Check out the article here.

On Monday, the U.S. Federal government kicked off a two week discussion about how they can best improve .gov web sites.

Here’s the thing. .gov web sites are an integral part of how Americans access government information and services. And the visibility of these sites in search engines such as Google and Bing is key to this access. A PEW Internet study from last year found that 82% of online American adults have accessed a government web site in the previous 12 months and 44% start at a major search engine when looking for government information. As I wrote about this before:

As they note in the report:

“As we found in our previous studies on this topic, search engines are frequently the first option when Americans need to find government information or services online. Fully 44% of those who could remember the last government website they visited found that site by conducting an online search. This is much higher than the percentage who visited a site they had used before (16% did this) or who relied on a friend or family member (14%), a government publication or notice (11%) or a general government website such as usa.gov (4%).”

Aaron Smith of Pew Internet & American Life, in an interview with O’Reilly’s Alex Howard said:

“When we asked this question previously in 2003, we found that search engines were far and away the number one way that folks were reaching their destinations,” said Smith. “We found almost exactly the same thing this time around. Sometimes they’ll go to a place that they saw in a notice or an email or a friend or a family member told them about. But, by and large, if they need to find information on their tax bill, they’ll search tax information or IRS in their search engine of choice and get to their destination that way. So that’s very much inline with what we’ve found in previous years and in other areas of online life as well, which is that the search is generally the default entry point to all sorts of information and other types of activities that people take part in.”

This behavior pattern underlines the need for government sites and others who provide government-related data to ensure they can be found in search engines to fully engage with the American public.

But the truth is that some .gov sites are cumbersome and hard to navigate. And there’s a lot of duplication and confusion. Also, there are a lot of sites. In June, President Obama signed an executive order on a Campaign to Cut Government Waste:

“As one of the campaign’s first steps, the Administration will be targeting duplication and waste among federal websites. There are almost 2,000 separate websites across the Federal Government. With so many separate sites, Americans often do not know where to turn for information. The Administration will immediately put a halt to the creation of new websites. The Administration will also shutdown or consolidate 25% of the 2000 sites over the next few months and set a goal of cutting the number of separate, stand alone sites in half over the next year.”

This is a monumental effort. Seriously. But the people involved are highly motivated.  A cross-functional task force has been working on ways to tackle the issue in a number of ways and has been tapping into the resources of experts across the country in usability, customer service, search, and the like. You can read more about this on the White House blog. I’ve been talking to them about things like:

• How can you improve the overall technical infrastructure of .gov web sites so that they can be more easily crawled and indexed?
• How can you look at content strategy from a task-focus to help identify areas to consolidate and expand?
• How can you built best practices/guidelines so that anyone working on a .gov can easily access the same learnings?

A foundation for this already exists at howto.gov, but it needs to be updated and expanded. In addition, the task force is building a specific plan of attack to both consolidate and improve .gov sites and develop long term best practices.

How You Can Help

I’m hosting a one hour “dialogue-a-thon” specifically about search tomorrow, Friday September 23rd at noon Eastern. In advance of that, I’ll be gathering together all of the ideas discussed so far so we can expand on those ideas and start talking about a plan of attack. I’d love for search experts to volunteer to help put together suggested best practices and guidelines around crawlable technical architecture, content strategy and consolidation, and organic search visibility. I’ll help lead that effort and make sure none of the ideas are overlooked.

We’re at SMX East this week and we’re (yes, I’m speaking mostly in the royal “we”, but Todd is on a panel too!) speaking on a BUNCH of panels. If you have a question about anything search related, even if you’re not going to be at the conference, please ask in the comments below, as I’m gathering up questions as fast as I can for panelists. I’ll cover what I can and I’ll ask the speakers and search engine reps on the panels to fill in the rest. In particular, if there’s anything you’d like to ask Google or Bing that’s related to the panels I’m moderating, please let me know!

I’ll post a recap after the conference and talk through the details on the next Office Hours.

Using Searcher Personas (Today, Tuesday 9-13-11, 3:45pm)

We base all of the search acquisition and content strategy work we do on searcher personas. Rather than optimize for keywords, why not actually learn about your customers and solve their problems? I wrote about using searcher personas to better connect with searchers and meet your business goals in my book, Marketing in the Age of Google and will be walking through the process I use at the panel today. A couple of other panelists will be walking through how they use searcher personas as well, which I’m looking forward to seeing!

Duplication, Aggregation, Syndication, Affiliates, Scraping, and Information Architecture (Tomorrow, Wednesday 9-14-11, 10:45am)

Sites can suffer from all kinds of duplication: exact duplication from syndication and aggregation, approximate duplication from overlapping topics… Audiences are confused, search engines are confused, and in some cases, sites with a lot of exact or approximate duplication can be hurt by Google’s Panda algorithm. We’ll dive into all the details and provide actionable advice for differentiating content.

