Web Experience & SEO : Search Engine Optimization

SEO Standards – I’ll Jump on this Bandwagon

BlogArchive — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:49:00 GMT

Posted by: Tanya Vaughan, Global SEO Manager, HP.com

I just received the Summer edition of Search Marketing Standard magazine (which I love because it’s hard copy – thank you!) and was flipping through the pages when I stumbled across a quick article by Tom Dahm on SEO Standards: Is Now the Right Time?

From Tom’s article there are both arguments for SEO standards and against. I agree that some standards would be nice if only to have something or someone official backing up what I tell my colleagues at HP every day. I’m often faced with commenting that it’s an “industry best practice” which, frankly, just sounds weak a lot of the time.

I can see where it might be challenging to agree on some standards but if you have the right people on the standards board I think many SEO best practices could be wildly agreed upon and put into a standard format for all to reference – again, if only to provide another resource that says “yeah, this is a good tactic that is acceptable or encouraged by the engines”. And just because there are standards, does not mean everyone must or will abide by them (or even read them). Take the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as an example – how many web sites adhere 100% to what the W3C recommend? But I think most would agree that it’s a good resource in the industry.

Working as an in-house SEO requires a lot of justification for things that we SEOs know need to be done. But making the case for certain SEO tactics or strategies to the rest of the organization, whether it be IT or marketing, is often difficult as you’re usually asking them to take your word for it. It’s hard enough that I can’t tell you exactly what the cost benefit of adding a site map to the site is but when I can’t even reference a body that is deemed to be “the source” it’s even more challenging. Sure, I can say my agency said so but we all know how well that goes over in an industry that, unfortunately, may have a tarnished reputation in the eyes of some thanks to some agencies that either don’t know what they’re doing or are black hat.

Whether or not the industry will ever come together and decide to build some common best practices into standards, I agree that companies, at least large companies, need SEO Standards. When I started my SEO job, setting SEO web standards was one of the first tasks I set out to do in order to develop a solid program.

The HP.com SEO web standards (which are part of a broader web standards guide) are available to all our developers and internally so that anyone creating content or developing sites for HP.com can reference them and ensure they are abiding by what HP considers SEO best practices. The standards aren’t just a rules guide either. Every SEO standard we have in place starts with education about what the standard is and why it’s important for SEO. Then we document the best practices to employ. We don’t tell anyone how many keywords to use on a page but we can give great guidance for which an otherwise SEO novice may not have any idea.

One more really important reason for having internal SEO standards for your company is due to the potential of black hats or misinformed agencies making their way in to sell SEO to someone who isn’t knowledgeable enough to ask the right questions or challenge some of the theories or practices (especially when it comes to “automated SEO” – please.). While we have agencies of record for search, I’m always hearing about this or that agency coming in and giving this great pitch about SEO and how we need to do what they said right now!

That’s when standards come in handy so we can clearly document what is and is not acceptable on HP.com.

So the debate goes on – SEO industry standards or not. But SEO standards for large companies are a must!

Google Site Search

BlogArchive — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:37:00 GMT

Posted by: Tanya Vaughan, Global SEO Manager, HP.com

First let me define Google Site Search in the context of this post. What I’m not talking about: (1) Embedding code into your site to enable Google site search on your site (2) using “site:domain.com” commands in Google search boxes to see how many of my domains pages are indexed. What I am talking about specifically is the site search box that is embedded into a company’s branded, number one search result in the Google SERP. For example, see how a search for “Time Magazine” has an embedded search box below?

Ok, now that we’re on the same page, let’s talk about this new feature Google has implemented – not for every site, and in fact for seemingly very few. I imagine they are still testing and learning. It seems, in fact, that the embedded search feature is only being tested for new sites for now (I only found examples on Washington Post, Time Magazine, New York Times and Forbes – notably missing the embedded search box: Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Newsweek Magazine).

First, how does Google decide when to embed the site search box in the search result? I haven’t seen anything official from Google discussing the feature so please share if you have anything.

Second, though, is the question as to whether the embedded search box is intended to better the user experience or is it to generate more revenue for Google AdWords? I think that is the debate among advertisers and bloggers but how about we ask basic searchers who aren’t so entrenched in search as to be thinking about motive or intent?

Recognizing I’m entrenched in search and may be biased, I’ll share my opinions/thoughts (subject to change) about this new feature.

If HP branded search results included an embedded search box I’d probably suggest to HP that we request Google remove it. Why? Several reasons:

HP has invested far more in our on-site search experience than Google has.
We have our own spider and internal rules for what we want indexed and served both organically and in our one-click and HP recommends sections (for more popular search queries) to our customers.
We’ve done our own usability studies, have analyzed our on-site data and click paths and we’ve built that into our search experience.
We also know that someone intending to search for content on a site, is expecting results only from that site. That is not the case with Google’s site search feature.

In the example above, if you type in the search box in the Time Magazine result above and select the button that says “Search time.com” you would expect that results will all come from time.com right? Well, not exactly. Several paid ads may also come up in addition to the organic results from the domain time.com. This is the part that is confusing and seemingly up for debate. Why present additional paid ads to a user looking for content on a particular site?

Some people argue that a searcher can type the function “search query” site:domain.com to get the same results so it’s not really a new feature and what’s the fuss anyway? You can also click the “more results from domain.com” link in some brand results that performs a similar function but doesn’t seem to return any paid listings.

Some propose it’s a poor user experience. Some marketers are unhappy about the potential of losing a customer who was clearly interested in their brand to a paid ad that came up after using the site search functionality. Others contend that if the user is distracted by the paid ad they weren’t that loyal anyway. But what about those people who just don’t know the difference between a paid ad and an organic ad and simply trust Google to provide them with the content they are looking for. The button did say “Search time.com” after all.

I suspect that several users don’t realize that the sponsored listings across the top are paid advertisements. And if they do realize this, they still think that those premium placements are still more relevant than the ones down the right column. I hear all too often that people ignore the listings on the right but not the ones at the top because those are “more relevant”.

