The SEO Sweet Spot is Three-Word Searches
by Daniel Ruby
Chitika.com
August 22, 2010

Dave’s Comments (Internet Marketing Course Blog): New keyword search phrase research by Chitika.com released in June 2010 confirms that the use of multiple words in a search phrase dominates search engine usage. In particular, 3 word search phrases are the clear winner. (See chart below)

This new research lines up nicely with earlier keyword phrase research done by Andy Beal’s company and reported in this blog in February 2009 – see Long-Tail Searches Increasing – Good News for Niche Web Sites

Even more interesting is the fact that the highest ad click rates were for queries of 5, 6 and 4 words in length!

Read the entire article by clicking on the following link:

SEO Sweet Spot – Three-Word Searches

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by Dave Ingalls
B2B Internet Marketing Consultant
July 8, 2010

OMG! The sky is falling! Or is it?

As Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz outlines in detail in his mid-May “Whiteboard Friday” presentation below, Google did in fact do something to their search algorithms in late April-early May (the “May Day Update”), but the KEY is to understand what Google did change, and if those changes affected your sites. The video is about 10 minutes long but well worth your time!

And if you haven’t already visited SEOmoz, this is a great opportunity to learn more about this SEO site and what they have to offer.

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by Dave Ingalls
B2B Internet Marketing Consultant
June 10, 2010

UPDATE: Google relented after about 4-5 hours on June 10th, went back to the simple white background Home Page that I (and obviously many others) love, and made using a photo background image on this page completely optional. That action by Google made the major point of this blog post moot, but it did not eliminate the very good idea of using the Google/Firefox Search Home page as your de facto Google Search start page to help fund FireFox’s browser development – that’s why this post is still worth reading.

Hate the “new, improved” Google Home page with “world class photographer” images and no way to change back to the classic, simple Google Home page?  Me too!!

Remember the “Good Old Days” (yesterday!) when the Google Home Page looked like this:

Even though it’s only supposed to last 24 hours, it’s driving me nuts!!  I hate it!!

Here’s a quick fix –

If you’re like me, you use the Google Home page as the default home page in your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, etc.).  All you need to do is change that default Home page to the Google search page that Google set up for Firefox – here’s the page address: http://www.google.com/firefox

This Google/Firefox search page is not as clean as the original Google search home page, but it’s close!  Most importantly, as of this blog post (approx. 8 a.m. US East Coast time) it has not been “improved” by the geniuses at Google!

What’s Firefox?  Most of you probably know that’s it’s an alternative browser to the Internet Explorer browser.  What you might not know is that it’s produced by the Mozilla Foundation, that this foundation is a non-profit organization and that Google helps to fund Mozilla by setting up this special Google search page.  Every time a Google search is started from the Google/Firefox search page, Google donates a small amount of money to the Mozilla Foundation.

So not only can you get an almost Google-like plain vanilla search start page, every time you perform a search from that page you are helping support the main competitor to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer!  That’s a pretty good one-two punch!

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by Dave Ingalls
B2B Internet Marketing Consultant
May 28, 2010

That’s my goal – give you the Twitter basics in 10 minutes or less.

This post will provide you with the Twitter basics, not to start “tweeting” immediately after you read this post, but rather to first help you learn basic Twitter terminology (if you don’t know the language, it’s pretty hard to understand the conversation!), and then provide a way to find out what you could use Twitter for.

After that 10 minute exercise, THEN you will be able to search the “Twitterverse” to find out what if any part of that universe is interesting to you, and be able understand what’s being discussed there!

To help accomplish that goal, I’m going to direct you to 2 excellent, short blog posts, “Twitter Terminology 101″ by Sande Saimond, and “6 Quick Tips to Search Twitter Like an Expert” by Kipp Bodnar.

Read Sande’s Twitter terminology post first. Don’t try to memorize it – first skim thru it to get a sense of what the various symbols and terms that you’ll be seeing in tweets in the next part of the exercise mean. Or even print it out and refer to it as you do your twitter surfing.

Then onto Kipp Bodnar’s Search Twitter Like an Expert Tips. I like this post because it QUICKLY helps Twitter newbies find EXACTLY what subject areas they might find interesting on Twitter and what’s being “tweeted” about those subjects.

So get started and in 10 minutes or less you’ll be exploring the Twitterverse with phrases like this one:

"ipad" -ipod filter:links

and understanding what you find!

Good Luck!

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“Inbound Marketing – Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs”

By Dave Ingalls
B2B Internet Marketing Consultant
April 21, 2010

“Inbound Marketing – Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs”, by HubSpot founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah is THE seminal book on how to use the new concept of “inbound marketing” instead of the classic outbound or “interruption” marketing model to succeed in your online marketing efforts.

In fact, as far as I can tell, Halligan and Shah basically invented the term “Inbound Marketing” when they opened the doors at HubSpot, a marketing software company that helps businesses “get found”, and have now formalized the concept with the release of this book.

Even though the book is a quick read (a little over 200 pages), you’ll find yourself re-reading and “dog-earing” many of the pages!  It’s stuffed with incredible insights and useful tips on how to put those insights to work in your online marketing program today.

I won’t bore you with a section-by-section review of this very useful book. I’ll just leave you with this thought: the next time you buy something, anything really, think about the trusted sources you used to help you make that buying decision, and where YOU found those trusted sources. I’ll bet most if not all of those sources had some online aspect to them, and here’s the KEY point, I’ll bet YOU found them and not the other way around.

My advice – Buy this book Now! Here’s a link to the book on Amazon:

Inbound Marketing – Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs

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