SoloSEO

In SEO - Be A Tortoise, Forget the Hare.

Posted by Aaron R Stewart on October 30th, 2007

On Aaron Wall’s site www.seobook.com, Aaron Wall makes a statement which makes me chuckle every time I read it, not because it isn’t somewhat true, but because I can imagine how it must drive others crazy. Aaron states,

“SEO is not hard, Anyone can be successful at it with the right information.”

While I agree that anyone can be successful through SEO, if they have the right information and the right tools, I don’t think SEO is “easy” for everyone, not even for most people. I personally have only met Aaron once, and have heard him present on a few occasions, and just based on those observations I can see why Aaron would see SEO as easy, I think for him SEO is easy. But for the rest of us, the average humans, SEO is tough work. It is especially difficult for those who are running more traditional/non-technical businesses. There is so much to do as a small business owner, and the entire organization relies on you and your efforts. Quite frankly you don’t have the time to sit down and work with site optimization all day, or dedicate enough time to learn how to make the required changes to web site pages in just a day or two. It is going to take more time than that. How much time really depends on not only your available time, but also on how good your information and tools are.

With accurate information, like from Aaron’s SEOBook, and excellent SEO tools, like we have developed here at SoloSEO, the SEO process can become more manageable, that much is true. But please never let anyone convince you SEO will be easy, unless you are a technological genius, and there are more than few using SEO as a profession. This hard work revelation probably isn’t what anyone with aspirations of quickly making it big online wants to hear, but I wouldn’t feel good about giving the impression SEO is some magic online wand, which when waved, instantly delivers more traffic and orders than a site can handle. It just doesn’t work that way. I am sure there are many out there who have heard and believed the claims of this “SEO ease,” then got in, got to work, and became quickly disenchanted with the SEO process, perhaps even felt frustrated at their inability to quickly grasp the “simpleness of SEO.” If you have felt this way, you are not alone, it is common, it is okay.

As perhaps some of you have done, I have spent my life as a very average person, not overly smart, not overly quick, not overly fun, not overly funny, not overly thin, just not overly impressive in almost everything. Fortunately I came to grips with my total averageness a few years ago, and I realized my only chance to get ahead in this world, was just to work harder than the naturally talented and smarter people were willing to. I can’t compete with the “blessed ones” one on one, hour to hour, but if I only sleep 4 hours, and they sleep 10, then I have picked up 6 hours a day on them, and my chances are better. I have no problem seeing myself as a tortoise, and I have always loved that story. I think most my fellow slower folks have too.

I think most entrepreneurs, who have created and succeeded in their own business, have either worked harder, or are “blessed.” For most of us it is simply a matter of out-working the competition, we may never be the biggest, or grow the fastest, but we can be successful, and live a comfortable life by out-working the others. And if we work harder, using the best tools and information, we can not only increase our chances of success, but shorten the time required. The same is true with SEO.

To me SEO is similar to the process of digging for gold. There are many technologies we can use to find gold now, and those technologies get better all the time. With today’s technology we simply don’t have to head out with a shovel and start digging hither and thither until we find something shiny, there are better ways. But even with all the modern tools and technology, when it comes right down to it, getting the gold out of the ground is going to take work. We can dig with a shovel, we can dynamite, we can use large equipment, and we can hire an army of miners, but it is all work and it is required to reap the eventual reward. No way around it.

There is no doubt SEO can be worth much to a company looking to increase sales, it can take a struggling company trying to make any sale at all, and turn that company into an online success story. Where they once wondered if they would convince anyone to buy at all, they now they struggle with cash flow, barely having enough cash on hand to pay vendors, so they can barely stay ahead of the orders onslaught. But to experience this kind of transformation in online sales, the SEO work must happen. We are going to need to focus on our site’s Keywords, Content, Links and effort must be spent to put it all in place. No way around it. We can use all kinds of great tools, and have the latest information to make our efforts as efficient and effective as possible. We can even hire others to do our SEO for us, but SEO is the price for long-term online rewards. SEO isn’t easy for most people, it isn’t a get rich quick scheme, there is nothing magic or extraordinary about it, but if the SEO work is done well, then success is more than likely, if not virtually assured. I like that about SEO, we can work harder at it than others do, and see success for our efforts. And as for all the other tortoises out there, I know you will like that about SEO too.

