Basically, some people in the industry have taken from the interview that Bruce is implying that without video, you website may be unlikely to rank in the future. And while that may be a tad extreme, it is clear that engagement objects are becoming increasingly crucial when it comes to organic and universal results in search engines.

An ‘engagement object’ is an element or multimedia component you can add to your website that engages users and encourages them to interact with your website.

These include videos, podcasts and audio files, images, macros, graphs and charts, webcomics, RSS feeds, maps, polls, and live streaming.

In the interview, Bruce talks about which variables are important to the Google search algorithm, discussing how the introduction of universal search has resulted in a change in the number of variables that are considered for ranking.

While it has been previously accepted that Google used 120 variables to rank websites, the general belief is that since the introduction of universal search and greater use of engagement objects, Google has increased its algorithm variables to as many as 200.

He goes on to say that websites containing video, viewed as one of the most important engagement objects, will soon be received by Google’s algorithm better, resulting in your site having a greater opportunity to rank well.

For more information about search engine optimisation, read the Introducing Your Website to Google website resource on NZS.com.

Firstly, you need quality content to assure your visitors and potential customers that you are legitimate and offer the perfect services to meet their needs. Secondly, good website content is the backbone of search engine optimisation. Which is equally important if you’re to have any chance of ranking in search engines and gaining genuine traffic.

Though innovative and eye catching design may impress potential clients, it’s relevant, well written content that is really the heart and soul of your website. It is that content that will ultimately drive visitors to your site, capture their attention and keep them wanting more. In short: great website content is the best relationship building tool you can have with your customers.

Think of your website as a cake. You nip into a bakery to buy a delicious cake to share with your customers. You spy the most delectable, and expensive, cake in the store, but the moment you taste a slice you realise the baker has forgotten to add sugar. Now the cake is bland and boring and hard to swallow… and your customers are less than impressed and losing interest.

Think of web content as the sugar that needs to be added to your cake. While great design may make your website look professional, without quality content you’ll find customers are not satisfied and soon lose interest.

A well designed website can attract visitors to your website, but website content is the key element that will bring regular traffic, persuade your visitors to take an action and convert visitors into sales.

For more information on creating quality content and search engine optimisation be sure to check out our Website Resources on NZS.com.

While it’s not a stat holiday (although some might argue it should be!) Mother’s Day is coming up in May. If you’re having a Mother’s Day sale on your website, start thinking about targeting key phrases now.

Here’s a helpful list of Mother’s Day-related keyword searches which were popular on NZS.com last year:

• mothers day
• mothers day poems
• mothers day gifts
• mothers day quotes
• mothers day poem
• mothers day gift ideas
• mothers day ideas
• mother’s day poem
• mothers day present

Get in quick are you’ve got the best chance of gaining a good search engine rank for your Mother’s Day-specific pages!

For NZS.com, the largest spike we’ve seen over the last year was in relation to the Olympic Keyword Searches that were being searched on. These searches were across the widest range of user demographics that we’ve seen in some time.

Here’s a helpful list of Easter-related keyword searches which have gained popularity on NZS.com over the last week:

• easter activities
• easter ideas
• easter baking
• easter recipes
• easter crafts
• meaning of easter
• how to make easter eggs
• easter cards
• easter symbols
• easter bun recipe

NZS.com also has a set of useful Easter related Articles: Easter Gifts, Easter Activities and Easter Baking.

If you have a statistics package attached to you website (like Google Analytics, which is freely available) it’s a good idea to look back at Easter 2008 and see if people found your site by searching for Easter related terms. Re-cycling those terms this year within your website copy may help increase your traffic on them.

You might be surprised at the extra opportunities that present themselves by following other seasonal keywords that your visitors are using through-out the year.

at NZS.com. It seems like every week there’s a new way of doing things, a new keyword analysis resource from you-know-who.

We forget sometimes just how young SEO is, and how quickly optimisation fads and flutter in and out of popular use. It wasn’t too long ago when every at-home website developer was testing out every new SEO technique: from black text on black background keyword-laden pages, to irrelevant meta data keyword schemes focused on the hottest worldwide searches.

We’re a decade on from the emergence of these methods, but funnily enough they are still highly (and badly) used throughout the World Wide Web. What are the best SEO tools

today? SEO companies will continually tell you that going back to the basics never goes awry. Unique content, cohesive page titling, targeted and concise keyword data, clean HTML, and of course, relevant inbound linking.

Set yourself a simple SEO formula for your website (and stick with that formula for every new page you create), and you’ll glide into top ranks and high conversions.

