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Hello %FIELD:1%, Welcome to the February 2005 newsletter from Elixir Systems. This month we are examining some of the ways to protect your website and also outlining steps to ensure success for your online business. We start by looking at the brand new field of ‘search engine reputation management.’ We outline the steps to take to prevent adverse search engine listings for your company or brand name. A topic of concern for many online businesses is ‘duplicate content.’ We examine ways to make sure your site is not affected by penalties brought about by companies using your original website content. Search engines can instill penalties on sites that have duplicate content. To secure the success of your website we have an article on how SEO fits into your overall business marketing strategy. We look at ways to help you develop unique brand value to set you apart from your competition. Success in search marketing, as in any field, depends to a large extent on education. A great way to develop your knowledge is to attend seminars and conferences on search marketing. Elixir Systems will be co-hosting a search engine and Internet marketing conference in April 2005. Full details are included in this month’s newsletter. James Peggie |
Search Engine UpdateBy Dylan Downhill MSN Search Engine Officially LiveOn the 1st of February MSN finally took the Beta tag off their new search engine. After two years development Microsoft now have a search engine that can rival those of much more established companies. Their goal was to achieve results as good as Google's and they've achieved this. To back this up they have started the a marketing campaign that they label "the biggest global campaign since the introduction of the MSN butterfly". My initial reaction is the search results are good, however I did notice that they hadn't updated their cache of the Elixir Systems home page for 2 weeks and in those two weeks we added at least 8 new pages to our site. What does this mean for the industry? One year ago we had one engine (Google) providing nearly 80% of the search results. Then Yahoo released their search engine and in May 2004 the split was 54% Google, 41% Yahoo, Ask purchased some rivals and late in the year claimed 8% of the search market (up from 4%). Now we have four major search engines - Google is now 57% of the market, Yahoo! 21%, and MSN 9% (I could not find latest numbers for Ask Jeeves/Teoma, but the last they reported they were 8% of the market). Ask Jeeves/TeomaThe forgotten search engine may not be for much longer. Ask announced a major new marketing effort to promote their search engine. Google Algorithm ChangeOver the weekend of 5/6 February Google rolled out a new algorithm across their data centers. This update has been nicknamed 'Allegra'. It appears Google have stepped up their use of latent semantic indexing which is where semantically similar phrases are preferred over identical phrases. What this means is you need to modify your text to place less emphasis on using the exact search phrase, instead use phrases related but not exactly the search phrase. For example, search engine optimization, SEO, search engine marketing, SEM, search engine placement, SEP, etc are all semantically closely related. Google SandboxThe latest algorithm changes finally released some (but not all) of the sites we monitor that were stuck in the sandbox. Google MapsGoogle launched a beta of Google Maps available at http://maps.google.com/ After extensive testing (we mapped from our office to a co-worker's house) it appears the maps are around 2-3 months old. The level of detail is great, giving the ability to zoom in on any part of your route - or anywhere else in the US for that matter. Search VideoThe major search engines announced the ability to search for video clips. They use the closed caption text from the video text to provide content that can be searched. Google's Video search is here http://video.google.com/ and Yahoo!'s video search is available from an option on their home page. YahooNo changes |
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Search Engine Reputation Management
Search engine reputation management combines reputation management with search engine optimization. Companies produce a large amount of compelling written content. This may take the form of press releases, articles, testimonials, case studies, white papers, etc. It is often the case that this information is not published in a search friendly way and so it is not indexed by the search engines. Elixir Systems can help to get your corporate communications and press releases indexed and highly ranked within the search engines. This can help you by giving your company a voice to get your side of the story across and also knock the negative listings from the top spots of the search engine rankings. You have worked hard to build your corporate reputation and brand therefore you should have total control over how your name and brand appears in search results. Your business reputation is your livelihood and so is well worth protecting. |
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Avoiding Duplicate Content PenaltiesBy: James Peggie and Dylan Downhill Fact: Google penalizes page rank when it determines that content is duplicated by other sites.If your rankings have slipped then it's possible that your page contents have been duplicated causing a duplicate content penalty. Google doesn't want multiple copies of the same content cluttering their results pages so they will devalue all but one of the copies of the content based on the age of the page. Don't Let Other People Benefit From Your Hard WorkWriting good quality content for your site is hard work! If someone has not paid you for your work (either with money or with a reciprocal link or other agreed payment) it is stolen! Checking For Duplicate ContentIt is a chore to check for duplicated content but luckily someone has come to the rescue - www.copyscape.com. Just by entering the URL of the page you want to check, Copyscape will return a list of pages in the Google index that contain text also present on your site, or for more detail you can subscribe to their Copysentry service. No one knows how much duplication can result in a penalty, if it's 10 words, 20, a paragraph or a whole page. You will need to make a decision on whether you believe you have a problem. A lot of time your marketing text will appear as a description for a link to your site - this probably won't be counted as duplicate content. If your site's position in the search engines has recently plummeted then duplicate content might be the cause or if a competitor is found for text or an article you wrote then you may also have an issue. What To Do With Duplicate Content?If you are hosting someone else's content and you're seeing duplicate content put a 'robots' meta tag in the head section to stop the search engine spiders indexing that page. If you're tempted to modify the content then you will need to get the original author's permission. A much better option would be to take the central idea of the article and write a completely new article using your own text. If you're concerned that someone has duplicated your content, write to the website owner who has published your content requesting they remove the offending text, you can mention that you will report the matter to Google under their DMCA guidelines. If the email does not elicit a response or your content is still visible then report the duplicate content issue to Google under the DMCA guidelines they provide at http://www.google.com/dmca.html If all else fails, change your copy of the duplicated text. Keeping your copy fresh is essential so make the best of a bad situation and write even better copy. Tips To Ensure You Avoid Duplicated Content
