Don’t get me wrong, I’m the first person you’ll see constantly asking about project statuses and bubbling it up. But in the meantime, you’ll need to find out how you can deal with those resource constraints, while still remaining productive and not failing at your job.

Internal partnerships

Internal partnerships are always a big part of SEO. It is such a holistic process that you need to get everyone on your side when you’re starting a new InHouse SEO job. Just like selling the company on why it is important, you need to sell to individual teams how they are important to the holistic process.

List out all the partners that you need to make in the organization: PR/Marketing communications and how to leverage PR, Biz Dev and how they structure partnerships, engineering and how they architect the site, and the list goes on and on. Spend the down time to build and solidify those relationships and go on coffee/lunch breaks, plan happy hours, and do other intangibles that will help win people over and get things moving in the right direction.

External partnerships & business development

Sales efforts, creating partnerships, and finding business development opportunities is so important within SEO. It’s crucial to make deals with others in areas like link building and content distribution. Take a step back and look at the opportunities out there and the companies that you can parter with. Find the in’s, ask yourself “what they are lacking?”, and find a way to make it mutually beneficial for both organizations.

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Before I start with a problem site, I take a few measurements.  Whenever you’re trying to solve a problem, you need to figure out where you’re starting from to make sure you’re helping and not hurting your efforts. I start by pulling a variety of data:

1. Note the number of submitted and indexed pages from Google Webmaster Central. Generally, you need to submit a sitemap to get this data, and if you’re having indexing problems,  this can really help. That being said, I don’t always submit an XML sitemap to Google. There are times to do it, and times to not worry about it. If I haven’t submitted a sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools, I do a site:domain.com query in Google and look at the number of pages listed initially. By paging through all of the results of the site: query, you’ll see that number reduce as you get to the “end.”  This is the true number of pages Google has in the index showing as query results.
2. Run an SEMRush report to measure how many organic top-20 rankings I have.
3. Use a crawling program to pull a realistic page list from my site.  Once I have this list I move through and eliminate any pages I don’t want in the index and figure out how I have or should have eliminated them, either by no index tags, roboots.txt exclusion, or parameter exclusion in Webmaster Tools (see more about parameter exclusion below).

NOTE: If my number of indexed pages matches my total page count pretty closely, I’m not really looking at a problem. The reality is – the larger the site, the more problems I generally find.

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Speaking during the “Ask the Search Engines” session at SMX West on Thursday, reps from both search engines said they’re in the process of supporting rel=canonical right now.

Bing’s Sasi Parthasarathy told attendees that canonical tag support should be in place by the end of March or early April. Arnab Bhattacharjee of Yahoo said they’re currently rolling out support of the tag, but cautioned that Yahoo will only use it “as a hint” regarding a web page’s original/primary URL.

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Chris Sherman will moderate, and scheduled speakers include:

• Vanessa Fox, Contributing Editor, Search Engine Land
• Avinash Kaushik, Analytics Evangelist, Google Inc.
• Misty Locke, President, Range Online Media & Chief Strategy Officer, iProspect, Range Online Media / iProspect
• David Roth, Director of Search Engine Marketing, Yahoo! Inc.

It’s all set to start at 9:00 am, so come back then to follow-along with what’s being said (or at least to watch me fumble desperately as I try to keep up with what five people are saying at once).

CS: We’ve had an interesting year in search. Quite often, it’s just Google, Google, Google. But in the past year, we’ve seen more radical change than I’ve seen in the past 15 years of following the search industry. It’s very exciting. And that’s why we’ve assembled this panel.

The key question, when we were here last year, we were in the early stages of an economic meltdown. One year later, how are we doing? Does search still have a bright future?

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The first group was told to search for a product they might buy, and were called the “consumer” group. The second group was told to simply look for information on a product, and were called the “forager” group.

The study, conducted last month, sought to answer the following questions:

1. Does the average internet user recognize and understand real-time results?
2. Are consumers finding and clicking on real-time results?
3. And simply, the bird’s eye view: what are the consumers saying about real-time results?

At the highest level the results showed the following:

• 73% had never heard of real-time results before participating this study
• Only a quarter of the consumers cared for the real-time results compared to 47% of the information foragers
• The majority of the participants surveyed were indifferent to the real-time results

Here’s the age distribution of the 44 participants:

Below are screens showing the differences in the eye movements of the two groups.

