White Cap Marketing - Joseph Franklyn McElroy - The Search Artist - SEM/SEO

SEO People

2008-04-07T15:33:00.003-04:00

There has always been a recurring controversy in the technical world - "are good programmers born or are they made?" Essentially the responses vary between "there are superstars and the rest don't matter" and "let machines do all the coding better than humans". Usually there are underlying motivations to every answer, like a vendor with a code generator to sell, or a programmer with freelance services to sell.

My own response always fell on the side of the superstar programmer, as that was a self-serving answer to support my livelihood. Now it is interesting to see, as an SEO (and still superstar programmer), that the controversy has cropped up in the SEM world.

Essentially, people are saying that good Search Engine marketers are naturally talented and able to manage complex campaigns. And that there is a shortage of these people.

Let me tell you why this is true. No matter what side of the programmer debate you are on, most people agree that there is a shortage of programmers. Well, I believe that the really good SEO/SEM person is also a programmer! They have to be able to analyze complex systems, modify algorithms, debug problems, and report on progress sometimes with only an intuitive grasp of where things stand.

So if there is a shortage of programmers, and with more responsibilities falling on programmers shoulders, there is just less opportunities to find underemployed superstars.

All this is probably why I am enjoying being an SEO and much as I do - because it utilizes the same talents that make me a great programmer, if I do say so myself :)

Spreading the Message

2008-03-31T16:32:00.003-04:00

As well as being a marketer and programmer, I am an artist. So I always keep my eyes open for those special talents who create something that inspires viral linking on the Internet. This video below is especially effective for me

It combines talent with Design and SEO in a enjoyable delivery that is going to get this guy noticed. Bravo for an inspiring effort and demonstrating the power of talent in marketing.

The Stag at the Water's Edge

2008-03-12T17:03:00.000-04:00

I just recently had a discussion with someone where I stated that creativity is on the dark side of human nature. They were shocked, and I was somewhat surprised myself. But as I thought about it, I realized that this dark side is not equivalent to evil. What I meant is that creativity is about solving problems that don't have a well illuminated path towards a solution.

The process of creativity intrigues me. I have made a study of it. I get very passionate about creative problem solving. And what I find fascinating is that many people, if not most people, are afraid to go into the dimly lit world where creativity awaits. I am not alone in this observation. David White, a creativity consultant, observes in his book "The Heart Aroused" that in the ancient poem Beowulf, a stag about to run into a deep lake, instead prefers to stand and die. The fear of the deep, dark waters was more intimidating than fear of death. He likens the edge of the lake to the edge of our fear.

I want to offer you assistance of myself and the other Corporate Performance Artists to face that edge. We have dove deep into the lake of creativity. In Art, Technology, and Business. And unlike Beowulf, who hides his sword, we do not hide the tools that make us successful. We help you learn and understand from what we accomplish.

While the pool of creativity from which we can offer services is large, I will give you some specific areas that we are immediately prepared to help:

Search Engine Optimization - driving more targeted traffic to your web site.
Custom Web Development - building web sites, ecommerce, and applications for the Internet
Rich Internet Applications - creating state-of-the-art media and database applications for the web and desktop
Business Development and Market Research - helping you plan your Internet Business
Online Reputation Management and Fundraising - for non-profits raising their game.

We take on a very few client partners, preferring to give exclusivity with an appropriate reward. We are currently seeking to add another relationship. We are seeking fee based or revenue share relationships. Some equity opportunities might be accepted. We also seek to work with non-profits that want to increase their online fundraising.

Our track record includes: building major systems for Fortune 500 companies, helping launch a CAFM startup that was purchased by a larger company, raising several million for a dot-com that became profitable, creating the technology for a successful online retailer, and launching a print on demand solution. Currently we are helping a music and a media startup. We also have several SEO client partners doing very well.

We need another client partner. Are you wanting to dive deep into the pool? Give me a call at 646-334-1885.

Woodbridge Investments LLC

2008-03-07T10:34:00.002-05:00

Hey Lottery Winners! A good client of mine, Woodbridge Investments LLC has been offering great deals to help you get cash for your annuities.

Even though I write this blog post as part of an SEO strategy, thus demonstrating some of the techniques of the trade, I also have found that the people over at Woodbridge to be genuinely friendly and concerned about being a good service provider. I would trust them with my financial matters.

For more about Woodbridge , check out their testimonials or get their D&B profile: Woodbridge Investments LLC

Bridging the CPG Search Gap

2007-11-08T13:28:00.000-05:00

In last week’s blog, I talked about the surprising findings of a major study of online consumer behavior, "The Digital Shelf: the Opportunity for Search Marketing in Consumer Packaged Goods." Statistics illustrated that consumers are going online in record numbers to find ordinary consumer products such as baby foods, dish detergents, skin care products.

Search professionals, myself included, aren’t surprised by these findings, but Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies are still shaking their heads with genuine shock. The average CPG spends 1% or less of their total advertising dollars on search. They have a lot of work ahead of them to move their product websites up to first page rankings.

