Internet Marketing in 10 Minutes

In the early hours of the morning on Wednesday November 28th Rand over at SEOMoz posted a blog titled, “ Complaining about Some Google Missteps“.

I didn’t much like the post and left a comment that says:

I’ll probably take a little slack for this comment but that is ok…

While I understand your complaints and have plenty of complaints of my own about Google related issues, I felt this post was very much like a public temper tantrum.

I went along with my day but I kept a close watch on additional comments to see which MOZers were going to have a lot of nasty things to say about me. I even started watching my blog for increased amounts of traffic thinking that people would be curious as to whom the looser is that basically accused Rand of whining.

As it turns out I only had 2 - 3 people comment on my negative comment and they merely said that they disagreed with me. No verbal backlash and I didn’t get a ton of thumbs down either. I even got a thumbs up that wasn’t from a friend or colleague.

Anyways, after work I decided that I would write two apologies to Rand. The first was a public apology that I posted on the blog post itself here. The second was an e-mail to Rand himself.

I decided I’d write this post on my blog because I wanted to comment on what a great guy Rand is. Not only did I not get slapped down for my comment by him or anyone else but he responded to my personal e-mail to him in a positive manner. He truly taught me a lesson today and he didn’t have to lift a finger to do it.

As it turns out the blog post that I thought was terrible at first yielded a large amount of comments and some very useful insight to Google directly from multiple posts by Matt Cutts. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few blog posts come up out of this midnight posting from Rand.

So two thumbs up for Rand Fishkin over at SEOMoz for being a better person towards me then I was towards him.

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When was the last time you bought a car, a new computer or booked a trip? Regardless what you’ve recently purchased or have plans to purchase for this Christmas season, a large number of people will do what consumers do best… look for the best offers.

Ranking number one for a desired keyword is always flattering to your visitor statistics but being number one doesn’t always guarantee the lead or sale. It is my opinion that most people won’t end their search on the number one result in Google. Instead they are most likely to check other websites under that same keyword or redefine their search and start all over again in their hunt for only the best.

This morning I found myself looking for Garmin GPS systems and ended up looking at prices at four different websites including Best Buy, Circuit City, Wal-Mart and Tiger Direct. All four websites are well built however I still didn’t stop at the first one, I was certain I could find a better deal at one of the other large companies.

I don’t think it matters how perfect your site or price might be. Consumers will always take a look at several websites before making any decision to buy on line. Adding to that opinion I’ll also go as far to say that most consumers do a lot of their research in allotted blocks of time. Here are just a few:

• Before work
• During their Lunch Break
• After work - Before Dinner
• After Dinner - Before Bedtime

I’d estimate that no more than an hour at a time is spent doing research on a product at any one sitting. Unfortunately it turns out that a website owner has to compete with other websites regardless where they rank simply due to the comparison shoppers most consumers are. So out of the entire hour that is dedicated to research you probably have 10 minutes of a visitor’s time before they are off somewhere else.

If you are ranking number one for the search term that a searcher searched for then you’ll most likely get a lot of traffic but it probably isn’t the prime location to convert a visitor into a conversion.

If you rank position number four or five for the search term then you risk a visitor running out of time before they have to leave for work, finish their lunch break, make dinner or get to bed.

In my opinion it is far better to rank for any given keyword term in positions two or three. I say this because I believe these positions have a higher conversion ratio then the other positions. Most people are satisfied after two or three different opinions of just about anything.

• Uniqueness: 1.0
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Usefulness: 1.0

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I am employed by a large company offering marketing packages for their clients. For the most part I’d like to think that I am fairly successful at what I do. 78% of the keywords that I track for all of my clients are ranking within the first page of Google during the month of September.

A lot of what I do for each and every client I have is customized to their own specific needs. Some clients simply want more eyeballs on their website which means higher rankings on many related keyword terms. Others like the traffic and leads that their website generates for them while others still are perfectly fine with 1,000 visitors and a high lead capture ratio. Regardless their needs, I do my best to oblige them.

I must admit though that a lot of what I do or instruct my clients to do is pretty much Cookie Cutter SEO. If something worked for one client in Florida then the same concept might work for another client in California or anywhere else. Should I not doctor up an existing e-mail that was previously written by me for one client and send it off to another client?

