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Learning SEO: It Can Get Noisy

Written on March 4, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: Object, book, chat, marketing, seo

There is obviously no shortage of information on SEO.

But thanks for turning up here

The sheer avalanche of SEO information can be overwhelming, for beginners and experts alike. Who do you know who to listen to? What information do you need to know, and what information is filler?

Why should you even listen to SEOBook?

1. Most Information Published On SEO Is Filler

You can learn 80% of what you need to know about SEO pretty quickly. You don’t need the additional 20% in order to achieve, unless you’re a masochist - otherwise known as an SEO professional

Most of the information you’ll come across on the topic of SEO is written by, and for, a professional/enthusiast crowd. There is a massive echo chamber of opinion, constantly replenished, produced using publishing tools based on the notion of communicating something, often.

It can result in a lot of noise, and not much in the way of signal, especially when you’re learning. If you’re starting out, and want to focus on learning SEO, it’s a good idea to tune the industry chatter out. It’s more likely to confuse than help in the early stages.

2. Understand The Business Of Search

Search engines aren’t your friend. At best, they tolerate SEO, but only when it aligns with company goals.

The search engines have a business to run, and their goals aren’t the same as yours. Whilst search engine reps often come across as helpful and friendly, because they typically are helpful and friendly people, keep in mind that what they are saying serves their company first and foremost. Any advice they give you is, quite rightly, designed to further company goals.

That’s their job.

Chances are, your goals and the search engines goals will be aligned in many areas, but take their advice with a grain of salt. They don’t care if your site succeeds or not, as there are plenty of other sites to index.

3. Define Goals

Before you undertake SEO, define your website goals. Do you want to make more money? Get more attention? Get more leads?

The purpose of SEO is to get your site seen in the search engines. Your aim is to attract the visitors that help you achieve your goals. A high ranking for a certain keyword won’t necessarily help you achieve your goals unless your site matches visitor intent.

Think about the web from a visitors point of view. What do they want to find? What content will they engage with? What will they spend their money on?

There’s little point ranking well if the content you provide doesn’t make you money and/or gain audience. It’s getting increasingly difficult to rank pages that aren’t closely aligned with the searchers intent. So, the more you understand your audience, and the more content that matches their intent, the more you’ll get out of SEO.

4. Get A Credible, Well Organized Course

Like SEOBook’s course for example

This isn’t a sales pitch. There are a number of great courses out there. Choose one or two that suit your budget and objectives, and dive in. Chances are, you will need to shell out some money, but the cost of a decent, well structured course is nothing compared to the wasted effort spent heading in the wrong direction.

In a nutshell, SEO is about about publishing content people want to engage with, and linking. You need to create content that matches visitor intent, you need to be crawlable, and you need to have inbound links. Good SEO courses will have this message at their core.

Did I mention links enough?

5. Connect With People

It’s natural to want the secret sauce - those secret dark techniques that result in number one rankings.

Whilst this was characteristic of SEO years ago, it’s less true now. These days, SEO is more a holistic, strategic process aimed at connecting with people, as opposed to a dark, technical art aimed at tricking machines.

Focus on making connections with people. That means understanding what people want. You can do this by undertaking basic market research, using the search engines themselves!

6. Test

Don’t listen to me. Well, maybe just a bit. Don’t listen to the repeaters in forums.

Test and measure for yourself. It’s one of the best SEO courses you can do. It’s ongoing, and it’s free.

Start with a simple, focused well constructed site. What is a well constructed site in terms of SEO?

With every change you make, every new SEO strategy you adopt, test the results. Did the change help you achieve your website goals? Did you get more traffic? Better quality traffic? If your rankings improved, did this result in more/better traffic? It can be difficult to isolate variables at the best of times, but there is no chance of doing so if you try too many techniques all at once.

Make changes one step at a time. Test and measure repeat. Become at expert at measuring SEO against your goals.

Build up your own private knowledge base of SEO in your niche. Your niche may require different strategies to other niches, which is why well-meaning advice in forums and on blogs can hinder you. You’ll also become a better judge of who is offering you good advice, and who is just repeating something they heard.

Originally posted here:
Learning SEO: It Can Get Noisy

First they Came for the Bankers, and I Did Not . . .

Written on February 5, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: blackhat, seo

“First they came …” is a popular poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group. In Niemöller’s first utterance of it, in a January 6, 1946 speech before representatives of the Confessing Church in Frankfurt, it went (in German):

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me. – Wikipedia

Now “they” are coming for the bankers.

