Subscribed Links Let Google Take Personalization to a New Level

I have to say that most of the time when something new and cool comes out in the world of SEO, most of the time it seems like it comes from Google (Yahoo site explorer not withstanding). The latest addition to Google that has all kinds of marketing potential is the new "Subscribed Links" feature. Matt Cutts recently posted to his blog about "Subscribed Links" which drew my attention to it for the first time. And I have to say, I'm impressed. And not because I think there is some magical SEO formula that can be derived from subscribed links, but because I think it extends the usefulness and flexibility of Google search for users.

First lets talk about what subscribed links are. Essentially if you are a creator of a subscribed link, you can insert your search result or widget like one box into Google search results for your keywords. It almost sounds too good to be true..lol. The only catch is, you have to get people to subscribe to your link in order for your subscribed links to show up in their search results. I imagine as people really realize the power of this functionality, promoting your new Google subscribe link will be the new craze of 2008. For those that don't understand what I am talking about, let's take a hypothetical example to see how subscribed links could be leveraged.

First, let's take a look at the current list of subscribed links of which there are only 48! If that doesn't trigger your Internet Marketing spiddy sense, you might wanna change fields..lol. Seriously though, having only 48 competitors for screen real estate is a quite an opportunity on a platform as big as Google is. Many of the current subscribe links either offer custom listings for specific search queries or they offer functionality similar to a widget. So for example, based on your query for weather and a zip code, you get a mash up of map info and current weather forecasts. So with this understanding in mind, let's create a make believe subscribed link to illustrate the marketing potential.

The first thing to think about with subscribed links is similar in nature to link baiting. The first question that must be asked is, "What can I provide through a subscribe link that has true value to my users." So for our example, we are going to assume the identity of a guitar site. And one of the most popular tools for guitarists is a chord finder. So I would set up my subscribe link so that the functionality I would promote with this is the user being able to type in a chord like "C#" and having a diagram of a "C#" chord appear in Google's serps. This would be very useful for a jazz cat trying to figure out what a "Aflat5add9" chord is for example. Fortunately I don't have too many crazy chords with the kind of music I play but many guitarists do. So I think this would be an excellent tool to create. The other thing that my subscribe link would do it to check for guitar brand and models. So every time someone who was subscribed to my link searches for Ibanez RG270, they would get a comparison shopping chart from my affiliates who carried this guitar. And while this wouldn't necessarily be the functionality I would promote heavily to get people to subscribe to my links, it would undoubtedly generate more revenue. And if done right, it would provide a nice service to the user who wouldn't have to drill into other Web sites to find the pricing information he or she wanted.

This hypothetical example shows a little of the enormous opportunity that subscribe links offer to publishers and Web masters to push their info to users in a new way. And that's what I like about it the most. Search continues to evolve in the field of personalization, and this is a huge leap forward in my opinion.

OMS Was Fun!

Well now that things have finally settled down a little here in San Diego because OMS is over, I am getting an opportunity to put my thoughts together about this amazing conference. And when I say amazing, I am not referring to the number of excellent speakers and the vast amount of online marketing information that was presented (although to be sure there was an abundance of both). I am referring to the number of incredible people I had an opportunity to speak with who are involved with all kinds of fascinating projects and Web sites. And it was a lot of fun to encounter so many of them who were so interested in SEO. And the OMS team did a great job of making sure everyone had a good time (some people had too good of a time..hahahaha. Don't worry Michael, no one saw anything :P ).

And that's one of the best things about doing SEO for a living is the number of varied projects I get to look at. From traditional powerhouses like Sony PlayStation, Sybase and Black and Decker Hardware and Home Improvement to the very niche focused like World's Finest Clothing or TheGoldenOpportunity.biz, the SEO challenges of the OMS community run the gambit of possibilities. And that's what fun, because SEO is the creative application of best practices to a wide variety of situations. It never gets old because there are always new challenges. And new people. And that's what else is cool about SEO. It's not just about Meta tags and redirects and site maps and all the other little details of execution. But it's about the relationships you make with people and your ability to help other people achieve their goals, and in some cases, succeed in business. And that really is what I love the most about SEO. Of course the fact that it pays my bills is motivating as well...lol, but really the sense of satisfaction that you get from helping people is why I enjoy coming to work everyday. And it's what I love about OMS.

