Jill Whalen recently published a good article in her High Rankings newsletter about what kind of search engine optimization (SEO) efforts are realistic. Interestingly, what she wrote was based on an article she published in 2005. Ironic, since although so much has changed in SEO… some core principles NEVER change.

Here are some of the concepts Jill Whalen articulated which I think deserve special mention:

• Websites that are a few years old have an advantage. Most SEO experts agree that all things being equal, the search engines will rank older sites higher than newer ones. Similarly, if you’ve just registered a new domain name, don’t get too hung up over your initial SEO results. As Jill Whalen says, this is a big reason why SEO is a long-term proposition.

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Think you can use social networking sites such as Flickr to boost your search engine rankings? Think again. Not only has Flickr implemented no-follow tags to prevent ‘misuse’ of its service, but it has gone so far as to remove an account one search engine optimization (SEO) contractor created for his client, FramesDirect.

As reported by The ClickZ Network, Flickr emailed SEO contractor Richard Burckhardt, to say that his account was taken down because it violated Flickr’s terms of service. Flickr’s guidelines say that the service is for personal use only and that anyone found selling products or services through the photostream will have their account terminated.

According to Burckhardt the account was removed with no discussion, no warning, and no chance to rectify the problem or even to retrieve the photos.

Of course, that doesn’t quite explain why other accounts - which are also arguably for commercial purposes - remain on Flickr…

The lesson here is that social networks have cottoned-on to Internet marketers using their sites for search engine optimization (SEO) and promotional purposes. Some of them don’t like it and, like Flickr, are doing something about it. It may not seem ‘fair’ but they own the sites and can therefore make the rules.

Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the account Richard Burckhardt created was relatively innocuous. But this is an example of what happens when others i.e. ‘rogue marketers’ don’t simply take advantage of marketing opportunities but abuse them to the point where others can’t use them at all.

Source: Kate Kaye, “Flickr Ban Raises Question of What’s Commerce, What’s Not”, The ClickZ Network, December 8, 2008

Ross Dunn’s recent article in Web Marketing Today provides a handy outline of some of the search engine optimization (SEO) tools you can use to improve your search engine and general Internet marketing results.

Helpfully, Mr Dunn lists both free and paid tools in terms of four key areas:

1. Monitoring search engine rankings
2. Keyword research
3. Link tracking
4. Website check-up

The good news is that most of these tools are available free via a Google Webmaster account. Don’t have one of those? Sign up for free at http://www.google.com/webmasters/.

Source: Ross Dunn, “SEO Tools That Will Help You Succeed. Part 1″, Web Marketing Today, September 16, 2008

There’s no such thing as bad publicity, right?

Well, I don’t quite agree, but I do think publicity CAN be a boon to anyone involved in Internet marketing.

Beyond the obvious - i.e. having your name, your company, your website, etc widely talked about, enabling you to attract the attention of more prospects - there are also indirect benefits. For example, having tons of back links from other websites, which, in turn, helps increase your search engine rankings, bringing your site to the attention of more prospects, and enabling you to attract and convert more customers.

So how do you get heaps of publicity? Well, one way is to pump out press releases. Another is to hire a PR firm to do that for you… and hopefully line up interviews with media heavyweights.

But regardless of whether you do either of these, there are three (3) things that are critical to the getting sufficient publicity.

These three things are what Jason Calacanis – founder and former CEO and editor of now-defunct Silicon Alley Reporter magazine, founder and former CEO of, Weblogs Inc., and current CEO of Mahalo – says have led him to be the subject of stories and articles in the New Yorker and WIRED (twice!), and on television programs including Charlie Rose, 60 Minutes, Nightline, CNN, Fox News, Bloomberg and countless others. And Mr Calacanis has never used a PR firm.

What are these 3 essential tips for getting publicity. They are to:

1. Be amazing
2. Be everywhere, and
3. Be real.

Okay, I’m sure you want to know more than that. Well, head on over this article where Mr Calacanis gives some detailed advice on how to implement “be amazing, be everywhere and be real” into a solid strategy for getting heaps of publicity.

