 Dear
Welcome to the first issue of Search Engine College News!
Those of you who are long time subscribers of The Search Light will notice we've revamped the newsletter template considerably and changed the name. To celebrate our 10 years of publication, we decided the newsletter needed a makeover. We hope you like the new look as much as we do.
Some of you might also notice that it's been a few months since the last issue. My apologies for that, but apart from having to redesign the newsletter template, a few other events have kept me away from newsletter duty.
Firstly, our beautiful city of Christchurch suffered a devastating 7.1 magnitude earthquake on 4 September. Because it happened at 4.35am, most people were sleeping and there were no fatalities, but many of the city's buildings suffered damage and have had to be demolished, while an estimated 80 percent of houses in the region have suffered quake damage.
Since then, we've had a total of 4,122 aftershocks, some of them over 5.0 in magnitude. Yes, you read that correctly - over 4 thousand aftershocks. Now I don't know how many of you have been through a major earthquake, but if you have, you'll know the kind of stress such an event and continuous, daily aftershocks can cause.
I've spoken to many local business people in the past few months and, like me, many of them have suffered some form of post-traumatic stress, impacting their ability to concentrate and work regular hours. In this situation, it's the most important client projects that get attention and things like ongoing marketing tend to fall by the wayside. This newsletter and my blog have fallen victim to neglect as a result of my rising stress levels, so apologies for that.
The other event consuming my time has been the redesign of the Search Engine College web site. We have been wanting to move the site to WordPress for a long time and finally got started back in November once we found a design theme we liked. The new design launched earlier this month. What do you think of it? I'd love to hear your feedback via the Contact Us link above.
Well this introduction has already grown way longer than I anticipated, so I'll get out of your hair now and let you read the Q and A's. Enjoy this issue and remember to visit the Ask Kalena blog to check out our daily answers to frequently asked search engine questions.
Got a search engine question of your own? Press the big red button below to send us your question and you might see it featured here next month.
Until then, wishing you clicks and conversions...  |
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| Q & A ONE: What web-based software do you recommend for practising SEO?
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 Hi Kalena,
I would like to practice integrating SEO techniques. In your SEO101 lessons, you recommend using a web based site editing software. Please recommend one I can use for this purpose?
Thanks
Darlene
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Hi Darlene
Probably the best option for you to practice on is to create a site using Google Sites.
Another good option is to create a free hosted web site using WordPress.com. It is traditionally used to create blogs, but because of it's functionality and search engine compatibility, many companies use it to build their web sites these days (including Search Engine College!)... | | >> read more |
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| | Q & A TWO: How Do I Tackle Regional Keyword Issues in SEO? | |
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Hey Kalena,
I'm trying to optimize a site for the first time. Its a fashion jewelry site. I have come up against a couple of stumbling blocks that I need a little clarification on. One is the target market - its a New Zealand website, but we want to target New Zealander's, Australians and the rest of the world this brings up issues of spelling - do we focus on Jewellery (New Zealand/British spelling), Jewelry (US spelling, but where a lot of the current customers come from) or Jewellry (a common misspelling).
Secondly, I'm having a hard time trying to choose my keyword phrases. Silver jewelry and costume jewelry (which seems to be the most common way people search for fashion jewelry, even though fashion jewelry sounds so much more modern!! - found out through the Google Keyword tool) seem to be the best as they are well searched for. I want to be more specific however i.e *women's silver jewelry*, or *silver jewellery nz* or *buy silver jewelry* etc. but the search volume according to the Google Keyword tool is well below 20 per day.
Can you please suggest what I should do in this situation?
Thank you!
Mitchell
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Hi Mitchell
To answer your questions:
1) The regional spelling issue is a tricky one. There are a few ways you can approach this - do you have the .com as well as the regional Top Level Domains (TLD) .co.nz and .com.au? If so, you can use the American spelling on the .com domain and the British spelling on the regional domains. However, this may create duplicate content issues unless you block robots from the near-duplicate pages...
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| Q & A THREE: Why is my CMS based website only ranking for the Home Page?
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Hi Kalena,
We have put our hotel website into Joomla CMS and I notice with our CMS based sites that the home page ranks well but most other pages say 'Currently not ranked by Google.' I know they have been indexed by Google, and have internal links pointing to them, yet they are not achieving any ranking despite having relevant succinct copy on them. Any ideas as to why there might be a problem? i don't see any spam links pointing to them...
Many thanks
Sarah -------------
Hi Sarah,
The most popular Content Management Systems (such as Joomla, Drupal, and WordPress) are reasonably search engine friendly with their default settings - although all can be tweaked to improve their SEO capabilities. There are a variety of plugins/modules available for each of these open source CMSs and it is usually worth talking to your SEO or Web Developer to see what can be done to make your site more search engine friendly.
As you say, many (if not all) of the pages on your site [URL Provided] are indexed by Google. When you say you get the message "Currently not ranked by Google", presumably you are using rank checking software to see how your site ranks for a variety of keyword phrases. This simply indicates that the pages you are checking are not ranking in the top "X" search results - for the keyword phrases you have identified. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are not rankling for other keywords. I suggest that you review your analytics data to see which pages are being found on search engines(and for which keyword phrases)...
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Manager, SEO
FindLaw are seeking an online marketing professional to join their marketing team. This SEO Manager will be responsible for of optimizing their Web sites to make them more search-engine-friendly, thus elevating FindLaw's positions in search results.
Employer: FindLaw.
Location: Sunnyvale, California, USA.
Senior Director, Paid Search Operations
The Senior Director of Paid Search Operations will lead a team of search specialists assigned to various regions globally to the Expedia.com brand and be responsible for directing their campaign management activities across their search engine partners.
Employer: Expedia North America.
Location: Bellevue, Washington, USA.
Search Marketing Analyst
In this entry-level analyst position, you will be involved in the creation and optimization of their Paid Search and Organic Search campaigns. Duties include keyword research, keyword generation, creating ad copy, bid management, tracking performance, and other related duties.
Employer: Power Equipment Direct.
Location: Bolingbrook, Illinois, USA.
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