Category Archives: SEO/SEM

If Google went away, would you care?

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How would Google impact your life if by happenstance, they just,”went away”? As a casual user of the web, I would think that you wouldn’t miss a beat, you’d just migrate over to Yahoo or MSN or one of the hundreds or thousands of other second tier search engines out there. Would your results suck? Would they be tainted by gross inacurracies? I’m sorry to say, and it probably pains Google to hear this (not really) but the answer is more than likely, no and no.

You see, the other search engines are not that bad, in fact Ask.com for instance, is really really good. But when you are trying to compete against this Goliath of a company, you’re little pebbles will have no noticeable effect or impact, no matter how cool and powerful.

I imagine that if Google went away, their 10,674 employees would have to find new jobs doing something that we have no clue about. Since they are so secretive anyways… Then there are the tens of thousands of people that make money on Adsense. What would they do? Arghhhh!!!! Get real jobs?  I suppose they might go back to that fine affiliate marketing model that was and is still so annoying. Here’s a thought. Maybe the CTR on banners would go north of 1% if Google went away?

SEO and SEM professionals would naturally just shift their attention in the forums and their blogs to bitching about Yahoo and MSN’s “Algo” and why it’s so unfair, and why they never get back to you, and why they never give you a straight answer, and why you need to do it “this way”.  They also would be lost without having a Google toolbar that gave them their PR’s; Oh and Matt Cutts, the Google Guru, would probably be an authority on something, but it just won’t be in search.

Would there be less web sites if Google wasn’t around? What would be the ideal business model for making money on the web? Yahoo would own PPC outright at this point so what would they do differently if Google wasn’t around?

Would MSN be even more formidable if Google wasn’t around? Since Google has come on the scene, casual water cooler talk has shifted from, “I wonder what Microsoft will release next”? to “Did you see where Google’s stock is at”?

Are we better off socially because Google is so entrenched into our daily lives? Do they make us better at what we do? Do they solve nagging problems that previously existed before they came on the scene? Do they have our best interests at heart? Does Google care about you and I?

What do you think life would be like without Google? Does Google impact your life?

Google Envy

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 GE…  Google Envy. We all have it. Even if you don’t admit it because you are above that, deep down you know you have it.

In contemporary times, GE is the term used metaphorically to refer to the idea that we all wish  we worked for Google, had Google stock. or were bought by Google. In more subtler terms it refers to the anxieties we as marketers and site owners and SEO folks feel about our impact in Google’s search engine.

Think about our world and how Google has managed to work its  way into our lexicon.   Lik Pez, Google is a proper noun.  Pez is a candy and Google is…. Google. But where they differ is that I can’t “Pez you” but I can “Google you”.  You know this conversation happens a half million times a day… “Hey I Googled Thomas/Cynthia last night, and you won’t believe what I found!”

So alas, Pez is not a verb and Google has become one. How many companies can become a verb? Not Microsoft, Nike, Coke, McDonalds, Toyota, NBC, Rolling Stone, The Rolling Stones, Yahoo, The NFL, The NBA, Nintendo, Sony, The World Cup, The Olympics, Not even…. Microsoft-cue the reveal music.

I wonder if Microsoft has Google envy? I used to have Microsoft envy. In fact right after the bubble burst in my dot com world, I still had Microsoft envy. I wanted Microsoft to buy my company. Didn’t they buy anything that was cool and had a pulse back then? They were the big dog and I think we all worked for small start-ups with the hope that Microsoft would notice us and decide to buy us. It’s at this juncture that we should bring in Andy Rooney from 60 Minutes.

Andy: “Do you ever wonder if Microsoft has GE? or Google Envy? I bet they do. I know I do. I think we all have Google Envy. Even my dog has Google Envy.

As a world that now uses technology in every day life in every way possible, we now measure things by our ability to search for them on Google. It’s almost as if it’s the great judge of legitimacy. However, from the perspective of the marketer and the SEO’r, it’s also the gold standard by which one is measured. If you rank #1 in Google, then you must be good. Because Google said so. 

