Arabic Search Engine Marketing التسويق لمحركات البحث

كيف تبني عرض احترافي

2010-07-30T15:31:00.001-07:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

كيف تبني عرض احترافي

View more presentations from Mohammed Badwi.

SEO Q & A

2010-07-07T10:45:00.000-07:00

So... You have SEO questions with nobody around to help. Post your question here as a comment and i will do my best to give you the answer you need :)

Go ahead!

لماذا يترك البعض غوغل ليذهب لشركات ناشئة؟

2010-07-02T05:17:00.000-07:00

فعلا عنوان شد انتباهنا و حتى المحتوى مميز. لماذا, فعلا لماذا؟؟؟ كلنا يعرف الترفيه الذي ينعم به موظفي غوغل و الوضع الذي هم عليه و المكان. هذا ما عدا اسم الشركة الذي يكفي لأي شخص ليتعلم و يستفيد و يكبر.

من هؤلاء الذين تركوا غوغل نذكرNaveen Selvadurai و Dennis Crowleyو Erin. الذين تركوا غوغل ليؤسسوا او يعملوا (حسب الشخص) في Foursquare الشركة الجديدة الناشئة.

و يشير المصدر الى انه عندما كانت Erin تعمل في غوغل صنع قسم الموارد البشرية فيلم وثائقي مصغر عن حياتها اليومية. فيه عرض التنظيم و التخطيط و الترتيب الذي تتحلى به ارين. غوغل فعلا ليست سعيدة بترك ارين الوظيفة.

و كانت ارين في غوغل مجرد موظفة بسيطة, ممكن ان تترقى لتصبح "مساعدة" و لكن في Foursquare هي مديرة تدير العمليات اليومية للشركة الناشئة التي متوقع لها ان تنجح نجاح ساحق و تجني أرباح هائلة و هنا فيديو عن الموظفة. فهل تترك ام تبقى, طبعا تترك, هذا كان قرارها.

ماذا عنك انت؟ هل ستترك غوغل ان كانت مرتبتك ضعيفة؟؟ ما رأيك؟؟ صور لمكان العمل في غوغل للتذكير.

http://www.cashflowec.com/index.php?page=view_art&art_id=5393

23 نقطة عليك أن تأخذها في عين الاعتبار عند تجديد موقعك – للحفاظ على ترتيب نتائجك في محركات البحث

2010-06-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

إذا كنت تخطط لتجديد أو تغيير في تصميم موقعك ، يرجى اتخاذ ما يلي في عين الاعتبار قبل البدء :

الحفاظ على هيكلية تسمية الملفات نفسها بحيث تجعل من السهل على العناكب لإعادة الزحف إلى موقع جديد ، وتجنب إرسال المستخدمين و محركات البحث إلى صفحات الخطأ 404.

استخدام الأمر 301 لإعادة توجيه الصفحات القديمة أو تغيير عناوين المواقع لجميع 301 redirect

- حاول دائما لإرسال المستخدمين إلى صفحات ذات صلة Mapping

- التحقق من أدوات مشرف الموقع الخاصة بجوجل والبحث عن الصفحات التي تحتوي على الروابط الخارجية للتأكد من أنك لن تفقد أي رابط قادم من صفحات خارجية إلى صفحاتك القديمة.

إنشاء صفحات خطأ 404 مع رسالة لطيفة و واضحة بحيث تظهر للمستخدم عند ظهور خطأ و تساعده في إيجاد ما يبحث عنه.

-- راقب صفحات الخطأ 404 على جوجل و الأدوات التحليلية التي تستخدمها مثل Google analytics and Yahoo Web Analytics

البحث عن الروابط المنكسرة التي قد تكون ظهرت مع تغير بنية موقع.

إنشاء خريطة موقع لزوار موقعك HTML sitemap

إنشاء خريطة xml وإرسالها submit إلى جوجل وياهو و ام اس ان .

الحفاظ على المحتوى نفسه قدر الإمكان.

الحفاظ على عناوين الصفحات كما هي قدر الإمكان.

نسق مع أحد خبراء محركات اللحث قبل إطلاق الموقع الجديد لتجنب أية مشاكل في الموقع.

إذا كان لديك feeds في غوغل نيوز، اتصل بهم لتغيير الروابط.

 مراقبة وصلات موقعك التي تظهر تحت اسم موقعك في نتائج البحث.

استخدام تنبيهات جوجل للحفاظ لمراقبة موقعك.

راقب كلمات البحث الرئيسية التي أرسلت المستخدمين إلى موقعك من محركات البحث.

راقب عدد الصفحات المفهرسة في فهرس جوجل.

راقب ال PageRank الخاص بموقعك.

إذا قمت بتغير اسم نطاق للموقع،  راقب عدد الصفحات القدبمة التي يتم إزالتها من محركات البحث مقارنة بعدد الصفحات الجديدة التي تتم زيادتها (فهرستها).

راقب الروابط الخارجية (إلى موقعك)

هل تغيرت وتيرة التحديث على الصفحة الرئيسية الجديدة؟ (أقل)؟

اتصل بالدلائل directories والمواقع التي تحتوي روابط لموقعك لتبدلها بالجديدة (إذا قمت بتغيرها)

واصل البحث عن روابط خارجية متعلقة جديدة

تحقق من الروابط الداخلية و كيف قمت بربك الصفحات بعضها ببعض، تذكّر بأن عليك دعم صفحاتك الأكثر أهمية.

من أدوات مشرفي المواقع لمعرفة ما اذا كان موقعك قد تمّ التحقق منه من قبل جوجل
 Verified )سمة ميتاMeta tag  أو ملف الهتملHTML file  لا يزال هناك(

ملاحظة :

-- إذا تم إجراء تغييرات في اسم النطاق ، فإن موقع يستغرق وقتا طويلا للتعافي (تصل إلى 30 يوما).

Understanding Goals in Google Analytics

2009-08-02T12:04:00.000-07:00

Goals in Google Analytics:

a) Goals:

Defining site goals and tracking goal conversions is one of the best ways to assess how well your site meets its business objectives. You should always try to define at least one goal for a website.

So what is a goal? A goal can be any activity on your website that’s important to the success of your business.

For example, an account signup is a goal. A request for a sales call is another example of a goal.

To define a goal in Google Analytics, you specify the page that visitors see once they have completed the activity.

For an account sign-up, you might set the “Thank You for signing up” page as a goal.

Each time that a visitor sees the page you defined as a goal, a conversion is recorded.

You can see total conversions and conversion rates for each of your goals in your reports.

b) Funnels:

For each goal that you define, you can also define a funnel. A funnel is the set of steps , or pages, that you expect visitors to visit on their way to complete the conversion.

A sales checkout process is a good example of a funnel. And the page where the visitor enters credit card information is an example of one of the funnel steps.

So, the goal page signals the end of the activity -- such as a “thank you” or “confirmation” page -- and the funnel steps are the pages that visitors encounter on their way to the goal.

c) Why defining funnels?

Defining a funnel is valuable because it allows you to see where visitors enter and exit the conversion process.

