Two of the most common questions that people ask about online marketing is, 'should I put a blog on my site?' and 'how do I get my site indexed quickly?'. The answer, in many cases, is yes and perhaps with your blog. If you want to be indexed by Google and other engines quickly, the answer is often "get a blog". While I won't get into all of the pitfalls of having a blog, I did want to show you one small indexing benefit that is related to having a blog...

Yet, I wrote a post earlier today. Today is the 29th. Yet, Google has already been to MarketPosition and they have indexed my earlier post.

As you will undoubtedly hear in many places, blogs get indexed pretty quickly. It's true. The example above, proves this. But, does this mean that your normal web site updates are indexed as quickly, if you have a blog? Not necessarily. But it doesn't hurt.

Can I Drop Links From My Web Site Into My Blog?
My take is that you can drop links from your blog, to important pages on your site. If the link and content is appropriate, even your blog's visitors might appreciate knowing that there is something new on your site. They may link to the new pages as well, which can be a plus in other ways.

Provided that your blog is not a splog (spamblog) - with just links to your product pages or other non-interesting content, you should be OK. These links on topical pages can help get non-blog pages in the queue for being indexed rather than just waiting for Googlebot to randomly find them and index those pages at some point in the future.

If you had a large web site, similar to say Amazon.com, you might add dozens of pages and still not have them indexed unless they are linked to from a visitor, from the home page of your site, a good site map, etc. While some engines may ping existing pages in order to see if they've changed (search on "If Modified Since"), they are checking old pages that they already know about.

If you need an example of a positive way to drop links, forget that that Movable Type is a blog software company for a second. Here is a post where they point to an open source version of their software and link drop to various areas of their site. This post is not spammy and generally fits into the same topical themes that their official movable type blog normally covers.

Observation About The Google WebMaster Tools Area
As an aside, I'm a fan of the Google WebMaster Tools area. By submitting to Google, waiting for their bot to come by, having them index your blog, etc. that doesn't mean that all of the areas of Google are up to date with one another. I know, it is a little confusing. They have many data centers and various ways in which they might categorize dates, copies of indexes, etc.

As you can see above, despite indexing my blog post today, their Webmaster tools area says that they last indexed Market Position back on the 27th.

Summary
A blog can be helpful. They are often indexed quicker than a normal site. A blog can be used to point search engine robots to new, non-blog content on your site. If you check various areas in Google, in order to see how their indexing of your site is coming along, don't get disheartened, not all of Google's tools, dates, and other data always match up.

In the Sphinn post above, the submitter "MitraMyers", submits a link to http://www.lexansystems.com/ with the description: "Enterprise Information Security & Data Security Products and Solutions". When you go to the link provided, this has nothing to do with search engine marketing, optimization, etc. This is obviously spam either from Lexan Systems, their SEO company, a competitor trying to put a black eye on Lexan's marketing efforts, or just some clueless person. Either way some one (honestly, not me) reported this and an admin has taken the post down while I write this.

Here is another example, a Women's news/info/donation site called Bringr that is being spammed to death. Go back a few pages and you see that some of the info is actually pretty good but every once in a while some spammer starts submitting their pages over and over again...

While Sphinn has been pretty good about quickly removing spammy posts to their service, not all such services act as quickly. Some places use a "bury" system where it takes a critical mass of users to root out and either remove spammy submissions or at least get them out of the front page or "new" section which is in the public eye. In the meantime, it makes the submitter and/or target of the link look bad. And of course, for our industry... people tend to lump us as all together. Many equate spamming social sites, blogs, and the like as "SEO" even if it is not. As Patrick Altoft mentions in a post at Blogstorm, spamming with out thinking should not even be considered "black hat" seo.

Before submitting to a social site two things to consider:

1) Read some of the posts. Is there even a nominal theme to the social site?
Not really. Yes, internet marketing. Sharing women's information/resources. Celebrity news and gossip.

