Latest Articles

YPO: The Original SEO

August 17, 2010 By Scott Penrose

You may not be familiar with the name YPO (Yellow Pages Optimization), but you’ve seen it in action.

Go grab your Yellow Pages directory.  What is that you ask?  It’s that big book full of ads sitting in the closet under the bread maker you always said you’d use.  Thumb to a category like pest control and tell me what you see.

The concept of advertising optimization is nothing new.  Long before search engines and secret algorithms, all a person needed to know to get a first page listing under their Yellow Pages category was the alphabet.  Eventually, somebody figured out that all they had to do to make sure more eyeballs saw their company’s name was to stick some A’s at the beginning of it.

Now, if you want to rank on the first page of say, Google…the old formula was that the more links you had, the more popular you must be and so the higher you would rank.  The concept is similar to “Alpha Loading” your company’s name with A’s.  The more A’s (or links) you have, the closer to the top you ‘ll be.

So the next time you think SEO is something new, think back to your handy dandy Yellow Pages.  As long as there are marketers trying to sell products, there will be marketers who try to game the system whether they be online OR offline.

Techcrunch Reports on Search Growth in the United States

April 9, 2010 By Frank.Torres

Eric Schonfeld at Techcrunch published a great article this morning on the decline in growth of search in the United States. While it’s challenging to say the search industry’s best days are behind it, it does make sense to say that the search industry has increasingly become more efficient in delivering results. As a result of the push to improve traffic quality over the past few years, we’re seeing less and less low quality search results. What does this mean? It means you no longer land on parked pages overstocked with a list of ads when you perform a search. The same can be said about low quality vertical pages that don’t produce relevant and unique content. The algorithms have become more intelligent in how they rank websites and their content, not to mention the introduction of in search results intelligence. Just search for a stock ticker in Google and you’ll see the most recent stock price.

Here’s some of the growth numbers outlined from Techcrunch post:

March, 2009: 33.1%
June, 2009: 21.8%
September, 2009: 17.3%
December, 2009: 16.5%
January, 2010: 12.4%
February, 2010: 10.4%
March, 2010: 7.6%

(Source: Techcrunch, 4/9/2010)

Some of the commenters made good points about the introduction of informational sites such as Wikipedia and how they’ve played a role in decline by providing high ranking information in a place people tend to trust (even if it is user generated). Another interesting fact mentioned in the article is that Bing still continues to chip away at Google’s share.

One thing’s for certain, your position/rank in the search engines results are becoming more and more important once again as the competition to be the best becomes more fierce.

Guaranteeing Page 1 Rankings is SEO Malpractice and “SEO” Trademark?

April 15, 2008 By Webposition SEO Team

By Scott Goodyear

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“.

Bootstrap SEO: How To Ride A Wave Of Popularity.

December 27, 2007 By Webposition SEO Team

by Scott Goodyear

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.

Where In The World Is (Insert Your Company Name Here)? Are you in Google, Yahoo, or Ask’s Maps or Local Databases?

November 9, 2007 By Webposition SEO Team

By Scott Goodyear

Does your business fit a local market? How is your local search marketing campaign coming along? Can you be found on a map in Google, Yahoo, or Ask?

Whether you are promoting a realtor’s site, a restaurant, a comic book store, or anything else that can potentially be “local” in nature, you shouldn’t ignore the various map and local options that the search engines offer. We all want to be the “number 1″ ranked site, but it is often an uphill battle. The more active competative a keyword has, the longer that it will take to get on the first page. By registering with an engine’s map or local search option, you can some times land on the first page even if you are not the top ranked page in the normal, “organic” results.

Top Ranking Skips Organic -and- Pay Per Click Ads

Lets look at the Google search for: car rental portland oregon.

The first 30 organic, non-paid results are for for sites like Expedia, Thrify Car Rental, Priceline, a local company called Landmarkford, and others. Above the normal search results you will see a special map area that also lists several Portland rental care companies. Hertz shows up with several links in this maps area despite the fact that they’re not in the top 30 organic search results, and they are not playing the Pay Per Click game.

