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
Key Factors To Include In Competitive Analysis
As a site owner, you would be analyzing the Google SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) frequently to see the sites ranking on Page 1 for terms that are of particular interest to your business or niche. Today it is vital to rank in the top 5 results on the first page to get the lion’s share of user clicks (approximately 70%).
Ranking below the fold on page 1 or on succeeding pages is not going to help your site’s cause in gaining better visibility and hence more traffic. The key factors you have to consider when doing a competitive analysis to dethrone a site ranking in the top 5 results and get your site listed in its place is what constitutes the meat of this post.
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Posted by Ravi of Netconcepts Ltd. on 10/11/2009
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Filed under: Search Engine Optimization, SEO anchor text of inbound links, auckland search engine optimisation, competitive analysis factors, domain diversity, domain metrics, domain mozRank, domain size, domain trust, external links, keyword targeting, linking domains, mR or mozRank, mT or mozTrust, page metrics, PageRank, SEO
Social Media Measurement
Measuring social media will help you better understand what works, which social media venues perform for you, and provides an important metric to factor into cost analysis. Once you have pulled together your social media marketing goals, you need to lay down how you are going to measure the impact of your social media marketing efforts.
Social media measurement presents some interesting challenges compared to the more typical site or page metrics. The most direct measures, such as traffic and conversion on your website, are only part of the picture. By the very nature though, much of your social media efforts will take place off your website. But let’s make it easy and start internally before we move to the more challenging external measurements.
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Posted by Brian R. Brown of Netconcepts on 10/05/2009
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Filed under: Analytics, Social Media Optimization SMM analytics, SMM measurement, social media measurement
Google Annotates The Web Through Sidewiki
Google has introduced a new feature in the toolbar called the Sidewiki. Users can post and read comments about any website that appear on a pane on the left hand side of their browser. An example showing this is presented below.
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Posted by Ravi of Netconcepts Ltd. on 10/04/2009
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Filed under: Google, News, Tools annotation of the web, google moderation team, Google sidewiki, sidewiki controversy, sidewiki panel
Google Maps Should Consider A Canonical Phone Number Tag
Google Maps, local search engines, internet yellow pages and other online business directories often receive biz listing info from a great many sources and must merge it together (see my description of this in Eric Enge’s interview with me). When this happens, loads of variations in the business’s name, address and even phone number can cause listing data to fail to be merged. All this makes me think we might need a “Canonical Tag” for phone numbers! Read on, and I’ll elaborate… (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 09/28/2009
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Filed under: Local Search, Local Search Optimization, Maps, Online Directories, Research and Development, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Yellow Pages canonical phone number tag, canonical phone tag, canonical tag, Google-Maps, hCard, hcard microformat, local-search-engine-optimization, local-SEO, microformats, phone number, phone numbers, phones, proposed microformat, Yellow Pages
Website Optimizer – Great Tool For Tracking CRO
If you have a Google Adwords account, you have access to the Website Optimizer tool that is a very nifty application to get a great idea of the Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). PPC campaigns nowadays do not come cheap and the crucial factor is to keep track of the conversion rate of your sales funnel.
The actual conversion process involves testing a landing page leading to a signup or filling in of a form or a thankyou page in the event of a successful sale of a product. With Website Optimizer, you can set up experiments that involve Multivariate testing or A/B testing to track which version of the landing page is pulling in the desired results.
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Posted by Ravi of Netconcepts Ltd. on 09/27/2009
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Filed under: Monetization of Search, Paid Search, Tools, Tracking and Reporting A/B testing, auckland seo consultancy, control script, conversion page, conversion rate optimization, landing page, multivariate testing, Netconcepts, organic search, Paid Search, tracking script, website optimizer
Unique Content And Its SEO Implications
The world wide web is still dominated by content on websites though audio and video content have come to stay. There is no sign of textual content and its importance dissipating in the eyes of search engines in the future.
There is a crying need for unique quality content nowadays. Copywriters are in demand and I have come across cases where journalists in leading dailies and magazines have kicked their full time jobs and taken to writing content for the web. But the uniqueness of the content has come under the scrutiny of the major search engines.