2) If your submission is actually related to the site's topics, will it be found interesting?
Even on Digg, which is generally about anything... a link to your home page, about page, pricing section, contact page, etc. is, quite honestly, lame. Submitting a link where you've posted interesting photos, a novel way to use CSS rather than a graphic, etc. is not a bad idea. The point is to gain links and references from people who appreciate what you've submitted. These people will go on and link to either your page or the social network page that promotes your submission.

I know that for some this is marketing 101 discussion. For some this is new information. For others, this is information that may help you to explain to your boss, CEO, etc. why some search marketing efforts remain fruitless despite the labor or cost expended by a PR team or consultant. The idea behind marketing and submitting links to sites like Digg, Delicious, Reddit, Sphinn, and others is valid but what you actually submit makes all of the different in the world.

Good luck in your in your search marketing efforts!

An SEO firm in Washington state has been sued over it's practices and may face thousands in penalties and fees according to Search Engine Watch. The core issue had been that their services were not clear, that they made inaccurate guarantees, and if their competitor's post is true, called this service a "scam to avoid".

Even Google says this on their own site:
"No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.
Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google..."
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291

Yet you will still see advertising like this:

(Screen capture from an advert seen on Search Engine Land.)

While the debate rages that we need or do not need standards, there are others that are trying to trademark the term SEO in order to perhaps force the issue.

Check this page out. This might be link bait, but it might be a response from the person trying to trademark the term "SEO". Either way, you may want to get a few SEO friends together and file a notice of opposition in order to keep this generic word for our industry from becoming a trademark. If it becomes a trademark, this guy has the potential to be the only consulting firm performing the process of "SEO". Imagine trying to advertise or do business if words like "plumbing", "electrician", "accounting", or other terms were trademarked.

Often when you sign up for an email account, blog account, or other service, a "captcha" is used to verify that you are setting up a real account. In regards to blogs, it is often a great way to avoid getting tons of automated, spammy comments that do little to add to a conversation. However captchas can often be humorous in their own way.

Luckily, there is a refresh option to download a new image. According to recaptcha.net, the images above are scans from books where the scanning software had trouble reading the page. Obviously, in some cases, humans would have problems reading the images. Annoying for sure, but having to refresh the image might be seen as an extra security measure since a real human would have to refresh the image to get a legible image. Hacking /spamming software might instead use a brute force attack to keep pounding terms from a dictionary into the presented captcha in order to crack it. If you've been looking for a way to screen humans who want to post on your blog, sign up for a newsletter, etc. you might consider recaptcha as it is a free service for most applications.

Ever hit a URL and find that it is down? Wonder if it was down for everyone or just from the IP address that you are coming from? There is a great tool at, not too uncoincidentally: http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/
While I'm unsure about how they test URLs, I have found it useful in my own job. I had a customer tell me that their URL was live and that they saw it, but when I tried going there, the URL was not live. As it turns out, the site was only available from their own, intranet.

Finally, if you are monitoring some of the web 2.0 sites out there like Twitter, try using http://www.tweetscan.com/. You can have it scan Twitter for several keywords and set up an RSS feed or send an email with results. This is a great way to see what people are saying about you, your company, or topics that you are interested in.

For example, our interim CEO is stepping down as we've hired an ex-Googler to be the new WebTrends CEO .

As you can guess, this news is is being discussed right now. By the look of these comments, good things are being said!

Hopefully these three resources help to get the creative wheels spinning about how you can improve your site and interact with customers, and more. Good luck in your SEO efforts!

The other day I was thinking about registering for a free email address. Of course, all of the names that I thought to register were taken. I tried to register a new domain, all of the names that I really wanted were long gone. I went to a couple of Web 2.0 social sites and thought about names that I didn't really want but might be interested to post under... it turns out WebTrends was already taken at Twitter. Was this a real or fake account?

