Archive for March, 2007

What is more important, Link Aquisition or Content Creation? Which is most cost-effective, and results-effective?

Let’s look at the benefit of creating content. Content is permanent, and it also adds other criteria the spider looks for. Eg: kw density, hyperlinks, word count on page, and relevancy factors.

Although, writing quality content, and relying on it to lift your search engine rankings is more of a gamble than buying monthly links. Because, you’re hoping someone strong will link to you. Basically, you’re hoping for the viral aspect ( or linkability ) of the content. Whereas buying links, is quick, easy, somewhat guaranteed, but more expensive than Content Creation.

Generally speaking, you’ll get more “lift” from buying links…and it’s a quicker short-term solution. Also, buying links solves the dilemma of not having linkworthy content.

Ideally, you should try to have both. Link aquisition & Content creation provide a 1-2 punch. Even if you have a kick ass piece of content, buying links will give you visibility, then more people can link to you. Meaning, if you have content that’s awesome, but noone knows it exists, you wont get links.

Ok, but the question remains….how about the value of buying link worthy content vs. spending the same amt on links? Hmm. I’m guessing most SEO consultants will probably say that linkbait is much better than buying links. The problem is getting that content out there. Social bookmarking sites are good for that.

My guess is that plenty of journalists are scouring sites like Digg & RSS Search everyday for fresh content to write about.

Content creation can also mean just creating additional webpages with any kind of unique content. More pages indexed is a good thing, and will add to the site’s overall SEO power/relevancy in the Search Engines. Basically, by creating content, even if you just have pages indexed, and even if its mangled text, you will get some additional traffic…and/or possibly scraped text.

I received an SEO question regarding whether or not it is a good idea to use old email newsletters (PDF files) as website content.

We are setting up a site/blog for one of our clients. They have a ton of content in the form of newsletters that they were mailing out to customers. We are going to repurpose the newsletter content to put on the blog. Would you (a) release all of the content at once or (b) release the content slowly over a period of time?

If the content is released slowly, then Googlebot will probably figure out that there is fresh content to crawl every day, and your PageRank will probably increase, because the Google spider needs to keep coming back to crawl fresh content. On the other hand, if you release all the content at once, then you’ll instantly have more Search Engine saturation (pages indexed), and an increased amount of traffic due to an increase in findability from all the pages of content.

I’m more partial to the latter idea of releasing the content all at once. I like traffic. Additionally, if you release all the newsletters at once, all your pages will begin the aging process, which is a criteria taken into consideration in the search engine ranking.

Remember to optimize those PDF files, since they will be used for website content. Google spiders & indexes PDF documents. To fully optimize a PDF document, you’ll need to fill in the PDF Document Properties. Using the full version of Adobe Acrobat, open the PDF file, and press CTRL + D. This will open the Document Properties. Within the PDF’s Document Properties, enter in the PDF’s Title, Author, Subject, and Keywords. The Title you write in your PDF Document Properties will show up in Google as the PDF’s link. (Without it, all of your PDFs will be indexed as Untitled.)

How can you tell if the PDF is crawlable? If you can highlight the text, then it is crawlable. Most PDF’s are text-based and fully crawlable just like a html file. But, what if the text is an image and just pasted into the pdf so it looks like a “normal” pdf? Then, Google will not be able to crawl and index the PDF. Similarly, Google does not index image-based text.

Ever wonder what makes one keyword more competitive than another? Is it just the amount of results Google returns in the SERP’s? Or, are there other variables to consider? For example, the term “SEO Consultant” has returned, Results 1 - 10 of about 1,360,000. Is that really a competitive keyword, compared to the term: “MTV” which has 87,700,000 million results?

To begin your analysis on how difficult it is to rank for a keyword, several factors need to be measured.

