Here I sit blogging in my hotel room at the Renaissance in Austin, Texas before a full day of search and social marketing brain dump at Pubcon South. Immediately after that is SXSWi for a few days. A few days after that it’s NYC for a PRSA thing followed by SES New York.  I speak at 15 plus events a year which means a good amount of travel. Unless you’re thoughtful about it, travel & conferences can equal a lot of unproductive time.

That’s where the geeky gadgets come in. While I would have liked to name this post “10 Electronic Gadgets a Digital Marketer Can’t Live Without”, the reality is that there are many more than 10.

Tumi ballistic nylon briefcase – A bag is more important than many think. The right number of pockets inside and out, rugged, not too big or too small. This bag works perfectly for all those reasons, especially for my laptop.

Sony Vaio VGN-TXN25N – This 11″ screen laptop is common sized to many netbooks on the market today, but mine is at least 3 years old and packs some real punch for it’s size (2.8 lbs). As a laptop, 3 years is 90 years in people time so I am looking at an upgrade to a solid state drive. I do quite a bit of blogging at conferences, so a small form factor is useful for being mobile. It’s also appreciated when doing work on airplanes, where space is an issue because of Mr, “I have to see how far back by seat goes” sitting in front of you. Oh, and stickers on your laptop are what happen from numerous trips to Web 2.0 conferences and the bay area Tweetups. It’s also a good conversation starter.

ATT USBConnect Mercury Wireless Card - The antennae for my built in wireless card broke off and I can’t stomach the idea of sending my laptop to Sony for 2 weeks to get it repaired. Not wanting to pay through the nose for hotel internet any longer, I broke down and purchased this wireless card from ATT and it’s worked great for me everywhere I go.

No Name 4 outlet power strip – I have no idea who makes this, but it’s a 4 outlet mini power strip that’s only 5″ long and makes friends easily at conferences where laptop and iPhone charging is in high demand and outlets are not.

3G iPhone – I was a Blackberry user for a while and after buying my partner an iPhone I had to get one myself and I love it. Typing takes some getting used to and no copy paste is a pain in the ass, but there are so many other productive and entertaining uses for this thing – especially web browsing, email, calendar and Twitter.  Plus photos and YouTube are handy. I don’t see going back to another phone exclusively any time soon.

iPod Touch - I got the Touch before my iPhone and that’s where my music, purchased TV shows, music videos and a few movies are. Plus a number of videos from Google Video. Love that you can directly transfer from Google Video to iTunes. Too bad Google Video is being phased out. I also use the Touch as a storage device and where there’s an available internet connection, I can surf Google or web mail.

Sony Cybershot DSC-W80 – Not pictured because it’s taking the picture above. Friends and long time followers know of my sad tale of losing my old Sony Cybershot to a glass of water at a Russian restaurant in NYC. Then it came back to life! But again, tragedy struck after I left it in my pocket and the Cybershot went through a washing machine AND dryer. Get this: It came back to life AGAIN! It doesn’t work quite the same though, so I picked up a new model. I’d still like to have the old one though, worked like a charm at conferences fitting easily into a suite or jeans pocket – very sturdy.

Battery charger for the Cybershot - What else can I say? It charges my camera battery. I like the folding prongs but it’s still too bulky.

Pure Digital Flip Video camera – This has got to be the handiest, portable video camera I’ve had. It takes perfectly good video for the web and battery life is better than normal. Uploading to YouTube is a snap too. It’s great for informal video interviews with conference speakers and industry people who don’t mind talking in front of a camera.

USB cord and outlet adapter for iPhone – Apple product design rocks.

SanDisk MobileMate SD+ Card Reader – For SD+ Memory sticks, my older laptop needs a card reader. This one is compact and handy.

64mb Thumb Drive – Conference swag from Ford. I have many of these thumb drives, but this is the one that happens to be in my bag at the moment. If I ever purchased one, it would have a lot more than 64mb but that’s plenty for a few PPT presentations.

Shure Earbud Headphones – These portable earbuds are perfect for use with my iPod Touch or iPhone. Awesome bass in such a little package and the come with multiple sized covers and a handy nylon case. While writing blog posts at conferences, it can get me in the zone to listen to a bit of music.

Logitech VX Nano Wireless Laser Notebook Mouse – The USB receiver for this mouse is absolutely tiny and you can leave it in at all times with no problem. A small size and perfect form factor with all the features of large, full featured devices.  My laptop touchpad is horrible and this mouse makes me much more productive.

Gorilla Camera Tripod –  Flexible joints make this awesome tripod fit anywhere for taking still shots or video with my Sony Cybershot or any other camera that can connect to a screw in tripod. Great for interviews when it’s just me and I want to be in the interview or unusual camera angles.

Brookstone Rechargable Backup Battery – If you have an iPhone, I know your pain. Short battery life. Besides, with power outlets at a premium, we wouldn’t want anything to get in the way of our Twittering, would we?  [Said with a crazed look] That’s why for conferences, it’s really helpful to have a backup battery and this one works for me just fine. Plus it has a retractable cord that makes it especially convenient.

So there you have it. I’m sure I could have many more gadgets and certainly many of those that I do have need updating/upgrading. Maybe I’ll make this a quarterly feature. What do you think?  

What  geeky electronic gadgets make you more productive and entertained during conferences?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Geeky Gadgets for Surviving and Thriving at Conferences | 17 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

A while back, I had a search marketing job candidate answer the, “Where would you like to be in 2-3 years?” question with, “I want to be a famous SEO”. “Why?” I would ask. “Because that’s my goal”. Fair enough, but it’ll be tough to pay the bills with a wallet full of famous.

An amazing number of people seem to think becoming well known in the search marketing business is an end in and of itself. Not seeing the forest for the trees, these folks put vast amounts of time into link bait ridden blogs, networking up and getting addicted to the rush of ego that comes from being recognized. Is it because they misunderstand reputation marketing or are they really thinking being a “SEO celebrity” is a bankable goal?

