SoloSEO

Online Reputation Strategies

Posted by Aaron R Stewart on July 16th, 2008

In the evolution of all things online, we have come to a place where individuals can now employ some online strategies to really hammer at a firm’s or individual’s reputation. And if these dipsticks are good at what they do, they can have a disastrous influence on potential clients and partners. Michael and I have had the opportunity to meet with a number of large firms, even Fortune 500 companies, to discuss online strategies and systems, including online reputation management.

Yesterday we sat down with a company we are quite familiar with. We have had discussions with them over the years on a number of different technological systems to improve aspects of their business. We first discussed SEO strategies with them starting back in March of 2007. But at that time, due to some management changes and architecture issues, we didn’t have the opportunity to help them much. Yesterday their online situation had changed a bit, in that they are now facing some online reputation challenges, and they know something needs to be done, and the sooner the better.

No doubt about it, we will see more and more of these sorts of online attacks in the future, there seems to be something very empowering about a keyboard and a screen. Words and comments people would never say in public or audibly, get thrown up on blogs and as comments every day, with little consequence to the mud slinger. So what can we do about protecting our firm, and our firm’s reputation. Here are a few words of advice.

Michael made a great comment yesterday about openness in business, which has become so more important in this online revolution. We as business owners and managers of firms need to be more open to the public, even if it is uncomfortable or unnerving. I personally was raised in a family where we kept our “problems” “in house” so to speak. I mean we felt like “why should we share our dirt with the neighborhood?” It was none of their business, and we didn’t want to look any less perfect than we already did. In corporate America, this type of “keep the dirty laundry in-house” attitude has been prominent. Large firms used to be very good at ignoring what others were saying, they would just pretend to look the other way, refuse to comment and they hoped, with time, the problem would eventually go away. And to a degree I think this strategy worked and had merit. But that won’t work anymore. If we aren’t willing to get in the discussion, especially a negative one, then we risk appearing out of touch, and most importantly we risk letting others present our firm’s image in a light which may not be representative, nor fair.

This type of corporate openness can also have sort of a self-policing aspect to it. If we are open about what is going on inside the company, freely discussing issues head on, there will be more internal effort to make sure nothing actually does goes too wrong internally, as people are being held responsible for their actions, and frankly dealing with problems is a royal pain. I wonder if the stories of Tyco and MCI might have been a bit different if openness from top to bottom was a policy in those organizations? Perhaps.

So, how can we get involved in the online clammer? One method is to pay attention to what others are saying about your company. There are many ways to do this. Michael shared the example of how Comcast monitors Twitter for comments about their company, then quickly responds to these comments, positive or negative, to make sure they are heading off any potential problems. What a wonderfully proactive way to interact, and to be apart of the online social conversation. Obviously watching the Twitter feed to perhaps find something about your firm would be time consuming, and maybe impractical if it is a small firm, but it is also possible to go back and search the archives of Twitter. Then, when we have the time, we can write a blog post using keywords that might associate our firm with the past comments, and deal with the issue head on. I also would suggest contacting the person who made the comment directly, just to see if there isn’t anything that can be done to improve their attitude toward the company. You might find them pretty surprised you cared, and possibly shocked you knew they had commented in the first place.

I personally use Google Alerts to watch for keywords which are important to me. I use it for my name and each firm name, just to keep any eye on things online. If anyone uses these tagged words online, Google alerts me, and we can then go and check it out and deal with it. It is a very helpful, and frankly reassuring system. When a hot topic comes up, and our firm is put in the discussion, we make sure to get some content out there, on a new web page, or in a blog to address the issue, making sure we use the very keywords used in the attack. We all need to make sure that when someone puts across a potentially negative view, that we have provided our own narrative of the situation to buffer a searcher’s reaction. If we are open and honest to the problem, potential clients will give us the well-deserved benefit of the doubt , which we essentially earned by responding directly. I don’t think individuals are naive enough to believe everything they read, but they are more likely to believe when no opposing view is offered.