So who really cares if there are clicks on the ads after a site search is performed? Well, Google does because they get paid more. The advertisers who are both getting the clicks and losing the clicks care too. But does Google care more about the user who trusts their results are the most relevant? Maybe. It seems less and less ads are being served the more I test this new site search feature. Like HP has more information on users of our site I’m sure Google has more info on their and will use that to determine how they want to move forward with this feature.

Hiring In-house SEOs and SEO Agencies

BlogArchive — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:18:00 GMT

Posted by: Tanya Vaughan, Global SEO Program Manager, HP.com

When I sit on panels at conferences and have conversations outside the panels I often get asked whether I think it's better to have an in-house SEO or an agency. My answer is always "both" but my recommendation is start with a good in-house SEO.

I realize for a small company with a small web site it may not make sense to hire a full-time SEO in house and also retain an agency, so for this post, I'm speaking more from a perspective of a mid-to-large organization with a large web presence.

I wrote a blog post about the topic of bringing search marketing in house in September 07 so I won't restate any of those comments as to why it makes sense to bring search marketing in house. However, once your company decides to hire an in-house SEO, what experience or qualities should they look for? I've talked to a few recruiters to try and help them find the right people and I can see why it's difficult for them to narrow it down. I see lists and groups of self-titled SEOs all over LinkedIn, Facebook and other social networking and job sites and sometimes I run across names of people I know - either through networking or having had worked with them - who I would never consider to be an SEO. Sure they might have dabbled in it - hiring an agency to do an SEO project a time or two or they managed paid search so naturally they are also an SEO but does that really make them an SEO? Not even close.

Not all SEOs are the same so be careful if/when you decide to recruit one. A true SEO will have looked at your site and likely be telling you where you have areas of opportunity in the interview. A true SEO will challenge any agency they work with to answer tough questions and debate topics that haven't been fully answered. A true SEO also doesn't throw every SEO topic or question from the company over the wall to their agency, but rather answers most thoughtfully and completely from their own perspective. A true SEO sees opportunities within the company to which an agency will never have insight. A true SEO shouldn't need an agency for much more than collaboration, trouble shooting and bandwidth; the SEO agency should simply be an extension of the team the in-house SEO manages.

So how do you find a "true" in-house SEO?

I believe there are certain types of people that will naturally be good at SEO whether they are experienced yet or not. I can tell when talking to someone if they are truly interested in learning and really digging in or if they just want to land a job that makes them highly marketable. This is what sets apart a great SEO from a fraud (caveat emptor - it's easy to be a fraud in an industry few hiring companies are yet to fully understand).

Then should you recruit an expert or just give someone in the company the SEO job? You really can do either one but you have to be careful in either instance to make sure you get hat individual who has what it takes to be a true SEO - and in many cases "what it takes" is desire and as cliche as it sounds - passion. It's harder to gauge whether a newbie will retain the desire long-term but anyone who has been doing real SEO for a while - or even trying to learn about it - will have some strong opinions, thoughts or questions on topics beyond title tags. Once you start interviewing candidates you'll get a feel for whether they have the right attitude because if they do, you'll probably have a hard time getting them to stop talking about it. SEOs are geeks and many of the best SEOs don't stop at their own company's web site. There are a lot of great SEOs and great potential SEOs out there - be patient and find the right one.

Now that you've hired your in-house SEO, how do you select an agency? Well, fortunately, you've got an expert now to ask the right questions in the RFP process. If you haven't hired an SEO in house yet, do your homework and know how to ensure you select a solid, experienced SEO agency.

Search day at eTail 2008 in Palm Springs

BlogArchive — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:36:00 GMT

Posted by: Laura Dansbury, Global Hp.com On-site Search Program Manager

Tanya, Vicqui Chan from the HHO store, and I recently attended the first day of eTail 2008 together. We presented the afternoon panel discussion on the 3 pillars of Search: SEO, Paid Search, and On-site Search. It was a great experience for all of us. We are all on different teams. And we would not normally attend a conference together even if we were for cost-savings reasons. But I think the best learning experiences at conferences come from the hallway conversations with peers and coworkers between presentations. We tend to think it is wasteful to send more than one person to an event per team. But I think it is wasteful to ignore the insights and inspirations that occur when people facing the same challenges step away from the office and try to see the bigger picture at the same time! It also ignores the benefits of teambuilding and opportunities to discover new resources.

As we prepared for this event, we discovered new ways we could collaborate beyond what we were already doing. In fact, the brainstorming that occurred was probably the best part of the entire event. We are sharing data, looking for mutual research opportunities, and rethinking long held assumptions. But what about the event itself?

It was first time we have ever seen a conference session combine all 3 areas. We had an enthusiastic reception from the conference organizers when we proposed this topic. At the event, there were about 75-100 people in the room from all the top online retail companies. We started by answering questions that were prepared in advance but quickly moved to open questions from the room. Tanya took the most questions since the majority of the audience was focused on SEO. But Vicqui and I had our share too. Really the biggest challenge was knowing when to stop talking and take the next question because there was so much we could say. The moderator tried to get us to disagree with each other's answers - just to mix it up a bit - but it didn't work. We really have far more synergy and impact when we collaborate than when we focus narrowly on our own fields.

As we talked to the participants we found that even smaller companies are not looking at search holistically. They have different people focused on the 3 areas of search and little or no collaboration. Frequently on-site search is managed by an IT team, SEM is done by a marketing team person, and SEO is the domain of a person on the web team. Sometimes landing pages are duplicated and there is inter-team competition for the same keywords. Once someone lands on a page, the focus is on conversion. But what happens if they search again? Are they lost, what didn't they like about the landing page, do they need more information? How can this step of searching again feed into the design of landing pages and the choice of keywords?

I'd like to hear from other medium and large size companies that have an on-site search program along with SEM/SEO staff. What are they doing to share ideas? Why aren't they collaborating? Or are they different from our eTail audience? It would be great to take this panel presentation to a few larger SES, SMX, and other search conferences and hear audience reactions. Is this a strength unique to HP or is there more we can learn from other search teams?