Earlier today I arbitrarily searched "gentle dish detergents" on behalf of everyone with detergent-abused hands and wondered if my personal favorite, Dawn, would show up. A few environmentally friendly dish detergents appeared in the top spots. Dawn dish detergent showed up in fifth and sixth positions, but it wasn’t the company site; it was epionions.com and a North Carolina woman who undertook her own study of which dish detergent did the best job of gently cleaning black, sticky oil off of birds. (Dawn won the test.) I stopped looking for the dawn-dish.com site after the fifth results page. Clearly, they have some work to do to improve their rankings for "gentle dish detergents."

My wife told me to search "flake-proof mascara," because she was curious to see if her favorite brand, L’Oreal, showed up. Sorry to say, it didn’t, and I stopped looking after the fifth results page. However, websites selling Paula Dorf’s mascara filled the top 10 positions, and Paula’s company site, pauladorf.com, had a respectable second page position. We had never heard of Paula Dorf before today, but now my wife is going to buy and try Paula’s mascara. Did L’Oreal just lose a customer to Paula? Very possibly.

It’s a very good thing that "The Digital Shelf" study hit the newsstands. Now CPG companies can see the tremendous, untapped potential of search for their consumer brands. Search will help them reach a much wider audience of people who aren’t just looking for coupons, but are genuinely looking for product information to make an intelligent buying decision. After all, there’s a lot more room on a website for compelling product information and demonstrations than there is in a 30-second TV commercial or a half-page magazine ad.

CPG companies are waking up to very good news. They are beginning to understand that "search is, indeed, synonymous with reach." Search can reach the millions of potential customers who are hunting on line for their kind of products. Now all they have to do is increase their Internet budgets and watch the magic happen.

2007 FTC Workshop: Ehavioral Advertising: Tracking, Targeting, and Technology

2007-10-31T11:22:00.000-04:00

On November 1 and 2, 2007, the Federal Trade Commission will host a Town Hall entitled “Ehavioral Advertising: Tracking, Targeting, and Technology.” The event will bring together consumer advocates, industry representatives, technology experts, and academics to address consumer protection issues raised by the practice of tracking consumers’ activities online to target advertising - or “behavioral advertising.” The Town Hall is a follow-on to a dialogue on behavioral advertising that emerged at a November 2006 FTC forum, “Tech-Ade,” which examined the key technological and business developments that will shape consumers’ core experiences in the coming ten years. In addition, several consumer privacy advocates, as well as the State of New York, recently sent letters to the FTC asking it to examine the effects of behavioral advertising on consumer privacy.

2007 FTC Workshop: Ehavioral Advertising: Tracking, Targeting, and Technology

Searching for Baby Food

2007-10-30T10:48:00.000-04:00

Do people care enough about consumer packaged goods (CPG) to go online and search for their websites? A recently released study of online search habits says, without a doubt, they do.

The study is a joint project of ComScore, SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization) Proctor and Gamble and Yahoo, and it’s creating quite a buzz online these days.

Entitled "The Digital Shelf: the Opportunity for Search Marketing in Consumer Packaged Goods," the extensive study found out that the majority of American consumers visited at least one package-goods website during the first three months of 2007. Search was the driver of a good percentage of their visits.

Look at these numbers: Food products led the pack with nearly 44 million category site visitors from search. Baby products generated 15.7 million visitors; personal care products followed with 9.8 million and household products attracted 1.7 million visitors. Search created a significant percentage of those visits: 60% of visitors to baby product sites; 47% of visitors to food sites; 27% of visitors to personal care sites, and 23% of visitors to household products sites.

They’re not just clipping coupons

More fascinating statistics: The study also revealed that the majority of non-searchers and searchers weren’t just clipping electronic coupons (that activity accounted for 47% of non-searchers and 40% of searchers). The bigger numbers came from people seeking information and help about consumer products - 73% of searchers and 58% of non-searchers.

This is a pivotal report for all of us in the Search Engine Marketing profession. It proves that search is playing an ever-increasing role in how consumers make important buying decisions, whether it’s shopping for a mortgage or finding out how safe their baby foods are.

Not only is search bringing more traffic to CPG sites, that traffic is first-class. Searchers are predominately female, with higher incomes, better educated, and bigger spenders than non-search traffic.

The potential for search is tremendous for CPG companies who are now spending a mere sliver of their advertising budgets on search. It looks like search can reach the mass audiences these major conglomerates have been having such a hard time reaching in traditional, offline media.

"The Digital Shelf" study is huge for SEM professionals like me who have always known that search would become a ever-increasing part of people’s lives. Search helps make sense of our information-overloaded society and all of the choices we face. It helps us make better, faster decisions whether we are house hunting or shoe shopping.

Subject for our next article: "Bridging the CPG Search Gap." Consumers are searching online for CPG products, but even their favorite products are hard to find.

Link Building -- The Right Connections for Higher Rankings

2007-10-23T07:48:00.000-04:00

The mad scramble for building reciprocal links with anybody that has a pulse and a website should now be officially labeled as a waste of time. Google is no longer impressed when they see that your pet supplies site has a meaningless, reciprocal link with a riverboat casino. Their search algorithms are so intelligent they can tell the difference between relevant links and bogus ones. As you might guess, Google automatically de-values the bogus ones.

This development doesn’t mean that link building no longer works; it just means that thoughtless, irrelevant link building won’t pass the test anymore. Relevant links from and to other sites are still a basic and important way search engines judge the value and trustworthiness of your website in the bigger context of the Internet community.

