Pear Analytics

If you’re trying to rank higher on search engines, it’s probably a good idea to not overload your site with Flash.  While there have been strides by the search engines to parse Flash files and grab the readable text, unless you set this up properly, chances are the Flash will end up hurting your rankings.

When to use Flash

Flash is a great tool if you have a complicated product that needs more explanation or if you need entertainment value on the website.  Secondly, with the increase in mobile internet use, Flash is still not visible on the latest iPhone and Blackberry, so it’s likely those visitors will be bouncing.  At Pear, we’re getting about 20% of our visitors from mobile devices, so you could be losing out on those visitors with a Flash landing page.

Alternative solutions to Flash

But now we can use AJAX and other javascript techniques, like sliders and expanders, to uniquely display content without bombarding the visitor with content, and yet it’s all still readable by the search engine.  Check out how ServerBeach, a dedicated hosting company, uses javascript sliders instead of Flash to nicely organize lots of information.

Setting up proper use of Flash

If you or your developer still insist on using Flash, there are some ways that you can set up your code to optimize it for SEO, and it has to do with accessibility programming.  This blog post by Jonathan Hochman is a great overview of the multiple ways you can set this up using SWFObject 2.0, or even SIFR in some cases, although I understand SIFR is more used for typography enhancements, where you would like to use a non-standard web font, but get credit for the text in an H1 tag for example.

The SWFObject method provides a way to include alternate HTML content on the page which is visible in your source code, and all it uses is a tiny javascript file.  This stems from the Web Accessibility Initiative which says all multimedia content should have an alternative way of accessing the content.

3 Comments »Tags: flash seo, SEO

On Tuesday, Google released their SEO Report Card where they did an extensive evaluation of themselves in terms of search engine optimization. The result? Well, not so good. Even Business Insider agrees that Google fails to eat their own dog food by noting that only 10% of their own product pages conform to the proper title tag protocol. Even if you type in “search engine” into Google, they come up as the 5th result, and it’s not even google.com, but a different beta product. I wonder if that’s on purpose.

So if Google sucks at SEO, why do their other products rank #1 for so many search terms? Is Google using their own algorithm on their products, or are they overriding it when it’s convenient?

Search for “apps.” Google Apps is the top listing, not Apple.

Search for “documents.” Google Docs is the top listing, beating out several government related sites.

Search for “video.” The number one position? Google Video. Who the hell uses that anymore? And where is the Google-owned YouTube? Maybe again, this is on purpose.

So, is it possible that Google is purposely not listing themselves on keywords such as “search engine” and “video” to deter attention, and then quietly ranking themselves number one for all of their other products? Sure it is. The search giant, according to HitsLink who publishes search engine market share data, is still commanding an 86% market share for search, and are clearly using the “freemium” model to get high adoption rates on their free products so you’ll eventually buy their advertising – their cash cow. Compare that to Bing’s 3.4% market share despite the millions they’ve been spending in advertising. Nobody seemed to switch overnight from Google to Bing.

Nevertheless, the Google SEO Report Card gives insight into what the search engine thinks is important. Here are a few highlights:

1. Google does not consider the meta description for rankings. It is purely for humans to read what the page is about, so you should write those to grab attention, not to rank higher. (Although, we still see the search keyword highlighted in SERP, so we’re not totally convinced it’s worthless).

2. Google finally says how site links are determined. Ever notice those listings that have links to the site under the title and description? They say that using a hierarchial site structure, descriptive anchor text and avoiding deep nesting of content behind many sub-directories will get you there.

3. Clearly, duplicate content is an issue. In the report, they stress the importance of using the rel=”canonical” attribute to determine the preferred page. They prefer that you consolidate your non-canonical versions and 301 direct them to the canonical version. Of course, that screws up your tracking in Analytics if you are creating multiple instances of a page for marketing – it won’t track visitors on a page before the 301 redirect.

No Comments »Tags: google, SEO

Last week we got our first iPhone app approved through the App Store and have already gotten over 500 downloads.  The app is very similar to our web version of the Free SEO Analysis, but with a couple of extra advantages:

1.  It’s easier and more convenient. Now you can get an analysis for your website easier than ever before.  If you don’t have access to a Wi-Fi or other Internet connection, no problem.  The app works great and is extremely fast even on just a 3G connection with the iPhone.  Many of Pear’s user base comprises of small web shops and agencies that could easily use the app in a meeting and even email the report to their client on the spot.

