Weekly SEO news: 17 July 2012
Welcome to the latest issue of the Search Engine Facts newsletter.

If your web pages are difficult to understand, you might not make as much money as you could with your website. A simple tool can help you to check the readability of your pages.

In the news: Google's Marissa Mayer becomes Yahoo's new CEO, Blekko releases a social news site, and Google might be preparing a Google marketplace to compete with Amazon.

Table of contents:

We hope that you enjoy this newsletter and that it helps you to get more out of your website. Please pass this newsletter on to your friends.

Best regards,
Andre Voget, Johannes Selbach, Axandra CEO
1. Cephalalgiawhat? How to get more sales without it.

If your web pages are difficult to understand, you might not make as much money as you could with your website. A simple tool can help you to check the readability of your pages.

cephawhat?

Difficult language = fewer sales

Many websites use technical language that is very difficult to understand for the average web surfer. Some webmasters also like long and complicated sentences.

Long and complicated sentences are not a sign of professionalism. They just show that the author of the sentences doesn't care about the readers.

The more complicated the text on your web pages, the more likely it is that a visitor will leave your website.

Website visitors are impatient people. If they have to work to understand your web pages, they will go away to find an easier site than yours.

How to check the readability of your web pages

The Flesch Reading Ease test is a United States governmental standard to determine how easy a text is to read. It measures the approximate level of education necessary to understand the web page content.

Higher scores indicate that the text is easier to read, and lower numbers mark harder-to-read texts.

You can use IBP's Top 10 Optimizer to check the readability of your web pages. In addition to many other factors, IBP calculates both the Flesch Reading Ease Score and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level.

A high Reading Easy Score means that a text is easy to understand. The Grade Level shows the number of years of education that are required to understand the text.

How to improve the readability of your pages

There are several things that you can to do improve the readability of your web pages:

  • Write short sentences.
  • Use many paragraphs.
  • Use headings to structure the content.
  • Use bullet lists.
  • Avoid complicated words. Don't say "cephalalgia" when you can also say "headache".
  • Use images on your pages.

Do not require too much work from your website visitors. The easier your website is to use, the more you will sell.

checkmarkMake it easy to understand your web pages, make it easy to navigate them and make it easy to buy on your website. If you need further information on how to optimize your web pages for high search engine rankings and more conversions, IBP can help you.
2. Search engine news and articles of the week

Marissa MayerWhat Google veteran Marissa Mayer can do as Yahoo's new CEO

"In a surprise move widely viewed as a coup, struggling Yahoo has just appointed Marissa Mayer, a highly visible longtime executive at Google, to be its new chief executive."



comScore releases June 2012 U.S. search engine rankings

"17.1 billion explicit core searches were conducted in June (down 2 percent), with Google Sites ranking first with 11.4 billion. Microsoft Sites ranked second with 2.7 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.2 billion, Ask Network with 516 million and AOL, Inc. with 265 million."



Search engine Blekko launches ROCKZi, a social news site

"'We didn't want to present fresh content in a traditional news search kind of way by launching news.blekko.com and putting a search box there,' co-founder and VP of marketing Mike Markson says."



Google A Google marketplace? New Google Shopping is one indicator

"The new Google Shopping and Google’s release of Google Trusted Stores may seem like small moves to the average eye but ecommerce experts see a major shift on the horizon: Google competing directly with Amazon."



Google search spend growth slows as it moves to cash in on comparison shopping

"Lower average cost-per-click, down 10%, continued to temper the impact of booming Google paid click growth rates [...] Google [...] was better able to monetize its user base than rivals Bing and Yahoo, generating 84% of paid clicks and taking 84% of search ad spend."



Search engine newslets
  • Google displays new crawl error alerts in Webmaster Tools.
  • Facebook now replacing ads on static pages.
  • Google CEO Larry Page recovering, was in office this week.
  • Yahoo Answers reaches 300 million questions.
  • Google's interactive unit conversion OneBox.
  • Google accidentially emails out users private details.
  • Google's latest Easter egg: Conway's Game of Life.

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3. Recommended resources

Check the backlink profile of your website & spy on your competitors:

SEOprofiler is a full-featured SEO solution that can analyze the backlink profile of your website and much more.

You can also use it to spy on the Google rankings and Google AdWords campaigns of your competitors, it helps you to get new backlinks, it helps you to optimize your web pages, it checks your rankings on search engines and much more.

seoprofiler

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