websense

So, we aren’t the only ones who have noticed… Search Engine Land has a few things to say about the pitifully sad job Fortune 500s are doing in the SEO department. Siting a study done by Conductor, a New York-based search and analytics agency, Search Engine Land reports that 2/3 of Fortune 500s don’t even show up in rankings even for their advertised key phrases.

So what are they going to do about it? What are the marketing executives of big corporations such as Ford, Chrysler and GM doing to change this for 2009? I’m thinking that the copy that is lacking for many of theses sites needs to be written properly. Some attention to keyword density, as well as keyword proximity needs to be paid. Because many of these sites are missing any real copy, ranking for keywords is just not happening. Beyond that, the copy that is present many times does not focus enough on the keywords for the page, if it is even possible to identify what keywords the company is targeting.
Now, I have to take a moment to mention that it is a huge pet peeve of mine, and I suspect many users when the keywords are over used on a page, to the point of being spammy. The trick here is to identify the main topic of the page, select the keyword(s) and phrase(s), and create copy that is user friendly (easy and enjoyable to read) while still ensuring that the SEs will recognize what the main topic of the page is about. Maybe plug the keyword or phrase in the topic sentence, perhaps once in the main body of copy, and in your conclusion. (on a side note: make sure that you don’t mix up the order of a selected and researched keyphrase – “Jeep Rubicon parts” and “Rubicon Jeep parts” are NOT the same keyphrase!)
Keyword proximity is not the same thing, but is related to keyword density. Keyword proximity refers to how your keyphrases are ordered. If you have targeted the phrase “Rubicon Jeep parts”, then you want to keep that phrase as close together as possible throughout your copy. The sentence “Rubicon Jeep parts are now on sale with free shipping!” is ideal as the whole phrase is together. “Free shipping for parts for Rubicons and other Jeeps” is still good, as the phrase is there, and the search engines will establish what the page is about, but it will not carry as much weight for the phrase as the first example. One last item on the keyword list is keyword prominence. This includes the title tag, h1, and top left of the page content (where SEs weight the content a bit more heavily, as it is most likely to be read be a user). The targeted key phrase(s) should be utilized most especially in these areas, to garner the greatest ranking benefit from the SEs.
So, do you think the Fortune 500s are listening? Surely they have some ears to the ground. I can’t believe they have gotten where they are in either the good or the bad sense without some attention to new and old marketing trends, consumer habits, and just recognizing a potential ROI.

In past years Google has offered a competition for school children, kindergarten through twelfth grade, called the Doodle4Google contest. Children are asked to create a design based on Google’s logo, and center it around a theme. This year’s theme is “What I Wish For the World”. The reasoning behind this theme, according to the Doodle4Google page, is that because our country is on the “brink of change” it seemed to be a “timely” theme. This should create some interesting conversation, it will be fun to see what the winners come up with. The suggestions put forth by Google are notable:
…we use plants for electricity
… we make college free for everyone
… we give health insurance to all who need it
… we connect everyone by cell phone or computer

I guess we could read into these suggestions if we chose to, especially the health insurance suggestion, which points to a certain political point of view, as does making college free for everyone.
But, I’d rather focus on the positive in this competition. It does encourage creativity, homeschoolers and private schools are welcome and encouraged to register as participants. Google is offering some amazing prizes to the winners, including some college scholarships.

This is actually a pretty neat thing for Google to do, and they are teaming up with the Smithsonian’s, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. Because The Karcher Group also likes to encourage youth to explore the connection between creativity, art and technology, we will do our small part to promote this competition.
The images I have included were from last year’s competition themed “What if…?”

What number were we on? Anyway, this is my latest post on basic SEO steps that many Fortune 500s are ignoring. Header tags. Surprising? Seems logical, right, but so many times headers are ignored, or the copy is there, but not tagged properly.