2.  You can store up to 10 website reports on the mobile app. Just simply click on the History tab to see your last reports and even re-run the analysis.  With the web version, you have to go fish through your emails to find a report from a specific website that you ran in the past.

Get the app for free here on iTunes.

No Comments »Tags: iPhone App, website analyzer

Today I presented to you an overload of information in “SEO 101″ for the STWBC Marketing Bootcamp 2010.  Hopefully, you were able to get a better understanding of SEO, how it works, and what you should be doing to rank higher and driving more quality traffic to your website.

Download the PDF of the presentation.

The SEO industry is evolving almost in real-time, and Pear Analytics’ mission is to be well versed and informed in the latest techniques and methods that drive good SEO.  That’s why we’ve spent over a year building and developing SEO software – to help you get control of your organic search campaign without having to spend thousands of dollars on consultants.  So keep going and let us know if you have any questions.  And don’t forget that our special offer ends on Friday, February 26, 2010.

No Comments »Tags: SEO, SEO Software, Sitejuice, STWBC Marketing Bootcamp

Keyword research is one of the most important steps for good SEO of your site.  First let’s start with understanding what keyword research is. Essentially keyword research is understanding which keywords you want to target (for each page in your site) and which search terms you want to be found for on search engines.For example if you are a php consultant in California you probably want to be found for the terms ‘php consultant’ and ‘php consultant California’.

So why use a keyword research tool in the first place? A keyword research tool will give you more information about the words you want to target and also ideas of which words you could target. So assuming you are a php consultant then the keyword tool will tell you how many times people search for the keyword you want to be found for. For example the term ‘php consultant’ gets 590 searches a month approximately. This way you don’t target terms which have very low search volumes.

Typically comparing numbers between keyword research tools is similar to comparing numbers between different analytics tools. There will always be a frustrating difference. When comparing different keyword tools, there is usually a minimum difference between numbers in the range of 10-30%.

For example, lets compare numbers for the keyword ‘buy domain‘ in three of the most popular keyword tools:

1. Google Search Based Keyword Tool shows monthly volume as 8200

2. Google Adwords External Keyword Tool shows a 6600 monthly volume for the same keyword.

3. Keyword Spy shows a monthly search volume of 135,000! This huge difference is probably because they are showing ‘broad search’ numbers as opposed to the exact search numbers.

So what should you do? Here are my recommendations:

1. Use one tool and stick to it’s numbers:  There will always be a difference in numbers between tools because of the way they collect data, whether it’s a broad search or exact search. I wouldn’t recommend using two different tools and reconciling data between tools. The three tools metnioned above are pretty good and I personally mostly use the Google Search Based keyword tool  because it gives me valuable information about how competitive  a keyword is. Keyword Spy is useful to understand what keywords your competitors are bidding for in Adwords . Google Adwords tool is useful when you are out of ideas for keywords because of the number of suggestions it generates. The important thing is to never mix data from two tools and make inferences.
2. Use keyword research data as data points relative to each other :For instance if the keyword ‘buy domain’  gets 8200 searches per month and another keyword ‘buy web domain’ gets 440, instead of focusing purely on the absolute numbers the takeaway should be that ‘buy domain’ gets approximately 20 times the search volume as  ‘buy web domain’
3. Never make assumptions: Always tie in SEO with the numbers on your Analytics tool. You may rank for a competitive term on the first page of Google and assume (falsely) that it may be driving in lots of traffic. Check your analytics reports to see how much traffic it drives. More importantly create custom reports to find how many ‘Goal conversions’ resulted from that keyword search on your site. That is the metric you want to ultimately track to measure the true success of a keyword.

Lastly,  never be bogged down by the difference in numbers.Good luck with your keyword research!

1 Comment »

The answer is probably “yes.”  The search marketing business is already incredibly large and growing fast, and because of how lucrative it is, it’s attracting all types of “snake oil” salespeople.  According to a Forrester Research study done in July 2009, the search marketing industry is expected to grow to a $31 billion dollar industry by 2014, with 21% of that total on advertisement spending like Google AdWords.  This most certainly is related to the fact that over 85% of all products purchased started with an online search.

It’s also amazing how such a large industry is still very much in its infancy.  Google launched their first version of a search engine in 1998, so the industry is really only 12 years old; yet what’s fascinating is that what you knew back then almost certainly doesn’t apply now.  For instance, in the early days you used to have to “submit” your site to Google in order to let them know you existed.  Today all of that is done automatically through “crawling.”