4 comments Visited 1063 times October 30th, 2007 Aaron R Stewart

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Hey Businesses… Its about Blogging time.

Posted by Aaron R Stewart on September 7th, 2007

A good friend of mine, Thayne Peterson, called up yesterday and asked what he should do with his website to just help it perform a bit better. As you can imagine we get that question quite a bit around here, especially now that more people have kind of figured out what SoloSEO is about. This friend owns an auto dealership in Provo, UT (free link alert) and deals mostly in high-quality, used BMWs. He also has a repair shop as well, where they specialize in repairing most German made cars (this needs to be stated more clearly on the website). He, like many of us, just wants to be a bit more visible online.

In our conversation he mentioned he was considering signing up for a local online business directory, and perhaps purchasing some advertising on their site. He wondered if I thought it was a good idea, so I took a look. After some initial poking around, it was soon obvious that signing up was free, and the site existed solely on ad space it sold on the site. So I had no problem with him signing up, at least it is a new link to him, and this directory is well put together and has quite a comprehensive overview of local business, organized by category. I didn’t tell him if I thought purchasing an ad on this site was a good move or not, I don’t know enough about this directory’s traffic mix, or his business to understand if online advertising will provide a high enough ROI to make the ad price worth the investment. I will leave that decision to him.

But after a quick review of his site, I just gave him a few ideas that I think will help its performance in the search engines. First off, he does an excellent job of keeping the inventory of current cars up to date. As soon as they receive a new car, they clean it up and takes some nice pictures of the car, and then put those up with a simple description of each car on the site. I suggested that they should spend a bit more time on creating content for each car, focusing more on some keywords they are targeting, as well as the specifics of each car. These keywords should come from what they feel their strengths are, with local references included, like Provo, UT, Northern Utah, 40 South of Salt Lake City, UT, as examples. Additionally, I would have them use SoloSEO tools to analyze other local automotive sites doing well in the search engines, and then start targeting those keywords as well. Finally, they should also make sure the photos for each car are labeled clearly, and using an occasional keyword here and there, in a picture description, isn’t going to hurt rankings either.

Once a car is sold, they currently take the content and the pictures of that car off the site. I think this is a mistake many of us make. Rather, I would suggest they create a sold page, or past inventory page, then organize all the cars by model and year on this sold/directory page. Keep all that content written about each car, and the descriptive photos for each in play for the search engines. If they spend time creating the content, then they should continue benefitting from it. Plus, it might help potential clients find a model of car they are looking for. Thayne does a great job finding cars according to a potential buyer’s specifications. He did this for me, and it worked out great. So, if a potential buyer found a car on Thayne’s site by browsing the past inventory, which takes no time from Thayne’s sales people (truly a major benefit of any well conceived site), and Thayne gets a new client to work with, along with all the specs he needs to find a similar car, it is a win/win for everyone.

Next, I would suggest they start a company blog, it is another easy way to add content. We of course love WordPress Blogging system, we use it ourselves, and highly recommend it to everyone. On the Independent Import’s blog I would have them blog about sales they are having on certain cars, about automotive tips, about information on recalls, about new performance parts or options to “pimp our rides,” and even about the new innovations BMW is coming out with all the time. The automotive industry is one of constant innovation and change, and this provides excellent and frequent topics for a blog. Keep the blog fresh, with one or two posts a week at least, and also let his current and new clients know about the blog. Many new car owners are passionate about their cars (especially BMW owners), and reading new info about their brand of car and possible improvements/options, is very interesting and will increase business. I’ll bet Thayne could get quite a good subscription base fairly quickly, I know I would sign up.

I would guess there are many of us who feel like we need to do better online. Our site is there, but we need it to perform better, if at all and bring us some new clients. This is most easily done through search. Look for ways to increase your content, adding new pages, and a blog. Then write about products, changes in the industry, and keep your content, don’t ever throw it away. It may need to be tweaked or placed on an archives page of some sort, but you worked hard to create it, let it continue to work for you, it will make a difference in search engine rankings. As far as all the free advice to Thayne, I will take it on trade for a M3 convertible, black… of course.

