The Range Blog » holiday

Holiday SEO News: Google Has Been Very Busy

Kerry Dean — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:33:57 +0000

I don’t know if you have noticed all the recent search industry headlines, but Google is dominating the news with several new features and updates. And they have done it all within the past 30 days. Here is a quick snapshot of Google’s newest additions and updates in the 2009 holiday season:

Update! Dec. 8: 5 new features for Google Analytics
If you are an analytics junkie, check this out. Google Analytics is supercharged.
Dec. 7: Google launches real-time search
Check out the scrolling bar in the SERPs for this result
Dec. 4: Google announces personalized search results for anyone who uses Google
Apparently, Google will set a 180-day cookie on your computer and serve you personalized results – whether you are signed in or not! Wow.
Dec. 3: Google switches to fading homepage
Cool. I guess.
Dec. 2: Google releases PageSpeed report in WebmasterCentral
This feature is actually very helpful, and my clients love it. Also, it finally gives us proof that Google cares about page speed just as much as users do.
Dec. 1: Google adds supersized images to universal search results
Rather than one row of images, Google displays a big image on the left and two rows of smaller images.
Dec. 1: Google adds geography data to search results (in the URL/breadcrumb area)
I have not seen this one very often, but in the SERPs, it tells you what country the website is hosted in. I think.
Nov. 30: Google Caffeine goes live on one data center
And here it is: http://209.85.225.103/. But it only returns Caffeine results about 50% of the time.
Nov. 23: Google Product Search rolls out 3 new features
You’ve probably noticed the new “One Boxes,” but here’s a link that should show you what I mean.
Nov. 18: Google SERPs: Breadcrumbs instead of URLs
I think these will be an SEO game changer. It gives your search result more chances for a clickthru.
Nov. 12: At WebCon, Matt Cutts announces site speed will be a new organic ranking factor
We have always been concerned with this factor for usability, but it looks like it will soon be a ranking factor, too.
Nov. 10: Matt Cutts says Google Caffeine will go live after the holidays
I’m glad they chose to wait until after the holiday season. Don’t mess with stuff during the holidays!

Oh and also, today Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, joined Twitter (@ericschmidt). How about that?

In conclusion, Google has been very busy this holiday season. The good news is that every one of these items has an impact on SEO. It looks like 2010 is going to be an awesome year , chock-full of new stuff to do! Thanks, Google!

SEO Industry Quick Hits (Nov. 30, 2009)

Kerry Dean — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:05:19 +0000

You may call them quick hits. You may call it scatter shooting. You may just refer to it as news. Regardless, here are some recent developments in our world of search marketing and SEO:

DMOZ 2.0 is on the way in 2010. I don’t know who this blog belongs to, but it seems to have a lot of inside information about the forthcoming, upgraded version DMOZ (aka DMOZ 2.0).
Malcolm Coles has a great write-up on the new Google layout. From the look of things, Local SEO will be crucial for all websites when this layout rolls out to all Google data centers.
Black Friday boasts $595M in U.S. online holiday spending; Up 11% versus a year ago (via comScore)
Some 19% of Americans will use their mobile devices for shopping this holiday season, according to a Deloitte survey.
Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday showed a strong surge in online shopping searches, with searches for “Black Friday” up by more than 20%, year over year.

Enjoy!

Feeling a Little Bad, For Dear Old Dad

Parks Blackwell — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:05:20 +0000

Fathers Day is a tough holiday. What do you buy for the guy who has pretty much everything he wants or worse, responds with “I don’t need anything”? Asking me to be a creative gift-buyer is borrowing trouble. If you collected my Father’s Day gifts and put them in a box, you might think you were at the Goodwill. I wait around until the last minute and then go buy whatever I can find at the checkout counter at my local Walgreens. These items include the local baseball team 2009 Championship T-Shirt or the National Weather Service Severe Weather Radio retailing for a limited time for $9.99. Occasionally I allow that creative streak to take over and create a “themed” gift. Aisle 7 features outdoor bbq tools and swim gear. Maybe Dad would like a new pair of goggles and a noodle with “FUN” inscribed on the side. Or maybe he’d better appreciate the mediocre grill thermometer fork thing that only works on chicken, plus a new apron that has “King of the Grill” in puffy paint on the front. A trip through the automotive section might produce a Frankengift cobbled together from tire cleaner, sponges and a bucket.

