Tom Dalton :: Doer of Good

Hi, readers --

Here's a writeup of a training session I conducted today. Wrote it up so everybody involved would have the 'right' notes, and wanted to save my own copy.

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Framing the Discussion: What are we talking about?

Clients and even publications tend to blur the terminology of our industry. Phrases like "SEO" and "search marketing" are thrown around sometimes interchangeably, but they have
very different meanings that we need to understand and help our clients understand.

Definitions

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) -- the most specific level, refers only to tactics and efforts to increase "natural" search engine rankings. Includes such tactics as link recruitment, writing meta tags and H1 tags, and creating content-rich landing pages. Aside from a few basic things, most of the tactics used in SEO are manual and relatively expensive.

Search Marketing -- includes SEO, but also includes Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and any other tactics that involve ads that show up when people search for specific keywords. Context-sensitive banner ads would be search marketing, like the banner ads that are sometimes triggered on a Yahoo search.

Internet Marketing -- this is the broadest of the three terms. It includes search marketing as well as email marketing, blogs, RSS, podcasts, flash presentations, and anything else that invovles the internet and marketing. (So it's a really appropriate name, see?)

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) -- the very specific types of ads that typically show up on search engines (or content sites that are partnered with search engines through programs like AdSense). Advertisers bid a maximum amount that they are wiling to pay for every click on their ads. These ads fall into the 'search marketing' bucket.

Pay-For-Performance (PFP) -- a very broad term that includes any type of work where payment is based on results. This is applied to affiliate programs where affiliates are paid only when they deliver actual sales. Pay-per-click programs are sometimes called PFP, but the term is more appropriately applied to programs where payment is based on closed sales or actual leads generated.

Discussion

Q. "Why don't my ads show up when I search for my keywords? You dirty, rotten scammers!"

A. We have a comprehensive system in place to make sure our clients get clicks throughout the month.

If a client bought a $100 click package that included the term "water softener," at $.50 per click, all the clicks would be delivered in the first three days of the month, and then it would be shut off. To help smooth that out, the search engines 'pace' the ads throughout the month. The ads appear on Google or one of the content network partner sites in intervals that vary based on the total number of clicks the client has ordered.

A bigger package will result in more frequent appearances of the ads, but even if the "water softener" client bought a $2000 click package, his ads would only show up less than 20% of the time. (And less than 10% of the time if he's only searching Google.com to see the ad!)

The smoothing process ensures the client a steady flow of traffic and activity, allowing us to better monitor for clickthrough and conversion rates, as well as better guarding against clickfraud.

The End

I think those were the highlights of the conversation today. Please email me if I can help clarify any of this or any other Internet marketing question. I'm here to help! (And don't you love the implication that I'm an incredible genius?)

Have a great day --

Tom Dalton

Hi, everybody!

Here's a recap of todays Roundtable -- Search Engine Spam. How exciting!

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>> What is search engine 'spam'?

It's helpful to think of email spam. There is no exact definition of spam -- the government has regulated Unsolicited Commercial Email, but that doesn't cover all the unsolicited non-commercial email you get, and what about the stuff that you 'solicited' when you didn't notice the pre-selected 'yes' on a form somewhere? Email spam is basically any email you didn't want to get.

Search engine spam is similar: hard to define exactly, but basically whatever the search engines don't want to have showing up in their results. Sites that rank higher than they should because they've manipulated the factors that search engines use to assess quality. Of course, the very essence of SEO is getting sites to rank higher by manipulating the factors that search engines use to assess quality.

>> How is SEO different from spamming, then?

It's all in how you approach it. You can go to the mall by getting in your car and driving there (the "right way"), or you can get to the mall by getting in your car and driving across some median strips, over bushes and pedestrians, and through the playground at the elementary school (the "wrong way"). SEO and spamming both involve deliberately altering links and content to rank better in the search engines. The difference is between naming your pages "thermal wool sweater" and naming your pages "thermal wool sweater FREE generic viagara vogara vgara britney spears." SEO is creating your site with appropriate tags and content, designed to help search engines appropriately index and rank your pages. Spamming is anything that crosses that line.

