Friday, January 28, 2011 at 2:55PM ;)
AdWords is a powerful tool, but many brands have become dependent on it at the expense of their organic search strength. And this could be hurting your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.
Friday, November 19, 2010 at 3:00PM ;)
Links are what makes the Internet the Internet. It's a simple idea and one we all take for granted.
Friday, October 1, 2010 at 4:25PM 
The Internet isn’t your friend. It’s not your buddy or your pal. The Internet is a machine that lays in wait for that one moment for you to do something wrong
Friday, September 17, 2010 at 4:00PM ;)
It’s difficult to justify a long term SEO strategy to someone when their boss is breathing down their neck, demanding to see improved traffic at next week’s meeting.
Friday, September 10, 2010 at 4:00PM 
If you live in the US, you probably noticed that Google has been acting funny the past couple days. The search giant has implemented Google Instant into their engine, showing you streaming search results as you type.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010 at 4:13PM ;)
Like any media, social media takes planning and commitment. Unlike other mediums, social media requires a level of understanding and commitment not necessary
Friday, June 18, 2010 at 4:00PM You may be out-ranked, but you can still out-traffic the competition
You pour blood sweat and tears into SEO, clawing your way to the top spot on Google, triumphing over adversity like Rocky climbing stair after stair in Philadelphia. And you still don’t get the clicks.
Like your mother always told you, winning isn’t everything. Being in the top spot in search rankings doesn’t guarantee people will be impressed enough to click your link. It’s likely enough they’ll take a look at the few entries below you and go elsewhere. That’s why your click-through rate (CTR) is the real measure of your SEO success.
Getting that high CTR is all about your meta tag descriptions. These are often neglected since search engines have been ignoring them in their rankings for many, many years. Which doesn’t make much sense as, whether it’s organic search traffic or pay per click, the meta tag is where you pitch your website to surfers, telling them what they’ll find on your page and why it’s worth their time.
Follow the subtle arrow to find the meta tag
But hey, you’ve got the first spot, so you’ll still get most of the traffic right? Actually, you could be missing out on 80% of it. Traffic can vary between 20%-60% of clicks with a brilliant vs. rubbish meta tag description. If we’re talking about tens of thousands of searches, or more, that’s one heck of a lot of missed visits.
Let’s look at an example. Here are the top 5 search results for “international ad agency.” Which one would you click on?
I would go for the second or third entries and skip the other ones entirely since their meta tag descriptions are far from convincing.
Now that you know how important the meta tags are, here are some tips for writing them:
One last thought to mull over as you ponder how to handle your meta tags – if you don’t write them yourself, you may be in for some character assassination at the hands of Google. Just look what kind of spin the meta tag below put on an innocent writer, who in the context of the article is actually held in high esteem. Not so much on Google.
Friday, May 28, 2010 at 4:00PM
Supercharging your
site with keywords isn’t nearly as effective as building it around them from
the ground up
Working on several SEO projects here at The Duffy Agency, I’ve come to realize keyword research has an even better use than optimizing a site for search engines – it should guide the entire focus of a site from day one.
Us SEO geeks usually start projects by doing some intense keyword research to make sure we’re optimizing an existing site for the search phrases with the greatest potential. This does help your content get found by a whole lot more people, but your chance to reach the masses may already be out of reach.
If you want to build a massively successful website in today’s overcrowded cyberspace, you need a cunning strategy. Keyword research is your secret weapon in crafting a strategy to give you a leg up on the competition. Without this research, you’re leaving your fate up to wishful thinking, hoping that your target is already searching for exactly what you’re creating and that you can steal traffic from competitors. But by taking a close look at what your target is searching for, you can tailor your content so that it gets placed where millions of targeted individuals are looking for it. But there's a catch: your site’s core content might not end up being what you had planned.
I can sense your skepticism. After all, if you want to sell bikinis, why should you go and make a website about swimming, workout tips and dieting instead of simply setting up an optimized webshop?
Because there aren’t many people searching for bikinis. Moreover, your webshop would be competing against every other company in the category, and the best SEO in the world won’t put you in front of the global giants. On top of that, you’ll only be fighting for the people typing “bikini” into search engines.
When you do the research, you see that most people interested in upgrading their beach-look are between 13 and 40, they work out, they dream about vacations in the Bahamas, and even though they want your product, most of them never search for it
. But they are searching for pictures of beaches, reading blogs about working out and trying out diets to lose a couple of pounds before bikini season. In other words, you discover swimwear is actually a small part of a bigger need your customers are trying to satisfy.
So instead of creating the website www.wesellswimwear.com you create www.getreadyforthebeach.com.
And instead of targeting the keywords "swimwear," "bikinis" and "bathing suits," which are being intensely fought over by a slew of competitors, you use "beach," "vacation," "work out" and "diet tips," since they get millions more hits and are less contested by the competition.