When considering future pages or blog post, perhaps we should discuss items that might be problems in the future… If you are an injury attorney, I would have a page discussing the term “ambulance chaser.” A used car salesman should discuss the whole sales process and perhaps offer steps on how to avoid buying a lemon. Helpful content like this is not only beneficial in reputation management, but also assists in building a group of loyal readers who appreciate your unique view of your market. We each know our individual markets better than most our clients will, and they might as well learn it from us. Then when shots are taking at our reputations, we have a trusting readership to come to our aide, and participate in the conversation. So the online noise will not only be from some delusional competitor or a disgruntled client, but also from us directly, and others that have learned to trust us over time.

The bigger the firm, the bigger the challenge to manage online reputations. Fortunately there are more complex and technologically advanced methods for larger companies, with more online real estate to protect, but these strategies take a new mindset, a great deal of money and usually new internal and technological architecture to fully implement. Most of us will never have to worry about this extreme level of reputation protection, but if there is a time when your large firm or you yourself do need some help, let us know, we have learned a great deal on how to deal with these challenges, even on the largest of scales.

In short, as a buddy of mine likes to say, “just keep it real,” and online that advice is good as good as any, especially when managing what others can find out about you through search.

1 comment Visited 5402 times July 16th, 2008 Aaron R Stewart

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Best PubCon 2007 Swag

Posted by Michael D Jensen on December 7th, 2007

We had a great time at PubCon and I got several great gems and tips for SEO and SEO tools. Many of you conference goers know there is always lots of swag (freebies, promos, giveaways) given out at these shows, so it is good to have a backpack or bag. I thought it would be fun to show off the best swag from this year. I made sure to hit every booth and grab some swag if they had it.

Here it is, the best PubCon swag, in order of how much I liked it (not necessarily the overall swag score I give):

Digital Dice: I believe this came from a Public Relations company’s booth, but I am not sure. It has MSNBC.com on it, nothing else, and I’m pretty sure MSNBC.com didn’t have a booth at PubCon. I had never seen digital dice before, but it is pretty cool. Now I only wish I had one more for games that require two die.

Practical – 8 (we all play some sort of game requiring dice)
Easy to Carry – 10
Branding – 4 (dice aren’t used every day)
Overall Swag Score: 7.3/10

The Tangler: This one at first seems pretty gimmicky, but Bruce Clay’s Tangler swag is pretty fun (Great to finally meet you Lisa!). I have to admit the Tangler went straight to my kids, but I did play with it quite a bit before I passed it along. It moves every which way and you can have it turn in on itself and come out just fine.

Practical – 5 (great for getting your mind off of a long blog post)
Easy to Carry – 10
Branding – 6 (if you keep it around your desk as a de-stresser)
Overall Swag Score: 7/10

Yo-Yo: Google was giving away Yo-Yos that light up (kind of) when you play with them. Very traditional swag, but they did well finding a decent quality Yo-Yo (it actually works more than once). I again admit, this went to the kids after a few minutes of playing with it.

Practical – 8 (great fun)
Easy to Carry – 8 (doesn’t quite fit in your pocket)
Branding – 5 (probably won’t get a ton of use).
Overall Swag Score: 7/10

Mouse Pad: Another traditional swag item, from UserPlane.com, but done better than any other mouse pad design and quality I’ve seen. I only use laptops and the built-in mouse, but for those who like the external mouse, you’ll love this swag item.

Practical – 8
Easy to Carry – 7 (thin, but obviously still wide, can’t roll up)
Branding – 9 (always in front of you while you work)
Overall Swag Score: 8/10

Glowing Dome: This item from Internet Marketing Ninjas is very cute and a bit mesmerizing. If I worked in a dark office I might have put this on my desk. It went to my little girl instead, and she’s been carrying it around all morning and yelling “PINK!” when it gets to the pink color.

Practical – 6
Easy to Carry – 7
Branding – 6
Overall Swag Score: 6.3/10

Many of you hopefully found us at PubCon and got some free swag. If not, I’m still not going to tell you what it is because we decided to bring it to SMX West too because of how much everyone loved it. I may be biased, but I would honestly give our swag an overall swag score of 10/10. Many people said, “sweet, this is exactly what I’ve been needing!” and other similar comments. See you at SMX West!