Some of these things are as simple as adding keywords within the content, updating meta tags, anchor text links, cleaning up the source and I’ll even go as far as suggesting the same kind of lead capture idea’s to one client that I’ve already suggested to another client.

The suggestions or practices may be Cookie Cutter SEO but the end results are all different and unique to each and every client.

I don’t always agree with Cookie Cutter SEO. I don’t believe that you can sit down and write out a years worth of suggestions if you are a consultant and upon obtaining a new client set them up on an e-mail drip campaign. Many things could have changed since you wrote your suggestions out and you could be causing more harm than good for your new client.

If you are primarily a consultant, which means you tell your client what to do instead of doing it for them, make sure that if you are going to use
something that you’ve sent someone else that you rewrite it some to be unique to that specific client. I’ve made the mistake in the past by simply forgetting to change the name after ‘Dear..’. Whoops!

I write most of my proposals or suggested modifications to a website in Word. I save those in a folder called TEMPLATES and I’ll occasionally pull bits and pieces or all of the information from a specific file to send to one or more clients. A habit I’ve developed is to make anything variable within the document bold and red. You might try implementing some strategy like this as well if you start to manage dozens of clients on a regular basis.

- 10 minutes of SEO, SEM & Internet Marketing

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I think I’ve caught myself saying that I wouldn’t get into the conversation about the Page Rank (PR) that is displayed on the Google Toolbar. However here I am writing a blog about the topic.

Titus Hoskins from Marketing Tool Guide recently had one of his articles published over at Site Pro News titled “The Big Google PageRank Slap - Perception Is Everything”

I felt that the article was a good read.  I often am guilty of telling people that the Page Rank displayed in the Google Toolbar is useless because it isn’t an accurate rating of what Google actually has within their system at any given time. While this is a true statement, it doesn’t mean that the PR on the Toolbar is useless as you’ll find out when you read the article.

Thoughts on Recent PR Update

In October webmasters everywhere noticed a series of updates made to the Google Toolbar Page Rank.  Aaron Wall from SEOBook said there was at least three updates.  He also goes on to say that “If you rank you rank” - Source: [Video] Google Lies: Oh My _______ Google PageRank Penalty.

I’ll have to agree that if you rank you rank.  Page Rank might be important for perception purposes like Titus Hoskins wrote about but it has very little to do with how well your site performs within the SERPs. For example, a well known directory was lowered to a PR 3. However, according to a source within the company they’ve seen a huge increase in gross sales and increased volumes of Google Bot visits. They know what they did wrong and have taken appropriate steps to correct the issue but in the meantime a really good directory got slapped with a PR 3.

Is Google’s Page Rank all that important for a sales team?

If they are looking to use a high PR as leverage while talking to a corporate big wig with money spending capability I’d say that it is highly important.  However, I say it is important only because there is a good chance that the corporate decision maker doesn’t have a clue in regards to what it is, how it helps or how it hurts. All they know is that someone showed them a scale from 0 - 10 and that the scale is tipped in the solicitors favor. This is perception working in the sales teams favor.

Is Google’s Page Rank all that important to a search engine optimizer looking to increase rankings within Google’s SERPs?

I’d have to say not so much because it has very little to no diverse affect on how well your website ranks or doesn’t rank. It has been proven countless times that a website can out rank another website with higher PR for competitive keyword terms.

Is Google’s Page Rank all that important to a mom and pop shop who wants to increase potential traffic by advertising on directories or other vertical marketing vehicles?

I highly doubt they even know what the Google Toolbar is and those that do know what it is probably have never even enabled the option to see the measurement tool. The only way it really becomes valuable to them is when a sales team utilizes it as a leveraging tool.

I’ll close this post up with something else that caught my eye in Aaron’s post above.

“Google has a long history of deceiving webmasters, in order to push Google’s business interests and keep their search results clean.”

• Uniqueness: 3.0
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Usefulness: 2.0

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Before Internet marketing became a wonderful reality for me I had devoted my younger years to becoming a Chef. The one thing I remember about working in kitchens is that I never wanted to go home and cook dinner. I always went straight to the freezer and grabbed the best looking TV dinner.