The reality is, the benefit of getting a brand out there, whether it’s a personal brand or a company brand, is to establish credibility and confidence in abilities to the target market. Becoming known is a stepping stone to achieving other goals like new clients, speaking gigs (especially paid speaking gigs), connections with marketing partners, talented employees and other activities that generate business.

Earning that business, delivering and being successful because of providing value is what earns a reputation. Establishing a well known brand and reputation in an industry is only worthwhile if there’s something to back it up. Otherwise, all that is achieved is a hollow online existence requiring the constant feeding of “notoriety crack”.

I personally network enthusiastically and our blogging team has been known to write a few compelling blog posts from time to time. But there is a reason for it, a goal. It’s not to be well known, it is to open doors for potential clients, employees or marketing partners to do business.

Writing blog posts for the benefit of the industry and getting links from other SEO blogs is fine, but being able to write blog posts that consider the needs and pain points of your target audience and giving enough information to demonstrate your expertise while not completely giving the goods away to competitors is a skill worth developing.

Make no mistake, if a potential SEO client has heard of a SEO consultant or agency from several credible source(s), then it can shorten the sales cycle to next to nothing. It can attract more desirable clients at better market rates. But there is a difference between being “that” guy or gal everybody knows but with little to back up the notoriety – ie clients/income and being the well known person/company that got there by consistently doing great work and attracting a premium client roster.

Maybe it’s really an issue of the “chicken or the egg” coming first. How is a new person/agency going to get clients if no one knows about them? Alternatively, how will anyone know about them unless they have some impressive clients to brag about? If that’s the case, then I say blog on, network like crazy and get some business going.

I’m curious if any readers have noticed the “need to be SEO famous” thing lately? Is it an issue or is it a good thing that gets more good content published and networking going on than otherwise would happen?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2008. | The Fallacy of SEO Celebrity | 85 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Even our dear WordPress which so many search engine optimization professionals sincerely love and prefer as a blogging platform, is misinformed or at least, subject to making sweeping generalizations. This is the “banned” category:

And here are some examples of blogs that are banned from WordPress.com (all of these fall under the general heading of “spam blogs”, or splogs, and we will be deleted as soon as we find them or they get reported):

• Scraper blogs: Blogs that take content from other blogs and re-publish it without permission (this is sometimes called scraping). If a blog contains all or mostly stolen and unoriginal content, it’s gone!
• SEO blogs: Blogs that are written for search engines instead of humans. These blogs are dedicated to trying to fool Google and other search engines into ranking them highly. WordPress.com is not meant for this type of activity.
• Affiliate marketing blogs: Blogs with the primary purpose of driving traffic to affiliate programs and get-rich-quick schemes (”Make six figures from home!!”, “20 easy steps to top profits!!”, etc). To be clear, examples like people writing original book or movie reviews and linking them to Amazon, or people linking to their own products on Etsy do NOT fall into this category.
• Warez blogs: Blogs that promote pirated copies of ebooks, software packages, music, movies, games, etc

C’mon WordPress.com, just because some overzealous SEO noobs used (likely experimented and exploited) your free blog hosting service at wordpress.com doesn’t mean all SEO blogs are suspect and shady.

With literally hundreds and hundreds of reviews we’ve done on SEO blogs over the past year, I think I have a fairly good sense about what most SEO bloggers are writing about and the vast majority are on the up and up. I suspect I wouldn’t need to look far to find a sinister “Politics” or “Personal” blog or two or two hundred on the WordPress.com service. That said, I’m not sure whether any of the 500 or so SEO blogs on our BIGLIST are hosted at Wordpress.com. Of course not, they were probably banned – LOL.

The warning is, of course, directed towards blogs setup at WordPress.com and not blogs using the downloadable WordPress application. Regardless, WordPress is such a great piece of software, this just seems a bit over the top. So here’s my suggested alternative:

SEO blogs: Blogs that provide tips, news and insights into how web site and blog owners can make it easier for search engines and users to find and interact with their sites resulting in improved traffic levels and repeat visits.

Then they can make a statement against blogs in general that provide mis-information or violate published policies instead of making such a sweeping statement. What do you think? Am I too “glass half full” and idealistic in my characterization of SEO blogs?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2008. | WordPress.com and SEO Blogs – Love or Hate? | 32 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Anyone in the search biz who knows me, knows I’m a pretty easy going person and sometimes even rational. My experience with usbank Visa both in the past and today trying to buy a product online and later a domain name transfer gave me a good taste of the unreasonable way seemingly reasonable companies are serving customers. And making it difficult to stay on as customers.

First, I attempted to purchase a product I was planning to use as a prize for a contest at our office. I should have just had Amie take care of this stuff, but I thought it would only take a few seconds like most of the monthly online purchases I make. However, in this case, the online merchant checkout screen said there was a problem with the usbank Visa.

I called usbank Visa and the auto attendant directs me to some balance info: zero. In fact, there’s a credit. OK. As the computerish auto attendant rambles a myriad of options, I say “operator “. A live person comes on the line and I explain the “no go” purchase. I’m informed that all online transactions are flagged and that I have to call the merchant to get an authorization code. “ALL online purchases? For everyone that tries to use a Visa to purchase online?”, I say. “Yes”, says the Visa CSR. The Visa CSR’s answer seems so outlandish I am literally speechless, which is probably a good thing.

“You’ll have to call the web site and make the transaction manually”, says the Visa rep. With many other pressing things to do, I relent without a debate and resolve myself to purchase the item with another card later or just stop by a retailer on my way home.

With the registered trademark status on TopRank, we’ve been reaching out to companies using the name and exercising our right to soley use the name in a search marketing or online marketing context. One company decided to just sell us the domain name.

An hour after the usabank Visa situation above, I initiated an online transfer request on the domain name. The registrar’s online payment screen displayed a message that the usbank Visa had a problem. I thought, “You’ve got to be kidding,” and wondering, “Why am I not having one of our capable staff handle this again?”. I called Visa, got an operator and asked what was up. I was then informed that online purchases were being flagged.

I told the rep I was trying to transfer a domain name and that I had to do it online. Her response was, “What’s a domain name”? “Visa.com is a domain name” I said, losing my faith in the potential for a reasonable outcome.