So the real question is: how do you build links in a way that generates valuable links in Google’s eyes? Here are a few guidelines that will get you started in the right direction:

Don’t build your links too fast because Google will see your activity as a large, red flag emblazoned with the word "SPAM."
Build links with a relevant context in mind. If you have a pet supplies site, linking to sites that feature leash-free dog parks, pet charities, veterinarians, dog trainers, boarding facilities, animal shelters, pet shows and so forth, would be examples of relevant links.
Build links with high-quality, relevant sites. If you are a member of professional organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce, link to their sites and ask them to list your website in your member information.
Rent links from a reputable link broker like www.text-link-ads.com. Top websites know their value in the link-building world and, like most things in life; you get what you pay for. If you don’t have the time to link build on your own, a broker is the perfect alternative.
Be an event sponsor for a charity that is close to your heart or a professional conference in your industry. Event sites always link back to their sponsors.

I hope I’ve helped you understand that link building as a search engine marketing strategy is in a new era now, and you have to do it the right way to reap the rewards.

As always, if you’re ready to power your site and improve your rankings with Search Engine Marketing, give Corporate Performance Artists a call, and we’ll show you some ways to get started.

Behavioral Marketing - SEO’s New Sales Force

2007-10-16T18:50:00.000-04:00

There are lots of analytics programs on the market these days that give us a "fly on the wall" picture of how site visitors behave as they wander around websites. It’s all great information for fine-tuning our sites and knowing which pages need more work. We can even tell which pages led to an order or a request for information or a newsletter sign-up. What we haven’t known is what to do when a visitor leaves the site without taking any recordable action.

Chasing Sales beyond the Site

Wouldn’t it be amazing to be able to follow those lost prospects "out the door and down the street," tap them on the shoulder, and remind them of a special deal that they may have missed when they were on your site? Wouldn’t it be cool to convert those lost prospects into buyers after they’ve gone on to other sites?

Now there is a smart way to do just that, and Corporate Performance Artists knows how to make it happen for your sites.

More Chances to Make the Sale

How is this possible, you ask? By adding behavioral marketing to your SEO strategy. Corporate Performance Artists is able to tap into a network of super sites that draw the highest traffic on the Internet. Social networking sites like MySpace and YouTube, and international shopping centers like Ebay. We now have the ability to put a piece of code called a cookie on every visitor that doesn’t buy or take a recordable action on your site. That code follows them around the Internet. When they visit sites in our network, we are able to tap them on the shoulder over and over again with a banner ad about your company. The ad is customized with a special offer that gives them another compelling reason to buy from you. Imagine the power of your ads popping up when your site visitors are on eBay or MySpace. Imagine being able to convert "lost traffic" into found customers.

Intriguing, isn’t it?

Give us a call, and we’ll tell you more about this powerful, behavioral marketing tool that can enhance the impact of your SEO program. Now you don’t have to lose the sale just because your prospects left your site.

A Different Twist on Social Networking

2007-09-17T16:29:00.000-04:00

In my August 23, 2007 blog on Corporate Alumni Networking, I mentioned that I had recently joined an alumni networking group that IBM created specifically for ex-employees like me. This group focuses on business networking and making potentially rewarding connections with other people who share the common experience of having worked for IBM. What a great idea for communicating business opportunities!

It also started me thinking about popular, social networking sites and the potential for business networking in those online venues. Social networkers come together to chat and share information about common interests and hobbies. Over time, it’s easy to build up comfortable relationships with fellow networkers. You get to a point where you understand their passions and pet peeves. You probably know what they do for a living and who irritates them the most at work.

I believe that social networking sites could deliver more tangible, measurable benefits to their members if they incorporated structured business networking into their services. People are already coming to their site for socializing; why not invite them to scheduled, online, networking sessions similar to Business Networking International? B.N.I. is the largest organization of it kind and has a highly successful process that could be used as a model for weekly business networking meetings on social networking sites. It’s a proven fact that people thrive on structure and tend to flounder without it.

For example, every week B.N.I. meetings are held at neighborhood hotels or restaurants before work or during the lunch hour. Meetings begin with a 60-second introduction by each member, telling the group what specific resources their company is looking for. After introductions, there is a planned, educational 10-minute talk by one member who goes into detail about their company’s services and products. Everybody learns something about the members at every meeting and actively tries to connect other members with interested prospects.

Smart social networking sites can increase their value to their members exponentially if they add organized business networking to their offerings.

Best Little Blog: Behavioral Marketing - Take Notice

2007-09-08T11:20:00.000-04:00

Best Little Blog: Behavioral Marketing - Take Notice

For years behavioral targeting has been kept in the background, almost as a secret weapon only used in times of need. Only recently has the mass market started to take note of the power and efficiency in better targeting consumers, truly maximizing marketing dollars. Did anyone catch the NPR segment on behavioral marketing?

Corporate Alumni Social Networking Groups

2007-08-23T11:10:00.000-04:00

Recently I was invited to join an alumni networking group - but this time it wasn’t an invitation from my alma mater, Duke University. It was from my ex-employer, IBM. IBM’s venture into employee alumni networking got its start in Europe, and is now making its way across the Big Pond to America. IBM is one of a small, but growing, group of corporations who are beginning to look at resources beyond their current employees in a deliberate and structured way.