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Posted by Ravi of Netconcepts Ltd. on 09/20/2009
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Filed under: Best Practices, Content Optimization, Search Engine Optimization, SEO Affiliate Marketing, auckland seo consultancy, content categories, content duplication filter, domain diversity, editorial content, machine built content, main index, organic seo, page rank threshold, paid search marketing, search-engine-algorithms, seo implications, unique content, user generated content ugc
Local Store Inventories Might Help Yellow Pages SEO
In an article posted on Search Engine Land this morning, I outline how Google Maps are increasingly appearing for keyword searches, reducing referral traffic to internet yellow pages. In a brief companion piece, I also mention how embattled yellow pages should step-up their SEO game. If Google Trends is truly indicative of a sea-change that is hitting online yellow pages sites, then they must do something about it:
Natural Search Performance of Top Yellow Pages Sites in Google
(Click to enlarge) (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 09/14/2009
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Filed under: Content Optimization, Marketing, Online Directories, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Yellow Pages Internet-Yellow-Pages, inventories, inventory, iyp, Local Search, local store inventories, local-search-engine-optimization, local-SEO, NearbyNow, Online-Yellow-Pages, ShopLocal, store inventory sites, superpages, Where2GetIt, Yellow Pages, yellow pages seo
Link Building Tactics That Influence Search Engine Ranking Factors
Today’s post dwells on the discussion of link buillding tactics that influence search engine ranking factors in 2009. Link acquisition is a key component of the ranking algorithms. The number of external links pointing to your site and the anchor text contained therein can certainly propel your site to the top of the search results pages.
I will be discussing only the top 4 factors under each section with a mention of the value score allotted by the SEO professionals . This biennial survey by Rand Fishkin at SEOMoz picks the brains of the top 72 SEO professionals from all over the world and their collective wisdom is presented in this post.
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Posted by Ravi of Netconcepts Ltd. on 09/13/2009
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Filed under: Best Practices, Link Building, PageRank, Searching, SEO blogging, blogosphere, content creation, domain trust, editorial content, editorial link, effectiveness of link building tactics using seo, global authority of domain, keyword anchor text of link, link building tactics for seo, link-bait, PageRank, pagerank passed by a link, press release, public relations, TrustRank, value of external links, viral content creation
10 Practical Actionable SEO Tips To Boost Your Website Visibility
Today’s post covers ten practical actionable SEO techniques that can give your site a major boost and help it achieve better visibility in the major search engines. These observations are made by Whitespark, a SEOmoz member who attended the recent SEOMoz PRO Training series.
These tips are easy to implement and will suit a majority of the businesses on the web. With paid traffic getting more expensive with each passing day (and yet providing only 12% of traffic on the web), it is high time all website owners started ramping up their organic seo efforts. These tips will certainly help in improving a site’s natural search visibility which still accounts for 88% of the traffic on the web.
There are a few proprietary tools (created by SEOMoz) that are mentioned in the post. These tools do a great job of automating the mundane tasks thus saving valuable time and giving great results to help you plan your strategy. You have to be a paid PRO member to access these tools.
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Posted by Ravi of Netconcepts Ltd. on 09/06/2009
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Filed under: Best Practices, Conferences, Link Building, Local Search Optimization, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Tools 301 redirects, adwords keyword tool, competitor link finder tool, google local listing optimization, green business, high search and low competition keywords, identify competitor backlinks, link request from customer, paid advertisements on google content network, seth's marketing opportunity calculator, top pages tool
Search Engine Ranking Factors in 2009
Recently, SEOmoz released a fantastic biennial search engine rankings report. Every two years, SEOmoz interviews the top 100 minds in the SEO industry. This time, they have gathered data from the top 72 SEO professionals to give a clear idea of how the search engines rank documents.
This aggregate data gives any SEO professional the key factors that Google uses when it comes to ranking sites on the SERPs. It is a thoroughly interesting read and will assist all SEO professionals be it a beginner or an advanced level practitioner.
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Posted by Ravi of Netconcepts Ltd. on 08/31/2009
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Filed under: Best Practices, Search Engine Optimization auckland organic search, auckland ppc services, auckland seo, cloaking by cookie detection, cloaking by Javascript, content freshness, diversity of link sources, domain link diversity, domain name search queries, domain registration length, domain trust, external link popularity, external links to trusted sites, geo targeting factors, global link popularity of domain, hiding text with same colored text/background, historical click through rate, internal linking architecture, keyword in root domain name, keyword in title tag, link acquisition from link brokers, link acquisition from link sellers, link source diversity, links to webspam pages, negative factors affecting external link, negative ranking factors, netconcepts new zealand, on page keyword specific ranking factors, on page non keyword specific ranking factors, page specific link popularity ranking factors, paid links, search engine ranking factors, site architecture of domain, sitewide link based ranking factors, social media ranking factors, stumbleupon data, top 3 contentious factors, top 3 ranking factors, twitter data, usage data ranking factors