Landing Pages - SEO vs SEM?

BlogArchive — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:46:00 GMT

Posted by: Tanya Vaughan, Global SEO Manager, HP.com

I recently read an article in Website Magazine entitled Landing Pages: SEO vs SEM, written by Aaron Kupferberg (it was on page 12 of the February edition for those of you who enjoy reading hard copy - as I do - once in a while). It was an interesting perspective and while I don't disagree - especially with the example Arron provided - I do want to provide my perspective on this particular topic.

First, I have a pet peeve about referring to "Pay-Per-Click" or "Sponsored" search marketing as SEM because I consider SEO to be a form or search engine marketing and hence falls under the umbrella of SEM. That aside let's get into the different perspectives on landing pages.

I'll start with the example given by Aaron which was Zappos. He differentiated landing pages for SEO and PPC because of the business Zappos is in and the primary products and services they're known for delivering. (I'm personally a big fan of Zappos so very familiar with their site!) I believe Aaron's point was that for the search term "shoes" Zappos' home page naturally comes up high (#2 for me) in the list of organic results because of their popularity for on-line shoe shopping. And since the home page isn't entirely focused on shoes now that they've expanded to offer clothing, bags, watches and accessories it makes sense to provide a very targeted "shoes" page in the sponsored results.

However, what about all those search terms for which Zappos home page does not dominate top listings in organic? For example watches. Doesn't it then make sense for Zappos to build a really well optimized page for watches that also serves as the landing page for not only sponsored listings but on-site search as well?

This is where I think you have to think about search as a holistic experience - considering sponsored, organic and on-site experiences together. By developing these pages that serve all these search avenues you save money and time on development and maintenance of these pages and you are much less likely to create a confusing experience for searchers who may enter your site from paid search one day and natural or on-site search - using the same or similar keywords - the next. You can also learn from the conversion and actions of all visitors and then break it down by search pillar to see how conversion rates and actions compare.

If companies started to look at organic search the way they look at paid (Specifically around developing new pages to address certain keywords), I think they'd realize there are gaps that need to be addressed for both organic and on-site searches as well.

Google Sitelinks-Why Won’t Google Let Us Designate Sitelinks for Our Domains?

BlogArchive — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:44:00 GMT

Posted by: Tanya Vaughan, Global SEO Program Manager, HP.com

Has anyone else tried using the Google Sitelinks feature in Google Webmaster Tools? I love the idea of it and as soon as I heard about it of course I ran out and submitted my requested edits to update the HP.com sitelinks to what we feel would be a better customer experience – not just for HP customers but for Google customers as well. At HP, we know what portions of our web site are the most popular and what make the most sense to provide in a consolidated search result for someone looking for HP on the web so I was eager to give Google my input. Unfortunately they only wanted to hear half of what I had to say.

In case you aren’t familiar with sitelinks, it’s a feature Google has added to more popular brands in that if you search for a brand e.g. Yahoo!, you see additional links as part of the first result from that brand’s domain:

In adding this user-friendly sitelinks feature, Google also gave the webmaster the ability to block certain links from the sitelinks for that domain in case they were providing links you didn’t feel appropriate for your domain or customers.

When I originally viewed our sitelinks they were pretty good – nice work on the automation part Google. I only had two changes to submit. Basically I wanted to remove a duplicate site and one that was far less popular and relevant and would be better replaced by our consumer store which wasn’t currently on the list (maybe because it’s on a separate subdomain?).

When you “block” links from your sitelinks in Google webmaster tools, there are free form fields where you are requested to enter reasoning for the removal. I figured if this was a free-form field, surely a human editor was reviewing it and would take my input into consideration. So in blocking two links I suggested replacements that made more sense and better represented all of our HP customers – thus providing a better, more relevant customer experience.

The pages I wanted removed were eventually removed – I think it took a couple of weeks but they’re gone. And they did add one of my suggested links – but not with the appropriate link text so it’s actually quite misleading as to what the destination page offers. Also, I think the “automation” took over once again and replaced one of my blocked URLs with another URL that points to the exact same page. Back to square one.

This is what the HP.com sitelinks look like today in Google if you search “HP”:

Unfortunately, Office Store and Office both go to the same place – and ironically it's not the business store as the link would imply but our “Home and Home Office” store – which is really the consumer and home office store and would be better represented by a link that indicated such. Our business store link, which used to be in the list, is now gone.

Today I will once again make an attempt to revise some of these links for more appropriate ones in hopes that Google will take my word that I know what customers coming to HP.com are most interested in.

I’m not sure at what point my manual intervention will override automation but what we at HP would suggest for our sitelinks is going to be a better, more relevant experience for our customers and Google’s so what would be the harm in my designating my own sitelinks?

By the way, I also noticed that some pretty popular sites don’t have sitelinks.

This is the message you get if Google has not generated Site Links for your site:

“Google has not generated any sitelinks for your site. Sitelinks are completely automated, and we show them only if we think they'll be useful to the user. If your site's structure doesn't allow our algorithms to find good sitelinks, or we don't think that the sitelinks are relevant to the user's query, we won't show them. However, we are always working to improve how we find and display sitelinks.”

In fact, when I search for Google, I don’t see any sitelinks for them (although I believe they’ve had some in the past based on the descriptive screen shot they use in the Links feature of Webmaster tools).

There are a few other well-known brands for which I’m surprised not to see sitelinks yet they do appear for lesser-known brands. If a site is ranking number one for their brand name, and they would like to add sitelinks for their brand, why not let them add the ones they find most relevant to their customers?

I realize this is a work in progress for Google but this is one of many instances where allowing more input by the webmaster makes more sense for Google customers than Google trying to automate evertying thus requiring webmasters to guess what it is they need to do to generate the most relevant sitelinks automatically. This is probably true for most sites, but for Enterprise sites in particular, it is not feasible to redesign home pages to test how sitelinks will appear. We either need clearer direction as to what generates these or we need to be able to provide them.

