Jeff Woelker : Chicago SEO, SEM, and Online Marketing Consultant

I’ve read a few articles recently about “optimizing your website for mobile SEO”. I know it’s the big focus of many conferences in 2008, but frankly, I think this is kind of a waste of time. Mobile SEO - SEO - it will all be the same very soon. As more and more mobile devices become more of an internet gateway than just a mobile device, search engines are going to have to catch up. People will no longer think “I’m on a mobile device, I want mobile results”. They will move to think more along the lines of, I know I get these results on my laptop, so I would expect a similar result set on my mobile device. Just because I’m on a mobile device should not change the results.

PPC/SEM
I think for the short term, at least until search engines combine results, running mobile search campaigns is still worthwhile. However, for the longer term, PPC/SEM will follow suit soon after people begin to expect more from their mobile results.

Design
I do however think designing and thinking about mobile is still a key issue when designing for mobile devices and something that should be kept in mind. Just because you are designing for the web, doesn’t mean that users will not access the site using a mobile device. There are a number of websites which can address the minor technical issues associated with developing a mobile stylesheet. Here are just a few:

• Mobile CSS First Steps
• Mobile CSS is a reality
• Make your site mobile friendly

Now as for local search optimization, I think this is one of the key segments where search optimization can make a big difference, but that’s for a later post. What do you think? Is mobile seo worth your time, or just another piece of hype to keep many SEO’ers busy for 2008/09?

Man, I’ve been dreading this for a while, but it’s finally done. It only took me a couple of hours, but that’s mostly my fault. I had to get together some usernames, passwords, backups, and some other stuff, but it’s all done now.

I’ve upgraded from 2.0.4 to 2.5.1 using this absolutely fantastic upgrade guide. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you Alex! It was really easy, although definitely filled with a few “man I hope this works” moments.

I’m digging the new dashboard interface. Really snazzy!

So I was doing some research today for a client project and I found this link below listed in Yahoo’s search index.

Any idea why they would continue to publish this result, even after identifying “Dangerous downloads”? I mean, don’t you want to provide the best customer experience possible to your users?

Does anyone have any insight into why they are doing this?

Just a few links I found from around the ‘net this week:

• Social thing - organize all your social media websites into one lifestream. Signed up for private beta, looking forward to an account so I can explore this a little further.
• Google Trends for Websites - Now you can view Google Trends for websites. Really nice information, but I’m not sure competitors are going to appreciate this. I’ll have to see what I was doing last June - take that Sempo
  
• Google continues it’s uptick in search market share - Not surprising, but Yahoo also increased. I’m assuming this is due to their recent press associated with the Microsoft (non)deal. Microsoft dropped, which is again, not surprising.
• MySpace underwent a redesign - Not sure if it will stop the slide in global traffic, but once these things start in the world of online, users are usually quick to jump ship for “the new hot thing”.

I saw an interesting video from Lifehacker and TechCrunch today about a possible Mozilla/Firefox interface. Overall, it’s a really interesting concept. It’s hard to evaluate as the touchscreen phone market is in its infancy right now and everything these days starts with whomever is first to market. So if most users become familiar with an iPhone interface, they are going to expect that other browsers behave this way. That is until another platform can come along and do it faster, easier, cheaper, or just make the whole experience better for the user. Regardless, I think it’s definitely a viable option for mobile browsing and applaud Aza Raskin for his efforts so far. Full video is below.

Firefox Mobile Concept Video from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

I’ve had numerous people ask me what occurs when a user from another country goes to Google.com, or if a user from the US goes to say, Google.de. Although still difficult to understand at first pass, it’s a great tutorial for how to treat international content, how to target international content appropriately, and how users view Google properties, inside and outside the US:

Well, the day has finally arrived.
Google transit has finally answered my plea.

The result? Pretty nice actually. You can accomplish everything on my checklist:

1. Finally get a map.
2. Find local businesses near your destinations
3. Share the maps with others, either via link or on your website, as below.
4. Although transit chicago’s interface, since being redesigned, is actually pretty nice, Google’s is a little more intuitive for anyone using the mapping interface.

Here’s a map from my office to O’Hare:

View Larger Map

Recently, Google announced that they were incorporating search within a site into their search results. At first glance, this may sound like a beneficial tool, but let’s examine it a bit more closely.

Bad for Users: Search Aesthetic
Most often, people search for two to three keywords in a search query. The results they are presented are then reviewed and if results are not found, the user will either abandon their search or try a new set of keywords, sometimes more in depth or different terminology all together using the berry picking method. In this new situation, a user may try two or more keywords, and then they are presented with an additional search box. Now immediately, the usability guy in me is questioning, “Doesn’t this add clutter to an increasingly busy interface?” The beauty of Google is the one box search method. Don’t like what you get, try searching again.

Bad for On-Site Marketers: Stealing Traffic
The search within a site feature also causes the user to spend more time with Google. Normally, I would be more than happy to spend more time with Google, but from an on-site marketers perspective, this is not always a good thing. For one, Google is displaying Adwords advertising the entire time. So the user gets one round of advertising based on their initial search and then another round, which is even more specific, on the second, third, and so on results. Again, for PPC marketers, this is fantastic. However, if you are buying or selling on-site advertising (text links ads, banner advertising, video placements, etc.) this is not good news. Impressions drop, clicks drop, revenue drops, and as a result, these methods become less “effective” in driving previously available results.

If I were selling this type of advertising, not that PPC hasn’t already cut into your profit margins, I’d keep an eye on this latest development. Anything i missed? Disagree? Let me know in the comments.

First, to all my regular readers, sorry for the lapse in posts. It’s been really busy at work lately, and with the holidays, December just flew by. The good news is that I’m getting some help at work so hopefully I can post more regularly. Ok, let’s get to the fun stuff.

As Super Tuesday was yesterday, I figured I’d take a more presidential look at the candidates and how they comes across to the search engines. I’ve taken some time to evaluate Obama, Clinton, McCain, Huckabee, and Romney’s websites and the results are pretty interesting.

Here’s some initial stats in terms of pages indexed:

Obama - 1,470
Clinton - 4,930
McCain - 7,270
Romney - 4,700
Huckabee - 3,410

Read more

The other day, I read a great article about Microformats and the hCard. Although Microformats are not regulated by the WC3, it’s still a great middle ground to solve a number of location based problems on the web. Here’s some more info about microformats and their strengths and weaknesses:

• hCard on Wikipedia
• Microformats cheat sheet
• Practical Microformats with hCard

Here’s a quick overview, if you are unfamiliar with hCards. An hCard, similar to a vCard, uses XHTML to allow search engines and other bots to decipher between a random text passage on a website and an address, phone number, website, etc. by simply adding a few extra attributes to a websites XHTML.

I didn’t think much of it at first, but then started to look back at previous pages that I’ve coded and this is really a powerful technology. Since addresses appear all over the web without any unifying structure, this works to tie them all together with one consistent syntax. By using a consistent syntax, tools such as Google Maps’ API can pick up on these things much easier, while still providing useful markup that humans can read and understand easily.

Along with Google Maps, the article points out, Yahoo maps might start using the hCard format soon, but haven’t given any definitive time line.

So why should you start using the hCard format? Like most SEO best practices - for the limited amount of time needed to make the necessary changes and the possibility of future adaptation and acceptance, it can’t hurt.

To make your own hCard today, use the hCard creator. Make sure to note the warnings on the page as well.