For example, if you notice that many of your visitors never go further than the “Enter shipping information” page, you might focus on redesigning that page so that it’s simpler.

Knowing which steps in the process lose would-be customers allows you to eliminate bottlenecks and create a more efficient conversion path.

d) Setting up goals:

To set up a goal, first go the Analytics Settings page and edit the the profile for which you want to configure a goal.

Once you are on the Profile Settings page, look for the “Conversion Goals and Funnel” section.

Select a goal and click Edit. You can create up to 4 goals for each profile.

e) Entering Goal Funnel Information:

Next, enter the URL of the goal page. You don’t have to enter the entire URL. You can simply enter the request URI - that’s what comes after the domain or hostname.

So, if the complete URL is www.googlestore.com/confirmation.php, you only need to enter /confirmation.php.

Make sure that the URL you enter corresponds to a page that the visitor will only see once they complete the conversion activity. So, pick something like the Thank You page or a confirmation page for your goal.

You can also enter a name for the Goal -- here we’ve entered “Completed Order”. This name will appear in your conversion reports.

Defining a funnel is optional. To define your funnel steps, you add the URLs of the pages leading up to the goal URL. Just as with goals, you don’t have to enter the entire URL of a funnel step -- just the request URI is fine.

Provide a name for each step in the funnel -- here we’ve entered “Select gift card “ for Step 1. The names you enter will appear in your reports.

Next, we’ll talk about the Match Type setting.

f) Goal URL Match Types:

The match type defines how Google Analytics identifies a goal or funnel step. You have three choices for the Match Type option.

“Head Match” is the default. It indicates that the URL of the page visited must match what you enter for the Goal URL, but if there is any additional data at the end of their URL then the goal will still be counted. For example, some websites append a product ID or a visitor ID or some other parameter to the end of the URL. Head Match will ignore these.

Here’s another example, illustrated on the screen shot: If you want every page in a subdirectory to be counted as a goal, then you could enter the subdirectory as the goal and select Head Match.

“Exact Match” means that the URL of the page visited must exactly match what you enter for the Goal URL. In contrast to Head Match, which can be used to match every page in a subdirectory, Exact Match can only be used to match one single page. Also notice that Exact Match does not match the second pageview, “/offer1/signup.html?query=hats” because of the extra query parameter at the end.

“Regular Expression Match” gives you the most flexibility. For example, if you want to count any sign-up page as a goal, and sign-up pages can occur in various subdirectories, you can create a regular expression that will match any sign-up page in any subdirectory. Regular Expressions will be covered in a later module.

When you use Regular Expression Match, the value you enter as the goal URL as well as each of the funnel steps will be read as a Regular Expression.

Remember that regardless of which option you choose, Google Analytics is only matching Request URIs. In other words, the domain name is ignored.

g) Case sensitive settings:

Check “Case Sensitive” if you want the URLs you entered into your goal and funnel to exactly match the capitalization of visited URLs.

h) Goal Value:

The “Goal Value” field allows you to specify a monetary value for goal. You should only do this for non-ecommerce goals.

By setting a goal value, you make it possible for Google Analytics to calculate metrics like average per-visit-value and ROI. These metrics will help you measure the monetary value of a non-ecommerce site.

Just think about how much each goal conversion is worth to your business. So, for example, if your sales team can close sales on 10% of the people who request to be contacted via your site, and your average transaction is $500, you might assign $50 or 10% of $500 to your "Contact Me" goal.

Again, to avoid inflating revenue results, you should only provide values for non-ecommerce goals.

i) Goal Conversions Vs. Transactions:

There is an important difference between goal conversions and e-commerce transactions.

A goal conversion can only happen once during a visit, but an e-commerce transaction can occur multiple times during a visit.

Let’s say that you set one of your goals to be a PDF download and you define it such that any PDF download is a valid goal conversion. And let’s say that the goal is worth $5.

In this case, if a visitor comes to your site and downloads 5 PDF files during a single session, you’ll only get one conversion worth $5. However, if you were to track each of these downloads as a $5 e-commerce transaction, you would see 5 transactions and $25 in e-commerce revenue.

You’ll learn how to set up ecommerce tracking and how to track PDF downloads in later modules.

j) Profiles and Goals Tracking:

You can have up to 4 goals for each profile. If you want to track additional goals, just set up duplicate profiles.

K) Filters and Goal Tracking:

If you are using a filter that manipulates the Request URI, make sure that your goal is defined so that it reflects the changed Request URI field.

For example, in the screen shot, we have a profile that defines /thankyou.html as a goal. But we have another profile with a filter that appends the hostname to the Request URI.

So, for this profile, we need to change the goal definition accordingly.

l) Funnel Reporting:

If you define a funnel for a goal, Google Analytics populates the Funnel Visualization report, shown here in the screen shot.

On the left, you can see how visitors enter your funnel. On the right, you can see where they leave the funnel and where they go.

The middle shows you how visitors progress through the funnel -- how many of them continue on to each step.

In this example, we can see that there were 9,283 entrances at the top of the funnel and 187 completed orders, at the bottom of the funnel.

This report is very useful for identifying the pages from which visitors abandon your conversion funnel.

j)Reverse Goal Path Reporting:

Here’s another report in the Goals section. It’s the Reverse Goal Path report. You can see this data even if you haven’t defined a funnel. It lists the navigation paths that visitors took to arrive at a goal page and shows you the number of conversions that resulted from each path.

In this example, we can see that 96 of the conversions -- or about 15% of them -- resulted from the first navigation path that’s shown.

This is a great report for identifying funnels that you hadn’t considered before and it can give you great ideas for designing a more effective site.

Funnel Visualization:

a) Funnel Visualization Report:

If you define a funnel for a goal, Google Analytics populates the Funnel Visualization report, shown here in the screeb shot.

On the left, you can see how visitors enter your funnel. On the right, you can see where they leave the funnel and where they go. The middle shows you how visitors progress through the funnel, how many of them continue on to each step.

In this example, we can see that there were 9,283 entrances at the top of the funnel and 187 completed orders at the bottom of the funnel.

This report is very useful for identifying the pages from which visitors abandon your conversion funnel.

b) Finding the Report and Selecting the Goal:

To find the Funnel Visualization report, look in the Goals section.

Once you are in the report, you can select the goal you want to analyze from the Select Goal drop-down menu.

c) Funnel Entrance Pages:

The boxes along the left side of the funnel show the pages from which visitors entered the funnel.

(entrance) shows the number of times that the funnel page was a landing page.

In this example, 11,514 visitors came to the View Product Categories page from the home page.

d) Funnel Exit Pages:

The boxes on the right show where visitors went when they abandoned the funnel.

For each step, you can see the pages that visitors went to.

(exit) means that the person not only abandoned the funnel but also left your site.

In this example, there were 1,423 funnel exits from the View Product Categories page that went to the software.asp page.

e) Progressing through the Funnel:

In this example, only 29% of visits to the View Shopping Cart page actually proceeded to the login page.

The remaining 2,418 times, the person either left the funnel for another page or left the site entirely.

This data is valuable because you can use it to see what pages of your site may need to be altered.