I attempted to use a little logic with the rep who was becoming snotty. “OK, just so we understand each other, I’m trying to order online because I don’t want to or cannot call the online merchant and you’re telling me online orders are flagged for potential fraud and that I have to call the online merchant and conduct the transaction manually, which is what I’m trying to avoid in the first place. Does this make sense to you?”

The clearly annoyed CSR rep repeated the script on the screen in front of her. Something about, “We are sorry for the in-con-veeeen-ience sir, it is only for your protection….”. “But does this make any sense to you at all?”, I asked. The CSR relented and raised the “flag” on the purchase so the transaction would go through. I appreciated this and asked if I would have to go through the same process every time I tried to order online, because my other credit cards didn’t work this way.

The usbank Visa rep then threw out the clincher: “Sir, there’s no reason for you to get upset, our policy states that ………”. I had to put the phone down for a second and smile, and noticed two ice houses on the frozen lake outside my office window. One with an old fashioned TV antennae attached to the roof and one with a satellite dish. I bet snotty usbank Visa CSRs were the last thing on their minds.

There was no yelling, no raised voice, no accusations, just a naive attempt at a rational conversation. Silly me. I said goodbye and hung up.

It seems a bit odd that one company has such a hard time with what appears to be an overzealous online fraud protection effort, which in spirit, sounds great. But in practice, it makes using their product extremely inconvenient.

Everyone else at our company with a corporate credit card moved from usbank Visa to another credit card company because of situations like this. I am the sole holdout because of the airline miles connected to the card and because I like being loyal to companies I do business with.

Situations like that mentioned above have happened several times before in the past year with usbank Visa . There comes a time when a loyal customer like myself has to throw in the towel and finally take the hint that the hindrances far exceed any benefits. It’s time to change. If I change, I’ll just end up getting better service elsewhere. If usbank Visa would change, they’re probably keep more of their customers.

Now I wouldn’t want anyone linking to this post with anchor text like “usbank Visa sucks” or anything like that, so please don’t. I am however, curious if others have had similar situations with usbank Visa or other CC companies where “all online purchases are flagged”?

[/End Rant]

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2007. | A Story of US Bank Visa Losing Yet Another Customer | 5 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

• Don’t make readers register or login to make a comment. What, you’re too lazy to manage all the comment spam? Or install a better spam filter? You’re lucky to get people to your blog in the first place. Why make it inconvenient to interact?

• Please don’t publish content in PDF of MS Word format that would be just as fine as a web page. I hear you saying, what? Yes, there are a few blogs out there that post using a blog content management system, but publish longer articles, white papers, etc in other formats. At least warn readers before they click on the link.

• Why oh why must so many blogs make it difficult to subscribe? Get an RSS button up above the fold. Add your RSS url to an auto discovery tag in the head template. If you really want to capture extra readers, add an RSS to email option like the one offered at Feedblitz.

• Putting a lot of contextual ads (especially un-customized ads) on top or within the posts is just plain ugly and inconvenient for the reader. Seeing those ads instantly drops credibility for the blog and makes it look desperate.

• If you are gracious enough to allow readers to make comments, perhaps responding to a few might be a thought? For those blogs that get a lot of comments, this can be difficult. Especially if you’re busy doing your regular job and don’t have a lot of time to spend on the blog all day. However, getting comments is one of the best signals of how well your content is resonating with readers. Most blog software will ping you an email when comments are made, so there’s no excuse not to make an appearance.

• Who the hell are you? I can see if someone’s posting about their sexual exploits or trials and tribulations of pschosis being anonymous, but why does a SEO blog need to be written by Mr or Ms “X”? OK, in-house SEOs for monster corporations and some black hats have somewhat of an excuse. But at least present a persona. Otherwise, there’s no context for where the content is coming from. It might be getting scraped for all your readers know.

• Not publishing the date or the name of the author of the blog post is one of my pet peeves. I like to know the post is current and I always like to know who (real or persona) has written the post. Otherwise, it looks like a trick to make the blog seem updated when it’s not.

• You have such great content, why is it so difficult to find? Biggest offenses in this area are: No archives, no categories, no tags and no site search. C’mon people, this is easy stuff to implement and if you’re making it difficult for users to find your previous posts, chances are search engines aren’t having an easy time of it either. Just because it’s a blog doesn’t mean people are reading you every day and don’t need to see past posts. Show archives chronologically and by category. Offer related posts and recent posts. Give users multiple ways to find past content and you’ll increase repeat visitors as well as new visitors via search.

• Along with being an anonymous personality, an anonymous and bland looking blog is about as memorable as a paper bag. Copycat minimalism and tempaltes may have worked in the early days of blogging, but with over 92 million blogs tracked by Technorati, it helps to stand out. You can do that easiest with the name, header and tagline of the blog. Clever blog names are great, but be literal in your tagline. Also the URL. This one, I am very guilty of because our url is toprankblog.com, yet we call it “Online Marketing Blog”. Early on this discrepancy caused a lot of confusion for readers and potential linkers to the blog.

• I started with a goal of 5 pissy, whiny tips and here I am at number ten. This one’s for you. What are your pet peeves with blogs? What can Online Marketing Blog do to make your reading, revisiting and interacting experience better?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2007. | What Not To Do With Your Business Blog | 69 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

However, there are even more benefits you can gain from going to conferences like Search Engine Strategies, Pucon and SMX that you may want to consider, albeit with your humor hat on:

1. Competitive intelligence – As you play the meet and greet game, you’ll undoubtedly run into employees from competing firms. Be sure to ask lots of questions. Smile, be friendly and engaging. Remember how important it is to be a great listener and remember: Loose lips sink ships! Also be sure to get PPTs from direct competitors, especially from their “new” speakers, who tend to want to impress and often include more information than they should. Also, some speakers don’t provide the conference organizer with copies of their PPTs. Don’t let that stop you! What do you think that pocket camera is for?
2. Sales Training – Not really, but sorta. If you’re breaking into an aspect of search marketing that is somewhat new to you, pay attention to how your better versed competition explains themselves, their company and services, I mean advice, during presentations. The fact is, metaphors, analogies and a good story can go a long way towards explaining complex or unique SEM topics when you’re selling. Why bother making up your own when you can steal (argh, I mean borrow) them from the competition? (Reworked with your own information of course.)
3. It’s a Vacation! – Convincing your boss that the next Search Marketing conference will infuse your brain with super secret SEO ninja knowledge might just get you closer to that partially all expenses paid mini-vacation to New York, Seattle, San Jose, Stockholm (don’t you have clients with Swedish sounding names?), Bejing or even London. Pull that off and you’re famous. At least until you get fired because you went to too many parties and didn’t pay attention during sessions.
4. Cool Schwag – Fun stuff from popular search engines and the exhibit hall floor makes you the popular one back at the office or at least with your kids.
5. The Secret Society – Psst. I’ve heard there’s a secret society of SEOs called the “Mad Hatters”. You can tell who’s a member by their really red eyes in the morning. Well, you won’t actually see them in the morning, but when you do, watch the eyes. The secret password is, “Need some aspirin?”
6. Google Dance – When else will you be able to visit the Google campus and bother their Engineers with questions about duplicate content and if there’s any problem with hosting 3000 versions of your site under different domain names as long as each site scrapes 48.5% of the content from different blogs?
7. Client Warm Fuzzy - Get your clients to come see you speak so they think you’re still worth paying for even though you haven’t personally worked on their account in months. Shame on you if anyone really does this.
8. Fuel for Linbait – Follow famous SEO bloggers until they do something embarrassing and take a photo for use as linkbait on your sorry ass blog
9. Free Beer – Suggestion compliments of Thomas. Actually, there’s less and less “free beer” as the engines pull back on festivities budgets. It’s good thing WebmasterRadio.FM is there to save the day.
10. And the Number One Secret Benefit of Attending SEM Conferences Is? – You can stalk Matt Cutts.

Obviously these are tongue in cheek, but I think you get the idea. BTW, if you see me or the other TopRank team members at SES San Jose later this month, be sure to say hello.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2007. | 10 Secret Benefits of Attending SEM Conferences. Shhh. | 21 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Understand, this very much a rant post and most rants do little for the reader and a lot for the writer. It’s all about me you know. However, if this one sheds light or more likely, entertains, then it’s a win win.

The fine art of truth spoofing.
You know when some “SEO experts” answer an interviewer or conference moderator question with a response that sounds good, is hardly verifiable with real data, but because they’re respected and well promoted, people believe them? I like to call that “truth spoofing”. It makes the “expert” seem impervious to failure and people forget about the specific numbers anyway, holding on to that “wow s/he’s smart” feeling. This isn’t unique to the SEM biz either. I see it in PR and direct marketing as well. What’s curious is that people accept it as a normal part of the “sales pitch”.

One person’s leftovers are another person’s gold.
By the time certain SEO tactics get written about in a major publication, they’ve jumped the shark. In fact, by the time they’re written about in popular search marketing publications, they likely have 6 months or less of competitive usefulness left. Yet the lure of getting a distinct advantage makes marketers and webmasters over-rely on such information rather than focusing on the results of their own first hand experience.

Everyone wants a shortcut it seems. In a way, it’s like those people selling no money down real estate courses and get rich quick seminars on TV. Either the tips are mostly marketing hype or they’ve long since expired in their usefulness. The only way to make money from them is to “sell the secret”. It’s like that with the promotion of many “SEO secrets”. By the time such tactics are publicly promoted as a way to gain competitive advantage, their days are numbered. Focusing on changing trends and strategies rather than specific tactics is what yields longer term results. At least that’s my opinion.

Diffuse the enthusiasm.
In a position of perceived authority, there are a lot of eyes and ears paying attention. Competition in the search marketing industry is formidable as agencies seek new revenue channels by adding search marketing services and companies bring more search marketing in-house.

What to do? One thing I’ve seen some pundits do is to tell the up and coming competition to go home. For example, “Don’t bother starting a silly old blog, it’s a waste of time”. Some make claims that certain marketing fundamentals will never work in competitive situations and that only the “super secret sauce” of SEO expert knowledge is worthy.

Plenty of neophytes read this stuff and think, “Hmm I guess I’ll play follow the leader and commit myself to the super secret sauce and not bother with the fundamentals and my own test/refinement/learning anymore”. As a result, some marketers get over committed to short term tactics and leave long term, sustainable methodologies and the products of their own experience by the wayside.

Pass the dirty buck.
Starting out in the search marketing business, leads for new projects are coveted, precious things. (Think Tommy Boy ). Once a brand is built with significant momentum and credibility, inquiries for new business are sometimes treated as a commodity. In some cases, there’s more new business than any one firm can handle.

What to do with all those leads? Follow up on them of course! No, what some particularly mischievous SEOs do is send the crappy ones to their competition or to “friends”. You know, the insurance leads/poker/ringtone sites that have been through 5 SEO firms, have numerous duplicate sites and are currently banned? Not that there aren’t specialists in those industries or that those industries don’t deserve excellent SEO consulting, but referring completely out of scope and mis-matched projects is adolescent at best. After a while, it’s not so funny as the web site owners in need of services get tossed back and forth.

There aren’t any specific people I have in mind for these kinds of behaviors as they’re the kinds of things that you notice over time and many, many conferences. To be honest, I may have engaged in one or two myself at some point over the past 10 years. There’s no longevity to behaving badly so it really doesn’t pay to repeat such actions.

On the flip side, and this is the majority of what most people experience in the SEM industry, search marketers are bright, friendly, helpful, both tactical and strategic, constantly learning and as mentioned above, possess that very unique combination of creative and technical perspectives so critical for success in search.

[/end rant]

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2007. | Four SEM Industry Rants | 15 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

I think it’s safe to say that everyone in the web site optimization business has experienced that unfortunate situation with a client where those responsible for creating the web site have done those nasty things that seem to make the site as un-search engine friendly as possible. While it’s not intentional, it can seem awfully ignorant to search engine optimization consultants brought in after the fact to “fix” things.

