A synched, search engine optimized page theme harmonizes your page's content, title and Meta data

As search engine bots become more intelligent and algorithms are tweaked more frequently, it is more important than ever to have the right SEO plan in place. You want to be sure that your site offers the right combination of code and content so search engines can most effectively index and rank your site.

Keywords have long been one of the most basic elements to install as part of a successful SEO campaign, but keywords have not played an important role in search engine algorithms for some time. Ranking algorithms are designed to scan content and interpret a page’s target user without using Meta data keywords as a guide.

Today, when it comes to affecting your site’s ranking, your site’s content is king.

Advanced search engine algorithms are allowing search engines to place less emphasis on Meta data and more on page content. This means marketers need to focus on calibrating each page correctly to give search engines a clear theme, concept or phrase to focus on for optimal rank. SEO practitioners refer to this part of the craft as “Page Theming.”

Instead of idiosyncratic code and keywords, Page Theming communicates with the search engine algorithm in a more holistic way. The algorithm analyzes each site page’s Title tag, H1 tag and published content. A page’s content, title and Meta data have to be in sync to effectively communicate the key terms and phrases you want to rank for.

Understanding how leading search engines continue shift emphasis in their algorithms is important for anyone who wants their website to rank high. The search engines, and Google in particular, want to be sure that a search engine visitor is highly satisfied with their results. The search engines know that their success relies on satisfied customers. To achieve this, they will continue to improve their algorithms so that their top ranking sites effectively reflect the search queries. Matching search queries to Meta data keywords no longer meets that need. Page themes reflecting the holistic nature of the page’s content accomplishes this goal.

This fact is surfacing on the Web as technology now enables everyone, and I do mean everyone, to add videos to their Web site — professional and personal sites. The recent comScore online video data reflects this ubiquity. Here are just a few of the key points reported for the month of Dec. ‘09:

• Very high penetration –
  • 86% of the total U.S. online population viewed video content
• Individual usage grew significantly –
  • 95% increase in number of videos by the average viewer (95.7 vs. 186.9 videos per person)

This data is encouraging as it says that Web visitors have made online videos a part of the norm. This also suggests that marketers can and should capitalize on this new way to communicate on their Web sites and online in general.

In addition to improved messaging, on-site videos can help improve your search engine rankings, particularly if you initially install them on YouTube.

A number of our clients share our vision for using videos on their Web sites to more effectively tell their story. One of our clients recently purchased 3 inexpensive video cams and sent them to groups within his organization to start capturing content that can be used on their Web site.

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind when building your video strategy:

• Use and script videos to reinforce your site’s core messages.
• Insert a video player (YouTube or other) on your home page and link it to a lower level page that has relevant content.
• Keep videos short. (comScore reports the average length increasing to about 4 minutes. We strive for even shorter lengths – Google typically uses 1-2 minute videos for their own products and services – Less is more!)

And remember, adding video to your Web site can become a very valuable part of your search engine optimization (SEO) effort. By adding tags to the video, search engines (and Google for sure if you use their YouTube) will enhance your chances of high rank.

Google has built a $23 Billion dollar business by understanding what their users want or will want in the near future – think about the YouTube acquisition!

Google has built an important user franchise for their Google Maps, the ultimate “local search engine offering”. Every day, this terrific tool helps millions of searchers find local locations of restaurants, doctors, paint stores, building contractors and drug stores in their neighborhood. Google has the database that tells them a whole lot about what people want to find locally online.

Not surprising, there is data to support this fast-growing activity in Local Search. Nielsen (2009) reported that 72% of consumers are using search engines more often to find a local business or service. Compared to other options, only 16% said they were using Yellow Pages more. This speaks volumes about what is happening to the traditional Yellow Pages franchise.

Google and search engines in general are quickly becoming the default method that people use to search for local information and with a map to boot.

When you add in the increasing wave of mobile device usage, the trend becomes even clearer.

Marketers need to recognize this seismic shift, particularly if they market through a network of locations like stores and offices. Determining how to create Local Search programs, both in search engine optimization (SEO) or paid keyword programs (PPC), is now a critically important marketing tool and medium. Not acting on this shift, is a very big missed business opportunity. And, it may be an opportunity that competition is pursuing.