So it just goes without saying that Yahoo and MSN, the other 2 search engine’s, should have major GE. They fight over the scraps of what is left in Google’s vapor trail. And like it.  I envision Shaq going up against Herbie the wannabe dentist destined for Misfit Island, and The Keebler Elf. All fighting over the gold and girl, and it really not being much of a fight. It’s just not fair. But I like Shaq, he’s a likeable guy. I even think Herbie and the Keebler Elf are cool, but in the end, you know they wish they could trade places with the big man. Even if they don’t admit it.

Is technology complicating things? Or is it making us more dependent?

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With social networking sites taking off and the evolution of the cell phone as more than just a communication device grows exponentially, questions are raised as to whether we as marketers and designers and developers are “Getting it”. Do we really know what the user wants? Are we asking them? Or are we shoving it down their throats?

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Technology. Is it making our lives easier? Or does it complicate them?

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While thinking of what to write about this morning I thought that some questions should be asked.

Does technology serve a broad audience?  Or a broad enough audience? In other words, are we serving enough people, with what technology brings to the table? What do people who happen to have a computer, who have no more than a high school education, and possibly less, use the computer for? Do they use it to look at porn? Do they use it to set up My Space? Is it for Flickr? Music? Email? Is the computer user friendly enough for people who might be learning challenged? If it’s not, then what do they do with it?

Who do we as marketers and web masters gear our websites to? What is the demographic? Do we even consider the number of people using a computer who don’t really fit the audience that we THINK we are attracting? Do we even TRY to speak to that segment?

Is the cell phone and it’s current capabilities the “dumb’ed  down” version of the PC? Is what is on the phone from a spec standpoint what all users en masse want? Or what we think will sell more phones? Do we not give the people that use any type of technology on a day to day basis, enough credit for what they want? and how they might want to utilize it?

When does any type of app, fly completely over someone’s head? What is the level, when someone just shuts it down and says,”this is too difficult”? Will all generations from here on out be so technically gifted, and knowledgable that nothing will be impossible for them to grasp? Regardless of educational levels?

What does user friendly really imply? Does everyone need a computer? If so why? If not, how come? Does anyone use a fax machine anymore?  Why is YouTube so popular? Why is MySpace the same? Does anyone care about social networking? DO I really want my friends to know what I’m doing at all times?  How can I find really cool web sites? Without having to put up with google ads?

And speaking of Google, should I care about what they do? and how they do it? Does Google make my life easier? Does Microsoft? Does technology make my life easier, or does it complicate it because of updates and licences and fees and subscriptions and user names and passwords and security threats and viruses and hackers and…..???

Do we know what we want? Do you know what we want? Do we know what you want?  We all think we do, but you know what? No you don’t, and neither do we..

Web Design ethics

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I have been talking about ethics when it comes to whether a site designer should or shouldn’t put a hyperlink back to their site at the footer of anew sites pages that they have just built. Here is more on the subject from SEO Roundtable

SEO Forums. It’s like a Jungle Out there…

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It’s like a jungle out there it makes me wonder, how I keep from going under …

So in the search results I found pages and pages of results for seo forums. Places where I can go and share and learn SEO/SEM information. In a fit of,”what was I thinking”, I decided to step out of the comfy confines of my home base. The site where I feel most at ease. (time for the shameless  plug V7N)

I went into another forum which will go nameless, where it seemed to be rich with information and content and contributors. I started to post a few comments to impress the readers with my knowledge and began to notice something. Unlike the group/forum that I was accustomed to, the sharing and aknowledging of information in this forum was somewhat different.

