| From the Editor: |
 Dear
Reader
Another month has flown by and we have been very busy here at Search Engine College. For this month's newsletter we have answered several common questions, including one regarding the relationship between SEO and web site design, and also how much SEO experts should reveal about their process to clients.
Perhaps the biggest news in the search industry this month has been the launch of a new search engine called Cuil (pronounced "Cool"). Cuil is being touted as having the potential to topple Google off their pedestal.
So what makes Cuil different from other new search engines which have made similar claims?
The main difference is the sheer size of Cuil. Cuil can apparently claim the title of the world's biggest search engine, searching more pages on the web than any other site. Three times as many as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft.
Another claim to Cuil's potential is their handling of privacy concerns. Cuil do not collect user data, which is one of the main reasons users abandon Google in favor of other engines. Also the three company founders are search industry veterans. They include ex-Googlers Anna Patterson and Russell Power of the TeraGoogle project and Tom Costello of IBM's WebFountain project.
Cuil also provides some unique tools for researchers and serious searchers. After you perform a search you sometimes see a box in the upper right-hand side corner which says "Search by Category" with a list of subjects related to your search query. If you roll-over a category it will open and show related refinements.
Even Danny Sullivan thinks Cuil could be a major player. As he points out:
"Google already did a blog post in reaction to Cuil's size claims on Friday, before Cuil even launched or those claims became public. If Google is paying that much attention, everyone should."
We agree! And what does "Cuil" mean? Apparently it is an ancient Irish word for knowledge. Very Cuil indeed!
Enjoy this issue and remember to visit the Ask Kalena blog to check out my daily answers to frequently asked search engine questions. Got a question of your own? Press the big green button on the bottom right to send me your question and you might see it featured here next month.
Until then - wishing you clicks and conversions...
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| Feature Article: |
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Editorial Link Building with Article Marketing
By Sarah Parker 
You have a great website, nicely optimized, easy to navigate and you have conducted a good solid general link building campaign. Your page rank has increased and you are happy with the flow of visitors to your site. What is next? How can you maintain your online reputation and continue to build good quality incoming links over time? You might want to consider editorial link building via an Article Marketing campaign.
The first thing you need for a quality Article Marketing campaign is a selection of well-written, keyword-rich articles related to your niche industry. Depending on your time and budget constraints, either hire a freelance writer or have them written in-house. Each article will be published with a resource box at the bottom acknowledging the author and a link back to your web site.
Articles are more likely to be published if they are informative rather than promotional. For example, if you are the webmaster of a 'tour guide' travel site, write a selection of well-written travel articles covering topics such as:
- travel experiences,
- vaccination suggestions,
- tourist attractions,
- architectural and religious history,
- do's and don'ts for safe travel.
This will establish your company as an authority in your market niche and create consumer confidence in your service.
Imagine a potential customer daydreaming at work about a future trip to Italy. He hasn't decided on the particulars of his journey yet. He enters the search query
"Tourist Attractions in Italy" and your article appears in the search results. He reads the article which describes the history and various tourist attractions of an ancient Roman city in Italy. The article is informative, well written and by the time he finishes reading, he has decided he would like to go there. He clicks on your company's link in the resource box and lands on your travel site. Not only has he landed on your site as a potential customer, he has arrived with a positive expectation, as 'first contact' has already been made via your article.
Effective distribution is very important for the success of any article marketing campaign. Compiling a distribution list of niche article directories can be time consuming, but it is time well spent and will ensure the success of your campaign. For an extensive list of article directories visit: Search Engine Wiki Article Directories.
Depending on whether you intend to distribute your article to dozens or hundreds of article directories, you may wish to consider using article submission software. Article submission software does not fully automate the process, but it can take the sting out of it. If you use submission software it is important to personally monitor that your article is submitted to relevant directories and published within relevant categories. In the case of hundreds of submissions, a good quality submission program can ensure the process takes a day or two, not a week or two. I can recommend Article Submitter by Submit Suite for this purpose.
As an ongoing strategy, article marketing can produce tremendous results for your company. Remember, article circulation and referencing within the web is potentially eternal. A good article can live forever and provide hundreds of back links to your site over time. If you are interested in learning more about how to effectively harness the potential of article marketing for your company, take our Article Marketing and Distribution Course here at Search Engine College.
About the Author:
Sarah Parker is a Virtual Assistant for Jordan Consulting Group, Student Liaison Officer at Search Engine College, and Editor at Search Engine Wiki.