I’ve been very intrigued with this new group ever since I joined several weeks ago. It started me thinking about some core issues: For instance, what is the value of an employee alumni networking group to the corporation that creates it? And, what is the network’s value to the ex-employees who join it?

For a corporation, the value is

Tap into a larger creative pool of talent for ideas.
Larger test audience for proposed initiatives before they go generally public.
Given that the average employement time is shrinking, IBM can keep close to a pool of trained people for staffing up during times of need.
Make it more likely that current employees can find mentors without an internal agenda.

From an ex-employee standpoint, I can think of several potentially big benefits of being a member:

Access to the significant corporate resources that were once available to me as an employee
Connections to other ex-employees with whom I feel a real camaraderie
Endless opportunities for doing business with other ex-employees regionally, nationally, or globally.
Involvement in initiatives of mutual interest such as community projects with other ex-employees, non-profits, and socially responsible people
Knowledge of IBM’s open contracts for vendors

As a Search Engine Marketing specialist on the cutting edge of a burgeoning industry, I also realize that I will be able to easily connect with fellow ex-IBMers who need help and guidance to develop a Search Engine Marketing strategy for their own companies.

In the short time I’ve been a member, I have already been approached with two business offerings - an investment opportunity and a European partnership offer. It doesn’t take long to see how these networking groups can be a dynamic conduit for successful business dealings that would seldom have happened outside of the group.

If you are a member of a corporate alumni network, I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences, too. In future blogs, I will come back to this subject and talk about the "Social Networking Aspects of Corporate Alumni Groups."

About the Change

2007-08-15T18:51:00.000-04:00

Ok. I have to have fun with this blog or I will never get serious about it. Does that make sense? Here is how it is going to work. I am going to write off-the-cuff posts like this, generally give you a stream of consciousness thoughts-of-the-day or new ideas or jokes or whatever. Like for example, the change of the blog name into something fun and writing this post itself represent a new tactic I am executing. To attract visitors by being more approachable and funny. But still demonstrating my expertise, as there will be weekly (or more often) posts of a more formal nature like the one below. To get those posts, I have a weekly think tank session with Francesca Yates over at FreeLanceWriters.us who pushes and prods me into spilling out some words of wisdom which she then translates into something legible. I hope this all works.

Long-tail Keywords

2007-08-15T17:42:00.000-04:00

The assault is on. You have your list of premium keywords for your industry – the ones that literally make your mouth water. You’ve optimized for them organically and you are banking your PPC campaign on them, too. These perfect keywords are not going to come to you without a fight; there’s just too much competition, but, what else can you do?

Grab it by the Long Tail.

While others are participating in a virtual feeding frenzy over the most coveted keywords, I always advise my clients to expand their marketing using “Long Tail” thinking. This concept, first introduced by Chris Anderson in Wired magazine in 2004, describes how the Internet has made it possible for a company to generate as many sales from “fringe” products that aren’t bestsellers as they do from their bestsellers. These sales come in over a longer period of time (hence the term “long tail”), but can eventually equal half of the total company sales. The Internet makes it possible for a company to have limitless virtual shelf space, whereas a brick-and-mortar business would end up telling the customer, “I’m sorry. We don’t stock that item.”

How does “Long Tail” apply to your keywords?

Many SEM companies focus exclusively on tracking 10 to 20 top keywords, thinking that 80% of their clients’ sales will come from them; but a closer look at actual site analytics paints a different picture. Site analytics shows traffic for the most used keywords first and filters down to the least used ones. There is always a dramatic drop in traffic between the high numbers for the optimized keywords and all the other keywords.

These “lesser” or “long-tail” keywords, often hundreds of them, form a long list of search terms visitors regularly use that goes unnoticed and untracked. They slip in quietly under the radar – a few visits per keyword every day – drip…drip…drip. When you add them up, this group of overlooked keywords can actually be responsible for as much as 80% of your clients’ sales.

Track your long-tail keywords.

Start tracking your long-tail keywords’ connection to actual sales. The results will be eye-opening. You will uncover key search terms of untapped, niche markets that you can begin to optimize and easily dominate. Use these overlooked keywords to expand your thinking about your overall marketing. It can revolutionize your business and your SEM results for your clients.

PodCamp Boston 2 is October 26 - 28, 2007!

2007-08-15T17:21:00.001-04:00

PodCamp Boston 2, the New Media Community UnConference, will be at the Boston Convention and Expo Center October 26 - 28, 2007. If you're a blogger, podcaster, social networker, or new media enthusiast, register for FREE at PodCampBoston.org.

read more | digg story

What is your SEO strategy missing with “one-way thinking”?

2007-08-07T10:44:00.000-04:00

Many people in the SEM (Search Engine Marketing) business have gotten very good at implementing vertical marketing strategies for their clients. They know how to drill down and grab every keyword configuration uncovered by their keyword research. Even with all of their research, their organic optimization methods and their paid search techniques, it can still be difficult, if not impossible, to crack the ranks of the most used keywords because the competition is doing exactly what they are doing.

For you, the business owner or corporation looking to expand its online market, it’s time to get out of that one-way, vertical mode of thinking about SEO and expand your horizons with a complementary strategy that can eventually double the results of any vertical SEO strategy.