Schema.org, Rel=Author, Rich Snippets (Tomorrow, Wednesday 9-14-11,  1:30pm)

Despite the title of this session, I want to really dive into Google’s search results display. We’ll have Jack Menzel from Google to talk through the details of the new Sitelinks, the kinds of rich snippets available, and anything else you want to know.

Real Answers for Technical SEO Problems (Tomorrow, Wednesday 9-14-11, 3:30pm)

This is always my favorite session of the conference because we really dive deep into real problems sites have and how to solve them. Get your questions in now! (Todd will be on this panel with me!)

Making Data From Google Webmaster Central & Bing Webmaster Tools Actionable (Tomorrow, Wednesday 9-14-11, 5pm)

This topic is near and dear to my heart. Obviously. You can do AWESOME things with this data. We’ll have reps on hand from both Google and Bing.

Pagination and SEO (Thursday 9-15-11,  9am)

Pagination and canonicalization are really complicated topics. Maile from Google will be on hand to help us sort this out.

Beyond Ranking Reports (Thursday 9-15-11, 12:45pm)

I am very excited for this session. These are so many actionable SEO metrics beyond rankings reports. Awesome fun stuff.

Ask the SEOs (Thursday 9-15-11, 2pm)

If you’ve ever been to one of these, you know that it’s a bunch of us arguing about everything. Well, except Greg Boser and me. Lately, he mostly agrees with me.

Hope to see you this week and even if you’re not here, post your questions now!

When I was at Google, I realized that organizations needed education and data about how to operate within our searching culture, and that’s why I was so passionate about building Webmaster Central. Post-Google, I’ve remained passionate about that (it’s why I wrote Marketing the Age of Google — you don’t write books to get rich!) and Nine By Blue has been all about helping organizations improve their sites’ technical architecture and overall content and audience engagement strategy to better take advantage of unpaid search.

But it’s not enough. Organizations need a methodology: a clear process. You need comprehensive education and resources, in-depth training, and you need data – both to measure your search efforts and to pinpoint what issues to tackle first. I talked to and looked at specific issues for literally thousands of site owners while I was at Google, but post-Google, I’ve had the opportunity to dive in much deeper with companies and begin to understand the obstacles that go well beyond 302 redirects where 301s should be and keyword research that shows searchers are looking for “cute cat videos” when the site is full of “cute kitten videos”.

Companies have silos and have to find ways to work together well. Technology departments need to know not only what issues exist, but how to prioritize them within the larger needs of the organization. Is fixing that 302 redirect more important than fixing the broken checkout button on the shopping cart? (Well, probably not.) What is the impact? How do we change the process so that we don’t have to keep fixing the same problem every launch?

The idea behind the name Nine By Blue is that organizations can take numbers (the amazing amount of data available online) and mix in a bit of color (you are looking to connect with real people after all) and build something real and long-lasting that both your audiences and search engines love. Our new logo (created by our haiku-writing graphic designer, Ally) reflects that.

We’ll continue to help organizations improve site architecture and content strategy, but we’re now focusing more time on providing comprehensive educational resources and training, helping organizations improve process, and on providing data. We’ve developed custom reporting that incorporates data from server logs, search engine webmaster tools, and analytics to both monitor progress and identify key obstacles to search success. You need a search blueprint and to that end, we’ve developed a methodology for incorporating search into an organization and for helping you determine ROI and prioritization.

Our first step is launching this site. Watch the learning center as we begin building up resources there. And if you’re interested in training or checking out our reporting, please let me know! Here at Nine By Blue, we’re excited about the changes, and we hope that you join us change the world of search engine optimization so that it becomes integrated in development, marketing, and product strategy.

This session was already SUPER AWESOME because it features Maile Ohye (of Google), Todd Nemet (who formerly worked with me at Google and now works with me here at Nine By Blue), and Jonathon Colman (of REI) who will answer the craziest, most complicated technical questions you’ve got. I’ve peeked at their slides and they’ve got answers to page speed problems, redirect problems, unintentional cloaking, IIS, .net, and browsercap.ini issues, load balancing, performance optimization, JavaScript refactoring, reducing HTTP calls, CSS sprites, Apache modules, crawl efficiency, pagination, sorting, and filtering, URL parameters, multi-select navigation, duplicate content, and domain, region, and language issues with international sites.

I’d make sure to bring a way to take notes.

Bonus Searcher Persona Details

At 3:30, Dennis Goedegebuure from eBay and I will be talking searcher personas. You would think the session couldn’t get any better than that, but you would be wrong! We’ve just added Tamara Adlin to the lineup. She quite literally wrote the book on personas (and the abridged version, if you’re short on time) and she and I worked together when I was developing the idea of searcher personas for my book. (In fact, you’ll find a sidebar in chapter 4 that Tamara wrote.)

(I’ll even have copies of said book on hand if you want to buy one!)

So if you’re add SMX, please come by!

