July 2007 Archives

Although Search Engine Optimization (SEO) may seem like the “latest and greatest” tool a business may have, let me be the first to tell you that it shouldn’t be the only one. In fact, if you think that all you need to do to have a successful web business is to implement an SEO strategy, you’d be wrong. A business is still only as strong as its foundation. SEO should be implemented with that in mind. A strong business will benefit from SEO, but a business that is weak in terms of structure, idea, focus, etc. will not gain much of anything.

The Marketing Pilgrim explainswhy a business doesn’t need SEO by asking us to reflect on what "need" really means. At calanacis.com Jason Calanacis, previous GM of Netscape speaks his thoughts on SEO (is it B.S. or not) . His main points are:

- If you build a great site and you take your time you will rise in the Google rankings
- Have faith in Google's ability to sort the good from the bad
- The best way to do SEO is make better content, more consistently

Even when it comes to utilizing SEO for your blog, again, you are only as good as your content, as Graywolf’s tongue in cheek SEO post Your Stories Never Go Popular Because Your Personal Marketing Plan Sucks.

At the end of the day, SEO should not be your business band-aid. Look at your business, focus on your key strengths, build a strong model, and use SEO as one of many marketing tools to get you to where you want to be.

From Jake at 10e20, an in-depth look at Yahoo Mobile and its importance to search marketers.

Are you a reader? Here's a list of 5 books all search marketers should read, from SEOMoz.

Speaking of lists, SEO Book details 9 reasons why your Google rankings may tank.

Speaking of reading, here's a list of favorite business books recently compiled on Word Sell.

Do businesses really need SEO? By arguing "no!" Jeremy Luebke at Marketing Pilgrim concludes, "Yes!"

Political maneuvering, campaign funding strategies, and even fashion-sense maybe, but the last thing one expects when thinking of presidential candidate benchmarking would be SEO/SEM.

But 2008's candidates understand that survival on the campaign trail means tapping into technologies and marketing vehicles that until recently were the exclusive domain of nerds and tech-geeks. Costing less than a national TV advertising campaign, yet strong in the “word-of-mouth to the masses” appeal, personal in nature, but with innumerable reach, Internet communication is too powerful to ignore.

What does that mean to Joe or Jane Businessman? By looking closely at how politicians conduct their SEO/SEM within their campaigns, you can observe the best (and sometimes worst) ways to conduct an SEO/SEM strategy. In the world of election campaigns, SEO/SEM successes are instantaneous and mistakes are felt more keenly and dealt more harshly than in “real life”– so sit back and learn from the best (and worst).

Not to play sides, but according to a reputation study conducted by the Marketing Pilgrim, Barack Obama looks to be leading the pack in terms of search engine listings. Based on their research - Key findings include:

• Republican candidates managed only an average 42% positive sentiment search results, with Democratic candidates not fairing much better (45%). • Of those candidates with the most name recognition, only Barack Obama achieved zero negative sentiment results. • Candidates with the most negative sentiment were Republicans Tommy Thompson (22.5%) and Tom Tancredo (12.5%) and Democrats Joe Biden (15%), John Edwards and Hillary Clinton (both 10%). • Candidates with the most positive sentiment were Democrats Dennis Kucinich (55%) and Hillary Clinton (52.5%) and Republicans Ron Paul (70%) and Jim Gilmore (52.5%).

For a detailed analysis refer to search engine journal’s Pablo Palatnik who goes through in his post “Who is winning the online popularity game?” the different Internet rankings for the candidates, with an analysis based on the results from Nielson Media Research. This post also received quite a few interesting comments from readers.

For an in-depth discussion on candidates’ search marketing efforts 10e20 goes through SEM strategies and results based on Google listings.

A couple more links for your reference:

- SEO and the presidential Candidates

- SEOmoz’s “Whether DNC or RNC, Political Candidates need SEO”

In this DIY-everything world, can DIY SEO work for you? When is it the right time to do it yourself versus hiring an expert?

With the ongoing debate in searchengineland on the topic of “Can Small Businesses Really Afford SEO?” it really comes down to two main points-- cost versus benefits, and the ability of the business to balance the numerous investments (monetary and non-monetary) to make the cost justifiable. Balance is really key. Invest too little and you won’t see the return you need, invest too much and you commit SEO overkill.

If you decide to hire someone, finding the right expert to work with is critical. Judging SEO talent can be difficult. In the SEO world, it's not always easy for nonprofessionals to differentiate between meat and potatoes and smoke and mirrors.

Bruce Clay also responds to this quandary in his blog. He makes an important point when he says that small businesses have pieces of SEO that they can do themselves at first, and later bring in an expert when managing the SEO strategy becomes unwieldy. Some good references if you want to get started, would be the LED Digest discussion on “Finding a Qualified SEO” and the online SEO checklist .

