Keeping an Eye on Your Competitors with SEJ Tools

I shared once a tip on how to track (and compare) competitors’ rankings with SEJ Tools. Today I am looking further at the feature that allows to watch your competitors grow to timely learn what they are doing.

There’s one nifty feature inside SEJ Tools called Competitor Manager. It allows to easily compare your site with your competitors and offers a few other handy options.

The tool can be found when you hover over DASHBOARD menu tab:

The first thing to do is to add your competitors to the list which is very easy: just click “Add Competitor” link and copy paste the domains of all your competitors (one per line).

You can also allow SERPs tracking for all of those you add in bulk. This means that after you add your competitors, you can track his rankings at SERPs tracker:

After you add your competitors, give the tool some time to collect the data. After it’s done, you will see the following SEO-relevant info in the table (that will allow you to compare all the domains against yours at a glance to see how well you are doing):

• The quality score of each domain (based on the Quality Analyzer);
• The Google PageRank of the home page;
• The pages in Google and Yahoo indices (based on Google’s and Yahoo’s public SITE: operator);
• The backlinks to the the home page (based on Google’s and Yahoo’s public LINK: operator).

From there, the competitors can be easily added or removed from the SERP Tracker. Additionally, clicking on the Research link for any competitor will take you to a domain result in the Research Assistant.

You can also export your competitors to a CSV file or remove them from the table:

Clicking on a competitor will take you to its related website record in the Website Directory:

Competitors can be tagged to better organize and filter them (to tag your competitor, click tiny tag link next to its domain in the table).

Source : http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-keep-an-eye-on-your-competitors-with-sej-tools/20336/

 

SEO and Branding: Which Is More Important?

It’s not often you’ll hear SEO experts admit that search engine optimisation is of less than central importance to a site. Partly this comes from the tendency for businesses to completely ignore their SEO. Partly it comes from the intense focus the SEO industry has. It is true, however, that SEO shouldn’t be the first and last thing you consider for your site.

In truth, search engine optimisation can both be assisted by and assist other aspects of your site’s marketing. If done well, search engine optimisation should have a positive effect on your site well beyond the search engines. To have this affect, though, optimisation has to look beyond the basic optimisation techniques. A good SEO company won’t just stick keywords all over your pages and consider the job done. Good SEO involves tactics that improve the site overall. You can talk to us about this at SEO Consult. One of the things that should be considered is your business branding.

The origins of brands

Branding has been the traditional realm of the marketer, and the move online hasn’t changed anything. Businesses still go to their marketing departments for their brand ideas, and approach SEO experts only when the marketing side has been sorted out. Some separation between SEO and regular marketing is only natural, but SEO shouldn’t be left out of the loop entirely. The choices you make for your brand have a big affect on your SEO and, more importantly, your SEO could have a big effect on your brand.

Find the balance

Just as your site and SEO cannot operate in isolation from each other, it’s not wise for your brand and your SEO to be completely separate. It’s a mistake to allow your brand to be the central guiding factor of your SEO, but it’s a mistake to go in the opposite extreme as well. If incorporated properly, your SEO and your existing brand presence can work together to promote each other. In areas where your brand is already known, tying it to your SEO can boost site rankings. In areas where off-page SEO is being used to promote inbound links, your brand can also be mentioned.

Brands in the future

Branding may well take on greater importance in coming years. In late 2008, Google CEO Eric Schmidt warned the publishing industry that without proper efforts in branding at that stage, their news services could take dive-bomb in future rankings. The reason, Schmidt said, was that the internet is increasingly starting to resemble a ‘cesspit’ of information. Branding may well be the only way to identify reliable information in the future, if only because it automatically attributes a source for the information which can be tracked down.

Brands already play an important part in modern culture. Market studies have consistently shown that people will pay more for a brand, and in the case of information, will pay for a brand when they can get the generic version for free. Basically, a well-established brand can sell itself. Allow your SEO to help your brand.

Source : seoconsult.co.uk

 

DoubleClick for Publishers

Google has just announced its new ad serving technology which is geared for both large and small scale online publishers – DoubleClick for Publishers. This is actually a result of combining Google Ad Manager and DoubleClick Ad Exchange which Google purchase in 2008.

DoubleClick for Publishers, the main service will be available for large online publishers while DFP Small Business is geared for growing online publishers and is a simple, free version of the DFP. Existing DART for Publishers users will be automatically upgraded to DoubleClick for Publishers over the next year, while Google Ad Manager accounts will be moved to DFP for Small business in the coming weeks.

DoubleClick for Publishers will have the following features:

• A new interface that has been completely redesigned to save time and reduce errors.
• Far more detailed reporting and forecasting data to help publishers understand where their revenue is coming from and what ads are most valuable.
• Sophisticated algorithms that automatically improve ad performance and delivery.
• A new, open, public API which enables publishers to build and integrate their own apps with DFP, or integrate apps created for DFP by a growing third-party developer community (apps under development today include sales, order management and workflow tools).
• Integration with the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange’s “dynamic allocation” feature, which maximizes revenue by enabling publishers to open up their ad space to bids from multiple ad networks.

Source
DoubleClick for Publishers