1 comment Visited 1663 times September 7th, 2007 Aaron R Stewart

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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 1083 times August 30th, 2007 Aaron R Stewart

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SEO - Vital to Small Business

Posted by Aaron R Stewart on August 7th, 2007

To small business owners, SEO cannot be seen as the “end all - be all” to their potential success, but it rightfully should be considered a “must do” in order to maximize their full business potential. Based on our own situation, and finally deciding ourselves we needed to spend time on SEO, we now understand that getting started in SEO can be a bit intimidating, and very confusing without the right information. The SEO world tends to speak in their own tongue, and their language wasn’t developed, or taught in any business classes I attended. These new terms, whether it was meant to be this way or not, seem to have created a bit of a “barrier to entry,” to use a term we are more familiar with. Essentially the SEO industry created an illusion of “if we don’t know the terminology, it will be difficult to understand or perform SEO, and even tougher to do it well.” I felt the same way at first, but that perception is simply not true. SEO done the right way, without all the tricks and tinkering (which isn’t all that effective anymore anyway), is actually pretty straight forward. Just as simple as learning about credits and debits in Accounting or how supply and demand affect pricing in Economics. Not too tough to understand with a little reading and some hands-on exercises.

So if SEO is important, and we can learn it, how much time should we spend on SEO as a small business owner? It is an excellent question, and ultimately depends on how much business a firm hopes to bring in through their online efforts. For example, if a firm has in mind that in 12 months they would like to have 50% of their sales coming from online sources, and they currently only enjoy 5% of total sales from the site, then they should probably spend a considerable amount of time working on the site, making sure all the pieces are in place, so not only will the site’s visibility improve, but potential clients will be happy with what they find. Conversely, if this firm wants only 50% of their sales from online sources, but they now enjoy 60% of total being online generated, then they should focus more attention on more traditional forms of marketing and advertising until this ratio changes.

To get started in SEO, I would recommend just setting aside an hour a day to dive in. At first start just by learning about SEO, either from some pretty good books on the topic here and here, or through a number of blogs we recommend to our readership, namely: Michael Gray (GrayWolf), Todd Malicoat (StuntDubl), Lee Odden (Online Marketing Blog), Rand Fishkin (SEOmoz), and Brian Clark (CopyBlogger). These books and blogs will provide good insight and instruction on the ins and outs of all aspects of SEO.

Once one has a basic grasp of SEO, they really should get themselves an account with SoloSEO, in order to put this knowledge to use, using the most comprehensive set of SEO tool on the web. Much like exercises in Accounting and Economics, actually using the tools, and seeing the results of your work, drives home the SEO concepts, and puts the finishing touches on the learning process. Through working with SoloSEO’s tools, a solid understanding of the pillars of SEO, namely keywords, links and content will form, and SEO will then seem not only doable, but pretty simple.

So once we understand what SEO “is,” then it is time to really understand our industry online, and review what our competitor’s are up to. This online Competitive Analysis can also be done using some of SoloSEO’s tools and reports. We must remember we are competing within a different marketplace, with new competitors, and how they have positioned their sites online, could and should influence how we position and optimize our sites today and in the future. There is not a pre-determined set of guidelines at this point for SEO, no matter what some might say, much of what we need to do to compete most effectively online will be determined by what our competitors have done and will do in the future. While the process of SEO is standardized, the focus of our specific SEO strategy will need to be flexible to face the challenges put forth by our online competitors. If we watch what they do, and manage our online SEO accordingly, then we can keep pace or outpace what they are attempting to do, and better our online exposure.

In my mind there isn’t a business out there today which cannot benefit from an online presence, especially a site that is well prepared, and skillfully promoted. Small business owners need to take every advantage, use every possible tool and strategy available, to insure their eventual, or continued success. I can think of nothing more vital, more accessible and more easily implemented (not to mention more affordable) than SEO. A site which runs well, and effectively targets the right potential clients, promotes a firm’s image in a positive way, while making sales, even while we sleep, or while we play golf (not that anyone would do this during business hours). Take the time to get to know SEO and you will quickly understand just how big your little company can become, and that realization can be quite jolt.

