Recent Articles From EvanCarmichael.com http://www.evancarmichael.com/ http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/The-Semantic-Web.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/The-Semantic-Web.html The Semantic Web poses a paradigm shift for search engine optimization. The prominence that factors like keyword matching, keyword density, and ranking in the search engine results page have had will be a thing of the past. What will be more important are factors like understanding how an audience thinks and behaves online, and latent or hidden relationships between ideas and the ways people express those ideas. Then search marketers will need to incorporate that into where they market, how they market, and how they craft messages. http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/Latent-Semantic-Indexing-LSI--What-it-is-how-it-works-and-what-it-means.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/Latent-Semantic-Indexing-LSI--What-it-is-how-it-works-and-what-it-means.html When you query a search engine that uses LSI, the search engine examines similarity values calculated for every content word. LSI does not require an exact match to the query phrase to find relevant documents. What this means for the search engine optimization (SEO) specialist and anyone with a website who wants high visibility in the search engines is that every word on your web page is important, not just the keyphrase(s). It is the right combination of all the words in your content that really matters here. What you do with your keyphrase(s) is still important but now you must go beyond that . . . way beyond that. You’ve got to have the right context to support your keyphrase(s). http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/Connecting-the-DOTS.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/Connecting-the-DOTS.html The importance of using scientific tools in SEO research, rather than 2nd-guessing thoughts disguised as expert tips. http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/SEO-Google-and-Flash.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/SEO-Google-and-Flash.html With the knowledge that Google indexes the text within Flash presentations, SEO professionals no longer need to resort to any of these techniques. As long as you understand how Google sees the text within your Flash presentations you can have the best of both worlds: Flash sites and indexable content! http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/The-Tao-of-Search-Engine-Marketing-Dualism-in-SEO.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/The-Tao-of-Search-Engine-Marketing-Dualism-in-SEO.html Search engine optimization is definitely both an art and a skill. To excel in both aspects, to stand out from others in the trade, you must understand the principle of dualism that underlies and permeates the craft as a whole and in parts (this requires sageness and wisdom) http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/Fish-or-Cut-Bait.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/Fish-or-Cut-Bait.html Please the Search Engine and Persuade your audience Fish or Cut Bait - How do you give the search engines what they want for relevancy and still maintain a level of persuasion and creativity in your content necessary for effective marketing appeal? http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/Making-peace-between-Web-Designers-and-SEO-Practitioners.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/Making-peace-between-Web-Designers-and-SEO-Practitioners.html There has always been a serious tension between web design/layout considerations and search engine optimization requirements. Consequently, designers and SE optimizers are often at odds. One wants functionality, rich user experience and attractive look and feel. The other wants as little HTML code, Javascript, and so on as possible to crowd the optimized text or hinder the page's search engine friendliness. Two things in combination can considerably ease this tension: XHTML and CSS. In fact, this combination does not merely achieve some sort of compromise in this epic battle, but actually can give both sides even more power and flexibility in accomplishing their respective vital tasks, while at the same time relieving the tension between the two. http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/Google-AdSense-and-Optimizing-the-Context-of-your-Copy.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/Google-AdSense-and-Optimizing-the-Context-of-your-Copy.html The ability to have a sort of Google AdWords on your own site through its AdSense program and collect revenue from clickthroughs seems to me to be an exciting opportunity. Google seems to put quite a bit of emphasis on the fact that they consider context and not just keyword matching to determine which pages get matched with which AdSense sponsors - the better the content of the web page, the better quality sponsors that will be assigned to that web page. Apparently, the higher quality sponsors have higher payout amounts for clickthroughs as well. http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/Link-Reputation-and-Your-Website.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/Link-Reputation-and-Your-Website.html Understanding Link Reputation is extremely important for any webmaster or others concerned with search engine ranking. It involves the relationship backlinks (links pointing back to you) have to a target web page and the context of those backlinks. This relationship and context can be measured with respect to a particular search query or theme and has the consequence of revealing how highly a backlink speaks about your web page with regard to that theme. If link popularity is how many pages talk about you, link reputation is how well backlinks talk about you - quality vs. quantity. http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/Personalization-of-Search-and-SEO-Lost-in-the-Shuffle.html http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1279/Personalization-of-Search-and-SEO-Lost-in-the-Shuffle.html Important components of search marketing have always been and will always be increasing quality traffic, increasing sales, and increasing profit. These are the ultimate indicators of success for any search marketing campaign. The introduction of personalized results for users does not change the importance of these indicators or goals in any way. Notwithstanding the above comments, what should not get lost in the cacophony of opinions about the personalization of search is the fact that something significant is different in this new era. What you have with personalized search results is not a totally different set of pages returned from user to user for the same search, but rather a shuffling of the results. If the former were the case, then search engines would need a different algorithm for each user.