The other fascinating thing, at least in the SEO world, is how disparate the expert opinions can get.  One says keyword density is a myth, the other says it’s important.  One says the h1 tag matter the most, the other one says it’s the title tag.  It’s enough to make a skeptic out of anyone.  Who should you believe?  And why do they charge so vastly different for their services?  One SEO consultant will charge $400 per month, and another one won’t take you unless you spend $5,000 per month.  How are you supposed to evaluate the differences between costs and expertise to make sure you get a “bang for your buck?”

Let’s look at a few basics that you should understand from your SEO:

1.  Does the SEO himself rank in the search engines?

You’ll have to take this one with a grain of salt since you might not readily know what terms the SEO is actually trying to rank for.  They should at least rank for their own name and some moderately competitive terms related to their field.  You can ask them what terms or phrases they are trying to rank for.  Maybe you got to them via a Google search anyway, but you’d be surprised.  I remember responding to an RFP where one of the other respondents was not even following their own advice on their website.

2.  Does the SEO tend to talk about or use old practices?

When evaluating the SEO, ask he or she what kinds of techniques they will use to help rank your website higher.  Beware of words or phrases that involve “keyword density”, “buying links” “one-way reciprocal links” or similar.  Developing inbound links is probably the most daunting task in any SEO workplan, yet can be the most rewarding.  Links are meant to look and feel “natural”, not purchased or manufactured.  Google is smart enough these days to pick up on footprints from link farms and other tricks.  It simply does not work anymore.  We once saw an SEO who built web pages for a client by creating them over 3000 pixels wide so that you had to scroll all the way to the right to see hidden content.  Folks, there are better ways to do this now.

3.  What was the last search marketing event the SEO has attended?

With an industry that can literally change overnight, it is important that the SEO keep abreast of the changes within the industry.  Ask them questions about how Google Caffeine will affect search, or semantically related words.  Or how is real-time search going to affect SEO?  If they don’t have explanations for these kinds of issues, then it’s likely that they don’t get out much or read some of the top search marketing blogs.  Beware of this person.  A good SEO will invest in the time and expense to travel to big cities, which is where all of these events are.

4.  Does the SEO speak at events?

For an SEO to speak at events, particularly search marketing events, it’s likely that this SEO is regarded as a highly knowledgeable and trusted colleague in their field.  They will probably have to present new technology or techniques that are new the field, which means they are more than up-to-speed with what’s going on.

5.  Does the SEO tend to talk over your head showing off their technical prowess?

Beware of these people.  Yes, technical prowess is good, but for most of your audience, they won’t be web developers or IT experts.  A good SEO is able to water down the explanation of what they are doing and why into “Fisher-Price” language so that you can understand it.  If the SEO is talking over your head, it could mean they are trying to over-impress you, and if they know that no one in the room can challenge them, they are probably embellishing most of what they are saying.  An SEO who openly admits for not knowing something is probably worth more and speaks volumes to their character.

6 Comments »Tags: forrester research, SEO

After catching up on some news this evening, I was appalled to learn how lacking the oversight is on the Government stimulus money that I feel like we were duped into in the first place.  CNN reports how a company in Tennessee was given $16 million of this federal warchest to do something useful, yet did not create one single job.  In fact, the money was used to do some soil remediation in Ohio – not even in Tennessee!  CNN also reports a bunch of money was given to Massachusetts company Aggregate Industries, who happens to be the same company who allegedly provided sub-par concrete to the Big Dig project (the largest civil project in the history of the U.S.) – so after the lies, cover up and lawsuit from the State, a big fat stimulus check arrives in the mail.

More capital needs to be accessed easier for the start-ups and small businesses to dramatically improve the economy.

Where is the funding for the start-ups?

I firmly believe that what will get us out of this economic slump is the start-ups and small businesses in this Country, not bailouts to companies who are “too big to fail” and prove over and over again that they can not manage their money properly.  The problem is that I don’t see any programs devoted to funding some of the small start-upst to develop new products, software or other intellectual property.  Sure, in Texas we have the ETF, or the Emerging Technology Fund, and I’ve even looked pretty closely at that program, but there’s enough red tape in that thing to go around the Equator.  It’s really not an attractive option for smaller start-ups like Pear Analytics.  The SBA program also has it’s limitations and hurdles.    Not too long ago I read in the local newspaper that a cap had been reached on the amount of loans available for small business.  That’s enlightening.  No more money there.  Small start-ups like us can really only turn to friends and family, or angels for cash.  A bank probably won’t give us a line of credit, so they’re useless (even though I thought that’s why they were given bailout money in the first place).