But is bad keyword spelling really useful or does it just make your website look unprofessional?

The answer to this question depends on your point of view. Just take a look at any keyword tool and you’ll see that intentional misspellings account for a significant proportion of searches online. So, including misspelled keywords can be useful, allowing you to:

• Target searches that are commonly misspelled, for instance ‘accomodation’ instead of ‘accommodation’
• Get good search engine rankings for profitable popular search terms that have low levels of competition
• Capture the market for regional spelling variations, eg. both UK and US spellings of words such as ‘optimisation’ (‘optimization’)
  
• Help searchers find what they’re looking for, even if they enter a word incorrectly

But along with these benefits, there are also disadvantages to including misspellings or alternate spellings in your website copy – the most obvious being that visitors and potential clients will see your website (and therefore your business) as sloppy, careless or… lacking in basic spelling skills. Even worse, you may end up losing your search engine friendly status if you, or your Web designer, try to fool search engines with invisible text or other keyword tricks.

Find some of the best SEO consultants in New Zealand in the NZS.com directory.

Image from Flickr.

And New Zealand search statistics are showing the popularity of this summer pastime. Reports from Hitwise show that searches relating to the great outdoors have increased significantly in recent weeks. Most of these high ranking search terms are generic (like ‘camping grounds’), but other popular search terms are geographically specific (for instance ‘paihia camping ground’).

Top ten searches relating to camping holidays in New Zealand, for the week ending 8 December, 2007 were:

1. kiwi camping
2. camping grounds
3. camping
4. camping equipment
5. camping gear
6. camping nz
7. camping ground
8. camping sites
9. new zealand camping holidays
10. camping new zealand

So, what can we do with search keyword stats like this? Information on how searchers are finding your website can be used (along with data on what searchers are looking for online) to better tailor your website content and keywords. These statistics also show the power of seasonal search trends (online promotions should take into account the time of year) and region-specific searches (you may not be number one in generic camping term searches, but you could rank highly for a geographically specific search).

And if you’re getting ready to relax over the summer holidays, get sorted for your camping holiday with our directory of New Zealand camping grounds and camping equipment stores.

Getting the results you want
To get the most relevant results from search engines, you need to be quite specific about the ‘keyword search phrase’ you type into the search box. In this example, you have decided to use NZS.com to help you find out where you can buy piano music at a reasonable price. You are based in Christchurch (the city in New Zealand, not the town in England). The words you might choose to include in your search term would then be: “second hand piano music christchurch”.

By being so specific about your search, the search engine can pull up what it considers to the best and most relevant result to answer your query.

Searching for New Zealand Web sites
If you’re interested in searching for a New Zealand service or company, NZS.com itself is a great place to start, but Google is still the world’s favourite search engine and comes in hundreds of different varieties. Google NZ offers the option to search New Zealand Web pages only, so you can start narrowing your search field that way.

Read more about keyword phrases and using them in your search engine marketing campaigns. More on this in another post! Adios!

It’s a real shame to see this, because often they’ve spent thousands of dollars creating a site that looks pretty swish. It’s just marketing money down the drain, and in the end gives the Web a bad rap. I can imagine them saying at some point “We’ve spent a lot of time and money developing this site, but we get nothing much out of it, the Web is a waste of time.”

To stop your Web site being invisible, make sure you get it linked from high profile directories and content sites. What’s the point of having a site if people can’t find you?! Also, if you’re a bit more serious about it, then commit to an ongoing Web site promotion program – for most Web sites this is the key to getting a good return on your investment.

Getting other website owners to ‘vote’ for your Web site is all about getting them to publish a hypertext link on their website, which points to one of your Web pages. The more links pointing to your website not only means ‘more votes’ but provides more ways for people and search engines to reach your Web site.

Presidential link bait
The best way to get links from other websites pointing to your website is to publish content (link bait) that is so mind-blowingly brilliant that another Web site owner just WANTS to link to it.

Linking leg work
You can also ask website owners to publish a link to your site. Start with friends and associates, then move onto specialist, national and international directories. Spread your wings further by seeking out websites (preferably relevant to your business) that also publish links or ‘resources’.

The online back-scratch
Some website owners will only publish a link to your website if you publish a link to theirs in exchange. This mutual back-scratching is called, unsurprisingly enough, link exchange. NZS.com offer a FREE bold listing for link exchanges – it’s well worth checking out their link exchange offer.

You can read more about some of the best practises for link building and link exchange, in Link Building Made Easy.

That’s all from me for now folks. Cheerio!