For the 4th year in a row, I am attending the 2008 SES Conference & Expo in San Jose, CA. I will have to choose between the over 70 sessions offered revolving around increasing search engine marketing opportunities. For the first time, SES will be awarding 15 outstanding search marketers in various categories to be judged by a panel of experts and the SES Awards editorial staff.
Stay tuned for more information regarding this conference. I will be blogging during the week of Aug 18 to fill you in on what I’m learning.
Once again, Yahoo is playing follow the leader with Google.
Google recently announced their capability to read Flash content and Yahoo just announced their ability to do the same. This gives online marketers more freedom to create media rich websites without worrying about creating a separate HTML site. Up until now, Flash developers didn’t need or care about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), but that will now change as online marketers evaluate Flash content for SEO initiatives.
#3 player in Search, Microsoft, has not weighed in to date.
You can read further about the news on SEORoundTable.com.
SEO for Flash websites just got easier. 
For years Flash (what is Flash?) in a website has meant that a search engine couldn’t read the content or links. This forced online marketers engaged in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to take time consuming precautions to work around the Flash.
Leave it to Google to work with Adobe (previously called Macromedia Flash) to read the rich multimedia websites developed in Flash. Now that Google can read Flash, SEO for Flash is going to become a more popular topic. Of course, online marketers will still want to ensure the content and links are relevant and score well by the Google algorithm for keyword search on Google.com. Don’t forget… there are 2 other search engines that Online Marketers will still have to work around when considering SEO for Flash. No word on when Yahoo and Microsoft may jump on the band wagon.
See Adobe Press Release for more info: Adobe Advances Rich Media Search on the Web
Are you looking at SEO for Flash? Will you begin optimizing your Flash website for Google, or wait until Microsoft and Yahoo jump on board?
Have an opinion? Please leave a comment below.
A member of the Google User Experience Group has posted a guide to “Googley” design on the Official Blog…which seeks to provide insight into how Google designers and researchers worldwide approach search engine design. Search design includes everything from - user interface design, visual design, user research, web development, and user interface writing.
The ten “googley principles are here and listed below:
1. Focus on people—their lives, their work, their dreams.
2. Every millisecond counts.
3. Simplicity is powerful.
4. Engage beginners and attract experts.
5. Dare to innovate.
6. Design for the world.
7. Plan for today’s and tomorrow’s business.
8. Delight the eye without distracting the mind.
9. Be worthy of people’s trust.
10. Add a human touch.
Does your company’s search design convey these principles?
Would adopting or at least considering ways to incorporate these search engine friendly design principles improve the user experience of your customer or prospects?
Yes.
For additional insight into the “Googley” philosophy, you can check out Ten things Google has found to be true.
Google recently announced the availability of a data benchmarking service that gives users the ability to compare their properties to other sites within an industry. Brett Crosby from the Google Analytics blog writes, “Of course, benchmarking only works if people can opt to share their data into the system, so we’re also introducing a new data-sharing settings page. On this page, customers can choose whether to opt in or opt out of sharing their Analytics data. To be clear, we are not sharing individual data with competitors; we bucket data into industry verticals and then anonymize and aggregate the data.”
Wikipedia defines benchmarking as follows, “…a process used in management and particularly strategic management, in which organizations evaluate various aspects of their processes in relation to best practice, usually within their own sector. This then allows organizations to develop plans on how to adopt such best practice, usually with the aim of increasing some aspect of performance. Benchmarking may be a one-off event, but is often treated as a continuous process in which organizations continually seek to challenge their practices.”
As we are continually faced with more competitive online marketing environments, this data benchmarking information becomes critical in your strategic planning. When future direction is determined by a hunch or a perception the outcome can be negative. The solution lies in the continual use of this information over the long haul. The advantages of using data benchmarking information enable organizations to see new methods, ideas and tools to improve their effectiveness. The savings over the long haul are significant in reference to both time and money.
So the question becomes…Am I using this information in my strategic planning initiatives?
- Identify your problem areas
- Identify other industries that have similar processes
- Data Collection (Now Available)
- Determine current performance gap
- Implement new and improved business practices
Remember: “Benchmarking isn’t just about data-culture and circumstances must be taken into account when you view the results.”