2 comments Visited 1631 times August 7th, 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 1204 times July 31st, 2007 Aaron R Stewart

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Taking the Ordinary to Extraordinary

Posted by Michael D Jensen on June 26th, 2007

Stuffed animals have been around as far back as Ancient Egypt. Undoubtedly if you have kids you have a collection of them. Although stuffed animals are no longer stuffed with straw or beans, they haven’t really changed much at all over the years, until now. A new company has created the transformer of stuffed animals, Zoobie Pets. Not only is it a cute, cuddly, soft stuffed animal, but it can also become a pillow or a blanket. So simple, but so neat!

Transform your SEO Business

This got me thinking, what other things around us, as ordinary as stuffed animals, could be “transformed” into an even better product and compete with the original? Can we do that with an “ordinary blog” or “ordinary service” like SEO? Yes!

Do you just do run of the mill SEO? Or do you go beyond the ordinary into the extraordinary? Do you offer specialization in services such as local search, link building, ecommerce sites, jewelry retailers, link bait, etc.? Do you have certain skills that set you apart from the rest, like programming, design, PR, etc.? Do you offer services that not not only include SEO but also web hosting, programming, site design, logo design, radio ads, print ads, etc.? Even if you don’t do it all yourself, if you surround yourself with a team that works together, even across business lines, you can offer your customers a product that is extraordinary and brings them the results that WILL make them talk about it at other conferences and business meetings.

The Zoobie Pets are so adorable, that I want to tell other people about them. My kids like them so much, they have been telling everyone they meet about their new Zoobie Pet. Having a product that is extraordinary, that can make a passionate user (think Apple, Google) gives you a huge advantage in word-of-mouth marketing.

A few good links about being “passionate”:

Creating Passionate Users blog is an excellent one I subscribe to

A post by Aaron Wall (SEObook) about being passionate in what you do

Disclaimer: My little sister runs LittleAngelBaby.com that sells the Zoobie Pets, and I don’t get any compensation for the referral. If you have a kid in your life, I think they’ll like this, mine sure have!

1 comment Visited 913 times June 26th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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Report Search Spam

Posted by Aaron R Stewart on April 27th, 2007

I was plowing through the myriad of blogs yesterday and found a couple of things I found interesting in Rand’s post called Identifying and Calling out Web Spam on Engine Blogs. While I find the endless online discussion of marketing spam, what it is, where it is, and the ethics of spam to be as about as dry a topic as there is, worse than reading the tax code, there was a couple of points in this post worth comment. One had really nothing to do with spam theory, but was generally good online SEO advice, but I did take issue with this point.

Rand states there is some unspoken, yet understood code of conduct amongst SEOs, that they simply do not report one another for spamming techniques used by some to improve site rankings. Silly. Rand doesn’t proclaim to be educated in the art of competition or business, but in SEO, so he gets a free pass on this affront to the very basics of competitive theory. To those of us who are running our own non-SEO business, if we find our competitors are benefiting in the rankings by utilizing spamming techniques, then we owe it to ourselves and firms to report them. I do not consider myself to be a SEO, just a business person who uses SEO techniques to help our businesses do better online. And I believe most of our readers are in the same boat, just business people trying to make a living. Unfair competition is never allowable, and the “aw shucks” response is rarely successful. Every one of us needs to join the fight to level the search playing field, making it as fair as possible for everyone to be successful if they compete respectfully online. If your competitors are up to no good, and gaming the SERPs, report them, and continue to report them until the problem is addressed. The unwritten SEO code of conduct can be adhered to by that little group, but it makes no sense in business, it is bad policy. Spamming is bad for the net, bad for the economy and flat out cheating in every sense. I am looking forward to the day when spammers are picked up and prosecuted in a court of law, just as is done daily to other lying, cheating, greedy people in the offline business world.

