SEO Success
May 28, 2009 on 4:22 pm
Filed Under:SEO
One of my favourite’s over at Search Engine Land is Jill Whalen, a gal who’s sentiments echo my own so often that she has been known to come to my rescue in a forum or two when I haven’t communicated my point properly.
She’s done it again, with something that hits very close to home with me in an article titled, "Using Analytics To Measure SEO Success"
It has only just occurred to me that my last post was about another article written by Jill… cue the creepy stalker-esque music and I’ll get back to digging through her garbage. Thanks.
Back to it then, the reason this hits home so much is that I am in exactly the boat she’s writing about. Servicing SME’s that can’t take their eyes off a ranking report long enough to pay any attention to their analytics. That, or the fact that there are just some things that the Googs chooses not to show those of us with free accounts, asking for the world and paying nothing for it.
About a year ago, it came to the point in my business that I was so befuddled by the lack of certain functionality in analytics software that I decided to write my own.
I wanted to know the basics, because my clients want to know the basics, and most of the stuff that I want to know isn’t that different from the stuff that they want to know.
The "W"s:
- I want to know WHO came to my site. IP can tell me where they’re from basically, so that’s what we’ve got to work with there.
- I want to know HOW they got here. What keywords did they search on to get here? Direct links from somewhere else are super too, but that has little to do with my SEO efforts, so I want to know what their search results looked like when they chose to click me.
- I want to know WHEN. Which, when it comes down to it, is really just about how long they spend on each page. Easy as.
- I want to know WHAT they did on my site. I want to know if they cruised my portfolio or if they just went straight to the contact form. I want to know if they read this somewhat dissociative tripe or if they went to the pages and pages of sales and marketing bleah that I’ve got elsewhere on the site.
- And the big one, WHY. This is the tricky bit, that is more than an analytics program can handle. But still, I want to KNOW it, and my software can help.
What’s that? "HOW" has a "W" in it, so shoosh.
So I wrote something I call SEO Success and I’ve been using it on clients’ sites whenever I can. I’m close to unleashing it upon the unsuspecting populace, so if you’re interested, drop me a line and we’ll talk.
Of course, if you’re one of the chosen few already using it. Drop me a line and tell me how I can make it better.
This one has been priceless in helping me with my business, and I bet it can help others too.
Until next time, Have a Good Website.
Actually Quite Funny
May 22, 2009 on 11:00 am
Filed Under:SEO, Web
Jill Whalen’s article titled, "85 Reasons Why Website Designers/Developers Keep SEOs in Business" actually had me laughing quite heartily, but some of my laughter was in that slightly sad way that wonders why people can’t just learn some simple lessons that will ultimately improve their business.
Meh, we all live and learn and will eventually figure it out when it becomes a deal-breaker I suppose. HA, or the deal gets broken!
Hope you enjoy it though, especially when you either A) look at one and go "Hey, I have a client that thinks that!" or 2) look at one and go, "Hey, *I* used to do that!"
Good times.
Keywords really are where it’s at.
March 24, 2009 on 9:58 am
Filed Under:SEO
When it comes to pursuing any sort of venture in the realm of Web Marketing, you need to start with keywords to get any sort of handle on what’s going to happen next. From simple Search Engine Optimisation to fine-tuning your sales funnel to get better conversions (and other markety-sounding terms that I can bust out with the best of ‘em), you need to know what people are more likely to type into that query box.
It’s not just that li’l ol’ search phrase either, that will tell the tale. It’s what they’ll do after based on how they got there. “create photo book” is more than likely someone searching for a website that will either sell them a photo book package or direct them to a brick-and-mortar establishment that will help them build their own. “digital photo book” gets a bit trickier, in that it may be someone that’s looking for exactly the same thing as the previous, but it is more likely to be someone looking for a product that operates similar to a regular photo book but has a digital display, similar to digital photo frames.
One may be easier to rank for and one may show that your website is already ranking fairly well for it. Heck, it may even show that you’re getting substantial amounts of traffic to your site based on searches for that phrase. This may or may not be a good thing.
Here’s where the analytics kicks in, and we see where your visitors went after that. It’s called a “Bounce rate” and it can tell us a lot about whether or not “digital photo book” people left your site after seeing that you’re more about regular old paper “photo books” and not the digital variety at all.
The downside is that without the website traffic, analytics really don’t tell us much, and we’re left to what amounts to a fair bit of guesswork. Big Googs themselves provide estimates on monthly search numbers, but being that they’re just estimates and there’s really no benefit to them in providing actual search data (I’m sure they’ll find a benefit before too long and then find a way to charge us for it) we are still left just taking our best shot.
That’s where the psychology of it shows up, and we have to do our best to understand not only our client’s business, but the mentality of those that are seeking it as well.
And picking the best keyword for this is where that starts.
Oh NOES, Google Results Using AJAX?!?
February 6, 2009 on 8:45 am
Filed Under:SEO, Web, Around the Web
Search Engine Land plopped an
into my inbox this morning and as I was leaving an insanely long comment on that blog, it occurred to me to just post it here.
I love the hand-flapping and red-flag waving that happens whenever the Googs seems to be messing with our lives.
