Just read through all of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and noticed there was no mention of avoiding paid links. Hmmm… Do you think they simply forgot to mention this in their popular guidelines for webmasters? This is the page they tell webmasters to read if they are having ranking problems or for those who have been banned. Seems like it would be logical to mention linking practices that they definitely don’t agree with.

It seems a bit strage that I can’t find much in all of Google’s official documentation against BUYING paid links. It’s more geared towards those sites SELLING and how they should make sure they don’t pass “link juice” to sites that are buying advertising. Here’s some evidence of that…

“Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:

• Adding a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the <a> tag
• Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file

Google works hard to ensure that it fully discounts links intended to manipulate search engine results, such excessive link exchanges and purchased links that pass PageRank.”

Another thing to mention is that if your site gets reported for paid links, there is very little chance that it will get banned manually. In fact, the following quote from Google’s own website further demonstrates that they are trying to deal with the problem algorithmically which would mean there would be major ranking changes for many sites all at one time should they ever find a way to fix the issue.

“If you see a site that is buying or selling links that pass PageRank, let us know. We’ll use your information to improve our algorithmic detection of such links”.

Even so, there’s still no evidence that they would penalize the buyer since that would mean that any competitor can purchase a bunch of shady links pointing to your site and get you banned. They would be more likely to devalue the links or penalize the seller.

Recently, Google released a starter guide explaining some of the basics principles of SEO. I believe this is a very positive thing for SEO’s since it confirms what we have been preaching (and practicing) for years. Things like title tags, meta descriptions, useful 404 pages, search engine friendly URL’s are the cornerstone of any well ranked site and should always be implemented before getting to the stuff that REALLY helps you rank above your competitors….that’s why I like that they appropriately named this a “starter guide”. It’s similar to a starter guide to renovating a house, you can probably cover a few of the basics yourself but if you want to do anything major and you want it done right, you’re better off calling in the pros.

There’s a blog meme going around in the internet marketing community that apparently Matt Cutts started about voting this November. The whole idea is to tag 5 people and get them to post about it and tag 5 other people. (You can find out more info on how to register to vote here). I’m usually not a big fan of these things but when it comes to voting this year, I think it’s important to try and get the word out…that you shouldn’t vote. If you’d like to understand why you shouldn’t vote, then watch the video….

I’m tagging:

SEOMoz - Because I like their blog (but i’m sure they are already all registered).
PPC Book - Because Jeff Hudson writes the best PPC Book around.
Tropical SEO - Because where the hell did Andy he go? I used to love his posts.
SugarRae - Because I like her biz advice posts (althought i think she lives in Canada now?)
Brad Geddes- Because I think he lives in a swing state now…

Over the last couple of years I’ve noticed a couple things in the search space: 1. keyword tools are unreliable 2. PPC traffic can show some valuable search trends. Well here’s the point: PPC and SEO help to inform each other consistently.

There are reasons why SEO and PPC should always be in cahoots: On the SEO side, a simple look at the analytics queries that come through and spend time on site are usually from keywords that are relevant and have a value. If there is evidence that some terms that show up organically on page 2 or deeper in the SERPs are getting hit are are converting, then these are that have value for PPC. We can immediately pay PPC to be seen next to the top ranking organic sites showing for these competitive terms. Of course, because this is PAID traffic, and because CPCs can be so wildly different for each industry or vertical, ROI calculations should be applied constantly.

Now it gets interesting. On the PPC side, and before SEO goes to work creating targeted landing pages, title tags, keyword rich content on the site, etc., wouldn’t it be great if there was an idea of ROI that stood independent of search volume statistics? Well, unfortunately this is the risk of PPC at every turn in the game. Yes there are competitive analysis tools, bid optimizers, keyword research tools, and on and on… These amazing tools, while infinitely helpful for a modern marketer, just do not round out the actual field of search. When it comes down to it, every search is still based on user generated content, and this content, even if sometimes predictable, is just as often counterintuitive.

I propose that while entering an SEO commitment, you should be testing the viability of the keywords you want optimized on your web pages by employing PPC. This way you can build out the particular keywords on the main targeted pages of the website while keeping tabs on the PPC keyword statistics which perform best for your site’s ROI.

Through Google, this should be done in a couple ways:

1. Use your usual keyword research tools to come up with a nice grouping of unique keywords in order to test how they react in the live market. Remember to only use the exact match option for these keywords, be sure to bid them to a desired position, and most importantly, make sure content network is set to “off”. Obviously this could get pricey as you want to ensure that your keywords show up before the fold on page one and keep in mind that you want enough data in order to make decisions, but this method will give you an idea on how often your keywords are currently queried and how well they convert for your site.

