Let’s Follow the Yellow Brick Road, SEOs

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.

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.

…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.

Nope, not a cliffhanger!

Some of you may have wondered if I’ve slipped over the edge of a cliff somewhere. It’s been so long since I posted.  Or perhaps you were wondering if I’d given it all up and gone to live in Katmandu?

Let me reassure you that I’m still here, and still battling. Ever felt out of control and overwhelmed? Well that has been me for the past month. I have been indulging in a little introspection as to why recent events reduced me to a pile of rubble. Before I go on let me bore you with the main points of our family news for April and May:

• 3 semi-serious car accidents–thank God only whiplash, bruising and scrapes sustained by a deployed airbag were the result, but much mangled metal.
• 1 broken ankle (me–I fell again).
• 1 serious concussion (my son when he slipped on the University steps banking his head).
• A run-in with a failing antivirus application necessitating yet another laptop reconfig. (AV is one of the big-boys but I’m not mentioning it here lest I end up with a lawsuit on my hands (if you really want to know ask me on Twitter (skinner).

OK I know all this, while inconvenient, is not really enough to send me into a tailspin. So why have I dropped all my balls (metaphorically speaking) in the past few weeks?

Because I’m a raving control freak that’s why. I hate it when stuff happens unexpectedly to mess up my schedule. And while we’re on the subject of me, I’m a chocoholic as well as a crank you wouldn’t want to run into in the wee hours of the morning.

There. My secrets are all out. Now you know exactly who you’re dealing with. I hope you’ll continue to read my blog though, or I might stalk you.

Seriously, I realize this is why I’m drawn to SEO; it’s all quite predictable once you master the basics. In reality there are no big surprises unless there are huge gaps in your knowledge on search engine optimization.

Oh, and if you’re interested I have migrated to Kaspersky for antivirus protection.

PS: I’m working on setting up this WordPress blog on wallpaper. Whaddya think?

‘Change’ seems to be the predominant keyword for 2009. Changes are being felt on every level, and despite the slump, and despite the terrible start to the year I feel that many of them are positive ones.
OK, to start with I spose you’re wondering why I didn’t just say ‘my predictions for SEO in 2009?’ In short, I feel that SEO is becoming less and less a standalone issue and more and more an integral part of online marketing. More importantly, I feel that more so than ever before you will need to implement a multi-pronged online marketing strategy if you want to carve out a decent share of your niche market in the coming year.

So let’s get to it.

1. I predict that the beginning of Google’s downfall has, in fact, already started, and will begin to be detectable around the middle of 2009. It will take a few months for word of this to get around, and another few months for most people to grasp the fairly astounding implications.
2. Expect to spend a lot more time considering your niche because this will be of increased importance. Even more so than it has been in recent years. The Internet is huge and the only way that search engines can serve their visitors well is to break it all down into bite-sized chunks.
3. To this end, expect to see fewer and fewer webpages optimized for single-word search terms. Could it be that the time has come when long-tail search is actually more important than even two-word search terms? We shall see…
4. I feel that we will see more and more niches that actually are an ‘intersection’ between two niches: If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, then Karl Long might clarify it for you. But in any case, you should definitely read The Medici Effect (free download alert) because this concept is going to come into its own in 2009.
5. The time has gone where a marketer could just throw up a site and scare up some traffic. Social media is the way of the future. Online marketers will rely more and more on social media marketing for

Online branding
advertising
traffic
and even market research/product creation

6. We won’t see much evidence of the so-called economic slump online. Here’s just one survey that shows that only 25 percent of online marketers plan to cut their advertising budget in 2009:
7. Branding is going to be a lot more about who you network with and how they see you, than how many advertising bucks you’ve invested. This has already started to manifest: a famous case was the Motrin ad that was pulled because of the response from moms on Twitter. Here’s another site that talks about how important it is to network in order to grow your business.

It will be interesting to look back at the end of 2009 to see how close this list was, and to also take a look at some other marketing predictions for 2009. Do hope you’ll join me in December for that.

All I can say is, whatever floats your boat.

This post is loosely in response to Jamie Harrop’s comment on my guest post over at his blog. Jamie disagrees with me, so no offense at what follows Jamie.

There’s always more than one way to do anything. When you get advice, the person giving it can only tell you what they think is best from their perspective.

The <title></title> tags for your web pages are of supreme importance to your ranking and which searches you come up for. You need well-thought-out tags that are different for every page in order to get the best results–which is more traffic to your website. If you get it wrong you might even be penalized (like having the same title tag for every page of your website).

From an SEO point of view it makes a lot more sense to put the phrase or search term that your potential visitors are going to type into a search box when they’re looking for whatever it is that you’re selling. Quite simply, names, or your ‘brand,’ while they are important, will not figure into the equation at the search stage. Of course, once a visitor lands on your website you want to do everything you can to get them to remember your name or your brand. But that’s once they’ve arrived. Would you lure a fish onto your line by tying a frying pan onto your rod? Using your name to get new visitors is about as effective.

So, if you’re still determined to put your name in your title tags, without a search term before it, go ahead, Your competitor who listens to their SEO will most likely get more visitors than you do.

Rand Fishkin is one of the best-known faces in the search marketing industry these days, and with good reason. He can be relied upon to come up with useful information on any SEO topic, even stuff that’s barely hit the news yet. People like him are molding the industry and deserve to be watched closely.

First I’d like to thank you Rand, for taking the time to answer my questions. It’s wonderful to have such an eminent SEO guest on Marketmou!