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SEO as Part of Your Online Marketing StrategyBy James Peggie As on owner of an online business you should have a clear understanding of your markets. This understanding of your markets should always be determined before going into business. How you read your markets and present your products to your customers will determine how successful your business will be. Unfortunately many people start up an online business without researching their markets or having a marketing plan in place. Traditional marketing theory states that your marketing goal is to deliver the right product at the right price and have it available in the right place. The correct promotion mix must be used to deliver your message to the right people (your target market). You should have all these concepts adapted into a marketing plan before you start up your operations. A great deal of your online marketing effort should revolve around building your brand name. Whether your brand is your product or your service your aim should be to build trust. Trust and credibility are essential to establishing a relationship with customers. Often the trust that your brand conveys is the only thing that differentiates you from your competitors. Take a look at your site, and your brand, from your visitor’s point of view. Does it give you a sense of credibility? Remember that having high search engine rankings alone will not give your business any credibility. The goal of marketing is to make sales.That is the only goal. In the field of Internet marketing it is easy to lose sight this very simple concept. There are so many distractions; high search engine rankings, site traffic, hits, etc. Search Engine Optimization’s (SEO) goal is to give your business visibility within the search engines. However this visibility will not guarantee sales. Exposure alone does not result in sales. There must be a strong marketing campaign behind any visibility to help drive sales. Being top for a search term will mean nothing for your business if you do not make sales. SEO can be viewed on as publicity for your company. Natural search engine listings can be viewed as editorial public relations placed alongside your paid search advertising listings which are part of an overall marketing direction. This publicity should be part of your marketing plan –but it should not BE your marketing plan. Your business should be focused on marketing – i.e. getting customers not visitors. SEO alone does not sell your products or services. It may increase targeted visitors. However even targeted visitors do not guarantee sales. Only your marketing endeavors will bring sales - and increase your profits. What can you do to help build your online business?Remember that price alone does not bring sales. Value drives sales, and your value is determined by your brand. If you establish an important and unique brand value then customers will remember it and return to buy your products. Therefore build your brand. Differentiate yourself from your competition. Customers will look at various sites offering similar products and try to ascertain the differences between one company and another. The differences could feature perceived value, customer service, experience, or website impression. You can look to dominate a specific area of expertise which will establish your unique brand value. Make sure you site is focused on the customer and dedicated towards enhancing the customer experience. Many websites are built focusing on the company or its products. It is often the case that what a company thinks should be on a website is different that what its customers think should be there. Avoid building a site that is basically a brochure for your company. What do you do to make your site customer focused? It should be quick to load and easy to navigate. It should have informational content that is relevant to your targeted customers and should be regularly updated. This content should focus on building levels of trust and credibility. Measure how people use your site and constantly look for ways to increase performance. Successful websites are built on a philosophy of sound marketing strategy not search engine traffic. SEO should be a part of your total marketing strategy – not you’re only marketing strategy. Your website should be customer focused and you should constantly strive to offer your customers unique brand value which will set you apart from your competition. |
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Search Engine and Internet Marketing ConferencePhoenix Arizona - April 22, 2005Elixir Systems will be presenting at the upcoming second annual Search Engine and Internet Marketing Conference to be held on Friday April 22, 2005 at Scottsdale Community College in Scottsdale, Arizona. This is a one day event aimed at increasing understanding of search marketing and how to use the Internet to grow your business. For more information and to sign up visit http://www.elixirsystems.com/conferences/search-marketing-conference-az.php |
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This is the newsletter from Elixir Systems. Elixir Systems are a Phoenix, Arizona based search engine optimization and search engine marketing services company. If you received a copy of this newsletter and would like to subscribe go to http://www.elixirsystems.com/newsletter. You are currently subscribed as %BASIC:EMAIL% © Elixir Systems, All rights reserved. You are f~ree to use this article in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link and email link. Please also notify us where the material will appear using the address |
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When you undertake a search for your company name or brand is negative information relating to your company showing up in the search results? Is your company and brand reputation being adversely affected by these negative high ranking results? If so you may want to consider search engine reputation management.