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.
One is sometimes better than Two
April 22, 2008 on 11:16 am
Filed Under:SEO
Most folks cruising this blog for the first time may start to think that I’m a bit of a Mike Grehan fan because of the fact that I link to so many of his articles. I’m afraid it’s true.
I can’t help it though. Every single morning I read anywhere from 5-20 different newsletters and up to 30 blogs, ALL industry-centric, and the guy just writes stuff that so strongly resonates within me that I feel like I have to write about it.
Today is no different. His article, “Analyze This, That, and the Other” is yet another example of not just the point that I try to get across to my clients and peers, but to the entire Web Industry, that SEO and Web Analytics are too important separately to NOT be put together. They’re the core of my business and desperately need to be blended together into one, cohesively data-ed, easy-to-use tool that’s both good and good for you!
As I eluded to in my last post, I’m working on one and, while it’s still small I believe it’s important and if you’re an SEM/SEO I can think of no reason that you wouldn’t want to use it.
Web Analytics and Search Engine Optimisation have been too separate for too long. Two separate logins, URLs, software apps, sections, or tabs on something-or-other isn’t working for me any more. I’m putting it into ONE and it’s almost ready.
So, good on ya Mike, for yet another article that speaks to me.
Take it easy, and have a good website.
Something SEO this way comes…
April 21, 2008 on 12:15 pm
Filed Under:SEO
I’ve seen it happen all too often lately, where someone is hired simply for SEO and nothing more. The client is looking to sit better with the Search Engines and figures that there’s some sort of “trickery” to get this to happen. “If only we could hire someone to do something about it,” they think, “we could harness some of their witchcraft for our own purposes.” Fiendish cackling aside, this is not terribly far off the mark as far as what goes down in the clients’ noggins.
So they hire someone to do some SEO, figuring that something magical may happen. Sometimes it does, usually it doesn’t, and they go away wondering just that much more about whatever it is that happens when someone “performs” SEO. Search Engine Optimisation isn’t a magic trick or waving a wand. Anyone with 15 minutes to spare can Google the term and figure that much out. Hopefully, information on the basics of it will spread thoroughly enough throughout the web such that the majority of people seeking the service will start to understand that.
Part of educating others is blogs like this one, where we debunk a few myths and basically use a very no-nonsense approach to our language and industry references. I’m the same with my clients, in that I don’t sugar-coat a whole lot, instead shooting straight from the hip in the hopes that no one will have to waste time or money.
Well, I’ve been busy lately (too busy to even blog, heh), and I’ve been working on something that is even bigger than just words in a blog or a voice on a phone. I’ve been building something. I don’t want to go into too much detail just yet, but it’s pretty cool, this thing I’m building. It literally “popped” my eyes open at about 4 AM a few weeks ago, and I haven’t stopped working on it since.
Here’s a basic rundown… I’d been thinking lately about all the SEO and Web Analytics tools out there, free and otherwise, that I use for my business and are pretty much integral to making me money. Most of them are great and I love them, but I still use them for my explicit purposes, and not necessarily as the creator had in mind. There are still other tools that only do a small fraction of what I really need, leaving me to do the rest manually.
Well, I started searching, really looking, for something that did what I, in particular, needed. And I couldn’t find anything that did it. Oh, some stuff came close, and I could pretty much do what I needed by combining data from about 5 different places, but who wants that? At the end of the day, I wanted one place, for me and my clients, to stop in and check out how certain things were going.
And that’s what we’ve got now. I’m just tweaking it and trying to make it a bit more usable. Thankfully, I’ve got clients (and Friends!) that are helping me with this. Soon, I’ll roll this sucker out to a few industry colleagues and have them see if it is indeed something that is both exciting and usable.
And, dear reader, once it’s ready, I’ll make it available to YOU. Trust me, it’s worth the wait, especially for you SEOs out there that are tired of trying to be Google Webmasters too.
Until next time, have a good site.
Social Networking.
April 4, 2008 on 12:35 pm
Filed Under:Web
I’ve got an e-buddy who came up with this beauty over Christmas, The Original Social Network. While born for hilarity, it is no less true, and got me thinking about the social aspects of our e-work and how important it is to get back to basics once in a while.