2. Set up a separate ad group for testing. This adgroup should be phrase matched and include peripheral keywords that are more open ended. Pull a Search Query Report every week or so. Depending on volume and conversions, this adgroup should yield a bit of information. Use these newly found keywords that have converted for your site in the exact match campaign - overall, you may be surprised by what has brought in revenue.

Remember to continue to test new keywords, and certainly don’t forget to put a good spin on your ads. Don’t forget to test ads and don’t stop coming up with new approaches to test.

After a couple of months you can take your PPC metrics and compare them to your old keyword research tools… odd how PPC traffic and traffic estimate tools seem to vary so much sometimes.

Now you can take both statistics into account when optimizing your pages - using PPC to find keywords that are actually profitable for your site can save a tremendous amount of time on the SEO side. There are times when the highest volume keyword that a site could rank for is not the most profitable, and these are the times for which we need to test. Suddenly the PPC advertising budget can become an investment in a long term search strategy.

In their ongoing quest to dominate the universe, Google has announced that they are coming out with their own web browser called Chrome. Interesting news considering they were so “in bed” with Firefox before. It was a win win relationship for Google and Firefox but now it doesn’t look like that relationship will continue much longer. It sort of makes sense that Google would come out with their own browser. I guarantee that over the past 5 years or so, as FireFox has steadily grown in popularity, they have also grown a backbone and don’t bend to Google’s will as easily as they used to. I was actually kind of surprised that Google didn’t just buy Firefox a long time ago considering they have bought their way into so many other markets. If Google dominates the browser market they can control which search engine a lot of people use since many people use the default search engine that comes installed in their browser.

I just downloaded Chrome and started testing it out. I have to say it is definitely a lot faster. I tested it out on gmail which always runs really slow for me in Firefox and Chrome runs like 5 times faster. Pretty cool… I’m sure they still have a few bugs to figure out but it looks like this might mean trouble for Internet Explorer which still dominates around 80% of the browser market. I also like that when i open a new tab or a new window they show my most visited sites for easier access:

I’m still going to continue to use Firefox because of all of the plugins that I have installed but as soon as we start seeing some plugins for Chrome I might take the leap!

Times have changed and the meaning of what is classified as “a hard day at work” has changed as well. I just read a great post by Seth Godin about the true meaning of hard work these days. Times have definitely changed in the work environment. It used to be that hard work meant plowing the farmland in the hot sun for 12 hours a day, or working at a factory producing machinery parts. Nowadays, hard work for a lot of people means taking creative and personal career risks to get ahead. Can you compare taking a risk at your job to a 12 hour day of plowing the fields? I think it’s probably comparing apples to oranges. It’s not that we don’t work hard these days…just in a different way.

I find this kind of insight fascinating as I grow my company. I’m so glad that I decided to take risks in my career. Starting my own business has been one of the hardest jobs I have ever had but I love what I do and I know that I’m helping my clients grow in the process which makes my job so rewarding. The one thing I have learned is no matter what your job is, unless you take some kind of action, you won’t get anywhere.

I’d like to leave you all with a little quote.

“In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing,
the next best thing is the wrong thing,
and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
26th president of the United States

Happy Labor Day Folks!

Arguably one of the most important things to an online marketing campaign is to have some goals in place. I think that figuring out what goals to focus on can be the hardest part sometimes. Tracking them is the easy part. Here are a few ways you can start tracking some of your goals using Google Analytics.

Goal Funnels and Funnel Visualization:
Setting up funnels for goals and watching the visitor patterns in those funnels can help us see if people are doing what we would like them to do on the site.

Three examples of funnels we can track are:
1. How many people are going to the “join our newsletter” page and joining the newsletter vs. how many of them are leaving the page.
2. How many people are going to your “contact us” page and filling it out vs. how many of them are leaving?
3. How many people are going to your “shopping cart” page and actually checking out?

Setting up the funnels is pretty easy but it depends on what kind of URL’s you’re dealing with and whether they are dynamic or static. You can read more about setting up goals in google analytics here.

Important Metrics and What they mean:
Another thing we can keep track of are the metrics for the important pages on the site which are usually the homepage and you main category pages. Here are the main metrics on those page and the explanations for each.

• Pageviews – Amount of pageviews (includes people that left and came back)
• Unique Views (only counts unique visits)
• Time on Page (average time a visitor spent on that page before they left to a different page)
• Bounce Rate (clicked the back button or exited the website)
• % Exit (exited the website from this page)

So for example, if you notice that the amount of Pageviews go down on the homepage then you know there is a problem. If you notice that the bounce rate is really high on one of your category pages for example, you might want to think about ways to improve the page or figure out where the traffic is coming from since so many people are bouncing.