• FailCon, San Francisco, Monday October 25th - I’ll be speaking with Tony Adam on “how to fail at SEO”. Our session is at 9:50 and I’ll be signing books at 4pm.  If you are in the area and want to come out, use the discount code 10Fox for 10% off the already low price.
• Dublin Web Summit, Dublin, Friday October 29th - I’ll be speaking about “7 ways to use search data to build audience engagement”. My session is at 10am and I’ll be signing books at 11:15. Also, I’ll likely be drinking beer and eating potatoes. OK, maybe not at 10am. Although I’ll probably still be jet lagged and it’ll be 2am in Seattle, so why not!
• User Interface Engineering (UIE) 15, Boston, Wednesday, November 10th - I’ll be speaking with Tamara Adlin on “getting them and keeping them there”. Search is how you get people to a web site these days, but once you get searchers there, you likely want them to do something! Not to mention that search data provides great info about your audience. We’ll be talking about how search and user experience go hand and hand.
• Dreamforce, San Francisco, December 6-9 - I’ll be speaking about “advanced online marketing” with Marshall Simmonds and Lauren Vaccarello. I’m not sure the date and time yet, so stay tuned.
• Webinar, Thursday, November 18th - I’m also doing a webinar with Compendium at 2pm eastern on Thursday, November 18th. Not only is it a free webinar, but the first 25 registrants get a free copy of my book! I’ll be taking all of your search-related questions.

I’ll also be doing a book signing at lunch on Wednesday, so you can buy a book there too. And maybe you could bring me a muffin. I’ll probably get hungry too.

Where I’ll be:

Solving the Big URL Issues (Tuesday 10:45 – 12)

Even for those who have been doing SEO for a long time, URL structure can still be an issue. It’s one thing to know that you should implement 301 redirects when you change URLs and that you should use hyphens to separate keywords in URLs, but what really is the best option for pagination and canonicalization? What about faceted navigation? Breadcrumbs? Come ask your toughest questions and we’ll try to get all the URL issues sorted out.

Actionable Metrics and Diagnostics (Tuesday 1:30 – 2:45)

What data is really actionable? How can you best track ROI with SEO? Tons of data is available to us now and we’ll take a look at how best to take advantage of it all to better measure effectiveness and engage with your audience.

Industrial Strength SEO (Tuesday 3:15 – 4:30)

When you’re dealing with SEO at the enterprise level, so much more goes into it than just figuring out URL structure. Multiple teams can impact SEO and it can be difficult to ensure everyone keeps this in mind when they’re making development, marketing, and content changes. We’ll get advice from those who have been there and dig into issues that audience is facing.

Build it Better: Site Architecture for the Advanced SEO (Tuesday 4:45 – 6)

In this session, we’ll talk through advanced issues we didn’t hit in the earlier session. What about site speed? Internal link structure? Crawl efficiency? Bring your questions and we’ll dive in.

Credit Where Credit is Due: Demystifying Attribution (Wednesday 9 – 10:15)

I can’t promise we’ll solve the attribution question, but the panelists will talk through the issues and provide some case studies of what’s working.

Lunch Book Signing (11:45 – 12:45)

Come say hi! Or buy a book! Or bring me a muffin!

Ask the SEOs (Wednesday 2-3)

If you’ve been to an SMX conference before, you know this session is a free for all. Ask questions from those who have been around for a long time. Note: we don’t always agree so we tend to mock each other a lot.

If you’re not at SMX, I’ll do a round up post next week with all the details! Hope to see you this week!

Oh Steve. That’s not what makes search engine optimization work. That’s not what true search engine optimization is at all. Here’s what makes search engine optimization work and why Google Instant isn’t the death knell.

• Everyone searches. Google said today that they get 1 billion searchers a week. People search a lot. So it’s important to be visible in search if you want to connect with your audience.
• A big part of SEO is ensuring that your technical site architecture can be crawled and indexed by search engines and the content can be extracted. If the infrastructure isn’t search-friendly, your pages may not be available in the index for searchers to find.
• Another big part of SEO is understanding the needs of your audience: what their problems are, what they are looking for, what tasks they are trying to accomplish, the language they use. Search data is awesome for finding these things out and better building products and content.

But the biggest misunderstanding of Rubel’s post is that SEO is about optimizing for a single query and that everyone saw the same results until now. In reality, searchers have been seeing different results for a really long time. Personalized search in particular has been increasing over time, causing everyone to see something different. And Google Suggest has also been around forever, so the idea of prompting refinements as the searcher types a query also isn’t new.

Sure, searchers may tweak their queries in real time, but they aren’t going to fundamentally change what they’re looking for. If I’m looking for a restaurant in Seattle, I’m not going to see results for “relaxing vacations in Mexico” and decide to go to Cabo instead of out to dinner.

I’ve always advised looking at audience needs and building a site that addresses them holistically rather than fixating on ranking for a single keyword phrase. And that strategy continues to be a sound one in light of Google Instant. Rubel says it will make “optimizing virtually impossible”. But the reality is that building valuable sites that meet searcher needs will only continue to grow in importance.

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