Common issues include:

• URLs that are difficult or impossible for search engine spiders to crawl
• Hard coding the same title tag on all pages, not allowing tags to be edited or no title tag at all
• Putting most of the content behind a login and not offering “teaser” content
• Not allowing direct editing of on-page text content
• Flash or JavaScript navigation
• All Flash or Ajax sites
• Changing site design/architecture and not 301 redirecting URLs, or no redirection at all

Let’s face it, it’s not all the web team’s fault. In most cases they’re not trained to pay attention to search engines as a secondary audience or “third browser” as Danny Sullivan has often written about, nor are they tasked by the client (internal or external) to consider how their shiny new web site will do with search engines.

By no means am I saying that all web developers and designers are guilty of such “search engine unfriendliness”. I am surprised though, how often this kind of thing continues to occur. As a SEO consultant, should I mind? It keeps us very busy.

Another cause is that many interactive agencies seem to be driven to use Flash/Ajax in order to be “cutting edge” and win design awards rather than consider how such sites will fare getting crawled by bots. Eventually the web site owner asks, “Why do our search engine rankings suck?”. A popular agency answer? “You need to use Google AdWords”.

You don’t need to search far to find commentary in the SEO industry about the conflicts between SEO and web design. On the one hand, it seems completely avoidable and an unnecessary expense to the client if web developers and creators of content management systems and ecommerce platforms would just consider search engines properly as an audience.

On the other hand, as long as creators of such web based software and web sites continue causing these problems, technical site optimization will be necessary. It keeps us SEOs busy and pretty much perpetuates the need for code and server side optimization. The irony is that a lot of the web design/development community loves to hate SEO, yet their development and design practices perpetuate the need for it. At least for on-page SEO and code optimization.

In the end it does not serve the client well to create web sites that are difficult for search engines to crawl, index and rank. It also does not serve the client to compromise good design and user experience for the sake of ranking well.

The creation of well designed and search engine friendly web sites, content management systems and ecommerce platforms is entirely doable. What will it take to find some common ground between SEO and the web devlopment communities? Is education and awareness the key or is it something else?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2007. | SEO Clueless Web Developers: Evil or Cash Cow? | 18 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

I am a little late to the story about our friend, Jennifer Laycock of Search Engine Guide, her blog The Lactivist and the bully National Pork Board, but hey I’ve got a business too ya know? Regardless, I just had to write something up before the Super Proposal, I mean Super Bowl weekend was in full effect as this is the epitome of lameness.

I’m not completely unsympathetic to trademark holders and the need to protect them as we’re going through the final stages of our own trademark process. I do understand that there is a certain obligation to defend your trademark or you lose it.

But this is quite different.

Jennifer has a site called The Lactivist from which she has some silly shirts for sale. One of which says, “the other white milk.” Apparently this is to be construed as a violation of the Pork industry’s slogan, “the other white meat”. Apparently the NPB has no sense of humor and no insight into things like “fair use” (tip Jason Lee Miller).

There’s lots of interesting commentary on this within the blogosphere already and I have a feeling it’s just going to mushroom, so all I have to say is, “Back Off National Pork Board“. However, if you’d like to do something constructive about this situation, please drop a note to the NPB here.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2007. | National Pork Board Needs to Back Off | 2 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

DM News, in an apparent attempt to milk the antagonizing insights from Dave Pasternack, published a Q/A with him today on the reactions to his SEO rocket science articles. Here’s one golden nugget of humor from the interview:

“…. if the web team consistently follows the rules when putting up new content, then no “fixing” or “tweaking” is necessary. Plus if the content is great, with some marketing, it will get inbound links just as Larry [Paige] and Sergey [Brin] at Google calculated.”

So, ongoing SEO and link building is relegated to “great content” and “some marketing”. That’s it! That’s all you need! Wow, SEO firms and client companies world wide will be so happy to hear that. LOL

Now agencies can stop spending all those hours per month for clients managing SEO implementation, template optimization, URL rewrites, refining keyword targeting via content, promoting client content editorially, optimizing and distributing press releases, fixing the overwrites of the SEO agency optimization suggestions, creating viral linking campaigns, training in-house marketers on writing optimized copy, conducting back link analysis on competition and soliciting links, blog marketing, social media creation and promotion, conversion analysis, integration with other marketing channels, search engine web analytics, everything!

Thanks to insight from Dave Pasternack, SEO agencies can throw in the towel and clients will be successful in the natural search results purely based on “great content” and “some marketing”. Now I know why Dave’s company moved away from SEO to all PPC six years ago. The lack of results from “some marketing” must have been embarrassing!

Another pearl of wisdom from the interview:

“I would do a Google search for the term “search engine optimization” and run away from any company which can’t even get themselves into the top five organic results.”

Again, well thought out advice Dave. The top five listings (currently) for “search engine optimization” on Google include:

1. Wikipedia
2. Submit Express (SEO firm)
3. SEO Chat (forum)
4. Bruce Clay (Search marketing agency)
5. Google’s webmaster guidelines

So I guess that means Submit Express and Bruce Clay should get ready to handle all the SEO needs of the planet Earth, because according to Dave, anyone not in the top five Google search results possess such little reputation that companies should “run away” from them. Oh my. I wonder if anyone thinks he’s actually serious about this stuff?

Of course, at the end of the interview there’s a plug to use agencies with their own bid management tools. Interesting. Dave works for/founded a PPC agency that has their own bid management tool. If this isn’t an attempt at humor, it’s pretty clear what the motivation is for most of the nonsensical comments about SEO.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2007. | Good SEO Humor | 12 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Anyway, this attorney and I play phone tag and we finally connect. He wants to have me come to his office and speak with their ecommerce/technology group and talk about Google advertising. He asks if I can sit in on an informal lunch and ask me questions about search marketing. Just for an hour or so.

There’s an awkward silence.

I finally say, “The reason I’m not responding is that I’m thinking about all the times people have made this kind of request of me before and I have to ask, Why would I do this?”. The attorney’s response is something to the effect of, “The cost of time for you is low and there’s a possible reward in the form of referrals.” He also pointed out that his law firm was not a competitor.

