Search Engine Optimization and Internet marketing Blog

Yahoo and Bing Integration complete and ready for transition

Posted by Jude Festus on August 31st, 2010

The much anticipated Yahoo search and Bing integration is complete and ready for the advertisers. As a part of the transition you need to migrate your ppc campaigns from Yahoo to Microsoft adcenter. Once you login to your Yahoo ad account you will be shown a page with the steps for migration.

Transcript from the Yahoo blog.

You’ll be ready for the expected October move of Yahoo! Search ad serving to adCenter

As part of the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance, all Yahoo! Search Marketing advertisers will transition to using the Microsoft Advertising adCenter search application. Yesterday Yahoo made this announcement in it’s search advertising blog. Once the transition of your Yahoo! account to adCenter is complete, you’ll have one account that will enable you to:

Reach up to 150 million search users combined across Yahoo! Search and Bing
Get up to 62% more search volume than on Yahoo! alone
Get more value for the time you spend managing campaigns

Before beginning the transition process make sure that you are using IE latest version. Microsoft adcenter is not compatible with Chrome.

Huh! Now we don’t have to manage three accounts…

Shocking!! Google Adwords Goof up

Posted by Jude Festus on June 25th, 2010

Today when i was doing some Googling i found this particular ad. Clicking this ad shattered my years of trust which i had on Google. Watch this video and take a pinch of shock with you.

How an ad with so many redirects which is landing on an error page and
which again take us to a irrelevant content got approved?

>
Couldn’t believe how this ad got approved?

Google vs Baidu Vs Bing Logo on Father’s day

Posted by Jude Festus on June 20th, 2010

Google vs Baidu Vs Bing Logo on Father’s day

It’s very surprising how Google missed the doodle this year!!!!!

Baidu’s Father’s day logo.

Bing’s Father’s day Image

I like Baidu’s Logo.. Which one you like?

Joomla Fatal error: Call to undefined method stdClass::onDisplay() in joomla/html/editor.php on line 268

Posted by Jude Festus on June 20th, 2010

Today i encountered an issue in my Joomla based website when i tried to edit one of the module data. Below is the error message i received:

“Fatal error: Call to undefined method stdClass::onDisplay() in joomla/html/editor.php on line 268″

After searching in Google for a while i found the answer in a forum, this is what i did to resolve the issue in my joomla based website.

Edit the file “editor.php” in the folder libraries/joomla/html

Replaced the line $resultTest = $plugin->onDisplay($editor);
(which is in line 261 after the line
“// Try to authenticate — only add to array if authentication is successful”)

to

if (method_exists($plugin, ‘onDisplay’)) {
$result[] = $plugin->onDisplay($editor);
}

It worked for me. Hope it will work for you too..

Google Caffeine Update: How effective it’s going to be?

Posted by Jude Festus on June 8th, 2010

Finally the much awaited Google Caffeine is live.

As per Google the new Caffeine update will provide 50 percent fresher results for web searches.

Which means Google has to craw and index the web pages very frequently than the previous algorithms. So the frequency of updates and the volume of the data will be more, which throws some very interesting stats:

Every second Caffeine processes hundreds of thousands of pages in parallel -if this were a pile of paper it would grow three miles taller every second
Caffeine takes up nearly 100 million gigabytes of storage in one database and adds new information at a rate of hundreds of thousands of gigabytes per day
You would need 625,000 of the largest iPods to store that much information; if these were stacked end-to-end they would go for more than 40 miles

This new update also throws some interesting questions:

Will Content spammers exploit this opportunity?
Will Google pay more attention to the “new” result than the “relevant” result in future?

Time will answer these questions. Let’s wait and watch..

SEO Keywords Selection: How to select the best keywords for your SEO campaigns

Posted by Jude Festus on June 7th, 2010

Keyword selection is the most important step in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. Smart selection of keywords is the first step towards the success of your SEO campaigns. In this article I have presented the ways I use to select the keywords for my SEO campaign. For this discussion let me use the keyword “CRM”.

Google Keyword Suggestion Tool

You’re targeting Google and definitely this is the first place you should go to select your keywords. Enter the keyword “CRM” and get the keyword suggestions by Google. Make sure you have selected your country of target in the field just above the search box. I usually keep the match type as “Exact” as this will give me more clarity on the keywords which I have to choose. After zeroing in the keyword which you’re planning to use, click on the “Google insights” button to view the search trend in Google over a period.

Export the selected keywords which you’re planning to target and keep this in one sheet and in the other sheet note the trends/position of all the available keywords. This will help you to prioritize your keywords based on the trend and the search volume.

Once you’re done with your keyword selection then next step is to verify your selection. There may also be some related keywords which you might have missed in your first step. So let’s make sure we haven’t missed any related keywords. Below are the few ways to verify your selection and ensure the quality of your selection.

Google Search Suggestion

Go to Google.com and type in your keyword CRM and Google will present you some related keywords as you typein. Note down all the keywords listed and click search with your search term “CRM” once again Google will present you with some related search suggestions. Take a note of this and compare all the keywords which you have selected during this process with your original list. If you found any new keyword using this method, go to Step one and check the search volume and trend of that keyword. Based on the search volume you can decide whether to add this to the original list.

Try different iteration with different related search terms and build your list.

