Search Engine Optimization (SEO) emerged as a business critical marketing tool about 6 years ago though the realization of this fact by consumers is only now rising like a tsunami. The delay has created a dangerous situation that is reaching acute proportions for anyone wanting to be ranked in search engines for their most profitable keyterms.

The pace of this sweeping change is being hastened by whitepapers and reports that are emerging from the offices of many highly respected individuals in the most influential positions and the most high profile industry sectors.

How can enlightenment about an imminent and fundamental change to the way one does business be a bad thing?

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It appears that Google will be making huge changes to adwords today or tomorrow. As of Feb. 15, 2:30 PST I haven't seen the update in our MCC but I expect it will happen shortly.

The rumors point to a couple of big changes.

1. The addition of a new quality score column in each Ad Group.
2. A overhaul of the adwords quality score algorithm.

This will have a big impact on adword users as quality score effects your ad position, and bid price. The idea being that as you adjust your ad copy and/or landing page, your quality score will change. So theoretically you should be able to better optimize your ads, and drive down cost per conversion.

What does this mean to you.

• Probably a lot of adword customers paying more for terms then they did yesterday (short term).
• Probably thousands of active keywords going inactive - this could be another shot across the arbitrage deck.
• Definitely means that your landing pages will have to be of a higher quality.

Ultimately, depending on how actively you work adwords, this is probably a good thing, but if you are a passive user milking the long tail, this might mean a whole lot of additional work.

Look forward to hundreds of WMW posts about Google crippling their business and raising prices to float the stock higher. All we can do is wait and see, but at least Google has leaked the information so we know its coming.

Lately we have been putting together a list of resources to help people find more information about web usability. Below is a partial list of what we have so far. As a note just because we have it listed below doesn't mean that it will provide a silver bullet to your particular need or problem, but inside provide you with more information so that you can make a more informed decision. A second note would be that this is just the start of a list that will continue to grow (and hopeful I will remember to post the updates)

Usability Resources

Publications

Jakob Neilsen (one of the most well known names in usability)

-Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity, New Riders Publishing -Usability Engineering, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers -E-Commerce User Experience, Nielsen Norman Group -Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed, New Riders Publishing, Indianapolis -Usability Inspection Methods, John Wiley & Sons, New York

Books by other Authors

-Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability–Steve Krug, New Riders Press -Usability Testing and Research-C.Barnum, Longman, New York -The Elements of User Experience: User Centered Design for the Web-Jesse James Garrett, New Riders Press -The Elements of User Experience- Garrett, J. J., New Riders Press -User interface design and evaluation Stone, D., Jarrett, C., Woodroffe, M., & Minocha, S.. Morgan Kaufmann -Principles of Web Design,-Farkas, D. and Farkas, J., Longman: NY -Cost Justifying Usability-Randolph G. Bias (Ed.) & Deborah J. Mayhew (Ed.) Morgan Kaufmann

A handful of blogs

www.ux.com.sg

www.humanfactors.com/downloads/askericanswers.asp

persuasion.typepad.com/

www.grokdotcom.com/

www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-usability/

Online Resources/ Usability Organizations

www.usabilityprofessionals.org

www.nngroup.com

www.usability.gov

www.usabilityviews.com

www.useit.com

www.usabilitynet.org/home.htm

www.upassoc.org/upa_publications/jus/

www.stcsig.org/usability

www.usabilityfirst.com

www.webstyleguide.com

www.spiremedia.com/spiremedia2k5/documents/spire_usability.pdf

Designing the User Experience

Delivering Usability: The Ultimate Collaboration

Website Usability represents the cornerstone of any online destination. To achieve excellent usability standards, there must be a coherent collaboration between all those involved in the website project, from conception to design to delivery. From marketing to graphic design, from the human factors and the psychology of internet usage, everything must combine to create the ultimate user experience. Nothing should be compromised in this pursuit of functionality, be it branding, content, or any other facet of the website.

Having a concept, designing the website, writing the copy; with every aspect of creating a website, it is imperative to ensure that usability needs remain at the forefront of your thinking. Simply put, when you construct a website, delivering superior usability standards is, or at least should be, the ultimate goal.

Real Research, Real Results

Knowing and appreciating the user experience is crucial to the successful delivery of usability. Harnessing the increasing physiological markers which define how people use the internet can give your website a cutting edge in usability. If you employ the correct user-testing protocol and conduct such tests in a well established format, the results will invariably provide indispensable data. Knowing the audience and understanding your potential market is an excellent way of gaining the information you need to deliver what users look for.

User Profiles

Though it is important to conduct tests well and ensure that the results are correlated correctly, it is equally important to profile the users. Demographics, technology experience, expertise on the subject matter, attitudes, motivations and frequency of usage are all essential guides to whether a person is appropriate for the testing process. Also of critical importance is to ensure that the users are testing in 'real-world' scenarios rather than simulated tests which are unlikely to occur in practice.