There’s still competition to deal with, but you won’t be competing against other webshops struggling for their piece of a small audience. You’ll attract customers from a huge group of people who want your product, even if they aren’t looking for it directly. And you’ll still have pages on your site devoted to your webshop where you can fight for a place on the first “bikini” search results page.
The moral of this little hypothetical tale is that keyword research shows you what content your audience is out there looking for, and it’s likely not what you’re selling, whether it be a product, service or obscure amusement. You can’t do a whole lot with that information after your website is up, so doing the research in the beginning and engineering your site to give your target exactly what they want, where they’re looking for it, will lead to far greater results on search engines and higher traffic in general. Maybe a site that is all about you is exactly what you need, but you won’t know without the research. And if you don’t do it until after you’ve poured your time and money into making a site, your golden opportunity may have passed you by.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 4:00PM
Twitter is highly indexed by Google and taking a few simple steps will help your Twitter profile appear on the first page of results when someone searches for you. Too often we’ve done research for clients and found that a company’s Twitter page doesn’t appear in the first few pages of a Google search. If that applies to you (go and check, we’ll wait), by making a few changes to your profile, you can boost your ranking.
Profile name - Picking a username is one of the most important things you can do. A username should either reflect your industry, a name you’re well known by or your company. This is how people will find your profile and associating your account with a name that is already associated with your industry will increase its value. Avoid dashes and try to keep the name as short as possible.
Your website - Don’t bother adding “www” in front of your url. Twitter will add “http://” so the shorter you can keep your url the better. Twitter will only show the first 20 characters and the first 7 are pre-filled in. Just use the domainname.com. Avoid using url shorteners like Bit.ly or Tiny Url.
Bio keywords - With only 160 characters allowed in your bio, don’t waste characters with words that don’t add to your value and have no search relevance. Your bio is a short introduction to who you are and will be displayed in the search results. It should tell people who you are, what you do and what you’ll tweet about.
Avatar - Most people don’t think about this, but Twitter doesn’t rename your profile photo like some sites do. By giving your profile photo a correct name, it will appear in search engine image results. This is important when it comes to making sure people are using the correct version of your logo or picture.
Use your account - Now that you’ve set up your account to maximize search engine results, use your account. The more active you are on Twitter, the higher Google and Bing will rank your profile in search results. This will lead to more people finding your profile, getting more followers and increasing your brand authority.
After making these changes, let us know how it changed the search results for your Twitter profile.
Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.
Friday, April 23, 2010 at 4:16PM How to create the perfect title tag – and why you need to
A lot of friends ask me for advice
when it comes to SEO. Nine times out of ten the first question is: How can I
make my website/blog perform better on search engines – without spending any
time or money?
The title tag is that blue link that appears in Google search results, and also the name of each webpage that appears at the very top bit of your web browser. Google’s search bots read these tags first to start judging what your page is about and what keywords are most relevant, so they basically tell Google that your site is what users want to see when they look for certain keywords.
As this tag is what appears in search results, a well-written one is likely to get you a higher percentage of click-throughs. Consider a potential visitor searching for new Ray Ban sunglasses. Which title do you think they will find more appealing:
"Sunglasses – Check out the new collection of Ray Ban sunglasses" - or -
"Welcome to my website!"
The tricky bit is appealing to the human beings you want to click your link while squeezing the most relevant keywords in there. With a little extra thought, it’s very doable. Here are six tips to help guide you in writing the most effective title tags for each page of your website.
1. Make the first word/words of you title the keywords you want to capture users on – if you haven’t figured out what keywords you want to focus on, you can go here to see what keywords related to your content are getting the most searches on Google.
2. Make the title reflect the information on the page. Misleading people will lead to an extremely high bounce rate and very few conversions.
3. Don't use more then 63 characters. Google wont show the entire title if you do.
4. If it makes sense to do so, use your title as the headline of your webpage – users expect to find the title on the page and it also reinforces the keywords you’re using.
5. Getting your brand/site name in there is a good idea for establishing trust and expanding your footprint, but you should generally put it at the end of the tag after a vertical line so the search focus is on your keywords.
6. Your title will end up as a link in the search results, so make it compellingly clickable.
That’s about all there is to writing a great title tag. The most difficult part is determining which keywords to focus on for each page’s tags and content. Stay tuned for a future blog post on just that.
If you want more information about writing the perfect title tag, check out the video below by Gareth Davies of GSINC Ltd.Friday, March 26, 2010 at 2:33PM 
Another landmark digital court verdict was announced this week and, big surprise, it involves Google. The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled this week that Google could sell AdWords to anyone on any word. The issue at had was whether advertisers should be allowed to use the competition’s name as keywords. Basically, if I own a Holiday Inn in Dallas, TX and someone else owns a cheap motel, they can buy ad words that are featured whenever someone searches for “Holiday Inn Dallas.”
