“Web” alerts will become “Everything” alerts
Marcel Gordon, Product Manager of Google Alerts, sends an email as we’re walking out the door today letting us know that our trusty web alerts are changing.
You may receive more results after this change. If you find that you are getting too many results, you can change the “How often” setting to “once a day” or “once a week.” You can also change your search query. You can do this on the alerts management page (www.google.com/alerts/manage), or by removing the alert using the link at the bottom of each alert email and creating it again with different settings.
Interestingly enough, I’d bet that the reason they predict that this change will continue to serve the same results, or increase is because their results contain many more types of information, videos, forum/blog threads, news results, local business results, maps and, of course, web pages. The next step may indeed be to send videos and maps in the alerts themselves.
Preliminary Online SEO Analysis Tool
Is there any online tool to get website seo preliminary report?
– Hareesh M. M / Kerala, India
I suggest www.WebsiteGrader.com.
This will give you a quick overview of the vital statistics for a given website.
Effective and Affordable Link Building
Does anyone know a good and reasonable priced Link Building company? (SEO)
- Roy P. 27 / M / Tel Aviv, Israel
Hi Roy,
I’d introduce myself and my company for this service. We can do large packages or small groups, reciprocal links only. We also hire out one-way linking from other firms, but reciprocal linking we do in house because of the relationship development with new link partners.
Depending on your goals and assets (domain, ranking) I can provide you with a recommendation.
We are at www.3-PRIME.com, with link building info here.
Should blog post title tag match headline?
For purposes of SEO, should the title tag of my blog post be the same as the post headline?
- Patrick H. 35 / M / Stow, MA
Not necessarily, unless you want to rank for the exact phrases you use as your headlines.
I’d recommend to use the title tag do target 1-2 keyphrases containing in your headline, and use your headline to employ those keyphrases in a useful sentence, providing semantic usage of both the keyphrase and context for its usage.
Thanks Ryan. Would their be any harm in using the same?
No, my recommendation is just a better practice, not a necessity. For the sake of simplicity, you can definitely use the same info for both places with no harmful outcome.
PPC Estimated Traffic, Clicks and Costs
How does Google calculate the estimated traffic and costs when using the keyword tool? How do they derive the minimum and maximum clicks you might get and the prices? Does it use average click thru rates etc in the calc? If so, what are they? thanks
- Mark O. M / London, UK
How does Google calculate the estimated traffic and costs when using the keyword tool?
Google is in excellent position to accurately estimate the traffic on keyword searches since they have 65% of the search market to extrapolate from. This is compared to WordTracker which historically used just a couple of directories that formed about 1% of the search market and extrapolated from there.
Costs are calculated based on competition for a given phrase and the amount of traffic on the phrase. Again, they probably base this on their internal data. The costs are per click, and should be based both on competitions and traffic as well as the current average bid amount for the phrase.
How do they derive the minimum and maximum clicks you might get and the prices?
Based on the price, they can conclude your average position in the sponsored links. Based on their internal data, they can estimate the number of clicks you’ll receive on your advertisement for that keyword. Of course it’s an estimate, your ad might increase your clicks if it is very attractive, which will increase your costs and click through traffic. Alternatively, if you have a lousy advertisement, or low quality score, you might get no clicks. They provide a range to give you an idea based on the knowns they have.
Does it use average click thru rates etc in the calc? If so, what are they? thanks
Definitely, again they are basing their estimates on historical data for people in and outside of your industry. As to what those CTR’s are, it depends on the keyword. I believe they provide you an estimate in the adwords ad builder.
SEO Industry Standards
Talking SEO, is there a singles source for industry standards? I would like to find one?
- Joseph M. M / Omaha, NE
Standards imply that there is a right or wrong. This is a distraction from your goal. The standards you need to be aware of are:
1) Search engine guidelines from Google. As the big kid on the block, you must be aware of their guidelines.
2) Standards of your clients
3) Your own professional standards regarding the work you would claim as your own
Those should be your primary guides.
Build a Successful Blogging Site
What are the best resources to help build a successful blogging site?
- Tony W. M / San Jose, CA
Depends on what you mean by success.
If you are seeking high search engine rankings, then you are going to want to use the All in oneSEO tool and spend time optimizing your posts and pages.
If you are seeking advertising revenue, then you need to form a model for how you will get traffic and research what kinds of advertising is most likely to perform well from a revenue generation perspective.
If you are building a site simply to express yourself, then what you define as success could be as simple as easy maintenance.
SEO resources for beginners
What is your favorite SEO resource for beginners looking to gain experience?
- James S. 29 / M / St. Louis, MO
There is tons of info out there, but the way to learn is through experience. Pick a “long-tail” search word phrase like
and create a page about it and discover what you have to do to get into the first page of Google results. Experience is the ONLY real teacher in SEO.
Some tools you’ll want to familiarize yourself with are here: www.seomoz.org/tools
