Matt Cutts answers Google questions: - Which is more important: search engine optimization (SEO) or end user optimization? - What spam detection tools would you recommend? - Does cleanliness of code (W3C) help at all?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8553629667451959310&q=label%3Aseo

Myths, Large Site Launches, and Google Images

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3583760678227172395

Some interesting points raised here for up to date SEO information

You want to make sure your site is indexed by the search engines. If your site has numerous inbound links from other sites, the Web spiders will find it automatically. Web spiders “crawl” the Internet monthly and update an engine’s database of sites.This is a quicker way of being found by the big three search engines. Rather than just building it and they will come, especially if you are an ecommerce store!
Be warned don’t submit more than once in 24 hours as it may be seen as spamming.

You can promote your web site this way by submitting your URL, homepage and/or content pages.

One way of analysing how many pages have been spidered in your web site is typing “site:www.yourwebsite.com” into Google.

The big three search sites have forms for submitting Web addresses:
Google: http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
Yahoo!: http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request
MSN: http://beta.search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is all about the technical enhancement of your web site code. Also link building - The process of creating inbound links to owns website. This can be done reciprocal links, being listed in e-zines, newsletters, directories, search engines, etc.

Search engine marketing (SEM) is pay per click (PPC) sponsored adverts on search engine results pages. In which payment is based on the number of times the website is selected (clicked) from the results list. Is used in paid placement advertising and paid inclusion. Also known as cost-per-click listings (CPC).

They are quite different types of marketing, ultimately both though draw users and prospective business to your web site.

To increase your organic search engines listings as well as getting users driven to your site:

Get links from press releases and focus on relevant business directories. For example, Google News and NewsNow

The Search engines are changing their alogorithms very often, which means the way they rank web sites can be different depending on varying factors, such as web content, backlinks, etc. This can very often be very complex to understand.

To deal with new alogorithm patterns, resubmission and reoptimisation is required of your web site. With a keyword review for example.

SEO: is an ongoing process, rather like the myth build a web site and they will come, you can’t just do a one off initial campaign and leave it. If you are selling a product online, it is in your interest to invest time in reporting to see whether you are listed higher than your competitors.

SEM: Up to 60% of users to a Google results page do not click on sponsored PPC links. They trust more in natural search results. Therefore, natural/organic SEO is more cost effective than PPC in the long term strategy.

If you have a strong brand it would be more cost effective to choose 3rd position in the sponsored ads as people tend to compare the top three.

To aid success in an SEM (PPC) campaign:

• Produce relevant web content.
• Understand conversion rates and margins
• Understand the search market place within your sector
• Take seasonality into account, eg: “loansâ€? best keyword after new year.
• Deep link advert to relevant page content, eg: item description
• Set clear objectives and keep testing them
• Analyse your results - then track, measure and optimise!
• From this adjust your PPC advert fees accordingly. If a keyword is working, increase the fee, if it is not lower the fee.
  

The key for both SEO and SEM is understanding the strengths and weaknesses in the keywords you have selected for web content and sponsored advert text.

Ask yourself every month “so what?”, and “what do these results mean?”.

Perhaps there are any keyword phrases that your competitors are not using that you can take advantage of.

In conclusion, if you have both good organic listings and good PPC position for keyword phrases it can be very effective and a good strategy to follow.

An SEO package from Callender Creates not only advises you of the best practices, we can also track and report on the position of your web sites. To make sure you stay on the first results page.

Have you ever wanted to see what people are searching for over a period of time?

Well, now you can - As well as viewing some demographics on Google

Google Trends you can compare multiple phrases by entering several phrases separating the words/phrases by using a comma.

Example:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=beatles,+elvis

Our DMOZ listing for Callender Creates
We havent included the very long address, if you visit this page you will see that we are listed deep in the DMOZ directory.

DMOZ are known, like other directories to feed the search engines like Google with these links. And can increase your incoming links with some value.

DMOZ is and always has been a special case, heres why:

1. It is free to get listed
2. It’s the biggest open directory
3. It is edited by humans>> Humans dont always follow a set pattern. Why one web site maybe listed and another isnt, isnt always clear. The bad press DMOZ gets by some other SEO’s and web types may be due to the amount of emails from people who submit their sites multiples times to DMOZ as well as spam. They are basically up to their necks!

Ways of getting listed in DMOZ

• You can also get links from sites that are already listed there, but that’s not guaranteed.
• Try not to submit again, just be patient, the spiderbots will come when they are ready.

Further reading

Here’s a good article on SEO Chat > Choosing the Right DMOZ Directory Category

.. and which do not?

MSN has been shown to utilize both the keyword and description tags as part of their relevancy score to determine SERPs position.

Yahoo doesn’t use the keyword tags in their relevancy score as far as we can tell lately, but will use the description tag.

Google uses neither keyword or description tags in their relevancy score, and we believe, although this is a definite gray area, that Google disregards both of them in determining overall PageRank.

In the face of the changing search engine optimisation (SEO) industry, those SEOs that rely heavily on their meta keyword and descriptions tags are going to find that more and more they will be fairly disappointed in the effectiveness of optimised keyword and description tags.

In the not too distant future companies have to become aware that “content is king” is becoming more and more true everyday. You can still use MSN to catch your meta descriptions, but do not rely heavily on this for the other search engines.

This is the way that the search engine companies are moving, with this knowledge, at Callender Creates we apply this to our web sites and give you a genuine and ethical position in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

We do not over-optimise our pages, nor do we use black magic to get high listings as this usually means getting penalised by the search engines.