Sometimes I wonder if they don’t necessarily do it under the auspices of a "better user experience" and only do some of this stuff to create columns like this and put all us poor SEOs in a panic.
I don’t, for one second, believe that Google would do something to their search results that would render their own Analytics tool less-capable. Nor do I believe that they would do anything that could do such damage to the analytics software industry.
Has no one wondered what their motivation for doing such a thing would be?
Seriously, when was the last time Google went and did something that so drastically mucked with all our lives that we got mad at them and lost money and clients and shaved all our cats? The Florida Update? From my memory of the experience, all that did was teach us to be a bit more scrupulous (or at least educated in Google’s "rules") in our search engine optimisation efforts.
So, at the risk of sounding too rational and pragmatic and not handflappy enough, I say "So what?"
Google is testing something and may change the entire way they do things…
So what?
So you may have to change the way you do things as well? So you may have to clean up a few of your processes and applications that you’ve long depended on?
Get real and adapt and adjust or die.
I know I’ll be fine, and No, that doesn’t mean I won’t have to do anything. I may have to work my ass off to get my systems to catch up to an all-AJAX SERP from Google, but that’s fine, because there’s probably a lesson in there about how to do things better.
Alrighty, my rant’s over. Catch you later, and have a good website.
The More Things Change…
December 2, 2008 on 11:49 am
Filed Under:SEO
While it seems like every 3-4 months or so, the SEO blogging World is all a-twitter (see what I did there?) about some Google shake-up, if you’re on-the-ball with what your web-oriented business is really doing, you don’t necessarily worry about any of them.
My fundamental tenet is basically "Have a Good Website" and that pretty much sums up what I help my clients with.
Lately "The Googs" has given us Customisable Listings, like so:
With the ability to move a site up or down in the search results based on your preferences, and is also dependent upon you having a Google Account.
Now they’ve thrown in an additional spot for you to search locally for more generic search terms, such as "dentist", like so:
Whether they’re considered a megalomanical cadre bent on World Domination, or just the biggest and bestest game in town, they have always stated that they’re out to "Do No Evil" and have, in my opinion, strived to give searchers the most accurate and relevant results they can.
These latest changes, despite their potential impact on the way many perform Search Engine Optimisation, are no different.
What I hear and what I read will almost consistently sound like "Oh, better tighten up how you do things, Googs has changed the game again!"
My response to this, whether internal while I listen to this or external while I write this, will continue to be "Have a Good Website" and people will find you.
Probably the most sincerest form of marketing there is. Have something that offers value and spread word of it. If you’re not a very good deal, your lack of business will show for it. Conversely, if you’re a fantastic deal and do things right the first time, you’ll see results of that in the form of an increase in your business. Whether that comes from word-of-mouth referrals or from directly quantifiable search traffic, the fundamentals haven’t changed.
Have a Good Website.
If it’s good enough, it’ll get found. If you aren’t sure how to do it, then hire me.
Surely I Can’t Be The Only One…
August 14, 2008 on 11:56 am
Filed Under:Web
In my time in this industry here in Perth, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend. While I’m not naive enough to believe that it’s a new one, I’m still bothered by it.
I keep hearing from business owners, current and prospective clients mostly, that they are almost completely unaware of what kind of revenue their Web Marketing investments are bringing them.
This is not their fault.
Well, not completely anyway.
Again, maybe it’s just me being naive, but shouldn’t telling your client how you’re doing be just another part of the services you provide?
We work in an intimidating industry. Not as intimidating as Wall Street Brokeraging or Contract Killing, but what I mean is that most folks don’t understand 90% of what web professionals do, and the other 10% only know because they’ve either been burnt by a firm and wanted to learn for themselves or they used to actually work in the industry too.
As Web Professionals (web designers, web developers, web marketers) we swoop in and do things that the client doesn’t really understand nor have the time to learn and do themselves, and many have been using that to hide their actual level of service from the client.
Think about it, why is it the client’s responsibility to find out how well YOU are doing for THEM?
In another industry, well let’s take Stocks for example, your broker has to keep you up on how they’re doing for you, and they better be doing it well or you’ll dump them and find another one.
This industry should be no different.
As a Web Marketing Professional, I choose to not only give my clients all the information they ask for and make myself completely transparent to them, but I also suggest to them metrics and benchmarks that they might not have thought of and tell them they should measure me against those as well.
If I’m not getting them a good ROI, then they should know why. If it’s because I’m not doing my job well enough, they should dump me and move on, secure in the knowledge that they now have all the right questions and checklists for their next Web Marketer to ensure that they’re going to get their money’s worth out of them.
As I remarked to a higher-than-average potential client in a meeting earlier this week:
"You should always know how your website’s ROI, otherwise what’s the point in spending money on it?"
Surely I can’t be the only one that feels this way. Somewhere out there, there has to be ethical professionals that actively encourage their clients to be constantly ensuring their value to them.
Free Keyword Research?
August 11, 2008 on 1:08 pm
Filed Under:SEO
Google’s done it, and it’s the talk of the town. While running some routine keywords through their AdWords Keyword Tool the other day, I noticed that instead of the usual ‘0.66’ and ‘0.33’ business that they had going on before had been replaced with actual numbers.