Source: Jason Calacanis, “Jason Calacanis On How To Get PR For Your Startup: Fire Your PR Company”, Silicon Alley Insider, August 21, 2008

Okay, so that’s a pretty dramatic headline, but it seems to me that too many search engine optimization consultants and their clients are focusing on the wrong things. It’s not necessarily intentional, but many companies have bought, sold and swallowed several SEO lies…

The first lie is that search engine optimization is all about getting high rankings in the search engines for the most popular keywords or keyphrases in a particular market. Technically, that may well be what “search engine optimization” or means… but does a company really want higher rankings… or does it want to make more money?

Is getting a number 1, 2 or 3 for the most searched on terms in your market really what you want? Or is it getting a high ranking for what Dan Thies calls those “wallet out” keywords - those keywords most searched on by people who are likely to buy from you?

The second lie is that search engine optimization (SEO) should be about increasing traffic to your website. Does getting more traffic matter… or does getting more paying-customer-traffic matter? It’s possible to use several techniques to bring a whole lot of traffic to your site… but whether those visitors are interested in – or likely to buy – your products is another question altogether. Again, certain keywords – including keywords that are searched on by people in your target market – may bring a lot of traffic to your site… but are they really buyers?

Finally, building on the first and second lies, the third lie is that, when it comes to search engine optimization, your focus should be on increasing your search engine rankings and overall website traffic.

Um, if you are in business, shouldn’t your focus be on making more money?

Okay, okay. There may be a clear relationship between increasing your ranking in the search engine result pages (SERPs) for the most popular keywords and generating more traffic. But the point is that this is not necessarily the case. In fact, identifying what relationships exist between given keywords, types of traffic and money will generally require a good deal of analysis and experimentation.

Case in point: I know of a company that is very pleased with its high ranking for a highly-searched on phrase in their market. But the money they are making from their SEO efforts is appalling. Could it be that the phrase they have spent so much effort achieving a high ranking for… is not the phrase used by most “wallet-out” search engine users?

In any case, what surely can’t be disputed is that the key metrics a company should really use to measure the effectiveness of their online marketing – including search engine optimization – are visitor value and overall online profit.

Visitor value equals revenue per visitor less the costs of acquiring that visitor. In SEO terms, it’s the revenue per visitor derived from organic search engine results less the costs of search engine optimization.

You can actually use more precise measures of visitor value. You can work out the visitor value per search engine, per keyword, and per other kinds of variables. Ideally, you will have different visitor values for each distinguishable type of marketing you carry out - e.g. visitor value per paid search, visitor value per a particular banner campaign, and so on, in order to work out the effectiveness of each kind or activity. In each case, though, the visitor value metric essentially tells you how much money you are generating from an average visitor less the costs of acquiring that visitor.

Online profit is how much money, overall, you are making from your website less the costs of maintaining and marketing that website. Depending on how you define “costs” your online profit may be different to your overall gross profit, which may take into account various “off-line” costs.

Online profit is important because, depending on the types of products or services you sell, your visitor value may be relatively low, but your online profit may be considerable.

But what matters is not so much what your visitor value and online profit are now… but, rather, the extent to which they are growing. In other words, when it comes to measuring the return on investment from your search engine optimization activities you want to know if, and by how much, such activities are increasing your visitor value and online profit.

Consequently, when considering the performance of your SEO firm, you are wise to focus less on whether they are getting you higher search engine rankings or generating more traffic, and more on whether they are improving your visitor value and your online profit.

The same is also true of paid search engine marketing. I’ve found that many companies are so intent on lowering their cost-per-click and increasing their click-through-rate that they lose sight of the big picture, which is to increase visitor value and online profit. In fact, in many cases, by working out which keywords best convert into sales in a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign, you can find out which are the best keywords to optimize for in terms of SEO.

Of course, your methods for converting visitors are integral to raising visitor value and online profit. And these may well be outside your SEO company’s control. On the other hand, it’s important to recognize that search engine marketing and conversion activities are highly interdependent. What keywords you optimize for will not only impact on the traffic your website receives, but the degree to which that traffic converts into customers. Fortunately, it’s possible to hold all variables constant and identify which keywords are more highly converting. So, in this respect, you can see how effective your search engine optimization consulting firm is in identifying and optimizing for those wallet-out keywords.