Search Engine Traffic & Goals:
Last but not least, another valuable metric for us to track would be the amount of search engine traffic that the site receives broken down by search engine (In Google Analytics this is the search engine traffic and goals report). This report shows the amount of traffic that each search engine sends us as well as how much of that traffic completed the goals we have set up above. This report can also be broken down by keyword for each search engine so you can track exactly which keywords brought you how much traffic and whether or not those keywords completed your goals on your site.

These are just some of the ways you can begin to track your goals. If you’re not tracking anything right now then you are missing out on one of the most effective ways of improving your conversion rate and your site overall.

Okay, the title of this post is a bit harsh but it got your attention didn’t it? This is the first in a series of posts answering some relatively basic SEO questions that people typically get confused by. The questions are actually not that stupid, they are common misconceptions about how search engines work.

Today’s question is: What’s worse…duplicate content from within your own site or duplicate content from other sites?

The person asking this question wants to know if having duplicate content on pages within your own site is better or worse than stealing content from other sites and putting it on your site. This is like asking, what’s worse, a broken radiator or a broken transmission? Obviously, both are equally as bad, in different ways.

Duplicate content within your own site:
If two pages within your own site have the same content or a very high ratio of duplicate content, search engines will typically pick one of the pages and devalue the rest that are duplicate. This type of duplicate internal content is very common.

Duplicate content from other sites:
If you use content from other sites, search engines will penalize your site by devaluing the page on your site that has the duplicate content. But what if I had the content on my site and somebody stole it from me you ask? Search engines will typically know who had the content first because they look at the cache dates of both pages. Whichever site was first to be cached will usually be awarded as the original content owner. There are some exceptions to this rule but this is how it is generally decided.

A question that I get asked a lot is, how do I know if my content is unique enough? Basically, it comes down to ratios and percentages. If a large percentage of your content is duplicate, search engines will either devalue the whole page or the whole site. This is not always noticeable. For example, your site might have 30% duplicate content that has been copied from other sites compared to 70% of high quality unique content. If this is the case, search engines don’t want to throw out the 70% of your Unique content that is valuable to their users. Therefore, the solution is to just devalue the pages that have the duplicate content so that they don’t necessarily rank as high for competitive searches but would still rank for longer tail searches. This might be happening right now to a lot of your pages and you don’t even know it. While its great to rank for long tail searches, you don’t want your pages devalued if you can avoid it, so let’s get working on that duplicate content people!

Every once in a while, you come across a business name that just leaves your head shaking. Whether the name chosen is a really poor play on words, really hard to spell and thusly, find, or infringes on someone else’s trademarked name, bad decisions are made all the time when naming businesses.

This all took on new meaning in the 90’s when domain names started to pick up popularity and you had another issue to worry about, how well your business name translates online. Take for example, a local Chicago favorite, George’s Hot Dogs. They are celebrating 60 years this year, so they have definitely done something right, but with their new website, George’s Hot Dogs (www.georgeshotdogs.com) looks a lot like George Shot Dogs when you look at the domain name!

Obviously this one is tough to plan ahead for when you’ve been in business that long, but without a doubt something you want to keep in mind for future business endeavors.

What types of business names have you seen lately that have made you laugh or think twice?

With all the buzz going around about the new up and coming search engine, Cuil (pronouced “cool”) we obviously had to kick the tires a bit to see how this bad boy would drive. As CNN reports, Cuil was created by ex-Google engineers, and who better in the business to drive the technology behind a search engine than those that helped to create the current market share leader.

While Cuil claims that the advantage of the new search engine over other engines like Google is that the results will be displayed and ordered based on the content of the site more so than the quality of the site and the links pointing to it, it also appears that they took a stab at a new visual layout as well. Unlike search engines that have come before it, Cuil definitely has a different way of showing results with the top 3 (or 1, 4 and 7 in the search results - it doesn’t really say) results spanning the first row of the results with the rest down below. On smaller monitors, this definitely gives a much larger advantage to those that appear in that first row.

Cuil also appears to grab random images from the site and displays them next to the result. Some are appropriate, some probably detract but by displaying pictures next to the result it gives even further advantage to those that are shown with better pictures than those without pictures, regardless of the value of the page itself.

The one advantage that I do think that is visible in its current state is the ability to navigate through similar subjects and categories with ease. Sure, other engines employ this subject fairly readily, especially Yahoo, but Cuil does it without overpowering the page and with fairly simplistic functionality and use.

Cuil also seems to claim over 120 billion indexed pages, which far surpasses that of Google. I only seem to get results half of the time though when searching for things and am greeted by the following page:

Really, 120 billion pages indexed and nothing about call tracking? Clicking search a second time found results, but a 50% success rate at even showing any results is nothing to write home about. Google killer, definitely not. Overtaking Hotbot, a fair possibility.