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• Analytics Action Plans For PPC, BruceClay.com
• Ask The Search Engines, Outspoken Media
• Ask The SEOs, Outspoken Media
• Blended SERPs Presentation SMX West 2010, www.dreamsystemsmedia.com
• Bringing SEO In House: How To Be Successful!, Outspoken Media
• Event Hashtag Etiquette: Overheard @ SMX, AIM Clear Blog
• Keynote – The State of The Search Union, Outspoken Media
• Keynote – The State Of The Search Union, BruceClay.com
• Liveblogging: The State Of The Search Union, WebProNews
• Measuring How Search Ads Drive Offline Conversions, BruceClay.com
• Microsoft-Yahoo: What’s It All Mean?, BruceClay.com
• SMX West: Analytics Action Plans, Search Engine Roundtable
• SMX West: Ask The Search Engines, Search Engine Roundtable
• SMX West: Ask The SEOs, Search Engine Roundtable
• SMX West: Bringing SEO In House, Search Engine Roundtable
• SMX West: Conversion Ninja Toolbox, Search Engine Roundtable
• SMX West: PPC Tune Up Clinic, Search Engine Roundtable
• Social Media 60 Minutes A Day SMX West 2010 Presentation, www.dreamsystemsmedia.com
• Social Media, Search & Reputation Management, Outspoken Media
• Social Media, Search & Reputation Management, BruceClay.com
• Don’t Slap Rainbows: Diversity Marketing Realness, AIM Clear Blog
• Google’s Matt Cutts Talks Caffeine, PageRank, PuSH, Buzz, and Much More, WebProNews
• Research you can use in search marketing efforts from SMX West panel, community.microsoftadvertising.com
• SMX West 2010 Recap and Canadian Olympic Pride, www2.webmasterradio.fm
• The Energy Was Up at SMX West 2010, blog.efrontier.com
• YouTube SEO at SMX West RECAP, vidiseo.com

Credits to: Matt McGee

• Liveblog: SMX West 2010 Keynote – An Insider’s Look At Google Research
• Google’s Norvig: PageRank Is Overhyped

But there was much more going on during the individual sessions. Here’s a recap of the SMX West coverage we’ve found; feel free to leave a comment if there’s something we missed.

• 60 Minutes Per Day For Social Media Success, Outspoken Media
• Adwords Grows Up! Formats, Sitelinks & Universal, AIM Clear Blog
• Ballmer, Sitelinks & Other Favorites from SMX West Day 1, SEOmoz
• Bing Cashback program and customer success stories from SMX West, community.microsoftadvertising.com
• Bing Talks Local Business Listings, WebProNews
• Bring In The Bling Via Bing Cashback, BruceClay.com
• Dealing With Domain Names, URLs, Parameters, BruceClay.com
• Diagnosing Technical SEO Issues, Outspoken Media
• Facebook Ad Tactics For Search Marketers, BruceClay.com
• Free Ways To Market On Facebook, Outspoken Media
• Google ‘personalizes’ one in five searches, The Register
• Google May Start Calling PageRank Something Else, WebProNews
• Google mulls blend of education, search, CNET News
• Google Research head dubs holy PageRank ‘over-hyped’, The Register
• Industrial Strength SEO, Outspoken Media
• Keynote – An Insider’s Look At Google Research, Outspoken Media
• Keynote: Peter Norvig, Google, BruceClay.com
• Live: Google Keynote at SMX West in Santa Clara, WebProNews
• Peter Norvig offers an insider’s look at Google Research during SMX West, Search Engine Watch Blog
• SMX West: Free Ways to Market on Facebook, Search Engine Roundtable
• SMX West: Optimizing Your Content on YouTube, Search Engine Roundtable
• SMX West: Paid Search Bullseye, Search Engine Roundtable
• Trends, ZombieBait & Sideways Keyword Research, AIM Clear Blog
• Steve Ballmer Unplugged: SMX West 2010 Keynote, AIM Clear Blog
• The Need For Speed: Google Says It Matters, BruceClay.com
• Way Up Google’s Research Snoot with Peter Norvig, AIM Clear Blog

Credits to: Matt McGee

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According to Google’s blog post, this ideas forum will remain open until March 31st.

