing the concept for "The Sopranos", Yahoo is signaling the opening of another front in the search-dominance wars and a significant shift in assumptions around the distribution of paid-placement advertising.

Yahoo moves to the desktop

Yahoo is developing a desktop search tool to rival Google Desktop. Yesterday at a Scottsdale, Arizona investment conference, Yahoo CEO Terry Semel stated, "In short course, we'll have a desktop solution as well."

Desktop search is an important sphere for Yahoo to cover as they risk losing loyal users to Google's Beta desktop tool or to MSN which is developing its own desktop search function.

"It's a new battleground to win the hearts and minds of searchers," Danny Sullivan told Jennifer LeClaire of the E-Commerce Times, "Desktop search is poor, but people clearly want to be able to find things on their computers as easily as they can search the entire Web. Provide them with that tool, and you may get them to search the Web more with you -- which means more advertising revenue."

Jim Hedger, SEO Emeritus

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StepForth Client Spotlight: Jim Russell Driving School

Located at Le Circuit Mont Tremblant the Jim Russell Driving School has been providing aspiring racers and enthusiast alike the chance to learn from the pros and enhance their driving skills since 1969.

For drivers in search of starting a racing career to those simply wishing to improve their own driving skills for personal betterment, the Jim Russell School offers a variety of programs to meet any requirement and budget.

Bill's Bark: Leaving a Positive and Lasting Impression on Your Website

Imagine you are a savvy, yet skeptical online shopper looking for a product your company sells. You type a targeted keyword into your favorite browser and click on your domain name as it appears on the results page. The typical shopper spends only a scant few seconds before determining whether the page has grabbed their attention or not. What is your first impression? What elements do you consider most critical in order to attract and keep your interest?

All websites face storefront challenges. Of paramount importance your website must impact instantly with your potential client in order for them to stay with you. This is similar to operators answering the telephone at a traditional workplace. They are the front line and much of this initial contact will determine the tone or duration of future interaction. What design components stands your website apart from so many other sites utilizing eye-catching visuals and the newest trends of web design.

At StepForth we optimize websites for search engine spiders in order for them to find, navigate through, and index as many pages as possible throughout the whole site. We also 'help' them accurately evaluate body content by making the most of a narrow focus on each page. Yet many of our great SEO techniques also benefit the visitor. Here's how:

Consciously place a description of what the website is all about right up front so any potential confusion by the visitor is avoided. Those who remain will be more interested in what it is you have to offer. They will also now become a qualified visitor. Usually this portrayal of the website encompasses one or two paragraphs of about 150 - 200 words of keyword-enriched text. We also provide the visitor with effortless negotiation throughout the site - a textual navigation bar and site map placed on the bottom of every page in the site.
Keep the visitor interested by including facts on your company's credibility. Provide a code of ethics and the company's mission statement. If you are a member in good standing and govern yourself in accordance with the guidelines and practices of an association, professional practice or union, promote this.
On-site testimonials can offer more website credibility. For example, on our website Barb Schwarz, President of Barb Inc. and StagedHomes.com - Home Staging states "After having a poor experience with another company that professed to be an expert in website placement we began to work with you and WOW, what a difference!! Not only have our placements soared, but you have always been helpful, professional, honest and easily accessible."
Do you have a disclaimer on the site? How about a statement with reference to client privacy, confidentiality, and no third-party sharing of information?
Build a page for unique email, snail mail, and telephone contact information.
Certainly, and by no means least, create a page for customer service stipulating before-sales and after-sales policy. Underscore if the site is secure for financial transactions. Develop clear financial obligations and procedures. Outline the company's guarantee and/or warranty policies.

You may find it interesting to note how much time a qualified visitor spends on your site, the trail of pages that were clicked on and for how long the visitor stayed on each page. If website statistics and traffic analysis interest you please visit http://stats.stepforth.com/ for information on Click Tracks.

New SEO Service

Generating a lot of phone calls and emails at StepForth is our new Pre-incident Email SEO Consulting Service. Perfect for small business and web users of all levels, it is available at a nominal cost (starting at $50). If you have a few questions and need expert SEO advice check this out.

I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU
This weekly feature is an opportunity to have an informative interactive column. You can email me at bill@stepforth.com and send along any particular questions, comments, feedback, tips or ideas.

by Bill Stroll - Sales Manager

The Net Reality: Accessiblity For All is as Close as the Tip of Your Nose

A very popular topic these days on the internet is accessibility for the disabled. Allowing computer access for all has been the focus of many researchers in recent history and more and more opportunities for the disabled are making there way to the mainstream.

Dmitry Gorodnichy a research officer at the National Research Council's Institute for Information Technology in Ottawa, Canada has developed a hands free mouse or "Nouse" (short for nose as mouse). The Nouse operates with the user merely moving their nose to direct the cursor on the users computer screen. The user is also able to initiate mouse clicks by blinking in quick succession - two quick blinks for a left mouse click or three for a right mouse click.

A web cam is used to map or "mirror" the users face and will track the desired movement. The tracking of the nose instead of the movement of the entire head has allowed the Nouse a higher level of accuracy during a users session.

There are plans to have the product ready for commercial use within the next year.

The creation of such input devices has opened a great deal of doors for so many people, not only with input devices like the Nouse but with internet accessibility as well. Increasingly there are new web sites appearing that allow disabled users more options when searching the web. YouSearched.com is a good example of the way the internet search world is changing for the better. The search engine site has elements that allow anyone using screen readers or refreshable braille devices to use the site. The layout has been designed to use oversized images with bright pastel colours and extra large font for people who have difficulty viewing pictures or making out traditionally smaller sized fonts.

To read more about YouSearched.com visit our StepForth News Article from May 19th 2004

by Mark Johnstone, StepForth Office Manager

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