SEO - It Takes More Than Sending a Check

I am an SEO expert. I can get you rankings that will drive traffic to your site. I can help you get that traffic to shop your site. I can even help you get those shoppers to buy things.

But I CAN'T do it alone.

I was reading an article from the Search Engine Journal this weekend - What SEOs Expect From Their Clients - and it dawned on me how much time I spend trying to convince business owners that they need to change their site.

Time that I should be spending researching their competitors and their market space. Time I should be spending reviewing their sites for areas of improvement.

I appreciate the fact that when a business hires me to consult on their site that they are spending hard earned money and that they feel like they should have a say in what is done to their site, but if you knew how to do this yourself then why hire me. Go do it yourself and once you've failed then maybe you'll believe what I say and make the changes.

Don't get me wrong. I like explaining how the search engines work. I like explaining how we capitalize on the nuances of their algorithms to improve visiblity and to drive rankings. I just get tired of clients who won't make the changes I suggest or who feel like sending me a check is the only participation necessary for success.

I get lots of excuses why clients won't make changes or get involved.

Sometimes it's because "out competitors aren't doing that". Other times it's "I don't like having text on my home page". Other times it's just a simple "I'm too busy to make the changes".

I completely understand. We're all busy and we all know what 'we' like. The problem is that there are some fundamental truths in optimization and unless you want to spend 1000's of dollars in branding your site, you're not going to get rankings without making the changes that I suggest and without helping me work on your site.

Help me by improving your site. Help me by coming up with new ideas for content on your site.

Believe me when I say I want you to be happy at the end of each day. It's in my best interests to get you rankings and business. It's good for my business and it makes it easier to go home each night.

Trust me, work with me and listen to me. Together it WILL work.

Get Your Business in the Search Engine's Results

A recently release report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project has provided some insight into the 'average' internet searcher.

Available as a .pdf file this Search Engine Users report is the result of a survey of 2,200 adults during May and June of 2004.

"84% of internet users have used search engines" and "35% of searchers will use a search engine at least once a day"

This should reiterate the importance of having your business visible in the search engines results. A carefully planned paid listings program and a properly optimized web site should be a major part of your business marketing strategy. Not just a quick fix, by-the-numbers optimization but rather a full blown web site improvement program.

"68% of users say that search engines are a fair and unbiased source of information"

Simply optimizing your website doesn't take advantage of the trust these people have in the results. One look at your website will either draw these visitors further in or have them clicking the 'back' button and moving on to the next site.


Some other interesting highlights:
44% of searchers use a single search engine, 48% of searchers us two or three search engines while only 7% user more than three.

Only 38% of searchers are aware that there are paid results on the search results page and only 47% of those people felt they could tell the difference between the different results. 80% of those surveyed felt that there should be full disclosure between paid and organic listings and nearly 50% would stop using search engines if they felt that the search engine results were biased.

Finally, as expected, younger users were more confident and aware about the options available and the way that search engines worked.

I Believe in the Chicago Cubs

I am a Chicago Cubs fan.

There... I've said it. I believe that's the first step...

In order to help myself live with this embarassing fact, I have created a separate blog in order to chronicle my life as a Cubs fan. I'll try and break down the emotional highs and lows along with my impressions of the team and the organization.

Enjoy - The Chicago Cubs - Insight into being a Cubs Fan

Why do you blog?

"So, now you're blogging?, "What's the point?", "What's your angle?"

Over the past week I have VERY slowly passed on my blog's URL to a few close friends and coworkers (total ~5) to get some input and those are some of the questions I've been asked.

Those are good questions. I would like to say that I am doing this to help me flesh out my thoughts. When I read or hear something that makes me go hmmmm, I immediately form an opinion. I find that by trying to express my opinion in writing that my opinion transforms. I start to see the flaws in my gut reaction and I start to think of related issues that tie together. Many times I have done a complete 180 by the time I have finished.

Other times I am trying to entertain and sometimes I want to share. I guess in the end I want to have some record of who I am - some evidence that I cared and that I laughed and that I didn't just sit in back and enjoy the ride...

Yahoo! News - Blogger Influence Raises Ethical Questions

Today I was doing my typical morning browse of the news and I ran across and article that made me stop again and think about what I'm trying to do.

