Twitter is launching a new tool called “Suggestions for You” in the hopes of making it easier for users to find the right accounts to follow. The tool is rolling out today; I don’t have it on my main @mattmcgee account, but it does appear on the home page of my @atu2 account. (atu2.com is [...]

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Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Study Calls Google ‘King Of Malware’ Google has twice as much malware in its search results as Yahoo, Bing, and Twitter combined. That’s one of the findings in the Barracuda Labs 2010 Midyear Security [...]

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Google has twice as much malware in its search results as Yahoo, Bing, and Twitter combined. That’s one of the findings in the Barracuda Labs 2010 Midyear Security Report, which will be presented tomorrow at the DEFCON 18 hacking conference tomorrow in Las Vegas. Barracuda Labs says it studied the four search engines for about two [...]

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In a move that should surprise no one, Microsoft says it will try to block the recently announced Google-Yahoo Japan partnership. In our story from Tuesday, a Microsoft senior VP spoke out strongly against the partnership. Now, Silican Alley Insider received confirmation last night that the company will take steps to challenge it formally. “We plan [...]

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by Sage Lewis

Do you think that social media isn't right for your business. Well, think again after you watch this video on my most recent social media clinic I did for Iowa Women Farmers.

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Search Marketing Now hosts a free webcast on Tuesday that will include results from a new comScore research study on how consumers shop online. The study focused on consumer behavior in search and buying, with a specific look at what happens when searchers have landed within a retail site. How do they shop within the [...]

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by Stoney deGeyter

If you have ever spent any amount of time doing keyword research you can walk away amazed (or even frustrated) about the sheer volume of ways people search for what is essentially the same thing. Take a single core term like "window cleaner" and you can get dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of search terms all using those two keywords. This is what happens in the world of search. Someone starts with a basic concept, then continues to refine their search by adding qualifiers such as: homemade, recipes, magnetic, insurance, liability, vinyl, glass, streak free and "confessions of a" (that's no joke) to help them find more sites that offer what they are looking for.

If you are in the window cleaning business, you can easily discount many of these qualifiers. But there will also be others in there that you most certainly will want to use to optimize your site for higher search engine rankings.

The question is, how do you target all of these qualifiers on your window cleaner web page? The simple answer is: you can't. Nor should you want to.

Whatever keyword you are researching, the mass of keyword phrase + qualifiers can make you a bit overwhelmed. How do you target so many keywords without mucking up the site? One solution is to look at your keywords from a Research, Shop, Buy lens. Separate them based on visitor intent.

The next step is to start grouping and separating your keywords based on qualifier similarity within each segment of the shopping cycle. Pouring through a list of 50+ keyword phrases, you can immediately begin to see some distinctions between qualifiers and their meanings. The goal is to group together qualifiers that are similar in meaning and/or form a logical grouping together.

In the example above, I've chosen three words that can quite easily be worked into the content of a single page. If you are selling cars, you can now easily target "exotic cars," "vintage cars", and "classic cars" all on the same page without diluting the effectiveness of your content.

As you group similar qualifiers together, be careful about placing words together that either change the meaning or negate the others. If you were to add the word "cheap" to a page where you are also using the word "quality", you are pretty much negating the ability to sell your item or service as "quality".

The qualifiers used in the image above could also easily apply to a jewelry site as well. However, if you provide dance lessons, you probably won't want to use "exotic" on the same page as "classic". That gives these keywords an entirely different meanings.

Not all keywords will have a positive or negative impact on each other. But, for the ones that could have a possible negative impact on each other, use them together as a last resort. It's better to find phrases that have similar meanings first.

When you target phrases with similar meaning and intent, you reinforce the message on the page. Why target the word "discount" when you're talking about the quality of your products? Let the quality speak for itself. Have another page that offers discount items where you can go after "cheap" and "sale" and all those other words that would otherwise provide additional support or value to similar qualifiers.

Using similar qualifiers together is a great way to reinforce your message without having to repeat yourself over and over. It also helps you give your page an overall unifying theme that speaks to each visitor's particular wants and desires.

The combination of qualifiers used will vary from site to site. Some combinations will work well for one site, but not for another, as I demonstrated above. But by grouping these similar qualifiers together, you are giving yourself fodder to move up, not only in searches using those qualifiers, but also in searches using your primary phrase. You use the many, similar words to help you focus on the one word that really matters.

This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx's Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert's Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions. If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for "inconceivable content" on this blog to find them all.

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As we know with the new Google Image redesign that Google would be pushing image ad formats for image search. Yesterday, I was doing a search for [weeds] and I spotted an image ad from Google encouraging advertisers to try out Google Image AdWords. I don’t believe I ever saw an image ad from Google, [...]

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Google previously announced (at its I/O developer conference) the creation of a Places API as part of the Google Maps API. That Places API is now open for business and being made available to third party developers. Booyah’s MyTown “check-in” app is one that has already been using it. In short all the information and data [...]

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Have you ever heard the phrase search engine optimization (SEO) architecture? At first glance, it might seem like a good idea...but maybe not. Learn about 2 critical usability tests that help SEO professionals not make critical architecture errors.

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What does a "win" look like for Yahoo and Bing? What risks do both search engines face? And what are the implications for search advertising and mobile? We break it all down. ...

The search industry may profit from increased PPC advertising cash. However, forum and blog comment spam will no doubt increase and endless new content will hit the web, taxing search engine crawlers. ...

The world’s most popular online trust mark, the VeriSign seal has helped web sites increase transactions an average of 24%. To maximize incoming traffic, the Trust Seal is displayed next to your search result in leading search engines and prevents your site from being blacklisted.

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That’s one of the big questions people are asking after yesterday’s launch of Facebook Questions. While many have assumed the answer would be “yes,” a Facebook spokesperson tells us that assumption is wrong. Currently, search engines cannot access questions and answers through our Questions product. That may be something we consider for the future but have [...]

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Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Street Slide: Microsoft’s Next Killer Maps App? At the SIGGRAPH 2010 event this week in Los Angeles, Microsoft researchers showed off a next-generation tool for browsing street-level imagery. It’s called Street Slide, and it [...]

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At the SIGGRAPH 2010 event this week in Los Angeles, Microsoft researchers showed off a next-generation tool for browsing street-level imagery. It’s called Street Slide, and it combines the up close realism of, say, Google Street View or Bing’s similarly named Streetside product, with “strip” panoramas that offer a wider perspective of a city block [...]

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Returns for online investments are still so much greater than the offline world that it is easy to think that the money is somehow less real, or that there is greater risk to it. That perhaps we should diversify out of the web to help make our businesses less risky. Sure, the shift of a [...]

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At one time, IAC’s CEO Barry Diller thought his Ask.com search engine could take on Google. But Diller effectively threw in the towel yesterday on an investors call. Diller downplayed Ask.com’s role in the over IAC company but said he ultimately failed at thinking Ask.com can compete with Google. Diller said: But one thing [...]

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At Google I/O Google VP Vic Gundotra and his co-presenters showcased a dizzying array of announcements and products to come. Included among them was Google’s iTunes competitor, soon to come to market, and well as a range of new richer mobile ad formats. Those new mobile ad formats have been gradually rolling out. This morning Google [...]

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Let’s be cautious about running too far with these numbers, but Royal Pingdom (using data from StatCounter) has reported/estimated Google’s global mobile search market share to be almost 100% Google is clearly dominant in mobile search across smartphones (and feature phones). However these numbers may not be completely accurate. For example, the chart above shows PC [...]

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