Go to a local or map search and plug in your business name and a local area.
http://maps.google.com
http://local.yahoo.com
http://city.ask.com/city

If you find that you are not listed, add yourself. These services are usually free.
Google: http://www.google.com/local/add/lookup
Yahoo: http://listings.local.yahoo.com/csubmit/index.php
Ask: You’ll need to email your business info to Ask. Ross Dunn’s Optimize for Ask article tell us:

Submit your business information to askcitybusiness@help.ask.com with the subject line Ask City Feedback ” Business. Ensure the following information is added to the email:* Business name and complete address
* Phone number
* The category your business best fits
* The website URL
* A contact persons email address

Reputation Management

Just as you might monitor your search engine rankings, make sure that you watch your map/local listings. You may notice that some companies have additional items in their listings like photos, reviews, stars/ratings and other bits and pieces.

Below: Does a five star location stick out a bit more than a no star location?

In Hertz’s case some reputation management is called for. Google has a review area where they display a negative review that they’ve indexed from Citysearch. A Hertz manager should probably head to Citysearch and post something there about how management has changed, how you only need to notify their staff of the issue, etc. Post something to encourage web visitors of what you are doing today to ensure great service, let them know that you aren’t letting a negative review in 2006 hang up today’s visitors.

For the rest of us, now is the time to encourage your users to post their positive experiences at Citysearch, Epinions, and other sites. If you have some one that is emailing in and singing your praises, give them a few outlets.

Most popular search engines re-use data provided by Google or Yahoo. This is why you receive Google search results when you go to Earthlink, AOL, and others. Even so, engines like Google and Yahoo source reviews, maps, and other data from a wide variety of third party sources including:

Yelp
Epinions
Insiderpages
Discoverourtown
Directory Assistance Plus

If you find that your Google or Yahoo listing does not include a photo of your building, a review, or other data, you’ll want to contact companies like those above.

Summary

Being found online is more than just a ranking. Getting into some of these alternative searches now may also help down the road. Search engines are already on many cell phones. Search engines, and their mapping data, are being used by airlines with seatback monitors. Soon you may find Google and other engines providing driving directions and local data to terminals in gas stations. Ask the engines, where in the world your company is found in their local and mapping services. If you are not found or the listing can be improved, now is the time to do something about it.

Viral Videos: How Sawdust and $50 Created Marketing Success For Blendtec.com

July 19, 2007 By Webposition SEO Team

By Scott Goodyear

Reading through a few blogs and news forums, I came across a crazy video where a man in a lab coat used a blender to “blend” a new Apple iPhone. It was an amazingly simple, short, and funny video from a series called “Will It Blend?” by the Blendtec blender company. Blendtec’s marketing director, George Wright, was kind enough to speak with me on how a little bit of sawdust and $50 led to this video and created marketing success for Blendtec.com.

Will it Blend?
Above, Blendtec’s Tom Dickson asks “Will it blend?”

Inspiration

A year ago, Blendtec hired George Wright to head their newly created marketing department. George began his job by tightening up the company logo and branding, working with a web master to update the company web site, and a few other typical processes. While walking around the company one day, a trail of sawdust on the floor led him to an odd sight. Tom Dickson, the company’s CEO, founder, and blender designer, was trying to test the limits and/or break one of their blenders by “blending” some wood. George says that he was initially “shocked” by this example of “extreme blending” but it was also a bit of fun to watch too. With the spark of a funny “viral video” concept in mind, they went on a $50 shopping spree buying various odds and ends, set up a camera, recorded some short blending segments, and put a few videos online.

Popularity Grows

The “Will It Blend?” videos began to have a life of their own. The videos gained a cult following online and began to bring quite a lot of traffic to their web site. Of course, this also meant that they gained quite a few extra sales as well. The decision was made to buy a domain with the “willitblend” wording, new videos were created to celebrate various holidays, and their new site has continued to be quite a hit.

A year after putting their videos online, Blendtec’s blenders are now being featured on popular TV shows like Jay Leno and Good Morning America. While they had previously been trying to get a spot on a cooking show, now the Food Network has asked Blendtec if they could feature the Blendtec blender on the “I Want That” show. Other companies were even contacting Blendtec to see if they would “blend” their products either for internal marketing or for their “Will It Blend?” series. They were even featured in a recent Wall Street Journal article.

Lessons Learned

There were a few lessons that can be taken away from Wright’s experience.

Wright says that it a great way to “Market in a different, fun way, where people can talk about your products.” He says that most “bigger companies struggle with this [viral marketing] because it’s edgy, out there. But it’s easy with small companies because of latitude, if the message is honest, there’s no risk.” I interpret this to mean that yes, the blender really works and although it’s technically a commercial for their company, they’re really not putting you on. The video is not giving false or questionable promises like those “best sleep you’ve ever had” commercials for beds, “quick and easy weight loss (actual results will vary) with just a pill” commercials that you might see from time to time. They really do blend odd things with a heavy weight blender, so the odds are good that if you buy one, it’s not going to break trying to blend a couple chunks of ice for your cocktail.