Credits to: Matt McGee

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Types Of Listings

To understand where we’re at now, let me start with some core concepts. There are two basic ways to show up in search results:

Editorial / Organic / Natural Listings:  Any good search engine, such as Google or Bing, has “editorial” or “organic” or “natural” listings. These are listings that appear without anyone paying for them. They are provided as a core product of that search engine, in the same way that a newspaper has a core product of writing stories about topics it believes are of interest to its readers, rather than to its advertisers.

Paid Search / CPC / PPC Listings: Search engines also have paid search ads, sometimes referred to as “CPC” or “PPC” listings. Those acronyms come from the way advertisers are charged for these ads, on a Cost-Per-Click or Pay-Per-Click basis. If you pay, you get listed. When you stop paying, your listing goes away. Similar to newspapers, these ads typically appear alongside — but separate from — editorial content. They’re also not supposed to influence the editorial coverage.

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In the Business 1.0 world, employees were often treated as depersonalized, faceless drones, replaceable cogwheels in corporate machinery. This perspective often seems to be reflected in traditional corporate websites where individual employees are relegated to the background, and rarely are any individuals highlighted or recognized on those company webpages.

For example, one of the most famous employees of the Masry & Vititoe legal firm in California is Erin Brockovich, the famous legal clerk and crusader for pollution victims depicted in the film that bears her name, starring Julia Roberts. However, Masry & Vititoe’s website does not rank in the first couple of pages of search results for “erin brockovich” keyword searches in Google, in large part because the site does not have a profile page dedicated to Erin.

There’s no employee profile page dedicated to Erin Brockovich on the Masry & Vititoe website. As their most-famous employee, this constitutes a missed opportunity.

Now, I can imagine that Masry & Vititoe might feel conflicted about presenting a profile page about a former employee, but they should’ve had a profile page while Brockovich was still an employee, and then altered the page slightly after she left the firm, clearly marking on it that she’s a former employee, and linking to her personal site. Masry & Vititoe likely does not realize that they’ve missed out on having more traffic and in-bound links because of this squandered opportunity, and those inbound links could be the difference between having their site rank better than their competition’s for various keyword searches.

In some companies, the only employees mentioned on the corporate website are the executives, but even for these companies, those pages are rarely designed properly for search. Quite a few major corporations list out all of their executives on a single page (including Google!), and this just is not effective as having a dedicated page for each exec which “sings” a unique song that’s more precisely targeted for the individual’s name than a group page ever would be.

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In many large enterprises, when SEO is first introduced, it happens because some internal person is championing its cause. If you are that person, chances are really good that you are facing some very interesting challenges related to the ignorance of others in the company. They probably think you are speaking Swahili to them.

You can recreate this phenomenon very easily. Try explaining what SEO is to a group of your neighbors. Undoubtedly, you will get a lot of blank stares, and quite possibly some “what are you talking about?” type comments. Based on their frame of reference they can’t relate. This can—and does—also happen in the senior management team of a company.

One of the problems is that SEO is simply not something that is taught at any level (except at SEO conferences, and by SEO firms). There are no college courses on SEO that I know of, and SEO is not generally discussed in marketing or web development degree programs. As a result, SEO is something just about everyone learns on the job. People in an organization who don’t have to do SEO generally have no understanding of why SEO is important or what it means. Overcoming this ignorance is critical to the success of your organization’s web site.

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According to Bloomberg News, the letter from the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party asks Google to store unblurred Street View images for six months, instead of the one year that images are currently stored. The Associated Press adds that the letter also asks Google to notify residents in advance of taking Street View photos by posting information on its web site, as well as in local and/or national media.

Google already follows the first part of that request: this page on Google Maps includes a map and more information about where Street Views are working.

As for the length of time that Google stores unblurred images, a Google attorney shared this statement with Bloomberg:

“The need to retain the unblurred images is legitimate and justified — to ensure the quality and accuracy of our maps, to improve our ability to rectify mistakes in blurring, as well as to use the data we have collected to build better maps products for our users,” Peter Fleischer, a Google lawyer in charge of privacy issues, said in an e-mailed statement. “We have publicly committed to a retention period of 12 months from the date on which images are published on Street View, and this is the period which we will continue to meet globally.”