I’m rolling my eyes as I hear this and I’m thinking, you’ve got to be kidding me. You want someone that’s been referred to you as a “top guy” to come in for free on the speculation that there might be some kind of referral?

Let’s turn this around. Let’s say I ask a few law firm clients of mine that are tops in their industry or market and ask them for a specialist attorney. They both refer me to the same person. Then I call that specialist up and say, “Hey, how would you like to come down to my agency and talk to my team about intellectual property law? It’s possible that someday our clients my need a IP legal help and if so, we might refer them to you.”

Now you and everyone else reading this post knows that in almost all cases, an attorney would want, would require, they be compensated for spending time educating a company on a particular area of their expertise.

I told the attorney at the end of our call that I would think about it and follow up Monday. He replied that I might refer someone else if it didn’t work out with me. Then I wrote this blog post, called him back and said I didn’t need until Monday, that I knew now it wasn’t going to work out and that I would be hard pressed to refer someone else because I wouldn’t want to embarrass or insult someone by making such a referral for a situation that was not willing to pay for the time and expertise.

Was I completely out of line? How would you handle this differently? I’m sure he’ll find some stooge to give the free advice. I’ve been stooged plenty of times by information suckers and SEO parasites on the phone. However, I think you have to value your time and services and just say no in situations like this.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2007. | Lawyers Cost Money But SEO is Free? | 39 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

What’s with the cliche’s? Cliche’s are simply a way to hide innuendo which was the case when this Dave Pasternack -  SEO/rocket science guff all started. Some of the arguments in this debate are not entirely without merit so I’ll take a humorous and a somewhat practical approach to explaining a few.

One of the common questions that comes out of this silly debate is, “What do we get for that monthly SEO fee?”.

Upfront activity is substantially higher with SEO as it is with most marketing initiatives but SEO is much more than making the site ready and relevant for search engines. Besides the initial research, analysis, recommendations and the management of implementation, there is also the matter of ongoing content development, promotion, link acquisition and web analytics.

Depending on what the client has to work with, there can be any of a variety of link and traffic building tactics employed on an ongoing basis right along with measurement, refinement and consulting.

Add in integration with other marketing initiatives such as sharing of data and collaboration with paid search, social media marketing, interactive, viral content development, account management and online public relations and it’s pretty easy to see where the monthly fee goes.

There are pros and cons as well as right and wrong reasons for using SEO, PPC or both. They’re just marketing tools and as I’ve said before, bashing one over the other doesn’t help companies looking to improve sales in any way.

Part of the issue with the SEO industry is that there is a huge gap in skill sets and capabilities. The offering of a 1 year old, one-person shop is going to be different than a 10 year veteran agency. Each fills an appropriate need depending on the client. The other issue is that many SEO problems can be solved multiple ways – leaving presumed discrepancies in pricing between agencies.

I agree that SEO needs to do a much better job at packaging its services and by getting more intelligent dialog going, sans cliches, the better educated businesses will be when allocating online marketing dollars.

Since all this SEO vs PPC malarkey is hardly a serious look at online marketing channels and more gratuitous self promotion and contrarian link bait, I thought I’d draw attention to a rather humorous text that pokes fun at SEO, PPC and even paid inclusion by Simon Heseltine at Search Engine Tigers. Think Monty Python skit:

Praline: Hello, I wish to register a complaint… Hello? Miss?
SEM Agency: What do you mean Miss?
Praline: I’m sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint.
SEM Agency: Sorry, we’re closed for lunch.
Praline: Never mind that my lad, I wish to complain about this SEO implementation plan what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.
SEM Agency: Oh yes, the Google Blue. What’s wrong with it?
Praline: I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it. It’s not rocket science, that’s what’s wrong with it.
SEM Agency: No, no it’s complicated, look.
Praline: Look my lad, I know a simple plan when I see one and I’m looking at one right now.
SEM Agency: No, no sir, it’s not simple. It’s complicated.
Praline: Complicated?
SEM Agency: Yeah, remarkable SEO implementation plan the Google Blue, beautiful ranking, innit?
Pralie: The ranking don’t enter into it – it’s bleedin’ easy.
SEM Agency: No, no – it’s really hard.
Praline: All right then, it it’s hard let’s take a look (shouting) Title tag, meta tags, fresh content…
SEM Agency: (ruffles papers) There in the index.
Praline: What index?
SEM Agency: There that index.
Praline: That’s just some notes in pencil on the back of the last page… analytics, external linking, url structure. Now that’s more like it. Do you have an implementation plan that actually has all of this in it?
SEM Agency: Let me look… no.
Praline: Well what do you have then?
SEM Agency: Well, I have this PPC Implementation plan.
Praline: Is it geotargeted?
SEM Agency: Yes.
Praline: Where to?
SEM Agency: Norway. Tells you all about the right keywords for people pining for the fjords
Praline: Pining for the fjords, what kind of campaign is that? Look, I want something that’s complicated so I feel I’m getting my money’s worth.
SEM Agency: Well, I’d better replace it then.
Praline: (to blog) If you want to get anything done in this country you’ve got to complain until you’re blue in the mouth.
SEM Agency: Sorry gov, we’re right out of complicated SEO implementation plans.
Praline: I see, I see, I get the picture.
SEM Agency: I’ve got a paid inclusion plan.
Praline: Well, it’s scarcely a replacement then is it?
SEM Agency: Not really, no. Look, what do you want?
Praline: No I’m sorry, I’m not prepared to pursue my line of enquiry any further as I think this is getting too silly…

What’s particularly funny about this is that it hints at some of the client side reasons for more education about all aspects of search marketing.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2007. | SEO: Rocket Science or Colonoscopy? | 9 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Somehow I’ll rationalize this as a purchase for the kids, but who’s kidding who? I know what a stand alone Blu-Ray DVD player costs right now, so in my mind, this was a good deal. Besides, we used our old PS2 for movies 90% of the time anyway.

It was an interesting sales tactic by Best Buy, that’s for sure. Having 1-2 employees walk around the store with the PS3’s. I bet they sold a lot of them that way.

