Google expert Vanessa Fox

Vanessa Fox on Search:

These days, your search strategy is your business strategy, whether you realise it or not, because that’s how potential customers are trying to find you. Search is the new Yellow Pages…

That was  from her book, Marketing in the Age of Google.

It goes without saying that Vanessa is right. Ask yourself how often you rush to the Internet to look up a product or service you’re interested in. How often have you seen someone pause to look something up on their mobile phone browser before buying? How often have you done that yourself? Yet there are still business owners who look at us (SEOs) as if we’re deranged when we say that you can no longer have a marketing campaign that doesn’t include SEO and a social networking strategy.

Search is Changing

The shear volume of search queries is increasing exponentially as everyone discovers the benefits of researching and buying online. In fact search grew by 46 percent in 2009 alone, according to Comscore.com, and while the results are not out yet, it looks as if that trend continued in 2010. And the new boy on the block, mobile search, is set to capture our hearts, having grown by a breathtaking 400 percent-plus during 2010. This means that almost every person who might be looking for what you or I have to offer is likely to want to find us through a search engine.

It is a business-owner’s prerogative to opt out of the search marketing game, but if you choose that route you do so at your own peril.

Opting out of the trend could mean you’re opting out of your business!

If you’re not taking your SEO strategy seriously, you are literally endangering your business, because other savvy business-owners, your competition, well they’re not slacking. They’re doing everything they can to remain at the top of their game and that includes hiring an SEO consultant, or at the very least a PPC expert.

Opting to stay with paid search is an answer for some businesses, but in the business we look at each other and ask ‘for how long?’ Statistics show that paid search does not pay off at anywhere near the rate of organic search. What this means is that for the most part, an organic ranking will do more good for your business in the long term than a paid listing will. And this will only become more true with the passage of time, if trends continue.

Vanessa also says:

Searchers are typing longer queries that trigger fewer paid search matches, and they are increasingly recognising the difference between organic and paid results…

This is a statement that could influence your whole online strategy, if you’d let it. It means that with the right tracking, and with a little understanding of keyphrases, and a few judicious tweaks to your website, you could easily come to dominate your market online.

So now you know: if you haven’t been working at improving your organic ranking, then maybe it’s time you did.

Keep your SEO clients in the picture-manage their exectations!

Set Realistic Deliverables!

SEO is one of those areas where, typically, deliverables can be open to interpretation, perception and yes, question. If SEO consultants don’t manage client expectations well, this can lead to dissappointment and bad feeling that may even end with the client jettisoning all SEO efforts as a ‘waste of time.’

This is a pity. Due to mismanaged expectations many companies confine themselves to, at best, mediocre success online because they weren’t given the information they needed initially that would have given them the encouragement to give the process time.

Create a Deliverables Timetable

First and foremost, SEO is not a process where you just snap your fingers and the results are there, plain to see. So as an SEO you have obligations to help your client envision how things will develop: and you need to take care of it at the outset.

1. Before you even think of approaching a client, design a monitoring system. Most decent web hosting companies nowadays include analytics, but it’s best to never rely on anyone else. Take the analytics available to you for the period before your work begins, and keep it for later reference. Than get yourself an account with a good traffic monitoring application such as Mint. This will allow you to do two things: reassure your client periodically that you are progressing in the right direction, and enable you to make decisions about how your strategy is delivering.
2. When you discuss your SEO strategy initially with your client, do not gloss over deliverables. It is vital that you get expectations down in black and white at the outset, before you do a thing. Make sure you are clear about the changes your client can expect to see, and try and give at least rough time estimates. SEO is not a speedy process, and if a client is expecting to see magical results from the first week, by week two disillusionment is going to be setting in, making unlikely that you’ll proceed together.
3. Be sure that you not only track results, but that you point out to your client on a regular basis how traffic is improving and how the benefits of SEO are slow to become apparent, but that the positive results begin to manifest dramatically after the ‘tipping point’ has been reached. <strong>Be sure to own your results-or someone else will!</strong>
4. If increased traffic does not manifest in the way that you both envisioned, it is essential that you schedule a meeting and discuss realistic expectations, and ways that you can improve on results.
5. Set up a way to interract with your client, if not on a daily basis, at least a couple of times a week. Lack of communication is always a major factor in client dissatisfaction. While you may or may not want to invite clients to join you on your regular Twitter account, you might find that a second account just for clients will help you to keep them all happy and satisfied, by feeding relevant articles, clients successes and anything else that will help to give them that warm and fuzzy feeling. Think of other social media channels that might serve your purpose here. All the while you’re talking to clients, you are allaying their fears and encouraging confidence. Long periods of silence give way to suspicion and doubt and this should be avoided at all costs.