3 comments Visited 5996 times December 7th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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How To Profit From Site Images

Posted by Aaron R Stewart on November 8th, 2007

The other day we were leaving a soccer game for my 6 year old boy. My 2 year old wasn’t quite happy with her perceived lack of playground time, and she expressed her upset quite loudly, while she thrashed around. I calmly (kind of) chased her down, picked her up and lovingly wrestled her into her car seat. She reacted to her entrapment with unrelenting, ear-pearcing screams. Over this outburst, I couldn’t hear myself think, let alone my car’s reverse alarm, and we subsequently backed straight into a light pole. The bone-jarring thud caused instant silence, which was quite nice, but I dreaded getting out to view the damage. I slowly walked to the back of the car, and to my complete surprise and extreme delight I had hid that poorly positioned pole dead center. The only damage was to my trailer hitch cover, it was completely shattered, but it costs less than $100 so I was happy. I went from total dejection to total elation in just a few seconds. What a relief.

Now I really love that trailer hitch cover, and in honor of its fine protection, I wanted to replace it with a new one. Unfortunately I couldn’t remember where I purchased it, I knew it was online somewhere, but it was over a year ago and I can’t even remember my kids names from day to day. So I went to Google and searched “Jeep Trailer Hitch Cover,” which seemed to be a pretty good description. But, while I love search, and I love the amazing supply of products online, I do get a bit frustrated with all the information we get back in the SERPs, it can be way too much. With so many of the sites just being unhelpful noise, much of which is caused by all this Adsense craziness. It makes efficient searching more difficult, and the SERP I was looking at was too much. Fortunately, because I knew what I was looking for, I just clicked on the Images link at the top of the page, and was happy to find an image of the hitch cover I was looking for at uhaul.com

I went to the page, determined the formal name for the product, and searched again, to find other suppliers of the hitch cover. I quickly figured out the best deal, which happened to be at uhaul.com anyway. But going through all this, I became curious as to why U-Haul’s image of the product showed upon the first image SERP, but the image from the other online stores did not. I assumed it was due to U-Haul wisely naming their image well, and using the description tag to inform the search engines about the image, but I was wrong. It turns out U-Haul needs to thank Google for this particular sale. U-Haul’s images are actually served up from a image database, and no image names or descriptions are passed through to the product page, leaving the image without direct description. However, Google knew there was an image on the page, and wisely assumed it was related to the first 3 words on the U-Haul product page, namely “Jeep Hitch Cover,” so Google decided to return this page with my query. People can bang on Google all they want, but in this situation, they performed well.

So what could the other online stores done better to insure they are being found more readily through image search? First let’s look at stores which use the same product image as U-Haul, and see what how they named their images:

1. Jep_hitchstep.jpg
2. 10903_step_jeep.jpg

First, neither store used the image description tag, so it would be very difficult for any search engine to match my particular query by virtue of the image name alone. Both pages were also full of content, obviously trying to show their authority on the topic Jeep accessories, but Google couldn’t seem to figure out what they were selling in their text. Now if both stores were to name their images a bit more descriptively and add “Jeep Trailer Hitch Cover that is also a step” or something similar in the description tag, they will do better in the future for queries similar to mine. It is very important for us to think about what our customers will type in the search engine, which combination of keywords they will use to find us, and make sure our product images are labeled accordingly. The search engines are smart, but they are looking for some sort of relevance, and if we provide them this information, we will be rewarded with qualified traffic.

One final note, due to the shear volume of web pages being added each day, Image search will continue become more important. Image search allows us to narrow some searches more quickly, to find what we need more efficiently. I use the Image search function quite a bit, if I know what I am looking for, or I am not familiar with an online store for a particular product type. How important is image search to you? How often do you search via images?

Oh, and as a note, my daughter did stop crying… eventually.

4 comments Visited 8033 times November 8th, 2007 Aaron R Stewart

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Image Isn’t Everything, But It Is Something.