What I could do with just $1 million in Government stimulus money

If I could get just a small fraction of what these other sheisters got, I know I could do some serious stimulating.  For instance, I could easily hire an additional 2-3 web developers, 1 or 2 customer support staff, additional search engine experts and even an administrative assistant.  I would also hire a community manager, and I’m already looking for a content syndication specialist for a full-time position.  That’s easily 10 people I could hire to help stimulate our business to grow our user base and increase sales.  With more sales and more people, I would need to employ folks like Sales By 5 to handle our marketing and events, and I would need a larger office space in our building, which means Magi would be getting more money from us as well.  Of course, the 10 people I would hire would need to rent or purchase homes, eat out at restaurants and purchase cars and put money into the local economy here in San Antonio.  Think of multiplying this effect by 10 or 20 other start-ups, and look what it would do to the economy to a city like San Antonio with about 1.3 million people.

I don’t even mind if the Government stimulus money was a loan, and it worked just like any other angel deal (where they are typically treated as a convertible note) – unlike the other beneficiaries of these stimulus funds.  I would even report quarterly how the money was used and what kind of ROI (Return on Investment) I am getting for our taxpayer’s money.  I would repay the loan after five years with an 8% interest rate, just so the taxpayers gain interest on their money – unlike how it seems to be working currently.  Is any of this oversight in place now?  The best thing for me as the owner is that I don’t have to give up any more equity in exchange for the capital.

Other options?

OK, so the Government doesn’t exactly have the resources to oversee all of this and give out $1 million here and $1 million there.  But they can outsource it – they seem to be pretty good at that.  They should give a mere $1 billion to folks like Y Combinator or Capital Factory in Austin, Texas to come up with the process to screen candidates and dole out the $1 million chunks.  Sure, there would be some requirements, but these guys can process it out and streamline better than anybody.  What do we have to lose, President Obama?  We’ve already blown way more than $1 billion, and probably don’t even know where it went or what happened to it.

If you know of any programs where small businesses or start-ups can access cash a little easier, please let us know.

1 Comment »Tags: capital factory, economy, government stimulus, startups, YCombinator

The following editorial is actually a thesis written by Josh Lavine, a student at Princeton University who’s task was to interview a start-up company, preferably in the hi-tech area for an Entrepreneurship class.  It is quite long, but describes how Pear Analytics was started and where we are going, the challenges we face, and more.  I’ve also left out the Appendix due to length, which you may see notated throughout the report.  This is Josh’s final thesis, and frankly I was impressed by how much he learned about our business and industry in the mere 4 or 5 hours he interviewed me.  I also plan to implement several of his suggestions for improvement which he notes at the end of his report.  Josh is personally invited by me to come join our team at Pear any time. Enjoy!

It is December 23, 2009, noontime. I smooth my shirt and try to lick the tomato sauce stain off my sleeve, then open the door to the office of Pear Analytics. What I saw surprised me.

The office, located in San Antonio, TX is quaint, but strangely chic. It is only one big room with no walled-in spaces, except for the two small conference rooms in back. Large neon green and blue balls are rolling around the floor (I would later find out that instead of buying expensive chairs, the team realized they could just sit on cheap, cool colored exercise balls). Ryan Kelly, founder and CEO of Pear Analytics is presently standing (towering, really—he’s must be 6’6”) at one end of the room, watching one of his office mates from BrandStack, the company he shares office space with, play tennis on the Nintendo Wii on an enormous flat-screen TV—probably the most expensive piece of equipment in the room. If Kelly turned his gaze down and to the right, he would see Romy Misra, his senior analyst, writing equations in dry erase marker on a large glass table. She records her calculations on her laptop. Kelly’s other employees—just three web developers—were out for the day. I follow Kelly into one of the back conference rooms. We sit down and start talking.

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment »Tags: josh levine, morris miller, pat condon, pear analytics, san antonio startups

Thanks to my friend Steve Patti (@polarityinc) who sent this excellent whitepaper from Marketing Profs this morning entitled “The Naked Truth: Insights from the State of Social Media Marketing” dated January 14, 2010, which you can download at the bottom of this post.  This is a really interesting read if you are wondering what works and what doesn’t in social media.  I know I hear from companies on a daily basis who are scrambling to figure out how to get involved with social media the right way.  The authors of this research did a fairly large survey, and included non-social media marketers to get an understanding of who is vs. is NOT using social media.