Is their Anything more anti-capitalist than executive salary caps and / or regulating the maximum that people can make? Well yes: those bailouts in the first place. But it actually appears that the US will recover almost all the TARP money that was not given out as a freebe to the unions (read the American Auto Industry). That money was thrown into a black hole. Many of the banks were really on sound financial footing, but were forced to take the money so as not to single out the ones that actually needed it.

Now there is all this talk about limiting the salaries of bankers. Over in the Police State of England, “Banks told to comply on bonuses or lose UK banking licences in shock FSA ultimatum“.

The shocker here is that the UK has said in effect that the banks must BREAK their existing contracts with employees in order to comply with regulations:

One pay executive in a major bank told The Daily Telegraph: “The message came back that while the FSA agreed that it does not have jurisdiction over contractual law, it does have jurisdiction over issuing bank licences in London, and that we should go away and unwind the contracts.”

Wow.

But that’s England. They’re accustomed to Big Brother. There are more public video cameras in London than their are American Made Cars (Hell, I think there were 15 public camera’s in that Brothel I visited . .. but I digress).

Here in America, it seems to be some kind of top priority to limit the pay of Banking executives. The line goes “That kind of outlandish blah blah blah is what got us into this recession.”

No.

The pay of executives is not what caused the recession. What caused the recession was people buying a payment, rather than house, getting in over their head, inflating housing prices and now defaulting in droves.

Someone needs to stand up for the bankers. Put aside that this is antisemitism wrapped in the cloak of populism. Jews have their roots in finance going back to when it usury (then lending with interest) was considered a Sin by the Church.

The real issue here is that limiting the compensation of private industry will stifle innovation and growth. If we let it happen to the bankers, Internet Marketers can’t be far down that list. We’ll wake up one day and find that the best Gormet Chef is only allowed by law to make $100k per year. Then, before we know it, we’ll have a command economy where the only way to get your pay raised in any industry is through political influence rather than through merit.

Stand up for the Bankers. It’s not the popular thing to do. But it’s the right thing to do.

If you don’t speak out, you’ll have only yourself to blame when they come for you.

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First they Came for the Bankers, and I Did Not . . .

YouTube Nets $10Grand from Video Rentals

Written on February 3, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

YouTube conducted its first test of a video rental service last month with five independent films from Sundance Film Festival. In the ten days of the test, the rentals received a total of 2684 views, according to the New York Times. At $3.99 a pop, YouTube brought in $10,709.16.

If YouTube could sustain both of those rates on rentals at large, they’re looking at more than $390,000 a year in revenue. That’s close to offsetting the largest loss estimate from last year and more than enough to turn a profit if more conservative loss estimates are correct.

The original blog post announcement doesn’t say how much of the revenue, if any, will be shared with the independent filmmakers. The additional exposure may be worth the money to the filmmakers, of course.

But to expand the program with large studios, YouTube will doubtlessly need to share revenue, cutting into their profits. YouTube first has been rumored to be discussing rentals with major studios (or free showings) for months. They already have a number of content deals in place with studios including Disney, MGM, and Lions Gate.

As always, we’ll end with the question: Do you think this is the way YouTube will make the big bucks?

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YouTube Nets $10Grand from Video Rentals

Using the Same Login Across Multiple Sites? You’re Not Welcomed at Twitter!

Written on February 3, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

Do you use the same username and password across multiple web sites?

Then you’re not welcomed at Twitter!

That may sound like an exaggeration, but read this statement from Twitter, then you tell me if I’m exaggerating:

The takeaway from this is that people are continuing to use the same email address and password (or a variant) on multiple sites.  Through our discussions with affected users, we’ve discovered a high correlation between folks who have used third party forums and download sites and folks who were on our list of possibly affected accounts.  While not all users who were sent a password reset request fall into this category, we felt that it was important to put this knowledge out there so that users would know of the possibility of compromise of their data by a third party unrelated to their Twitter account.  We strongly suggest that you use different passwords for each service you sign up for…

The front-end of this story is that Twitter is forcing many users to reset their passwords after it concluded that evil torrent sites were harvesting login credentials. Although, at least one person suggests that the issue goes beyond this.

Now, here’s the thing, BILLIONS of people use the same username and password across different sites. Just think about your parents–do you really think they could handle using a different login for each site that requests one? I think not.

Perhaps it’s time to rethink the “login.” Maybe Twitter et al could lead the way in developing a new system of authentication. One idea, ask users to provide their IP address and whitelist it. Any changes that appear to take place from a different IP–say the rapid increase of Twitter accounts followed–could be “rolled back” to a previous state–one that matches the whitelisted IP, perhaps?

