Ask Kalena

Oooh you're back! Lookin good. Have you lost weight? Yes, that was a compliment designed to butter you up for my next question. Subscribed to my feed yet? :-)

We’ve all been expecting it, but today was the day Google decided to roll out their answer to Twitter: Google Buzz.

I haven’t had much of a play with it yet, but the fact that it’s integrated with Gmail will probably make it very popular, very quickly.

From the official Google Blog post:

“Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting. It’s built right into Gmail, so you don’t have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch – it just works. If you think about it, there’s always been a big social network underlying Gmail. Buzz brings this network to the surface by automatically setting you up to follow the people you email and chat with the most.

We focused on building an easy-to-use sharing experience that richly integrates photos, videos and links, and makes it easy to share publicly or privately (so you don’t have to use different tools to share with different audiences). Plus, Buzz integrates tightly with your existing Gmail inbox, so you’re sure to see the stuff that matters most as it happens in real time.”

I plan to write a detailed article about Google Buzz, but here’s a quick run down of the main features:

• Runs within Gmail
• Embeds images
• Embeds inline video
• Emails status updates
• Automatically works on mobiles without 3rd party applications
• Connects to Picasa, Flickr & Twitter
• No 140 character limit

It’s interesting that it integrates with Twitter. That suggests a deal has been done behind closed doors to ensure both products don’t compete head to head, but Twitter may still lose some audience now that Gmail offers both chat and a link sharing tool.

In some ways, it’s more like Stumble Upon in that it’s a more powerful tool for sharing links, videos and images than Twitter is. But because it operates within Gmail, I’m concerned that much of the conversation will be lost between email threads. We’ll have to wait and see.

I for one won’t be abandoning Twitter in a hurry.

Dear Kalena…

Is there a Google method to find the ranking of a specific search term? For example if I’m tweaking my site as I sell thermo seals, I’d be interested to see if more people search for ‘thermo seals’ or ‘winter window leaks’ or ’stop window drafts’ etc. etc.

If I see that one term gets 5,000 hits or is ranked #17,500 where as another one gets 7,000 hits and is ranked #12,345 then I’d be sure to talk the talk of the higher rated search term. I’d like to enter terms, get some form of ranking and then enter another term, so that I have an apples to apples list of results.

Thanks

Dave

Hi Dave…

Although Google is generally against automated rank checking / reporting, they do allow you to research historical organic search data using their Insights For Search. This will allow you to compare search patterns and volume for various search terms and keywords across specific regions, categories, time frames etc.

For paid search listings, you can use the Google Adwords Traffic Estimator. This gives you estimates on the typical number of clicks you’re likely to receive if you were to bid on these keywords using Google’s Pay Per Click system – Adwords. And with this information, you can then identify which keywords are worth optimising for. Generally, more people click on organic search rankings than paid listings, so this type of data won’t give you an exact figure if your focus is organic traffic, but it certainly works well as a guide.

If you’re willing to spend some money and would like to see what keywords your competitors are focusing on (along with the traffic they attract and a whole bunch of other competitive information), you could try tools such as SEM Rush, Compete.com or SpyFu.

There are plenty of other tools out there that can help achieve similar results, so if you have a favorite or would like to share the tools you use, add some comments below.

Hope this helps!

Cheers

Peter Newsome
Brisbane SEO with SiteMost

Did you know that Search Engine Wiki – the world’s first vertical wiki dedicated to search engines and search engine marketing is now two years old? It’s true!  To celebrate, we’ve taken the site out of BETA and given it a facelift.

Long time readers of this blog will remember when we first launched the site back in November 2007. The idea behind Search Engine Wiki is to provide a collaborative online library of search engine marketing (SEM) resources.

We’ve been spending a lot of time on Search Engine Wiki lately, adding new resources and checking for broken links. We’re particularly proud of our comprehensive list of worldwide search engines and directories, categorized by country and region.

Our list of Australian search engines has just been updated this week, so if you run link building campaigns for Australian clients, you might want to pop your head in there and make sure their sites are listed in all of them. We’ll be making a post here soon featuring all the new Australian search engines and directories.

Another popular section of Search Engine Wiki is our Niche Search Engines category. In here you’ll find lists of search engines and directories categorized by niche, industry or theme e.g. weddings, business, travel or government.

So if you haven’t visited Search Engine Wiki for a while, now’s a great time to pop in. It’s a community wiki, so if you have additional search engines, tools or resources to add, we’d welcome your contributions.

Hi Kalena…

What program/software you recommend (the best in the market) to manage multiple accounts for SEO?

thanks
Asher

Hi Asher

It depends what you mean by “managing multiple SEO accounts”. If you mean manage multiple client projects, I’ve heard WebCEO is good for that, but I’ve only tested it briefly. I prefer to use a tailored Excel spreadsheet to keep track of client link data etc.

I also use Freshbooks to invoice clients and timesheet their services and ProposalKit to create client proposals.

I don’t recommend any specific tools to perform the site optimization itself – that should always be done manually if possible. There are however some useful SEO tools for determining or reviewing various aspects of the page/site optimization. SEO Book Tools and SEOmoz Tools spring to mind.

Also check out the tools category on Search Engine Wiki.

Hi Kalena,

wanted to ask you a question regarding ‘website auditing. 1.Is it good to audit the website using the tools or its good to audit the website manually. Can you please suggest some good auditing tools.

Tamali

Hi Tamali,

The best tools to use for an SEO Audit largely depend on the purpose of the Audit.

If you want a quick status update to see how an optimisation campaign is going, or the CEO has asked for SEO information on the corporate website (and doesn’t want the detail), than a single SEO tool that provides an overall score might be OK.

Usually however, when undertaking an SEO Audit, you will be looking for much more than an overall rating. The aufit process you use should highlight a range of issues, and identify a number of areas where optimisation can be applied. For a proper SEO Audit, I would recommend using a variety of different tools, and a number of manual processes as well – each focused on a particular aspect of the site and optimisation strategy.

As you are probably aware, there are many many SEO Tools available (try a Google search for “SEO Tool”). Like all things in life, some of these are better than others – depending on your specific needs.

When evaluating an SEO tool, I suggest that you try it out first against a site with which you are very familiar – and see how it goes – are the results what you would expect ? Are the recommendations reasonable ?. Also, try to dig into the detail to understand what a tool actually does and how it does it – Don’t blindly accept the data and recommendations made by any tool – or you could find yourself spending lots of time and effort “optimising” your site – with little real benefit.

SEOMOz has a range of very sexy SEO Tools (some are Free , others are only available to PRO Members).

You could also take a look on Search Marketing Standard at a recent series of articles on Conducting your own SEO Audit - by Rebecca Appleton. This series of 3 articles provides a good outline on the types of areas that you should be examining as a part of an SEO Audit.

Andy Henderson
Ireckon Web Marketing