I’m talking about “Lateral Thinking.” Here’s how it can dramatically enhance results for your web properties:

Example: You have a web property which sells Opera CDs. So far, as a result of your vertical marketing mindset, you’ve concentrated on keywords connected to specific opera singers, opera titles and composers of operas. Unfortunately, every other SEM effort for selling opera CD’s is taking a similar approach.

Look what happens when you add “Lateral Thinking” to your strategy. Lateral thinking looks more closely at the whole person who buys opera CDs. Who are they? What does their lifestyle community look like? If they buy opera CDs, what else would they tend to buy?

How about tickets to the opera, books and movies on opera, books on Italy and the world-famous La Scala Opera House, opera collectibles and memorabilia, vacations to Italy, subscriptions to National Public Radio …and the list goes on. Once you look more closely at the buyer’s lifestyle, instead of just one specific purchase, you can begin optimizing for these much less competitive keywords. The added bonus: even paid search utilizing these lateral search terms will cost far less and will generate just as much revenue over a longer period of time.

Then watch how your web properties traffic begins to rise.

How I can Help

2007-07-24T19:01:00.001-04:00

If your business model is too massive, unformed, or hitting a brick wall, I can help you find a core story and essential selling point. Or more specifically, in the current business climate, you need to have a great deal flexibility in your business model. This means you need to identify the core components of your business, which must remain consistent, and the complementary components of your business, which can be switched in and out depending upon business conditions.

For example, if you have a publishing company dedicated to news and information about opera music, a core component of your business is acquiring content about opera music. Complementary components might include 1) getting content by paying for it 2) getting content via a community model, 3) getting content from historical sources, 4) getting content from feeds. Other Complementary components related to revenues might include 1) making money from subscriptions, 2) making money from advertising, 3) making money from product sales, 4) making money from sponsorships. Once you identify the core and complementary components, you then design the best model you can, operate it, and as business conditions change, switch complementary components as needed.

Marketing for Slow Summer Months

2007-06-28T09:19:00.000-04:00

Summer is a bad time for my business. On the one hand I am eager to be outside fishing or swimming or doing something fun. On the other hand, my potential clients seem to be doing the same thing. The phones are dead, the traffic on the web site goes down, the network meetings are not well attended. What to do? Here are some ideas I implement during the summer:

1) Blog and write more. As a business selling expertise, you need to establish a publishing record of expert comments, analysis, and expositions. The slow summer months make time for you to catch up with the writing you missed during the rest of the year. Also, by writing a blog, you create more search engine landing pages that might attract you new business. Biana Babinsky has some useful Business Blogging Summer tips.

2) Try to arrange speaking engagements at a local Chamber of Commerce or similar business group. Many groups have a hard time attracting speakers during the summer. If you can't arrange an engagement, take the time to prepare a speech for the coming year and offer to those groups for winter or full meetings during the year. Bonnie Jo Davis suggests a good task for the summer is to learn your speech so that you can give it without notes during the coming year.

3)Target seasonal businesses. While most businesses suffer during the summer, there are seasonal businesses that do better. The travel industry is an example. Offer special promotions and industry-specific products and services. But remember, once in the busy season, a seasonal business is not going to be interested in long term strategic services; they buy those in the off-months. You have to provide services or products that can help them NOW.

4)Pay attention to your existing customers. Call up your best customers and find out how they are doing, their summer plans, and other relationship type conversations. Ask them to refer you to friends. Offer them special discounts. Send them thank you cards. Shel Horowitz has some good tips for personal marketing to your clients.

5) Review your missed opportunities - were there prospects in the last few months who fell through the cracks? Or, who because you were too busy, you could not afford to take on as clients. Seek them out and offer them discounts to start during the summer.

6) Cold call. Yes, I know I hate it also. But in the summer months, prospects are not going to be as busy as they are the rest of the year. So they might have the time to listen to your pitch. Susan Ward has some good tips on cold-calling.

That is it for now. Remember that the summer months are also a good time to create your marketing plan for the rest of the year. You have the time to research you markets (target customers and keyword markets). And more importantly, create a budget for next year so that you will not have to spend as much time marketing during the summer...you can take a vacation!!!!

Joseph Franklyn McElroy
Star of the World Wide Web
Can help with your marketing and Internet R&D.
Corporate Performance Artists

PLAIN TALK: Search Engine Marketing, Optimization is a Key

2007-05-03T20:47:00.001-04:00

One of the mistakes many people make in marketing their site is to focus solely on the quantity of visitors. It is not the goal of your business to have lots of traffic, but to have lots of sales. Same for a web site. The point of optimizing a site for search engines is to increase the quantity of buyers of your products and services. You do this with a structured optimization process.

The optimization process develops in a spiral: analysis -> optimization -> waiting for traffic -> accumulation of statistics -> analysis -> etc ... As the spiral turns, new traffic to the web site is attracted and new statistics are accumulated for analysis.

To start the spiral, you first do an analysis for the initial set of keywords for your site. Keywords are the set of words that a visitor may use in a search engine to locate your site. If you had a site selling condos in Manhattan, your visitor might reach you by typing into Google the term "manhattan condo" - those words in quote are keywords. And most important to note is that the best keywords are a phrase - it would be extremely difficult to establish top position in search engines for a single word like "condo". Thus what you want to do is determine your niche market, either by geography, specialized services, or other factors that will narrow down the competitive web sites on the Internet.

