Marc Bitanga's Blog
Posted by Marc Bitanga
As predicted by many in the internet marketing field, social media is about to cause major ripples in the search engine industry. Twitter, the latest social media phenomenon, has announced plans to launch a search engine to rival Google.
CNET broke the news recently, where Twitter Vice President Santosh Jayaram announced that Twitter will soon begin to crawl the links included in tweets and begin to index the content of those pages. Twitter has also hinted that their search algorithm will contain elements of a reputation ranking system. I believe this means that Twitter will begin to evaluate Twitter accounts based on trust and reputation. If a trusted Twitter account tweets about a website, this could be beneficial for the website’s rankings. This is analogous to Google anointing certain websites with a level of trust and authority which helps their web pages rank well.
Search marketing insiders also believe that Twitter’s true strength will be its ability to provide real-time search results, something that Google hasn’t been able to address in its current form.
What does this news mean for those who want to be on the cusp of social media marketing and search engine optimization? Create a Twitter account today and network with like-minded professionals. Your Twitter account could soon become a trusted source.
Posted by Marc Bitanga
SEOs like myself are always trying to anticipate the changes that Google makes. As a publisher of a site with over 14 million unique visitors per month, Suite101 not only stays current in its product development and training efforts but also endeavors to stay ahead of the curve by watching emerging trends – all in an effort to bring as many readers to our articles from search engines.
One of the mainstays of Google’s algorithm is its reliance on links between websites. Google uses these links to:
- discover new websites and web pages
- figure out whether your website is a trustworthy source of information by analyzing who links to you and how many websites have linked to your web pages
However, this link-based part of Google’s algorithm may be affected by some pretty monumental changes in the social networking world over the past couple of years.
Facebook has reached 200 million active users, many of whom share links within the walls of this social network. These links are inaccessible to search engines; without access to those links, Google can’t gauge the true popularity and relevance of a website.
Twitter has experienced a meteoric rise in popularity. In March 2009 worldwide visits to the site increased by 95%, from 9.8 million visits to 19.1 million visits. Some bloggers have noted that Twitter could be the reason bloggers are posting fewer articles and fewer visitors are commenting on posts. Fewer blog posts translate into fewer links being shared.
URL Shortening Services
With the rise of Twitter has come an increase in use of URL shortening tools such as tinyurl.com, bit.ly, is.gd, etc. Some URL shortening tools aren’t using 301 HTTP redirects and they definitely don’t use anchor text, both of which are signals that Google has used in its algorithm.
So what has Google done to compensate for this change in user behavior? So far, we haven’t seen any shifts to signal that Google is using social networking behavior in its ranking algorithm. But then again, Google doesn’t exactly telegraph its next move.
What we do know is that social media and social networking is a bigger part of the Internet’s ecosystem today than it was a few years ago. With so many users flocking to social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, Google will have to consider changing its formula to adjust to this new reality.
Posted by Marc Bitanga
Why Should Writers Consider Forecasting Seasonal Demand?
Timing is everything.
For retailers, marketers and writers on the web, forecasting seasonal demand is essential. Demand for certain products, services and even information ebbs and flows with seasons, holidays and recurring events (e.g. tax season, back to school, etc.). Until recently, marketing experts had to rely on their own historical sales data and shared information from trade associations to determine when to start stocking inventory or when to begin a sales promotion.
In a similar light, online writers and journalists had to rely strongly on intuition to forecast when their articles might attract the most readership. For writers, a well-timed article can be the difference between hitting "the sweet spot" and attracting hundreds of readers or having a lackluster response in terms of traffic.
Today, Google exposes this information to anyone who's savvy and creative enough to tap into Google's search trends tool, Google Insights. We've talked about Google Insights on Suite101 but let's dig into the details of how to use this tool to forecast when an article should be published.
Can Google Really Forecast Seasonal Demand?
Let's quickly walk through why we should rely on the data that Google provides.
Google is undeniably the most popular search engine in the USA and for many international regions.
- Google has 36 datacenters worldwide
- In 2008, Google had a 69.5% market share of searches performed in the USA
- Experts estimate that Google has over 200,000 servers
- Google processes 235 million searches per day
With all this computing power, data collection & market share, Google is well equipped to forecast seasonal demand and to tell us not only what the world is searching for, but more importantly, when!
Forecasting to Determine When to Publish an Article
Let's imagine you are about to write an article related to Christmas Shopping.
Based on the 2008 Google Insights query for the keywords "Christmas Shopping" (also see graphic below), people in 2008 started to search Google for phrases including the words Christmas and Shopping beginning in September. Since you're a savvy writer and you want to take advantage of seasonal demand, you determine your article has to be published 2-3 weeks in advance of this demand. In this case, it means you should consider publishing your article in August.
Why publish a Christmas article 2-3 weeks before demand, so early in the year? For your article to have the best chance of success during the holidays, your article has to:
- Be discovered by Google and added to their index. Depending on the website, it could take a matter of a few days or more than a week.
- Build up the number of quality inbound links. Remember, Google's algorithm see's relevant inbound links as a major factor.
Since demand for Christmas Shopping articles begins in September, it would be best if your article was published before the rise in demand.
Three Quick Examples of Seasonal Demand
It's arguable most writers intuitively know when they should write and publish an article. "I know when spring starts, therefore I should publish when the weather starts to warm up after winter. Right?" Wrong. Remember the content requires a period of some to get indexed by search engines and also build some relevant inbound links. Publishing it at the point when perceived demand starts is probably too late.
