Google has compiled a list of some of the main ways in which online news sites can make their stories easier to index for Google News.
According to Abe Epton of Google's news online operations team, news articles should carry a unique and permanent URL, which should include a minimum of three digits that do not resemble a year.
Images should preferably be in JPEG format and should be placed near the story headline, he added.
The article body should always be free of clutter such as ads, tags and sidebars, while stories should be encoded in the format that they say they are in.
Mr Epton added: "If your site produces original content and distributes press releases that you'd like us to crawl, make sure to separate your original news content from your press releases by creating two different sections on your site."
About 30 per cent of all UK web traffic to news aggregators went to Google News last August, according to Hitwise.... read full details »
Marketers are likely to channel more of their budgets into search engine marketing this year than in previous years, it has been suggested.
According to a new report from Ernst & Young, performance-based marketing methods such as search will come to the fore for media organisations in 2009.
It predicted that businesses will move money away from other channels to performance-focused formats as the recession continues, with some ad formats to do better than others.
"This shift [to performance-based marketing] will cause a decrease in CPM (cost-per-thousand) rates for basic banners, which will impact publishers' online revenues," stated media analyst at Ernst & Young Luca Mastrodonato.
Overall, media companies are well-positioned to ride out the downturn and emerge largely intact, the report claimed.
Performance-based marketing - such as search - has become more popular among UK marketers in recent years, according to a recent report from JP Morgan analyst Imran Khan.... read full details »
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) must ensure they use search engine optimisation (SEO) to reach customers via the web, an expert has urged.
The internet can act as a shop front for businesses with online operations and it is imperative that SMEs make their presence felt in search engine listings to avoid losing custom to rivals, Rebecca Lieb of Econsultancy told bMighty.
She recommended that SMEs first look into the keywords that are the most relevant for their businesses and consider which terms consumers at both the research and purchasing stages are likely to use.
"The more specific the term, the closer the searcher is to making a decision or a purchase," Ms Lieb stated.
"People are in research mode or in buying mode and you want to optimise your site for terms those searchers use."
Nearly nine in ten small US businesses are concerned that they might be missing out on the chance to reach new customers on the web, a survey conducted by Microsoft adCenter last year revealed.... read full details »
Search engine optimisation and pay-per-click advertising can do much to boost companies' brand-building campaigns, according to one expert.
In a post on the Google Retail Blog, Jocelyn Liu of Google suggested that marketers make use of search engine marketing to target consumers at each of the four main stages of the purchasing funnel - awareness, recognition, preference and action.
Keywords related to the target consumer's interests and lifestyles are ideally suited for the awareness stage, while generic product terms are more relevant to the second phase of recognition, she said.
Meanwhile, marketers should use branded keywords for both the preference and action stages, Ms Liu said.
She went on to add: "There is no guarantee where a consumer will be at in the purchase cycle, so it's important to be there, building your brand, at each moment of relevancy."
About 90 per cent of UK searches are made up of branded keywords such as Facebook, Bebo, eBay and MySpace, according to a 2008 study by Hitwise.... read full details »
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