Before I get to the legitimacy of the WebTrends account, think about names from other large companies like Xerox and Apple. Pretty big companies. Yet when you head to some of the Web 2.0 sites out there, these are not official blogs/pages:
http://twitter.com/apple
http://apple.blogspot.com/
http://pownce.com/xerox/
http://www.myspace.com/xerox

While I am sure that Xerox or Apple could make a case that these accounts violate some trademark, it probably isn't worth the effort and cost to pursue the issue in court. While some social sites discourage name squatting, harassment, etc. and may work with you to clear out accounts that violate their terms of service, not all squatters are harmful or intend to squat on your brand. If this HP account, in it's current form, is any example, you might give some squatters the benefit of the doubt for the terms/names that they've registered like: "HP" which normally stands for "Hewlit Packard".

But what would happen if some of these accounts positioned themselves as an official or real sources of information? One obviously fake blog, called "fake Steve Jobs" (Apple's CEO) is an example where the tone of the blog is funny at times, but not too positive overall. If it didn't say "fake", and you weren't paying attention too closely, could this be confused for a real blog? What about other fake blogs and fake web 2.0 accounts on micro blogging services like Twitter?

Above, an obviously fake Condoleezza Rice Twitter account.

And The Point Is?

So what's the point in this post? There are domain squatters who pose as real sites in order to benefit from the popularity of real sites and typos. There is often a minimal cost for a domain name, web hosting costs, some small skill needed in setting up a web site, and other detractors that can serve as a small deterrent to those that would undermine your brand.

On the other hand, many of the Web 2.0 social networking sites are made for ease of use and this makes name squatting 2.0 pretty easy.

Action May Be Needed...

You may want to register names, brands, and trademarks that you own on services like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Pownce, Blogger, and others to help to preemptively curb some of these potential issues. Many of these registrations are free, so there is little to no risk in registering. You might even find that it is useful to connect to your customers through these non-traditional channels in order to improve customer service.

And if you need to sell your company on using some of these services in the first place, here is a good take on some of the objections and misunderstandings that can come up: A CEO's Perspective On SEO, SEM, SMM, PPC, and ROI. Should you find that you are using some of these services, do be obvious about it. Put links to your official memberships on prominent pages, this too will help your site's visitors (and even your own employees) in knowing which accounts are legitimate vs. name squatting fakers. Yes, the the WebTrends account was real . Now to see where it ends up on WebTrends.com... I'm pulling for either one or both of the WebTrends Resources or contact us pages.

There are a number of disagreements in the SEO industry about what is the most important thing in regards to improving search engine rankings. Some argue that content is the most important. Some argue that it is optimization that is the most important. Some think that links are the most important. While I think that all 3 are quite important, and while there are thousands of factors to consider, lets just look at links for a moment.

When I speak to customers on the phone, describing the use of WebPosition, I point this ranking out as one example of why some keywords are easier to rank on than others. (Trying to rank on just "SEO" would be pretty daunting.) I suspect that many of these budding SEO/SEM shops have created their own pages on the topic, trying to see if they too could rank for the term. Depending on the day and mood of Google, I've seen that there are anywhere from 300,000 competitors for this term to 1.5 million.

When you look at some of the competitors for this phrase... wow. There are some heavy weight SEO players in this area. Why are they not ranking? Hats off to sites like: www.seochat.com, www.v7n.com, webmasterworld.com, www.zunch.com, www.johnon.com, among others...

If you look solely at links... there is no way that I should rank.

First, these other sites have more links back to their main URL. Thus, overall, more popular sites than MarketPosition.com. Second, the Johnon post seems to have many more links pointing back to it's page (as evidenced by the seemingly more accurate Yahoo link check).

I've seen my page bounce around the first two pages of results over the past year. When I linked back to the 2006 post on International SEO in this February post, the ranking for my 2006 post shot to ranking 2 from hanging around rank 8-12 in December and January.

While this one example is not all conclusive, it may help to explain why rankings is about more than just "who has more links?".

-> While all engines have access to virtually the same pool of back links that point to a site, they may not count all of them. At least not publicly, through their back link reporting tools. Privately, this may be a different matter. If they do have pretty similar lists of back links, wouldn't SEOChat dominate many of these phrases with more than 553,185 back links in Yahoo? Or WebMasterWorld with 140,000 links in Google? By simply linking from their main page, they could pass a heavy load of popularity onto any page and have it rank fairly well.

