"While vertical search is still in its infancy, the integration of vertical results through Google Universal and Ask 3D are allowing sites to draw more and more visitors from specialty indexes. One of the vertical search indexed that is becoming more and more popular is imagine search. Unfortunately, many small businesses are overlooking traffic opportunities by not optimizing the images on their sites.

You’ll note there are three images from the Google image database showing up at the top of the listings. Since I’m hunting for ideas for my son’s first birthday cake, I’m far more likely to click on images than on the standard text results. In fact, I’d wager there are quite a few keyword phrases that are likely to send a fair amount of image search traffic."

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Jennifer has built a new e-commerce site and (wait for it…) she’s preventing Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask from indexing it. The point?

"Whether it’s the struggle to gain strong rankings in the organic index or the razor-thin margins associated with running a paid search campaign, new business start-ups seem convinced that they can’t get anywhere without Google. I’m here to tell them that they can… In fact, I’d argue that without the crutch of Google propping you up, you’ll be forced to build the type of business that can ride the ups and downs of search.

I’m kicking Google (and Yahoo and Windows Live and Ask) to the curb and telling the world that you CAN build a business, increase traffic and drive sales all without the major search engines."

In lieu of major search engines, Jenn’s going to be using the power of social media and viral marketing to help the site’s growth. I’ll be watching this one with interest.

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Or you could just link to the Irish Cancer Society, or even to the group’s link request form, anyway.  With a reference that Monty Python fans should immediately recognize, Jennifer Laycock asked the Irish Cancer Society, “What Are You Gonna Do…Bleed on Me?”

To be fair, the link request form seems designed to protect the group’s reputation – and the Irish Cancer Society does appear to be a respectable, fully functioning national charity.  Still, some of its terms of link use are a wee bit strange.

The very first one, for example, declares that “[a]ny text-only link must be clearly marked ‘Irish Cancer Society.’”  So, whether you were trying to praise the group or just call it a purple monkey dishwasher (as Richard Hearne did), the Irish Cancer Society would not want those words to link to it.

The second provision, that “[t]he link must point to the URL www.cancer.ie (i.e. the Society HomePage) and not to any other page within the Web site,” seems equally arbitrary.  Thanks to it, anyone trying to point you towards the disclaimer attached to the Irish Cancer Society’s message board would have to give you click-by-click directions instead of a simple link.

I can’t hold too much of a grudge against the group for this silliness – after all, the society works to stamp out cancer in the land of milk, honey, and Guinness.  But it seems like the Irish Cancer Society’s Webmaster could benefit from a trip or two to his local pub.

What Site Characteristics Improve Linkability?

Doug Caverly diligently relays his notes from the Link Bait and Viral Search Success session at SES 2006 in San Jose.

Good link bait is not really something that can be taught, but that doesn’t keep online marketers from trying to stuff the concepts into neat little boxes for analysis.

SearchEngineWatch’s Danny Sullivan brings in heavy hitters Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz.org, Jennifer Laycock of Search Engine Guide, and Cameron Olthuis of Advantage Consulting Services to help spread the gospel of viral marketing.

Fishkin begins the presentation with a baker’s dozen of link bait steps (the entirety of which will be provided at the bottom of this article). As discussed before, Fishkin emphasizes the power of social networks, like Digg.com, Del.icio.us, and Slashdot, to overload your servers if just the right content tickles (or enrages) their respective fancies. Fishkin’s overall message is akin to the Boy Scout motto: be prepared. Research, target, shoot, and wait.

Part of that social targeting may (and probably should) include setting up a blog. That doesn’t mean just throwing it out there into the nebulous that is Blogspot, however. Fishkin advises to host the blog on your site instead.

When brainstorming about how to set up a viral campaign, he told the crowd to look at examples of “brilliant” ideas. Last year’s round-and-round of the notorious GPS-enabled panties, which fooled even the Associated Press, comes to mind, as does the campaign’s competitor CryingWhileEating.com.

Cameron Olthuis follows with a bit of reputation and buzz monitoring advice, as viral doesn’t necessarily mean completely uncontrolled. Keep an eye on your brand through the blog search engines. Employ conversation tracking and message boards to track buzz about your campaign. He recommends Yahoo! Site Explorer, Google Trends, and Opinmind.

Whether what people are saying is good or bad, says Olthuis, “it’s important to join the conversation.”

Olthuis mentions the recent Mentos/Diet Coke ghettofied volcano demonstrations that made it from the Web to the Today Show and David Letterman. While Mentos, perhaps a bit hipper company, understood that the viral component of the event was a boon for the brand, Coca-Cola didn’t like it one bit.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s good, bad, ugly, whatever,” said Olthuis. “You’ve got to embrace [the buzz].

Laycock joins the conversation, warning that just “any [link bait or viral marketing] idea isn’t going to do. It really has to be something worth talking about.” It’s also important to remember that it isn’t always about sales. It’s about brand awareness.

Whether or not Burger King’s “Subservient Chicken,” a webcam broadcast of a guy in a chicken suit and lingerie that responds to audience commands, sold more chicken is irrelevant, says Laycock. The site received hundreds of millions of visits.

A viral campaign can backfire. Depending on the nature of your business, the lack of brand control can come back to haunt you. General Motors knows from experience that giving free range to visitors to create online video ads for SUVs was a bad idea. Anti-SUV activists had a field day creating environmental promos.

The success of a viral campaign, says Laycock, is always in the hands of the consumer. Because of that, giving away products and services can be a good way to get started.

“Humor is probably the easiest way to get something to spread,” she said.

Fishkin interjects to poop the party. “Humor can backfire,” he said, “and so can controversy. I would stick to content if you’re worried about safety.”