Posted by Aaron R Stewart on October 11th, 2007

Taking a look at the corporate logs in the image to the left, how do you feel about those brands? Do you feel anything? Much in marketing is focused on influencing the public’s perception of our companies, our products and our brand. We want others to think our products/services are high in quality, a good value, safe, reliable, fun, entertaining, satisfying, or simply the best. So how is this done online, is it different when compared to more traditional ad mediums? For, example in TV commercials we have just about seen it all, from diet cola commercials, which appeal to our hip and healthy side, to luxury cars like Lexus, BMW and Mercedes, which tout their extreme quality, and attempt to impress us with their prestige. All this presentation created simply to influence our perception toward these brands. And with TV being so visual, the advertiser can use all sorts of techniques to spin their products in a very positive light. Many are now wondering if TV advertising is as effective as it use to be? I’ll bet there are a million or two Tivo owners who will tell you it probably isn’t, but that is a discussion for another day, but does suggest a need to come up with other methods to improve our corporate image.

We all know TV ads aren’t real life, and although I doubt there is any girl that choose to hang out with a guy because of the type of diet cola he drank, at least I hope not, we all know some people drink certain brands of soda or diet soda because they believe they are being perceived by others to be cool, sophisticated, wealthy, discerning, or concerned with their health, etc. Many choose to use these brands because of the brand image they have in their own head, will hopefully be identified by others as the product is consumed. My wife loves Diet Coke, and I mean LOVES it. She says it tastes better than all the other diet beverage choices out there, without question. I personally disagree, I think Diet Coke tastes like licking dirt off a pitching wedge. She also thinks Diet Coke portrays a certain image, say of an attractive blonde girl cruising along a beach-side path on roller skates, bopping to the music as she enjoys her Diet Coke. But while I like the commercial quite a bit, and it matches the image of my wife well, I personally still see Diet Coke as the drink of choice for attendees of a 1929 high school reunion, held last weekend, and not the drink of anyone remotely hip. So this ad, although excellent in my opinion, has not changed my perception of Diet Coke one it, or its brand, it is still yuck, but many others feel differently. So when we work on our brand, we attempt to positively influence as many as we can, knowing full well we can’t change everyone’s perception, and that is ok.

Online we obviously don’t have the ability to visually create an image as well as a TV commercial can, although with YouTube and others we are getting closer. So we instead have to rely on other marketing opportunities to influence potential clients. In search marketing, our prestige and our perceived value are currently tied to how well we do in the SERPs. Many of us know that being on page 1 of a SERP isn’t necessarily the best way to determine if the particular product or company is the best (no offense to Google and Yahoo). And we know a high ranking it is not a guarantee of a good quality product or of excellent customer service either, but there is no doubt we notice the sites on page 1 more quickly, and we take a look at sites on page 1 more often than potentially better products and sites buried on subsequent SERP pages. So in a sense, the work of SEO directly influences the perception potential clients and the public will have on our businesses, at least initially. If we are ranking well on the results page, then we will be perceived as being market leaders, the most popular, the most cutting-edge, the highest quality, whatever, whether it is reality or not. The better we do on the SERPs, the better we will be initially perceived, and they more clients will visit our site. Then it is up to us to make sure our sites are designed well enough to deliver what client needs. We need to ensure visitors can easily find the information they need, that they feel comfortable with us, and we need to be sure they can easily order when it is time to purchase. Online, SEO should be seen as our ability to influence the initial perception of searching clients. SEO can be online marketing and online PR, all wrapped up into process, and really our opportunity to make a better first impression.

When considering the benefits of SEO, we need to remember that through the SEO process, we are improving the perception of our companies to potential clients. It isn’t just a matter of gaining more traffic to our sites, it is a matter of promoting and influencing the long-term image of our company and products. If we can make them initially believe we are great, then prove it to them with our site, products and customer service, then we have won a tough online battle.

Add comment Visited 3009 times October 11th, 2007 Aaron R Stewart

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Doing Good, with Good Content, is Great Branding

Posted by Michael D Jensen on October 8th, 2007

Earlier this year I wrote about Doing Good As LinkBait, specifically about a movie theater company giving a discount to our troops. Last week I also wrote about how great content is really at the heart of SEO. Well, Xerox has gone out of their way to “do good” by creating LetsSayThanks.com, where on their dime you can send a letter and a note to a member of our armed forces. Xerox has created great content, worthy of talking about, sending to others, and linking to. It made me go out of my way to tell you about it, and I’m curious if you’ll do the same.