On the SEM front, Success Magazine’s recent article on “Should You Outsource Your Search Engine Marketing or Keep It In-House?” goes through some advantages and disadvantages of hiring an SEM agency. Here are some to note (more descriptions can be found in the post):

Advantages- Focused Expertise
- Technology
- Research

Disadvantages
- Loss of control or intellectual capital
- More expensive

Search Engine Land offers detailed instruction on how to build landing pages.

Kenneth W. Davis discusses the decreasing effectiveness of e-mail.

Scott Karp identifies the paradox of print versus online advertising revenue-- For newspapers, print ads reach 10% of the audience, but online ads produce only 10% of ad revenue.

Sujan Patel suggests 5 ways to optimize for local search.

Search Engine Land reviews a strong alternative to Google, ask.com. (For more, see our recent post on alternative search engines.)

Whatever the business, there is usually some sort of dark underbelly, and in search engine optimization, it's called “black hat” SEO. Black hat practices can be used by a site either to boost its own rankings or to bury a competing site in the dark abyss of search results. (You wonder if the latter form should be called "black black hat" SEO.) Forbes.com featured an article delving into this threat - The Saboteurs Of Search . The article goes through 7 ways your site can be sabotaged, namely:

- Google Bowling
- Tattling
- Google Insulation
- Copyright Takedown Notices
- Copied Content
- Denial of Service
- Click Fraud

This article has proven to be timely, and industry reaction has been rampant. Read through some of the response on searchengineland’s blog.

Fortunately, there are certain things that you can do in order to protect yourself. According to sitepronews

The key to protection from XSS attacks is in the proper configuration of all of the applications and tools that comprise your on-line enterprise. These apps must be synced up to work together while, at the same time, developing protection against XSS attacks.
This configuring of applications is done at the host level and should include a detailed analysis of potential XSS entry points within the site's design and reconfiguration to fit the server security already in place.

One thing is thankfully certain: search engines such as Google are getting more and more black hat savvy. Your SEM partner should be able to give you a leg up in the battle against black hat sabotage.

Further reading--

From Whoast, why you should avoid black hat techniques yourself.

A glossary of black hat SEO terms from George Ajazi.

Search engine optimization is not only for the business that has its own stand alone website. Businesses that sell on eBay can gain a lot of momentum and better ROI implementing sound SEO strategies. A lot of the SEO principles are applicable to the eBay merchant, the only difference being that the strategies would be focused on the microcosm of eBay. Here are a couple of tips:

Maximize keyword usage in your listing descriptions and titles. Do your research: find out which words get the best results rather than guess. Check and change your search engine keywords (found under marketing tools)--the ones automatically generated by eBay are based on your descriptions alone.

Utilize all that eBay has to offer a merchant. Make sure you fill out your store description with as many useful keywords as possible. Also, create your “about me” page and make links to your store from there. eBay has a handy SEO guide online that can give you even more handy tips.

SEO-ing your eBay store is essential because of the growing competitiveness within eBay, Check out these forums for some helpful opinions and recommendations.

Cre8asiteforum has a discussion on SEO and eBay

Searchenginewatch also has a forum on SEO on eBay

Marc and Angel discuss 7 ways Yahoo outperforms Google. (See our Perspective article on Yahoo for more background.)

On the lighter side, epiar shines the spotlight on some truly bizarre search phrases.

We take landing pages very seriously. Crafting them well is critical to successful SEM. SEOmoz makes the case for landing page optimization.

PPC Hero interviews Evan Roberts, who sees growing SEM strength from MSN.

For bloggers too busy to find extraordinary blogs, Liz Strauss offers 40 outstanding blog links. If they're good enough for her, they're good enough for me!

SEOmoz's randfish offers really, really sound advice on how Internet advertising should work.

Wow! 21 SEO techniques from SearchEngineLand that all should follow.

A glossary of black hat SEO terms from George Ajazi that all should not follow!

Despite popular belief, there is search engine life beyond Google. Dare I say, depending on what information you need or the way you search, there might be a search engine or site that would fit you better than Google would . I think the right way to frame it would be that Google should be one tool in your set of “search” tools, not your only one. Here are some you might want to try out.

Need a quick answer to the meaning of a business term or the profile of a company? Answer.com might be your key to unlocking that kind of information. This search site bases their answers on a rich database of esteemed publishers such as Columbia University Press, Barron’s and Houghton Mifflin, to name a few. “Answers” come back laid out in an easy to understand yet comprehensive way.

So new to search you might even need a person to guide you through it? ChaCha might be your answer, they work pretty much like a typical search engine, but what they have that no one else does is the capability to have a “live” search guide actually help you find exactly what you need for free. After typing in your search, if you can’t find what you’re looking for, simply click on “Chat Live with a Guide” and a window appears, after the session, you rate the guide as to how they were able to help you.