For instance, in this example, you might want to improve the design of the the “View Shopping Cart” page so that more visitors log in and continue.

You can also see that only 41% of visits to the Login page continue on to the Place Order page. So, the Login page may also need improvements.

- From Google Analytics IQ lessons.

Time Metrics in Google Analytics

2009-07-26T13:55:00.000-07:00

a) To calculate Time on Page, Google Analytics compares the timestamps of the visited pages.

For example, the visitor saw page A, then page B, and then left the site.

The Time on Page for page A is calculated by subtracting the page A timestamp from the page B timestamp.

So, the Time on Page for page A is 1 minute and 15 seconds.

In order for this calculation to take place, the Google Analytics Tracking Code must be executed on both pages.

The Time on Page for page B is 0 seconds, because there is no subsequent timestamp that Google Analytics can use to calculate the actual Time on Page.

b) Now, suppose the visitor continued on to a third page before exiting.

The second page now has a Time on Page of 1 minute 10 seconds.

The Time on Site is now calculated as 2 minutes and 25 seconds.

c) For Average Time on Page, bounces are excluded from the calculation. In other words, any Time on Page of 0 is excluded from the calculation.

For Average Time on Site, bounces remain a part of the calculation.

To calculate Average Time on Site, Google Analytics divides the total time for all visits by the number of visits.

d) Some sites make extensive use of Flash or other interactive technologies.

Often, these kinds of sites don’t load new pages frequently and all the user interaction takes place on a single page.

As a result, it’s common for sites like this to have high bounce rates and low average times on site.

If you have such a site, you may wish to set up your tracking so that virtual pageviews or events are generated as the user performs various activities.

You can learn how to do this in the module on Event Tracking and Virtual Pageviews.

e) The Length of Visit report categorizes visits according to the amount of time spent on the site during the visit.

The graph allows you to visualize the entire distribution of visits instead of simply the ‘Average Time on Site’ across all visits.

You can see whether a few visits are skewing your ‘Average Time on Site’ upward or downward.

The Length of Visit report can be found under Visitor Loyalty in the Visitors section.

- From Google Analytics Lessons

Google Analytics: Cookies, Java Script and Cached Pages

2009-07-25T03:08:00.000-07:00

Google Analytics uses only first-party cookies, which are considered safe and non-intrusive by most internet users today.

Although many people block third-party cookies from being set by their web browsers, this won’t affect Google Analytics.

Someone who blocks all cookies, however, won’t be tracked by Google Analytics since all the data is passed to the Google Analytics servers via the first-party cookies.

Someone who deletes their cookies will still be tracked, but they’ll be identified as a new visitor to the site and Google Analytics won’t be able to attribute their conversions to a prior referring campaign.

People delete cookies for many reasons, one of which is to prevent personal data from being captured or reported. But, note that Google Analytics does not report on personally identifiable information. You’ll learn more about cookies as they relate to Google Analytics in a later module.

A much less common scenario is that a visitor to your site has disabled JavaScript on his or her browser. A visitor who disables JavaScript won’t be tracked since the Google Analytics Tracking Code cannot be executed.

Cached pages are saved on a visitor’s local machine and so they’re not served by the webserver. Google Analytics will still track visits to cached pages as long as the visitor is connected to the internet.

JavaScript errors occur when an element of a web page’s script contains an error or fails to execute correctly. If an error occurs before the Google Analytics Tracking Code is executed, the visit to the page won’t be tracked. This is because the error will prevent the remainder of the JavaScript on the page from running. Since we recommend that in most cases you place your Google Analytics Tracking Code at the bottom of the page, JavaScript errors are always a possible cause for data not appearing in your reports.

Google Analytics can track visits from a mobile device as long as the device is capable of executing JavaScript and storing cookies. You can see which devices have been used to access your site by looking at the Browsers report in the Visitor section.

In general, no reporting tool can ever be 100% accurate. You’ll get the most out of web analytics if you focus on trends. Knowing that 20% more visitors converted following a marketing campaign is more powerful than knowing that exactly 10 people visited your site today.

- From Google Analytics IQ lessons

How does Google Analytics work?

2009-07-25T02:32:00.000-07:00

When a visitor accesses a page on your site, a request is made to the webserver to display the page.

The page is served and the Google Analytics Tracking Code JavaScript is executed.

The Google Analytics Tracking Code, which is a snippet of code that you place on each page of your site, calls the trackPageView() method.

At this point, the Google Analytics first-party cookies are read and/or written.

The webpage then sends an invisible gif request containing all the data to the secure Google Analytics reporting server, where the data is captured and processed.

Data is processed regularly throughout the day and you can see the results in your reports.

- From Google Analytics IQ lessons

CPA/CPM Google Adwords Campaign Best Practices

2009-07-19T12:58:00.001-07:00

Some hints and tricks for CPA/CPM Google Adwords Campaign:

- Always check cost and conversions.

- Focus on sites that bring you/brought you conversions but at the same time don’t cost/didn’t cost you much.

- Keep an eye on cost/conversion and conversion rate.

- You can then pause/activate/add.

- Use sorting for columns of your area of focus.

- For placements, check urls and not only domains (When you go to network tab, under content, managed placements details, click on see URL list drop down menu and view all urls.

- Try to use keywords along with placements.

Reference Readings:

- http://searchengineland.com/save-time-money-buying-your-targeted-cpm-from-google-14596

- http://searchengineland.com/how-to-optimize-a-contextual-search-advertising-campaign-11659

- http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=68517

- http://www.jenniferslegg.com/2008/01/09/best-practices-for-soliciting-direct-buy-advertisers-to-your-website-or-blog/

- http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/ (Everything about Google Adwords from Google Adwords team).

إشهار المواقع على محركات البحث

2009-07-17T04:39:00.000-07:00

إشهار المواقع على محركات البحث (جوجل)

- ما هي محركات البحث؟
محركات البحث هي مواقع متخصصة و مصممة لمساعدة مستخدمي الإنترنت على العثور على معلومات معينة مخزنة أو موجودة على مواقع أخرى.

الأشهر منها هي Google و Yahoo و MSN

- وظائف محركات البحث
على الرغم من اختلافها، تقوم محركات البحث بثلاث وظائف مشتركة فيما بينها:

1) زيارة صفحات الإنترنت و استخراج النص الموجود فيها.

2) أرشفة و تخزين الكلمات التي وجدت و أماكنها.

3) عندما يقوم الباحث بإدخال كلمة البحث في صندوق البحث فإن محرك البحث يقوم بإحضار النتائج الأكثر ارتباطاً و قرباً من كلمة البحث، و ذلك بمقارنة كلمة البحث بالمعلومات المخزنة في قاعدة البيانات المخزنة لديه.

أين توجد نتائج البحث؟
إذاً، عندما نبحث عن موضوع أو كلمات معينة فإن محرك البحث يظهر لنا نتائج البحث من أرشيفه و ليس من الموقع نفسه.

و إذا لم توجد صفحة في أرشيف محرك البحث فهذا لا يعني بالضرورة أن هذا الصفحة غير موجودة في الإنترنت، بل يمكن أن تكون موجودة و غير مخزنة في الأرشيف لسبب ما

وظائف محركات البحث و تخزين النتائج:.