Yahoo has posted an article about the influence of Blogging - Yahoo! News - Blogger Influence Raises Ethical Questions

Not that it's shocking but apparently there are a number of bloggers who are trying to influence others!!! :-O (false shock and alarm) There are people who fear that these 'motivated' bloggers will skew the course of public opinion. These concerned individuals are probably the same ones who worry that Barbra Streisand, Sean Penn, Eminem and Michael Moore will change the outcome of an election...

Ultimately, any time information is passed on and discussed the end result is beneficial. With any luck the curious nature of humans along with the abundance of information available these days will create a general population that is more informed and open minded. There are many examples in history where people have only had a single opinion to listen to and have taken the unfortunate route toward 'drinking the kool-aid' or 'invading poland'...


Hopefully, you'll realize that anything posted here is biased. Not necessarily biased left versus right, male versus female or up versus down. But ultimately it's biased by my experiences and my feelings on that particular day. I hope that you won't feel it's necessary to pull apart my quotes and look for trouble or devious intent but rather to inform and educate me the same way that I'm trying to inform and educate myself and anybody else who honors me by taking the time to read through all of this garbage ;)

Together we might learn something...

Daily Drink Helps Keep Brain Sharp - washingtonpost.com

Daily Drink Helps Keep Brain Sharp - washingtonpost.com

Today's article got me thinking of all of the healthy alcohol articles that have been published the past few years. The good news is that based on 1-2 drinks per day, I should be healthy well into my 60's...

"Red Wine Protects From Colds - BBC"

Red Wine Prevents Cancer

"Alcohol Free Beer Stops Cancer - BBC"

"A Drink Every Other Day Keeps Strokes Away"

"Hard liquor, wine helps cut strokes in men"

"Beer - Helps Fight Alzheimer's Disease"

and my personal favorite - "New Study FInds College Binge Drinking to be a Blast!" - OK, this one isn't so much about the health benefits, but it's true!

Click Fraud Identification Steps - WebmasterWorld

Click Fraud Identification Steps

WebmasterWorld.com is featureing a post by 'BakedJake' on how he identified and corrected an amazingly blatant instance of click-fraud. He outlines the steps he took to identify the fraud and the process he went through with Google to get reimbursed (4 days from first call to reimbursement!)

The process and resolution are very informative and even though this won't identify more subtle click fraud, all PPC advertisers should be able to do this basic click analysis.

I was more intrigued by the 5 (and growing) pages of discussion about this post. Many people were grateful for Jake's information, but it is amazing how the discussion quickly grows into conspiracy theories.

quotes:
"...conversion system is entirely in house. My biggest fear as an advertiser is Google raising keyword costs per vertical, and by advertisers using [Google's] conversion system, Google's now got the data to say 'ok, we know how much you make, this is how much we can charge and you'll still advertise'."

"I also have stated that anyone that gives Overture their conversion data, is only opening the door to minimum bid increases for specific vertical markets in the future."


Far be it from me to discount these possibilities on any sort of evidential grounds, but I just don't see this happening. As I stated in an earlier post, I'm not sure that Google and Overture will take strong proactive measures to solve the click fraud problem, but at the same time why would they need to go to these extreme measures to artificially jack up bidding.

The nature of internet bidding is that advertisers will bid as much as necessary to obtain the ranking they need provided they continue to make money (and unfortunately sometimes more than that). Ultimately, the bidding process will drive prices up to the same total they could get with 'your' conversion data. Why would the search engines ruin their reputation (further) by trying to manipulate the system?

As an internet advertiser, you should be prepared for bid prices to continue to climb and the only way you can survive is to lower your costs so that you can continue to make money when your competitors start losing.

If you don't manage your site to maximize your conversions and manage your business to minimize expenses you're not going to survive.

It's the 21st century and the internet is a wonderful new medium that requires new techniques and skills for marketers but the business premises still need to be solid.

CNN.com - Woman falls to death attempting balcony handstand - Jan 18, 2005

CNN.com - Woman falls to death attempting balcony handstand

Is this what Darwin was talking about?

MSNBC - CEO of struggling Krispy Kreme ousted

MSNBC - CEO of struggling Krispy Kreme ousted

How could you mess up this company? This like is like selling legal drugs.

"The donuts are hot!!!! - gotta stop..."

MSNBC - Report: World can end poverty by 2025

MSNBC: World can end poverty by 2025:

"World can end poverty by 2025" - every once in a while something comes along that puts it all in perspective.