I dunno. You tell me. Is there a better system for authenticating social networking users?

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Using the Same Login Across Multiple Sites? You’re Not Welcomed at Twitter!

Are You Undervaluing Your Web Site?

Written on February 2, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: marketing, searchengineguide

by Mike Moran

Image by liewcf via Flickr

When I see the same issue coming up for so many clients, it makes me think that something more is at work. My latest issue that seems to crop up with nearly every client is tracking offline sales back to Web activity. I mean, I know it isn’t easy, but it’s amazing how rarely I run into a client who feels able to take on the task, much less has a system in place already.

It’s not that they’ve lost interest in ringing the cash register. No, if anything, they are under more pressure than ever in that regard. I think somehow that tracking customer activity is so alien to them that they don’t feel up to it.

Not all companies are like this. If they already have a direct marketing department, and have been tracking catalog sales for years, they know exactly what I am talking about. But most companies don’t have such a background. They know how to count the money in the register, but they don’t know how to attribute the marketing credit for what put it there.

They are willing to track things, yes, but only Web things. They’ll happily report the number of search referrals, popular keywords, page views, sure, but they can’t make the leap from what happens online to what happens offline.

In Las Vegas, they say “what happens here, stays here,” but Las Vegas ain’t got nothin’ on the Web. For most companies, what happens on the Web stays there. Then, a miracle occurs and someone buys something offline.

Now, it depends on your business what you need to do about this. Consumer product companies might need to use coupons for retails stores. Other companies might need to use a phone number they publish only on their Web site. Still another company might want a request for quote button that enters the lead into their Customer Relationship Management System.

I don’t know what you should do, but do something. Until you do, no one will know what the Web is worth and that means you are under-investing.

Check out our small business news site.

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Are You Undervaluing Your Web Site?

Posterous Has a Coke Zero and a Smile

Written on January 20, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

When I saw this ‘announcement’ I really wanted to check into what was going on because it involved a brand I have been a lifelong fanatic of (Coca Cola) and one that I have recently started to really enjoy, Posterous.

While I sometimes wonder why people get so attached to brands and think it’s a little weird, I have to admit that I am almost over the top with my Coke addiction (go ahead and snicker and insert silly drug reference here). I actually refuse to drink other soda products unless there is literally no other choice. Also, I just like the logo and the sense of Americana it carries. Of course, with the amount of aspartame I have ingested drinking Diet Coke for years I will likely prove those lab rats correct but, hey, everyone has to check out of here for some reason, right?

Anyway, back to the marketing stuff. Posterous has teamed with Coke but there is a unique business spin on this one for Posterous which is a free “blog service” to consumers. You see, Coca Cola is actually paying Posterous for it being the platform for a contest they are running that will be part of the NCAA Basketball Tournament this year.

TechCrunch provides the overview

One of Posterous’ first “clients” is Coca-Cola, which is definitely a good first start. Coca-Cola is using Posterous for its NCAA “Dept of Fannovation” where people can come up with ideas to improve the experience of being a fan, and a chance to win $10,000.

Coca-Cola’s use of Posterous revolves around the “post moderation” feature. Any Posterous site can be enabled so that anyone can email post@sitename.posterous.com. The site owner can then moderate those posts, and publish them with a single click. This feature can be used to crowdsource images, video, and text from users.

I have not followed through on the idea submission process on this one so I have not seen this in action. I do see though that on the “Dept. of Fannovation “site” which is a very dark site in its theme because the actual Coke product for this is Coke Zero, there is a nice yellow Posterous tab that could do quite nicely to make the service more well known to a crowd (college hoops fans) that is young enough to understand it and get it.

So it looks like Posterous is taking the same tact as Twitter and deciding that the money to be made is in the corporate market. Keep it free for the regular folks so they can be herded for companies to pick apart and market to the ones they need. Sounds cold and analytical but marketing can be that sometimes, can’t it?

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Posterous Has a Coke Zero and a Smile

Ask.com Sale Speculation Returns, Bing Share Up, Yahoo Down In New comScore Numbers

Written on January 15, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: Object

Will Ask.com be sold or won’t it? In Q3 of last year IAC’s Barry Diller strongly implied that he was ready to sell Ask.com. But he subsequently turned away several world-be buyers, perhaps because the money wasn’t sufficient in his mind.
An analyst at Goldman Sachs has now upgraded IAC to “buy” in part because of [...]