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Google Adwords Conversion Optimizer - Optimizing your google adwords campaign

2009-07-17T03:56:00.000-07:00

What is Google Adwords Conversion Optimizer?

The Conversion Optimizer is an AdWords feature that uses your AdWords Conversion Tracking data to get you more conversions at a lower cost. It optimizes your placement in each ad auction to avoid unprofitable clicks and gets you as many profitable clicks as possible.

How does it work?

With the Conversion Optimizer, you bid using a maximum CPA, which is the most you're willing to pay for each conversion (such as a purchase or signup). Using historical information about your campaign, the Conversion Optimizer automatically finds the optimal equivalent cost-per-click (CPC) bid for your ad each time it's eligible to appear. You still pay per click, but you no longer need to adjust your bids manually to reach your CPA goals and can benefit from improved ROI.

To calculate the optimal equivalent CPC bid, the Conversion Optimizer first calculates a predicted conversion rate for each auction. The Conversion Optimizer takes many factors into account, including your ad's conversion history, the keyword's broad match query, the user's location, and the conversion rates of Google's search and content partner sites. The feature then generates an ad rank by combining your CPA bid, quality score and predicted conversion rate.

If your planning for a successful adwords campaign that converts, you need to do the following:

1) Add the action code on your goal page in the right location or

2) If you're linking your adwords account with your Google analytics account, you can import your Google analytics account and use them.

3) If your targeted keywords are expensive, you need to start with CPM - preferably with display ads. Choose the right and relevant placements, add relevant keywords and start monitoring.

4) Keep tweaking your campaign to make sure that you you're using the sites/placements that is bringing you more conversion but at the same time not costing you much.

5) Once you reach 300 conversions, you can use CPA bidding model (Cost Per Action). Put your maximum bid and see how your conversions will boost.

Note: You might not be able to switch directly from CPM to CPA, so you need to switch first to CPC and then select CPA.

Good luck with your google adwords campaign.

SEO Things to Keep in Mind When Revamping a Site

2009-07-11T00:11:00.000-07:00

If you are planning to revamp/change the design of your site, please take the following into consideration before you start:

1. Keep the same files naming structure so to make it easier for spiders to re-crawl the new site, and to avoid sending people’s bookmarks to 404 error pages.

2. 301 Redirect all old or changed URLs to the new corresponding page.

- Try always to send users to relevant pages (Mapping).

- Check Google Webmaster tools and look for pages with external links to make sure that you won’t loose any link juice coming from external pages into your old pages.

3. Create 404 error pages so that when errors occur, visitors get a nice message with the site’s look and feel.

It can be also used with pages that cannot be mapped.

- You need to keep monitoring your 404 pages on Google analytics and webmaster tools after launch.

4. Look for broken links that may have come up as the site architecture changes a bit.

5. Create a site map for your visitors so if they feel lost, they have a listing of all the pages on the site.

6. Create an XML site map to submit to Google, Yahoo and MSN to make them aware of all new URLs.

7. Keep the content the same as much as possible to keep any rankings. This ties into #1 as a file name change can also effect rankings.

8. Keep the title tags the same as much as possible to keep any rankings.

9. If changing domains or page names, consider updating links in directories or on other sites if possible. You don’t want to lose those links you previously had. Worst case scenario, 301 redirect them.

10. Tell your SEO before you make the new site live so they can help prevent any issues.

11. If you have feeds in Google News, contact them to change the feed.

12. Keep monitoring your site links.

13. Use Google alerts to keep monitoring your site.

14. Keep an eye on your top keywords in Google Analytics and your rankings in the search engine.

15. Keep monitoring the number of indexed pages in Google index.

16. Keep watching the PR of the site.

17. If you have changed the domain name of the site, keep an eye on the de-indixation of old urls and indixation of new urls.

18. Keep an eye on your backlinks.

19. Did the frequency of update on the new homepage changed?

20. Contact the directories/sites linking to you with old links to change their links to the new one (if changed).

21. Keep working on getting new backlinks.

22. Double check your internal linking structure to push your most important pages.

23. Check Webmaster tools to check if your site is still verified (the Meta tag or html file should still be there).

Notes:

- If changes were made to domain name, the site will take a long time to recover (up to 30 days).

Google Website Optimizer - Auto-Disabling Feature

2009-07-10T11:19:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to all GWO (Google Website Optimization) tool. Now you have the auto-disabling feature where poor performing variations will be automatically stopped.

Keep in mind that in order to get this feature work, you need to have more than 2 variations (A/B/C Testing).

Good Luck!

To read more, click on the following link: http://websiteoptimizer.blogspot.com/2009/07/auto-disabling-experimentation-auto.html

Sunny 105.1 Radio Station

2009-07-09T02:21:00.000-07:00

Sunny Radio Station is a local Jordanian Radio Station with what they call
"Feel Good Music".

Despite the fact that the music is really nice and that it's my favorite
radio station, but the website makes me feel sad :(

Click here to visit the website: http://www.sunny.jo/

The page is a flash page, and when viewing the text cache a completely white
page shows up. Sunny doesn't even show the important contact us information.

Click here to check the cache of the page: http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:http://www.sunny.jo/&hl=en&rlz=1T4TSEA_en-GBJO326&strip=1

The title of the page only says: sunny 105.1 and will only show up to those
who really know the station.

Of course, no description tag is used in the page as well.

The contact information are inside the flash with yellow small font that is
very hard to be read.

The 2 lines of text that are somehow clear are:

P.O. Box 840616 Amman 11184

info@sunny.jo Mihiar Center, Shmeisani

Sunny people, you are doing a great job when it has to broadcasting, but
a horrible one when it comes to search engine optimization and search visitors.
If you want more people to find you online, you have to do some changes.

SEO Basics - Part 2

2009-07-04T02:47:00.000-07:00

I- What is SEO?
SEO: Search Engine Optimization.
· Making modifications to your site, and links sending to your site, in
order to get good rankings on SERPs for certain targeted keywords.
· It only affects organic traffic, not paid traffic.
· Google currently has about 200 factors in their algorithms that
determine how sites will rank.
II- Keywords Research:
- Define your audience
- Define your market/categories
- Define your goals
- Main steps for keywords research:
1. Brainstorm all possible words and phrases that users would use to find
what you have. Remember to put yourself in the mindset of the
potential user.
2. Research:
a) Check what your competitors are using.
b) Check your top and new keywords in Google Analytics (Users
are already using those to find you).
c) Check what are the top searched terms users are typing in your
site search box (You can check this either using Google Analytics
or using logs).
3. You can also use Google insights for search and Google trends to check
the trend.
4. Use Google Adwords tool to filter the list you came up with, and to
check the search volume and competitiveness, in addition to other
suggested phrases by Google.
5. Break down the update list into segments into 3 groups of keywords:
a) General:
· Shorter phrases and single words
· General
· Lots of traffic
· Lower conversions (not much targeted)
b) Focused:
· Slightly shorter phrases
· High traffic numbers
· Phrases are still focused on what you offer (more
targeted than broad)
c) Laser Focused (Long Tail):
· Longer and more targeted phrases
· Traffic numbers are smaller
· More qualified users and conversion rates are higher
Examples:
• General (Generic and competitive keywords):
1 Plates
2 Blue plates (Maybe user is looking for photos)
3 Dinner plate
• Focused: Less generic, and less competitive:
1 Buy dinner plates
2 Set of dinner plates
3 Cost of dinner plates
· Laser Focused: Long tail phrases: (Less traffic but more targeted)
1 Buy dinner place settings
2 Replacement dinner plates for sale

SEO in Arabic - From Google

2009-06-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

Finally we have SEO guides written in Arabic and from Google:
الدليل المبدئي لتحسين التوافق مع محرك بحث
Google

It's great to have SEO guides in Arabic, but it could have been much better if the examples used in the Guide were in Arabic too... This will make issues explained more relevant.