-> Search engines have different tastes. This is one of the reasons why I do recommend that you create good, optimized, customer facing content pages for all engines.

->Not all links have equivalent weight. Looking at back links that point just to the pages that Google ranked for International SEO, Johnon's page would rank higher than mine, across all 3 engines.

Being that I represent the WebPosition software, which has a link checking option, do not think that I'm saying that you shouldn't check your links from time to time. It's actually pretty important. If you are out there writing on a blog, posting videos on YouTube, if you are answering questions on Yahoo Answers, if you are marketing via FaceBook, if you are using twitter, or other services to promote your self or your site, it is one measurement of how people are talking about you, promoting your site, etc. In the real world, I would compare this to checking the newspaper to see if they wrote about you in the business section when you spoke or volunteered for organizations like the Kiwanis club, the scouts, etc. Are people talking about you, your business, your web site? If they are, you are doing something right. The more people talk , the better visibility you have, and the more likely you are to rank if you have other factors going in your favor as well (content and optimization for example). It is only one in a multitude of things that you can do to better understand the overall picture of how your activities are paying off.

Has your site recently taken a nose dive in the rankings? Do you find that your site is no where to be found even if you use your domain name as the search term? Whether you have a Google WebMaster Tools account or not, you may now find a note from the WebMaster team waiting for you, after you've created an account and verify your site.

While Google reps might have previously attempted to send an email to you, to warn you that they've detected malware on your site, or if there were other issues... Many web masters close the typical addresses that Google and others might try to use like abuse@, webmaster@, admin@, administrator@, etc. in order to avoid spam.

In some cases, people were even spoofing Google WebMaster emails in order to scare other web masters, gain logins, etc.

If you find that you are getting a Google malware warning or you have a notice about a penalty, while Google can warn you, they really don't do much to clarify where or what malware that they found. And they may or may not tell you if your site was indeed penalized. (In some cases even Google may not know that they're penalizing you.) At least not yet. But you might turn to Google groups, review your prior SEO activities, or look for a company that specializes in malware detection.

Ranking on your company name, product name, etc. just became that much more important. Perform a search on various brand and company names like Wikipedia, Best Buy, New York Times, and others and you'll find an extra search box just below the first result. By adding keywords to this search box, it will further refine a search so that results come only from the listed site.

Perform a search on a company name like Best Buy and you will get a result like this:

Add more to the extra search box, like mp3 player, and you will end up with a search like this: mp3 player site:bestbuy.com While you could perform this same search in Google's advance search area, it was probably thought to be a little confusing and unfriendly to searchers as it took them out of the normal search process.

The good news.

If you run a large site, the new extra search box can help searchers who want info from your site, and your site only, to dig into your site's content.

If you have a more vague/generalized domain or company name, that uses a common turn of a phrase like "best buy", this may also help to a degree. Searchers often start with general searches and then work into more specialized searches, this is often associated with a process called the "long tail" of searching. But this new search box may prevent some long tail searches from occurring or benefiting competitors. This is because...

Searchers want to go to sites that appear to be authorities. Sites that rank well are often perceived as "official", the "best", etc. If you have additional bells and whistles in your search listing, some searchers may attribute your site to having more importance than competitors.

Below, no extra search box, but which listing would have more perceived value or authority? Which would cover more of the search results page above the "fold"? A simple listing or one that included extras?

To sites that end up with an extra search box, this may be quite a boon. Searches may end up spending more time digging through search results related to the first site rather than checking one page from the search result, clicking back, then checking result 2, 3, 4, etc. from other sites.

The not so great news.

-If you are a small site, for now at least, it doesn't look like you will be included in this process. It seems like only large, authority sites are getting this extra search box.