You need to know:

• Where it comes from (organic, PPC, referring websites, affiliates)
• How much of it there is
• Are people finding what they’re looking for (indicated by bounce rate–or where they go when they land)
• And whether those visits produce the desired result for you and your potential customers. If your traffic isn’t improving your bottom line then there’s something wrong.

I asked two of my fellow marketers who consistently get it right how they monitor their stats and here’s what I got:

Google Analytics is my favorite stats program because I know it well and it is far more powerful than other, expensive solutions. I once worked with a company that charged $5,000 per month for their Analytics program and it was quite possibly the worst thing I’ve ever worked with.

The only drawback to Google Analytics is that it isn’t real-time, so I also use BLVDStatus (Premium) and let Clicky (Free version) for sites where I need to know what is going on at certain times of the day.

Glen from Viperchill.com

There are two basic ways to use analytics.  You can systematically monitor a variety of elements of your web pages,  making analytics part of your daily routine.  Or you can use analytics as a detective does, looking for clues.

I play detective.  Every now and then I snoop around.  Anything that is not as I would expect it to be is most likely either a warning or an opportunity.

For instance, let’s suppose my client’s website ranks at #2 for Keyword1 and at #7 for Keyword2, and both are expected to have the same traffic potential.  If I see that, despite a much lower ranking, Keyword2 is delivering more traffic, that makes me wonder what would happen if we focused more and ranking for Keyword2 – perhaps it has more traffic potential than we had assumed.  Or if Keyword2 has a lower bounce rate or keeps people longer on the site.  These are signs that we might want to change our focus.

In one case, I was noticing a lot of traffic from a country that had no interest in the site, so I was able to use a geographic filter to reduce spam by over 50%.  This was not the result of systematic application of analytics; this was nose-in-the-dirt detective work (the way I like it).

David Leonhardt of The Happy Guy Marketing

Personally, I am not so keen on Google for the simple reason that I’m wary of sharing all my entrepreneurial data with a search engine that aspires to complete superiority on the Web. OK I know they all do, but Google is closest to reaching that goal and for this reason I believe they’re dangerous: absolute power corrupts.

Here are a few stats monitoring services that are worth a second look:

Mint.com Mint helps you identify where the most interest is being generated and over what!

Webtrends.com Helps you target more effectively.

Awstats.com Although it’s free, Awstats gives you all the metrics you need to work out what you’re doing right, and what you’re doing wrong.

When it comes down to it, the most important thing is that you’re monitoring. There are dozens of good web traffic monitoring programs out there. Choose one and use it remorselessly!

A while back I read an interesting comment over at SEOmoz after watching Rand Fishkin’s Whiteboard Friday: it roughly, and rightly, stated that SEOs are tired of following Google’s latest algo change.

In his video, Rand asserts that all we’ll need to worry about in the future are the facts that backlinks will always count as votes of confidence and good content will always provide a satisfactory user experience. All true.

But what about the role of social media in the future of SEO?

