As promised Yahoo has now started changing it minimum bids on keywords within customers PPC accounts. They have said that the minimum bid changes were to improve the experience of their customers but in their explanation they compared it to an auction house setting minimum bids on items to insure that someone did not walk away with a valuable item at too low a price. With that example, it would appear to me that the main reason for the increase in minimum bids would be to increase the money that Yahoo makes from its advertising customers. From what I have seen most keywords remained the same and some increased a small amount (less than $0.10) per click and then some increased 2 to 4 times from the bids.  These last increase have made some of the keywords simply too expensive except for the advertisers with the larger budgets.

Now for a break-down of how Yahoo determined the increases. They based the minimum keyword bid amount on a number of factors with the main 2 being Quality and Value. The Quality part is really the only part that you can do anything about. The quality is basically a measure of the relevance of the keyword to your ad and the landing page. Of course there are some other factors that go into this such as keyword history and click through rate but the part for you to concentrate on will be the overall relevance of the keyword to the Ad and the Landing page. The other main item that Yahoo is basing the increase on is the keyword value and basically this is determined by the popularity of the keyword and the amount advertisers are willing to bid on the term.

We will have to wait and see if Yahoo makes any adjustments to this new way of setting minimum bids but until then the best thing to do is to concentrate on making you ad groups as small and similar as possible so that you can insure that the keyword, ad and landing page are as relevant as possible to help you control the only part of the process that you can.

Dwayne Clough
PPC Marketing Manager

Every day, the number of consumers that use their cell phone for browsing the web grows by leaps and bounds. Research is showing that a growing amount of cell phone internet usage is dedicated to local search and is second only to searching for sports scores or sports news. While the technology is advancing, it is still, often times, impractical to browse the internet on your cell phone for any extended period of time. Pages take longer to load than on a laptop or desktop and as a result, cell phone users don’t dig as deep into search results as the casual user at home. What does all this mean for local search? It means that if your listing isn’t located on the first or second page, it might as well not exist to a mobile browser. To capture this growing market, you must work to improve your search engine ranking or risk losing thousands of dollars in potential revenue.

You might be asking yourself, “What can I do to optimize my website and increase traffic?” Search engine optimization is a big part of the equation. Just as you would optimize your website for regular search results, there are also website optimization practices that can help you improve your rankings in local search. Below are 3 questions you should ask yourself about your website and how it relates to your ranking in the local search engines.

1. How would a user get to my store? First and foremost, make sure that your store’s address clearly labeled on every page of your website to ensure that the local search engines index as many pages as possible. A good way to do this is to embed your address into your site’s header or footer. Also, including a “Map Page” or a page with driving directions will help the search engines accurately locate your business, increasing the chances of a top ranking in the search engines.

2. Would a user want to come to my store? Do not underestimate the power of a positive review, or even a review in general. Search engines like Google and Yahoo! have reputations on the line and they want the best possible matches at the top of their listings. If the local search engines see that customers are talking about your store in a positive way, they will be more likely to move your listing up to the top of the search results.

3. Do the Search Engines know that I exist? Make sure that you sign up for a Google business account or online yellow pages listings like Info USA or NavTeq, which is where Yahoo! gathers its information from. This is an excellent opportunity to basically knock on the door of the local search engines and say “Here I am!”

Answering these 3 questions and taking steps to optimize your website is the first step towards better local search engine rankings. There are also search engine optimization companies out there who can assist you with some of the finer points of website optimization. Do not take local search for granted, especially in this day and age with mobile browsing becoming increasingly popular.

The Almighty Title Tag

While it might seem that the page Title Tags and Meta Tags aren’t very important, it’s quite the opposite.  Most notably, the Title Tag is arguably the most influential on-site component of the search engine’s algorithms.  If you want to rank for a keyword phrase, it should be in your Title Tag.

The Meta Tags are much less effective because of heavy spamming in the late 1990’s, but are still an important component that should not be overlooked.

Your rankings will not only be affected by doing your tags the right way, but doing them the wrong way could cause lead to problems that are easy to avoid.

So…what is a Title Tag?

A Title Tag is essentially one of the most important components to your site’s rankings other than the content itself (and of course the quality links that you’ve acquired as well).