-This doesn't seem to be applied to sites based on a general algorithm. Not all large sites have this applied yet. For example, large, well known, e-commerce sites like Best Buy, Think Geek, Target and others get a search box, however sites such as Circuit City, Frys, Safeway, CostCo, Ikea, and others seem worthy of the extra search box but do not have them in today's Google searches. Sites with lots of great, searchable content like Slashdot, Wired, CNN, BBC, Fox News, USA Today, and others don't get one but there are a few sites like the NY Times, LA Times, and the Washington Post that do have these extra search boxes. It would make some sense for many of these passed over sites to end up with the extra search box feature in the future.

Not Likely For All Sites Will Get An Extra Search Box

I think that this feature has a lot of potential. There are many information sources like blogs and forums where it could be extremely handy to have this feature in the search result. While I shudder to think of seeing the extra search box below every search result, I know that just about every site would want this type of feature available for their own site regardless of where they appear ranking in a search result.

To a degree, Google already does offer something similar...
If I search on best buy MP3 player there is this link: "More results from www.bestbuy.com". But this appears on the second Best Buy listing in the search results. And while other competitors on the page like CNET, Pocketdeal, and others may actually have some really good buys (best buys) for MP3 players, they are not blessed with either a "more results" link or an extra search box.

If your mental gears are spinning, search on Best Buy again, click on the +/- button near their stock quote:

Wow, that is a lot of info. But when folded up, this doesn't look too bad. Could Google add the extra search box and other features to a process like the +/- drop down? Probably, but again, Google doesn't provide this for every listing.

In the past, Googlers have stated that they often remove features from the search results page if they feel that it loads up too slow. Putting a +/- box next to each search result may not be practical if it bogs down the speed of search results. Then again, as they are starting to create blended or universal search results with lots of extra widgets and content, maybe they're willing to allow for slightly larger page sizes?

You can also read more about this at:
Techcrunch, and at Wired.

I was reading an associated press piece this morning and it brought up a good point about names with dashes, apostrophes, and other characters that me non-standard to many English based web sites. Most customer relationship management apps (CRM), databases for credit card applications, hotel reservations systems, and more usually require name fields that allow only for a standard first and last name. Non-standard names may cause problems or even shut down your systems.

Another item to consider... If you are marketing internationally, it may not always make sense to have a toll free line that is toll free internationally. In fact, depending on the cost of your service or good and the size of your international customer base, it may be quite unprofitable to have a toll free 800 line. So how do you get around this stumbling block?

In speaking with some of my international customers, they say that using a voice over IP service (VoIP)is quite common when calling between countries like the UK, Germany, France, etc. Services like Skype can help businesses who may find an international 800 number too expensive. You can buy blocks of time, set up conference calls, and they have other options to explore.

Hopefully these two ideas help you to consider some of the factors related to marketing your site for international success. In case you had missed my earlier article, also check out: International SEO, A Check List for Improving the Rankings of International Web Sites.

It is pretty likely that you've heard of the term "Web 2.0". It is basically a term coined around 2005 to signify that your web site has some type of interactivity with it's visitors. If you go to sites like Slashdot, Digg, MySpace, Twitter, Craigslist, Upcoming, YouTube, etc. the majority of content on these sites, has been created by site visitors rather than the companies that manage these sites. While many will focus on the interesting technology behind these sites, i.e. logins, automated notifications, managed lists, etc. as the "magic" behind the sites, it is truly the interaction that keeps these sites popular. In this post I want to highlight a blog called Daily Monster, it is an example of a site that is interacting with site visitors with out all of the hoopla or technological widgets that are often associated with Web 2.0 style interactivity. Hopefully it will also inspire you to interact with your own site visitors.

Every now and then Bucher also creates something that he calls "open source" monsters that helps him to interact with his site's visitors. For these "open source" monsters, Bucher creates an ink blot and puts a high resolution scan of the blot into a PDF that visitors can download. Visitors build on the ink blot and send their interpretations back to Bucher to post on his blog. His site visitor's talent is amazing; they've created pictures of rabbits, odd party monsters, mermaids, jellyfish, and more.

Above: Some of Bucher's monster drawings seem like a cross between the illustrations seen in a Dr. Seuss story and those found in the books of children's poet Shel Silverstein.