We're obviously not trying to cross that line. But many websites do, accidentally. They just don't know the rules of the road, so to speak. There are a few tactics in particular that trip up the majority of websites that have issues with spam.

>> What should websites avoid?

1. Duplicate content and duplicate domains -- the most common problem is sites with lots of domains that have not been set up properly. Search engines see each domain as a separate site, decide it is a deliberate attempt to get lots of rankings for the same content, and penalize all of the sites. I found a cool page that lets you test this really easy:

http://www.webconfs.com/redirect-check.php

The primary domain (mainsite.com) should come up as "either not redirecting or not search engine friendly." That's because the primary domain is not redirecting. Then enter some of the other domains that the website has -- those should all come up as "search engine friendly." If they don't, they need to be fixed.

2. Hidden text -- the idea sounds great: write a good, user-friendly page, then add a ton of keyword-stuffed text at the bottom in the same color as the background! That way, users just see the nice text and search engines see all the great keywords. This actually used to work really well, but that was years ago. Now, it gets you kicked right out of the search engines. Hiding text with CSS, Javascript, Flash, or anything else will lead to the same. You want search engines and human visitors to see the same thing.

3. Cloaking -- a more extreme form of hiding text, cloaking involves using the server to detect search engine crawlers and showing them a different version of the site. The principle is the same, you want the search engines and humans to see the same thing. Even if you can fool every search engine crawler perfectly, the search engines have teams of humans who review sites, and your competitors are probably reporting you for spamming.

4. Linkfarming -- "Get 1000 quality links to your site for just $40!" The trick with this approach is that it sounds so good. Webmasters know you need links to rank well in Google. But those links need to be good, organic links. Sites that are selling links stand out like, uh... they stand out a lot. To search engines. So don't buy links in general, and especially don't buy links from sites or networks that are selling them wholesale.

>> Oops. 'My friend' did some of that on his website. How can he get back in the game?

Your friend needs to stop getting his SEO tips from 'how2makemoneyEZ.com,' first of all. If a site has been penalized for engaging in any of these practices, the first step is to reverse whatever bad thing was done. Domains can be configured with 301-redirects, hidden text removed, cloaking software uninstalled. In most cases, that will restore rankings that have been lowered. Linkfarms are harder to correct, and in a worst, worst case scenario it might be easier to buy a new domain name.

If the entire site was really removed from the search engines (confirm by doing a Google "site:domain.com" search), there's a longer road to follow. We can help sites move through that process, but it will cost a bit and take on the order of several months.

>> Bonus unrelated-but-great question of the day: How many links does a site need to rank well?

Do a search for the keyword you want to rank for. Pick a few of the sites that come up, then do a Google "link:oneofthesites.com" and see how many links that site has. Repeat. You'll have an edge on those sites if you optimize well, but in general you'll need to have comparable numbers of backward links to rank well.

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How much would you expect to pay for all this great information? $39.95? $49.95?

How about FREE. That's right! If you continue attending the Search Engine Roundtables, you'll get all this information and more, delivered to your door, at absolutely no cost to you!

And it comes with this neat squeegee...!

Okay. This email is done. :o)

Have a great day!

Hey, everybody --

I feel like Mr. Rogers when I write these. :o)

Today, we talked about how to quickly tell if a site has done 'good' SEO or not. Here's a review of the basic things you'll want to check. Have fun!

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1. View source -- search engines see your site as a bunch of code, just like what you see when you view source. Make sure you're seeing it the way they will, because some problems can be hard to spot in your regular browser.