Whether or not you agree with the war, our troops deserve our love, prayers, thanks, and support. Send them a note today:

http://www.letssaythanks.com

Add comment Visited 4288 times October 8th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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It’s All About the Experience

Posted by Michael D Jensen on September 4th, 2007

Marketing, in whatever form, is all about the experience. This is the why behind how link bait and viral marketing work.

We recently moved to Southern Utah, and in our family we like to be tourists everywhere we go, even where we live. We heard about these dinosaur tracks, so we set out to find them. We had a map that had directions that appeared pretty specific, even down to having an extra digit after the decimal point of how many miles from point X to point Y. With my iPhone (sweet Maps app), GPS on the car, and our handy dandy map, I thought we’d be there in 20 minutes, see the tracks, and be on our way to the next historic site. Instead, we had a safari adventure in our minivan, with 3 young kids in the back, hunting for dinosaur tracks in 100 degree weather, on a dirty bumpy road, that lasted two and a half hours.

Now if you are still a kid like I am (and like my kids are), this was awesome. We turned down a road which ended up being more of a 4-wheeler road, having to turn around and backing into a cactus. We saw a few guys off the road, but after approaching them on foot I realized they were carrying weapons. Luckily they were harmless and gave us some hints as to where to seek the dinosaur tracks. We traveled down the road for what seemed like an eternity, all the while enjoying the beautiful Utah desert and the sweet sound of kids nagging each other. Finally, a sign; of course it was 3 inches by 3 feet with the words “Dinosaur Tracks” in a single column, in white and brown (camouflage), and a small arrow pointing the way. We turned and kept looking, another 3″ x 3′ sign. We found the parking lot, and another 3″ x 3′ sign. We walked a ways and finally came to the end of our hunt, with about 10 footsteps from dinosaurs, engrained in stone for us to stare at in amazement. This ain’t plaster of paris my friends, these are dinosaur tracks.

So, if you’re still reading, hopefully you’ve imagined our experience and smiled at least a tad. It was a blast, and tucking my kids in tonight they remember our trek of finding dinosaur tracks. What would this have been like had this rock with the tracks been cut out and taken to my local museum? We could have walked right past them. We wouldn’t have spent more than 2 or 3 minutes looking at the tracks. A portion of the visitors to the museum probably would miss the tracks altogether. And when those kids were tucked, I guarantee they wouldn’t remember the dinosaur tracks.

It’s all about the experience. There is a fantastic article written on the topic titled The Experience is the Marketing by James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine II. This is the inner workings of link bait and viral marketing, it is the experience the user undergoes. The experience may not last two and a half hours like my dinosaur track safari, but if the user has a memorable experience, the marketing worked. The article gives several examples, such as “The American Girl Place”. It’s not your typical toy doll store. Parents take their daughters with doll in hand to get the doll’s hair done ($20), get their picture taken together ($21.95), watch a theatrical production together ($25), and to have dinner together ($18). Yes, you can buy a new doll there, but it’s the experience that drives thousands each year, and millions in revenue, not the dolls.

In the online world, we don’t have the advantage of a physical setting to create an experience. We do, however, have many forms of medium to create an experience.

Online Mediums for Creating an Experience
First, your design and usability is the first part of the experience. Is your design clean, does it speak to your audience (high-end consumers, women, older folks, college kids, etc), are products easy to find with available details?

Second, do you offer more than just product? What about a section of all the crazy ways your product has been used (think Duck brand Duct Tape), or a photo blog of people wearing your product in different locales (like Beast Clothing)? What about an application that helps people with some aspect of your product or service, that they find useful (like our Link Search Tool). What about a viral video (think Diet Coke & Mentos) that showcases or includes your product, or is a captivating commercial that makes it viral?

Tapping into your Audience
Just because your marketing medium isn’t a physical building, it doesn’t mean you can’t tap into the physical senses of your audience. You can appeal to emotions, appetites, feelings, memories, hopes, and vanity. There’s no step by step how to and no online experience generator to accomplish this. But there is your innovation, and the imagination of your team and company.