Navigation, Navigation, Navigation

When it comes to navigation, the big picture comes sharply into focus. Always consider where the user starts, how they get from one page to the next, how they get back to where they came from and all variations of this theme. Create a flow chart or similar visual representation of the complete navigational model of the site. This enables a clear, unobstructed navigation map which you can implement to design floorless navigation across the website.

The overall comfort of the online visitor is massively enhanced on a website which does not disorient them or make them feel as if there is now way back.

Conceptual Models

When a user browses a website, an overall mental image develops with regards to how the system works. Usability is intrinsically linked to design, thus demanding a conceptual website model which creates an accurate mental model for the user. It is also crucial to ensure that the conceptual design is related to the way any given person thinks about their work, i.e. a logical, easy to follow concept.

From page to page, the design of a website should form a quality model which translates into a seamless user experience, with a clear emphasis on usability.

User Centered Design

Developing goals, user profiles and task analysis should all be user centered. From the birth of any project, the goals of the website should be firmly rooted in the potential and likely goals of the eventual user. Throughout the entire design, building and creative process, user input is absolutely indispensable in the quest to ensure a great user experience and high level of customer satisfaction on your website.

As well as including the user from the very start, it is important to keep the user experience at the epicenter of the process. Ongoing concern for the user experience must never be overlooked.

Heuristic Evaluation

When assessing web usability, the heuristic evaluation is of pivotal importance. Essentially, this evaluation is an assessment of the design based on well established and recognized design principles. When a qualified usability professional conducts a heuristic evaluation of a website, one of the main aims is to try and uncover potential user problems. Any such problems related to aspects of the website design are usually additional issues not uncovered by previous usability testing. Being thorough pays dividends and usability success cannot be achieved by cutting corners.

Ultimate Usability

Achieving truly great usability is not an overnight story. As on ongoing process, the constant chase towards the best user experience is an evolutionary and unending quest. If the notion that the user experience is the importance important component of any and every website remains front and centre, usability will be easier to achieve, deliver and maintain. There are many reasons why people abandon websites, fail to complete online purchase, look elsewhere for other companies online or just plain avoid your site after one unsuccessful visit. Ultimately, online users have a low patience threshold when it comes to online experience. Of the many reasons people give up on websites, simple things such as bad navigation, broken links, inconsistent icons and hard to understand site maps can be eradicated with a more usability centered approach to the site.

The online experience changes daily and the standards people now expect on your website are becoming higher. Time is often of the essence for the user and any usability issues which delay, stunt or arrest the progress of whatever it is trying to be achieved, often means you lose them for good. Repeat business can be crucial, especially to websites that base much of their business on ecommerce. Good usability can, simply put, be the difference between alienating a first time visitor and creating a loyal, repeat customer for your business.

Usability is not a luxury, it is a necessity.

Goals
1) Serve some or all content based on IP location.
2) Serve the appropriate language (sometimes the language should be English even in the visitor is in a foreign country).

SEO Concerns
1) Google rankings in the USA - What happens if Googlebot spiders the wrong page and our US rankings drop?
2) Google rankings in other countries ex: www.google.de - We want Googlebot to spider our German page and rank it appropriately.

Current understanding of the information Google has made public
1) If the strategy for using GEO IP targeting is user based, then it is not considered cloaking and Google will not penalize you even if your serve different versions of the same webpage to different people.

Strategy
1) US Google rankings – ensure that www.SiteXYZ.com as a page, stays English/US focused.
2) Your US www.SiteXYZ.com page should have links/flags to international versions of the website.
3) Different language versions of www.SiteXYZ.com should be built out inside third level domain names if the corporation does not own it's sister domain names like www.SiteXYZ.co.uk and/or www.SiteXYZ.ca etc.

What does that mean my domain names should look like?
www.SiteXYZ.co.uk and www.SiteXYZ.de

Or in the case where the corporation doesn't own their sister domain names.
www.uk.SiteXYZ.com and www.de.SiteXYZ.com

4) Once these foreign language pages are created, and properly coded (language header code and character sets), they should start to rank appropriately at foreign Google portals.

• Bonus points if you submit your new www.de.SiteXYZ.com to Google local (hint: use your local address).

Conclusion
1) There should be no automatic redirects (remember this is an international corporate website, not a store).
2) There is very little need to deliver copy based on GEO targeting the IP (except in cases where gaming laws forbid use or in the case of something simple like marketing messages). The goal should be to get the surfer to the appropriate copy (usually language) as quickly as possible.

* You should use GEO targeting to personalize all the sites in the following way. If I saw your IP was from Spain and you showed up at www.SiteXYZ.com I would have the page offer the visitor the Spanish version, but I would not automatically redirect them.