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The integration works the same way it has since last February; when images are available, a small box labeled “User Photos” will appear in the upper right of the Street View interface. But with all the new photos in the system, Google’s found a novel way to show nearby and related photos.

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Here are some of the high-level findings from the report:

• 92% get news from multiple platforms on a typical day, with half of those using four to six platforms daily. Fully 59% get news from a combination of online and offline sources on a typical day.  Just over a third (38%) rely solely on offline sources, and 2% rely exclusively on the internet for their daily news.
• 75% of online news consumers say they get news forwarded through email or posts on social networking sites and 52% say they share links to news with others via those means.
• 51% of social networking site (e.g. Facebook) users who are also online news consumers say that on a typical day they get news items from people they follow.
• Most people say they use between two and five online news sources and 65% say they do not have a single favorite website for news.  Some 21% say they routinely rely on just one site for their news and information.
• 33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.
• 28% of internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.
• 37% of internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.

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Google Tackles Its “UI Jazz” Problem, Tests Streamlining Search Options Feature is our story from last November that takes an in-depth look at the new user interface and the features it offers.

At the time, we wrote:

So who sees the changes? About 1% to 3% of Google users, who will be randomly selected. The test will probably run for about six weeks. If successful, expect to see the changes — altered to take in account test feedback — show up across Google soon after that.

That six week period has long come and passed — but the testing continues. Google tells me a variety of slight variations are live in the wild, still being shown to a randomly selected group of people. There is no expected launch date.

Thanks to my recent computer problems, I’ve ended up in the test group. I got a new Dell laptop two days ago. When I loaded it with Firefox and went to Google, I got the new UI. That means Google placed a cookie in Firefox to make it appear for me. My Internet Explorer and Chrome browsers on the laptop still show the “old” or “normal” look.

Below, a few screenshots showing what I currently see:

Above, I’ve highlighted two changes from the screenshots we displayed in our November article. One is that Google now shows your location. Another is that rather than using a + box to let you open options, Google’s testing a chevron approach.

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So, as someone responsible for a site, if you suspect that you may have page load issues, what’s your first stop? Where should you go to get an overall idea of your site performance, short of opening every page of your site while holding a stopwatch?

The first place that many of us will start is in our Google Webmaster Tools account. Log in, click on Labs, then Site Performance. There, you’ll see site performance data based on feedback from their crawlers.

click to enlarge

On the page you’ll also see a sample of 10 pages with the load times for each. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go any deeper than that. But at least you’ll be able to see at least a couple of bad performing pages to further investigate using other tools.

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We launched our Facebook fan page earlier this month and as with all Facebook pages only Facebook Insights program is available to page administrators. Facebook Insights shows demographic details and interactions on your pages BUT limited to show information of fans only. It is far less sophisticated and comprehensive when compared to the free Google Analytics. One of the limitations of Facebook Fan pages is that you can only run limited Javascript on it and Google Analytics needs Javascript code included to correctly track visitors. We have successfully managed to get ALL functions of Google Analytics working on our Facebook fan page (including visitor statistics, traffic sources, visitor country, keyword searches with all other powerful reporting & maps overlays etc).

Credits to: Loren Baker

Of course, you won’t be able to apply those to all types of blogs but generally this is very useful to know.

Post from Email to Your Wordpress Blog

Detailed instructions can be found here; the steps:

1. Create a dedicated e-mail account to be used only for posting to your blog. You may want to use of the suggested random strings (You can find those in Options > Writing menus).

2. Configure WordPress to access your new account. Go: Options > Writing and there based on your email service specifications set up:

• The mail server and port;
• The email account login details;
• The default category:

3. Publish your email posts:

You’ve created the new e-mail account and configured your WordPress blog to accept e-mails from that account, but you still need to set up WordPress to publish those e-mail messages on your blog. Do one of the following:

• You can publish them manually by going to yoursite.com/installdir/wp-mail.php each time you send the post;
• You can get help of WordPress plugins like Postie Plugin
• You can set up automatic posting: for that you will need to add the following code the footer of your blog:

add the following iframe code to the footer of your blog:

<iframe src=”http://yourblogdomain/wordpressinstalldir/wp-mail.php” name=”mailiframe” width=”0″ height=”0″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no” title=””></iframe>

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