You can download the guide through Google's official blog.

SEO Basics- Part 1

2009-06-19T09:32:00.000-07:00

SEO Training Main Guidelines:
1) Agenda
I- What is SEO
II- Keywords Research
III- Site Structure/architecture and Navigation
IV- Content
V- Optimizing Pages (On-Page optimization)
VI- Links and Link Building
VII- Competitor Analysis
VIII- Google Webmaster Tools
IX- Maintenance, Measure Results and Tracking
X- Refine and Redo
XI- Others

SEO Diagnosis and Troubleshooting Steps

2009-06-19T08:33:00.000-07:00

If you had a drop in your Search Engine Traffic, please go through the following steps:

1) Check your xml sitemap on Google Webmaster Tools and look for any errors

2) Make sure that all your xmls are updated and their dates are correct

3) Check the number of indexed pages in Google

4) Check your top referring sites

5) Check your rankings on your top keywords

6) Check the number of keywords in Google Analytics for that day

7) Look for duplicate content (titles, descriptions, body of page) or urls in your site. The duplicate content can be within your site, the network or with other sites in the web

8) Look for other kinds of spam: Like hidden text, links to bad neighborhood, keywords stuffing and anything that could be an attempt to deceive the search engine

9) Make sure that your pages have enough content that can be provided for the search engine. Keep in mind that search engines always look for unique and valuable content to add it to their indices and to provide it to their users

10) Check your robots.txt file and see if you blocked anything accidentally

11) Check your meta robots tags in your pages and see if you blocked anything accidentally

12) Make sure that your site doesn’t go down too frequently or for too long

13) Make sure that you don’t have issues with your database

14) Check your redirect: If you’re redirecting some urls to other urls make sure that it’s working (301 redirect)

Final note:

If your PageRank is suddenly zero and the number of indexed pages in dropping, then you’re facing a penalty by Google. You need to make sure that you don’t have any kind of spam on your site.

Google Webmaster Help Forums in more languages

2009-06-11T16:30:00.000-07:00

Traditionally when we launch a new communication channel, we also give the shareholders a chance to introduce themselves. We did so when we opened webmaster help communities for European webmasters almost two years ago, and also more than a year ago, when we were able to expand and add groups in three more languages. Last December we were very happy to announce the re-launch of two of our Help Forums in a new and cool look and feel.

Today, we're happy to announce that we keep on increasing the global dialogue with webmasters, opening an Arabic and a Czech/Slovak Webmaster Help Forum. Furthermore, we would like to highlight the support we offer in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. While we've offered support to Chinese webmasters for a little more than a year, the Japanese and Korean forums are only a few weeks old. Keeping with tradition, the guides monitoring our new forums would like to introduce themselves to the global webmaster family:

Arabic Webmaster Help Forum

مرحبا! My name is Adel and I'll be monitoring the Arabic Webmaster Help Forum. I'm originally from Beirut, Lebanon. After finishing computer science studies, I joined Google, some 18 months ago.

Besides working on search quality in Arabic and building a community on our forum, I enjoy traveling and listening to really loud heavy metal music; sometimes I get to do both at the same time! ;-)

I am looking forward to a lot of questions regarding Arabic Google Search and of course ranking and indexing issues on your sites to come. I hope I'll see you there soon!
- Adel

Czech/Slovak Webmaster Help Forum

Zdravím! I am Marcel, the Google Guide on the Czech/Slovak Webmaster Help Forum. I am originally from Slovakia. After graduating in New Media and Industrial Design, it took me some time and traveling around the globe before moving to Dublin and eventually joining Google some 3 years ago.

Ever since, I've been working in different teams. I was lucky to be part of the AdSense team where I participated in launching AdSense for Content for Czech and Slovak. Since my transition to Search Quality, I enjoy working on improving the quality of our natural search results in Czech, Slovak, and Polish.

Besides my work I have a few more passions, such as listening to live music in Irish pubs, challenging my colleagues in occasional Soulcalibur skirmishes on Playstation and testing burger places all over the world :-) If you want to discuss any of these topics or maybe something about your sites, please join the community. I am looking forward to meeting you there :-)
- Marcel

Chinese Webmaster Help Forum

你好! Hi from the Chinese Webmaster Help Forum team! The Chinese Webmaster Help Forum has received great support from webmasters since its launch in March 2008. In March 2009, the Chinese Webmaster Help Forum moved to a new system with many more user-friendly features for better information sharing. It has become a good platform for webmasters to share their knowledge of Google search and Webmaster Tools and to communicate with Google.

The Chinese Forum now has 6 Google Guides: Xiang (降龙十巴掌), Eric (趙錢孫李), Marina (小馬過河), Chris (城镇), Hyson (草帽路飞), and Fa (法人戴表). We are from many different provinces of mainland China. When not spending time in the forum, we enjoy playing ping-pong and foosball in the office. A few of us are huge video game fans. You may learn more about us when you participate in the forum :)

A big thank you to everyone who has taken part in forum discussions! We hope to see both familiar faces and newcomers join in the Chinese Webmaster Help Forum!
- Xiang (降龙十巴掌), Eric (趙錢孫李), Marina (小馬過河), Chris (城镇), Hyson (草帽路飞), and Fa (法人戴表)

Japanese Webmaster Help Forum

こんにちは! Hello from the Japanese Webmaster Help Forum team! Our names are Nao ( なお ), Kaede ( 楓 ), Haru ( ハル ), and Kyotaro. We are the four guides working in Google Search Quality for Japanese. We've just launched our forum on March 6th.

All of us were born in Japan and grew up here. Nao has also lived in Greece, the Netherlands, and New York. Haru is from the west side of Japan, which is known for its talkative culture and traditional Japanese comedy. Maybe you will read Haru's unique communication on our forum :)

As for our interests, we love eating and drinking! Between posting on the forum, we enjoy Google's excellent lunches and sweets a lot. After working, of course, we sometimes go out for a drink with our team members :) Kaede knows all the nice bars in Tokyo.

Nao and Kyotaro love Sumo wrestling. We've watched two tournaments this year with Googlers from other locations. Haru, of course, loves watching comedies!