4 SEO Solutions For Flash

4 Solutions to SEO problems of using Flash

Many of us has seen a website with Adobe® Flash®. It has attracted many website surfers every since Macromedia came out first with Shockwave® and then create a more lightweight version for the web, Flash. It's main strength is the animation capabilities along with a strong scripting language that seems no one else on the market has matched . With the lack of competition and a superb product, it is supported by almost every browser and operating system with many third-party add-on tools made by several companies. It's no surprise to see many sites using Flash these days.

But the problem is, Flash, just like images and videos, these are not made in a plain text language embedded within the HTML code using tags. A browser plug-in is used here that needs to be installed at least once in order for the web browsers to display Flash websites properly. With current day bandwidth standards this just takes a few minutes or even seconds.

Flash is in a binary file format, not in plain text which makes it more difficult to consistently or not possible at all for some search engines to extract the content found within a Flash file.

Do SEO professionals hate Flash?

Depends on who you are asking, I have heard many people in the SEO industry that just hate Flash period! Just because they claim these sites cannot be search engine optimized. The feeling can be mutual from some of the web design and development community that loves Flash and AJAX and just hates SEO (watch related funny videos).

Flash and AJAX are two technologies that enhance the user experience on a website and these technologies are going to stay here for a long time. Thus should be embraced by the SEO community and learn all the workarounds on how to implement a successful SEO campaign running AJAX or Flash. If your SEO analyst simply tells you do not use Flash, they just might not really know what to do with it.

SEO Solutions in using Flash

Below I will mention 4 solutions on how to optimize your website well even if they are running Adobe Flash. Since Flash cannot be interpreted perfectly and consistently by search engines, you run into 2 main problems. First is [1] the important text content rendered in Flash cannot be read well by the search engines and second is [2] navigational elements within Flash cannot be crawled by search engine spiders. Having this in mind, here are four tips on how to implement SEO successfully on a Flash website.

1. The Non-Flash Site Version for Sites Completely Made in Flash
   Content: If your website is made all in Flash and has no other HTML elements except the code that embeds the Flash file(s), making another website with the exact look and feel (for branding purposes) but does not have all the bells and whistles of Flash will make the content readable by search engine. Since this is like totally having a separate website, you would really expect the non-Flash website generating the search engine traffic, which will then funnel visitors through the navigation leading them into the Flash website.
   Navigation: Since there is a separate website with different pages targeted for different keywords, search engine crawlers will have the opportunity to see the links and follow them in the non-Flash plain HTML website and getting all pages included in the search engine index. With the nature of Flash, similar to AJAX, where each page view may not necessarily load a new HTML page with a new URL, it would still be best to create a unique URL for each "Flash view" that will be the entry point page from the non-flash pages. And once they arrive at the page, it can load the same Flash file and no need to reload a new page.
   
   

   In the image above, users aware of the website already will normally enter the page through the flash version of the website. And once on the homepage, the URL will no longer change although the "Flash Views" that serve like pages in the perspective of the user will change.
   
   On the other side of the story, Search engines will crawl the plain HTML version of the site. Which can generate traffic going to the HTML pages once these pages are ranking with proper SEO practices. And each page will have the option for the user to see the flash version that lies on it's own unique URL and loading the same Flash file but going straight to the appropriate Flash view.

   
   Advantage: You can design your Flash as intricate you want. No limitations since the SEO'd pages are on the non-Flash website.
   Disadvantage: You need to spend more time and resources making the website. Having a Flash and non-Flash website is having two websites to maintain. More time, more resources, more money spent.
   Quick Tip: Flash can input data from XML documents relatively easy. Server-side scripting languages such as PHP, JSP, ASP, etc. can also import data from XML documents. Creating a unified CMS should make life easier in the long run, but may take more time to set up.
   


2. Alternative Content and Navigation
   Content: On the same page where Flash is displayed, somewhere else on your screen real estate some equivalent content of what was found within the flash file is also presented outside of Flash as plain text within the HTML code.
   Navigation If a navigational element was made in Flash, similar to the content, adding another alternative navigation on the site will help get all other pages crawled and index in the search engines. A common implementation of this is having footer text links at the bottom of every page.
   Advantage: Unlike the technique above, you do not need to make another website. Just make sure whatever text content you have on your flash file. Have it available elsewhere on the page outside of Flash.
   Disadvantage: Cannot be done on a full Flash website, but generally any website implementing SEO should not have a full Flash website.
   Quick Tip: Flash should be used best here for areas where you want to attract attention. Perfect for your unique selling statement, current product or service promotions. Whatever content was found here should also found elsewhere in a plain text format for the search engines to read. The animation is mainly used to draw the attention (not to annoy) of a user to read and pay attention to the Flash and hopefully draw in the user to read and explore further.
   