Again, love the new feature Google. Here's to hoping we can have more input so your searchers and our customers can better find what they're looking for.

Yahoo!'s Dynamic URL Rewrite

BlogArchive — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 20:49:00 GMT

Posted by: Tanya Vaughan, Global SEO Program Manager, HP.com

It’s the new year already – and 17 days in! I’ve been MIA on the blog front but not for lack of good intentions. I have a few topics in my head but carving out the time to jot them down requires my laptop be offline and at least a 1.5 hour plane ride. Hence this post I write on my way home from some internal meetings.

I few months ago I posted a blog around the topic of indexed URLs with tracking parameters. I’m pleased to say I’ve seen one of the major search engines address in full force. My comment in the previous post was really an observation and follow-on question as to whether Google figured out a way to eliminate some of HP’s duplicate URLs generated by tracking parameters (primarily for marketing reasons). The bigger question was, however, in their mass deletion of duplicate content created by these tracking parameters were they nice enough to consolidate the link popularity to the base URL?

I never really got the answer to that question but meanwhile Yahoo! has been busy developing a tool within Yahoo! Site Explorer that allows me to directly communicate to them exactly what tracking parameters to ignore – thus removing duplicate content in their index while combining all link popularity to the base URL. It also solves other issues like over-measuring referrals for a campaign because the marketing URL with the tracking parameter was indexed and served in natural search results. This is a great feature and, while I’m excited that Yahoo! has provided this as an option for SEOs, I’d love to see the other engines also provide such functionality.

The feature on Yahoo! is called “Dynamic URL Rewrite” and I encourage any webmaster or SEO to provide rewrite information through Yahoo! Site Explorer. Once we saw this released we quickly jumped on it and we’ve seen a significant drop in indexed URLs with our tracking parameters and an improvement in ranking for many of the pages where proliferation of the tracking URLs was a significant problem. Bravo Yahoo! for developing a feature in your toolbox that solves a common problem for the engine, the webmaster, the site SEO, the marketers and the searchers!

PubCon 2007 in Las Vegas

BlogArchive — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:22:00 GMT

Posted by: Tanya Vaughan, Global SEO Program Manager

I’m finally getting around to blog about my experience at PubCon – catching up after nearly a week out of the office is rough! But now that I have a moment to reflect (and I’ve had some time to recover from several days in Vegas!) I’m ready to share my experience.

In a nutshell- I’m glad I went. How’s that for starters? I’ve now been to SES a few times and SMX Advanced in Seattle so I have basis for comparison and PubCon was every bit as good in some of the same and some different ways. Sure the Google party as part of SES San Jose is hard to beat, but then again, so is Vegas if parties are what you’re interested in. Back to the conference…

The longer I’m in the search marketing industry, the less I take away from the actual conference sessions – even though that is where I learned so much to get where I am today (newbies read: conferences are a must!). Not saying I know it all but I know enough that much of the content is familiar. That said, I always take away a few “A-HA’s” or ideas that kick-start my energy when I get back.

And even though the sessions aren’t the part of the conferences where I get the most value any longer, I find a lot of value in the networking and conversations surrounding the sessions. That’s a big reason why I still attend them – so I can take away conversation pieces and ideas but also find those birds of a feather who have a similar challenge or interest. Being able to talk to other enterprise SEOs is key for success in managing SEO for a global, enterprise site and what better place to do it than a search geek gathering like PubCon?

PubCon didn’t fall short of my expectations at all. I was pleased to find a lot of seasoned experts on the panels as well as in the audience. There were reps from the engines in some of the SEO sessions which is always a benefit of attending search conferences. I had a chance to corner Google’s Maile Ohye (who was on the SEO and Big Search panel) to make the case for better geographic targeting capabilities for enterprise companies. Unfortunately, until bulk verification is available it’s just not feasible for global companies with complex web infrastructures and hundreds of subdomains to use the tool to set geographic targets (or frankly many of the other features in Webmaster Tools). (Sidenote: I’d love to hear if anyone has found a work-around for this as there is a lot we can share with the search engines to help them more efficiently index our site so they serve more relevant content to their customers.) Again, back to the conference…

A few things I like about PubCon:

Session rooms were plenty big enough. I was able to walk in right when the session started and get a seat that wasn’t on the floor or in the doorway. It was nice not to have to show up ten minutes early to find standing room only.
The people in attendance seemed to be a little more advanced – at least in the sessions I attended. As a result the questions were more advanced and provided more value.
PubCon mails you a DVD of the presentations after the conference. For some reason I really like having a DVD with all of the presentations. I think because the only time I really would take time to look at them would be on the plane when accessing them via the web isn’t an option (and apparently neither is my planning ahead to download them!).

Ok, back to the parties… I really didn’t go to many of the parties. I stopped by the cocktail reception on the first night to do some networking and talked to quite a few people but I wouldn’t call it a party. On Thursday though, I did make it to the Microsoft adCenter and Live Search “Party Like a Rock Star” party at the Ghost Bar – which was very nicely done. I even got a photo with Billy Idol and Gwen Stephani – What? They were impersonators? Who knew!?
Did you go to SES or PubCon? Would love to hear your comments!

Why I’m planning to attend PubCon instead of SES Chicago in December

BlogArchive — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:43:00 GMT

Why I’m going to PubCon instead of SES Chicago in December

Posted by: Tanya Vaughan, Global SEO Manager, HP.com

As most of you search geeks know, SES Chicago and WebMaster World’s PubCon are occurring at the same time this year – the first week of December. A lot of us on the SEMPO In-House Committee were conversing about who was going to which conference and why. I’ve decided to go to PubCon over SES…

First, I’ve been to SES three times now. I went to SES New York in April and before that I had been to SES San Jose two years in a row. I learned something from each one although the longer I’m in this industry the less I learn each subsequent time I attend – but that’s to be expected right? If you haven’t been to SES before though, I’d highly recommend it. I think Friday was the last day for early bird pricing so if you missed it you might want to scrounge up a discount elsewhere (maybe join SEMPO – you get a 15% discount as member – not to mention all the other great member benefits). Also, SES is offered multiple times per year and usually my preference is the San Jose event because it’s the biggest and easiest for me to get to travel-wise.