I would go so far to say, if you know your competitor well enough, and are friendly with them, it might be worth a phone call or email just to let them know what is going on with their site. If the competitor has an SEO working for them, they may not be aware the SEO is using spamming techniques to improve the company’s search rankings. This heads-up might solve the problem right there, and it will keep things friendly. If you aren’t friends, or don’t feel comfortable communicating directly, then report the offenses. When your competitor’s pages disappear into supplemental purgatory, and their rankings fall, I am sure your competitor will have a nice talk with their SEO guy to figure out why. Which will be where the SEO blames the SE algo, the tides, and global warming for the instant drop in the SERP results.

On a more positive note.

Rand claims his firm only reports on spam inadvertently in their blog posts, and gives four reasons. The 4 points really don’t matter to most of us, so its not big news. But point #2, taken as general advice, is an excellent reminder as to where we need to focus our online marketing efforts. He states:

You’ll have a far greater return on your productivity time optimizing your site, building content, getting links and conducting press & marketing than you will reporting your competitors for what looks like a paid link.

Okay, as mentioned above, forget the garbage about not reporting on your competitors concerning spam, it doesn’t take much time, so just do it for Google here and Yahoo! here, and protect yourself and your business. But when the majority of our online marketing efforts is spent working and implementing good solid SEO techniques, then we are going to see results and better our ranking over time, and these benefits become long term. That much is very true and it is very sound advice, it is nice to see some established SEOs suggest we focus on the basics.

Build your online business, as you have built your off-line business. Focus on quality, service, branding, and SEO the site the right way, and a sustainable, solid ranking is very probable. But make sure to protect yourself if competitors attempt to slime their way in above you in the SERPs, report them, and continue to report on them until they are buried in supplemental oblivion, where they belong until they get their act together.

3 comments Visited 1590 times April 27th, 2007 Aaron R Stewart

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Duh… Use What You Got.

Posted by Aaron R Stewart on April 10th, 2007

I was on a flight the other day, and happen to see this guy with a really cool PDA phone. I wasn’t sure of the make, and being the gadget hound that I am, I had to know, so I asked. He replied that it was the new Blackberry 8800. It was incredibly cool, and he was obviously pleased to own it. I asked him if he loved it, and what all it did, any new features, etc. His reply… “Oh to me it is just a phone.” I am sure I got a confused/dumbfounded look on my face, and then I followed up with another question of “you don’t use it for anything else?” His reply was essentially he only used it as a phone, he “didn’t need all the other stuff.” I swear my head started to spin, and I felt faint. He won the dipstick of the day award. Here is a really great tool, I mean the PDA phone has functionality out the wazoo, we are talking email, calendar, instant messaging, a to do list, Internet browser, maps, GPS, multi-media player, all this amazing stuff, and this guy only uses it as a phone? He may be the dipstick of the year award winner (especially if I exclude the politicians). First off, there are many cheaper ways to go if you just want a phone, and secondly, I think the status of an item plays a little too big a role in this guy’s purchase decisions. I sure wish I was his car salesman, I mean realtor.

Obviously I was frustrated by this guy’s admission of absolute inefficiency, I mean what a waste of a perfectly good piece of equipment. All the potential to do great things on the go, and it just exists as a lowly phone, not much better than those massive Motorola brick phone of the 80s. It still freaks me out to think about it.

However, the whole experience got me thinking about the similar situation with websites. There are many business people out there who don’t have websites yet, which is just a real shame, they are missing out on ever-increasing online opportunities. Then there are others who have websites, but are only using the site as essentially an online brochure. They are not taking advantage of all the options open to them, or attempting to propel the site and firm’s message up the SERPs, and ultimately in front of potential clients. That too is a waste, a major waste. If you have a website, then you have taken an important step, at least you have something to work with, but just as the Blackberry 8800 was just this guy’s phone, there is much more to a site than just being a brochure. By using SEO tools the power of a site can be released, either by site owners, or through SEO professionals. A site, which is optimized, can take advantage of all the online opportunities available, and becomes an efficient business tool. As a business owner, not having a site is a poor business decision, however, not optimizing a site makes the decision to create the site in the first place questionable. A site not properly optimized is nothing more than a dream not pursued, and opportunity lost.

As for the Blackberry 8800, I was very tempted. But I have decided to hold out. I will go with what I have (miserable Treo700p anyway) until the glorious month of June, where I shall be thereby christened “iPhone Aaron, Mobile Boy.”