I have close friends that work at Wal-Mart or Radio Shack and others that are teachers. Regardless what profession people are in, the common consensus that i’ve seen is that we like to leave work at work and enjoy what little time we have of our home life having fun.

My choice to dive into Internet marketing over six years ago has completely changed my understanding of being passionate about what I do. It also brings on a whole new outlook on being addicted to work.

So taking a page out of Rebecca’s rulebook over at SEOMoz I thought I would outline my typical day with my addiction with Internet marketing. Unfortunately it isn’t filled with sushi, repeat visits to Starbucks and meeting with people like Dave Naylor. It does however depict a day in the life of an SEO addict.

• 4:00 am: Wake Up
• 4:05 am: Check e-mail and Google Reader for eye catching SEO article titles.
• 4:55 am: Run out the door while still swishing mouthwash because I read an article or two and lost track of time.
• 5:20 am - 6:00 am: Try to catch a nap on the train but end up thinking about what I read in the morning and how to apply it to my days work ahead of me.
• 7:00 am - 3:30 pm: Spend my day and most of my breaks in front of my computer providing my clients with advice and reviewing their newest additions. I also end up doing research which sparks conversation between all eight of the marketing specialists in our department.
• 3:30 pm - 4:15 pm: Carpool with a co-worker where we end up rehashing things we’ve read during the day or strategies either one of us has decided to test out.
• 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm: Get as much time in on my personal websites as possible before the wife comes home and threatens me with the dog house if I don’t peel myself away from my work.
• 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm: Dinner with the wife and a show or two.
• 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm: Back at the computer hitting forums, on line marketing chat rooms and blogs commenting or helping others.

Somewhere in there you can count on me checking rankings, analytics, sitemaps and other factors that I pay attention to.

While it may look like the only time I have away from my addiction is during dinner I swear I step away on different occasions through out the week. Errands have to be ran, the Gym has to be visited, I need naps and well… my wife and I are having a baby so I’ve obviously made time for… well you know.

The few things I don’t like doing at home is taking my work home with me. Content writing is also one of those things I’d prefer to leave to things I am passionate about and that is mostly talking about SEO, SEM, Internet Marketing and the works.

Rule of Thumb: Don’t ask for content writing advice from John unless it is geared towards a topic he is passionate about. He will be happy to recommend a writer or two though.

Anyways, this post came to mind today between 3:30 pm and 4:15 pm when my co-worker and I were on our way home from work. We both are addicted to Internet marketing and while neither of our spouses understand our obsession maybe some of my readers will understand exactly where we are coming from.

Can you relate? Do you find yourself having a similar schedule? Share about it; after all the first sure sign of an addiction is denial.

• Uniqueness: 1.0
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Usefulness: 1.0

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So I’ve ran across another great article by Axandra this morning that I thought I’d share with my readers. However, since this is my second post about one of their articles I will point out that you can sign up to receive their free newsletter yourself if you’d like. Click here.

This week’s article is titled, “Top 6 reasons why your search engine rankings have dropped“.

A lot of my clients could use a healthy understanding as to why rankings go down from time to time. Believe it or not it isn’t always a conspiracy between your fellow competitors and Google hasn’t purposefully with bad intentions decided to pull the plug on your site; not while I’m working on it anyways.

A lot of people I know in the SEO industry could use a little dose of reality too. I see a lot of new faces come and go on forums, social networks and blogs. Most are quick to jump the gun and point fingers at everyone and anyone and not at their own handy work.  I too have been guilty of jumping the gun when I was younger and I always caused myself more grief then was needed. Hopefully by extending this to my readers I’ll save them some grief.

If you are an Internet marketer then you’d benefit greatly from slowing down and learning some basic common sense reasons why sites you manage may have fallen from page one. Several of those reasons have NOTHING to do with the on page optimization you’ve done and trying to fix something without really knowing what’s broken or why it is broken is never a good idea.

I encourage you to read the article but for those of you who are too busy to slow down here are the six reasons without explanation:

1. Your website changes
2. The links to your website change
3. The websites of your competitors change
4. Spam elements on your web pages
5. Search engine algorithm changes
6. Technical problems

• Uniqueness: 1.0
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Usefulness: 1.0

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