Jeff's Online Marketing Thoughts

How To Find Your Keywords

Since everyone knows that search is important and Google basically rules the online world I want to delve a little deeper into the heart of John Jantsch's recent post about using AdWords to identify good keywords to target in organic efforts. If an SEO consulting firm is basing their recommendations on keywords for your site based on the most popular search terms related to your business, run away. Traffic means nothing if you don't achieve your goals, which most likely relate back to a conversion in some way. Using AdWords is a great way to test certain words, and there are plenty of tools to help you choose keywords, but they aren't very useful if you are starting from square one and are new to selecting keywords.

One place for you to start is by listening to your customers. When someone comes to your business, one of the first questions you should ask is how they found you. Listen carefully, not only to what marketing efforts are working, but also to what terminology they use to describe your business. Another place to look is your top ten best customers in terms of the relationship you have with them. Who are your customers that recommend you to everyone in their network? Ask them how they talk about your business, listen to the keywords they use. Finally, the third great place to look is the internal site search terms people enter. Armed with all that data, now you can start testing and tracking which terms perform the best. By perform, you need to look at what drive the best conversions. Traffic means nothing, so you need to have a good Web Analytics package in place to really follow and report on what is working for you. Always focus on your end goal and don't get caught up in numbers like visitors or page views that might look good but don't help your bottom line.
 

What Google's Purchase Of DoubleClick Means To You

A lot has been written about the Google purchase of DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion and it has been interesting to listen to the speculation on what this means. Interesting facts I've read about the deal:

1. This deal would give Google the corner on the online advertising market. Depending on how different people track it I've seen estimates of market dominance from 50% to over 80%.
2. The irony in Microsoft lobbying for an investigation on a potential monopoly. There are others joining that fight, but Microsoft? It just makes you smile.
3. The fact that the owners of DoubleClick sold to Google while Microsoft was offering more money.

I think the sellers of DoubleClick are getting shares of Google in return or some portion of shares and cash. The only way I can see someone taking less money up front is on the potential to have more money in the future. I also think that this isn't the last of the high profile mergers and acquisitions that will happen. It started with YouTube, next you will see Microsoft make a move. They obviously still want to play in the space from their pursuit of DoubleClick and have money to spend.

What does mean for you as an online marketer? I think it will end up being a good thing. It tells me that there are a lot of very smart people out there continuing to develop, offer and consolidate services that benefit you in your advertising efforts. There is the fear of a monopoly, but the Internet is too easy for someone to come up with a great idea and start it in a dorm room to take on the big boys. Heck, that is what Google did just 10 short years ago.

Need Link Building Ideas?

Everyone today knows that having good external links will help your search engine rankings, the hard part and the question I hear a lot, "I know I need links, how do I build them?" For all those people that search is over. The Enormous list of Linkbuilding tips, articles and resources has been created over at Cornwallseo.com. One of my favorites is #1 on the list, Aaron Wall's 101 Ways to Build Link Popularity. I found many others that were interesting including a list of Link Building tools, the problems with .edu links as an end all solution, 12 types of links and how to get them and 11 Guidelines for getting authoritative links. I have to warn you, if the topic is of interest to you, there is enough information to keep you busy for a few days. If I had to summarize the ideas; focus on authoritative links, think long-term and not quick wins and have a broad link building plan. The biggest pitfall that many make is trying to find schemes to get links or prove value of a site by attracting thousands of worthless links. It takes work but it doesn't have to be hard, and this list can help you get there.
 

Customers Before Search Engines

Search Engine Watch had an interesting post by Eric Enge about PageRank Obsession. I have seen it myself with customers and co-workers that when talking about a sites SEO performance through out the PageRank as the number one cause of their not ranking well, when it is usually lack of fresh, keyword rich content that is the major cause that I see. It isn't surprising, when you have easily identifiable statistics, as Eric states, "We all want to measure the progress of our site(s) in as many ways as we can." People are very competitive by nature, not at all things but at those things that are important to them they are. If someone is in charge of a Web site you can bet they are competitive and measure anything they can.