Rand says that he doesn’t think that social is going to be as big as some are saying it will. I disagree. To justify his position he mentions that Twitter and FaceBook are easy systems to game. That’s true at the moment. But people are also learning that marketing through these social media without gaming them can actually be more successful than the unethical approach.

The face of search is changing and we detected a radical shift at least a year ago.

There’s even a new search engine called Leapfish that includes results on social media sites as well as traditional search engine results.

Interestingly a couple of years back when I asked Rand if he thought that Google included data on site traffic in the ranking algo, he said that he didn’t think so. That’s changed and now he says that Google will increasingly incorporate usage metrics to gauge the value of websites, to the extent that good traffic could even make up for not-so-good backlinks.

Rand also speculates that verticals will replace Google for some categories of search, such as Craigslist for apartments search, Kayak for travel search etc (those are his examples).

I would also venture that the comments over at Ad Age regarding Google’s treatment of SEOs and marketing people in general have served to create a general malaise over Google too. In plain language we’re all sick of Google moving the goal posts, insulting us, and outright calling us criminals when all we’re doing is providing a much-needed online service.

Is Google biting the hand that feeds it?

To read between the lines of Google algo changes and updates, you might be forgiven for thinking that today’s online marketers (including SEOs of course) are just mutations of yesterdays spammers and porno-peddlers. Naturally we’re all rankling at that–who wouldn’t. So in effect, Google sees itself as big enough and mighty enough to alienate a huge sector of the online community with impunity–and no compunction whatever.

So aside from the fact that most of us see Google’s monopoly as a huge danger, particularly with the development of ‘the cloud,’ (How the cloud can be a danger to us is a subject I’ll be covering in a post shortly), we will also be anxious to adopt the first real alternative to the Google empire simply because of the bad feeling that Google itself has created.

I started writing this post several months back. Since then many online marketers of all stripes have  joined the growing crowd who see Twitter as playing an increasingly important role in online search and more. Already, as I predicted in a guest post over at Search Engine People back in March, users are looking to Twitter for instant gratification. Just a few minutes ago, I found myself searching Twitter for Google Wave invites (Ironic I know). You can see the result when I searched Google here. While this is the result I got for a Twitter Search for Google Wave invites.

As you can see, if you’re looking for a Google Wave invite, Twitter is the place to go! Those results just prove what I’ve been saying for months. Twitter poses a serious threat to Google as The New Search Venue. In fact, if I were a Google exec, I’d be much more worried about Twitter than Bing or any  possible search engine combination.

It’s common for SEO clients to pick and choose what they want included in their SEO campaign. Many SEO consultants will, often against their better judgment, agree to a scaled-down campaign that suits the client (or rather the client’s budget). If you’re thinking of saving money on SEO, you should be aware that if you leave out certain elements you may not be negating the entire campaign, but you will certainly be limiting your scope for success.

Here’s a list of what absolutely cannot be left out of your SEO campaign:

1. Check domain integrity and canonicalization issues to ensure that, basically, there is only one version of your home page.
2. Elimination of any inadvertent Black Hat elements such as invisible text, cloaking, or keyword stuffing, or any links that could be construed as paid links in any way by Google.
3. Thorough keyword research to ensure that you are optimizing for the phrases that exactly match what your customers will be searching for, and nothing else.
4. Website audit along with competitive analysis to ensure that you are in a position to compete with websites presently at the top of a search for your chosen keywords.
5. Page title tags. These have to be perfect for each page because they are critical to your Google success.
6. SEO content creation. The goal is to fill your pages with content that will impress Google and entice your customers.
7. Link building. Without sufficient quality, incoming links you cannot compete. The emphasis here is on quality: links from poor neighborhoods will actually drag you down in the SERPs. Be careful of purchasing links because Google has ways of sniffing them out and will penalize you decisively.
8. Monitor results of your SEO campaign for all you’re worth. This is key to future SEO work. If you dispense with this step you might as well give up and settle for failure.