If you are playing by “the rules” your main page headline should be the h1 tag. This just lets user and SE alike know the main topic. When writing for the web, you want to break the copy up a bit, making it easier for the user to scan. This allows you to also use additional tags, such as h2 and h3 for more specific break down of the main topic. This of course also tells the SEs about the rest of the page content. For example, this was taken from a client’s site:

Hopefully you can see that the h1 is consistent with the page title.

Here are a few companies that missing header tags on the homepage:
1. Safeway
2. Fannie Mae
3. Supervalu Inc.
4. GMAC Financial Services
4. ServiceMaster

So, are you utilizing the header tags, or are you passing up on the potential they give to rank for your key phrases like the businesses above?

I know I’ve talked about Web Accessibility in the past, when the Target lawsuit ended, but it is becoming a topic of conversation once again. According to an article on InternetRetailer.com, a couple of things are taking place. One is the fact that online retailers, afraid of a lawsuit are scrambling to find out what they need to do to get their sites up to speed with accessibility and usability for the disabled BEFORE someone decides to sue them. In this economy, I can see a couple things that are impacting the decision to do this:

1. No one likes to get sued. It’s expensive.
2. Nobody can afford to turn away paying customers in this climate, but updating a Web site that is not built for accessibility from the start can cost some cash.

James, our Development blogger, had some to say about this when it all started that can clarify just what the lawsuit was about, and how it is now impacting Web development.

The other thing that is happening is that folks who are blind and disabled are still encountering sites that they cannot access, and calling up attorneys for the National Federation of the Blind to complain and seek advice as to what steps should be taken to try and force retailers into making their sites more accessible.

Beyond being a best practice for Web developers and site owners to build accessible sites from the outset of the project, it is reasonable to assume that these folks are looking to spend some cash. According to the InternetRetailer.com article, there are 50 million blind and/or disabled folks with an annual income of $1 trillion and $220 billion in discretionary income. That’s a lot of dough up for grabs to the right retailers! If you take the time to think about it, the internet has been an enormous blessing and help to folks with disabilities. The ability to shop in the comfort and convenience of your own home has to be a huge weight lifted from people who might have a harder time getting around. The internet can bring nearly anything right to your door. To have basically, the world at your fingertips has to have eased the jobs of caretakers, as well as the disabled. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to need to purchase something on a site that is inaccessible to assistive technologies such as screen readers.

As a Web development company, it is our job to think about all the potential users of a particular site while it is still in the planning stages. As a salesman, my job is helping my clients put the Web to it’s best possible use. I would be remiss if I did not point out that there is a huge segment of the population that has money to spend, and that they will spend it with my clients, if I help them make sure that their site is accessible to as many users as possible. It only makes good business sense. More importantly, it’s the right thing to do. Unfortunately, it may take a lawsuit to talk a lot of folks into it. It’s a shame that people have to be forced or even legislated into doing what is best for all involved. To me, it only makes sense to make the lives of people with disabilities and those who care for them, easier.

So, I am wondering, if you are starting a Web project, either a new site or redesign, are you considering accessibility and usability for all your potential users, or is this post making you rethink your plans to include them? Let me know.. I’d love to hear your take on this subject!

Most of you probably remember the Google bomb that happened five or six or so years ago, when you could type “miserable failure” into Google, and President George W. Bush’s official biography on the White House website popped up. It took Google quite a while to get that mess straightened around – I think I read something like four years???!!! You can check it out at Fox News. Well it remained an issue until 2007 when Google created an algorithm to help detect when “Google Bombs” were happening.

So Obama is inaugurated, and instantly a Google Bomb develops, actually two of them. One for “miserable failure” and the other for “cheerful achievement”. Of course, in this case, the bomb is quickly diffused (in a matter of days, not years), and causes no undue strain on the new administration.

Now, I’d like to give Google the benefit of the doubt, as most of of the SEO world has done. I’d like to believe that it really took them four years to come up with this adjustment and put it into place. Sure, sure, pranks are not a high priority, but the fact remains that the Google bomb for Obama was cleared up pretty quick. I’d also like to point out that a positive Google bomb for Obama was as successful as the negative. Interesting…