It was less about the topic and more about bashing the poster for their ignorance. More about attacking and shaming. One person in particular who had posted over 6,000 comments was particularly bad. In my mind, all I could think of was the drunk stepfather, who was passed out, and the rest of the family tip-toed around in fear of awaking him. For if he awoke, he’d get his belt and beat anything that moved for no reason. I felt I had been virtually beaten with a belt by Mister 6,000 Posts because I dared question his authority. Guess I was letting my freak flag fly…

This is how I felt when I had crossed the evil poster. I quickly developed a complex and had immediately felt the need to lash out. To fight back. To tell him where he can stick it. This never works in these situations because, it’s a computer people. If you have a problem, just exit, just walk away, turn it off, and walk away. Never go back. But I wanted to kick his ass.  See—>Me (in my mind) beating someone up and saving the world from the evil computer genius with the large ears…and droopy eyelids

Easier said than done. I tried to think of something to fire back at him but figured, what’s the point, he’ll just say something even more hurtful, and then what have I accomplished? Nothing.  The best I might be able to say is, “I know you are, but what am I”?

In the end I realized there is a reason that some people are called lurkers and there is a reason that some people hide behind computers. Both for different but similar reasons. The former because they got abused by the latter and the latter because they have some serious socialization issues that they choose not to deal with. The rest of us? We are in the middle.

If that’s the way it has to be, then I’m just going to head back to the people that I know. No matter  how messed up my group is, my forum works for me, it’s my niche. I think we all just need our niche, where we feel comfortable. When we go check out the other sites, other groups etc., where we venture where we’ve never been, it’s foreign and there are certain ways to do certain things. You better be prepared for how they operate and how things “work”. Because the warm and fuzzy greeting and the open arm invitation is not what you will get. Or maybe just a matter of identifying who the a@!#’s are and thats it, you avoid them.

Driving quality traffic to your website.

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So you have built a killer website, it’s optimized and ready to go, but you want to drive traffic to the site, and you don’t want to spend a dime. You have one month to do it. What are going to do? Do You:

a) link bait
b) blog spam
c) forum spam
d) submit to all of the free directories
e) whore out your sites ad space
f) manually try and create backlinks with sites that have cross-promotional relevance with your site
g) create 10 other sites and link them together…
h) something that has not been written here
i) ask for more time
j) ask for money to do some ppc
k) social networks and social bookmarking

The reason I ask, is I am faced with that challenge from time to time, and as much as I wish I could make the process move quicker, unfortunately it does not. So I am always curious as to what other people do. Perhaps a few dimes need to be spent on certain things, if so what would you spend your money on to get the biggest bang of sustained traffic? For more answers to these questions I would check out one of the few Naples, Florida’s SEO companies.

LinkBait

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I got into quite a tussle recently in the V7n forum. It amounted to me accusing someone of bad linkbaiting, in a linkbaiting discussion. Ironic isn’t it? I can’t believe I let some faceless, nameless individual get to me like that!  You see, what happens in a lot of these forums is that people assume many names and identities, and within those identities, they attach in their signature, hyperlinks to their website. Now the hyperlinks are generally a key word that they are trying to optimize. Now the thinking is that by throwing around useless comments or saying inflammatory remarks within the forum they are pumping up page rank and hopefully driving curious users to their sites… Can you say Gambling and Viagra? Well that is the nature of their sig links.  They point to nothing, their sites are terrible, have terrible content and I assume what they are hoping is that maybe someone clicks on an adsense add… Whatever.

Now the real purpose of linkbaiting is to provide some content or feature within a website that somehow baits viewers to place links to it from other websites. By doing this, you raise your sites page rank, visibility and viability. And you get that valued commodity, traffic. There are good ways and good intentions of driving traffic via linkbait, and then there are the bad ways. Tricking users, in my estimation is not one of the value added reasons for using link bait.

Matt Cutts, who is Google’s resident SEO expert has a good article on Link Baiting. The article is somewhat old (2006) but we, as SEO/SEM wannabe experts, are slow to catch on to some things, and ironically enough, link bait conversations abound right now.

Here is the best blurb from Matt Cutts, that you should take away from this.