Viral video hosting does not have to be a black hole sucking up your budget or a profitless endeavor. While not all virla videos will be a hit, you can start with $50 and a little bit of unpaid talent. Some, like Blendtec, begin by placing their viral videos on their own web site. But once popularity picks up, this can be quite a drain on server resources. And depending on your hosting company, beyond the price you are willing to pay for video hosting/data transfer costs. You can certainly place your videos in many of the obvious spots like Google’s You Tube, Yahoo Video, and a huge plethora of video hosting sites. But, there are others like Revver.com who will provide you with a share of the profits from advertisements that run with your video. Wright said that with the influx of visitors to their sites, this is a great way to earn a little extra revenue from companies willing to advertise on on your popular videos.

Success breeds success. If you really do well, like Blendtec, companies might send you “100s of thousands of requests to blend their products” says Wright. Blendtec is even being paid to blend things like CDs for a radio station who is marketing itself as the “new blend in radio”. The radio station in turn advertised the blendtec segment, thus more free advertisement for Blendtec. Wright says that because of opportunities like this, their marketing group actually bring additional revenue into their company.

Exposure and links from unexpected places. Of course, like myself, quite a few people are now discovering Blendtec through their iPod or iPhone blending videos. Blendtec is turning into an internet pop culture icon. Posts on various blogs and web sites include references to Blendtec. Editors for large online magazines, brick and mortar companies, etc. are reading some of these posts. And so… If you hit a nerve with the right crowd, Wright says that “the exposure is great”. In regards to SEO, I’d add that normally it would be quite difficult to get links from high profile sites / companies like AOL, MTV, etc. but if your video is popular and hits the right momentum, you never know who or where people will be posting about your products. And these are free links hitting thousands of eye balls and in turn, increasing the chance that even more people will link to your site.

Viral video targets new, some times undiscovered markets. Like many blender manufacturers, Blendtec has previously been targeting health clubs, bars, and similar commercial food preparers via in store demos at large food outlets like Costco Wholesale. He says that since their videos have become popular, they have a demographic emerging outside of their traditional commercial demographic, many newer Blendtec buyers are families or male (I’d guess perhaps due to the “Wile E. Coyote“-like tendencies that we sometimes exhibit in real life). He says that they have had several reports of children dragging their parents to the appliance section specifically for a blender. Product recognition is certainly being built as these parents often have a “oh, yeah the guy that blends golf balls used this one” when asked why they had chose to pick up a Blendtec blender.

Final Thoughts

As a final take away, think about the concept of “permission” based marketing. When you set up an advertisement in a search engine, on the side of a web page, on the radio, TV, etc. you are crossing your fingers that the target audience will not “tune you out” by blocking your ad, by using time/commercial skip technology, by changing the channel, or other methods. With viral videos you are certainly casting a wide net for your potential audience, Wright says that those who appreciate your advertisement will spread your message on their own, and to others who are also likely to appreciate your video because they won’t see it as an advertisement. You essentially gain their permission to advertise to them by amusing them, keeping them interested in your ideas, etc. As in Blendtec’s case, some go as far as to create their own spoof and video tributes.

Understand that you not only gain permission to from video viewers to market to them in a non-traditional way, but you may also be giving some of your fans to criticize your company/products in a new way as well. Although it probably wasn’t their best moment, I’m putting a link to this new video, where an attempt to blend a garden rake at Internet Retailer 2007 didn’t go off quite as planned. They were only able to blend about 3/4 of the rake before the blender sputtered out. Before watching the video, think about the simple fact that Blendtec is popular enough, that a conference attendee was filming a low quality capture of the Blendtec demo in the first place, in order to post it online.

In just over a month, this blooper has had over 100 comments – both good and bad. Either way, this is additional free advertising for Blendtec. While one could get discouraged by some of the negative comments, some of the posters asked questions like… would a normal blender even blend any of that rake? Were there any electrical problems? I think most people, even with the failed attempt, would still think that this was a pretty amazing demo of the Blendtec blender and the pull that viral videos can have. I found this comment in the video’s post pretty much sums things up:

snowmatt1 “I think is hilarious. I love the blendtec videos, and it makes it more real knowing it occasionally doesn’t work. and i think it is really funny that these guys instantly recognized it as a youtube moment. Just goes to show you how important youtube has become in our lives….”

