Nine By Blue » Collected Writings

Implementing Pagination Attributes Correctly For Google

Vanessa Fox — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 17:06:28 +0000

Google’s latest blog post provides details and a video from Maile Ohye about how they handle the pagination attributes within a page’s source code. You can use these attributes to indicate pages in a series (such as a multi-page article or set of product listings), which enables Google to cluster the pages into a single entity and combine their indexing and other properties (such as incoming link value). Using these attributes is trickier than it may seem at first glance, so below, a few tips from the blog post, video, and the recent SMX West session I moderated, which featured Maile. (Keep in mind that currently, only Google supports these attributes.)

Google Webmaster Tools Revamps Crawl Errors, But Is It For The Better?

Vanessa Fox — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 16:59:45 +0000

Google has just revamped the crawl errors data available in webmaster tools. Crawl errors are issues Googlebot encountered while crawling your site, so useful stuff!

I originally started this article by writing that in most cases, these changes are for the better and in only a few (really maddening) cases, useful functionality has been removed. But now that I’ve gone through the changes, I unfortunately need to revise my summary. This update is mostly about removing super useful data, masked by a few user interface changes. (And I hate to write that, because webmaster tools is near and dear to my heart.)

How to Get Blacklisted From Search Engines

Vanessa Fox — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 20:16:55 +0000

When a company first takes the plunge into search engine optimization, it can be tempting to take shortcuts to get to the top of the rankings. You read about a trick that takes advantage of a loophole in the search engine algorithms. You see a competitor who’s using a sneaky tactic — and it’s working. An agency calls you up and promises search engine success that sounds too good to be true.

Is SEO Killing America?

Vanessa Fox — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:07:36 +0000

Last week at the Tools of Change conference, Clay Johnson, author of the new book The Information Diet gave a keynote talk titled “Is SEO Killing America“. Sigh. If you’ve been involved in search for any length of time, your first reaction may be, this again? Haven’t wedone this before? Once or twice?

Read Your Customers’ Minds With Keyword Research

Vanessa Fox — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:14:56 +0000

Each week, a billion people search the Web using Google. Through the Yahoo/Bing alliance, Microsoft gets 163 million unique searchers each month in the U.S. alone. Those are your customers, typing in exactly what they’re looking for.

The search engines make this data freely available, so every business can learn exactly what customers are interested in. If you’re a real estate agent, you can find out what neighborhoods people are searching for most. If you want to build the next generation of accounting software, you can learn in advance what accounting problems people are having and what features they’d like to see in their current software package.

The 7 Deadly Sins of SEO

Vanessa Fox — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:18:18 +0000

Sin No. 1: Using the wrong keywords
If your website doesn’t use the same words that the people searching for you do, your content will never show up for those searches or be seen by the right people.

The solution? You can use Google Insights for Search to compare potential keywords, and the Google AdWords Keyword Tool (both free!) to assess search volume for those terms. Based on your research, you should use the more common terminology in your titles and headings.

What Can Google+ Do for Your Business?

Vanessa Fox — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:24:39 +0000

In 2011, Google launched Google+, its long-awaited answer to Facebook. Several months later, in November 2011, Google+ opened up brand pages for businesses to get on board too.

Read Vanessa’s article to find out how your business can use Google+ here at businessonmain.msn.com

Ask Business On Main

Vanessa Fox — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 02:32:36 +0000

Vanessa answers the question: What are the most important things to have on a website to help attract more customers?

Read her response here: businessonmain.msn.com

Taking a Closer Look at the Google’s Panda 2.5 “Flux”

Vanessa Fox — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 19:35:43 +0000

On around September 27th, Google launched what’s being called 2.5 of its Panda algorithm. On October 5th, Google’s Matt Cutts tweeted:

“Weather report: expect some Panda-related flux in the next few weeks, but will have less impact than previous updates (~2%).”

Panda-related flux? Indeed, this seems to be the case, with site owners reporting Panda-related changes on at least October 3rd and October 13th. In several cases, I saw sites with Google organic traffic declines on 9/27, recovery on 10/3, and decline again on 10/13.

Read the entire article at Search Engine Land

Measuring Your Business’ Success on the Web

Vanessa Fox — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 23:28:22 +0000

It’s not enough to just have a website for your business — you need to measure how well you’re reaching your customers or audience.

Once you invest in a website, you want to make sure it’s creating real business value. You don’t need expensive software or a degree in statistics to measure your site’s success, but with all the data available, it’s hard to know what to keep track of and what it all means.

Fortunately, all you need are simple (and free) tools that’ll help you focus on a few key data points.