3. sIFR for Flash Designed Text
   Content: Text font designs used on websites are declared either in the non-standard HTML font tag or in the declared font styles using CSS. Either way, these layout commands are telling the web browser to load the font file available on the viewer's local computer. In the absence of these font files, the browser will load it's default browser fonts that is often Times New Roman. This limited web designers to use commonly installed fonts such as Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Geneva, Courier, Times New Roman, and other common fonts decreasing the creative freedom of many web designers. So in order to design beautiful typefaces, you can either use an image or Flash but search engines had trouble reading these. Scalable Inman Flash Replacement or simply sIFR (many pronounce this is as sifer) is an effective use of Flash text replacement. This is similar to how CSS image text replacement is done, just done in Flash. What makes this even better than CSS image text replacement is sIFR can be used more effectively in CMS applications since both can be easily generated dynamically. Although an image with text written on the image can be done dynamically also with tools such as PHP's GD library, it is not as easy nor resource friendly as sIFR.
   Navigation: The text on any anchor link is important in SEO for this is what gives meaning to what the destination page is all about. The important keywords within the a tags are your targeted keywords. But if the link is applied on a image or a Flash file, you have to make sure the targeted keywords are still read by search engines. In images you use the alt attributes. Since sIFR is used to 'stylize' text and not for any other animated effect, sIFR is idea to add beautiful looking text links not sacrificing the crawlability of the links.
   Advantage: Ability to create styled text font faces that are completely viewable as plain text in the "eyes" of the search engines. sIFR is very lightweight and scalable. Relatively easy to implement and Google has expressed their acceptance of this method. sIFR also downgrades gracefully if Flash is disabled or not installed on a web browser.
   Trivia: Inman is the last name of Shaun Inman that first to experiment with Javascript code used in sIFR. This was then modified and improved by Mike Davidson and Mark Wubben so that is can be used to replace HTML text elements.
   


4. Use SWFObject
   Content: Probably something you have heard quite often if you have been keeping up-to-date with the latest SEO techniques and those who were not able to fully catch up may think this technology is so confusing. To explain this further, let's explain how Flash is added to a webpage. Normally, Flash will have HTML object and embed tags. Within these tags is the source of the Flash file with the .swf file name extension along with several parameters how this .swf file is displayed such as the height, width and more. The SWFObject is a Javascript function that detects if Flash is available. As mentioned on Geoff Stearns website:
   

   SWFObject is a small Javascript file used for embedding Adobe Flash content. The script can detect the Flash plug-in in all major web browsers (on Mac and PC) and is designed to make embedding Flash movies as easy as possible. It is also very search engine friendly, degrades gracefully, can be used in valid HTML and XHTML 1.0 documents*, and is forward compatible, so it should work for years to come.

   
   Since this is mainly a Flash detection script and it replaces HTML blocks such as a typical div tag, plain text HTML content can be placed within the div tag. And only if Flash is enabled will it display the Flash over the div tag. A simple code implementation would look like this:
   
   In the section, the SWFObject is called.
   
   

   script type="text/javascript" src="swfobject.js"/script

   Also in the head or optionally in the body you have the SWFObject call stating the .swf file to load.
   
   

   script type="text/javascript"
   var so = new SWFObject("flashfile.swf", "flashheader", "400", "200", "8", "#ffffff");
   so.write("flashcontent");
   /script

   
   This will then look for the element with the ID flashcontent and replace it with the .swf file flashfile.swf. And anywhere within the webpage's content, you can have:
   
   

   div id="flashcontent"
   Text here, placed within these tags are search engine friendly. And can be read by search engines.
   /div