After you determine your niche market, you want to do some keyword research to find the best phrase for your purposes. There are keyword research tools available to you (listed at end of article). These tools allow you to observe the search behavior of people, based on the actual search terms, as they searched on the Internet. And when aggregated, you get a nice view of the words people most often use when thinking about and searching for a certain topic.

Once you have an idea of the words people are using, it becomes something of an art, combined with your expertise, to determine the exact phrases for which to optimize. A good idea is to concentrate on phrases that catch people in the middle of the buying process. You do not want to use generic terms someone might use when just beginning the buying process, like "buying a home in manhattan." Nor phrases that indicate someone has a specific product in mind, like "house for sale at 211 East 31st Street". It best to find them when they have narrowed their search down without having a specific item in mind, like "condo for sale on the upper west side." Or better yet, where they are looking for the web site to facilitate the purchase process, "broker upper west side."

After you have your keyword phrases, you will want to optimize your website pages for good search results. This is not about tricking search engines. It is about understanding what elements they look for on a page to determine the relevance of the page to your keywords. There are many factors that go into determining the rank (determination of relevance and popularity) of your web page, including your page title, meta-tags, text, captions, alt tags, links, etc. Tools to assist you are available. A good one, called IBP, is located at Axandra.

When your site is optimized, you will want to track the effectiveness of your keyword phrases in attracting visitors. To do this, the most important tool is your web log. When a visitor is referred to your page from a search engine or directory, he leaves a footprint that reveals what keywords and key phrases he used to search for your site, product or service. A good statistical analysis program is available from most quality hosting providers that will allow you to see these footprints in an understandable format. You will want to see the number of people coming to your site for the keyword phrases you chose. You will also want to see what other keyword phrases are attracting prospects. Using this data, you can do your keyword analysis again to refine your marketing strategy.

Resources for Analysis of Keywords

Google’s Keyword Tool
SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool
Wordtracker
Keyword Discovery
Pagerank

Resources for Optimization of Web Pages

Google WebSite Optimizer
Axandra

Forums for asking questions

ihelpyou Forums
Webmaster World
Cre8asite Forums
Search Engine Forums
SearchGuild
Open Directory Forums
SitePoint Forums

Plain Talk: Online Social Networking For Business

2007-05-03T20:46:00.001-04:00

I was not always a person who networked to get business. Or so I thought. Being a tech guy at the start of my business career, I relied on a technical trick to get projects. Before anyone else was faxing from their computer, I was using the mass fax blast as a way to drum up income. Because everyone published their fax numbers, it was easy to create a list. And because there was limited competition, I got a high rate of response. Yes, I was a spammer before spamming was cool. But I was also creating a limited form of a social network for business – I put my resume in front of as many eyes as I could and hoped for a response.

Of course this is not all that comprises a social network for business. Being a member of Business Network International, I know that business networking is about people educating themselves on connecting with other people in meaningful ways. Such meaningful relationships create trust, which in turn is critical to facilitating cooperation between entrepreneurs and other businesses. Such cooperation improves learning and information-sharing possibilities, reduces risks, and increases opportunity for introduction to business prospects. In plain talk, that means reduced costs for marketing and increased sales thus leading to higher profits.

Recently, people have been talking about Online Social Networks (OSN). OSNs are websites which have tools and technologies that make it easier to identify and connect with people of like minds or shared needs. You can create networks of “just in time” expertise, invite and manage those allowed to be in your network, and communicate utilizing various media while managing relationships and sharing content with people in your networks.

I have been using a number of networking sites for years. Through “Company of Friends”, the first online business network launched in 1997 by Fast Company, I met a co-founder of one of my ventures. In its initial free stages, I used Monster.com as a social network for finding the expertise to start my first dot-com venture. In various enterprises I have used LinkedIn, Jigsaw, Ryze, Meetup, Tribe.net, and others to make opportunities and manage relationships. In many respects, every site you can “join” becomes a social networking site. The question for me is how do you formalize this into an organized business process?

This is a challenge I have set for myself as part of my decision making process to accept the responsibility of this column. This the not the only thing I will write about, as I have much to say on web tools, building business, and get found on the Internet. But it is the fresh topic for me that I plan to share with you.

As the initial step, I am consulting friends and experts. I first turned to my friend Jerry Ashton, who is President of American Indian TV (in full disclosure, I am a partner in this venture). American Indian TV is an IPTV (Internet Television) company that has the goal of being the best platform for experiencing the original American voice (plug alert :). In my experience with Jerry, I have found him to be one of the best networking business people I have ever known. I know he utilizes extensive online resources, so I interviewed him for this article.

PLAIN TALK: When did you start using online social networks for business?

JERRY: I would have to say that I began to utilize some of the earlier manifestations of this phenomenon. You know, popping in and out of chat rooms on Yahoo to poke around and spread my “word,” locating SIG’s (special interest groups)that addressed my interests, or even going to a BBS (bulletin board groups) to do that.

A couple of years ago, I began searching out like-minded people by way of Meetup.com. I started out being in charge of a political action group, but really couldn’t give it my time.

However, that experience led me to joining the “Social Entrepreneurs” group here in NYC and I have made some great connections to further the work I am doing in bringing work to the American Indian and Alaskan Native. I also just joined Idealist.Org.

PLAIN TALK: What are the current networks you use?