Having said that, one has to also pause and wonder whether Google is threatened by this move. I don’t think so.

The key to Google’s whopping 65% market share (and 70% by some estimates) is not the offering of free news. That’s a nice added benefit but not a driving force.

The driving force is Google’s extraordinary commitment to, and delivery of, a high quality user experience. They have spent years honing their speed and accuracy in delivering answers to a search engine user’s queries. At the moment, there is no one better doing this and that is why they hold their dominant share in spite of competitor innovation.

We still continue to place most of our client budgets on Google, but we also see roles for Bing and Yahoo in those buys. This could change in the future, but that decision will be primarily driven by further innovation of the search engine user experience.

One last note. There are some who speculate that Murdoch’s discussions with MS’ Bing are really a negotiating ploy to create fear in Google’s corporate suite, and thereby, move them to pay News Corp. a fee for their news feeds. Given Google’s devotion to the user experience as the ultimate driver of their business, I doubt the recent events will make them nervous.

The biggest impact will not come from MSN’s Bing™ and Yahoo!® signing a deal, if approved by federal regulators that will allow them to share Bing’s new search engine capabilities. At issue is the reality that the search results seen on Bing will be the same results shown when searching on Yahoo!. Web sites that have not optimized for Bing will be at a disadvantage.

Keep in mind that Yahoo! is much more than a search engine with tons of content and online services. Although Bing’s name is being leveraged across other Microsoft content sites (farecast.com has become Bing.com/travel,) Bing is a search engine similar to Google®. Importantly, the algorithms and thinking that we previously used for Yahoo! search will no longer apply. The specific needs of Bing’s algorithm will be controlling your site’s search ranking on Yahoo!.

Google, not to be outdone has raised the bar by streamlining the search process to offer quicker and more relevant search results. We are seeing search results returned in half the time on the beta model of Google Caffeine. Our research is revealing that the new Google will focus on keywords as a more important part of its new algorithm (and we don’t mean the keywords contained in Meta data.)

These new search engine algorithms require more than just entering Meta data and page titles. Marketers must now be able to combine page formatting and page content to support high value keyword phrases. As a result, there will be more reliance on semantic organization and keyword-richness of the content. It also means that videos and Flash will need to be supported by alternate content that integrates the same type of organization and keyword-embedded content.

In looking ahead, Web sites that are not professionally optimized for search engines will suffer in rankings. Marketers can no longer rely on design-driven Web sites to deliver the ROI expected. With the increasing importance of Web marketing, companies must not risk their search engine optimization (SEO) to poorly trained or misguided designers and inexperienced agencies. If agencies don’t specialize in search engine optimization and provide the proof that they deliver results to many clients or have command of the latest standards, then marketers owe it to themselves to seek professional help (this last phrase is intended to have the double meaning you think it does.)

You can prevent your Web site becoming a casualty of the search engine wars. Start by choosing the right SEO partner that understands the changes in search engine algorithms and it will help you succeed as the major search engines battle it out.

FDA in Focus

Serving a broad range of businesses, we come up against many unusual or difficult situations that clients face with their on-line marketing initiatives, and in particular, search engine marketing (SEM). Recently, our pharmaceutical clients were affected by an unexpected FDA Warning Letter barrage that went to 14 pharmaceutical companies targeting 48 of their brands’ use of Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns on the major search engines.

Essentially, the FDA took a 20th Century approach to a 21st Century medium – the Internet, and in particular, search engines. The FDA stated that pharmaceutical manufacturers were not providing sufficient information in their search marketing text ads. The FDA’s April Warning Letters didn’t take into consideration how the average Web user searches for information or the limitations of pay-for-click advertising. In my judgment, the FDA was lost in cyberspace on this issue.

To address this very important subject, Stu Friedel, an attorney and partner in the Advertising, Marketing and Promotion group of Davis & Gilbert LLP, and I co-authored an article for DTC Perspectives magazine regarding the FDA’s action.

I invite everyone to read the article and draw your own conclusion and even some insight in how to handle problems with Washington regulators.

Please click here to read the “FDA and Search Engines” article PDF now.