Recent contributions for Tsunami aid have been remarkable and will ultimately make a huge difference in the lives of the people that were impacted.

It's unfortunate that it takes a tragedy like the Tsunami for the 'well-to-do' in the world to remember the 'have-nots'. Part of this has to do with the fact that many people feel that they can't really make a difference. Sure, it seems like a daunting task, but ignoring it certainly isn't going to fix it.

Perhaps the 'celebrities' who gratiously donated their time (and hopefully their money) to the Tsunami victims will put together a program that's better than 'We are the world' (not that the intentions are bad - just the music...) and help bring this problem to light.

I guess my favorite part of this story is that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and not just a bottomless money pit.

What have you done today to make a difference?

MSNBC - Click Fraud

MSNBC - Click Fraud: Newsweek report about click fraud.

It appears that the concerns of Internet advertisers have grown to a point that warrants a Newsweek article on the subject. There's not much new here, but Google's George Reyes is quoted as saying something needs to be done "really, really quickly."

Some people in the industry have claimed that click fraud will eventually be treated like shoplifting - try to catch people but accept that there's not much you can do so work it into the price - however the ease with which online fraud can be perpetrated makes this a much more dangerous problem for the entire business model.

Another concern is that even if advertisers are reimbursed for click fraud, it's still possible that their entire budget could be used up by mid-morning and then they lose all of the potential business for the rest of the day. The search engines can say that they have identified the fraud and reimbursed the advertiser for that spent money, but what about the lost sales?

Let's see how concerned the serach engines are about this. Even if a large percentage of advertisers leave the web, there will still be a huge number of companies jumping for the chance to be on the first page of search results.

Are the search engines concerned about integrity and their advertisers or their bottom line?

Yahoo! News - MSN, Yahoo Catching Up to Google

Yahoo! News - MSN, Yahoo Catching Up to Google: "MSN, Yahoo Catching Up to Google"

Apparently, Yahoo and MSN aren't content to lifetime bridesmaid status. Whilte there are still many users who feel that the results of Yahoo and MSN aren't as relevant as Google's, there seem to be just as many who aren't happy with the direction Google has been taking of late.

Google's once simple roots of providing a great source of information to it's users has been clouded by their profit-driven business model of attaching ads to their search results and seemingly half of the pages on the Internet. Although it arguable as to whether this diminishes the value of the results, it is obvious that many people are turned off by these actions - see 'Scraping Google to See What Happens'

It wasn't long ago that Google's reign seemed insurmountable. It worked so well that another search engine would have to be significantly better, not just as good, in order to even make a dent in Google's supremacy.

However, with more and more people viewing Google as more concerned about making money than returning good results, it's possible that Google could be caught by search engines that are simply 'as good'. They wouldn't have to improve, they would simply have to offer a suitable alternative.

I guess we'll see what happens...

Poker Consolation

The trouble with poker is that even if something has an extremely small chance of happening; it still can.
I've read the books. I've played the hands. I know the odds and I understand much of the nuance of the game.

However, despite all of this, there are times when you're going to lose - Today was one of those days.

I sat down with some friends for a no-limit Texas Hold'em poker tournament. 15 people - $50/person. Top 3 positions get paid.

Two and half hours later, I was driving home with 7 players still going strong...

Now, I have to tell you that I hate to lose. $50, $100, bottle caps. It doesn't matter. Losing means that I was outplayed.

So of course driving home, I was irritated. I kept telling myself that I played the cards perfectly today and these things happen. But I was still pissed...

The bottom line is that very soon, I'll be soothed with the knowledge that I played as well as I could have, but that consolation just isn't very comforting right now.

In the meantime, I can just grip about how I was only able to win 1 hand in 2.5 hours. How I saw 25o FIVE times in 10 hands. How I never saw an Ace with more than a 7.

So after 2 hours, I had been blinded down to just over half of my chips and the blinds were at a point where I could only go around 2-3 more rounds before I made a move. Lo and behold, I get a wired pair of 10s in middle position and I figure I've got to make my move.

Of course! The chip leader has a pair of jacks and I get an early ticket home.

Well, what can I say. I could have waited for a better hand, but it was pretty obvious that today wasn't my day. Maybe next time the karma will come around for me.

In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy the long weekend.