JERRY: In addition to the “Social Entrepreneurs” group, I am a Power User of LinkedIn, and an occasional user of Jigsaw. In LinkedIn, I provide my resume and seek like-minded people. On Jigsaw, I direct my attention to people I “buy” as leads so that I can make contact to promote my endeavors.

PLAIN TALK: How often do you use them and how well do they work?

JERRY: Nothing beats “exposure.” No matter how good the cause or worthwhile a mission, if no one knows about it, your work will go nowhere. The bios that people put up are, in the main, wonderfully honest as to their likes and desires. I simply look for those who are looking for me.

PLAIN TALK: With regards to AITV, has anything specific propelled you forward that was a result of online social networks?

JERRY: Yes. One of the greatest needs a start-up has is access to talent and experience. Starting up an IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) channel dedicated to film and video featuring the American Indian requires skills I do not have.

However, it only took a few hours of emailing people with those qualifications in the NYC area to come up with a half-dozen people who are now helping me understand TV production, programming, artists rights, etc.

PLAIN TALK: If someone wants to get involved in online social networking, what steps would you recommend.

JERRY: First, check out the sites I mentioned above and sort through them to locate “your kind.” If you are business oriented, as I am, you would enjoy reading this article on MSN: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5488683/ to start.

PLAIN TALK: How would they become better business people because of online social networks?

JERRY: As I said earlier, whatever it is you have to “sell,” whether it be a social mission or a product or service, you have to gain exposure. Online social networks allow you to target your audience. If they are not your audience, they will let you know. Not always politely, I might add.

PLAIN TALK: How would they make more money?

JERRY: The same way I did. Someone will actually buy your product and service, thereby validating it so that you can then follow a chain of referrals as opposed to approaching people “cold.” LinkedIn is especially good in this fashion.

PLAIN TALK: Do you envision online social networking as a part of AITV?

JERRY: Absolutely. Think of chatrooms and SIG’s that address the needs and interests of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas…or the world. We expect to draw a lot of content from native submissions – and we will figure out a way to include them in the money that can be created.

PLAIN TALK: What is the future of online social networking in your opinion?

JERRY: Whether it be a pickup bar or a business card exchange meeting, people will want to connect for very specific reasons. No one will replace the benefits of meeting in a nice restaurant or fancy boardroom – face-to-face is the ultimate qualifier – but, a lot of work can be done online to eliminate dragging yourself out into the cold to do this work.

And, it is such a pleasure to hit the “delete” button when you don’t want to connect!

Joseph Franklyn McElroy, Money Correspondent:

Joseph's column, Plain Talk published regularly to Gather Essentials: Moneyis a bi-weekly article advising readers how to use web based tools and the power of social networks to build their business.

Joseph Franklyn McElroy is President of Corporate Performance Artists, a Search Engine Marketing and Web Construction business based in New York City. He is also an experienced entrepreneur, technologist, networker, and artist.

You can find all of Joseph's Plain Talk columns at http://www.gather.com/plaintalk

Keep up with Joseph's other postings and Gather activity by joining his Gather network -- just click here http://josephmcelroy.gather.com and select the orange “Connect” button on the left-hand side of the page

Plain Talk tips for using the Web to Market your Business.

2007-01-08T12:18:00.000-05:00

Every business owner is looking for ways to market their business in an affordable manner. You hear about the Web being a fantastic gateway to opportunity. In fact, according to ComScore Media Metrix, Americans are conducting an estimated 790 million searches per week. Yet how do you bake and eat your cake without spending too much for the sugar? In over 8 years of marketing on the web, we have found tips that can make it easier for you:

1.
The Web's core reason for existing is “content.” Content is King. Search Engines exist to index content. People surf to find content. You have to produce as much content related to your services and products as you have time to produce. Anywhere you can find a place to publish, do so (much of the time for free). Be sure to include your name, company name, and your url in every possible avenue you find. Create a free blog at Blogger.com. Find or start a newsgroups at Yahoo.com. Make comments in any blog you find related to your field. The goal is to saturate the world as far as you can reach with your commercial identity. Don't worry about being eloquent – just be informed and understandable.

2.
Selling on the web is a popularity contest. Search engines give higher rankings to the most popular kids on the block. The voting method search engines use is to count the number of links to your web site from other web sites. They also throw a few other things into the mix, like giving higher value to links from sites with content relevant to your site. So your goals should be to a) get lots of sites to link to you and b) get sites with content about the same topics as your site linking to you. Try to stay away from sites that look like they just exist to link to other sites, cause nobody (including search engines) like spammers. Keep in mind context is important. If a bunch of gambling sites link to you, then you might get labeled as a gambling site. Look up the term “link baiting” on google and see what other people suggest as strategies for getting people to link to you. Try to stick to positive strategies, like writing reviews about your suppliers products and sending them the link in hopes that they will put it on their web site.

3.
Ok, now this is a bit tougher, but you can do it. You have to optimize your content for search engines. There are a lot things that can be done, so you will need to spend time learning them. But I will start you off with one concept – Keywords. You have to find the keywords people use to search for the products and services you provide. You will need to look at your competitors, your industry, and historical search requests to find this information. Tools from Axandra and Wordtracker are excellent places to start. Once you find these keywords, you will need to use them in the Title of your page, the Meta tags, and in your content. There is a lot to be said about this subject, but just getting started is the most important step.