Because of his interact with web site visitors, Bucher's site is much more active than the typical graphic designer web site. His site is more interactive than a typical blog with just comments. His site is more popular than scores of graphic design web sites. While it does take some skill to create the initial designs, scan the ink blots, and create some of the videos that show bucher at work, I don't think that overall, these activities are so far beyond the capabilities of most web masters. Like most things internet or marketing related, it just takes a bit of creativity and drive to see the process through. Technologically, if you have a cell phone or digital camera and the know-how to upload items to your site, you should be ok on that front.

In speaking with Stephan Bucher, I am reminded of another art project that I had previously seen online. Check out Readymech or the Furni BigChief. These sites offer little paper crafts that you can download, print, and put together. While I've been unable to find the exact art project that I had seen a several years back, the art project that I am reminded of offered similar box-like patterns to visitors. Visitors were encouraged to add their own graphics by using crayons, Photoshop, markers, whatever, to make their own creations, and send pictures of their creations in for a monthly contest.

The great part about offering something like this to site visitors is the additional fact that they indirectly promote your site. Just below, two videos that show some of the Readymech creations in action.

If you were a shoe company, an entertainment company promoting a movie or show, etc. can you offer a guide, templates or other items to get people "into" your product in a slightly non-traditional way? What about a contest where you get people to create customized shoes and submit them for online judging? (Just remember to add lots of text content describing the contest, transcribe some of the videos, etc.) The video below may inspire you a bit.

My point in all of this, is that Web 2.0 interactivity can be seen and used by just about any one. The production value can be fairly low. The amount of technology, widgets, etc. can be fairly low. You can create an interactive web site just by inspiring your site visitors and interacting with them. If you hit the right nerve, you can gain tons of links - which helps with rankings. You can gain lots of coverage on sites that might not have otherwise covered your company or marketing efforts.

We are often asked by WebPosition users, "how do you optimize for more than one engine?" Although you can optimize the same web page for multiple engines, some engines will have such widely differing preferences that optimizing for multiple engines can be nearly impossible. As you start creating a page that has more appeal to one engine, it may become less appealing to another. While you can perform split A/B testing in order to see what works out best between different versions of your pages, I think most people just want to put up a few pages and be done with it. If you are in this camp, it is generally recommended that you optimize separate pages for each search engine. Although I've covered this a bit in an article called Reinforcing Ideas and Improving Relevance to Gain Better Rankings, it may help to illustrate the multi optimization point in a another way. Open another browser window and point it to the e-commerce store, ThinkGeek.com and I'll show you what I mean.

There is the main description page at:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/coder/6620/

There is a zoomed in view of the shirt at:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/coder/6620/zoom/

There is an action shots page at:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/coder/6620/action/

Additionally, once you get to the action shots page, there are at least 6 other web pages that have a photo and a small bit of text next to a photo that a customer or staffer had sent in. These are just a few examples:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/coder/6620/action/210c0a6/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/coder/6620/action/2107603/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/coder/6620/action/21055d4/

These 9 or so web pages can each be optimized for a different engine and keyword/phrase. Ideally, a theme runs through each of these pages and the text is optimized for one engine or another. While the photo submitters are probably sending in their own photo captions, there is no reason why ThinkGeek staff can't add some of their own text.

Thus a page like this Mac Hacker photo, might be optimized by ThinkGeek staff for a phrase like "mac hacker shirt". They could add a couple of paragraphs that either respond in some way to the image in the photo, the submitter's title/info, or write something up that talks about how even Mac users tinker with their computers and could use a great work shirt. They can even link to other hacker or Mac themed pages from their own site's product pages in order to reinforce relevance of their keyword themes. They may even link out to a few interesting Mac hacker related sites that fairly above board like this Makezine post of where some one converted a new Mac Mini to use the case of an old Macintosh SE30.

