SoloSEO

Nobody Logged Into MyBlogLog Anymore?

Posted by Michael D Jensen on March 15th, 2007

From all of my daily blog browsing, as well as watching our own blog, I don’t think many people are logged into MyBlogLog anymore. I know several blogs that used to have MyBlogLog on their sidebar, but don’t anymore.

I disabled MyBlogLog a few times early in January because it was dead slow, but that seemed to get resolved for the most part.

Then after the Shoemoney incident MyBlogLog fixed the authentication issue and in order to be logged in you had to go back and log in again. TechCrunch has a great round-up about the whole thing, including our second debut on TechCrunch (first).

I ran some tests earlier this week using one of our Missing MyBlogLog Tools, the Show All Visitors tool. I looked at several different blogs I read that are still using MyBlogLog on their site (graywolf, yaro, lonelymarketer, and andybeard). I know the traffic varies significantly between the sites, but even the high traffic sites had nowhere near the MyBlogLog turnover I would expect. On our blog, I used to be able to refresh every hour or two and have a whole new set of 10 pictures of people that came to our blog, but now I’m lucky if one or two new avatars shows up every hour or two. And it’s not our traffice, because since then our blog readership has increased more than 50%.

I think Yahoo is going to need to promote MyBlogLog a bit more with some integration efforts before they convince more of us to put it back on our sidebar. I loved seeing the faces of my readers, but now if only 3 or 4 of them are actually logged into MyBlogLog and the sidebar has very little turnover, I have little interest in watching it (it’s like watching a snail race) when I know by our analytics we have a ton more people actually visiting our blog.

Sorry MyBlogLog, you’re going to have to win me over again. Plus, you can’t say I never helped, I created a whole tool set for MyBlogLog (and still no trip to Yahoo or 1%).

9 comments Visited 1964 times March 15th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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SEO vs. Paid Search Marketing Clash

Posted by Aaron R Stewart on February 13th, 2007

If you have not gone over and read about the tussle between Dave Pasternack and SEO pros, you must take a minute to review it, it has been quite entertaining. Our friend Michael Gray has jumped in with both feet, and his post called Dave Pasternack of Did-it.com - How to Fix Your Problem is an excellent place to get a good overview of the feud. Essentially Dave Pasternack has come out saying SEO isn’t “rocket science,” and it has caused a bit of a stir among the SEO ranks. Pasternack claims he gave up SEO years ago, and now considers himself a PPC expert, and co-founded a company that consults and assists firms with their paid search campaigns. It is his opinion that SEO is a “Fix-it-Once” Task, not an Ongoing Service. It is this statement where Mr. Pasternack loses credibility. It would be nice for all of us small business owners if SEO really was a quick, one-time fix, but instead it is an ongoing and unrelenting pursuit. Not only to keep our sites optimized to do well in SERPs, but also to stay ahead of our competitors, competing for the same keywords in the same marketplace. I think this point gets glossed over by many discussing SEO. As a business person first, I personally don’t care if I show up as #1 on a SERP, I just want to show up above my nearest competitor for the same or similar products and services. Some markets will be more volatile than others, but keeping an eye on competitors, and their movements in the SERPs will always be important, and most likely a moving target. The importance of competitor watchdogging will continue to increase as more firms figure out the benefits of online marketing, and begin to implement SEO and Paid Search techniques.

So personally, I have no problem with the use of well researched, and wisely created PPC campaigns, and well managed SEO techniques; there is a place for both practices, and using one without the other doesn’t make much sense. The first step however is to SEO your site and get it optimized for the traffic which the PPC ads will hopefully drive to it. I have noticed Paid Search only gurus occasionally suggest SEO pros use “scare tactics” to encourage long-term service contracts, but unfortunately the Paid Search guys do the same thing, making site owners nervous about doing PPC campaigns themselves, and perhaps blowing their opportunity to do well. PPC isn’t too tough either, don’t let either of the two groups scare you, just realize both take some expertise, and some patience to LEARN. The main reason there is demand for these two services is they both can be overwhelming if you don’t understand them, and they are both work.

As an example, 5 years ago I use to sit down and do my business and personal taxes myself, I even used TurboTax a few times. Even with all the Turbo Tax tools it took quite a bit of time, it wasn’t rocket science, and I got the job done, but frankly I did not enjoy it, even though a sizable refund was my eventual reward. Now with a dozen different business running, and less time, and no patience for our screwed-up tax system, I love the fact I can pay someone, an expert, to do all that work for me. I could do it, but I don’t want to, I have other pressing matters more important to me. There is the SEO and Paid Search services in a nutshell. The tools, advice to do both are out there to learn, but whether someone has the time or desire to learn and do them on their own, is completely another issue. I will also admit there is some increasing art to the SEO process when we consider link baiting, creating a buzz and social marketing aspects into the online equation.

Finally, there will be times when all the SEO and Paid Search in the world isn’t going to get you anywhere, as marketing results will depend on the industry you are marketing within. One of our companies has a very nice site, it is SEOed well, and we have been running solid PPC campaigns for the most appropriate keywords in the industry, but we have gained little traffic and only a few leads a month. We know the industry well, we know our service is widely sought after, we know we are priced nicely, but we still don’t have the business we know we could have. So last week we headed Orlando to exhibit at a large trade show in this industry. The results were amazing, our service was highly sought after and well received. We heard comments like “where have you guys been?” or “we have been looking for something like this for years,” from booth visitors. So the golden question… where were our potential clients looking when they couldn’t find us? The answer… obviously not online. Make sure you know your potential clients, and where they are most likely to be searching to find you, if it isn’t online, then adjust to help them find you some other way.

The world continues to move online, and will continue to do so in an ever increasing pace, but not everyone is there yet. Marketing is the art of getting the firm’s message to potential clients, wherever they may be, even if it is offline. So getting your site’s SEO in line now will pay dividends in the future, but it may not be the end-all, be-all marketing home run you want it to be right now, especially if your future clients just aren’t online yet.

Add comment Visited 1957 times February 13th, 2007 Aaron R Stewart

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Using Social Networks like MyBlogLog for Marketing

Posted by Michael D Jensen on January 17th, 2007

Social networks are amazing from a “data mining” perspective. I’ve had a few posts about MyBlogLog recently, uncovering an easily exploitable flaw and announcing the Missing MyBlogLog Tools. As I’ve looked in depth into the MyBlogLog “network” that is accessible by the public, I’ve realized how much potential there is for doing so much more than what most social media companies do with their networks. A recent research paper (actual paper; thanks to here for blogging it) discusses this in detail, how social networks like MyBlogLog and MySpace create an opportunity for network-based marketing. It’s an interesting read for any entrepreneurs and social media marketing lovers out there.

MyBlogLog’s network is made up of specific reader communities, visitors, and member contacts. With the Missing MyBlogLog Tools I was able to determine, almost in real-time, users who are visiting the same blog. I have thought of other ways to use the network, that I don’t dare program or make available, such as tracking how often specific users come back to your blog, or how often they frequent other related blogs. Now combine this with a public profile, though hopefully most people share very little, and you’ve got yourself quite a number of marketing characteristics.

How about showing content based on their MyBlogLog communities and contacts? I think it could be determined, with a bit of programming work, when a new visitor arrives that is logged into MyBlogLog. You could show an article, ads, or whatever based on who they are as defined by their network in MyBlogLog. Cool, maybe scary, maybe both.

It will be interesting how social media operations actually capitalize on their own networks, as they are the ones with the real access to the data. All we get is what we can see, and often even public data is hard to get to reliably.

Your thoughts on mining data from social networks for marketing?

2 comments Visited 1928 times January 17th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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