1) How many searches were conducted in the last 30 days.
2) The Number of results that appear for that term in the Googl;e results page.
3) How many results appear for the term in an: allintitle: search
4) How many results appear for the term for a: intitle/inanchor: search
5) Inbound Link Profile strength of the top ten results for the term.
6) Average PageRank of top ten results.

Rather than doing all this analysis manually, Rand has created a great tool that does all this, and more. It’s the SEOmoz Keyword Difficulty Tool.

Here is a Bid Management strategy to optimize a Search campaign that has Branding and/or Traffic goals, such as: Click Volume and CPC. These types of success metrics are usually used for large brands that don’t measure website conversions, or just don’t have any way to convert a visitor. Think of consumer product brands like: Revlon, Pampers, Burger King, and many of the Pharma brands. They are more interested in Brand Awareness & Engagement, and measure those overarching business objectives with web analytics, and software like Hitwise.

So, working with this type of client, efficient Campaign Delivery, and the quality of relevant traffic is critical to the campaign’s success.

When should you increase or decrease your CPC’s? If you are consistently hitting your daily budget, but, need more clicks and/or the Avg CPC is too high, then you should just dial down MAX CPCs to get lower avg CPCs and increased volume.

If you still hit your daily budget consistently at the new lower Max CPC, then lower your bids again the following week. If after lowering your bids you are not hitting your daily budget regularly, you might want to consider a Long Tail Keyword Expansion, and/or Ad Optimization.

The motivation to write this post came after reading Todd’s post regarding Negotiations and Client Sales for SEO Consultants. Todd’s post is about how to handle selling a prospect when they call you for SEO Consulting. My post is about the opposite scenerio. It’s how an SEO Consultant can sell a prospect when the SEO Consultant initiates the call (cold calling). Sales is a necessary part of every business ( as uncomfortable as it may be ).

When I worked at Did-it, they invested in training all employees on Sandler Sales Training (no relation). In my opinion, that’s was a very smart corporate strategy/edge. Pattern Interrupt, Mirroring, and Reverse Selling were a big part of it.

One of the sales trainers called my voice mail, pretending to be making a sales call. He didn’t do half-bad with only getting a 10 second prep on what is SEM. Below is my transcription:

SALES SCRIPT:

Hi Jay, this is Shimon Sandler calling. This is kinda an ackward call…we haven’t actually spoken before…maybe if I took a brief second to explain why I called, you could decide whether we should continue or not?

[Prospect says, "Sure".]

Okay. Great. First, I’m calling from a company called Did-it. We specialize in managing Search Engine Marketing campaigns. What we do…uhh…it might not make any sense for you. But, typically, the companies or people I speak with like yourself that are interested in having a conversation…they may complain to me about things like…CPC prices are going up, and their ROI is going down, they know there is a lot of business is out there on the web, and each deal is worth a lot of money for us, but we’re just having a challenge pulling it in. They’re really not sure what to do. Paid Search is getting more & more challenging.

Now here’s the thing. At this point, I’ll leave it up to you. I don’t know if you’re having any issues like that. Are you experiencing any challenges with Paid Search?

LISTEN CAREFULLY.

Then ask PAIN QUESTIONS:
1. Tell me more about that.
2. Is that a big deal?
3. How long has it been going on?
4. How does that affect you?
5. That stinks.

If he says, “Not interested”. Say….

Really? Sounds like we’re done. Can I just ask you a research question? If there is one aspect that you could improve in your Search campaign…What would it be? What keeps you up at night?” [Listen to him]

I know we said it’s over. But, you should know you’re not alone. That’s exactly the kind of thing we work on. However, I need to learn more about your business & campaign before I can be absolutely sure we can help you. If you don’t have time now, would you like to schedule another time to speak about that specific issue?