All in all, your online success depends on recognizing and focusing on improving those bottom-line metrics that really matter – visitor value and online profits. Getting better search engine rankings and more traffic may well be essential for increasing visitor value and online profit… but they are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. That’s our view as an internet marketing services provider, as well as the operator of a portfolio of money-making websites.

Great news for Flash lovers. Adobe is working with Google and Yahoo to enable the search engines to index Flash (SWF) files and the information - such as text and links - they contain.

Google has already incorporated the Flash reading technology into its search engine and has begun indexing Flash content across the web. Yahoo is currently working with Adobe to determine the best possible implementation. The new indexing will apply to all existing Flash (SwF) content - so developers need not modify or upgrade their SWF files in any way.

Of course, as Erick Schonfeld from TechCrunch points out, making Flash content indexable is one thing… improving search engine rankings is another.

Since so much depends on authoritative back-links - which, as Google has admitted, is the MOST important consideration when Google ranks sites - the outstanding issue is to make it easy for webmasters, bloggers and others to deep-link into those Flash files. Until this happens, don’t expect all those Flash-heavy pages to leap up the SERPs just yet!

Even so, the indexing of Flash content is a great step forward for Adobe, Google, Yahoo, Flash developers, webmasters and search engine users alike.

So… what is Microsoft doing about it?

Sources: Adobe, “SWF searchability FAQ”, Adobe, July 1, 2008, Erick Schonfeld, TechCrunch, “Once Nearly Invisible To Search Engines, Flash Files Can Now Be Found And Indexed”, June 30, 2008

Here’s the kind of counter-intuitive discovery that I just love hearing about… because it just goes to show that what YOU (or I) think… may be far removed from what our target market thinks…

Let me tell you about Bev and Rob Clement…

Bev and Rob run a successful ghostwriting business called Ghostwriters International. Ghostwriters International gets most of its clients through the search engines, and for at least one of their targeted keywords, ranks at No.3 in Google.

Doing a little competitive intelligence, Bev and Rob decided to take a look at the websites of their first and second ranked competitors, along with those of the ghostwriters ranked below them. Interestingly, all of these sites: (1) offered significantly cheaper prices, and (2) were blog based websites.

Out of interest, Bev and Rob surveyed clients who had come to them via searching on the keyword in question and asked them why they had chosen Ghostwriters International over the other sites. Remember - these were clients who had no previous knowledge of Bev or Rob.

Overwhelmingly, the answer was the same. These clients had chosen Bev and Rob’s service because their site was… NOT A BLOG.

What? They chose Ghostwriters International because… their site wasn’t a blog? Am I being serious?

I am.

As many will know, blog based websites are much more “search engine friendly” than traditional, static HTML websites. For instance,  whenever you add content by posting to a blog, you effectively tell the search engines, including a range of blog-specific search engines, to visit and index your website (giving you more opportunities to increase your search engine rankings). Blogs also faciliate interactivity and back-links more easily than static websites. On top of that, blogs are typically much more easy to set up than traditional websites.

So it’s no surprise that Bev and Rob’s competitors were using blogging software to power their websites. But was this turning customers away?

When Bev and Rob delved a bit further to understand why their clients had been turned OFF the other sites because they were blog-based, they came across a startling finding: their clients associated blogs with “hobby” websites, not serious, professional websites.

In other words, because the Ghostwriters International website was a traditional website it gave the impression that Bev and Rob’s business was much more professional.

Interesting, huh? It just goes to show, once again, that each market is different and will respond to different triggers. In this particular case, a blog-based website was a turnoff for clients looking for professional ghostwriters. Or at least the clients who chose Ghostwriters International - it’s not clear whether Bev and Rob were attracting more clients than the other sites, just that a major reason why their clients came to them was that the other sites used blogs. It is interesting that Bev and Rob charged significantly more than the other sites, so they may well have been attracting higher paying customers. Whatever the case, Bev and Rob aren’t complaining - their business is booming!

Oh, just as an aside, there’s no reason why a blog need look like a blog. With some slick design and creative style sheet work, you can make a blog look as “traditional” or “corporate” as you want. However, many people tend to use blogs precisely because they aren’t web designers or don’t want (or can’t afford) to hire a designer - they can, instead, use one of the many free blog templates available. However, this, again, just may undermine the professionalism of their service and in turn, send customers away.

Click here for more information about Ghostwriters International.