August 30,
2006
In This Issue:
1. Thoughts on Site Usability
2. In the News - Danny Sullivan leaves, Keyword
tools
3. More News Headlines
4. Wrapping It Up
_________________
Thoughts on Site Usability
Here's one final recap of information presented
earlier this month at the SES conference in San
Jose. It's from the final session I attended of
the week, called "Usability and SEO."
First things first -- it might be helpful to explain
what usability is. In essence, it's a measurement
of how easy it is for a user to complete a task
on your web site. For example, if your web site
aims to increase newsletter signups, your usability
is how easy it is for someone to do that. If your
web site is about selling products, how easy is
it for a visitor to do that? It sounds simple
enough, but I bet you've come across web sites
that make it incredibly difficult to do simple
tasks like buying a product or even locating a
certain page of information.
The main points from the session that I wrote
down came from Matt Bailey of SiteLogic:
1.) If users can’t find it (on your site),
it’s not there — and it’s your
problem, not the user’s.
2.) Navigation should be focused on customer-centric,
keyword-rich terms.
3.) A landing page, whether organic or PPC, must
exactly match the query or you lose the searcher.
On this last one, that's an important point to
think about. Make sure your page titles and page
content match. If a user sees your page listed
in Google, and the link (your page title) says
"Blue Widget Repair Tips from Acme Consulting",
but the content of the page isn't about repair
tips, it's about selling blue widgets ... you're
toast. You've lost that searcher forever.
If you're curious about your site's usability,
OWT can help you via some of the consulting services
we offer, or even via our "One Week Turnaround"
review service. See our home page
for details about that. If you want to try some
simple testing on your own, find a friend, neighbor,
or co-worker and sit them down in front of a computer,
give them your home page address, and give them
a simple task to perform on your site. Then watch
what they do and you'll see how easy it is to
complete the task. It's almost always educational
to see how a 1st-time visitor responds to a web
site.
_________________
In The News
Danny Sullivan leaves Search Engine
Watch
Huge news this week as Danny Sullivan announced
he will be leaving SearchEngineWatch.com (SEW),
the site he founded 10+ years ago, as well as
Search Engine Strategies (SES), the ongoing conferences
he's been organizing since 2001. Both SEW and
SES are the most prominent names in what they
do -- search marketing information, and search
marketing conferences. His tenure will end after
the SES Chicago conference this December. Reaction
to his decision has been nothing short of amazing.
You can read some and find links to a lot more
at Search Engine Roundtable.
SE Roundtable: Reaction
from the Search Community on Danny Sullivan's
Departure
Keyword Research Tools
Good keyword research is the foundation of any
successful SEO/SEM campaign. If you're not targeting
the right words and phrases, your chances of success
are slim to none. So, where do go to do keyword
research? David Wallace of SearchRank shares a
list of tools that can help -- some are free,
some are not.
SearchRank: List
of Keyword Research Tools
_________________
More News Headlines
Here are a few news headlines worth your time
to read. These are just some of the headlines
we've posted to OWTweb.com in recent days.
Search
engine bans and penalties, or just your imagination?
August 28, 2006 - ClickZ.com
Winning
big with a small search marketing budget
August 28, 2006 - Search Engine Watch
More headlines: http://www.owtweb.com/news/
_________________
Wrapping it Up
That's all for this week. Sorry to be so late.
If you've ever had one of those experiences where
you swear it's Tuesday afternoon, but it's really
Wednesday afternoon ... you know why it's late!
Thanks for reading,
Matt McGee
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