Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) seems to be the latest hot topic flying around SEO circles at the minute. So what exactly is it?

In a nutshell, it means that Google is establishing what the underlying theme is of a web page rather than focusing on individual keywords or phrases. This means you shouldn't just put your efforts into your selected key phrases but on synonymous phrases and key terms as well. We highlighted in our snippet of 22nd October that you could download and use the Google Adsense tool to determine what Google sees as the theme of your page(s). It therefore stands to reason that Google also utilises this technology within its algorithm when returning matches for 'organic' search.

You can read more about this in a recent excellent article from Axandra:

http://www.axandra.com/news/newsletter147.htm

We'll certainly be covering this important topic in our next Workshop on 8th, 9th and 10th March.

It has been heralded as the great new development just on the horizon for a while but so far has failed to take off. But that might be about to change with Google’s latest offering – Google Local, still in Beta, but by all accounts being enthusiastically taken up in the US. Google Local allows you to search for a product or service in a specified location and not only gives a list of providers, but shows their locations labelled on a map on the right hand side of the page. It’s perfect if you are looking for a manicure in Las Vegas. Unfortunately if you type in London,this is the result:

Unable to understand address London. Please try another address.

Suggestions:

- Make sure all words are spelled correctly. - Try using a less ambiguous location like a zip code.

Well, I did say it was still in the future :-)

However, this could revolutionise the use of the internet for businesses that have a very localised geographical reach.

We all know how important it is to be on the first page or second page of Google. However, did you know that Webmasters who try and take shortcuts and cheat the engines can end up paying a very high price? A recent article gave the example of an SEO company spending about 80 hours work per domain just to unravel the mess left by black hat and spamming practices when a company discovered their domain names had been banned by Google. Every Webmaster chasing online traffic needs to be aware of 'best practices' when promoting a site in order to stay out of trouble. If you employ a company to carry out SEO, make sure you ask them about the techniques they use before they touch your site and that you understand the answers so you can spot any dubious practices. It could save you a very great deal of money as well as heartache.

You can read more on this subject here:

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66485,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3

Of course, a great way to be walked through 'best practices' in Search Engine Marketing is to attend the next Search Engine Workshop on 5th - 7th April at Richmond-upon-Thames.

Visit http://www.searchengineworkshops.co.uk to secure your EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT!

Espotting has secured a deal with The Sun newspaper, in which PPC listings will appear throughout the paper's online news pages and across the Entertainment, Movies, Life, 'Bizarre' and Sports sections of the tabloid's Website.

Being Britain's most popular tabloid newspaper, The Sun Online delivers about 128 million page impressions from 4.7 million visitors each month so it is well worth SEOs and Webmasters to consider it as a beneficial advertising medium for many types of B2C online marketing.

http://www.espotting.com
http://www.thesun.co.uk