Get Started and Create an Experience
To start, read the article The Experience is the Marketing. It’s a great jump start to making an experience for your audience, which is the ultimate in branding and marketing.

1 comment Visited 4313 times September 4th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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The Marketing 4 Ps and SEO

Posted by Aaron R Stewart on August 30th, 2007

Much of a discussion on marketing can be broken down into what is termed “The Marketing Mix, or the 4 Ps” namely; Product, Price, Place, Promotion. Product being the service or product we sell, Price being the retail price a customer will pay for the product, Place being the locale where the product is purchased and Promotion being how we get our message out to the masses, and what we attempt to communicate in order to convince them to buy. The goal of a marketer then is to properly address the 4 Ps for their specific situation and to sell as many units of product as is potentially possible.

The online world is a bit of a different marketing animal. Some of the 4 Ps haven’t changed much, and others have. Our Product essentially remains the same. The Price is also not changed too much, although with increase access to information, and more access to online resellers, economists would expect at least a downward pressure on price, if not overall lower prices altogether. Place can also can be a bit different, while many of us may still have a store front, there are some small business owners who only sell their products online. So presently, we either sell both online, and through a brick and mortar store front, or we just sell online which is a new spin on “Place.” Finally we have Promotion, which in some cases is very similar to how we promote offline. Using banners and Ads on webpages. As an example, at the top right of Andy’s Marketing Pilgrim home page, we see ads prominently displayed to Andy’s thousands of visitors. This can be a very good online advertising option, as we are able to target clients who we can predict visit sites with a certain theme, and we have a degree of control on the content, color and message of our ad. Advertising our revolutionary new socks for example, on a site developed to provide marathon running tips to novice runners would predictably be a good advertising opportunity/match.

In online promotion we also have the opportunity to start an ad campaign and purchase ad space on search engine results pages. Both Yahoo and Google have programs for doing this. So if we search for “marathon running” in about any search engine, we will not only have organic or unpaid results, typically found in the center of the page, but we will also see a column of paid ads down the right hand, and sometimes even across the top of our results page. Again this type of advertising allows marketers to target potential clients they believe would be most interested in their product. However, these results page ads are frightfully limiting compared to other forms of both online and offline marketing. The ads all look the same in color and size, there are limitations on what can be stated, and on how many words can be used to get the message across. So it is much more difficult to really stand out through ads on a results page, I personally rarely look at these ads. Imagine driving down a Freeway with all the billboards having a white background, with an underlined blue heading (sometimes it may be bolded, wow!), black text of approximately 10 words, and a green URL link at the bottom, that’s it. Not many keen marketers would pay the billboard owners for such a poor advertising opportunity, but it may be a good way to get rid of all the billboards. Now, I am not a big supporter of billboards in the first place, in fact, they don’t make much sense to me at all. It has nothing to do with whether they work or not from a marketing perspective, I just don’t understand why we want these colorful distractions taking the attention of drivers moving along at 70 mph, with other distracted drivers all around them. It seems smarter to keep all the attention focused on the road, hey, maybe billboards painted right on the road? And don’t tell me these billboards are mainly for the car passengers, the HOV lanes around the country prove there aren’t many passengers in all those cars.

Anyway, to make standing out or ranking well on search engines results page even seems more difficult, when we learned earlier this summer from Google’s Udi Manber, that 25% of all search queries are brand new, and never have been used previously. So how to do we target those evolving clients?

In this apparent increasing difficulty in search engine marketing, we should really be seeing an opportunity to become specialists at anticipating the keywords our clients will use to find what they need. I see a very interesting research project here. It would be cool to analyze the behavior of a test group when they are all given the same, random items to search for online. It would be amazing to see how each would construct their query to best find what were looking for. It is this intellectual process we need to focus upon as online marketers and small business owners, how potential clients are conjuring up their searchers, what is the basis of their search, how do current events and trends influence their queries? With these questions in mind, creation of new keyword phrases will keep things fresh and relevant. We need to remember that due to the thousands of pages thrown on the Internet each day, the process of search has become quite different and more complex. Many of us understand that our searches need to be more detailed in order for us to truly find what we want, quickly. Searchers actually use long-tailed, localized keyword searches to get around the garbage Wikipedia like pages, and the miserable “informational” websites only created to rake in Adsense revenue. My average search queries are now at least 5 words, and usually contain a localization aspect to them.