Add comment Visited 970 times April 10th, 2007 Aaron R Stewart

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SEO for the Rest of Us - The SoloSEO.com Newsletter

Posted by Michael D Jensen on April 2nd, 2007

This morning we sent out our first SoloSEO newsletter. Our newsletter’s main title is “SEO for the Rest of Us”, and anyone interested in learning and doing SEO, from beginner to professional, can benefit from the content we deliver.

The newsletter format is composed of a fresh new article (”Freshly Squeezed”), an SEO question and answer discussion with our readership (”Stump the SEO”), an article from the blog archives (”From the Vault”), details or discussion on new SEO tools (”Your SEO Tool Belt”), and a list of links to great SEO related articles published by others in the industry (”Super SEO Articles”). We also have a 5-minute SEO tip in the sidebar of the newsletter.

If you’d like to subscribe to our newsletter, which we foresee going out about once a month, use the following form to sign up instantly. No spam, no reselling, just a great SEO newsletter.

If you have any suggestions for what you’d like to see in the newsletter, leave a comment or email us at newsletter[at]soloseo.com.

1 comment Visited 1431 times April 2nd, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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The Future of SEO in Japan

Posted by Aaron R Stewart on March 21st, 2007

On my last day in Japan, I can report that there is a huge market for Japanese SEO services. And there are many companies not only with this understanding, but actively pursuing technologies to help them with their own SEO efforts, and to assist their clients better SEO their sites for more search powered success in Japan. SEO is a big buzz word in Japan, but I was surprised to find out that Yahoo! Japan is the dominant search player here. Google Japan has a presence, but at the present time Yahoo! Japan controls about 80% of the Japanese search industry.

Another aspect many may or may not know is over 60% of the connections made to the Internet in Japan are via a cell phone. I had not been to Japan for a few years, so I was looking forward to see just how small the cell phones had become. On previous trips I had been amazed at just how small they were getting. So, I was quite surprised to find that Japanese cell phones have become quite chunky, and surprisingly large. I guess with so much on the Internet being done on the phone, they decided larger screens and keypads were worth the larger phone sizes. Most of the styles we were seeing were of the clamshell variety, like these.

I also found it interesting to see so many ads around Tokyo for Excite Japan. I had thought Excite was long since gone. I even navigated to Excite.com, just to see if the US version was still around…they are!! I used to love Excite, like 7 years ago when setting up your own, “customized” home page was a new and exciting thing to do. I even had weather and movies on my home page. I noticed that search in Excite is powered by Yahoo in the states, and although I couldn’t confirm this, I would suspect the same is true in Japan. Not too far a stretch, with the remaining popularity of Excite in Japan, and Yahoo controlling 80% of the Japanese search market, it is a pretty safe assumption.

Anyway, Japan is ripe and ready for SEO services and solutions. It is a hot market that will continue to grow. There is much to do for US companies to capitalize here…localization, which can be quite tricky. You can’t just have your web pages translated by a native Japanese speaker, it really needs to be done by someone who understand the SEM/SEO market in Japan. Many of the words being used are Japanese versions of English words, as in the case in much of the Japanese technology industry. So translating directly, word for word, isn’t always going to communicate the message intended, especially to those who know Japanese SEO terms. Additionally, we need to determine the difference in the Yahoo US versus Yahoo Japan APIs, etc. That will be a challenge. The idea of doing SEO on your phone, or receiving SEO reports on your phone, or just how to SEO a site to perform well on a phone, those are also issues that need to be further researched and clarified. Obviously with less room on a cell phone to show SERPs, being number 3 just might be as bad as being number 11 on a desktop. Finally, and probably most importantly, finding a good Japanese partner to help a US firm navigate through the differences in doing business in Japan will be of paramount importance. The reasons an excellent Japanese partner is needed are too many to list, but rest assured any mistake made by a foreign company along the way could prove fatal for their aspirations to do well in a very, very Internet savvy, and SEO prepared country.

The Japanese SEO industry will be very interesting to watch over the next coming years. I think we are in for a wild ride, and nothing is better than that.

3 comments Visited 2082 times March 21st, 2007 Aaron R Stewart

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