Just for the fun of it, and for those of you into Trivial Pursuit, Dialogus.ru may still be in beta mode but it is a cool tool when you need access to quick facts without wanting to bother with going through links and more links to find your answer. Simply type in your question and watch it go.

If you want to look into more alternative search engines try altsearchengine’s The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines .

See Online Research Part 2

See Online Research Part 1

Blogging has grown to mean more than being just the realm of teen angst. Companies such as Google , Microsoft, Monster.com have “officially” sponsored blogs that let you peek into the inner workings of their employees or their company. So how do you know if you should join the blog bandwagon? Charlene Li from Forrester Research gives a good overview in her report called “Blogging, Bubble or Big Deal?”

For the small to medium sized business, here are several points to ponder for now:

The blog you set up, much like a website, is only as good as the content within. Especially in the case of a blog, the “freshness” and quality of the content is key to making sure that people will come back for more.

Who will be updating and contributing to the blog? It is important to assign someone that will be able to consistently provide good and timely insight that would be valued by your target market.

Look at your market – is there a benefit to be had by “opening” up your company via a blog? In most cases there is. Customers like feeling as if they have the inside eye on the companies they do business with. A blog usually humanizes a company and in some or most cases, you are also able to gather feedback from your customer as well in an informal atmosphere.

Look at your industry--is there something unique or highly specialized about your service or product that can differentiate you among your competitors? The blog may be a good place to highlight your strengths without overtly sounding like a sales pitch.

Sometimes the best way to get your feet wet is to check out some business relevant blogs and reply with a comment or two, and begin establishing yourself (or your company) that way.

Interested in learning more? Visit the following blogs:
Business Blogwire
Better Business Blogging describes the “Anatomy of a Corporate Blog”

As a small or medium business, its hard enough to stay on top of everyday business needs let alone keep up with all the new jargon and the “latest and greatest” must-do’s. How does one separate hype from truth?

Especially when it comes to things Internet-related, it may seem that right after one new thing comes along, another is sprouting in its place. From blogs to YouTube to MySpace, a company's Web presence often consists of more than just a simple billboard website and a storefront. Does a company need “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO) or “Search Engine Marketing” (SEM) as well? Here are a couple of points to ponder:

Why spend money on a site no one will see? Chances are, if you’re serious about your online presence, you’ve invested some money in building your website. It's like publishing a novel without thinking about how to distribute it to bookstores. The second half of the equation is as important (if not more important) as the first half.

The Internet is not what it was ten years, five years or even a year ago. More competition, more websites, more information, more whiz bang, has given birth to the need for more efficiency and creativity in being heard above the crowd. SEO and SEM fulfill that need.

Your customers may not be the same as they were ten years, five years or a year ago. Face it, most likely your customers are more tech savvy, more prone to research, and more likely to be dedicated to saving their own time and money when utilizing the web. Simply having a website is not impressive anymore, and that’s if they can even find you. SEO and SEM fine-tune your ability to reach your specific set of customers while ensuring that you provide them with what they need online.

To read more on why and how check out these links:

Success Magazine’s article on “Why Search Engine Marketing is Your Most Effective Marketing Tool”

Promotion World’s "10 Reasons Why You Should Pay for Search Engine Optimization"

SEO and Blogging Success Story from Search Engine Journal

There will simply be those times when typing something into Google just will not give you the precise result you need, or actually it does-- all one million of them. Beyond the simplest of searches, I can almost guarantee that there is a better and faster way to get you to where you need to be—simply by looking at what you type into that search box. Here are a couple of quick tips for you—

Simplify your search – Take off modifiers or common “fillers” – a search should not be a sentence or even a phrase- in most cases search engines like Google usually ignore words such as where, when, to, etc. anyway. For instance if you are looking for “where the Olympics will be in 2008” simply typing in “Olympics 2008” is a better way to go.

Be more specific about your search. This is where what they call “boolean logic” comes in – simply explained, when used, it’s a series of simple words that search engines understand as commands to modify a given search. AND, OR, NOT are commonly used Boolean terms that you can use. If you want to read more on the concept behind Boolean logic, and how it applies to your search try - Internet Tutorial on Boolean Logic. Remember that this isn’t about learning a whole new language, rather it's about understanding how a search engine’s “mind” works and mining it correctly for the information that you need.

Not all search engines support Boolean language – for more information on which search engine supports what, refer to “Boolean Search” on searchenginewatch.

Also, Google’s “Advanced Search” option allows you to easily fill out their template to narrow your search without having to employ boolean language. Aside from the usual Boolean search capabilities, some cool things that Google can do for you include a “fill in the blank” search by simply adding an asterisk to your search query—such as “The airplane was invented by *”.

Here's Part 1 of the series--Internet Research 101

Next in line for Online Research Part 3 in a series – Some Tips on Where to Go for Information – especially for small to medium businesses.