We are really excited and happy to see many users joining our forum and sharing tips with each other. Looking forward to seeing you there!
- Nao ( なお ), Kaede ( 楓 ), Haru ( ハル ), and Kyotaro

Korean Webmaster Help Forum

안 녕하세요! Hello everyone, my name is Joowon and I work in Google Search Quality for Korean. I was born in Germany and lived in Korea for a few years before moving to Hawaii, California and New York to attend high school and college. After all that traveling, I'm only fluent in Korean and English, with a bit of proficiency in Japanese. Some of the interests I've developed over the years are design, wine, cooking, yoga, and sustainability issues.

Currently I'm back in Seoul and enjoying the dynamic atmosphere here, with lots of interesting people and great food. The Korean Webmaster Help Forum was launched only a few weeks ago, and I'm very much looking forward to talking to all of you. See you in the forum!
- Joowon

Hello world! ;) I am Andrew and I am part of the Search Quality team in Seoul. I grew up in a port city in the southern part of Korea. Ironically, I don't eat seafood because it looks scary to me :( Many of my friends and colleagues love to make jokes about that, but I still don't eat any seafood yet. Playing drums, traveling and photography are my main interests. Currently I'm a drummer of "Spring Fingers", the first band of Google Korea, and we'll have our first concert at the end of April!

I love playing around with web technologies/APIs and find it very exciting to exchange information and ideas on the web. The Korean Webmaster Help Forum was recently launched and I hope to see you there!
- Andrew

If you're curious about our Webmaster Help Forums in other languages, please feel free to peak in. Here's a list of our currently monitored Webmaster Help Forums: Arabic, Chinese, Czech/Slovak, Dutch, Danish, English, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.

Written by Joowon Ahn, Andrew Baek, Adel Saud, Kaspar Szymanski, Fa Wang, Reid Yokoyama, and Marcel Zavacky, Search Quality Team

One-line sitelinks

2009-04-18T22:06:00.001-07:00

You may be familiar with sitelinks, the links that show up underneath the first search result and which lead to specific pages deeper within the site. Sitelinks enable users to jump directly to important parts of a site, which is often useful for large, complex websites. Sitelinks have the additional advantage of giving users an overview of a website's content by highlighting some of the popular parts of the site. For webmasters, sitelinks are also beneficial because they help to expose parts of your site that users may not know about. For instance, a search for NASA provides links to a gallery of images, a page about Space Shuttle and ISS missions, and so on:

Until now, sitelinks have only ever appeared on the first search result, and so at most one site could have sitelinks per query. We're now launching an expansion of sitelinks: a single row of links can now appear for results that didn't show sitelinks before, even for results that aren't in the first position. This means multiple results on one query can now have sitelinks. Up to four sitelinks can show up right above the page URL, instead of the usual two columns below the URL of the first result. Here's an example where the first three results each have one-line sitelinks:

These one-line sitelinks have many of the same benefits as the full two-column sitelinks, but on a smaller scale: they show users some relevant sub-pages in the site and give an idea of what the site is about. Comparing the sitelinks that appear for each result can even illustrate the difference between the sites. Just like regular sitelinks, one-line sitelinks are generated algorithmically and the decisions on when to show them and which links to display are entirely based on the expected benefit to users.

For webmasters, this new feature means it's possible that your site will start showing sitelinks for a number of queries where it previously didn't. We expect this will increase the visibility of and traffic to your site, while also improving the experience of users. If, however, you absolutely would prefer not to have a particular sitelink show up, remember that you can always block a page from appearing as a sitelink for 90 days through Webmaster Tools. In fact, as part of our ongoing efforts at improving the Webmaster Tools experience, we're speeding up our response time to blocked pages, so you should see a blocked page get dropped as a sitelink even faster than before. If you need a quick refresher on how to use the sitelink blocking tool, take a look at this previous blog post. Currently you can only block sitelinks on your site's home page, but we're working on expanding this capability so you'll soon be able to remove them from any other page as well.We hope you find these improvements to sitelinks and Webmaster Tools helpful for both your site and your visitors!

Posted by Doantam Phan, Software Engineer, and Raj Krishnan, Product Manager, Sitelinks Team

Making more tools available with just a click

2009-04-04T08:05:00.000-07:00

An Article posted by Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
by Sagar Kamdar, Product Manager

Last July, we launched our Webmaster Tools Access Provider Program and it's been a huge hit. Hundreds of providers have signed up, and thousands of users now access Webmaster Tools via their provider's control panel.

Today we are launching the Google Services for Websites Access Provider Program which enables providers to offer the following features to site owners:

Enhance their site with Custom Search or Google Site Search
Monetize with AdSense
Optimize for search with Webmaster Tools

How can you get in on this?

Webmasters: Watch to see if your provider join this program, so the next time you manage your site, everything will be all set for you. Better yet, send your provider a link to this post and tell them we're here to help them help you.

Providers: Check out the Google Services for Websites site and sign up today!

And in case you're wondering, providers that have signed up for the Webmaster Tools Access Provider program will automatically be upgraded to the new program. Also, no worries for developers -- the backend Webmaster Tools APIs remain unchanged

Google Latitude 1 Million Users In 1 Week

2009-02-23T23:15:00.000-08:00

Google Latitude reportedly got one million users in it’s first week of launch.

According to an item published in FierceMobileContent,
"more than a million wireless subscribers had signed up for Google’s new mobile friend finder Latitude in its first week according to Vic Gundotra, Google’s vice president of engineering."

Gundotra was a speaker on a panel at Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona.
What Is Google Latitude?
From Google about Latitude:

See where your friends are on a map
With Google Latitude, you can:
See where your friends are and what they are up to
Quickly contact them with SMS, IM, or a phone call
Control what your location is and who gets to see it
Enjoy Google Latitude on your phone, PC, or both.

Who's More Dumb: Facebook or its Users?

2009-02-23T23:11:00.000-08:00

Facebook quietly changed its terms of service agreement (TOS) recently. Bloggers freaked, triggering a public uproar that forced Facebook to revert back to the older version and come up with a better TOS agreement.

The Facebook TOS always said, essentially, that the good people at Facebook can do anything they want with pictures and other content you upload. Those goofy pictures you uploaded of you and your high school buddies? Yeah, Facebook owns those.

The old, re-posted version of Facebook's TOS had a thin thread of user control in the form of an explicit termination of the full license when you delete something. The now-revoked new version took that away.

Here's what they (temporarily) changed. First, they removed the following passage:
"You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content."

And they added this:

"The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service."
The changes implied that anything you upload to Facebook belongs to Facebook forever, even after you delete everything and cancel your account, if that were even possible.

The mea culpa for this debacle came from CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a Facebook posting, in which he makes the case that Facebook needs such rights in order to legally facilitate user content sharing.

For more: Read the whole article Who's More Dumb: Facebook or its Users?

Save Palestine through your own content

2009-02-05T07:03:00.000-08:00

The attempts to erase the Palestinian history by Israelis and pro Israelis are not new or top secret. The killing and ethnic cleansing that has previously taken place in different areas in Palestine when Jews decided to build a country on the land of Palestine is a way... The political recognition of Israel and the ignorance of the fact that Palestine is over there is another way, in addition to redrawing maps to erase the existence of Palestine...

