Archive for September, 2007

Well, this isn’t really a difficult post to write because there are so many blogs to look at and see how people are doing them poorly. I wish I had the time to prioritize th points below in order of how badly they affect your site, but again, it would be a subjective list. I will start by saying I visited a site today that had a very pointed message, followed by an annoying message asking me to register to comment. I know lots of people have this feature, but it is a barrier to posting, and that’s not what people are looking for. If it’s an established community, that’s one thing, but if you are just getting started and have little following, it’s not likely to change soon if you make everyone register.

Here are my blogging pet peeves:

1. Not allowing comments. If you don’t allow comments, you can say what you want and the only way people can object is to blog and point to your blog. Isn’t the purpose of blogging to have an interactive voice with your community? If you dont have time to manage comments, then maybe you shouldn’t be blogging.

2. Making you register to comment. (see intro)

3. Infrequent posts. If people like what you say and are inclined to come back, their interest will soom diminish if they see the same post on the home page, or look at your time line and see that it your last post was two years ago (I am not exaggerating, I have seen this).

4. Not using tags. This is one of the best known “secrets” of blogging. The ability to “tag and ping” your blog to maximize your positioning in the search engines.

5. Ignoring Social Media. Ahh, if you don’t know what this means, you need to learn some more blogging basics before you start to blog. Social Media sites have grown significantly and aren’t just for techies anymore. This can be a huge source of traffic to your blog.

6. Ignoring (not using) RSS feeds. If you don’t know how to set this up, go to feedburner.com.

I guess you need to ask yourself why you want a blog anyway. If it’s to make money, then you clearly need to address the above issues, but you will also need to keep these in mind.

1. NEVER use a WordPress hosted blog. End of story. They will shut you down if you get on their bad side. I have seen some people get away with it, but I had a profitable blog shut down by them before. Sure some will tell you it’s the best way to take advantage of their traffic, positioning, taggings, etc, but trust me, that stuff is only good to you if your blog stays live.

2. Learn to monetize your blog. Google’s AdSense is probably the simplest way to do this, but there are a host of sites such as Clickbank or Chitika that can help you monetize your site.

So that’s this Fridays Rant… I will try to do a Friday Rant at least once a month.

Have a great weekend!

Tony Hill recently asked the question whether or not Rand Fishkin was “The New Danny Sullivan”. It’s a nice title and makes for good link bait, but to set the record straight, in the minds of many of the “old school” SEO’s, Danny is the “father of SEO” and it will be hard to outrank him (pun intended). Don’t get me wrong, few others in the industry have made the strides that Rand has; SEOmoz is a phenomenally successful & unique SEO firm (who else has the courage to link to their competitors and not ask for referral fees from them). Before we bestow Danny’s title on Rand, let’s not forget Search Engine Watch (and the buyout), Calafia Consulting (pretty much flies under the radar), and then the rather handsome salary Danny was able to command from the folks that bought his site.

As I thought more, I figured I would ask Google, so I did just that courtesy of Googlefight.com and here are the results.

As did Tony, I want to point out that Rand and Danny are two of the people that our industry should be thankful for.

Making the news has been a significant part of corporate marketing strategy; even long before the days of the web. The web has made this component of marketing very easy to execute by using sites such as PR Web, PR Newswire, and the like, but most people still don’t get the expected results.

Why is this? You need to ask yourself who is on your media team. For most small companies, the media team consists of the owner drafting an article, doing his or her best to make it not seem like the advertising and self glorification piece that they want it to be. This is often followed by submitting it to PR Web, paying about $120 for a mid range of services, then sitting back and waiting for a miracle that rarely comes. Why is this? I will give you a few reasons:

1. It usually is only newsworthy to the owner. My sister (a long time media professional) actually looked at one my press releases and said “next time, let me give you a hand… that’s just not a press release”. Hey, I have learned to be humble, and it does help to have family or friends in the business. But if you don’t, make sure you have a writer experienced with writing press releases help you. If what you are saying is truly newsworthy, then it is worth the money. Perhaps that should be your benchmark (would I invest marketing money to get this story out?)

2. Closely related to #1, is not having a team in place. If your team consists of you, your computer, and a web site, I have some news that you may not want to hear. You are better of spending that money driving traffic to your web site through pay per click advertising. It will give you a better return because it will be targeted traffic as opposed to another press release lost in the sea of press releases sent out that day.

So who should be on your team?

1. First, you spin doctor. This person needs to be adept in writing press worthy material. In a perfect world they would come complete with their own media contacts.