So if you’ve made it this far, you may ask, “is there a right way to virally market?” Well, no. And yes. Well, there’s definitely a wrong way anyway. Just to cover our bases, here’s Fishkin’s Guide to Link Baiting:

Step 1: Researching a Sector’s Link-Worthiness

Step 2: Discovery of Big’ Players in Your Field — do a search at Technorati with your keywords.

Step 3: Targeting YDDS (Yahoo!, Digg, Del.icio.us/Popular, Slashdot

Step 4: Targeting Offline Media

Step 5: Selecting a Content Focus

Step 6: Melding Branding & Viral Elements

Step 7: Targeting Keywords/Search Traffic

Step 8: Look at Examples of Brilliants Ideas’

Step 9: The Value of a Web 2.0′ Look & Feel – “The look and feel oftentimes is critical.”

Step 10: Elements that Encourage Linking

Step 11: Pre-Launch Public Relations

Step 12: Managing Launch Traffic – “Be careful not to be suckered into a debate you don’t really need to be part of.”

Step 13: Continuing to Get Value from Linkbait -”Update it with timely information.”

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Making Your Site More Attractive

Staff writer Doug Caverly of WebProNews filed this exclusive look at the SES 2006 San Jose session, Pimp My Site!

“Herrera is wearing a fuzzy, bright orange jacket and hat with white tiger-type accents. Also some dollar-sign glasses with the price tag fluttering around. Friesen is wearing a similar outfit, but his is purple instead of orange, and somehow that’s less offensive. Lloyd-Martin and Osmeloski are wearing relatively “normal” dresses with the white-and-black tiger-pattern streaks of color. Li and Laycock are dressed sanely. Bless them.”

Being invisible to search engines can mean being invisible to the world. That’s not a desired outcome for entrepreneurs. There are ways of making one’s website talk to the search engines and rise in the rankings.

Dax Herrera’s example is flutterfetti.com. The owner apparently lost just about everything in Katrina. In their “makeover,” they added text – the site lacked it before, so the search engines couldn’t really see it. They used FlutterFetti.com instead of Partiline.com, another domain owned by the business, because Flutterfetti existed longer.

Heather Lloyd-Martin also talked about Flutter Fetti. She noted that when the site first came back, the word “confetti” was not present on the home page. Since that’s a big part of their business, fixing that moved up the list of tasks.

The temporary solution to this came from keyphrase editing. They wrote new pages as a secondary solution. She noted that pages should be focused around keyphrases and target audiences. “If a page is not focused around a keyphrase (such as college parties’), don’t put it in the title,” she said.

Titles should be 50-75 characters, including spaces. Lloyd-Martin recommended 60 characters whenever possible.

When it comes to having time to spend on improving a website, owners should be brutally honest with themselves. If they don’t have the time, they should consider outsourcing the task. Improved positioning and conversions can help make that investment back.

Peggy Li received attention from the experts. Jennifer Laycock of Search Engine Guide discussed the “pimping” Li’s site received.

Li’s jewelry has made appearances in places like CSI: Miami, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Oprah Magazine. Laycock described the challenge as selling a visual product online.

There were too many images and not enough text on the site, a combination that will get a typical site shunned by the search engines. “Nothing for a spider to pick up,” said Laycock.

The new design fixes that. Also, Laycock connected Li with ClickTracks, so she could have a better idea of what was happening with her web traffic. ” It’s a good way to go in and isolate traffic from specific sources,” said Laycock.

Rob Snell, an author and speaker on the topic of Yahoo! Stores, emphasized some basics for online retailers. He recommended “Add to cart” instead of “Order” for buttons that place items in the site’s shopping basket. “Order is such a commitment,” he said.

Sites should have a street or mailing address listed, and a toll-free number for customer service, Snell said. It lends to the credibility of a retailer.

Adding products to the home page has boosted sales of those particular items. Snell said he’s had a 100 percent increase for those sales.

Lloyd-Martin spoke again, this time on keyphrases. “Consider other, more specific keyphrase choices,” she recommended, using ‘vintage glass earrings’ as an example. She also suggested writing as much as possible about each product, boosting the word count to 100 words per page (she recognized that this can be difficult for many products.)

We think the last bit of advice may be the most important recommendation. Google and Yahoo have announced they will enforce more stringent quality guidelines, a move that could drive down retailers in the search results in favor of information sites.

If that contention bears itself out as the search engines update their indexes, having richer copy for product entries and being perceived as authoritative will be more important for online retailers.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Because of this ruling, Yahoo agreed to stop the sale of such items through their French portal. However, Yahoo continues to allow Nazi paraphernalia to be sold on their United States-based auction house, which can be accessed by the French and other locations by typing the direct URL.

According to TheInquirer.net, Yahoo filed a suit in 2002, asking that the District Court to make the French ruling invalid because it violates Yahoo’s First Amendment rights. Presiding Judge Jeremy Fogel ruled in Yahoo’s favor. However, to quote The Inquirer’s Nick Farrell, “the appeal court remembered that the US didn’t actually have control of the French and rescinded the order.”

According to a quote that appeared in Jennifer Laycock’s article, Ninth Circuit Judge Warren Ferguson said, “The district court should have abstained from hearing the case. Yahoo cannot expect both to benefit from the fact that its content may be viewed around the world and to be shielded from the resulting costs.”

The question becomes “who is right?” Should Yahoo follow the laws and beliefs of the French? Or should France respect the laws that govern the American-based portal? But, like Nick said in his article, one has to wonder why doesn’t Yahoo just pull the Nazi-related items.

Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest search news.