Search Industry Job of the Month
Got positions vacant or short term projects you'd like advertised? Sign up for a free account with the Search Engine College Jobs Board and find great candidates.
Search Marketing Specialist
Job Title: Search Marketing Specialist
Job Reference #: Unknown
Position Type: full time
Name of employer: Become.com
Location: Mountainview, California
Date Posted: 15 August 2008
Position description:
Become.com is seeking an energetic, enthusiastic, highly quantitative professional to help manage important parts of its Internet marketing efforts. This effort includes managing keyword portfolios and paid search processes. The position will have responsibility for managing the financial performance for assigned keyword portfolios. This person must be comfortable working in a high-energy, start-up environment and have a passion for learning about the e-commerce and search segments of the Internet industry. This job has a starting salary of $35,000/year in addition to pre-ipo stock options and healthcare benefits.
Job Requirements & Responsibilities:
- Maintain a database of keywords, categories and campaigns.
- Lead the ongoing development and optimization of the keyword portfolio
- Take responsibility for key paid search business performance metrics; revenue per visitor, conversion rates, overall revenue, and cost per click
- Optimize performance of the keyword portfolio by testing new creative, landing pages. Key goals are to maximize revenue while maintaining required ROI
- Design and execute data analysis to enable decision making associated with paid search initiatives
- Interact extensively with a wide variety of individuals throughout the organization including Business Team, Product Team, Engineering Team and Senior Management
Qualifications & Experience:
- BA/BS in Business, Economics or other Quantitative and Analytical Major
- High level of comfort with data-oriented, quantitative decision making
- Exceptional quantitative skills
- Excellent communication skills
- Experience and comfort in working in a team environment
- Positive attitude and enthusiasm for getting results
- 0-3 years work experience
Become, Inc. is an exciting and fast growing search engine company in the Silicon Valley. As a venture-funded Internet startup, they have built a shopping research and price comparison site that uses some of the most advanced technology on the web. They have won many awards for our service, including Forbes (Best of the Web), BusinessWeek (Best of the Web) and PC Magazine (Top 101 Web Sites).
They offer competitive salaries, generous stock options, medical benefits, and a great work environment. This is an opportunity to join an early-stage venture and make a significant contribution to building a great company.
For immediate consideration, please send your resume in Word or PDF format to job.smspec[at]become.com with subject line "Internet Marketing Specialist".
Salary range: Unknown
Closing date: Unknown
More info from: [www.become.com]
Contact: Send resumes to job.smspec[at]become.com
"Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one."
Malcolm Forbes (1919 - 1990)
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That's right, a $50 discount on each and every individual course we offer. But you must enroll via this link and follow the instructions on that page for applying the discount coupon at the checkout.
Happy studying!
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Have a great day!
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FAQ 1: Why do older unoptimized sites sometimes rank better than younger optimized ones?
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Hello Kalena... 
A question I've often been asked and don't really have a good answer for is; Why - when a site is NOT optimized at all for search engines, but it IS an older site, it's been around a while - does it rank better than younger sites that HAVE been optimized?
Thank You!
Amy
Dear Amy
In their ranking algorithm, Google takes into account the age of a domain, as well as the history of a domain and the age and quality of links pointing to it. Sites that are new to the Internet take a while to build up "trust rank" and link history in Google. So you'll sometimes see older, well-established sites that don't appear to be optimized out-ranking their younger optimized competitors for target keywords.
Make sense?
Kalena
FAQ 2: Do Ask and Lycos use and/or in default searches?
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Dear Kalena... 
I am trying to find info about some search engines, but it is extremely difficult. With Ask.com and Lycos, are their default searches and or or - or are they both? Other sites seem to have the info available somewhere, but these two - arrrggghhh!
Thank You
Leah
Dear Leah
In the case of Ask.com, the default search is "or". You can tell this by doing a search for "fish chips". You'll see that Ask throws up results for "fish chips", "fish & chips" and "fish and chips". Learn more about Ask's Web Search works here.
Do the same search at Lycos and you'll see results like "fish & chips" and "fish 'n' chips" as well as "fish and chips", suggesting that Lycos also uses "or" as their default search.
Hope this helps!
Kalena
FAQ 3: Should SEO's take on jobs involving a mix of SEO and design?
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Hi Kalena... 