I was elated.
Not only does it save a few steps, trying translate what ‘0.66’ means to me, but it’s data directly from the horse’s mouth, and can even be specific to Australia.
Oh happy day.
The answer to this one is pretty simple.
Doesn’t really matter.
Much like you don’t bet all your money on one horse at the racetrack, if you’re doing proper keyword research, you won’t pick your keywords based solely on data from one source alone, especially when there are several reputable and relevant sources out there.
This doesn’t mean I’m discounting that data by any stretch of the imagination, for it is unbelievably helpful, it just means that I’m factoring it into the mix with an increased, but not exclusive, relevance to my research.
So the bottom line is: It’s great, and saves me quite a bit of time in my more cursory research. But it isn’t the be-all, end-all, for keywords and I’m not going to trust it any more than any other keyword data provider.
If you’re smart, you won’t either.
Paying for visitors instead of clicks
July 24, 2008 on 12:02 pm
Filed Under:Web
Coule be a red herring, a ruse, a bait-and-switch, but I read an article that caught my eye for what basically amounts to the title above. As the rest of the article seemed to be more of a pimping of the company and possibly even they’re advertising scheme, I still liked the concept enough to write my thoughts on it.
Much the same as too much SEO work gets done with little attention paid to conversions, more focus in Pay-Per-Click is put on Impression/Click Through ratio rather than Click Throughs/Goal Pages conversion. Seemingly, the bottom line keeps getting forgotten:
Having your site work for you.
Whether that’s making you money through sales or making you money by driving customers to your shop, shouldn’t you be paying for people that are doing someting on your site other than clicking on it out of curiosity? You spent money on builiding your site and continue to spend money on it to market it, shouldn’t you be getting more than what you spent on it back in your pocket?
So what’s the best way to find out if this is happening?
Simple. Figure out how much you’ve spent vs. how much it’s earning you.
Yeah, I hear you, maybe not so simple. But it should be, and the people you’re paying to market your site should be helping you find out. If they’re not or can’t, sad as it seems it may not actually be an issue of them not wanting you to know if they’re proving their worth or not, it may actually be because they don’t even know how.
Something I’m working to push these days, as a business and as an individual in the industry, is transparency. Accountability goes along with this quite naturally, as does providing clear information and reporting, and both are part of an overall service that it seems so few offer.
So, here’s me telling you that you need to be telling your clients how worthwhile your efforts (and their budget) are clearly and effectively. If you happen to be my competition, then I hope you ignore this advice because it can only make your business stronger. If you’re a potential client, Welcome, I’m not going to hide anything from you.
Quite conversely, I’m going to tell you quite a lot that you didn’t know, and even some things that you didn’t know you didn’t know, know what I’m saying?
Keyword Research - Marketing Pilgrim’s SEM Contest
June 12, 2008 on 3:53 pm
Filed Under:SEO
Yep, I’ve entered into a contest on the Marketing Pilgrim website with an article called "How to Research Keywords".
I know, I KNOW, the title is pretty vanilla. Consider that one a lesson learned. Especially in light of the fact that the other entries are stacked on top of mine like kids in a dog pile, and only the ones with numbers ("5 Easy Ways to..") in them or CAPS actually stand out. Oh, and the one that mentions Kobe Bryant.
All I need is to get into the Top 4 for traffic though, and I’ll have a chance at the Grand Final.
Unfortunately, without my entry being titled something WAY catchier, I doubt anyone’ll notice it.
I’m off to ideate and hopefully salvage my chances at winning this bugger.
Thanks to those that have hit the site, stayed for 2 minutes, and left a comment. I’ll hook you up with some free research or something.
‘Til then, have a good website.
It may not be a lightbulb, but it’s still pretty big.
May 8, 2008 on 12:07 pm
Filed Under:SEO
I am, by no means, Thomas Edison, but after the last month or so, I can certainly understand a bit about how he felt.
I’ve written in here about my ideas, the tools that I’ve decided to build to make life easier for SEO/SEMs, website owners, everyone actually, and I’ve been going great guns ‘o glory on them for quite some time now.
I can remember the exact second I thought of them, and how I began working on them the next day, and in those moments I truly knew what it felt like to be an “inventor”. The thing is, whenever I pictured Old Tommy Alva and his cool stuff churning out of Menlo Park, I never actually thought about how difficult it was for him to build some of these things. The trial, the ERRORs, and the spirit it takes to pick your chin back up and tackle the damn thing again.
It is a trying process, to say the least. I give thanks to those that are helping me test it, and for their invaluable feedback, but some of the headaches I’m experiencing on things that were just. so. simple. in my head are giving me… well… headaches.
One of the things that keep you going though, is that spirit that I mentioned above. Whenever my energy towards these new “inventions” starts to flag and wane, I am further bolstered on by thoughts of how to make them bigger and even better, how to take things even more beyond the limits of conventional thought. In short, dreaming again.
But dreams are good, they’re more than good, they’re great. They keep us going through the humdrum of actually “working” and, in the end, make “work” not feel so much like work.