Here are a couple of excerpts:

1.  Facebook is the most popular with 48.2% of companies having a corporate profile

2.  Twitter is second most popular with 42.8% of companies maintaining a profile.

3.  Ever wonder what industries are participating the most in social media?

4.  Check out some of the Twitter tactics that worked vs. did not work as well

Here are some social media myths that the research indicates:

MYTH:  Social media is “free”.

While the media may be free, the marketer’s time is not.  The average marketer who spends 4-7 hours per day on social media activities is earning over $130,000 per year.

MYTH: Only young people are using social media.

While more young people are consuming social media, but good content is actually produced by older, more experienced social media marketers.

MYTH: It’s a good idea to have your 22-year old intern handle all of your social media activities.

It’s better to spread the work out. Let thought leaders lead thoughts, and customer service serve grumpy customers. (<– love that one!)

You can download the entire paper here. (However, you must visit Steve’s marketing blog since he pays for the Marketing Profs subscription!)

1 Comment »Tags: facebook, marketing, Social Media, twitter

To say that Apple has changed the mobile phone industry is an understatement. They changed the MP3 player market before that. Now all rumors point to an impending tablet/touchscreen device, what market will this affect?  Everyone else has their ideas, so I’ll throw mine in as well, some of these ideas aren’t just fantasies, but reports from sources familiar with Apple.

iPhone on Verizon

This is a big deal for the US, but not much of a surprise, AT&T doesn’t bring anything of exclusive value to the table, so the exclusivity contract will not last.  This is such a no-brainer, that I won’t spend much time on it.  If you have a contract with any carrier, and it’s about to expire in the next 3 months, great, just stay with them and go month to month, you don’t need to buy a new phone yet.

Tablet/Slate/Larger iPod Touch

I know for a fact that this is happening, and is bigger than people think it is. This is not just an addition to their line up, but an attempt to change theway we interact with computers on a daily basis. The iPhone and iPod touch were nothing more than experiments, and we all paid willingly, to be their lab rats. The first victim of this device will be the Amazon Kindle and other ‘e-readers’.  The proponents of current readers thought people would love to be able to carry the same number of books with them, as they do their music. Forgetting that most songs are less than 3 minutes long, and don’t require the undivided attention of the user. Even with things like “read to me”, the form factor is plain unsexy and cumbersome.  Combine that with text only display for magazines and periodicals, and the process of reading just becomes downright painful. Now imagine a device that lets you check your email, surf the web, and read your favorite magazine or book at any time, and it does it all in color.  That’s what the tablet will do. The first generation will not make voice calls via a cell network, but will have EVDO built in.  Now how is this better than any other tablet, or laptop/netbook?

As a consumer, it’s better because it’s further consolidation of multiple devices, it’s a bigger form factor than an iPhone, and I am 99% certain, won’t require a contract with AT&T. All data will go through Verizon’s EVDO network, with Sprint/Clear 4G coming in 2011. You can take this device to your office, “dock it”, and  use it with a bigger/newer display and your existing keyboard/mouse.

As a publisher, your content is delivered the way you want it, including Ads you sold in your hard cover editions, except now these ads are interactive. There will be a lot of naysayers when the product is first announced sometime in January/early February.. but the device will improve very quickly. There  are multiple form factors in prototype stages already, anywhere from the 10 inch tablet, to a 15, 17, and 24 inch version.

Did anyone notice that the 24″ iMac  is missing in the lineup, yet there is a 24″ Cinema Display? My bet is on a 24 inch dock/display for the tablet.

Oh, this device will run OS X, not iPhone OS.

OS Touch

Details will emerge during WWDC, but expect a lot of changes, this will probably be OS XI, 11, or whatever you want to call it, but move to a full touch system requires more than just the ability to handle multiple fingers at once, expect a lot of changes in how we boot up, shut down, and over all reliability of day to day computing devices.  How we connect peripherals, how we charge the devices, how we game, how we input information and extract it, is all set to change.  I expect this road to be bumpy, but how the majority of us interact with computers today, will be dramatically different in 2015.

Keep in mind, so far we’ve only had incremental improvements, but we’re still using a mouse, a keyboard, and are tied to our desks, even if we have “laptops”. But the way we interact is no different than 1985.

It’s funny that a $600 phone is next to impossible to brick, but a $3000/laptop can be bricked without trying.

So, what are your thoughts?

3 Comments »Tags: apple, tablet, verizon