My gifts are weird and cheap, so in a recession, my Father’s Day purchasing power is still pretty strong, for all intents and purposes. But for those who buy NICE gifts, how does Dad fair during a recession? I mean, he already gets the short end of the stick, especially when compared to Mom. She get’s flowers and jewelry, candy and homemade cards. Mom gets thought, and dear old dad gets a bunch of Armor All.

The NRF recently produced a study for Fathers Day spending and giving us a preview of what to expect. Now put down the As Seen on TV “Grabit Screw Extractor” and pay attention, this is where things get interesting.

According to the study, a mere 17.9% will be shopping online for a gift. Where is everyone else? What are they doing? Shopping offline, of course. For the sake of fathers everywhere, I hope these people are better at it then I am. Catalogs and department stores look to fare well during the season, but online retailers should have no fear. This online group of shoppers is looking to spend upwards of $130 online, which is roughly 50% more than their offline only counterparts. 50% more! That’s a tremendous difference!

Prepare the inventory kids, the shoppers are coming. I know all of the RANGE clients have high hopes on each impending holiday, and Fathers Day will be no less. Treat dad to something cool this year, you know – like an ionic air purifier, for the car.

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Herndon Hasty — Fri, 29 May 2009 20:48:17 +0000

Getting winded trying to keep up with Google’s latest and greatest offerings?

Well, don’t take your Nikes off just yet. Google recently announced a slate of updates and new developments, including ways to make your search results prettier and a new emphasis on fresh content. For those who’ve been encouraging clients to add microformats to their pages, you should feel a little vindicated, because these should be right up your alley. If that’s not enough, MSN also announced that they’re updating and rebranding Live Search, naming the concept Bing (previously known as Kumo) and gearing it towards behavioral search. If it works like they say it will, then we’ll have something to celebrate before July 4.

So that’s some good news for the summer, but it’s more applicable for the winter. In terms of development, it’s time to start work (or at least planning) on site enhancements for the 2009 holiday season!

‘But it’s not even June!’ you might be thinking. Just remember to take into account a few important factors:

Your Site Will be Untouchable in 4 -5 Months: Typically, large ecommerce sites go into a code freeze in October or early November at the absolute latest. A code freeze is a period of time where developers can work on site enhancements, but can’t actually push anything live for anything less than a life-or-death emergency in order to make sure that the site isn’t knocked out by errors at a critical time of year. So, in reality, it’s more like August rather than June on your production schedule.
Development Takes Time: The planning, pre-development legwork, development and eventual launch of changes to your site – SEO or otherwise – is a long process. Depending on your team and your process, you’re looking from two to six months just to get even simple, natural search-affecting changes made to the site. If you try to start making massive changes to your site in August, you could very easily wind up seeing your Holiday 2009 ambitions coming up sometime next March without some serious overtime or help.
Search Engines Take Time: If SEO gains are even part of your goal, once you’ve made improvements to your site that are meant to improve your natural search results and seen them pushed live, you’re at the mercy of the engines. It can take anywhere from two days to four weeks to get your changes indexed, and another six to twelve weeks of fluctuations as Google, Yahoo and MSN fully digest your changes and start really advancing your positions.

If you start counting backwards from December with these in mind, Santa’s shadow looms pretty large.

Now is the time to start making your list and checking it twice. Start by looking at your holiday keyword and content strategy, building out your gift pages, fixing any leaks in your natural search potential and getting your site ready to rank for potentially the toughest holiday season in decades. Be a good boy / girl now, and you could find yourself with the kinds of gifts we’ve all been asking for all year: Revenue, growth, and a shot at Holiday 2010.