While I'm on the keywords Mac and hacker, I'm going to head to Google and run a search that a few friends and WebPosition visitors with Macs have run: mac hack run XP. These folks have Macs but want to run PC applications like WebPosition. There are a variety of third party software hacks and suites that have been used to make Macintosh computers work with PC programs but Mac now has an official product called "Boot Camp" to help in this process. O'Reilly has a Boot Camp guide that shows up in this Google search result. Technically Boot Camp is not an actual "hack" but something that helps people avoid having to perform potentially harmful things to their machines. If you look, this is a fairly plain web page. In checking other search engines, it does not show up in Yahoo, MSN, etc. in the top rankings. Thus, this page is a candidate for further optimization against multiple engines, or better yet, the creating of additional pages that talk about Mac, XP, Boot Camp, etc. Perhaps they might create a few pages with further excerpts from the guide and create some intro text that optimizes for a specific keyword/engine.

Finally, if you are like ThinkGeek and have a search engine on your site, has anyone told you that your own engine is an SEO tool? If I'm a Mac person compare these two searches: ipod - 21 items and mac - 8 items. All iPod items are Mac items. Also, are there more than 21 Mac related items for sale in the store? These are optimization opportunities and depending on your goals, you may wish to optimize these various product pages for various engines as well as various keywords. If you don't have an on site engine, consider some of the custom search engines that you can freely create and add to your site.

Thanks to ThinkGeek for allowing me deconstruct a few of the opportunities on their site! If you need a stapler for your geeky office friends or other unique gifts, check them out.

A few weeks ago, I had a post talking about link exchange spam that we periodically receive. As a follow up, just a few things to note regarding advertising your SEO services online. I got an email from a "Nick Slevin" advertising that he could "help to improve my rankings". It appears that I wasn't the only one. As an online marketer, I get all sorts of questions regarding how sites should market online. Email marketing is often a touchy subject.

Generally, if you are a web site owner, you shouldn't throw money and the keys to the kingdom (your site's login) at places like this. Even in cases where the "scam" is not readily apparent, you may end up with a very minimally SEO'd web site and a lot of hidden pages. I've heard many horror stories and have spoken to several web site owners where they find that they've been added to Google's Malware list and have no idea why. They think back to that time they had the site "SEO'd" and wonder if that had anything to do with the current low rankings or malware notice.

When they have some one review the files on their web hosting account... They may end up finding a lot hidden pages, pages that are not linked from their normal web pages. Often these hidden pages include links to pirated software sites, spy ware installers, link exchanges they hadn't approved of, and the like.

These bad experiences can put a bad spin on SEO and make it harder for legitimate SEOs to successfully use email marketing. Because Google and other engines may decrease rankings or add pass-through/warning pages, with out much notice to the web master of the "bad" site or if they are even able to find a good email in a WHOIS record, it may look bad on the engines until a web site owner begins to understand that the problem is with their site rather than an engine. Google does have a review tool here but this may not root out the entire problem. If you've been working with an SEO from a random email, you may still want to have a look at the files and HTML pages in your web hosting account.

It is possible that this Nick Slevin is real, that he is creating a real SEO business, maybe, but who knows. An actual web site, some clients that tell the good and bad about your business, perhaps membership in organizations like Sempo or local search organizations similar to SEMPDX, and other activities can help to further back the legitimacy of a business. Not guarantee, but further the positive impression.

If you are an SEO reading this post and you've read Mr. Daz' post, an additional tip... You also shouldn't promise any top 10 rankings. Lets face it, the engines control the rankings. SEOs work with some of the art and science behind SEO but largely we are similar to coaches, professional resume writers, marketers of all stripes, and many other professions in that we try to shape an outcome that is largely out of our hands. It doesn't mean that you can't help to obtain top rankings, just that you can't guarantee rankings. Most site owners think that you mean top 10 rankings on competitive phrases, not the low hanging fruit that ranks just by adding some meta tags and a title tag.

When I get one of those "we guarantee top 10 rankings" emails, and I'm feeling ornery, I sometimes reply and ask that they guarantee that my site can rank in the top 10 for the terms: Google, MSN, or Yahoo within Google, MSN, or Yahoo. Or better yet, can they guarantee that they can put their own site in such a top spot? Odd, they don't usually reply and I don't see them in the rankings.