Data is really helpful in debunking assumptions. For example:
- Back to School; demand in the US begins at the start of April
- Summer Vacation Ideas; surprisingly, demand begins after Christmas for this popular search query
- Spring Gardening; demand in the US begins at the beginning of February
Using "Summer Vacation Ideas" as an example, if a writer were to publish her article in June, she would miss potentially thousands of readers searching for this article way back in December!
So you don't need to be a marketing analyst to determine when people want to view your content the most. With tools like Google Insights, it only takes a bit of web savvy and creativity to tap into data that could really increase your readership.
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Posted by Marc Bitanga
I recently came across a Los Angeles Times article titled "It's Web 101 for Experienced Intern" that highlighted how Lois, a 55-year old accomplished magazine editor, had lost her position due to downsizing and was now starting anew with an online startup as an intern.
The article focused on Lois' experience of transitioning from a traditional print media background to the online world. And how she had to learn and adopt new web writing skills & techniques in order to write articles that both appealed to her online audience as well as followed web writing best practices in order for her piece to be found & perform well in search engines.
Through her internship, Lois discovered new research tools such as Google Trends, which allowed her to identify the amount of demand and timing for her subject matter. She also had to construct her articles in a particular way by emphasizing the predominant keyword phrases in the title and subheadings. Most importantly Lois had to shift her thinking from her old print days; instead of writing titles & copy that was quirky she had to be mindful of the type of phrases that her readers would use when searching for her articles...and use that same language within her content.
The biggest hurdle for writers with a similar background as Lois, is to understand that in the traditional print world readers purchase the package (the magazine or newspaper) not a specific article. Readers are fairly loyal to certain magazines & newspapers and will pick up their favorite publication and discover articles within this package. In the online world, readers are much less loyal. They tend to go where they are able to find what they were looking for. Readers discover content mainly through search engines, which makes the discoverabiltiy and effectiveness of an article extremely important. As an example, 90% of Suite101.com's traffic is from search engines such as Google, Yahoo & MSN. Much of this traffic is directly to our articles.
As more newspapers begin to feel the economic crunch, and journalists begin exploring online writing jobs and opportunities, journalists must adopt the concept of writing for the web in order to be successful online.
Posted by Marc Bitanga
As part of my role with Suite101 I help monitor the buzz about our online brand. I keep my eye on what people are saying and the general opinion that's posted about Suite101 on blogs, websites & social networks.
While searching Twitter, a relatively new yet very popular social network, I came across this Tweet from Michelle Devon who has written for Suite101 in the past. Michelle has also written for Helium and is currently a writer for Associated Content.
She gave a rather fair review in her blog post about Suite101 with both good points and areas we need to work on. But one of the things I found interesting is she also was candid about the earning potential of each website. One of the more popular questions we hear from prospective writers is regarding potential earnings. "How much can I make with Suite101?".
Here are some of her comments:
"[Suite101 is] hands down the highest payer of them all on average..."
"...Suite101 is the real deal. I would imagine if I hadn't quit writing for them, that average would be higher, since older articles would get more views from new visitors."
To be fair, she did mention that Associated Content has a different payment structure and ultimately chose to write with them because of personal preference. However this illustrates that Suite101 can be profitable for writers who are willing to write and contribute over the long-term because they receive earnings for the life of their article.
Posted by Marc Bitanga
For many of you who have worked with us here at Suite101 over the past couple of years this shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Recent findings of Alexa.com (a leading website that tracks the visit rate to top websites) reveals that Suite101.com is now one of the top 5 most visited Canadian websites. Figures were compiled using Alexa traffic data for the month of January.
Below is the list of the complete list of Top 15 Canadian Websites, including their Alexa rankings.
- Metro Lyrics - 419 - Song Lyric Database
- Plenty of Fish - 459 - Dating Community
- Government of Canada - 597 - Government
- CBC - 1,352 - Content
- Suite101.com - 1,641 - Content
- Canoe.ca - 1,642 - Content
- Canada.com - 1,645 - Content
- The Weather Network - 1,650 - Content
- TD Canada Trust - 1,749 - Commerce: Banking
- Rogers Communications - 1,943 - Content
- Spintop Games - 2,229 - Commerce: Games
- The Toronto Star - 2,631 - Content
- The Globe and Mail - 2,720 - Content
- CTV - 2,756 - Content
- TSN - The Sports Network - 2,836 - Content
Among the Top 5 Canadian websites, we share the honors with the likes of Metro Lyrics, Plenty of Fish, the Canadian Government & CBC. Rounding off the Top 15 are well known websites such as TSN, CTV, Canada.com & Canoe.ca.
As you can imagine, upon hearing the news we here at Suite101 are ecstatic and are looking forward to updates to this new index as we track our progress. This news is also an excellent indicator that Suite101 has great content, and most importantly helps freelance writers attract more readers to their articles.
Posted by Marc Bitanga
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Google is the number one search engine in North America and arguably the planet. Everyone uses it, but very few people understand the inner workings of how search engines work. How it discovers new websites or comes up with the most relevant search results. There are a number of tactics that collectively will help writers increase the amount of incoming traffic their articles receive from search engines. However, before attempting any of them, it’s important to learn how search engines - like Google - work. Here’s an informative, yet humorous, look at how search engines work. |
Click here for a larger version of the presentation.