I hate to admit this but…

This is going to have to be one of my occasional posts about me. If you’re not new here, you may have noticed I haven’t posted for a while.

I’ll be painfully honest with you: I’ve been thinking seriously about what it’s all about online, with social media and everything.

You know how sometimes you get all introspective and start comparing yourself negatively with everyone? That’s where I’ve been this past week.

You see, from my perspective, and despite the fact that I know as much as any social media expert, everyone seems to be having a far better time on social media than I am. Social media has become a chore, notwithstanding my truly outstanding connections. Here are a few of the reasons why.

I may have mentioned this before, but FaceBook is driving me nuts with all those phony-feeling applications. And I’m totally not surprised about the recent revelations that FaceBook quizzes can be dangerous, by exposing too much about you to those with criminal intent.

FaceBook? Yep. I feel so bad. I want to go down that list of stuff waiting for my attention and click ‘ignore, ignore, ignore….’

It all feels so fake. Same with my Twitter account. I loved it to start with, and I am reluctant to part company with my precious Twitter account. But now I get this awful hollow feeling from reading tweets that don’t interest me from people I don’t even like in some cases. And yes, I do unfollow. It feels as if we’ve all missed the point of social networking.

Digg–so many people never even bother to try and network: all they want is my Digg. Same with Mixx, although it’s still more friendly over there.

Experts have been telling us from the beginning (well the genuine ones anyway) that we need to make our social media connections count. It’s all about being mutually relevant and having a good feeling about those you interact with.

Applications like TwitterGrader, while they certainly have a place in social networking, have also contributed to the negative feelings that many of us are experiencing. Far too many Twitter and FaceBook users, along with users of most of the other social media sites out there, are wildly connecting all over the place, sometimes with people they’ll never even interact with once, in order to get a better grade. Where’s the logic in that?

I despise the fact that some people are proud of having connections with 30,000 people. What for? To me it’s missing the point altogether.

If you think I’ve lost it, look here: Seth Godin is saying the same thing here:

I’m going to take a deep breath and ignore all the social media grading applications out there from now on. I want to get back the sincerity of my social media networking: networking because you like the people, because you can be of sincere help to each other, and because overall you’re contributing to making the Net a better place.

Going through all my social media accounts and pruning them will return me to sanity. It will cut hours off the time I need to spend servicing those accounts at present. It will make those moments of true networking, the ones that carry you through a bad week, inspire you to move upwards and onward, and generally make you feel it’s all worth it after all, far more likely to happen. and that, after all, is why we’re here. Isn’t it?

I hope that you’ll agree with me and decide to at least take a step toward doing the same thing. Let’s make social media meaningful once more before it’s too late.

SEO for Competitive Analysis

Ever heard that you need a plan to get ahead? It’s sometimes exceedingly tricky to formulate a plan though isn’t it? Luckily, in online business it’s really easy to formulate a plan to get ahead in your niche–whatever that is.

Finding Your Niche Competition

First you need to identify those websites that are ahead of you in the search results for your chosen keywords. You can do this by doing a search on Google, Yahoo and Bing (and whatever other search engine you’re interested in) for the words and phrases you want to be searched for. Take a look at the top 10 results for each one. Check what other keywords/phrases these sites are using because you can often come up with some interesting new search terms you hadn’t thought of by doing this.

Comparative Analysis

Then you do a comparative analysis on each of the top three, and you’re away. You will have an itemized roadmap that will take you exactly where you want to go, and you will be able to implement it at your leisure-whenever you have a few minutes to spare.

Let’s take a closer look at the criteria:

1. Search terms (we’ve already covered that)
2. Title tags (what you see in the top, left-hand corner of your screen for each page). This is arguably the most important item of optimization. It dictates a large part of how the search engines see you. If you have fabulous content, but your title tags say ‘welcome to (your name)’ you will be sunk. Don’t miss the opportunity to put to or three of your major keywords in here, starting with the most important.
3. Your article/post title should also include at least one of your major keywords.
4. Look at the images your competition is using. Learn from this, and try to get bigger, more interesting images onto your pages, not forgetting that there is a balance: make the images too big and you’ll make your pages slow to load. Oh, and don’t forget the alt-text because this does matter for a number of reasons.
5. Make sure that your web content is far and away more readable, and more informative than that of the competition.