   
   This script mainly checks the browser's Flash capability, since search engine spiders are not Flash enabled, thus Flash does not run. Aside from that, JavaScript is used to invoke Flash and search engines are not JavaScript enabled either. But since the content of the Flash file is displayed as plain text beneath the Flash in a div tag, search engines are able to read the content you gave of that Flash file.
   Navigation: In the same way how the content is replaced with Flash, navigational elements work exactly the same way. Having plain text HTML links within the Flash-replaced div tag.
   Advantage: Can work with full Flash sites and websites that have only portions of it in Flash. Full Flash sites can degrade normally into non-Flash sites without having the need for a visitor to choose which site version to view. Flash page URLs and non-Flash page URLs are unified into a single URL.
   Disadvantage: Very easy to implement shady to dark blackhat techniques with keyword stuffing behind the flash that can get you banned in the search engine. Although this is easily avoidable by simply not putting any content on the plain text HTML code that is not visible on the Flash file. As long as you keep it clean, you are safe. In Goggle's Adam Lasnik's own words in an interview by Eric Enge, he states:
   
   

   I haven't happened to catch any of the SWFObject based flash sites, so, I can't give a definite answer on that one, but the key thing here is that if the text that is essentially gracefully rendered outside of the flash for those who don't have it, is identical to what folks that do have flash capabilities in their browser are seeing, then generally there is not going to be a problem.

   Trivia: SWFObject used to be called FlashObject. The name was changed due to legal/trademark reasons.
   

Do I block my Flash files?

Google has been showing their advancements in reading .swf files. Google can actually go into a .swf file and extract the text it can find within this file. Although it may not be a wise decision to let Google index your Flash files.



Above is a sample .swf file indexed by Google on a popular website. The title is totally meaning less and so is the description. And if ever someone does visit this Flash file, it won't lead the visitor to the rest of the site. Google is indeed doing good in reading Flash files but in my opinion it is still not the right time to let Google index your Flash files as you cannot optimize them as well as you can with HTML pages. If visitors check the Flash file, you have a smaller chance into making them visit the rest of the site. And so far I believe it is only Google that has this capability and it is nice to still be search engine friendly to all major search engines. To solve this issue, you can simply place all .swf files in one folder and block them off in robots.txt.

Disallow: /swf/

In a nutshell, Flash is ideal for certain areas where you want to attract attention. Possibly highlighting some promo or doing a call to action. Blinking and jerky movements have been proven not effective and is more annoying. With Flash elements on a page, make sure you have alternative content and navigation for search engines to read.

• If you have a full Flash website, you can either has a complete non-Flash version or degrade gracefully using SWFObject./li>
  
• If you are just using Flash for small banner type purposes, you can simply serve alternative plain text content and navigation elsewhere on the page, or use SWFObject.


• For style font headings, with total font design freedom, sIFR would be the best way to do it.

If you are unsure how to implement all of these, leave a comment and ask us questions to clarify your thoughts.

Adobe®, Flash® and Shockwave® are tradenames of Adobe Corporation.

Top 5 SEO Lessons About Google Page Rank

As I was putting together my presentation for OMS next week, I decided to do some research into some old patents for fun (which proves that although I am a heavy metal guitarist and supposed to be cool, I have no choice but to admit I have become an SEO geek..lol). I did some reading on Hilltop, Topic Sensitive Page Rank and a couple others. But one document that I found that I have not read before is called: "Page Rank - A Circuital Analysis". I found this article to be very interesting because it provides some scientific basis for what I have always believed to be best practices based on the original Page Rank algorithm.

Here are the top 5:

1) The same content divided into many pages, yields more Page Rank than if the content was located on one page.

2) External hyperlinks should be limited.

3) External hyperlinks should be limited to pages with small Page Rank or to pages having many internal links.

4) Links to links should be avoided (pages that don't contain hyperlinks).

5) External hyperlinks to sinks should be limited to pages with small Page Rank or to pages having many internal links.

Now before anyone wants to flame me for discouaging external linking, that's not what I am doing. I am merely saying that you want to decrease the amount of PR that flows through external links or to sink pages by incorporating as many internal links as you can on pages that do link externally. It's the same concept as using no follow to sculpt your Page Rank. You want PR to flow to your most important pages (rather than your privacy policy for example), and you want to make sure that you limit whenever possible, the amount of Page Rank that you allow to bleed from your site. For those unfamiliar with how Page Rank works and the fact that it is a recursive function, it is hard to describe how this takes place. But if you read the references that I have linked to, it should become apparent how this takes place.