The Graphic Re-design Process. Little to No Budget? No Problem.

June 28, 2007 By Webposition SEO Team

By Scott Goodyear

In life, as in web sites, first impressions can make or break sales, long or short term business relationships, and more. What does your web site say about your business? If you’ve been wanting to update your site but don’t really have deep pockets, you’ll find the following post helpful for graphically re-designing or just sprucing up your web even if you have little to no budget to work with.

First, like my last post, and for better or worst, most site owners or designers have fallen in love with their web site. Some times you may need a few comparisons in order to understand if your web site even needs a graphical update. Check out Web Pages That Suck and especially it’s “daily sucker” page. While the WPTS site uses Google AdWords in an obnoxious perhaps even “sucky” way itself, the “daily sucker” section has links to anonymously nominated “sucky” web pages that were nominated for their design, user interface, or other shortcomings. When you visit some of these sites, does your own site seem similar?

Find a Pro or Amateur Artist.

There are many, many pro and amateur web designers that would be happy to assist you and work within a budget.

There are plenty of places where you can place a free or low cost advertisement for a designer such as Guru.com and of course you’ve probably heard of Monster right?. You can always post to the online version of your local news paper but it may be casting your net too wide. Why not go where the more internet savvy hang out? Try checking the jobs, gigs, or services areas of Craigslist. You can also find artists via art associations such as AIGA. If you want to give a talented amateur their big break, consider some of the “hidden” talent markets. Post your needs on the job boards and art departments of your local community colleges and universities. You can also peruse the art and contact amateur and pro graphic designers via Deviantart. Deviantart has been around for years and I would argue that it is the “myspace” for graphic designers.

A Few Tools You Might Try…

If you have a bit of time and talent, you may want to create and add graphics on your own. Even if you find that you do not have the talent required to make great graphics or designs for your site, don’t write off trying. Often times creating at least a mock up of what you are shooting for can be extremely helpful to a designer. Your plans may be modest or even too grand, but a good web designer / graphic artist can often work to hone your ideas to a more manageable form.

No cost:
Paint.Net
Fauxto
Gimp
ImageMagick

Low cost:
Paint Shop Pro
LView

High Cost/Pro Tools:
From Adobe: Photo Shop, Fireworks
From Corel: CorelDRAW, Painter

Download a Tutorial.

While the ease of use and learning curve will differ with each of these programs, there are many free tutorials that can guide you through creating some some amazing special effects for graphics. If you can’t find a tutorial for your specific graphics program, understand that many programs utilize different names for the same software features. As you begin to understand more about your selected software program you can then go through and follow many of the tutorials for other programs in order to create roughly the same results.

A few tutorial sites that I’ve found useful:
Web Design Library
CBT Cafe
SitePoint
PhotoShop Tips & Tricks

Add Some Interesting Photos and Graphics.

Some time’s you have to go cheap with your graphics. If you don’t have the talent for creating graphics through a free or inexpensive program, you may turn to buying clip art or using a program to modify clip art. Years ago, I was buying clip art CDs in order to quickly create graphics for web sites. Most of the inexpensive clip art CDs that I’ve found today, still include those same clip art files from years ago. Do you really want your site to look like it was made 10 years ago or like something newer? Forget outdated clip art CDs!

Consider using the “find” option at Creative Commons to find art, photos, or other items that you can use on your site. The licensing terms will vary but often a quick email to the license holder will clear up any questions that you might have about usage. And quite often, the CC photo authors will let you use their photos for free, as long as you reference them on your about page, copy right/privacy page, or similar.

On the other hand there are tons of online image banks that can be used. These image banks are much like the clip art CDs of years past except there are always new photos and graphics being added to the mix and you can preview the art before plunking $30-$200 into a CD collection where you might only use 1 graphic. There are sites with large selections like the well known Gettyimages, but for the license price you might also check out smaller competitors like iStockphoto. If you think stock photos can’t help or look too generic, think a bit more creatively about what can be done with them. Although Kathy Sierra pretty much froze her web blog a few months ago, I’m still inspired by many of the posts on her “Creating Passionate Users” blog. With just a little bit of creativity, a post can be spiced up by a great graphic in a very positive way.

Now Go Make Something Beautiful… Need a Little More Inspiration First?