It will help if you arrange your results in a table for at-a-glance assessment.

Avoid putting all your eggs in one basket…

Don’t rely too heavily on a competitive analysis though. Nowadays off-page activity can have a major impact on your ultimate traffic and visibility results. Social media is a must. Don’t overlook Twitter, in particular, as a tool for networking, getting the word out, and even getting valuable links for your website.

Matt Cutts is a nice guy

…must we all keep hanging on his every word? He is, for sure, a very helpful, and very friendly guy. But just look at what he does for a living will you? Now before I go on, let me stress that this is not a personal attack against Matt: He’s a nice guy with an exquisitely difficult job. But the facts remain. I got thinking about this subject after a reader commented on my recent post on duplicate content issues over at Search Engine Journal, It seems that Matt said something to the effect that we don’t need to worry about duplicate content issues at SMX Advanced. I personally didn’t see footage of that, but I can tell you that I, and many of my SEO colleagues see evidence that we do need to worry about duplicate content every day. Simply put, Matt Cutts is Google’s front man. Many times, Matt has given us hints that he can’t tell us all we want to know, in this statement he made on AimClear Blog:

It’s sort of like the credit card companies, you can’t really tell all the penalties you really have without giving it away for the spammers

Now why would anyone think that Matt would be prepared to give away all Google’s secrets? He’d be fired straight away if he did. Take an objective look at this excellent You&A with Matt Cutts. See? It’s more-or-less common knowledge that Matt Cutts can’t just come right out with it. We know it and he knows it. Now if you’re rather follow what Matt says to the letter, that fine. But we have years of collective experience and we think we’re entitled to differ with what Matt says when it’s necessary for the sake of our commitment to great SEO.
]]> http://www.wellwrittenwords.com/matt-cutts-is-a-really-nice-guy-but/feed/ 10 http://www.wellwrittenwords.com/ultimate-list-of-web-tracking-applications/ http://www.wellwrittenwords.com/ultimate-list-of-web-tracking-applications/#comments Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:18:57 +0000 Patricia Skinner http://www.wellwrittenwords.com/?p=596

Track Your Business to the Top

An important aspect of getting your website optimization right is tracking results and monitoring visitors and how they move about on your site, to make sure you’re getting targeted traffic (relevant for your product) and that your visitors ‘convert’ when they get there: that’s tech-speak for they do whatever it is you want them to do!

To make sure you get the mix right, a vital component of your website equipment is efficient tracking tools. The more accurately you can monitor who visits your website, why, and how satisfied they were, the more successful you’ll be online. Simple equation. You will be able to spot trends, and identify problems or areas where your system is coming up short with ease if you get your tracking right. This will make it so much easier to make changes that bring real results.

It’s sometimes difficult to gauge which tools you should be using though. There are so many web tracking applications out there and they all differ wildly, terms of complexity and price.

It occurred to me (OK, I was having a flash of inspiration! Are you done laughing? Then I’ll continue….) that the best way to pick the best tracking applications would be to monitor what other successful websites are using in the way of tracking devices.

So that’s what I did.

Google Analytics–Leader of the Pack

No surprises that Google Analytics came out on top: it’s free, it’s accurate, easy to install and what’s more, it tells you most of what you need to know. The trouble is, as far as I’m concerned, is that when you have Google Analytics installed, the largest search engine on the planet also has access to all your traffic information. Think about that. Obviously the same drawbacks exist for newly-launched Yahoo Analytics.