So, when someone on the local nerd forum here in Perth suggested that we have a meetup for coffee as opposed to the pub fun that we can never seem to make it to (because we, unlike some of the others, decided to procreate, the efforts of which keeping us quite busy), I was excited.
At first, I was excited just for the fact that I would finally get to meet some of these people in person. Then, I thought about the networking opportunities and got so excited that I forgot to bring more than 3 business cards. Even though I didn’t think a huge amount of folks would be there, I figured on more than 3. We did have more than I thought, and that was awesome. So many, in fact, that I didn’t get a chance to sit and talk to everybody before they had to dash out and please demanding clients.
For those that I did talk to though, were most impressive. In my brief tenure as a small business owner, I’ve spent substantial time networking online, I’m signed up for all the techie accounts, I post in several forums, I comment on just about every blog I can find… I’m networking all over the place.
And yet here, in what is sometimes very reminiscent of a small town of Perth, is where I’ve found my “network”. It’s no, Original Social Network, as it’s got its online component, but I’m meeting people. People that now know me, in person, and have just that little bit more idea of what I do and how I do it. That knowledge, combined with my winning smile (notice I don’t mention what it would win) is sure to get me some business through these folks.
And all I had to do was sit, have a coffee, and shoot the breeze with some pretty interesting folks. That’s what I call Social Networking.
Next is beer and barbecue, THEN we’ll start talking about “social”. I can’t wait.
Social Media and Web 2.0
March 10, 2008 on 5:40 pm
Filed Under:SEO, Web
Jason Burby, another favourite over at ClickZ, recently wrote about Social Media and Web 2.0 and I am forced to echo his sentiments once again.
In times passed, I may or may not have been guilty of pushing the Web 2.0 aspect of site promotion a bit too hard, encouraging blogs and forums where they may not have been the absolute best solution. Now though, I can sum up my overall theories and beliefs on the best things for a site in one phrase:
Have a good website.
I say this quite often, I’m aware, but that’s because it’s so important to me. Part of the reason that SEO/SEM firms get such a bad rap about being snake-oil salesmen and scam artists is because so many of them push something purely because it’s working.
Social Media, sadly enough, is yet another victim of this. SEOs see that Digg and Reddit can drive traffic to a site and, as they’ve undoubtedly promised it already, they’ve got to deliver on some increases in traffic or end up looking inept. So, they throw a few articles in there, plug a few pages, and use these clever tools in ways that they weren’t originally intended.
Unfortunately, many Social Media sites are headed that direction, where they’re being used for the wrong purposes, and I fear they’re going to get burned by it.
The Social component to a site needs to be just that, social, and as soon as SEOs start making it too commercial then we’ve only given ourselves a bad name.
Yet again.
Combining your Pay-Per-Click Campaign with Search Engine Optimisation
March 3, 2008 on 9:18 am
Filed Under:SEO
I’ve heard it said enough, on enough SEO company sites, that your Search Engine Marketing strategy should always combine your Pay Per Click Campaign with your Search Engine Optimisation efforts.
While this is for the most part true, I don’t believe it’s absolutely integral to a solid campaign.
“What? Did he just say I don’t need to do the thing that every other SEO says I have to do?”
You got it.
Though much like everything in this online world, it all depends.
Sure, if you’re a brand-new site, don’t have much budget, and need to start getting some interest on your site quickfast, PPC is the way to go. SEO should always, ALWAYS, be there though, regardless of whether or not you’ve got a Pay Per Click Campaign going.
And also much like everything else in this world, it comes down to budget too.
If you’re new at this, then using just a bit of your budget to get some exposure, as well as get a feel for the market and keywords, is a fine idea and PPC is a decent way to do this. But, if your site has been optimised, you’ve got a solid idea of what the market looks like, and you’ve even done some keyword research, then I find that it’s a better idea to save your budget for companies like ours.
Depending on the bidding competition, you’re sometimes better off paying someone like me to do your keyword research and hustle to get you that one, high quality, high profile, highly relevant link, which in turn will drive your site’s value up as well as give you plenty of traffic.
It’s been my experience that Pay Per Click has it’s place, a close second to SEO in some cases, but your money can be better spent getting the right kind of qualified and relevant traffic to your site via quality linking. To me, it’s a much firmer foundation for traffic than something that people may or may not arbitrarily click on and you have to pay for regardless of whether or not they actually do anything on your site.
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