Weekly SEO news: 5 October 2010
Welcome to the latest issue of the Search Engine Facts newsletter.

Finding the right balance between several factors is important for many things in life. Search engine optimization is no different. If you want to get high rankings on Google, Bing or other major search engines, than you have to find the right balance between on-site factors and off-site factors.

In the news: Google might add links to Google on your website, Google TV, Google's predictions for 2015, problems with Google's MayDay update and more.

Table of contents:

We hope that you enjoy this newsletter and that it helps you to get more out of your website. Please pass this newsletter on to your friends.

Best regards,
Andre Voget, Johannes Selbach, Axandra CEO

1. SEO Tai Chi: find the perfect balance

Finding the right balance between several factors is important for many things in life. Search engine optimization is no different. If you want to get high rankings on Google, Bing or other major search engines, than you have to find the right balance between on-site factors and off-site factors.

Both influence the position of your website in the search results. Which factors are more important and what exactly should you do to improve the position of your site?

What is the definition of these factors?

1. On-site optimization refers to the factors that you can control on your web site:

  • The text on your web page.
  • The number of web pages on your website.
  • The number of keywords and related keywords on your web pages.
  • The links on your web pages to other pages of your site.
  • The links on your web pages to other websites.
  • The structure of your website.
  • The robots.txt of your site.
  • The HTML code of your web pages.

2. Off-site optimization refers to the ranking factors that are usually out of your control. The most important off-site factor are the links to your web site:

  • The number of backlinks that point to your website.
  • The quality of the backlinks that point to your website.
  • How often your website is bookmarked on social bookmark sites.
  • How often your website is mentioned on services such as Twitter.

Search engines determine the position of your website in the search results based on the on-site and the off-site factors of your website.

What is more important for your website?

Some webmasters invest most of their time in on-site optimization. Others swear that links from other websites are the only way to get high rankings on Google.

Depending on the keywords for which you optimize your website, you can achieve good results with both methods.

You will get the best possible results for your website, if you combine both factors:

 

You need both factors to get good results

If you optimize the on-site factors of your website than you make it as easy as possible for search engine spiders to parse your web pages.

The content of your web pages should contain the right elements and the right keywords in the right places so that search engines know what your website is about.

Links from other websites that contain your target keywords show search engines that other people also find your website relevant to a certain topic. If other people mention your website on social bookmark services then search engines know that real people like your website.

Analyze the on-site and the off-site factors of your web pages

If you want to get high rankings for a certain keyword, analyze the web page for which you want to get high rankings with IBP's Top 10 Optimizer.

The optimizer will tell you how to correct the on-site elements of your web page and how to change the links so that your website gets top 10 rankings on Google and other search engines for any chosen keyword.

Finding the perfect balance between on-site and off-site optimization is easy with the top 10 optimizer. If you follow the advice of IBP's Top 10 Optimizer, you'll get the rankings that your website deserves.

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2. Search engine news and articles of the week

Google MapsWill Google start to insert links to Google Maps on your web pages?

"A recently published patent application from Google describes how it might identify location information on web pages, verify the locations found on those pages, and insert links to maps after finding and verifying them. [...]

Would they do this only for businesses or other organizations, or would they even include links for personal addresses? The patent filing really doesn't address that issue."



Here comes Google TV

"Google TV is a new way to think about TV: it’s a platform that combines your current TV programming and the open web into a single, seamless entertainment experience. [...]

Today we also launched a new website that provides more information about these apps and all of the other great features of Google TV."



Discussion: Google gets it wrong with MayDay update

"The main focus of [the MayDay] updates seems to have been to help remove entries from the Organic SERPs that appear to be low quality/value/content and targeting 'long tail' terms. This should have been a fantastic update, improving the quality of the SERPs for all searchers. [...]

The real concern is that some of the sites that have been Filtered out of the SERPs, aren't bad sites at all. [...] There seems no rescue from the May Day filter! This means that even if you have revised your content, structure, link text and ensured that your site is 100% original, unique and no longer appearing to target 'long tail' terms (and it seems more than a few did this accidentally!), you are still left out of the results."



PredictionsGoogle's seven display ad predictions for 2015

"50% of online ads will have video in them and be bought on a cost-per-view basis. [...] 50% of all display advertising targeted to a specific audience will rely on real-time bidding. [...] Mobile will become the No. 1 screen for advertising. [...] Five new metrics will emerge to measure the success of ad campaigns. [...]

75% of ads will become socially enabled. [...] 50% of brand campaigns will run rich media in the ads. [...] Display advertising will become a $50 billion industry."



Is using the same IMG ALT attribute text for multiple images spam?

"All 6 images have unique filenames. I am at a loss how to properly manage the alt text for the images. If the alt text was all the same or similar what would happen in the google images search? It seems kind of obnoxious to have 6 images show up for one search. That said it seems kind of spammy targeting different keywords for each of the 6 variations."

Google's Peter Linsley replies: "The same alt text for different sizes/representations of the same image is just fine."



Search engine newslets

  • Google Instant and special characters.
  • Eric Schmidt: Google's policy is to "get right up to the creepy line and not cross it".
  • Google opens its URL shortener to the public.
  • The convergence of Google, government and privacy.
  • Twitter launches promoted accounts.
  • Twitter has a new CEO.
  • How Facebook can become bigger in five years than Google is today.
  • Google, Yahoo, AOL join self-regulation push for behavioral ads.

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3. Success stories

"Top 5 rankings on most of our key terms."

"I had tried several packages over the eCommerce career and IBP hands down is amazing!

We run a manufacturer direct down bedding online website and compete against the big boys.

We always knew it was important to focus on SEO and like most had a million options on how to do it. We parallel tested two of our websites - one using IBP and one with [other SEO tool].

The website that we optimized with IBP now has top 5 rankings on most of our key terms and we can not say enough good things about IBP.

We made sure to use every service and recommendation IBP provides and our sales have doubled this year as a result."
Stefan Hunter, www.downlite.com



Tell us how IBP helped your business and 250,000 readers will see YOUR website

Let us know how IBP has helped you to improve your website and we might publish your success story with a link to your website in this newsletter. The more detailed your story is, the better.

Click here to tell us your story.



IBP

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