• Example: “For the Spanish version of our site click here”. The secret is to recognize that their IP is in Spain, and then to deliver this message in Spanish so they can read it and move to the Spanish site if they want to.

-------Note---------
It is ambiguous whether Googlebot always appears as US based. I have seen Matt Cutt's (Google Guy) say that the site will be spidered from a US bot perspective, but I have personally checked a number of Google bot IP #’s and I have seen Japan, and Germany located IP’s.

Yesterday Google announced that their webmaster tools would now be displaying relatively accurate back link data. So we rushed in to take a look and viola there was this new tab at the top between statistics and sitemaps called links.

It's best to familiarize yourself with your own site's data but here is quick review.

• Google now shows external links - "This table provides a list of pages on http://www.vkistudios.com/ that have links pointing to them from other sites. Click the number in the External links column to see a sample list of links to the page."
• Google now shows internal links - "This table provides a list of pages on http://www.vkistudios.com/ that have links pointing to them from other internal pages. Click the number in the Internal links column to see a sample list of links to the page."

You can even export the data to a CVS spreadsheet for further analysis and sorting.

Big note from Matt Cutt's Blog (Google Guy) "Do not assume just because you see a backlink that it’s carrying weight" In other words, just because Google is reporting the link does not mean that their algorithm is passing any credit along to your site based on that link. I wonder if Google will report the no follow links? We may have to do a test to see.

This is big news, and is really helpful from an SEO perspective. Now we can easily see which pages in our site has the most link reputation (externally) and we can also evaluate the same thing internally. Right away I found some interesting things. One of our least important pages (a page I would rarely if ever check the links on) had thousands of links from one domain name. When I investigated further it appeared to be some sort of arbitrage site (a spammy, scrapper site with Adsense). So not only will this new tool help you analyze your SEO efforts, but it will help you find potential SEO problems and other "black hat" issues you may not have been aware of before.

This year VKI Studios and our staff are trying to get to know more of the consultants and agencies who make up the Internet marketing, usability and analytics industry.

As an example, when we joined the WAA (Web Analytics Association) this year, I asked the executive director what would be the best way to get to know more of the members and he recommended that I participate on the nomination committee. So here I am. If you think that you would make a good board member or you know someone who might, please drop me an email or give me a call (604) 733-1474.

New Nominee Requirements:

• Paid member of the WAA (it's never too late to join)
• 4 years industry experience as a practitioner, consultant, vendor or educator
• Exemplifies leadership qualities by way of teaching, presenting, writing or dedicating volunteer time to the benefit of the web marketing or web analytics industries.
• Provides two industry sponsors who support this individual as a nominee.
• Provides an up to date resume that summarizes work and education history and provides authorization to edit and publish for review by members.
• Provides a 3 to 4 paragraph profile and picture/mug shot along with authorization to edit and post to WAA website should they be selected as a nominee.
• Provides a letter describing why they should be nominated to the board
• Is able to commit 15 to 20 hours per month to activities related to their role on the board.
  

Blogging for dollars or pay per post is a relatively new and growing area within blogging and internet marketing.

The concept is reasonably simple; you offer to pay a blogger to create a post on their blog about you, your product or your service. This post could be a review, a comment or simply a rambling post about anything you ask them to post about.

The benefits of having others blog about your product or service can be significant. When others blog about your site it will help improve your network of back links (this will help you achieve better SEO rankings), it can directly refer traffic to your site, it can impact your brand awareness, and it can provide you with valuable feedback regarding your offerings.

So far there are a few companies that have caught my attention in this space. http://payperpost.com http://www.reviewme.com http://sponsoredreviews.com I'm sure there are more, and there will be more soon, as this appears to be a growing business opportunity.

payperpost.com already boast clients such as HP and ZDNet.

So the interesting question that comes to mind now is: How valuable or trust worthy will blogs be in the future as a source of impartial information if people are being paid to write them?

I don't know how I feel about it. I think it is a great opportunity for marketers to help promote their business as it can help you in so many different ways. I'm not sure how it will impact the blog community and the general surfer who still doesn't really understand what a blog is. Blog purists will like not like the idea at all. People who are just being introduced to blogs might come to the conclusion that all blogs are just for marketing purposes and not trust them.

As I said the jury is still out for me.

What do you think?

I am happy to announce that I have been selected as one of the 37 people nominated for the SEMPO board of directors. If elected I look forward to working with some of the best minds inside the SEO community. It will be a big challenge and it will take a significant amount of my time, but I believe that I have a lot to offer the membership and I look forward to meeting more of our industries major contributors, it will be a lot of fun and a very rewarding experience.

If you want to vote you can visit the SEMPO website between February 6-16. The elected directors will be announced at the end of February. The new board will begin meeting in March.

Posted by Darcy Foster - Nominee for the SEMPO board of directors