The only thing that nearly made me walk out of the store was the customer service gal that rang me up. She pitched the ESP hard. One more peep and I was out of there but I think she sensed I just wasn’t in to her pitch. I may go back and get it later, I believe I have 30 days after the purchase. I haven’t had the hard sell from Best Buy like that in 10 years. It was lame.

Incidentally, they were out of Gameboy Advance players at Best Buy so I got one from Target. They were out too, but I asked their customer service people to check the return bins and they found one, unopened.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2006. | Playstation 3 Baby! | 12 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

However, a domain name brings into other considerations. For example, whether or not influential members of the digg community like or don’t like a certain site or topic, regardless of what the mass of digg users respond to in the form of story submissions and votes. The site or blog owner has little control over whether other people submit stories and/or vote on them, bury them or report them as spam. Even if they’re not.

Sites can be banned from having their stories submitted to digg based on the activities of others having nothing to do with the site owner.

I recently learned from a top digg member that certain digg community members decided to start getting rid of SEO sites by emailing spam complaints to digg. These community members’ definition of spam blogs is not what you might think. As long as the site has to do with SEO, they apparently consider it spam because the digg community generally detests anything to do with SEO.

“All the users decided to email digg on spam about the seo sites. It is their way of stopping them getting on digg even if they are not spamming. They also modified version 4 to stop spammers as well by removing the “befriend” feature on digg. Their version of spam is not splogs, but instead what the users don’t like (seo sites)”

This happened to Online Marketing Blog recently. No stories from our blog had ever been buried until last week. “5 Myths of SEO” and “Interview with Stacy Williams” were targeted. Does anyone reading this consider those stories misleading or spam?

The kicker is that we didn’t submit those stories. A few days later it was bye bye to our domain. To describe this as a rotten thing to do to a site is a gross understatement. I may be biased, but I would hardly consider Online Marketing Blog as spammy in any way. What do you think?

An email to digg support was returned with:

“When submitted stories are consistently reported as spam and users complain via our feedback email about submission spam, we ban the domain. The domain will not be unbanned. The domain would consistently get reported as spam otherwise.”

-The Digg Support Team.

I was at a loss until I put 2 and 2 together and suspected it was a concerted effort either by SEO-miffed digg users or competitors. The comments from the digg user above seemed to confirm this. Interestingly, a follow up email to digg support remains unanswered.

If you are keen on such activities, be sure to read Graywolf’s itemization of tactics on how to get a competitor’s site banned on digg with this post: “How to be a “Dirty Digger“. For me, it was a bit eye opening as to how easy it would be. Regardless, it’s a crappy thing to do.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2006. | The hypocrisy of digg and spam | 95 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

You don’t have to look far to find commentary about PPC vs SEO, some good humor and lively debate.

In a recent article on ClickZ, “Think Organic, Act Paid” Kevin Lee, whom I know and respect as a marketer, talks about how he thinks PPC results will eventually become more relevant than organic results. (Good luck with that) He also makes this interesting comment, “SEO spammers don’t care if they manage to get a high position for keywords and keywords phrases that are less than perfectly relevant…”. I was actually surprised to see the only reference made about SEOs was in combination with the word “spammer”. His position is pretty clear.

I agree with Richard Ball that the genisis of this thread of commentary is an effort to gain attention for the purpose of self promotion than one that offers any real insight. It doesn’t really serve client interests to bash one tactic over another when both are powerful marketing tools. And like any other tool, there is a right time and place for them. I’ve always believed that a tool is only as good as the expertise of its user.

Consumer confidence in search results sways heavily towards organic, yet there is a huge disparity in search marketing budget allocations with the bias towards PPC. Many corporate marketers are waking up to this and finding more dollars for SEO. At some level, it’s logical that Dave and Kevin would take a negative stance towards SEO because it competes for client marketing budgets with their PPC-centric business.

Is it really worth spending a ton of time debating that SEO is not rocket science and that PPC is simple? I think not because these are not accurate characterizations. SEO and PPC initiatives can be as simple or as difficult as the situation warrants. It’s different nearly every time.

While getting PPC and SEO to work together can be challenging, the results of a cooperative strategy can far exceed of any tactic on its own.

As some online marketers are taking sides, others will continue to perfect their ability to use the right mix of tactics (PPC, SEO, Social Media, Viral, PR, Advertising) to do a better job at getting clients results. Watching this meme evolve is good for a laugh though, all the way to the bank.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2006. | The Lame PPC and SEO Debate | 12 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

I realize as much as anyone, that the job of a public relations expert is to tell compelling stories. But there is a big difference between outright “spin” and a story that is genuinely interesting and newsworthy. Because I am in the public relations business, I may be more suspicious of this than most. But when a pitch relies on a sort of suspension of disbelief effect because of great storytelling, I consider that nothing less than public relations spam.

It’s unsolicited almost always, but that’s part of the game when you have a blog. But when it’s misleading, it’s spam to me.

It’s particularly disappointing when prominent people in the PR industry do this. Along the same lines, we’ve had experiences with prominent web development agencies renowned for being SEO savvy, putting out absolute crap web sites in terms of search engine friendliness.

I guess the good news from the agency side is that this sort of thing proves steady work for those and firms that know what they’re doing. Companies get fed up and look elsewhere, but who factors that sort of thing into a web development or search marketing budget? No one. It has to come from somewhere though and that’s why companies should put a little more due diligence into selecting companies in the SEO space.

At the same time, PR firms have a tremendous opportunity to get a clue and stop focusing so much on the “spin” and hire some real talent that can tell good stories provocatively, build relationships and be honest with clients about the actual viability of their announcement as newsworthy – or not. Similarly, many web development agencies can stop claiming SEO godliness and start producing web sites that are indexable, allow for rich text content as well as meeting branding and user experience needs.

And so it goes…

[/end rant]

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2006. | Public Relations Spam and the Bad Pitch | 3 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Recently a credit card of mine was identified by the issuing bank as possibly having been included in a set of stolen data or online tampering. A new card was issued. Then I went about updating services paid with this card.