2. Media Contacts. These should be specific and not general. Specifically, if you are in the car business, you need to be establishing relationships with journalists that cover the automotive industry. How do you find them? Look everywhere. It doesn’t hurt to try and build a relationship with The Wall Street Journal, and you may just get a call or an email back (I certainly have). I would also try and build a relationship with an About.com Guide that serves your industry.

3. Bloggers. It’s 2007 folks and blogging is here to stay. Every blogger is essentially a journalist or a voice to his or her industry, so why not get in touch with them. Unlike journalists, most are not getting paid to blog, so having someone contact them with a story is a feather in their cap.

I hope that helps you get your next PR blitz out profitably. I am also here to help and while I am currently not taking on new assignments, I can possibly refer you to some good folks that can help you.

Some time ago (well over a year), I ran a small web site that was started pretty much as a self challenge. It was a niche site in a very non competitive market, so I just thought one day “hmm, the site leading the way isn’t doing SEO well, I bet I can out rank them”. Well, my pride got the better of me because although I was right, I ended up with a business where I now had to serve customers, and at a very low price. Even worse, we had to provide a service (I say we, because I quickly recruited a team of people to help me) and it didn’t even seem logical because there was no back end product – at least not another more profitable one.

Have you ever heard the phrase “Fire, Ready, Aim”, and that is pretty much what my approach was to this site, which became a real business (I didn’t really think it out long term). That’s the down side of having access to developers and designers, and having lots of ability to drive traffic to a web site.

So whats my point? Well, this site STILL outranks the competition and I no longer promote the site. It even has a “this site is for sale” text string on it. So I had to ask myself “do the search engines really care about outdated content?” At least two newer companies have joined the mix since I got out of it, and in fact, it was over the weekend that I did some searching to try and find a buyer for this domain, or perhaps offer them my Internet Marketing services.

So why does this content sill out rank newer sites with more dynamic content?

1. It serves a niche market where there is limited competition. If you are in an emerging field where new content is coming out daily, there is bound to be more competition for your related terms. If you are in a niche market where there is very little activity or fewer optimized sites entering your field, you might get lucky as I did. (yes, niche is always better)

2. Implementation of good on site SEO practices. After all, this is why I launched the web site. I saw that the competition had a great idea, but didn’t know how to market it online without using AdWords (they still use AdWords, and I still out rank them organically).

3. Trusted Links. When I was actively promoting the site, it had a Page Rank of 5 and this was more due to the quality of links rather than the quantity of links. I scored an interview from a major site that linked to my little site and that kicked it up to a Page Rank of 5 (from 3) in no time and with few other links.

4. Age of the site / content. My sites content is seasoned in that has been around longer than many of the newer sites in the field. (so is it better to have dynamic content or seasoned content? – makes you wonder)

5. Domain expiration date. This is one of those questionable ranking factors that we often hear quoted. A commonly understood practice is to register your domain for at least 5 years, which indicates that you plan on being around for at least that long. With Google’s domain registrar partnership, it is alleged that this is a ranking factor, at least for Google. At a minimum, I would say it is a good test for how the site owners feel about their site. Most registrars default to a two year term, so it could be suspected that is you reduce it to one year, you are testing the market, and not serious about the web site.

Sorry I was not able to mention the site by name; I am in negotiations with a few companies. Even after it sells, I may not be able to mention it.

Happy ranking!

I read a disturbing Yahoo! Research article yesterday, and I was just amazed. It was disturbing because someone with too much time is again focusing on the end result rather than the road to getting there. Of course, it is a Google competitor, so I guess they can pay people to do this.

So many in the search marketing world put so much emphasis on Page Rank, and I just don’t get it. First, the actual toolbar Page Rank is updated about 4 times per year, so as a benchmark, that is a long time to wait to see results. Further, if you are getting true results (i.e. increased visitors, decreased bounce rate, and increased page views per visitor) should you care about you Page Rank (or Alexa rank for that matter)?

Sure it’s nice to brag about once you get it, but I assure you if you focus on the basics of Internet Marketing, you will accomplish your goals.

Now, the funny part is that I just set some Page Rank goals for a site, but that is just because I do like to see how a site ranks among its competitors and I agree, it’s great to be able to boast a string Page Rank, but I look at it this way, you are here and this site doesn’t have the best Page Rank, so I am doing something right.

So what are the basics of Internet Marketing? I will save that next time, but I do promise to post sooner, now that I am settling in to life in Phoenix.

- Anthony