2. Check the 'head' section:

Title -- Make sure the keyword is there
Meta Keywords -- Should have a unique, specific set of keywords separated by commas
Meta Description -- Formatted like a Google result summary, 2 lines with maybe 12 words per line (doesn't need to be split into two lines here)
Meta Robots -- Should only exist if they are trying to keep the page out of the index (not common)

3. Check the 'body' section:

H1 -- should be a title tag with the keyword in it, can be CSS formatted for style (that's redundant, if you know what CSS means...)
Links -- should follow the standard 'a href="target"'Keyword'/a' format
Content -- should be visible and in standard HTML tags like p or div -- NOT all Flash or Javascript or anything else that might 'hide' the text

4. Actual URL -- make sure it doesn't look like: domain.com/index.php?pgid=12341234&sess=1234ASDF1234&ThisIsBad

5. Check Google [site:domain.com]

Displaying results 1 - 10 of ??? -- make sure the ??? is actually the right number of pages (approximately -- it will never be exact, but it should be within 20-30% of accuracy)
:: Lots of missing pages means the crawler is having a hard time finding the whole site; best bet is a Google Sitemap, more internal linking, or removing Flash/Javascript/etc
Result summaries -- most pages should not say "supplemental result"
:: Lots of 'supplemental' pages mean the pages are not important enough to Google; most common fix is unique and meaningful META tags

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We also discussed relevance in PPC keywords -- a city name alone is often not enough for Adwords to display an ad; combine it with a product keyword, for something like Seattle Cabinets instead of just Seattle.

For a copy of today's show, send $25.00 to the following address: ... haha.

Hi, everybody --

Today we reviewed the SEO analysis principles we talked about last time, running through a real-life example at: http://www.razor.com

If you missed it, your life will forever be a little emptier, a little sadder. But the basic point was that they've got some good factors and some bad factors. The other important point was that Firefox is WAY better than Internet Explorer. (Because it colors code for you, when you "view source." Much easier to skip all the boring stuff that way.)

And the other, other important point was our discussion on optimizing Flash.

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OPTIMIZING FLASH

The Problem: Flash is great for user interfaces (arguably -- though it has also produced some of the worst user interfaces ever to darken the Internet). But search engines have a hard time with it. Ever try to bookmark the middle of a Flash movie? You can't! You always go back to the beginning when you reload the page. For the same reason, search engines can't point users to the middle of a Flash movie. Spiffy example: http://www.beatboxmixer.com -- and try Google [site:beatboxmixer.com] search. Ouch!

It's also hard for crawlers to verify that the content they parse out of a Flash file is what end users will actually see. So, we have to get creative.

1. Dual sites -- You've probably seen this before. On the home page, there's a link for VIEW FLASH and another for VIEW HTML. Then there are two complete sites. This is the basic option, probably most expensive, but most straightforward. The real trick is keeping the sites synchronized. All the SEO links will be to the HTML version of the site. Example: http://www2.warnerbros.com/mustlovedogs/.

2. Separate Flash Movies on Each Page -- A site can be entirely Flash, but still separated across many individual HTML pages. The Flash movies will each have to link to the container pages of the other Flash movies. A little complicated, but if you use consistent naming conventions, it's not too bad. An easy upgrade to this is including some HTML-based links on each page and creating a standard sitemap. My personal favorite example of this type of site: http://www.homestarrunner.com. (Definitely worth a look -- you MUST check out this one: http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail51.html) (And see? You can bookmark specific pages within the Flash, this way.)

3. Separate Flash Movies with Noscript Tags -- Noscript tags were designed specifically to help out with problems like this. The idea is that search engines (and anybody else) who can't read Flash (or any other tech element) can read the noscript tags instead. It's like building dual sites but then wrapping them all together. The problem is that search engines can't give a lot of credit to the noscript content, since they know most people will ususally never see it. But you may have heard of Nike? They do it this way: http://www.nike.com. (Check their Google [site:nike.com] results.) The upgraded version of this is just including all the noscript content as actual content, presented below the Flash page, but that only works for certain sites.

4. HTML-Core with Flash Elements -- So, somebody with an existing investment in a massive, Flash site is probably not going to like this one, but if you're starting from scratch, this is a great way to go. Build an HTML-based site and add Flash in specific areas. Check out http://www.shiver7.com. Animated navigation, live logos, lots of interesting interactivity. And lots of SEO-friendly content and URL structure.