Another, and really the primary, reason I’m going to PubCon is because I’ve never been. I’m looking forward to seeing some new speakers I’ve never seen before as well as some of my favorites from previous conferences I’ve attended like SMX and SES. Obviously I’ll be interested in the SEO tracks, especially as they relate to Enterprise level SEO but I’m really looking forward to SEO and Big Search. I’m also particularly interested in International and European Site Optimization as that’s something you don’t get exposed to much without leaving the States. Matt Cutts always puts on a good gig so I’ll want to catch the keynote coffee chat with him on December 6. I love to see how he handles some of the crazy questions he gets from the audience. And finally I want to branch out of SEO and look more at social media so I’ll try to catch Monetizing Social Media Traffic on Tuesday. Vanessa Fox is speaking on that panel so it will be great to see her in her new role at Zillow as well as catch up on the latest Buffy happenings. I didn’t forget I owe you a drink Vanessa (can I say that in my HP blog? Guess we’ll find out!)

And what really pushed me over the fence I wasn’t really on to begin with was having to choose between Las Vegas or Chicago in December. Love you Chicago but by December I’m ready to warm up a bit!

If you’re going to be at PubCon maybe we’ll have a chance to meet. I always enjoy meeting other people in the search industry – especially SEOs - so if you see me wandering the halls between sessions say hi!

Which conference will you be attending?

Google’s New “Set Geographic Target” Tool – Close but Not Quite…

BlogArchive — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 19:11:00 GMT

Posted by: Tanya Vaughan, Global SEO Manager, HP.com

I have to admit, when I got the notice from Vanessa Fox (previous Google Webmaster Tools product manager) about the ability to tell Google my preferred geographic location, I was ecstatic! This has been a challenge I’ve been trying to address for some time both directly (to the extent I can get any Google facetime) and indirectly through blog posts about International Web Content and Search Engines and pestering of Google personnel. Unfortunately the recent addition of the “Set geographic target” feature in the Webmaster Tools doesn’t quite work for many global web sites.

The feature is a great addition; don’t get me wrong. I applaud Google and other search engines when they allow web masters to tell them a little about their sites to help aid them in their indexation process. (In fact, Yahoo! recently announced a new Dynamic URL Rewriting Tool that’s something webmasters have been wanting for a long time.) However, the new feature in Google’s webmaster tools doesn’t allow for much customization – meaning it was developed to address a few sites that are using subdomains to identify country target. So now, it seems, Google will not only look at top level domains (TLDs) and hosting IPs to determine geographic relevance and inclusion in country-specific indices, it may also look to subdomains that a webmaster has identified as being associated with a particular country or region.

But what if a web site is a truly global web site and uses directory structures (file names) to identify the country and language? Are those still ignored or perhaps will this be the next feature added to the Webmaster Tools within Google? Let’s hope for the latter – and the sooner the better!

SEMPO Launches In-House Salary Survey for Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Optimization (SEO) Professionals

BlogArchive — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 14:06:00 GMT

Posted by: Tanya Vaughan, Global SEO Manager, HP.com

Many companies are considering bringing search marketing in house, whether it be to manage strategy and vendors or managing the campaigns in their entirety. One factor in making this decision is what to pay different levels of SEO and SEM search marketing professionals to ensure you get the best candidate. Since SEO and SEM are relatively new professions, it's a little more challenging to understand the market value of these professionals.

SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization) recently launched an In-House Salary Survey targeting this exact question. If you are an in-house search marketing professional, you may be interested in taking this survey and seeing the results. You do not need to be a SEMPO member as the intention is to get as much feedback from the industry as possible in order to provide relevant analysis. As a bonus if you complete the survey, you'll be provided with the results once they are tallied and analyzed.

>>Take the SEMPO In-House Salary Survey

Bringing Search Marketing In House

BlogArchive — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 17:13:00 GMT

Posted by Tanya Vaughan, Global SEO Manager, HP.com

Search Marketing – should you bring it in house or should you outsource it? If you do bring it in house, what’s the best way to go about it? Do you train or hire experienced search marketers? The latter certainly aren’t easy to come by and even if you do there’s no guarantee they’ll stick around given the industry is short in these resources right now.

This is always a topic of discussion at the search conferences and within blogs and articles across the web.

Marketing Sherpa just recently released their annual Search Marketing Benchmark Guide which highlights the challenges of bringing search marketing in house. Stefan Tornquist, Research Director of Marketing Sherpa Inc. summarized some of these challenges in a post on Search Engine Land. You can also purchase the full Search Marketing Benchmark Guide directly from Marketing Sherpa if you want to dig into the details for yourself.

When I participated on the Big SEO Panel at Search Engine Strategies in New York, this was one of the questions we got was whether it made sense for large organizations to bring search in house or outsource it.

I would argue that the question isn’t whether or not to bring search marketing in house but rather how much of the search marketing efforts should be brought in house.

To some extent every company that uses an agency for search marketing should have a search-savvy employee on staff to manage the search marketing strategy and direct all search marketing efforts regardless of the extent to which the execution of the campaigns is outsourced. The reasons are many but I’ll highlight a few that come to mind – these are just as applicable to small businesses as enterprises like HP.