So if we are mindful that 25% of search queries are new, and potential clients are using longer and longer tailed searches to find what they need, then we understand our creative juices really need to get flowing to benefit from the new long-tailed keywords trend. And we need to be addressing these long tail keywords possibilities for all our sites on a regular basis. Whether we create a new web page, change some product descriptions, or add a blog post using our new keyword phrases, it needs to be done. It is actually quite amazing how quickly one can rank number 1 when the keyword phrases used are unique and well placed. And many will be surprised when some of these phrases not only start bringing in new clients for the specific phrase, but also start ranking well for just portions of the original long-tail phrase originally created.

Add comment Visited 3667 times August 30th, 2007 Aaron R Stewart

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Stay Online Stupid…

Posted by Aaron R Stewart on July 31st, 2007

Mike Moran’s post today, entitled Should Small Business Ditch the Web? discusses, well… I was going to say an “interesting point,” but I think instead I will say “ridiculously obvious point.” Mr. Moran essentially uses some of this post as a rebuttal to a comment to a prior post, by someone with the screen name of “Ikey.” It is Ikey’s view that big businesses have taken all the good keywords, and dominate the online marketplace to a point, that we as small business owners really have nothing left to live for online, and we might as well pack it in and move our marketing efforts offline, to more traditional forms of advertising.

AAAAAAAANNNNKKK! Wrong answer, terrible advice, and even sillier logic. Mr. Moran aptly points out that offline forms of advertising are much more expensive, which is true, and depending on the product, I would add they may not be as effective, or as beneficial to a small business in the long-term. I unfortunately took (wasted) the time to go and visit this Ikey’s site, and frankly it was, well… icky. It is my opinion Ikey isn’t going to sell anything from the site as now constituted, no matter how many folks happen to find him online. And this is probably where our online business discussion needs to go. Ikey’s site looks like many other cheap ebook, promise the world, deliver very little, type sites, and it is delivered in the almost cliche, early 90s look and feel, animating GIFs, etc. Now I realize that “retro” is cool with clothing and perhaps some models of cars right now, but retro isn’t cool with web site design. To really be successful online, I believe you must start with your site and company image. Online, the site essentially becomes the salesperson, and if the site looks cheap and sleezy, it reflects badly on the company, no matter the quality of the content. It is perhaps sad to admit the online world is as superficial as the offline world, but that has been our experience.

Being online is also important for small businesses because we never know who is going to find us. Michael and I have been surprised, no frankly shocked, at the number of clients that have found our companies, even some Fortune 500 clients, despite our poor performance in some search engine rankings. And we have been even more amazed at the keywords these clients used to find us.

Which kinds of leads us to another interesting post. Marketing Pilgrim posted an article entitled Business Doesn’t Need SEO by Jeremy Luebke last Thursday. Now it was quite an eye catching title, and thankfully the message was very appropriate. Do we as business owners need SEO to be a successful business? The answer is simply no, I know a number of business that have done very well without much help from an online presence, and they have done very little, if anything, in the form of SEO strategy implementation. I am sure you know companies like this as well. But is that the question we should be asking ourselves? Do we need SEO as small business owners? From my standpoint, no we don’t need it, but I believe we should all be doing it, at least a little bit. SEO is the difference between doing well, and doing extremely well for a long period of time. SEO strategies position a site to do well not only now, but even more so in the future. As a site improves in the rankings through implementing focused SEO strategies, and is indexed for a longer period of time, the search engine cred of the site will increase. As content is added, and links increase with time, the better the site’s ranking will become, and the better the chance potential clients will be able to find the site, even if it isn’t on the first SERP page. SEO efforts build on themselves, and where that takes a business in the future is anyone’s guess, but without a doubt it will drastically increase the potential that new clients will find us.