For a PPC Consultant, work into the conversation some operational questions like:
1. What are your Campaign objecties ( Share of Traffic, ROI, CPA, Position, CPC, etc.)
2. Monthly spend?
3. What engines are you on?
4. How many keywords?
5. Are you using any technology for Bid Mgmt and Conversion tracking?
6. How are you optimizing the campaigns now?
7. Do you have a creative strategy?
8. Are you doing any testing? (What are you testing?) (ad copy, positions, keywords, landing pages)?
9. Are you doing any Local Search vs. Global reach?
10. Are you doing any Demographic Targeting?
11. Are you managing your Search campaign or is it outsourced?
12. Have you tested high-cost phrases vs. low-cost phrases to see which delivers a better ROI?
13. Are you using Keyword Matching Options like Broad Match, “Phrase Match”, Negatives, and [Exact Match]?

For an SEO Consultant, here are some conversation starter questions:
1. Are you equipped to handle an increase in business?
2. How are you driving traffic to your site now?
3. Is the landing page that appears in the SERP’s the one you want to appear?
4. Do you know what percentage of your Share of Traffic is for your Keywords?
5. Have you conducted a Keyword Analysis?
6. How much traffic are you getting now? Organic vs. Paid?
7. What are your highest traffic keywords?
8. Do you use Web Analytics?
9. Have you previously done any SEO on your site?

Looking at the big picture, SEO is divided into 2 components. They are On-site optimization, and Off-site optimization. Both of these components are necessary to produce the desired SEO results. I’m about to reveal what I think is the most effective way to conduct a strategic link campaign as an Off-site optimization.

Over time I have accumulated an effective link network. Most of the sites are “power sites”. So, I thought I’d write a post about off-site optimization.

Begin by renting monthly links. But, you don’t want to be dependent on relying on the rented links forever. So, here is a strategy to begin strong out of the gate, and then wean off of the rented links, without hurting your rankings in the Search results pages.

Don’t just rent a bunch of links. Your link campiagn needs to be carefully thought out, and custom crafted to the objectives for your individual website. The amount of time spent custom crafting the link campaign and consideration of link effectiveness, will have a direct result in your SERP ranking.

Renting links allows you the control of which sites your link appears, what anchor text is used, the link placement, PageRank, etc. So, you can get faster results, and more bang for your buck, from beginning your Off-site Optimization with a custom crafted link campaign.

Concurrently, you should be buying permanent links, and/or conducting viral (linkbaiting) campaigns. The only issue with viral campaigns is that you have no control over which sites are linking. And, that’s a pretty big consideration! Permanent links can be bought from certain web properties. It just takes a lot of time researching and contacting them, and ultimately coming to an agreeable price. A less sophisticated/targeted way is thru the recent advent of paid blogger reviews thru companies like PayPerPost, ReviewMe, Blogsvertise, and CreamAid. However, some of their inventory is very spammy looking and could possibly do more harm than good.

To summarize…
Begin by renting monthly links. Keep them in place while you build permanent links. Only after you have attained a whole bunch of permanent links, can you begin to wean off the rented links. But, do this slowly. And, test the result of removing each rented link. You might need to put it back in your campaign if you drop in the Search rankings. So, try removing another. Repeat process until you are weaned off of all the rented links.

I have a feeling I’m making this sound easier than it really is. To do it right, takes a lot of time, experience, and investigative work. So, if you have any concerns, or questions, feel free to contact a SEO Consultant.

When writing the Description tag, here is some information to keep in mind. A good description tag is more than just ensuring the keyword you are optimizing for, is included. When optimizing the Description Tag, keep in mind that’s what will appear in the Google SERPs ( search engine results page ).

So, don’t just write a spammy looking tag for the purpose of SEO. Write for the people searching for your product/service. Write a compelling description that will make people want to click on your listing. A similar strategy should be used when optimizing Title Tags.

If you don’t have a Description Meta Tag, then Google will usually grab the textual content that surrounds the keyword that was searched for.

One more thing…the Description Tag doesn’t have as much power as the Title Tag does to give your page a boost in the SERPs. So, when writing it, just make sure it contains your keywords, and is about 2 sentences long, summarizing what the page is about.