There are many other ways to support Israel against Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs. Unfortunately, we are not doing very well to protect our history, traditions, culture, rights and lands.... How many documents online do we have about forgotten villages and cities, real names and numbers and actual ownerships of lands? How many of them are in English? If any searcher wanted to find the real version of the story, can he/she find it anywhere? Why can't we have an online edition of the Palestinian encyclopedia (الموسوعة الفلسطينية)? Is there any kind of donations for documenting the history of Palestine or even what was lost in Iraq?

Let's try starting something, collecting content, publishing it online, bookmarking it and adding it to our social networking profiles.

Please help Palestine and Palestinians.
Please write about Palestine if you know and if you can.

Test Your Blog

2009-02-04T02:08:00.000-08:00

While I was Checking a website called SEO by the sea, I went through an article that I liked called (Test Your Blog) by Bill Slawski So I thought of sharing it with you.

Test Your Blog

I’m in a testing mood tonight, and put together a list of tests that you can run your blog or web site through if you feel up to learning more about your pages…

1. See what grade level your blog is at with the Blog Readability Test.
2. Find out if the Gender Genie can predict the gender the your blog’s author.
3. Gauge how well the HTML or XHTML of your blog validates with the W3C Markup Validation Service.
4. Discover whether your site is available behind the Great Firewall of China.
5. Check out how accessible your website might be with the Wave Accessibility Tool.
6. Take a peek at how your site might appear on an iphone.
7. Explore your site to see if you have broken links.
8. Let Microsoft Adcenter determine how much commercial intent your site seems to have.
9. Make your site render in grayscale.
10. Get an estimate of how many visitors your site gets a day.
11. See how your site looks in different browsers.
12. Extract the Colors and their names from your site.
13. Catch people who might be plagiarizing your words on the Web.
14. Convert your site to text only to make it easier to read on a phone or other handheld device.
15. Translate your page into another language (I liked how mine looked in Traditional Chinese).

MBC Is Rewarding Her Users

2009-01-20T01:26:00.000-08:00

Yes, yes we're talking again about MBC portal....

I was trying to check what MBC is having on its portal today, and i found a nice reward from them: The site's design is corrupted, and hence, people are unable to find the content they need... So friendly and usable :)

Check this out:

Youtube removes Gaza massacre videos

2009-01-16T09:33:00.000-08:00

Shame on you Youtube! Shame on you Google!

A colleague once told me that Youtube was removing his videos about Gaza massacres, and that he closed his account as a response.... Then i read a post on a blog that Youtube is doing with all videos relavant to Gaza. Why? Obviously, it's an open war against humanity by powerful people pro killing inside Youtube... Well, We can create other websites Youtube, and we can have our videos overthere...

If you are interested in the case, and would like to upload your videos to support brothers and sisters in Palestine, visit IkhwanTube.

MBC 4

2009-01-16T09:14:00.000-08:00

I saw an ad on the TV about MBC 4's website, where they were trying to feature Oprah as the main issue. I went to my PC and typed the URL they are promoting for (http://www.mbc.net/mbc4), and this one redirect me to a very long and strange URL, and guess what!.... A page with a proxy error showed up! I also checked their cached version (from Google cache) and couldn't find anything!

Guys if you can't have a stable site, don't promote for it. It's bad for SEO, bad for your reputation and frustrating for your users.

You need to work harder MBC portal team... Good Luck!

Addustour newspaper and SEO جريدة الدستور و السيو

2009-01-02T10:45:00.000-08:00

Addustour newspaper or جريدة الدستور is a local Jordanian newspaper, and one of the very first ones in the country.

They have pretty good content and trying their best to increase the traffic to their sites and interaction with users. But, personally, i believe that their efforts are almost gone with the wind as the site is not optimized for search engines and many pages of content disappear from search engines because of the poor optimization.

I will list 10 things they should do to have the basics:
1) Abide by the title tag rules: How can a category page have the same title as the homepage?

2- Use Breadcrumbs: Guys, help yourselves and your users and have a breadcrumb. It's not only for search engines, but also for users.

3- Description tag: Please change what's inside your description tag for your inner pages.

4- Alt tag for images: I am sure Mr Google is so confused about your images. What do they mean?

5- Title tag for links: Some links are just meaningless. You need to tag them.

6- Archiving for online pages: I can't understand why the content just disappears the next day... Even articles don't show up. Trying to Google them was another challenge. Many of them are not there.
Help users to access your pages to allow the search engine to help you more.

7- Use H tags: I didn't find any in the page.

8- URLs: The urls here are scary. Please optimize them!
Check this one for example:
http://addustour.com/ViewTopic.aspx?ac=\OpinionAndNotes\2009\01\OpinionAndNotes_issue452_day02_id107070.htm

9- XML sitemap: I don't think there's any, because if there was one, pages wouldn't have been lost from Google index.

10- Social Bookmarking Tools: What if i liked an article and wanted to add it to my facebook account? What if i wanted to digg it?

Of course, there are more things that could be done, but the above can be a good start.

Good luck Addustour

SEO to support Gaza

2008-12-31T11:35:00.000-08:00

Israel is continuing to kill civilians and children in Gaza everyday, without any hesitation or mercy, justifying their actions to the world claiming that they are defending themselves from Hamas. All those tanks, helicopters, messiles and airforce strikes that are killing Palestinian children is only to target Hamas leaders.

However, this didn't seem to be enough for them. They did a combination of SEO and social networking. Only 3 hours after the begining of the first strike, Joel Leyden (Marketing and SEO Guru) created a facebook forum to support Israel in preventing terror attacks from Gaza! So, yes, social networking to support Israel. As well, they are planning to drive content through search engines and Google News to reach 60 million people instantly. They want people to "Feel" with them.

A full article talking about this issue was published... I went to check the comments, and i will pick one of them for you:
" Paula Lynn from Who Else Unlimited; hollywood5459@verizon.net

commented on: December 31, 2008 at 9:22 AM

Mazel tov! People need to know the truth. With Israel being such a world tech center, I am surprised this has not been done sooner. The Arab world never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. "

Now what do you think?

If you would like to read the full article, click here.

2008-12-30T13:19:00.001-08:00

SEM Industry Training: What are the Options?

By Kalena Jordan

The State of SEM Training

Search Engine Marketing is the hottest new career to sweep the employment sector. There are literally more jobs available than there are marketers to fill them, hence the high salaries. Traditionally, SEO/SEM has had a long, steep learning curve, so there is currently a large supply/demand gap.

The growth of the industry has underscored the need for faster, more flexible training options. The demand for trained SEO/SEM staff has accelerated the launch of online training programs in the past three years. The spread of misinformation and the growth of dodgy SEO practices have also highlighted a need for best-practice industry certification.

