Welcome to Natural Search Blog
Natural Search Blog provides articles on search engine optimization including keyword reasearch, on-page factors, link-building, social media optimization, local search optimization, image search optimization, and mobile SEO.
In addition to natural search optimization topics, we also cover internet marketing, ecommerce, web design, usability, and technology.
Recent Entries
SMX Local & Mobile Conference Discount
If you haven’t decided to attend the Search Marketing Expo Local & Mobile Conference on October 1 & 2, you’ll be missing out on the newest tips and information for two overlapping search segments that are considered to contain some of the fastest-growing marketing potential of any media around. The consensus prediction is for $8 billion in total ad spending by 2010!
I’ll be speaking on the subject of “Managing a Local/Mobile Search Marketing Campaign” on the morning of the first day. There are also a number of other interesting presentations that I plan to attend, covering subjects such as Local SEO, Pay-Per-Call Advertising, Mobile SEO, Mobile Advertising, and LoMo.
For readers of Natural Search Blog, we’re able to offer a conference discount of 20% off the full registration price if you sign up now. Just go to the SMX Local & Mobile 07 registration, and enter our discount code:
SMX20OffLM
Google’s advent of Universal Search has propelled content from a number of search verticals into the main results page, including content from Local Search in many cases. This development has opened the eyes of many marketers to the fact that businesses with local components really need to specifically target their content to appear optimally under this new paradigm. (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 09/18/2007
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Filed under: Conferences, Local Search, Mobile Search, Seminars Local Search, LoMo, Mobile Search, Search-Marketing-Expo, SEM-Conferences, SEO-Conferences, SMX, SMX-Local-&-Mobile
Google Docs Releases Presentations
Last night, Google announced the release of their presentation software as another feature in Google Docs. This follows close on the heals of a number of us posting about how the Google presentation software was soon to be released. The interface is really easy to use, and intuitive – very fluid. Here’s a screengrab of the example slide I made within just seconds of going in:
The presentation software is extremely simplistic, though, so there are not a lot of bells and whistles. The slides are completely static, so there’s no option for adding in transition effects nor animations. (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 09/18/2007
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Filed under: Google, Tools Google, Google-Apps, Google-Docs, Google-Presentations, Presentation-Software, Presently
Google Presentation App: Presently
The Inquirer reports that Google may soon deploy slideshow presentation creation and display software which they’ll call “Presently”. This application was apparently developed out of code that Google got with their acquisition of Zenter and Tonic Systems earlier this year. The new presentation software will join the other Google Apps suite of products which include Google Spreadsheets, Google Write, and Gmail.
This is an interesting development… (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 09/14/2007
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Filed under: General, Tools Google, MicroSoft, PowerPoint, Presently
Dealer Locator & Store Locator Services Need to Optimize
My article on local SEO for store locators just published on Search Engine Land, and any company that has a store locator utility ought to read it. Many large companies provide a way for users to find their local stores, dealers, or authorized resellers. The problem is that these sections are usually hidden from the search engines behind search submission forms, javascripted links, html frames, and Flash interfaces.
For many national or regional chain stores, providing dealer-locator services with robust maps, driving directions and proximity search capability is outside of their core competencies, and they frequently choose to outsource that development work or purchase software to enable the service easily.
I did a quick survey and found a number of companies providing dealer locator or store finder functionality: (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 09/13/2007
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Filed under: Best Practices, Content Optimization, Dynamic Sites, Local Search Optimization, Maps, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Site Structure chain-stores, dealer-locators, Local Search Optimization, local-SEO, store-location-software, store-locators
Barack Obama Ad on LinkedIn
I saw this clever ad for Barack Obama running in the right sidebar of my LinkedIn profile page today:
I think it’s an ad, because the clickthrough link is tracked through DoubleClick. When you click on that ad, though, it pops you over to LinkedIn’s Question & Answers section… (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 09/13/2007
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Filed under: Advertising, Marketing, Social Media Optimization Barack-Obama, linkedin, Political-Advertising, SMO, Social Media Optimization
Double Your Trouble: Google Highlights Duplication Issues
Maile Ohye posted a great piece on Google Webmaster Central on the effects of duplicate content as caused by common URL parameters. There is great information in that post, not least of which it validates exactly what a few of us have stated for a while: duplication should be addressed because it can water down your PageRank.
Maile suggests a few ways of addressing dupe content, and she also reveals a few details of Google’s workings that are interesting, including: (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 09/12/2007
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Filed under: Best Practices, Dynamic Sites, Google, PageRank, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Site Structure, URLs Canonicalization, duplicate-content, duplication, Google, Search Engine Optimization, SEO
Resurrection of the Meta Keywords Tag
Danny Sullivan did a great, comprehensive examination of current status of the Meta Keywords tag, and his testing showed that both Ask and Yahoo will still use content in that tag as a relevancy signal. Both Google and Microsoft Live do not. His clear outline of the history, common questions, and contemporary testing of the factor were really helpful.
However, I think there’s still a case where Google may be using the Meta Keywords tag… (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 09/07/2007
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Filed under: Best Practices, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Tricks, Worst Practices black-hat-seo, Google, Meta-Keywords-Tag, meta-tags, metatags
Facebook to Expose Profile Info
Facebook just announced that they are going to begin exposing a minimal amount of user profile information to people who are not logged-in to the service, including allowing the info to be crawled and indexed by search engines.
I’ve previously blogged about how using LinkedIn is important for the purposes of professional reputation management, and this change that Facebook has announced today causes me to state that they should also be something that users integrate with for the purposes of networking, proactive reputation management, and good career building.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 09/05/2007
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Filed under: Social Media Optimization Facebook, linkedin, Professional-Networking, reputation-management
Examples of Roof Ads
I thought it might be interesting to do a survey of roof ads from around the country, so here are a number of examples that can be found in online mapping systems such as Google Maps.
Roof Ad in New York City
If you recall, over a year ago I wrote a tongue-in-cheek post about how to optimize rooftop ads for best exposure in online maps, although some of the tips could actually be taken seriously if one did wish to market through advertising in this manner.
Roof Ads near Miami Airport (click to enlarge)
Now, most of the “roofvertisements” I could find were likely done with the intention of targeting promotional messages to airplane passengers, since most of the examples I can find are from buildings located near major airports. In happy serendipity for these companies, these ads are now also visible through the satellite images and aerial photos that have become table stakes for map search interfaces, so they’re getting dual use for them along with extra ad impressions. It’s pretty surprising to me that more companies haven’t painted promotional copy on their roofs, though, since I see tons of expansive, white roof “canvas” that would be ideal for this located near airports.
The Salvation Army in Seattle – (click to enlarge)
Click through for even more samples. (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 08/30/2007
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Filed under: Advertising, Maps Advertisements, Advertising, Google-Maps, Guerilla-Advertising, Rooftop-Ads, Roofvertising, Satellite-Images
Google Dance
Here are some of my pix from the Google Dance last week.
Google Dance 2007 logo & party invite
Google Dance, if you don’t know, is humorously named after “Googledance” a colloquialistic term used by webmasters to describe how the Google search results used to sort of “dance around” for a few days during major PageRank or indexing updates. Google re-co-opted the term, if that’s the right word, and use “Google Dance” to refer to the annual party they throw for search engine marketing experts attending the Search Engine Strategies (“SES”) Conference every year.
Click through to see more pics from Google Dance as well as some from the SES Conference. (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 08/27/2007
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Filed under: Conferences, Google Google, Google-Dance, Googledance, SES-Conference