The search agency doesn’t know your business like you do. Simply looking at the web site and determining the best strategy for a search marketing campaign (paid or natural) is not going to be nearly as effective if the agency doesn’t get some guidance from those who know the overall business strategy.
The Search agency doesn’t know your web site like you do. Every web site has its unique quirks, user-experience, navigation and development process and understanding these before embarking on campaigns (especially SEO) will save you time in the long run. Without someone inside the company to guide them through this, agencies may take an approach that isn’t feasible for your web site.
You have an alternative perspective. A more diverse set of eyes on a project can yield in better results. Looking at your campaigns regularly and questioning tactics and results will result in more proactive campaign management from the agency and will help them think about your specific campaigns from a perspective that is more aligned with your business and strategy. It will also help you to better guide them as the internal strategy and company priorities shift.
You have the ability to network internally. Everyone knows you can launch a search campaign and drive traffic to a page without anyone else’s support or involvement but that doesn’t yield in the most effective search campaign and can actually result in a negative ROI. Having direct links to the content and site owners that can take results from your campaigns to better optimize the site for conversion results in far better search marketing ROI than stand-alone campaigns. And without an internal resource to champion and network it will be impossible to get the required changes made to optimize for natural search.

Again, these are just a few high-level reasons that outsourcing your search marketing entirely may not be the most advantageous but that doesn’t mean you have to hire a search expert in house to manage these campaigns full time. I’ve found that agencies often learn from working with other clients and it improves their ability to efficiently manage your campaigns. And since search marketing is their business, they often stay abreast of changes in the industry that might affect your search campaigns or strategy.

One agency recently wrote an article that stressed the absolute need for outsourcing search marketing. The title will likely come across as offensive to many in-house search marketers “6 Reasons Why In-House Search Marketing (SEM) is Ineffective” but the points they are trying to make can make sense if your in-house team is not experienced in search marketing. But that’s not to say that no company can employ highly-qualified search marketers in house. Perhaps a better title would have been “6 Reasons You Might Want to Employ a Search Marketing Agency” since that’s really want they want you to do anyway.

Many companies have bought search marketing entirely in-house - and very effectively I might add.

A previous colleague (and still close friend) of mine works for a large e-commerce company that manages their entire search effort in house – and they do this from a relatively small town where resources are scarce. For them, finding highly qualified search experts is extremely difficult but they have a model that works very well for their business and they’ve shown that a fully-in-house model is the most effective and efficient way to execute their search marketing strategies and campaigns.

Again, the question I don’t believe is whether or not to bring search in house, it’s how much of the search marketing effort should be in house versus outsourced. That’s a business decision that requires internal resources to determine as more and more marketers employ search strategies and make it more challenging to obtain a positive ROI from these campaigns. Gone are the days that you simply enlist any search agency to launch a campaign to drive traffic to your web site for a few cents a click and leave those campaigns to run unchecked. With the ever growing competition for keywords – even the long tail – it is going to require a much more strategic approach and that requires your internal guidance.

Universal Search and Ask3D – What Blended Search Models Mean to Marketers

BlogArchive — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:32:00 GMT

Posted by: Tanya Vaughan, Global Search Engine Optimization, HP.com

Carol Krol, of B2B Magazine, wrote an article recently regarding blended search –specifically Google Universal Search and Ask3D - and how it impacts search marketing strategies.

Both Google and Ask have launched blended search models. So now when you search you get results other than traditional web sites. You may see videos, news, images, blogs, even music in addition to (or often replacing) some standard results. Danny Sullivan did a great job describing and providing examples of Google’s Universal Search in his blog post on Search Engine Land last May. Ask3D offers a similar experience where you can get more than just a standard web site in your results. You can follow their blog about the new Ask3D product that was introduced in June. They’ve even gone as far as including vertical and music (that you can listen to from the results page) listings.

What does this mean for search marketers? It means blended search models offer a lot of new opportunities for companies to market to and communicate with businesses customers. The ability to provide relevant content via multiple conduits will result in more tailored and suitable communications across a broader set of customers so in that sense it will be a boon for the companies who actually take the time to do it. Blended search also enables companies to capture more listings on a SERP if they offer the most relevant content in multiple formats - i.e. news, images, video, books, etc. - that are now blended in results with products like Google's Universal Search and Ask3D.

How will it change search marketing strategies? Well for starters, blended search may change more than just search marketing strategies. Entire marketing strategies will likely shift to adapt to significant changes or improvements in search experiences since search engines are where so much product, solution and service research is being initiated. With blended search, other mediums - like images and videos - that will get more visibility through search and can be highly effective marketing vehicles for communicating with business customers, will gain more of an emphasis in the marketing mix. Universal Search and Ask3D will require a focus on optimizing all content, not just text.

Campaign measurement, as a result, will be more complex in that there are more data points to measure. However, with any effective metrics and analysis, the key is to hone in on the key metrics that drive the ROI to keep the measurement effort in balance. Figuring out how you should value an image view vs. a video vs. an article view is going to present an additional challenge.

Universal Search and AK3D are great innovations in search as searchers don’t typically think of using other types of search "verticals". With Universal Search and Ask3D results, searchers get visibility to relevant content that isn't limited to web pages. These improvements for searchers, however, will necessitate the need for companies to take an even more strategic approach to developing relevant content and optimizing it for their specific customers' needs - regardless of the medium.

These new blended search models create a whole new set of challenges and opportunities for SEO professionals. It’s a significant challenge in many cases just to optimize web pages since, for large companies, it requires getting everyone up to speed on SEO and then getting them to implement best practices. Now these SEO pros will be tasked with optimization of all types of content rather than just text and site architecture, each with its own set of best practices and unique quirks. The challenge for SEO professionals will continue to be to prioritize efforts according to where they are going to get the best return.

Setting SEO Expectations

BlogArchive — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:57:00 GMT

Posted by Tanya Vaughan, Global SEO Program Manager, HP.com

If you’re an in-house SEO you probably get this same question all the time. What kind of ROI can we expect from our SEO investment? While I can't usually provide a hard and fast number I can at least say with confidence that SEO overall will have a positive ROI. What is more difficult, however, is when I want to employ a certain best practice as part of the grander SEO strategy and I’m asked to justify the ROI for that specific tactic. Take, for example, redirects. It’s virtually impossible to tack an ROI on to making a blanket change of all redirects from 302s to 301s. Or how about developing an on-site site map, or one for submission to the engines or even – what should be the easiest to nail - optimization of a single page for a single keyword?

