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Nov
28
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If you read my last post on advanced keyword research, you probably thought that there was no way you could look deeper into your search visitors’ desires. Well, think again. I want to share a clever technique I’ve been using for several months now to drastically improve the conversion rates of some of my projects.
The technique I am going to present is useful for Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing like Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing. As you will see, you can later leverage the results for your SEO efforts.
Popularity: 59% [?]
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Nov
20
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Everybody in the search marketing industry has fallen head over heels for social media. Certainly it’s nice to see those traffic spikes in your website stats. Personally, I see social media as excellent for viral marketing, branding and long-term relationship building. But I don’t see that new visitors coming to a site from social media sites are particularity interested in taking action on content. Why? Most of them are not in that particular mindset. For first time visits, search engine and affiliate traffic simply convert better.
Unless your monetization strategy is to sell page views you need to keep hitting the home page of the social media sites on a consistent basis in order to take advantage of them. What works best I find is a balanced approach to building traffic. Let me illustrate this by sharing two recent events that sent notable traffic spikes to this blog, as well as the resulting fallout from that traffic.
Popularity: 57% [?]
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Nov
19
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As search marketers we need to know if our efforts are paying off. How many visitors are we getting? What channels are they coming from? And more importantly, how many of those visitors are taking the action (conversions) that we want them to take?
For all this information, we rely on Web Analytics. There are two basic breeds of web analytics packages: web bugs that use page tagging through JavaScript, and web logs that analyze server data. Each type of package has its pros and cons, so search marketers need to utilize both to get the complete picture. Let me tell you how you can best combine the disparate world of bugs and logs.
Popularity: 48% [?]
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Nov
13
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I was recently interviewed by the nice guys at Distilled— if you are a regular reader of this blog and you haven’t read it yet, Tom asked some really interesting questions — and one of the things I briefly mentioned was that one of my hobbies is playing chess. I’ve been playing the game for about 2 years, and what I enjoy most about it is that it teaches me a lot about competition and strategy.
Checkmate
One of the reasons why I recommend doing competitive intelligence for SEO is that when you truly understand what makes others successful, you can find a shorter path to your own success. I only make great progress, both in SEO and in chess, when I am able to beat stronger players consistently.
Most intermediate chess books suggest that for every move you make, you develop a list in your head of candidate moves. Those are moves that you should explore by playing as many moves ahead in your mind as you can and evaluating the potential outcomes. Unfortunately, when you are starting out this is very difficult and time consuming. Chess experts do this instinctively and do it very fast, so it is usually easier and more interesting to study professional games and try to understand the reasoning behind each move. The idea is not to memorize the tactics, like many do, but to appreciate the strategies and the logical reasoning that led to them.
Again, there are far more ways to failure than there are to success. It is far more efficient to learn from the moves of proven winners than to try to experiment every possible move for yourself. Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 57% [?]
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Nov
8
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Some of you know that I’ve been working for a while on an advanced SEO suite. I am getting ready to officially launch the beta program and I would like to ask for your help with some of the details.
If you want to be the best at what you do, you need to be prepared to take some heavy criticism. When somebody critiques something you’ve done, you can’t get offended; instead you have to try and learn as much as possible from it.
With that in mind, I want to ask for your assistance improving our promotional video. Please watch it and use the comments section for your critiques. Don’t hold back any punches! I plan to take your valuable input back to the producers.
Revolutionary “Point and Click” SEO Software
RankSense is a revolutionary new SEO software suite that makes ranking your web pages highly within the major search engines easier than ever before — for the keywords and phrases most relevant to your business.
Thanks in advance!
Popularity: 56% [?]
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Nov
7
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Viral marketing may be one of the most powerful and cost-effective ways to market a product or service, but achieving success remains more of an art than a science. In fact, one of the most frustrating aspects of viral marketing is that you can spend a lot of time and money on what seems like a great idea, yet ultimately be faced with disappointing results. I’ve been playing around with a simple framework to put my viral ideas to the test before committing major resources. Call it “viral ideas split testing.” I think you’ll like it…
Popularity: 51% [?]
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Nov
5
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This year is certain to go down as the year of the widgets. Widgets (also called “gadgets”) are simply small applications that provide dynamic or smart content and they are big news for search marketers, even if the programming gibberish involved has made the fact difficult for many non-developers to see.
The biggest difference between widgets and traditional content is that the content comes ‘alive’ because readers can interact, click and input text to get the information they are interested in. Everybody, including Google’s new OpenSocial initiative, wants to support widgets in one way or another. Google still has some work to do with OpenSocial, but I am certain that it provides the first glimpse into what the next evolution of search marketing is going to be.
Popularity: 41% [?]