In this case, Holiday Inn is Louis Vuitton Malletier. The fashion giant sued Google in 2004 because companies selling knock off versions of their products were buying keywords that were trademarked by Louis Vuitton. They claim that Google not only allows people to freely trade on their brands, but also aids them in finding keywords to help knockoff brands infringe on their trademark. In effect, Google not only allows but facilitates people in hijacking of a brand for their own purposes.
As YouTube videos, mock Twitter accounts, AdWords and Facebook fan pages become more popular, corporations are in danger of losing control of their brand and trademark. Incidents of brands being hijacked by others are growing. AMC ran into this problem with people creating character profiles for their series Mad Men. At first, AMC demanded that Twitter take down the accounts, but after heaps of bad publicity, they recanted and allowed the profiles to remain as long as they were working in the best interest of the series.
As the Louis Vuitton case demonstrates, trying to sue technology into submission isn’t going to work. But that isn’t to say there’s nothing you can do to protect your brand. Here are a few steps you can take to keep hijackers off your ship.
Register your brand/product name early on social media sites – Even if you never intend to use Bebo, Friendster, Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube, it’s good to capture your brand’s name before others can. Most of these sites have a private function so you don’t have to make the account visible.
Track your brand buzz – Brand buzz has never been more important. Internet memes come and go so fast you have stay on top of what is being said constantly. It’s impossible to respond to brand jacking if you’re not aware that it’s happening.
Conduct proper SEO for brand sites – Search engine optimization has become of the utmost importance not just for search engine ranking, but also preventing brand hijacking. If a website is on the first page of a search result, it’s less likely that third party sites can gain significant traction over the branded website as far fewer people click on the paid ads than the organic search results. But if your site doesn’t appear on the first page of results, you’re just asking for others to steal your traffic.
Buy misspellings of you brand name – People misspell words all the time online. So wouldn’t it be great if when someone misspelled your product’s URL, it still took them to the correct site? Purchasing common misspellings of your brand’s url and redirecting them to the correct URL will increase web traffic and make it much easier to get your site to the top of multiple search engine results.
The French case reminds us that when it comes to your brand, Google and social media have made due-diligence more important than ever. Corporations have to learn how to become nimble and adjust to the new online paradigm instead of sitting back, calling Google evil, and wondering why the world is passing them by.
Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.
Friday, February 26, 2010 at 3:00PM
SEO vs PPC: Why you're wasting money
In 2008, $12 billion was spent on PayPerClick advertising compared to $1.4 billion spent on SEO. People still don’t understand SEO. Adwords, on the other hand, is very easy to understand. If someone clicks a banner to visit your site, you have to pay a fee but you know that someone has seen your message. You know what you get and you know what you pay for. It’s like paying the guy who mows your lawn. It is very easy to see the work he did. He spends 2 hours, you can see the guy working through your kitchen window, and you pay him for the work afterwards for doing a good job.
SEO is very different. It's more like hiring an electrician to fix a problem. You know something isn't working right, you can't figure out what, and you have to take their word that everything is wired correctly. An SEO expert can help you optimize your site for Google and just like an electrician, you hand him a pile of money and he will do "something" with your site. He disappears and returns saying everything is fixed. He’s added some “inlinks”, changed some “on page keywords” and updates your “meta tags.” He tells you that everything is fixed and you’ll get great results from organic Google searches. Outwardly, you can’t tell anything has changed.
This is the problem of the SEO expert. It's difficult to explain what needs to be done in a simple manner without sounding like you’re speaking a foreign language, and it can take a lot of time to do SEO correctly, which means it often costs more. After they have finished optimizing a site, the results aren’t instantaneous. They can’t prove that their work had any effect on Google in an immediate fashion, so people prefer using Adwords. SEO isn’t a one time fix. It’s a long process of sitting and waiting. Over the course of three to six months, you’ll see the return on your investment with a stronger return on organic research for your entire site (not just one page) and more traffic to your website.
Done correctly, SEO can have a huge impact on your website and on your entire business. For example, by taking just one relevant keyword on a website and optimizing the site for it, it’s possible to advance from the 19th search result on Google to first or second place. For a keyword with 10,000 monthly searches, it means you will get about 2,000 visitors instead of 10.
Considering 90% of Google users find websites through the organic search, proper SEO makes it possible for them to find your site over and over again long after the Adwords campaign has ended and brings in the people that don’t trust paid search results. So why are we spending 90% of our online marketing budgets to attract the 10% of online traffic generated by search engines?
Why settle for just a small piece of the pie when you can have 100% of it using Google's organic search? Start focusing more on SEO, either by hiring someone to help you out or by learning about it yourself.