Let me start first with the bad news: there are no guarantees any degree of SEO effort will make you rank number one or even in the top ten for a given keyword or phrase.

The good news, however, is that SEO can and will help search engines better understand what your site is about and will enable your site then to be served in results for search queries that are relevant. And I’m not just talking about that one high-volume “gold” word but rather all the other limitless iterations of phrases that people might type into a search box to find content on that topic. Sure, gaining top position for that high-volume keyword is the holy grail but even if you don’t it doesn’t mean you can’t garner a significant share of traffic from organic search results by understanding how customers refer to your products and then writing to address that audience using their language. You might not see top ranking for the gold word but you might be surprised to see that hundreds of related phrases are driving smaller numbers of visitors to your site as a result of your optimization efforts. Oftentimes too, these iterations of phrases are more likely to convert because the searcher is more specific about what they want and if you’re offering it, and speaking to it directly, they’re more likely to click through and find what they’re looking for.

SEO is a long-term effort and on-going (that whole journey, not destination analogy). Neither I, nor any other SEO provider, can guarantee you top rankings for any keyword. If they do make that promise, be very cautious and make them put their money where their mouth is – i.e. tell them you don’t pay unless they get you there. See how quickly they backpedal. And if they don’t backpedal, be extremely cautious of what their SEO tactics might be. You could find your site banned from a search engine index if the SEO provider employs black-hat tactics that spam the search engine spiders. Also, even if your site does pull off a top rank for your target keyword today does not mean you will hold that position or even the first page tomorrow. Most reputable SEO providers will set SEO expectations accordingly.

I saw an example recently where a top manufacturer of a product was ranked #1 for a high-volume keyword in Google. Then Google changed their algorithm and they dropped to page four – literally over night. You can imagine what that must have done for their referrals for that query. That’s why it’s important to always be monitoring and paying attention to your natural search referrals. It’s one thing to gain a top position but it’s important to watch overall to ensure that a shift in the market or the engine algorithms or some other butterfly effect doesn’t create a significant problem for your site in search engines.

The expectations I like to set with my management is that I will make the best recommendations for optimizing the hp.com web site for search engine visibility. And regardless of whether we rank well for a targeted term following implementation, I will guarantee the site will be crawled more thoroughly and will provide the search engines with more focused and more targeted content from which to evaluate relevance.

There are many factors (some speculate that it is in excess of 200 for Google) that are considered when a search engine is determining rank for a particular query. Some are well-known in the industry and there are best practices around implementing those. Many, however, are kept secret by the search engines (Google likes to refer to it as their “secret sauce”) as they don’t want webmasters manipulating and spamming the search engines to gain top rankings for sites that don’t offer relevant, valuable content for their users.

The factors we can control are on-page optimization (content and meta tags) and our site structure (to make it easy to crawl and index by the search engine spiders). As part of my role as Global SEO Manager at HP, I aim to give specific guidance to our webmasters and developers on how to create a crawlable and indexable web site and also provide detailed guidance to our content managers on how to create more relevant content (from both a search engine and user perspective) that will establish a foundation for being successful in organic search results.

Other factors we can influence are links. Links are incredibly important in SEO as the search engines see links as votes of authority from other sites. And it’s not just the quantity of links that matter; it’s the quality as well. In fact, one link from a high-quality site (longevity, popularity, relevance and source all come in to play here) can provide much more link juice than 100 links from small, non-authoritative sites that don’t have related content. In fact, if the engine senses that the link was acquired only for SEO purposes it may be considered spam – and no one wants to spam the engines right?

The fact is, from any given tactic we may see results in two weeks or a year but even then it’s difficult to tie it back to the tactic your SEO efforts. Setting realistic SEO expectations will lead to creating a positive SEO experience for your clients, colleagues or management. And SEO success all depends on how well you address the basic and advanced SEO best practices overall.

Integrating SEO and Pay-Per-Click Search Marketing - Interview with Ryan Drey

BlogArchive — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 16:57:00 GMT

Posted by Tanya Vaughan, Global SEO Program Manager, HP.com

After a few schedule changes and coordination efforts, I am finally coming through with the interview with HP’s internal Global Paid Search Marketing Manager, Ryan Drey.

Here’s his mug so you can picture him while reading his witty, yet thoughtful, responses.

Tanya: Ryan, Let's start with the easy one. What is your current title?

Ryan: Manager, Global Search
Brand Marketing

Tanya: What is HP’s overall budget for search? Just kidding – don’t answer that!

Ryan: 400 Million Rubels

Tanya: Wow. That’s a lot of Rubels. About how many people would you estimate manage paid search campaigns at HP?

Ryan: Worldwide I am in contact with about 30 different individuals that manage search for HP. The number of dedicated resources varies by business group though.

Tanya: How does your role differ from these other roles?

Ryan: The main difference is that my activities are not limited to the goals of a single business group. It’s my job to head off potential business group conflict and to address strategic issues that affect HP as a whole.

Tanya: You and I have similar roles in that we are charged with the overall governance of different search programs at HP. What is your advice for someone in a role like this to influence and ensure the extended paid search marketing teams adhere to the governance model when they don’t report directly to you?

Ryan: It is a challenge to have a centralized marketing in a decentralized marketing structure. I manage virtual teams and listen to the needs of each team and add value where I can. I am fortunate to work with teams that really dedicated teams that are eager to test, learn and share. When people want to communicate, it makes my job much easier. Essentially, my key function is to keep information flowing across regions and business groups.

Tanya: What are the responsibilities that fall under you that impact the rest of the paid search marketing community?

Ryan: I take on any issues that affect the company as a whole. I lead discussions on our search strategic framework, agency reviews and best practices. In addition I help implement better analytic tools to further optimize our campaigns and make those tools available to internal marketing teams and our agencies. In regions that have few resources I fund and manage paid search campaigns that support local initiatives. Beyond that I hold monthly global update meetings that help keep everyone informed on anything search related.