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Ask.com Sale Speculation Returns, Bing Share Up, Yahoo Down In New comScore Numbers

Amazon Slaps UK Affiliates Using Search Marketing Techniques

Written on January 15, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: Object

Like Amazon did several months ago to U.S. affiliates, Amazon sent an email to their UK affiliates basically preventing them from using certain paid search techniques and free search techniques to drive sales to Amazon. The message sent to their UK affiliates yesterday read:
After careful review of our Associates programme, we have made the [...]



….

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Amazon Slaps UK Affiliates Using Search Marketing Techniques

Hyperlocal Being Targeted by M&A and VC Crowd

Written on January 6, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

Search marketers are always interested in local marketing and search. It’s where the rubber meets the road for many businesses including the enterprise (i.e. big box stores) whose real representation of their brand is the local store that someone goes into to buy products. If the local experience is bad then the brand is bad in many consumers’ eyes. So getting down to the local level is critical for marketers especially in the age of continuing social media adoption and influence.

Now there is local and there is hyperlocal. Hyperlocal is just as it implies it is getting down to the street level for reporting of local news and events. Noted hyperlocal blogger Matt McGee of hyperlocalblogger.com says this

Hyperlocal blogging is writing about the streets where you live. It’s blogging about local news, local events, local businesses — anything that’s happening in your hometown, city, street, or neighborhood. Hyperlocal blogs often talk about things that traditional media ignores, the stuff that’s too small or not important enough to a wide range of people.

Well, it appears that what traditional media ignores the VC and M & A crowd are finding interesting. According to theDeal.com

While newspapers have been decimated by the economics transforming today’s media industry, Web sites that report news and deliver other content at the neighborhood, or “hyperlocal,” level, are bursting with life, with many of them becoming sought-after targets by big media and big tech companies.

It is getting harder to ignore the concentration on the local level that is becoming one of the most important elements for B2C and some B2B online business success. The sound and fury around the mobile market with Google and Apple squaring off is just as much about local search as it is a device. The mobile device and its growth is perfectly suited for the hyperlocal crowd for both creating content and consuming it as well.

Chris Brogan talks today about how interesting it would be to be able to geotarget outbound tweets to make sure the local interest of a tweet is not shared across a larger group that don’t have any access or real concern for the data.

If you want to judge how big this is by the money it attracts thedeal.com tells us

…hyperlocal startups continued to get funded. In December, Outside.in Inc., which pulls together neighborhood blogs and other local content, announced it had closed a $7 million Series B round of funding, led by existing investor Union Square Ventures, with participation from new investor Turner Broadcasting System Inc. As part of Turner’s investment, CNN.com will use Outside.in’s aggregation and curation tools to power hyperlocal news across all of its sites. The new round brings Outside.in’s total raised to $12 million.

And let’s not forget FourSquare’s growing success

Over the summer, one of the most competitive early-stage fundings the VC industry saw all last year was that of FourSquare Labs Inc., which encourages people to share their whereabouts from local restaurants and businesses via their mobile phones. Union Square and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventureswon the honor of funding FourSquare’s $1.35 million Series A, announced in September, with Jack Dorsey, a co-founder of Twitter Inc. and the mobile payments startup Square, serving as an angel investor in Foursquare.

How are you and your business addressing the hyperlocal craze? If you aren’t is your competition getting involved? It could be that in the very near future the first to find a hyperlocal hook into a market will be the winner.

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Hyperlocal Being Targeted by M&A and VC Crowd

2010: The Year of Google v. Apple?

Written on January 5, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

It appears that not just the Year of Mobile is being christened this January but new competitive lines are being drawn as well between Internet giants Google and Apple. Yes, it’s time to officially deem Apple an Internet company in my opinion but you are always free to disagree.

According to All Things Digital Apple is preparing to announce a purchase that virtually mirrors the acquisition made of AdMob by Google. Apple is ready to buy Quattro Wireless for $275 million. Apple had been in the mix for the AdMob deal but Google won that one. So as a result Apple and Quattro’s ad platform will be getting geared up to fight out the looming iPhone v. Droid device conflagration (great ‘over-the-top’ word, huh?) that could shape the future of how many people acquire information from the Internet. Quattro was already ID’d as a potential win as evidenced by investment and there are more players out there says All Things D:

Waltham, Mass.-based Quattro has raised close to $30 million from two main venture investors–Highland Capital Partners and Globespan Capital Partners. Founded several years ago, its clients include Ford (F), Disney (DIS) and the National Football League.

Competitors in the space are many still, despite these big acquisitions, including Millenial Media and Jumptap, both of which are now clearly in play to other players from telcoms to other device makers to big Internet companies.

So get ready for the battle that lies ahead. Who are you putting your money on?

Original post:
2010: The Year of Google v. Apple?