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Oct
29
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Last week the blogosphere was abuzz when Google decided to ‘update’ the PageRank numbers they display on the toolbar. It seems Google has made real on its threat to demote sites engaged in buying and selling links for search rankings. The problem is that they caught some innocent ones in the crossfire. A couple of days later, they corrected their mistake, and those sites are now back to where they were supposed to be.
The incident reveals that there is a lot of misunderstanding about PageRank, both inside and outside the SEO community. For example, Forbes reporter Andy Greenberg writes:
On Thursday, Web site administrators for major sites including the Washingtonpost.com, Techcrunch, and Engadget (as well as Forbes.com) found that their “pagerank”–a number that typically reflects the ranking of a site in Google…
He also quotes Barry Schwartz saying:
But Schwartz says he knows better. “Typically what Google shows in the toolbar is not what they use behind the scenes,” he says. “For about two and a half years now this number has had very little to do with search results.”
There are two mistakes in these assertions:
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The toolbar PageRank does not reflect the ranking of a site in Google. It reflects Google’s perceived ‘importance’ of the site.
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The toolbar PageRank is an approximation of the real PageRank Google uses behind the scenes. Google doesn’t update the toolbar PageRank as often as they update the real thing, but saying that it has little to do with search results is a little farfetched.
Several sites lost PageRank, but they did not experience a drop in search referrals. Link buyers and sellers use toolbar PageRank as a measure of the value of a site’s links. By reducing this perceived value, Google is clearly sending a message about paid links. The drop is clearly intended to discourage such deals.
Some ask why Google doesn’t simply remove the toolbar PageRank altogether so that buyers and sellers won’t have a currency to trade with. At first glance it seems like a good idea, but here is the catch—the toolbar PageRank is just a means of enticing users to activate the surveillance component that Google uses to study online behavior. Google probably has several reasons for doing so, but at minimum it helps measure the quality of search results and improve its algorithms. If Google were to remove the toolbar PageRank users would have no incentive to let Google ‘spy’ on their online activities.
Popularity: 42% [?]
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Oct
23
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If you observe successful people you notice that success, both online and off, requires setting far-reaching goals and working hard enough and consistently enough to achieve them. What are less obvious to observe from these winners are the steps and pacing necessary to reach a goal. Let me illustrate this with a favorite allegory of mine.
A long time ago there lived a true martial arts master. He trained and had as his disciples only the best and most skillful fighters of the time. He put them through extremely grueling and challenging tests over the course of five years. It was certainly worthwhile, as upon completion they proved virtually unbeatable against all other opponents in every martial arts tournament they entered.
One day, a young apprentice came to the master. He was very talented and eager to learn, but wondered if there was a way he could learn everything in far less time. Five long years, he thought, was just too much.
“Suppose I practiced twice as long each day as the other students?” The master replied that it would take him 10 years to finish the training that way. “What if I practiced all day, every day, including weekends, and only slept for a couple of hours. How long would it take then?” The master replied that it would take him 20 years. Frustrated now, the disciple asked once more, “Why is it that each time I tell you I will double my efforts and dedicate more time to finishing the training you say it will take twice as long?”
The master chuckled. “The reason is obvious. If you do what you say, you will always have one eye fixed on your goal. But you need both eyes on the tasks at hand to reach your goal. Working with one eye alone, it will take you twice the time.”
Blogging and SEO with both eyes open
Let’s say you want to be the Darren Rowse or Rand Fishkin of the blogging/SEO world. Instinctively you would try to publish one or more high-quality posts each day, and do a massive amount of networking, guest posting, conference speaking, interviews, link baiting, and so on. The end result: you would burn out in less than a month (week?). However, if you take your time and write carefully researched posts and publish them when you feel they are truly ready, network and build your readership gradually, form lasting relationships with other bloggers, and try to learn as much as you can, you have a better chance of succeeding. And, most importantly, you will have both eyes open when you spend time with your family and friends. 
Popularity: 30% [?]
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Oct
19
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I’m not sure where I saw this video, but it left a permanent impression in my memory. Two burglars are holding up a corner store at gunpoint. The clerk instinctively pushes a button and protective doors and screens fall swiftly to protect him and the cash machine. The alarm sound is unbearable. The burglars are caught completely off guard. One bangs against the door several times with no success; apparently, he assumed the door was locked from the outside. The other pauses to think and, coming to his senses, halts his partner’s futile thrashing and opens the door simply by pulling the handle. It was really funny.
As marketers we sometimes act like that burglar, banging against the door out of fear and habit. We don’t spend any time researching our target market or carefully preparing an offer that is appealing. We simply try the easiest and most annoying thing first: force out mediocre content on anybody we can get a hold of. As long as spamming yields some results and can be automated people will keep doing it. But I think it is far more beneficial (effort/reward) to just open the door by the handle; i.e. understand what people want and give it to them. (On the other hand, the more lazy marketers there are, the more rewards remain for us hard working ones. 
So maybe I shouldn’t be complaining!)
Popularity: 25% [?]