It was difficult to try and arrive at a set of questions that might elicit some information no one’s ever seen before:
At least I hope that this information will be helpful to search marketing and SEO people everywhere.

Marketmou: Let’s start with a leading question: Do you think the SEO industry is pretty much saturated with great SEO consultants? Or do you think there’s room for improvement here. I know that many people who come in through SEO copywriting (as I did) perceive the potential to make a good living—but in reality I personally see that there are far too many companies out there who underrate SEO and don’t want to pay what it’s worth.

Rand Fishkin: In my view, there’s a huge lack of talented SEO consultants, and a great deal of opportunity for smart folks who can market themselves well. This is a field that’s still filled with gunslingers – it’s the wild west of the web – and anyone with brains, experience and a proven resume can waltz into a company that doesn’t do SEO well and help them to earn thousands, even millions of dollars very quickly.

Marketmou: First a few questions for people seeking SEO help (as opposed to those within the industry): Do you see any benefits in the introduction of industry standards and certification? There are a few places online where you can get SEO certification and some of them are even ISO-backed, but are they any good?

Rand Fishkin: I haven’t heard great things about any of the existing certification programs. I will say this – it’s something that SEOmoz is looking into, but it’s exceptionally hard to rate SEO skill without seeing actual projects from start to finish. Perhaps a basic set of standards would be good to at least vet the folks who are playing a scam role in the search industry right now.

Marketmou: What advice do you have for an online business looking for SEO help? Do you have any tips for picking SEO consultants who do a great job?

Rand Fishkin: Well, we have the recommended list – www.seomoz.org/article/recommended – but other than that, I’d probably repeat what many others have said in the past. Ask for some references, look at the clients they’ve worked with, ask them to explain the process of SEO and how they see the current algorithms operating. If you can at least familiarize yourself somewhat with how the field works, you’ll be able to see through the scammers and find someone who has a grasp on reality.

Marketmou: There’s still a lot of controversy going on about whether it’s best to get a domain name with a keyword in it, or whether you’re better off focusing on your brand when choosing a domain name. What’s your stance?

Rand Fishkin: If you’re going to build a big brand and have the patience to wait 6-12 months to start dominating for particular keywords, the domain name isn’t much of a hurdle (except at Live.com, who loves keywords in the domain). I certainly wouldn’t spend more than $10-$20K buying any domain name these days.

Marketmou: To be successful at search marketing or SEO, it’s essential to track what you’re doing; do you recommend Google Analytics for tracking website traffic and progress? Or do you think it’s better to go with an independent paid application?

Rand Fishkin: I like the Google analytics, but it is a bit basic, especially when it comes to customized conversion tracking. I’m a huge fan of Indextools, but have also heard great things about a program called “Fireclick.”

Marketmou: Are you for, or against the use of meta tags? What do you say to those who insist that they’re not used by the search engines?

Rand Fishkin: The meta description tag is still used as the snippet by every one of the engines, so I don’t know who would tell you to ignore it. It may not be used for rankings, but it is absolutely used to help you push up your CTR (like the copy of your search ads). Meta keywords is basically useless, though. I don’t recommend that anyone use it – it’s giving away competitive intelligence and in our testing, it had no impact on rankings in any of the engines.

Marketmou: Thanks for clarifying that Rand. It’s a complicated issue. One of your main areas of expertise is link development, and you’ve recently stated on SEOMoz that in your opinion one-off link purchases (as opposed to bulk purchase of links) would most likely go undetected by the search engines. What advice can you give to someone looking to purchase truly useful links?

Rand Fishkin: I actually just wrote an entire blog post answering this question today – http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-art-of-buying-links-under-the-radar

Marketmou: Would you agree that a pay per click campaign can actually help a site’s organic ranking?

Rand Fishkin: In a roundabout way, yes. If you pull in web traffic through paid search, you’re probably more likely to attract some links to your site from folks who might click those links, as well as improve your branding overall. I don’t, however, believe there’s any correlation between paid search and organic rankings at any of the major engines (except Baidu in China and Yandex in Russia).

Marketmou: Everyone keeps screaming that reciprocal links will now hamper your progress with the search engines. Do you agree? Is it still worth pursuing reciprocal links?

Rand Fishkin: We’ve seen Google take some pretty harsh, direct steps against reciprocal linking in specific verticals (like Real Estate). I’d be paranoid to engage in it on any type of large scale at this point – I think you’re setting yourself up for trouble.

Marketmou: Does traffic contribute to page rank? If a site was getting lots of healthy traffic, could it make up for lack of backlinks?

Rand Fishkin: Interesting question – I’ve heard of the search engines in patent applications using traffic as a litmus test for legitimacy, but since none of them can actually monitor a site’s traffic (unless you’re running Google analytics or all your visitors have the Yahoo/MSN/Google toolbar installed) it seem to me a moot point. In an ideal world where they could measure traffic and it couldn’t be gamed, I think they might try to, but for now, I’d say no.

Marketmou: Lastly, is it best to create a subdomain for your blog? Or is it better to have it as part of your main domain?

Rand Fishkin: I’ve seen instances where the subdomain wasn’t treated with the full “respect” and authority as the main domain, so I’d say from a best practices standpoint, keep your blog in a subfolder rather than a subdomain.

Thanks Rand, I really appreciate you taking the time to answer these questions. I’m sure we all agree that there is some really useful information here for beginners and experienced search marketers alike.