However, at the end of the day, search engine ranking doesn't matter, it is your site and your customer's experience that matters. All the numbers and metrics don't mean a thing if your customers aren't engaged and convert. I've seen some very search engine friendly sites that are not customer friendly, and I've seen some very engaging sites that search engines hate. Find the balance that works for you and measure the things that are truly important. It is the same thing I tell customers about Web Analytics. I see so many measuring hits, visits and page views, when they don't mean anything to you if you are selling something. If your focus is eCommerce then you need to be worried about getting customers to buy and come back to buy again in the future. More traffic often just means higher hosting costs and other performance problems. It is great exposure, but if nobody buys what does that traffic get you?

I agree with Eric, focus on your customers, they should come first in everything that you do.

Need Fresh Content - Start With Your Home Page

One best practice you hear about in Search Engine Optimization is to keep the content on your Web site fresh and changing. A great article on Duct Tape Marketing talks about how important it is to update content and just by updating your home page content, even every two weeks, can help you improve your search engine ranking. The key points that I think everyone should take away:

1. Your home page is still the key page in your site. Adding a blog or message board to your site doesn't change the homepage content.
2. The content changes have to be relevant, there's that word again.
3. Your content should keyword rich. It is important to have a good keyword dictionary for terms that you are targeting that you utilize when you are writing.

I would agree, that simply by changing the home page content of your site every two weeks it will improve your rankings. How often updates are made and how often search engines crawl your site is becoming a more important factor the search engines use in determining where you rank.

It's All About Relevance

Content in your site needs to be relevant, content in your ads as well. Now there is more proof that the links coming into your site need to be relevant. Internet Retailer had an article about how Google changed the way they measured inbound links, and more importantly the effect it had. For some it was as negative as you can imagine, getting pushed down where it will take 6 months to regain their ranking, if ever. Those that were hit the hardest are those that acquired links in mass volumes, usually not looking at their quality. Those that are the safest are those that acquire links slowly over time. Links have become a new spam, as always people find ways to get around the system, but sooner or later, those that are relevant (there's that damn word again) are those that will win.

Yahoo Panama Increases the Need To Be Relevant

As many have heard, Yahoo's new paid search service, code named Panama, was released last week. For the most part things have gone well with it as customers have been transitioning over. The thing to realize is that all 3 major search providers, Google, Yahoo and MSN, all base their paid search results to some degree on relevancy. Gone are the days of just outbidding someone for a popular term to drive traffic. Your site content has to be relevant to the keyword. That also helps your site from an SEO perspective as well. Search is moving more and more towards end user focused, everything is continually being refined to more specific and targeted content that the end user is searching for. The moral of the story, you need to have good content on your site, no matter what your method of bringing them in the first place.

A Potential Rival For Google

Here is an interesting idea on a project in the works. The founder of Wikipedia is working with Amazon.com to create a new Search Engine to take on Google. Their idea is based on the same concept that  has made Wikipedia  so successful, thousands of human editors. The thought is that humans can create more relevant search results than the computer algorithms at Google and others.

There are obvious flaws with Google, but their rise was due to the relevance of search results. But in recent months, there have been more issues of people exploiting the holes in Google. With thousands of humans checking sites and saying if it is relevant or not, that could easily become the missing piece that Google is lacking.

One of the interesting things with this is Amazon's involvement. Earlier this year they shut down their search engine, A9.com, because it wasn't seeing any growth. Amazon is obviously still looking to get into the space, and they understand what the future of the Internet is search. However, they don't want to rely on Google, they want their own piece of the search pie.

This is going to be very interesting to watch in the coming months to see how it develops and how others like Google and Yahoo respond.

Official word from those starting the company can be read here.

Redesigning Your Site - Think About SEO

Every couple of years, you should think about redesigning your site. With the Internet, there is always new technology and fun gadgets that can make your Web site much more engaging for your users. Often a redesign doesn't take into account the work you have done to this point to get your site ranked with Google and friends. Top Rank has a great post on things to think about when changing the design of your site.  The big thing you need to consider is that pages have names and identities to search engines. When you change, you need to help the search engine to go from your old pages to your new pages. This will ensure all of your rankings are maintained, and hopefully improved.

Google Is Evil To Some, But Good For Partners

I've posted in the past that Google is making a lot of enemies because they are very secretive in some of their practices and they seem to be more about making money then their search results relevant. There is a good article by Kevin McArther where he talks about some of the good things Google is doing with partners like MySpace where they have helped both companies become more successful. There are going to be a lot of changes in the search market in the coming months and years. Best source for the latest information is at John Battelle's Searchblog.