You give all kinds of great SEO advice on your site. This question is more about the business of SEO.
When you are applying or looking for SEO jobs you see a lot of postings for SEO and Design in one job. Most SEO's I know aren't designers. Since I don't classify myself as a designer but, like any advance SEO consultant, can do some design/webmaster work, my question is when you see job postings like this one, what do you think? I spoke with them and in order to be completely effective the direction they want to go will need some design work. What do you think about these types of jobs for an SEO?
Thanks
Chris
Dear Chris
It all depends on whether you know you can do what they are expecting and also on whether they are a good *fit* for your business. I find that when taking on new clients, half the battle is in educating them about what they want vs. what they need. Many prospects come to me with a specific idea of what they think they want, whether that's top 5 rankings in Google, more sales, more traffic than their competitors or simply more exposure on the web.
Nine times out of ten I need to re-educate them about what's achievable with SEO (or PPC) and help them shift their goals to ones that would actually benefit their business. If they aren't willing to take my advice and trust me to take all steps required to achieve their goals, I would rather walk away from the business.
Example: I had a potential client come to me insistent on wanting to be number #1 on Google within two months for a particular (very competitive) search query. Researching his competition and the top rankings on Google alerted me to the fact that it would be almost impossible to achieve that goal for him without resorting to aggressive short-term, risky, link building / buying. I wasn't prepared to do this when there were so many other search queries he could target using SEO that would have brought him just as much, or even more, traffic combined. But he couldn't let his obsession with this particular search query go. So I refunded his deposit and told him to look elsewhere, despite having invested a considerable amount of time and effort.
So my point is - make sure the communication between you and your potential client is crystal clear about what you can or can't do for them as well as what you are or you aren't willing to do for them. If their site will require a complete re-design, don't sugar-coat the news, tell it straight and explain that they will recoup the additional cost once their site is search engine compatible. If you can't do the re-design yourself, outsource it and pass that cost onto the client in the fairest possible way.
But you're right, many SEO projects these days do require some design work. If you can't do that side of things, or just prefer not to, my advice is to partner with a few trusted web designers in your region to whom you can farm out the design aspects of any SEO projects you take on.
Good luck!
Kalena
FAQ 4: Do I need to submit alternative descriptions for each search engine?
Dear Kalena...
I have recently optimized a friend's website. The site was already listed with Google and Yahoo etc. I have noticed that since uploading the site a few weeks ago the new description and title for the home page is now listed and a few of the new page extensions.
In the SEO 201 course, you recommended submitting different listing descriptions for each search engine/directory. However, all the search engines are just using the title and description from each page they have listed.
1) Should I be listing pages not listed on the popular search engines or wait till the find them.
2) Should I only submit alternative descriptions where the site is not currently listed and do I only need to submit the home page?
With thanks
Peta
Dear Peta
You generally don't need to submit sites to search engines as they will be discovered, provided there is at least one site pointing to them. But what you should make sure of is that each page on your site is being indexed. You can do this by creating an XML sitemap of your site and submitting it to Google via Webmaster Tools (also via Yahoo). More info is available at www.sitemaps.org.
Regarding different descriptions and titles - search engines will use whatever they think is the most relevant snippet from a page in relation to the search query. This could be taken from the title tag, the description or from the text on the page itself. You can control this to some extent by making sure each page on your site is optimized for a small range of target keywords/phrases so that each page has the opportunity to rank on it's own merit.
When I talk about submitting different descriptions, I am generally talking about when submitting your site to niche directories and search engines that don't automatically crawl sites to discover new pages. If you use different descriptions for these submissions, you can easily track keyword referrals in your log files and recognize which sites are bringing you the most traffic. I hope this answers your question.
Kalena
FAQ 5: Is it normal for SEO/SEM firms to disclose their process to clients?
Dear Kalena...
Is it unusual for a SEO/SEM firm to NOT disclose to their clients what their process for SEO/SEM is? Isn't it the client's right to know exactly what is being done on their behalf??
Thanks,
Susan
Dear Susan
I certainly advocate education between SEO and client, but I do know of many SEO operators that prefer not to reveal their process. By the same token, some clients will be very interested in learning what is being done to their site, while others will have no interest at all.
I particularly hate it when SEO/SEM operators claim that what they are doing is "proprietry" or "secret" - really there is no secret sauce for SEO - just acquired knowledge, experience, trial and error!
Kalena
Got a question? Ask Me:
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