One of these services was our phone company and DSL provider, Frontier Communications. After not being able to login to the online bill pay I called and was informed the only way to change the card on file was to login via online bill pay. My description of not being able to login or successfully retrieve login information was falling on deaf ears, so I restate this information. I am informed of Frontier’s excellent security measures and the rep reiterates that the only way to change the card on file is through logging in online, knowing full well that I cannot do that.

Then the customer service rep gives me the account number and pin. I wonder why that is possible with such excellent security policies that do not allow me to easily PAY MY BILL. I enter the provided account information online and am responded to by various failure messages. The Frontier customer service rep indicates this is not possible. I discover Firefox 2.0 will not allow all digits of the account number to be entered, but MSIE will. It still doesn’t work.

I ask, I plead, I demand: “Is there any other way I can pay my bill?” The Frontier rep says, there is an automated system via phone that can be used and that there is a “convenience fee” for doing so. I am connected with the system. I enter my account number and the response is a busy signal.

Eventually I get through and make the payment though the automated phone payment system, but am still not able to login to online bill pay or retrieve info that will assist in doing so.

SO. What in the world does this have to do with SEO? I suppose I could related it to bad design and indexing issues that make it difficult for search engine spiders to crawl a web site. A search engine spider without feelings will get “algorithmically frustrated” with not being able to crawl complex urls or links embedded in JavaScript as I did with not being able to make a simple payment today.

Processes in web design and development that result in consistent indexing problems is incompetence by design as much as Frontier Communications’ overzealous, yet inept security policies.

Now I’m not sure if Frontier is savvy enough to monitor the blogosphere for what it’s customers are saying but if they continue to make this exceedingly difficult to simply pay a bill I have a choice: Quietly change providers after 6 years as a customer or loudly change providers and blog the whole, messy thing. I’ve documented everything and emailed their customer service so we’ll see what the response is.

In the meantime if you are a web designer, you would do well to make your web site crawlable. Make it part of your process to create web sites that are easy for search engines to find and crawl. You may be rewarded with surprising results.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2006. | Incompetence by Design | 5 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Out of curiosity I started plugging names into Google (50+) to see which ones would pull up more ads from salesforce.com and the only other names pulling up salesforce.com ads were Danny Sullivan and John Battelle.

This is very strange indeed as I don’t belong in the same room as those two guys. The even stranger thing was that the landing page is pure crap. There’s nothing on it. Maybe it’s salesforce.com’s call for search marketing help?

Update: Just so you think I’m not seeing things, below are screenshots.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2006. | SalesForce.com and SEO Names | 10 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

There seem to be two schools of thought from journalists on the topic of SEO. Those that slant it towards evil, worthless and shady. And those that check their facts and present those facts. I’ll let you decide what angle the writer from the StartupJournal was coming from on your own.

The question posed:

“We own a dance-wear Internet store and are completely confused about search-engine optimizers. Are they of value to a smaller company, like us? One optimizer quoted us $40,000 to enhance our Web site and improve our ranking.”

The writer’s response:

“Here’s the risk: You shell out $40,000 hiring a search-engine optimizer to revamp your Web site in hopes of improving your search rankings, only to end up still buried in page four of Google search results for your products.”

You know how people sometimes state an improbable possibility to make a point or seem important? That’s what the StartupJournal writer’s response reminds me of.

There’s risk with anything. There’s a risk that a $1.2m TV commercial might not generate brand awareness and sales, there’s risk that $80,000 spent on a new car is a waste as it depreciates $20,000 as it’s driven it off the lot and there’s a risk in subscribing to the Wall Street Journal and getting crappy, incomplete reporting.

She follows up with a gem: “So it’s usually not worth spending wads of money on consultants that can’t somehow guarantee you’ll appear at or near the top of rankings.”

Google has something to say about that sort of thing: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google“. Where’s a fact checker when you need one?

A quote from a buyer of SEO services says in the article, “You really have to be careful about who you hire,” Mr. Kitchen says. “They don’t all do the same quality of work.”.

That’s good advice, but in what industry is it not true? Recruiting agencies do not all do the same quality of work, mechanics don’t all do the same quality of work. Heck, I hate to say it but heart surgeons don’t all do the same quality of work. Why would it be any different about SEO? There are many “search engine optimizers” that do fantastic work. Just ask their clients.

Admittedly, most of the rest of the article provides good advice – albeit coming from a SEO firm, not the writer.

There is an interesting recommendation for small business owners to try and boost their own rankings on their own and if not successful, to seek out a professional. Hmm. Seems risky to me.

What if I try to fix my car and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll hire a professional. Or try to fix the programming in my database generated site. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll hire a professional. I’ll even have a go at installing a new phone system in my office. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll hire a professional. There’s no harm in that, is there? Right?

Bzzzz. Wrong answer. Have you ever had to fix what someone else was trying to “fix”? It’s often much, much worse than if you had brought in an expert to start with.

The last line cracks me up: “Remember, you can always resort to paid search results using programs such as Google’s pay-per-click AdWords program instead of spending thousands on natural rankings.”

Clearly this is the clincher that the writer’s knowledge of SEO does not extend past the bubbly goo in the black cauldron she’s stirring. (tip the Halloween thing, pretty good eh?). Better advice would be to start a PPC campaign right away and get some data to use for refining the SEO while making sales.

I propose we have a SEO education day for the press. We could put together a webinar to help journalists get the facts before being tempted to take creative license to slant a story for the sake of attracting readers. Not that anyone does that.

This post is a bit loopy, I know. I’ve had 6 speaking gigs in 7 days on both coasts and I’m a bit short on sleep.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2006. | StartupJournal SEO Nonsense | 4 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

• Competing agencies that do not specialize in search marketing, but are too lazy to learn. They leech off of your information and good nature for their own betterment offering nothing in return and call it “co-opetition”.
• Prospects that try every trick in the book to suck how-to information out of you in the name of “learning about the SEO process”.
• Content spammers, copyright and trademark hacks who will take every last opportunity to rob you of your brand and content.

What do you do?

• Be smarter about how you package information and be more conservative about setting expectations
• Qualify prospects quickly and be happy to just say no
• Monitor your brand/content and do something about it when it matters

[/end rant]

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2006. | Parasites in the SEO Biz | 14 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com