If you want to achieve high search engine rankings, it is recommended that you fix your title tags to make them not only unique, but also to optimize them for the terms you wish to rank well for.

The Title Tag is what shows up at the top of a browser and what also appears within the results of the search engines - that notorious clickable link on the search engine results page - when listing the top ranked sites.  With just the fix of your site’s Title Tags, you are sure to receive appreciable differences among your rankings. 
 
 Title Tags should contain keyword phrases that you wish to receive desirable rankings for.  You can include, and it is recommended, that you include your company name within each Title Tag – preferably at the end of the Title Tag.  You will receive better results if your targeted keyword phrase is placed toward the beginning of the Title Tag rather than leaving that open to insert your company name.

Most importantly, make sure that your Title Tags are relevant to the copy found on the page each Title Tag is intended for.  You should not be writing a Title Tag about basketballs if the page you are writing it for only features baseball equipment.  However, it is imperative that you refrain from copying a string of text found from the content of that page into the Title Tag.  As mentioned above, each Title Tag should be of unique, well-optimized content.

Brittany Passante
Search Engine Optimization Manager
 

The benefits of strategic linking to SEO are still alive and kicking. Though it’s not the only thing needed to make high rankings, in my experience it is the most effective way to gain authority. It’s amazing how much authority goes to a site with good quality links that point to it.

It’s important not to just take any link you can lasso in. The key is to get links from sites that have similar and supporting content. For example, a good reciprocal link for a food site, would be another site that is food related. The higher the page rank on their home page, the better for you.

You’ll also want to take advantage of your title and description. It’s important to do your research for terms that you want to show up for. When you find one you see as most appropriate, make sure you don’t already rank for it. Your goal is to rank high for a term you don’t already rank for. Your description should also be optimized and supportive towards your title.

If you want to take it a step further, find out what page you will be listed on on their site, and cater your title and description to the main theme of their site and page topic.

Jennifer Kaufman
Linking Strategist

In a recent survey of our own SEO clients, MorePro has discovered that many business owners and marketing directors are not paying full attention to the ROI of their online spending. While Search Engine Optimization is online component of a company’s online marketing program, it’s one of the most critical to the bottom-line. Natural, organic traffic gets cheaper each time a new visitor comes to your site - PPC continues to be costly throughout your campaign, unless you simply turn it off.

Here are some interesting results from our survey:

• Approximately 36% of the individuals we surveyed, said they look at their SEO ranking reports “infrequently” (less than once a month).

Ok, so we’re sending the SEO results to our clients so they can keep tabs on the program’s success… that’s good right? But 36% aren’t even looking at them - ouch!

• 33% of respondents said they’re “Not sure” what affect incoming links have on their SEO campaign.
• 25% said they’re not sure what affect Social Media Marketing has on their SEO campaign.
• Almost 49% of respondents said they did not implement the SEO recommendations provided, or only installed some of them.

The last bullet item has always been a difficulty…
How do you convey the importance and urgency of SEO recommendations to a client? Besides using common SEO best-practices and providing resources confirming the recommendations are in fact legitimate, how do you ensure that the changes get made?

Unfortunately, it’s not always possible to enforce the completion of SEO changes due to numerous circumstances, including: additional unforseen costs, amount of effort to complete, adequate staffing or time, failure to believe recommendations are valid, site limitations (coding, structure, etc.) and many other excuses. For sites that have implemented the recommendations, we see great improvements - so why can’t everyone do it?
What we take from the results of this survey, is that most businesses don’t fully understand the following:

1. What SEO actually is and involves.
2. Common terminology & methods of SEO.
3. How to evaluate the success of an SEO campaign.

By sharing this information, our intention is not to point fingers at these businesses or to say their aren’t smart; we’re simply showing how companies interact with SEO firms, including ours. I’m sure this applies to other SEO companies as well - it’s just as important to teach & inform your clients about our industry, as it is to do the work itself.

We need to do a better job of teaching our clients about SEO best-practices and keeping them updated on the strategies & techniques that are required to continue improving their SEO rankings and traffic. Afterall, if the client doesn’t know what’s going on with their SEO campaign - how are they going to see the “value” in it?

Cory Howell
SEO Strategist