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So, we didn't go into that much detail on the call. And mostly I wrote this all because I got carried away once I got started. But it's good information!

Use it wisely. :o)

Social Networking is the two-dollar buzzword of the day. But what is it?

YouTube, MySpace, Digg and Slashdot? Blogs and forums? LinkedIn? Merchant reviews on Amazon and Froogle? Facebook, Friendster, and Epinions?

Sure. The definition I want to use is user generated content. The 'user generated' part of that definition differentiates it from standard, Web 1.0 sites that -- while cool in their own right -- only sent information one way. Proprietor generated content only.

And the 'content' part of that definition is also important. Maybe there was a 'contact us' form, but the results of that user generated data didn't become content on the site. For the same reason, Instant Messaging, for all it's user-centricity, doesn't generate content that becomes part of social networking in the sense that we're discussing here. (Nor do telephones, which could also be considered part of social networking, but are excluded by this definition. Both have definite strategic implications -- texting alerts and whole tons of other interesting things you can do with them. But let's not call that 'social networking' here.)

Social networks typically move through four distinct phases.

1. Creating the social networking space
YouTube would not have been popular without the technical framework that allowed people to submit videos and comment on them. Companies that create forums or start blogs are creating the potential space for a social network to grow within. This step is the first and easiest step of the social networking lifecycle.

If you want to create a strong space for social networking, ease of use and functionality is the key. Missing functions, awkward interfaces or arbitrary restrictions will kill it. On the other hand, too much freedom will also kill it -- as soon as it becomes targeted (as it inevitably will) by script kiddies and spammers.

2. Creating and contributing content
If all YouTube had were videos of the creators' summer vacations, it wouldn't be quite as popular as it is now. If Digg consisted of nothing but my blog posts, it would be about as popular as my blog (which is to say, not very). This is the first important part of the 'user generated content.' In the case of YouTube, of course, much of the content is not actually user generated and has spawned numerous waves of copyright-related discussions and deletions.

This is probably the hardest area for most small businesses to really use. Less than 1% of Digg submissions ever hit the front page. To create something that will resonate with people takes a different kind of genius than leads most people to starting a business. (Think "Charlie the Unicorn.")

However, a well-written, helpful article about details of your industry might resonate with potential customers. A recent Digg article about "How to buy an HDTV" made it to the front page. Lots of traffic. Server-melting traffic. Adsense-billionaire-making traffic. But it's a little like winning the lottery.

3. Commenting on content
Which seems more credible to you? A video with a little tag below that says "14532 views," or a video with 800 unique comments and a little tag below that says "14532 views?"

The comments that accompany unique items on social networks serve multiple functions -- most importantly as a strong indicator of actual, human interest. Those 14 thousand views may all have come from one kid running a refresh script with Greasemonkey.But there's no way that one kid wrote all 800 comments. And don't forget about the SEO value of all those comments. Misspellings and related keywords that you would never have thought of.

4. Influencing the creation and commenting
Here's where most small businesses can have the most powerful impact. Rather than trying to comment on every hip, new social networking site, encourage your customers to do so. A handful of positive reviews on Google or Epinions can have a bigger effect than dropping thousands on PPC ads.

Run a contest, or offer coupons for anybody who'll write a review. Positive or negative -- remember what happened to Microsoft when it tried to pay people to favorably adjust a certain Wikipedia entry. You just want to encourage conversation.

The drama about Aqua Teen Hunger Force or whatever, with the LED bombs that a couple of deadly hippies planted strategically about town? A great example of 'influence' on social networks. There are less inflammatory ways to get attention, but the principle remains the same. Get people to talk about you.

The End

Authentic conversations. That's what social networking is all about. Whatever role you play in them, make sure it's authentic and interesting. Don't try to be the nerd who dresses up in cool clothes one day. Be yourself! And have respect for yourself.