4.
You should have multiple websites. Search Engines (and people) prefer focused sites on a specific topic. If you sell blues shirts and black jeans, you should have two sites (or at least two separate sections on one site), each dedicated to one of the products. It will help you be found quicker and make a sale faster.

5.
Your hosting provider should provide you with traffic statistics on visitors to your website. These statistics should include not only the number of visitors, but what pages they are visiting and also the search terms they used to reach your site. You should track your results monthly, and put goals in place for the quantity and quality of your traffic. There is a quick introduction to the concepts at http://www.mrunix.net/webalizer/simpleton.html

So that was some quick tips to get you started. There is a whole universe of marketing techniques to use online. Some are great, some get you into trouble. Keep checking back here as I give you plain talk advice.

How can Webmasters proactively address duplicate content issues?

2006-12-19T23:55:00.000-05:00

* Block appropriately: Rather than letting our algorithms determine the "best" version of a document, you may wish to help guide us to your preferred version. For instance, if you don't want us to index the printer versions of your site's articles, disallow those directories or make use of regular expressions in your robots.txt file.
* Use 301s: If you have restructured your site, use 301 redirects ("RedirectPermanent") in your .htaccess file to smartly redirect users, the Googlebot, and other spiders.
* Be consistent: Endeavor to keep your internal linking consistent; don't link to /page/ and /page and /page/index.htm.
* Use TLDs: To help us serve the most appropriate version of a document, use top level domains whenever possible to handle country-specific content. We're more likely to know that .de indicates Germany-focused content, for instance, than /de or de.example.com.
* Syndicate carefully: If you syndicate your content on other sites, make sure they include a link back to the original article on each syndicated article. Even with that, note that we'll always show the (unblocked) version we think is most appropriate for users in each given search, which may or may not be the version you'd prefer.
* Use the preferred domain feature of webmaster tools: If other sites link to yours using both the www and non-www version of your URLs, you can let us know which way you prefer your site to be indexed.
* Minimize boilerplate repetition: For instance, instead of including lengthy copyright text on the bottom of every page, include a very brief summary and then link to a page with more details.
* Avoid publishing stubs: Users don't like seeing "empty" pages, so avoid placeholders where possible. This means not publishing (or at least blocking) pages with zero reviews, no real estate listings, etc., so users (and bots) aren't subjected to a zillion instances of "Below you'll find a superb list of all the great rental opportunities in [insert cityname]..." with no actual listings.
* Understand your CMS: Make sure you're familiar with how content is displayed on your Web site, particularly if it includes a blog, a forum, or related system that often shows the same content in multiple formats.
* Don't worry be happy: Don't fret too much about sites that scrape (misappropriate and republish) your content. Though annoying, it's highly unlikely that such sites can negatively impact your site's presence in Google. If you do spot a case that's particularly frustrating, you are welcome to file a DMCA request to claim ownership of the content and have us deal with the rogue site.

13 Ways to Lose ROI on Your SEO Campaign

2006-11-20T11:18:00.000-05:00

Whether you have outsourced your SEO campaign or are performing it in-house, here is a quick list on how to lose ROI and create diminishing returns for your business. Why 13? Well, because that's your lucky number!

1. Make and upload site changes using old un-optimized backup files rather than the more recent optimized page files. And forget to tell your SEO you have done so.
2. Upload a malformed robots.txt file that tells the search engines that all your pages are disallowed from being spidered and indexed.
3. Require visitors to login personal information before viewing your site.
4. Require visitors to tell you where they came from before viewing your site. This is especially effective if there are both right and wrong answers.
5. Redevelop your back-end system yearly that causes well ranking URLs to change.
6. Change all the URLs of your site to make them more "keyword friendly". This works wonders with well established sites with many pages that are ranking well.
7. Don't 301 redirect your old pages to the new ones.
8. Use your really important keywords really often so your really important visitors are really able to see what’s really important on the page and the search engines really know what your really important page is about. Don't be shy because this is really important. Really.
9. Make sure your contact forms gather as much information as possible. You never know when you might need their date of birth, annual household income, names and ages of their children, their home, business and cell phone numbers, my space page and instant messenger name(s).
10. Make sure that your check out process has a lot of extra steps involved, and don't let your visitors know where they are in the process. Just keep them clicking from one form to the next. Here is a my suggested checkout path: cart > product verification > login option > purchase confirmation > select shipping method > new total with shipping and tax > name and address > shipping address > credit card information > total order verification > submit.
11. Spend your resources going after the broad high-traffic phrases. Don't worry about sales, traffic is what counts.
12. Use a lot of flash animations, bright contrasting colors and excessively large images.
13. Place Google ads right on your product pages. Those few cents you get for each click really add up and you don't have to worry about shipping anything.

read more...

Software Metrics: Ten Traps To Avoid

2006-03-21T16:04:00.000-05:00

As software development gradually evolves from art toward engineering, more and more developers appreciate the importance of measuring the work they do. While software metrics can help you understand and improve your work, implementing a metrics program is a challenge. Both the technical and the human aspects of software measurement are difficult to manage.

Performance Artist Jokes

2006-03-20T10:50:00.000-05:00

A Performance Artist walks into a bar, and the bartender stares at him. "You know," says the bartender, "we've got a drink named after you." "Really?" says the Performance Artist. "You've got a drink named Harold?"