In the table below you’ll see tracking companies used by several top SEO firms as well as a number of the most successful websites. This is relevant, although the websites are nowhere near as big as CNN, for example, the keyword ‘SEO’ has to be one of the most competitive keywords ever, so I make no apology for including those first. After all, we should watch what the professionals use no? I’ve also included the most successful blogs ever, headed up by the Huffington Post because, let’s face it they’re doing something right with millions of visitors every day.

Like me, you’ll probably notice an interesting two or three applications that come up again and again. And, not all these applications are strictly tracking applications: it’s interesting to see how many different companies/techniques successful websites are using to improve their traffic and bottom line.

Here’s the list in no particular order, and I’ll just mention that I threw in a couple of web analysis companies that I know are used a great deal by online businesses, and therefore shouldn’t be discounted. I daresay I’ve missed a few, but this should be great food-for-thought for anyone considering how best to monitor what goes on with their online business. I’m kicking off with Google Analytics because of it’s overwhelming popularity:

• Google Analytics
• Index Tools (recently acquired by Yahoo Analytics)
• Mint
• Enquisite
• Quantcast
• Doubleclick
• Omniture
• Web Trends
• Awstats
• Technorati
• Lotame
• Tribal Fusion
• SiteMeter
• Google Custom Search
• YahooBuzz
• Revenue Science
• GoingUp
• Crazy Egg

Tracking is important, but only insofar as it can help you to increase conversions. Don’t get obsessed with it: just observe and do what you can to get your website running as smoothly and effectively as possible.

Choosing the Right WordPress Plugins

It can be difficult to decide just which WordPress plugins you should install. We’re spoiled for choice and that’s for sure. If you’re just starting up with your WordPress blog I suggest you don’t go installing plugins right and left, since you can slow your site and there’s no sense installing plugins you really don’t need.

However, there are five that I would recommend for everyone:

1. WP Super-Cache
2. Feedburner FeedSmith Plugin for WordPress
3. G-Lock Double Opt-in Widget
4. WP Cumulus Flash Tag Cloud
5. Enhanced WordPress Contact Form

WP Super-cache for Speed

WP Super-cache plugin is essential because it speeds the load time of your site. It actually lightens the load on your server. If your site gets heavy traffic, and if you’re hoping for an appearance on Digg’s front page, or to go viral on Twitter, then you need this if you want to try and avert a server crash from the traffic spike.

Feedburner FeedSmith Plugin for WordPress

Failing to provide a convenient way for visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed is a serious mistake. Feedburner has its advantages and disadvantages but it does allow subscribers to choose how they will receive your feed. You will obviously need to create an account with FeedBurner for this too.

G-Lock Double-Optin Widget

The G-Lock signup form allows you to collect your readers’ emails so that you can use them in the future: the first rule of internet marketing is get connected with your visitors so you can forge a relationship.

WP Cumulus Flash Tag Cloud

You might wonder, when i’ve just finished telling you how you shouldn’t be gung-ho with the plugins, why I’m telling you to install a flash tag cloud. But WP Cumulus isn’t just any old flash tag cloud. I find it one of the most useful widgets of all for the sidebar. First, it reassures visitors that they are in the right place by displaying all your keywords–both the main ones and the long-tail, and it makes it easy for them to find what they’re looking for with a click.

But I have found another use for it. You know how when you’re writing a post it’s difficult to make sure you’re including links to all your relevant past blog posts? Well this tag cloud makes that so easy. You simply click on related keywords and you get a list of all the blog posts that use the keyword. Now tell me that’s not useful to you!

Enhanced WordPress Contact Form

It is vital that visitors to your site have a safe, reliable way to contact you. Nothing drives away business more effectively than failing to give your readers a way to connect. Joost de Valk’s contact form allows you to control its appearance through CSS (don’t worry he shows you how). You can also alter/add fields, and it even allows you track where the visitors are coming from and if from a search engine, what keywords they used. This neat little form also prevents spam, which I’m sure you’ll be relived to hear.