At this point you’ve probably picked up a few resources that you can use. Whether you are a do-it-yourselfer or you are hiring some one to help, it is great to have some inspiration and a game plan. Like many, I find that looking at what others are doing can really help. Often you can can pick out the things that you like/don’t like from other sites and work some of those ideas. Into your own design plan.

If you are looking mainly for color schemes, check out Geoff Peters’ “Instant Color Schemes“. His tool pulls photos in from a Yahoo image search in order to create a common color palette. Some times it works really well, at other times, the results are odd. But as Yahoo’s image search is constantly changing, it is always a bit different from the last time you had used the same search. Also check out one of my all time favorites Design Meltdown. DM brings together examples of various web site designs, then slices and dices common site features into categories. You can gain some inspiration from ideas like “clean” design, “orange” sites, and others. DM also runs The Daily Slurp where users submit their own suggestions for great site design. When your site starts shining after a re-design, you may want to submit it.

Before I close, understand that visually good design does not necessarily mean a well optimized or search engine friendly design. The reverse is also true, a well optimized site does not necessarily mean a visually good looking site. However a good mix of engine friendly and visually appealing techniques can be quite beneficial. There are also arguments for and against a well designed web site or an ugly design that I haven’t mentioned, and I encourage you to explore those issues. And while I encourage you to review what others sites do and form your own game plan based on bits and pieces that you find and like, I don’t recommend that you clone some one else’s web site. Large companies may be able to get away with it, but you may or may not be able to, why take the chance? In a nut shell, whether your budget is large or small, there are lots of inexpensive ways to make your site look more professional and graphically appealing with out breaking the bank.

Defining Web Analytics and How It Relates To The Bottom Line

By Webposition SEO Team

By Curtis Friedl

Website developers and those who manage website content need to understand the multitude of information that can be gathered through the Web Analytics process. A good web analytics tool can help you to understand the numbers that affect the bottom line.

• How are visitors finding my site?
• When they get there, what do they do?
• Are they taking the desired action that I want them to take?
• At what points are they falling off from the intended process?
• What geographical regions are these visitors located in?
• What is the most popular content on my site?
• Do certain visitor segments respond differently to campaigns or to my site than others?
• Which of my online marketing campaigns are the most effective at drawing visitors to the site and converting them into customers?
• Are customers that are coming to my site for support finding their answers?
• How effective am I at reaching and engaging target demographics in my audience?

The first target of understanding those who visit your site is where are they coming from, a search engine, an associated website, etc. Which one of the marketing channels that you employ are most effective, and what is the returned derived from that ad spend. Is the ROI sufficient, should I increase the ad spend, or should I evaluate other channels?

Once I have captured the visitor, did they leave right away, or did they browse through my site. What was the path that they took, was it the one that was envisioned to lead to the proper conversion which was desired, or did the potential client abandon?

Geographically where are the visitors from? Were they from my targeted market, or have you uncovered a new avenue to direct sales efforts towards. If you are advertising to a diverse market, does one segment behave differently then another one? Did one of your campaigns lead to a better conversion rate from a targeted audience, and was that conversions with in the demographic that I expected it to come from, and did it meet our target benchmarks from that demographic.

All of this and more can be answered by looking at the audience that is reviewing the content on your site. A review of those who traffic your site, and an analyses of the path and locations that your visitor viewed, can lead you to make decisions on how to design a site, how to construct the landing/offer pages for a targeted audience. These site usability studies do more then aid in future site designs, they permit a deeper understanding of your target audience. In addition these efforts will lead to a much greater understanding of your visitors.

These analytic results can also lead you to a better understand of how to target the advertising toward your client audience. Are ads on the search engines more effective then banners on associated websites/portals, or is the old fashion targeted mailing the best avenue to cover, and meet your audience. In simple means analysis of your visitors, and content that they review can lead to:

• Optimize marketing campaigns
• Improved content, and search engine marketing efforts
• Increase website conversions
• More profitable sales activity
• Determination of the ROI of specific pages
• Greater targeted and more cost effective business processes

The bottom line is understanding your client will make it more easy to sell to them. The best way short of standing at the door asking them to fill out a survey is to review the how, where, when and why from your website analytics provider. Attempting to discern why the visitor selected one path over another will help you to understand how to better layout your sites design, or text content to encourage the desired conversion. Additional reviewing the eatery and exit points for your visitor will uncover potential strengths, and weaknesses in your sites design. Continuous reviewing of analytic information, and implementation of the solutions developed from this research will lead to a healthier bottom line.

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