Advantages of a Career in SEM

Here are the major advantages of having a career in search engine marketing:

1.   The search industry is hot, hot, HOT!
2.   SEO considered one of four jobs on the cutting edge
3.   The pay is (usually) fantastic
4.   You can learn it all online
5.   You can be your own boss
6.   Search marketing has the WOW factor
7.   The demand is strong and growing
8.   The industry is hip and groovy
9.   The skills are portable and global
10.   Job satisfaction is high

SEM Training Options

If you decide to start that career in search engine marketing, you have numerous training options open to you:

- Do It Yourself (DIY)
- E-books and online manuals
- Books and offline manuals
- Conferences and seminars
- In-person training
- Online courses

Let’s go through these training options one by one.

Do It Yourself (DIY)

You could try to learn search engine marketing on your own, by conducting your own research, reading widely in webmaster forums and honing your skills on your own sites via trial and error.

The advantages of learning SEM on your own are:

- You can set your own timeframe
- It’s generally inexpensive
- You have the satisfaction of acquiring skills on your own

The disadvantages of learning SEM on your own are:

- There is a very long lead time
- You will be faced with conflicting and unreliable information sources
- There is only a limited ability to network with peers
- Research is time-consuming
- You won’t know what works and what doesn’t until you trial it
- You’ll have no record or proof of skills acquired

E-books and Online Manuals

There are plenty of e-books and manuals about search engine marketing available online.

The advantages of learning SEM via e-books and manuals are:

- They are generally inexpensive
- They are readily available

The disadvantages of learning SEM via e-books and manuals are:

- They are generally considered lower quality than training
- There is no interaction with your peers
- You’ll have no record or proof of skills acquired

Examples of SEM e-books and manuals include:

The SEO Book by Aaron Wall

The Nitty Gritty of Writing for the Search Engines by Jill Whalen

SEM: The Essential Best Practice Guide by Mike Grehan

Books and Offline Manuals

As with online versions, there are just as many physical books, CDs and offline training manuals available to persons wanting to learn search engine marketing.

The advantages of learning SEM via books and offline manuals are:

- They are usually inexpensive
- They are readily available

The advantages of learning SEM via books and offline manuals are:

- The information dates quickly
- There is no interaction with your peers
- You’ll have no proof of skills acquired

Examples of SEM books and offline manuals include:

Search Engine Visibility by Shari Thurow

SitePoint’s SEM Kit by Dan Thies

Building Your Business with Google For Dummies by Brad Hill

Conferences and Seminars

As search engine marketing has grown as an industry, so too have the number of conferences and events dedicated to it.

The advantages of learning SEM via conferences and seminars are:

- They offer cutting edge information
- They often provide access to search engine staff
- They give you the ability to network with peers

The disadvantages of learning SEM via conferences and seminars are:

- You must travel to the venue
- They generally provide no training material
- They can be more expensive than other options
- You’ll have no record or proof of skills acquired

Examples of SEM conferences and seminars include:

Search Engine Watch’s Search Engine Strategies

Webmaster World’s PubCon

Search Engine Land’s Search Marketing Expo

Australia’s Search Summit

In-person Training

Just as the number of conferences relating to search engine marketing has grown, so too has the demand for in-house training in SEO and SEM subjects.

The advantages of learning SEM via in-person training are:

- It generally includes step-by-step instructions
- Training material is usually provided
- Verification of subjects studied is provided
- You have the ability to network with your peers
- Some form of certification is generally given
- University credits are sometimes available
- Certification may be recognized by potential employers

The disadvantages of learning SEM via in-person training are:

- You must travel to the venue
- The information can date quickly
- It can be more expensive than other options

Examples of SEM in-person training include:

Bruce Clay’s SEOToolSet

Jill Whalen’s SEM Seminars

Search Engine Bootcamp

Elite Retreat

Online Training Courses

It’s not always viable or affordable for webmasters to attend conferences or training sessions at a venue other than their home or workplace. For these reasons, the demand for online training in search engine marketing subjects has skyrocketed.

The advantages of learning SEM via online training courses are:

- Courses are available 24/7 from any location worldwide
- Training materials are provided
- They are usually cheaper than venue-based options
- They generally include step-by-step instructions
- Courses are self-paced and interactive
- Certification is provided
- A knowledge benchmark is required to qualify for certification
- Verification of subjects studied is provided
- The lesson materials are updated regularly
- University credits are sometimes available
- Certification is usually recognized by potential employers
- Training institutions can assist graduates with employment

The disadvantages of learning SEM via online training courses are:

- They can be more expensive than other options
- There is only a limited ability to network with peers

Providers of online training courses in search engine marketing include:

Search Engine College - http://www.searchenginecollege.com/affiliates/jrox.php?id=266_1_aaid_2

Benefits of Industry Certification

When it comes to industry certification, there are various schools of thought in the SEM industry. Some suggest certification is simply not necessary, others state that SEO/SEM has no official industry standards, so any certification is meaningless, still others insist that certification is becoming increasingly important to potential employers and persons seeking careers in SEO and SEM.

If you’re skeptical about the value of industry certification, ask yourself these questions: Will you be looking to hire search marketing staff over the next 12 months? Would you prefer to hire search marketing staff that hold industry certification? Will you be seeking a job in the search industry over the next 12 months? Do you think holding industry certification would give you an edge over applicants applying for the same jobs?

Here are some advantages to having industry certification in search engine marketing:

For Staff:

- Proof of subjects studied and skills acquired
- Ability to promote certification on web site / CV
- An edge over other applicants when applying for SEO/SEM jobs.

For Employers:

- Ability to hire based on a proven skill set (e.g. ability to set up a Yahoo! SEM campaign quickly).
- Ability to impress clients with certified status of staff.
- Reassurance that search engine-approved methods are used.
- Less on-the-job training is required.

To Sum Up

Everyone has a different learning style, so don’t assume one method will work for you. Don’t rely on a single source of training for your search engine marketing needs. Attend conferences, purchase books, take a course, network in forums and DIY when you can to acquire a broader knowledge base.

Finally, remember that training should always be supported by hands-on SEO/SEM experience so get those hands dirty!

About the Author:

Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running her own SEO business, Kalena manages Search Engine College - http://www.searchenginecollege.com/affiliates/jrox.php?id=266_1_aaid_2
- an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses
and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and
other Search Engine Marketing subjects.

Search Engine Optimization - The Beginning

2008-12-30T12:15:00.000-08:00

When i first started working on search engine optimization, i had no idea what this thing means, and it was the first time i have ever heard about it when it was suggested to me. I started by downloading some guides and books and asking around. Many of my colleagues at that time thought that they are the ultimate experts, and that search engine optimization is only about link building and stuffing the site with keywords and a text that looks like some commands for a machine.

The contradiction and redundancy of information made me feel confused... I asked around, and a friend of mine told me that he had a certificate from an institution called search engine college. The courses and lessons are so organized, so i started to understand the concept based on scientific facts.

Day after day, things started to change, and the results of doing the white hat SEO started to show up. Only after that, people became more curious about knowing the real basics of SEO, not what they think SEO is all about.

We agreed on a number of rules, but the key ones are:

Never have a spam or duplicate content on your site.
Don't do anything that you wouldn't have done if there were no search engines. (This one is useful whenever you are confused about having or not having an element or keyword in the page).

I think that's enough for today :)

Happy holidays everyone, and see you soon enshallah :)