“Linkbaiting sounds like a bad thing, but especially if it’s interesting information or fun, it doesn’t have to have negative connotations. I hereby claim that content can be both white-hat and yet still be wonderful “bait” for links.  And generating information or ideas that people talk about is a surefire way to generate links. Personally, I’d lean toward producing interesting data or having a creative idea rather than spouting really controversial ideas 100% of the time. If everything you ever say is controversial, it can be entertaining, but it’s harder to maintain credibility over the long haul”

In summation, there are many way of getting inbound links to your site, and link baiting is merely the “nom du jour”. Tomorrow and beyond there will be another strategy and technique for aquiring links, traffic, and making money on the net.  But it’s up to you to decide which will be most effective in your efforts to build and maintain a winning site in the long run.

PPC Nosebleed

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Ok so here is a quick primer for those of you who’ve been living under a rock for the past ohh…7 years….PPC advertising is when you choose “keywords/phrases,”  and then you bid how much you’d like to pay for each click.  By paying anywhere from a nickel to a $100 per keyword term, you are essentially reserving ad space on the Search engine page that comes up when someone has typed in that key word. pretty nifty huh?

 So when a searcher goes to a search engine and types in one of your keyphrases, your short text ad appears, and if someone click on it your account is then charged. When the click occurs, it takes them to your landing page, peddling your goods and or services. That’s how it’s supposed to work. But thanks to dishonest people, I know, who would have thunk it.. we have something called “click fraud”Click fraud is simply the act of clicking on ads for the direct purpose of costing the advertiser money. It is recognized as the biggest problem today in PPC marketing. According to InformationWeek.com, “60% of people surveyed by the “Search Engine Professional Organization” have stated that fraud is a problem when it comes to PPC advertising”PPC marketing can cost you a lot if you do not administer it right. Bad targeting plus fraud can be a costly problem. The main sources of click fraud are the following four:

1) AdSense
Google Adsense pays website owners to run their Adwords ads and compensates them per click. Google does monitor this and it’s against their terms of service to click on any of the ads on your own site. If they find a publishers doing this, they will lose their accounts, but some may still be clicking under the radar.

2) Competition
Your competitors could be clicking on your ads over a period of several days in order to deplete your ad budget. This way they neutrilize your advertizing campaigns. Don’t think this happens? Think again!

3) Bots
There are those who use automated clicking tools, such as robot programs, to click on PPC listings.

4)  Professional Clickers:
In some Asian countries, people are often paid to click on PPC ads for hours. Many don’t know why they do it, and don’t care. The only important issue is that they will be well rewarded for their efforts. If you do a search on any search engine you’ll see plenty of sites offering to hire people for just this purpose. Type in ‘earn rupees clicking ads’ in Google and you get quite a few leads.

Most PPC networks have measures in place to protect you against click fraud. Overture tracks more than 50 data points, including IP addresses, browser info, users’ session info and what they call “pattern recognition.” They have a “proprietary system” in place for detecting fraud and a specialized team that monitors things and works with the advertisers to stop it.

Google offers suggestions to avoid click thru fraud, such as “using negative keywords” to keep your ads from showing up for products and services that are unrelated. They also suggest adding tracking url’s to your links so you can track the traffic coming from Google. If you go through your log files, you’ll be able to see your Google traffic at a glance.

If you suspect fraud, Google asks that you contact them right away, because they have a team of researchers that will investigate. They also take action to block future impressions from anyone they identify as committing click fraud. Like Overture, they also have “proprietary technology” that distinguishes between normal clicks and invalid ones. Google never bills you for any “bad clicks” that are caught by their system. But there have also been instances where Google has missed click fraud, so it is imperative that you monitor your PPC campaigns, unless of course you like paying out the wazoo for useless clicks..

All honest website owners need to be alert to any “suspicious activity” by researching their server logs or stats. If you’re experiencing a lot of clicks and no sales you’ll also want to take a closer look. You need to watch for any spikes in traffic, usually on one keyword or phrase and coming from only one PPC source. You need to measure and track all of your PPC accounts closely.

The bottom line is, you need to be very vigilant of your clicks in any ppc campaign. The more competitive, the more you have to watch. It’s the nature of the beast that anything that can be done to make money without having to work is going to attract the leeches. And what attracts leeches? Blood. So don’t get a ppc nosebleed.