2. Search in Wikipedia

This step will help a lot for the search engine service agencies who work on their client’s campaigns optimizing some difficult business terms or products.

Search in Wikipedia and read the relevant CRM article. This will help you to understand more about CRM and the related keywords. When you read the article note down the keywords (business terms, sub sections, images… etc) within in the article and check the global volume for those keywords as mentioned in the step 1.

3. Keyword Spy

Goto Keyword Spy and check the “Keywords” radio button and enter your keyword. In the results page the overview tab will give you some related CRM keywords and the “organic competitors” tab will show the top 20 competitors for that particular keyword. If you’re using a free version of the tool then you will get only limited results (upto 20).

This step will help you to compare and verify the keywords which you have chosen in using the Google keyword suggestion tool and analysis the competition for that particular keyword.

When you follow the above mentioned list you’ll get a very quality selection of keywords for your SEO campaign. These are the step I follow in my SEO campaigns for keyword selection. If you have a different view on these steps or if you follow a different strategy for your keyword selection please let me know and will be glad to add those to this list.

Twitter: Find and follow people of similar interests

Posted by Jude Festus on June 3rd, 2010



Google recently launched a new experimental service in Google Labs
called Google Follow Finder. This will help you to expand your
Twitter network by suggesting profiles with similar interest.
This came as a boon to me as i was quite frustrated with Twitter's
search features. Finding profiles of your interest in Twitter is
pretty simple with with Google Follow Finder, simply enter your
Twitter account name and you’ll see a list of people you might be
interested in following. You can also get interesting suggestions
by entering other Twitter user names. Here’s what it looks like:

 



If you see someone you want to follow, just click “Follow on

Twitter,” log in, and they’ll be added to your following list in
Twitter. This integration is based on Twitter’s new @anywhere
frameworks, which make it easy for any site to add Twitter
functionality. We’re using the frameworks to provide dynamic
information about Twitter accounts and one-click following.
The lists in Google Follow Finder are generated using public
following and follower lists on Twitter. For example, if you
follow Mattcutt and Google Blof on Twitter, and most people who
follow Mattcutt and Google Blog also tend to follow other important
SEO folks in the industry. So in this case Google follow finder may
suggest other SEO folks as a “Tweep you might like.” The list of
“Tweeps with similar followers” is simply a list of accounts with
similar follower lists to yours.


Happy Tweeting Guys!

Google search becomes more social

Posted by Jude Festus on January 28th, 2010

Word of mouth publicity is considered as one of the most effective marketing tactic. The reason is obvious because we go with the suggestion of the people whom we trust. Let’s say if you want to buy a book do you prefer “someone’s review or your friends review? More likely it must be your friends review. How you’re going to find the reviews of your friend!!! Well, Google has come up with a solution to search your friends blogs, twitter and whatever he/she has shared. To make your account searchable you have to set a Google profile page and you have to decide what you have to share.

A short video by Google on this below:

Concerns about this new feature:

1. Privacy Issues

It’s good for the people who loves you. What about the people who hates you? Won’t they misuse it?
It’s all in your hand. If you think there is a risk involved don’t go for it and you don’t have to create your Google profile. Just simple as that.

2. Content Spamming
Twitter and Facebook are already smothered with content spammers who does that for marketing benefits. My suggestion is not to add someone as your friend whom you don’t know anything about in any of the social networking sites unless you have any marketing intentions.

How it’s going to benefit Google?
As most you might know Google ads is the main revenue source for Google and this initiative will definitely help them a lot. Setting up a Google profile will help them to understand more about each visitor and they can serve better targeted ads to you. As a Google Adwords user i’m really waiting to see this feature included in Google Adwords

Well for the people who cry about their privacy, don’t login to Google profiles when you search something in Google. And if you’re using Google Chrome you have the incognito mode… Just simple as that.

Librarywala .com Promotion code

Posted by Jude Festus on December 2nd, 2009

For the past few weeks i was thinking about registering with librarywala.com and after reading many good / positive reviews about the website i decided to register. i registered for the “Cubic Plan” for which i will get 3 Books per month (max 2 Books at a time) for a monthly fee of Rs.139. Initially you have to pay Rs.499 as a refundable security deposit and Rs.499 as a registration fee. The registration fee will be waived if you use the following librarywala promotion code “libaxis639″. It worked for me, pray before your signup I haven’t ordered any book yet but i’ll order it in couple of days and pack it for my vacation.

Rs.25,000 Blog contest for Indian blogs

Posted by Jude Festus on November 1st, 2008

On the occasion of Kanyakumari’ s 53rd birthday, hikanyakumari.com announces
Rs.25,000 worth Blog Contest.

Send us your blog details and participate in the Rs.25,000 worth Blog Contest.

Send your blog details here: http://www.hikanyakumari.com

1. First Prize (Ist English): Two days accommodation with food in the resort Indian Hermitage (12 km from Kanyakumari) for a couple – Worth Rs. 10,000
2. First prize (Ist Regional Language): Two days accommodation with food in the resort Indian Hermitage (12 km from Kanyakumari) for a couple – Worth Rs. 10,000
3. Second Prize (English): Two days accommodation in New Cape Hotel, Kanyakumari + Kanyakumari site seeing for a couple – Worth Rs. 4500