Fortune 500 Companies Fail At SEO [U.S study]

proper SEO is crucial

We just came across this article from MediaPost. Unfortunately this problem is not contained to the USA.

Fortune 500 companies fail at search engine optimization, and many still don’t link paid-search keywords to SEO campaigns, although they collectively spend about $3.4 million daily on 97,559 keywords, according to a report.

The Conductor Research Q4/2009 Fortune 500 Report released Wednesday identifies that only 25% of those keywords rank in the top 50 natural search results on search engines such as Google, Microsoft Bing or Yahoo. The Fortune 500 report analyzes national search results and optimization effectiveness, as well as trends and integration plans for the corporate and the consumer brands during the December 2009 quarter.

Analyzing the most expensive keywords that companies bought allowed Conductor to measure intent by assuming these words should float to the top of natural search in query results.

“Since they spend all that money on paid-search keywords you would expect these companies would want the keywords in natural search to correlate with investments on the other side and make them as visible as possible,” says Nathan Safran, senior research analyst at Conductor Research.

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9 more reasons why you need to optimise your website for Google

Its essential to optimise your website for Google

We read plenty about Google’s market share and general ubiquity but how do they relate to the average business?

Here are 9 very interesting statistics recently published on Google’s blog that demonstrate why your organisation needs to ensure that it is making the most of the opportunities presented by being found easily on Google.

We particularly like the third stat about fraction of Google queries never seen before – it speaks volumes for the long-tail of search, which every business can use to their benefit.

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Why does Google index blogs faster than other sites?

We are constantly asked why we use one platform over another when creating new websites. A big part of our rationale is that blog sites seem to be indexed faster and crawled more frequently by Google. We have had some ridiculously fast results over the years, but only on certain platforms.

So we thought you’d be interested in what the gurus at Google have to say on the subject. This video is from their Official Blog. Please note the last comment: make great content, get well known and Google will probably crawl you more frequently.

Watch the video = 2 mins

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NLYZR gets an update

Our NLYZR web analytics tools have just received a significant update to ensure that they are keeping pace with the latest changes with search engines around the world.

NLYZR can now measure websites against up to 568 international search engines and then provide the best recommendations to improve search rankings.

NLYZR was born in early 2009 after lengthy development and consultation with SEO professionals and corporate marketers. We secured the resources of one of the world’s leading SEO firms to develop the NLYZR software and systems. Their constantly updated optimisation software assists Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft and Mastercard through to small enterprises across the USA. NLYZR adapts this most complete set of search engine optimisation tools to meet our Inbound Marketing criteria.

Whilst NLYZR was initially created to meet Australian web marketing demands, we have increasingly found ourselves using it for international projects too. The latest updates significantly increase our ability to accurately assess and provide recommendations for websites around the world.

We’re also keeping pace with the changes being made by the biggest players in search – Google and Bing. Since the launch of Bing (around the same time as NLYZR) the dynamics of search have begun to shift.

SEO is becoming an increasingly fluid field and we are committed to providing the most current analysis and recommendations via NLYZR. We will be implementing regular updates throughout the year.

Marketers see most potential in social media, video & SEO

Forrester Research put out a great report on US Interactive Marketing Spend recently showing where marketers believe effectiveness will increase and decrease in the next three years.

The three biggest expected INCREASES were in Created social media, Online video and Search engine optimisation (SEO).

The areas predicted to have the biggest DECREASE in marketing effectiveness were Newspapers, Yellow Pages, Telemarketing and Radio.

(information sourced from SEOMOZ)