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Search for autoshopper inventory on custom video web page

Smartphone shoppers are real buyers

According to Google:

• 79% of smartphone consumers use their phones to help with shopping, from comparing prices, to finding more product info, to locating a retailer.
• 70% use their smartphones while in a store.
• 77% have contacted a business via mobile, with 61% calling and 59% visiting the local business.
• 44% of searches for last minute gifts this holiday season will come through mobile phones.
• Mobile searches on Black Friday rose 200% from last year.
• Tablet traffic grew 440% in 2011 from 2010.

http://googlemobileads.blogspot.com/2011/12/look-back-at-2011.html

"YouTube now exceeds 200 million views a day on mobile, a 3x increase in 2010."

http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2011/01/music-videos-now-on-youtube-app-for.html

Based on the numbers above, are your cars or property listings optimized for mobile?  Have you created video landing pages for mobile users?

Now Google is looking for mobile optimized sites and apps to crawl.  Is your web site ready for the 200 million mobile views every day?

...Take the lead now over your competitors and have Google search your site to optimize (rank) your site for mobile users... get ahead of your competitors.

Now there is a Googlebot for Smartphones... now Google can search and optimize your website for mobile.

"The new crawler will optimize content displayed on smartphones where it is specifically made for smartphones."

Understanding the new Googlebot tools.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/12/introducing-smartphone-googlebot-mobile.html

Read this for an overview of what is going on here.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2134040/Googlebot-for-Smartphones-Some-Useful-Stats

Large Website SEO Techniques

Often trying to manage a site with hundreds of links can seem daunting.  How you go about laying out your site is absolutely critical to the success of your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) program.

Often you will have different departments vying for control over the front page which is of course where search engines start.  One of the biggest issues is Conical links.  How to handle links back to the site or to the same item in the site.

I spend a large amount of time trying to figure out "Best Practices" for these sorts of problems for my clients and use my Blog to capture the best ideas I come across.

None of this is new to us but often it is nice to read it in a concise simple article with all the considerations in a few pages...

I think this article:

SEO Techniques for Large Sites

by Adam Audette 

Read At:

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2133151/seo-techniques-sites

Offers one of the better overviews of how to go about developing a schema plan for your site.
Remember that there is also a new consortium of search companies using schema.org layout parameters when instituting these new idea.

FREE SEO Tools

I am always looking for the best collection of tools to analyze my client's web sites.
I think this site provides one of the best compendiums of web analysis tools around
http://www.searchenginegenie.com/seo-tools.htm

Long Tail vs Head Term SEO Results

We often think that if we can rank for the largest number of searchers for a core search term that we are winning the SEO wars.  Fact is the conversion rate can be as much as 2.5x more for a "long tail" term as apposed to the core "head term" search word.

Conductor, who offers a great service called Searchlight, has put together a simple two page review of their findings on this and can be had for free at:

http://www.conductor.com/resource-center/research/long-tail-search

So you want to be an SEO Rock Star?

Advanced Keyword Modeling is a leaned skill.  Like sailing a boat, making a pair of shoes... this can be learned.
I advise my clients to consider having their SEO staff take this simple and effective course from one of the pros
Learn From Bill Hunt on Advanced Keyword Modeling at the Click-Z Academy.
http://tinyurl.com/bo4htde
Learn:

• Optimizing your keyword strategy
• Optimizing snippets and identifying bad snippets
• Opportunities for end-of-life products
• Understanding searchers and using query intent and searcher mindset
• Brainstorming keywords, generating your initial keyword list and prioritizing
• Using keyword research tools
• Mapping searchers to actions, and keywords to pages
• Creating a taxonomy to define your content and search strategy
• Evaluating underperforming keywords
• Keyword modeling
• Aligning your keyword strategy to social media and PR
• Integrating paid and organic search

The session is approximately one hour 

Mobile Privacy-What Verizon does with your data

Does your cell phone carrier really care about your privacy? Not.

Verizon says this in my account... RE: Relevant Mobile Advertising...When you use your wireless device, you often see advertising on websites (Verizon is controlling these ads not Google?) and apps (again who is getting my personal information?). Using the postal address we have for you and certain consumer information such as your device type, language preference and demographic and interest categories provided to us by other companies [They mashup my actual contact info with my search history with where I am standing with my phone in my pocket and the credit card data that I am using at that moment, buying underwear in some store - wow that is such a violation]... (such as gender, age range, sports fan, frequent diner, or pet owner), we will determine whether you fit within an audience category that an advertiser is trying to reach....Please note that you will receive mobile ads whether you participate or not, but under the program, ads may be more relevant to you.

- You will see ads whether you opt in or not! Verizon is running ads on my phone taking up my minutes? This is just the beginning. You can't really opt out of this either... only remove "relevant data" whatever that means.

Check out your own phone privacy settings with your carrier when you log into your cell phone account. You will be amaized at what they say they can do.

Here is a great review of this subject from Mobile Commerce News.
http://tinyurl.com/vprivacynotice

Privacy changes...It (V's new polilcy) will require customers to have to actively opt-out unless they wish to send information to Verizon about the features and apps that they use, the websites that they visit using their mobile devices, and where they have physically travelled while using devices on the Verizon network.

Freewheel Report Says 97 Percent Video View Growth

From your mind to your eyes - google explains how search works

Google takes a minute to explain the history of the Google Search engine and how it has evolved and also how Universal Search [explained] works where they combine all of the various kinds of media types; web pages, images, video, text from books.... and how they get it to you faster.



If you deconstruct this video you quickly see that using other types of media besides web pages is the future of how Google plans to get you information.

OK Universal Search... return different media types in a single search. But really what does this mean?
1. Mobile devices doing search are better optimized for video. (30 % of our videos are being watched on a mobile device now)
2. How does Google make money? Selling ads, and if you haven't clicked on one of their ads in a general search, they make no money... but if they present a video result, namely a YouTube video link, this not only provides Google a second chance at charging someone for an ad impression, they also keep you in their eco system, instead of say going off to the New York Times.

Seems simple to me! What do you think?