http://www.seoshootout.com Search Engine Optimization Blog Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:15:24 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Not surprisingly, search engine use via mobile phones has different patterns than searching from computers. SEO Chat advises that 50 percent of mobile phone search queries come in seven categories: music or ringtones, navigation, entertainment, sports, local knowledge, shopping and reference. And mobile phone use is likely to keep growing,  recession ... http://www.seoshootout.com/2009/01/search-via-mobile-phones-keeps-growing/ Jennifer Laycock, of Search Engine Guide, begins a fascinating six-part blog series on the "Pinocchio Effect" in search. By that she means "...deep down, search engines want nothing more than to be real boys (or girls). That's right, it's that simple. As search engine engineers gain more and more ability ... http://www.seoshootout.com/2009/01/the-pinocchio-effect-in-search/ Here are five offbeat search engine paths, courtesy of Search Engine Land: • Track This Now - A news search engine that tracks results geographically on Google Maps.  • StateStats - Shows the populatirty of any search term on a state-by-state basis. For example, states in the southeast U.S. tend to do ... http://www.seoshootout.com/2009/01/five-special-function-search-engines/ Here are the speakers and programs for two big SEO conferences virtually back-to-back and an ocean (the Atlantic) apart next month. First there's the SMX West search marketing conference in Santa Clara, CA, February 10-12. And then SES (Search Engine Strategies) in London February 17-20. A time of recession is especially germane ... http://www.seoshootout.com/2009/01/two-seo-conferences-in-february/ I'm a visual person so this easily qualifies as one of the better practical explanations for how SEO works and how you can start using it today. If you're a relative newcomer to the world of SEO, take a look at this diagram created by Aaron Wall at SEO Book: [full ... http://www.seoshootout.com/2009/01/seo-traffic-growth-flowchart/ Here's Danny Sullivan's heartfelt meditation on why Microsoft doesn't succeed with search – its heart isn't in the technology, only its appetite for the dollars it yields. Danny, of  course,  is editor-in-chief of  Search Engine Land and has been covering search since 1996.  Danny laments that he hasn't been able to ... http://www.seoshootout.com/2008/12/why-microsoft-doesnt-get-search/ Allow your readers to promote your website with the new Tell-a-Friend service. By adding a simple widget to your site, your visitors can share your pages with any of their friends, as well as with social media sites such as Digg. For a premium, you can customize the widget to your ... http://www.seoshootout.com/2008/12/tell-a-friend-as-a-viral-marketing-tool/ Google Zeitgeist looks at the top events, trends and memorable moments of 2008 as reflected in billions of Google searches. Sort of a coalescence of the mass mind. Fascinating! http://www.seoshootout.com/2008/12/our-2008-in-google-searches/ Use alt tags to improve your web pages' SEO quality. Your images can be sitting there lifeless, yet with the addition of a few keywords, they can bring in new search traffic to your site. The best keywords to use are related ones that you could not work into the original ... http://www.seoshootout.com/2008/12/alt-tags-put-your-images-to-work/ In emphasizing content on your website (and helping to get your site indexed by Google and other search engines if it isn't already), write and post a short article on a technique  you use and submit it to an article submission service. Search engine spiders scan those lists and your ... http://www.seoshootout.com/2008/12/post-on-article-submission-services/