Many people in todays search world think that Page Rank is not important. That is simply not true. But you certainly have better things to do than chase links with high PR values because there are another 100 algorithm metrics which are used in Google's overall formula (one of which is links to external sites, meaning that linking to good resources that are useful to your users is a good thing). However, maximizing your Web structure to take advantage of your existing Page Rank properties makes good sense and is good SEO.

Authority Building - The Best New SEO Concept

Today I read a great blog post by Jeff Quipp about Authority Building. And while I don't agree with Jeff's statement about not being an SEO versus an authority builder, it's a little akin to splitting hairs...lol. The truth of his blog post is a great lesson for anyone who is interested in an SEO campaign for their Web site. The bottom line is that Google rewards sites that it considers authority sites. Building links that send signals to Google that your site is an authority is a big part of SEO. But when those links occur naturally, organically and virally, your chances of ranking well for the keywords you are targeting go up exponentially. And the best way to make that happen is to have a cohesive strategy for your Web site and the content that you are producing. Jeff says it best with this paragraph:

"What this concept also means though, is that where I define my role as an Authority Builder, we now we have a guiding mantra and philosophy for actions and objectives. The implications of this are far reaching. It impacts most everything we do; the content we write, the social media sites we use, the friends we make, and much more. Before we act, we need to ask ourselves; does this help to establish me/my client as an authority in my field? "

Obviously there is no one size fits all strategy for every Web site in this endeavor, but I think it speaks more to an underlying philosophy of establishing your Web site of being worthy for the top rankings you are seeking, versus manipulating search variables (links, meta data, etc) to achieve rankings that are not merrited based on the quality of your content.

And that's why I like Authority Building as a concept. It gives webmasters, Internet marketers, executives and CEOs a good reason to make better content, a better user experience, and a better Web community.

SEO Secrets - Catfish Podcast

As promised, here is the Podcast from my interview with Cindy at EmarketingTalkShow.com. I talk about maximizing internal linking metrics, creating good Meta data and the importance of great content for SEO. I hope everyone enjoys it. Now I have to get my stuff together for my speaking engagement OMS in two weeks. Hope to see you there!

Why the MSN / Yahoo Deal (Mahoo?) is Bad for SEO

So it appears that Microsoft is hell bent on acquiring Yahoo. This is not a good thing for the SEO industry nor is it good for consumers. SEO is already dominated by three main search engines (sorry ASK but you are not one of em). The three are Google, Yahoo and MSN. And MSN is just barely on the radar. I understand why MSN wants Yahoo. It's pretty easy to see it would help them compete with Google. But the thing that strikes me as funny is, other than acquiring existing marketing share, how is that acquisition going to help them to take some of what Google already has. The presumption is that somehow the merger of these companies is going to create a stronger company capable of competing with Google. Unfortunately for them and the average visitor, nothing could be further from the truth. See the real reason that Yahoo and MSN can't compete with Google is that Google's company infrastructure and culture are superior to other two companies.

You can see it at every level of the equation. Google is an innovative company that is constantly on the forefront of development and constantly trying to improve their products with a big focus on user input and even collaboration. Their computer infrastructure is at the forefront of technology and no one has a more powerful system to execute search. Google is constantly getting awards for "best place to work" and attracts the best new talent. If you ever go to a Google party at SES or some other conference, its always a young, hip, dynamic feel to it. If you look at Yahoo and MSN through the same lens of evaluation, both fall short. It's company culture and it starts at the top. When you deal with Google, you get the impression that you are dealing with a company that is focused on their users. With MSN, you get the impression that you are dealing with a company that is focused on money. And therein lies the difference and it's why this deal sucks so bad. I just know that if MSN gets their greedy little hands on Yahoo, they will ruin it. And I will bet you that it won't take for existing Yahoo users to jump that ship in favor of Google. And that's just from the user perspective.

From an SEO standpoint, having two major portals instead of three that matter, reduces the opportunity to provide search listings for clients. So granted MSN listings would mean more, but at the same time, the competition to get those listings would be tougher. I'm not saying that Google doesn't need competition and I certainly don't think that Google is perfect (see Position 6 error..lol). But, I just don't see how repositioning market share without an improvement in innovation is going to improve the quality of Yahoo or MSN's search. If anything, it's going to make it worse while these two huge organizations try to figure out how to merge with one another. To say nothing of all the jobs in search that would lost as the companies consolidate their resources. I really hope that the this deal doesn't happen. I don't think it's a positive development for the SEO community, or for consumers.