As an internet marketer, it is often easier to look at some one else's site and see opportunity than it is to see opportunities on your own site. In this post I want to give an example of what I would call "bootstrap" SEO. Essentially bootstrap SEO occurs when you see some one else's success, think up ideas on how they might continue to build on their success, but you may instead find a way to build this content for your own site.

9 million. It boggles the mind. Even a slice of such a large customer base would make the day of most internet companies. On December 11th, 2007 a Warcraft licensed third party site opened called Figureprints. This site essentially makes a mini-statue of a player's character for about $115. I'm sure that if even a slice of the WOW customer base purchases a figure print, this site will be quite successful.

In relation to SEO, the Figureprints site had about 1,800 reported links in Yahoo Site Explorer when it launched. After 16 days, they now have over 3,000. (I'm not sure why Google still reports zero links. /sigh ) While I'm not in a related industry, my mind buzzes with related topics that various industries could write about.

I see a bootstrap opportunity here where sites related to 3D printers and printing, model making, custom action figures, character statues, games, comic book blogs, and many others can improve or create rankings. Two examples that come to mind:

Printing: While you may not be able to become a Warcraft licensee, you may be able to bootstrap your rankings by explaining how the 3D printing process works. If your company has a CAD/rapid prototype/3D printer you have just about all you need to create and print up a non-Warcraft monster or hero, but from the same fantasy genre of trolls, knights and goblins. While doing this you can take pictures, capture some video on a camera phone or camcorder, and write up some color commentary about the process. This has the potential to build out to several pages of interesting text and imagery that could rank quite well over time. If you don't have access to this type of printer, now is a great time to grab the yellow pages or start searching for a company to partner with.

Action Figures and Collectibles: There were mass produced Warcraft action figures that came before and after Figureprints. While it has been written that Warcraft has brought many first timers to the Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game genre, will this have a similar affect on the niche action figure industry? There have been several companies that have produced custom action figures before. Any speculation on how this might change their outlook? There are also thousands of hobby sites where they creatively mash up legs, arms, torsos, sculpty and bits of plastic, in order to create custom made action figures. (Also know as action figure mods.) Any connections to explore there?

The idea of bootstrapping your SEO effort by hitching onto a related site or company's idea can be quite powerful. The social aspect of talking about the subject in various forums, answering questions, and encouraging discussion around your videos, can create a positive buzz and links to both your site and the sites you discuss. If you are knowledgeable it can create legitimacy and trust in your site or service as well. While creating content around Figureprints and Warcraft may not be everyone's cup of tea, there are certainly opportunities in other industries and around other topics if you keep an open mind. Good luck in maximizing your online marketing efforts!

The other day I was reading a post at Google Blogoscoped called "How Google Tests Results Quality" and thinking about how many people will use advertising as a crutch for sites that have low rankings. While searchers may click on advertisements and top ranked pages, that doesn't mean that they like what they see once they reach their destination. This is why some web masters become perplexed that they can have a high "hit" count and high pay per click ad spend but low conversions or sales. This often leads to sentiments like "Pay Per Click advertising is a joke" or "top rankings don't really matter".

SEOByTheSea had a great patent examination of Google Ad patents back in July. One take away is that engines can rate clicks on an advertisement based on an examination of time spent. If I click through an advertisement but spend only a few moments before I click the "back" button in my browser, then click on another advertisement, or perform another search; these additional actions can serve as clues to Google that the quality of that ad is probably low. I would add that this same type of examination of time spent can also be applied to help rate relevance in organic search results algorithmically (by examining trends in searches) or by using human reviewers, as Google appears to do.

If you are paying for an advertisement or if you are getting lots of hits on organic keywords you owe it to yourself to start understanding your analytics package. An A/B test can help you to better fit into the shoes of a site visitor and make running changes to your site. Like Google, also consider hiring contractors to simply surf your site and give feedback. As it's the holidays, re-connect with your friends and family and see if you can get their feedback as well. All feedback, good or bad, should be welcome.