Category Archives: SEO Technology

The Forgotten SEO Strategy: Targeting Striking Distance Keywords

Posted by Nathan Safran on July 9, 2012

How you strategically approach your own unique search marketing landscape may be the first of many decisions you make on your search marketing journey but it is also the most important.  A difference of inches when aiming the arrow can translate to feet downrange. SEOs often approach selecting target keywords with a strict “I’m-going-to-focus-on-the-keywords-with-the-highest-search-volume” mentality, while others favor a ‘flavor-of-the-day’ mindset and center on the keywords their CMO cares about most at the moment. An often overlooked strategy for keyword building is to focus on those in striking distance position—keywords ranking on page two of the search results. Moving striking distance keywords can be less challenging than those already on page one.  And, keywords on page 2 are in prime … Continue reading →

How Big Data Changed Crime Fighting and is Changing the Practice of SEO

Posted by Nathan Safran on May 21, 2012

In the mid 1990’s New York city Mayor Rudolph Giuliani introduced a technology-based crime measurement system called CompStat.  The system enabled Police leadership, for the first time, to discern crime trends and respond to crime fluctuations on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis rather than the limited incident-by-incident view they previously had.  The system is credited with a 60% drop in major crime and has subsequently been adopted by major cities including Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Philadelphia..   Interestingly, all that really sparked the change was the acquisition of information—trend insights into neighborhood crime patterns over time. In the 1999 interview, “Betting on Intelligence,” CompStat creator Jack Maple outlines the fundamental principles behind CompStat: Accurate, timely intelligence clearly communicated to all. A … Continue reading →

Conductor Partners with E-Consultancy on Study that Highlights Move to Technology and Metrics in SEO

Posted by Seth Dotterer on March 8, 2011

One can often tell a great deal about where an industry’s technology is headed by understanding both the size of the opportunity in the space and the operational inefficiencies that plague it. The greater the opportunity (the more at stake) and the greater the operational inefficiencies, the higher the likelihood technology will step in to fill the gap. This can be expressed formulaically as: market opportunity *operational inefficiencies=technology trajectory. The opportunity in SEO is indisputable: according to Comscore, monthly worldwide searches have reached more than 26 billion per month. With 92% of all search engine clicks occurring in the natural search results the opportunities for brands to reach consumers are limitless–provided they are visible in the search engines. market opportunity … Continue reading →

16 Ways to Identify a Great Ecommerce Platform

Posted by Brian McDowell on February 14, 2011

Over the last 24 months, many of the world’s largest retailers have started using Conductor Searchlight to scale their SEO programs. As SEO becomes a greater priority for our customers and potential customers, we often get asked what makes a great e-commerce platform from an SEO perspective; so we thought we’d share the top questions to ask when looking for a new e-commerce platform. We tend to think about an e-commerce system as being primarily concerned with processing online transactions, but deciding on an e-commerce platform can have far reaching implications for natural search visibility.  Search industry veterans have surely heard of nightmare scenarios where the wrong choices were made resulting in significant losses in natural search visibility. With that … Continue reading →