Tanya: Do you manage any search campaigns or is your role limited to coordination, communication, governance and strategy?

Ryan: I do manage some search campaigns. We try to integrate our paid search with our public relations teams and I manage those campaigns, but I also co-manage campaigns that support regional initiatives.

Tanya: I face this challenge with SEO and assume you do on the paid side as well but how do you balance conflicting requests from different segments or business divisions of HP? For example, when different groups each want their specific page to show up at the top of HP search results for a particular keyword query?

Ryan: As a whole, our search managers communicate well, and that helps to avoid most conflicts. Small budgets also can help different teams coexist in some cases. We do have a framework for dealing with conflict rather than a strict hierarchy that helps resolve conflicting requests. We evaluate objectives, total coverage, and timing. In most cases we are able to find an equitable solution. I am more of an arbitrator than a strict judge in these cases.

Tanya: To what extent are the paid search marketing campaigns managed in house?

Ryan: Again, our approach varies by the needs of each business group, but in general our agencies manage the day-to-day implementation and optimization of the campaigns and internally we manage strategy. We definitely rely on our agencies for strategic input, but the main decisions are made by each marketing team.

Tanya: How do you educate and encourage integration with the other marketing programs to ensure they integrate paid search into their overall marketing mix?

Ryan: Integration has been a key goal for us since we started doing paid search, and it remains an ongoing challenge. Like many large companies, we have several agencies concentrating on different marketing tactics and we want those agency partners to work as closely together as possible. It’s really the same basic approach of fostering clear and constant communication across teams so that we can take advantage of marketing opportunities in a timely way.

Tanya: Do you consider SEO or on-site search to be important marketing vehicles in addition to paid search? (Ok, I might be leading the witness a little here!)

Ryan: I still have no clue what you SEO guys do. I keep reading this blog hoping to learn something on the subject. Yes, definitely. It’s common mistake to focus only on the paid search. It’s easy to focus on where the big marketing dollars are and of course natural search rarely has a big spend associated with it because it should be built into the workflow. But that’s exactly why it needs attention. Some reports show that over 70% of search clicks are on natural results, and those clicks are essentially free once you have visibility. That’s too large an audience ignore.

Tanya: It’s fairly common for people to confuse arguments for integrating paid search or SEO into their search marketing efforts as an either/or proposition. How do you explain to them that putting forth efforts in both areas makes the most sense and that doing one and not the other is a disservice?

Ryan: That’s a really great question. It’s really easy to get tunnel vision when so many activities are sectioned off as some one else’s responsibility. I am guilty of doing it myself. I think the key is getting our people to think from the customer’s point of view and realize that they may reach our site or store from a variety of ways. We have to anticipate the customer experience and optimize around that. If you only optimize around paid search you are leaving out a huge portion of your audience.

Tanya: How does SEO affect the paid search efforts at HP?

Ryan: Whenever we can rank highly for terms that we’re also bidding on in sponsored search, especially high-volume terms, it sends a message that HP is a leader in the industry. It also acts as a subsidy for the paid campaigns as when the customer chooses to click the organic result we get the benefit of the impression without the cost – enabling our ad dollars to do more.

Tanya: How do you think our Paid Search campaigns can make an impact to further SEO efforts?

Ryan: We can learn a lot from paid search campaigns about customer language and intent and then use that to prioritize SEO efforts.

Tanya: What kind of information could I provide from an SEO front that would aid in better paid search campaign management?

Ryan: I don’t think we need more information as much as we need integration. And in this respect I think our challenges are the same. SEM (Paid, Site, and Natural) has to be included at the strategic level. If we are part of the planning at the very beginning it makes everything else go so much more smoothly.

Tanya: You and I meet on a regular basis (with the on-site search lead, Laura Dansbury) to ensure we’re aligned and can share any thing that might help aid in other search efforts. Are there other ways you see for better integration?

Ryan: Aligning under the same organization could lead to more natural integration, if feasible. Otherwise, a good step toward integration is having shared goals. Aligning with the same measurement goals enables you to impact the nature of regular meetings in that you could manage shared outcomes as opposed to simply providing updates.

Tanya: Do you feel most companies’ higher-level management understand the difference between paid search and organic search and why they are both important?

Ryan: It could be better. I think most everyone has a basic understanding that attention needs to be paid to search. However, management needs to understand the nuances of paid and natural search. Each is changing constantly, and it’s tough for even dedicated search marketers to keep up with best practices. But it’s extremely important senior management understands the benefits of Paid Search and Search Engine Optimization and what it requires to do both well.

We continue to educate, and part of the challenge is making sure that we share the right metrics with management. It’s easy but sometimes misleading to simply show ROI metrics and be done with it. We try to show a well-rounded view of search performance so that search is recognized as a broad-reach medium.

Tanya: You’ve probably heard me stress the importance of stressing which form of search you’re speaking about in any given conversation or communication because of the potential confusion it may cause to the laymen. You’ll notice I always throw in the “paid” qualifier when talking about your program and the reason is that I believe both SEO and on-site search are also marketing and thus part of “search engine marketing” or SEM so I don’t like referring to paid search as such.

Ryan: I agree. It’s important to point out in this forum, because not everyone segments out the different parts of search the way we do. I suspect that in many cases – and often smaller companies – they are pulled together as one function. Pointing out my activities as “paid” is probably the best way to clarify it under the umbrella term of SEM. As you mentioned, we have related but separate teams, but the ultimate goal is that the experience is unified for the customer.

Tanya: What do you think has been the key to the SEO Program and the paid search program being successful in integration?

Ryan: It boils down to a willingness of individuals to work together for a superior outcome. I know that sounds a little high brow, but without our individual business groups continually making the effort to share and listen to each other, there is no way I would be successful at my job.

Thanks for the interview Ryan! I know a lot of large organizations are dealing with how to better integrate search and I think we’ve done a great job at it here at HP. And you’re right; it has to do largely with the individuals with which you integrate. I’m grateful to have such great colleagues who are appreciate the need for cross-search strategy.