And what about these potential searchers/clients, who are they, and how do they eventually find us. This is an interesting phenomena as well. We are seeing the way people use search change, they are getting better at search, as they have learned how to better use long-tail search queries to more quickly and precisely find what they are looking for. Additionally, potential clients, both old and young are now not afraid to look online until they find a company that fits what they perceive they are looking for. Even my mother and father have become Googleites, and can find what they need very well. We have heard from some clients that they were just “searching” around and essentially stumbled on to us, if we had not been online, or at least trying to be visible online, this would not have happened. People are willing to look for what they want, and spend time doing it, because they have learned it does make a difference in their experience. I would also suggest that many searchers understand that the best company for their needs might not be on the first page of the search engine results page. Experience with the search engines results has taught us all this reality.

So if we add it all up, an online presence, meaning a welcoming site, with a good product/service, and good customer service equals a good chance for a successful small business. However, if we then throw in a good dose of SEO strategies, coupled with an ever-improving and discerning search population, and you have the recipe for steady to exceptional growth over time. So just stay online, going offline is just, you know…

4 comments Visited 5094 times July 31st, 2007 Aaron R Stewart

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Why You Should Love Yahoo! Answers

Posted by Michael D Jensen on July 6th, 2007

Just over a year ago Danny sullivan said “Look out Wikipedia, Here Comes Yahoo! Answers”. Yahoo! Answers is becoming not only a great resource, but also a social network (who isn’t, right?). I like Yahoo! Answers because people ask real questions and often get a handful or more of responses.

Sometimes links are all about ranking, but in this case you can get a good flow of traffic (Matt McGee on why he loves it) from a bona fide link on Yahoo! Answers. Every time I’ve jumped onto Yahoo! Answers, I’ve had a fun time. Not only responding, but also reading other people’s comments and questions.

Yahoo! Answers Made Easy

For starters, let’s make following your favorite topic really easy on Yahoo! Answers. They have a RSS feed, just like this blog and other blogs, that you can subscribe to and watch as new questions are asked.

http://answers.yahoo.com/rss/searchq?p=seo

Let’s say you are interested in GPS gadgets (i.e. you have a site/blog for GPS gadgets):

http://answers.yahoo.com/rss/searchq?p=gps

The name of the game is get there first (or early) and answer the question. If you answer it well, correctly, and in a thorough manner, chances are you get most of the attention and are selected as the best answer. Then “forever” afterwards if that search comes up in the SERPs you’ve got a great chance of getting some traffic.

The best way to use Yahoo! Answers is to primarily be there to help others. If you have something on your site or blog that is helpful, then point them to it. If not, point them somewhere else. A good mix of those would be very natural.

Do you ever have a hard time figuring out what to write? Why not take a question, or part of an answer to someone’s question, and expand it on your blog? Better yet, answer someone’s question on your blog (quickly) and then add it as a response!

10 comments Visited 9934 times July 6th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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7 Months to Get Past Google’s “Did you Mean…”

Posted by Michael D Jensen on July 2nd, 2007

One of my early posts to the SoloSEO blog was How to Get Your Web 2.0 Brand Past the “Did you Mean” in Search, and I discussed how in Google if you searched for our brand name “soloseo” Google would come back and say “Did you mean: colosseo”. Well, it’s time to celebrate around here…we have overcome! No longer will Google give a suggestion, but now it knows that when people search for “soloseo” they mean it!

What contributes to that? It’s very hard to tell, and I don’t have case studies beyond our own, so it’s all just a guess. I think the main factor is the two main focuses of SEO, content and links. We establish our brand through both content and links, producing content from our site, and obtaining links to our site (many of which have soloseo as the anchor text of the link). Since November 2006 when we first launched SoloSEO, we have gained thousands of links and have created hundreds of pages of content.

My blog post mentioned above gave another example, this one with Alexa.com. Alexa also has a “did you mean” when searching for our domain name. Unfortunately, things haven’t changed there. If you type in soloseo.com it says: “Did you mean: solosexo com?”. How crazy is that?

What experiences have you had with getting past the “Did you mean” in search engines?

1 comment Visited 4814 times July 2nd, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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