We’ve been meaning to do this for sometime, so we figured now was as good a time as ever.

Hopefully the change-over should be fairly seamless, but there is a chance that we could lose some subscribers due to a change in RSS Feed address. The new address will be: http://www.sitemost.com.au/blog/feed/ so please check your readers and if required, I’d appreciate it if you could update the details.

Thanks

Peter Newsome – SiteMost

We’re Moving

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Let me introduce to you Mr New Client who has limited knowledge of how the search engines index sites.

Due to his limited knowledge, he really has no clue as to exactly what we (as SEOs) do or how we do it, but he appreciates that through a mix of science, maths, marketing and magic we can somehow improve how his site performs.

The client has no idea that different keywords are more/less competitive, no idea that ranking for a highly competitive term can drive substantial traffic to his site (which hopefully he’ll be able to convert into sales if he employs good website usability techniques, has a decent product and compelling content… but that’s for a whole nother post)… and no idea about the value this additional traffic can bring to his site.

So, with this in mind, he’s willing to pay (what he believes to be) a lot of money (which really only works-out to be a once-off payment of a $80) to get his site ranking #1 for terms like ‘Free’ and ‘Sale’.

You embarrassingly manage to compose yourself after laughing at the poor guy, genuinely thinking he had just delivered one of the most entertaining pieces of SEO sarcasm you’d hear all day, only to discover from his stern expression that he was actually serious.

I’m sure I’m not alone in this type of scenario, but I see this on a semi-regular basis.

This is where you can make three distinct choices:

1. You can tell the client they’re dreaming and let them go find another SEO firm who will probably tell the guy the same thing.
2. You can tell the client they’re dreaming and then confuse the pants off them by going into all the technical reasons why they’re never going to achieve the results they want on that budget… or
3. You can try and explain to them in simple terms some of the challenges ahead, but guide them towards some more achievable goals and then set-out a plan on how these goals can be achieved.

If you’ve gone with option 3, it’s crucial to (politely) make it 100% undeniably clear about the results your client can expect, the time taken to achieve such expectations and what methods you are going to employ (not in overly technical detail, but enough that the client understands in basic terms what’s happening), otherwise you’ll be forever fighting an uphill battle.

Here are some examples of questions you should expect and ways to help your client better understand the process:

Speed of Results
Client: “It’s been 48 hours, why isn’t my site at the top yet?”
SEO: “Search engines index billions of pages, so it could take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months depending on the age and nature of your site.”

Keyword Competitiveness
Client: “What do you mean I probably won’t reach #1 for the term ‘internet’?”
SEO: “Due to the amount of information on the net (see the question above), the more pages that exist on a given topic and the number of people competing to get to the top for that topic makes it very difficult to rank for overly generalised terms unless you have an incredibly informative and authoritive website. Further to that, the traffic you would attract for such terms wouldn’t be very targeted, making it harder to convert such visitors into sales.”

Traffic Vs. Results
Client: “I thought I’d be getting a million unique visitors every day by now.”
SEO: “Every website is different and subsequently has different goals. ‘Getting traffic’ isn’t a goal. Attracting visitors who will purchase; creating a tool or article that will gain hundreds of links; building your online reputation so you appear far more authoritive/important than your competitors… those are examples of goals. Work-out what goal you have instead of just aiming for traffic, because traffic alone will not help you achieve much.”

Costs
Client: “Why should I pay an SEO that much?”
SEO: “There are plenty of brilliant SEO communities and resources online that can teach you how to optimise your own site, saving you thousands of dollars… but that means investing hundreds of hours reading, learning, testing and measuring your results. If you don’t want to do that, then hire someone who has invested the time and effort already and understands what they are doing. A proper SEO consultant is worth their weight in gold with what they can potentially bring to your site, but given the number of different niches that exist and ways to promote a site (from PPC, Social Media, Organic SEO, Link Bait etc. etc.) finding the perfect consultant for your business will depend on your goals (see above).”

So to avoid having an unhappy client, bad publicity and a lot of grief – make sure the client understands what SEO is all about, the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead, the time taken to achieve these results and what goals the client should be focusing on instead of just wanting traffic without a plan on how to convert it.

Great Expectations

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Since being back, one thing has become painfully obvious – this industry is truly dynamic and a lot more goes on than I had previously realised, but when part of your daily tasks involve reading a few dozen search marketing / optimisation and geek culture websites, you simply take the constant information overload for granted.

Sure there are always those stable posts you read on every second blog about link building, on-site optimisation techniques, Page Rank, all the countless lists and better ways to effectively use social media etc. etc. But lately there seems to have been a lot of other hype, updates, rants and sledging.

There has been a lot of negativity, some nasty words and cat-fighting going on between some prominent SEOs.  Now the odd rant here and there is expected, and there’s always some backlash when someone does something that makes the industry look bad (or at least perceived as ‘bad’ such as the linkbait debacle about prostitutes and 13-year-olds…. which i personally thought was brilliant) but lately it appears to have gotten far worse and a little personal.  There have been stabs at major SEO communities that I’m involved with, name calling between other SEOs, some search marketers are excommunicating themselves from other SEOs because of the bickering… it’s almost like we’re back in elementary school!

Then there’s Google who recently did a PR and penalty update, just launched knol (their own little wikipedia killer) and to top it all off, there’s also talk of them offering Digg a whopping $200m for their site.

Over the last couple of years Google’s ‘nice guy – do no wrong’ image has been slowly shifting so now they’re being viewed by the greater public as yet another mega conglomerate. So I was excited to see the launch of Cuil (pronounced ‘cool’)  – a new rival search engine with their guns aimed directly at Google.   Don’t get me wrong, I like Google and all their tools and apps (a lot) but i also think that a little healthy competition is essential.

There are some very smart and experienced people behind Cuil but unfortunately after having a play the relevance of the results weren’t brilliant (almost verging on poor to be honest).  So hopefully they can sort their stuff-out because if they can get-it-together, there could finally be a worthy opponent to Google, but then again, they could continue to produce crap search results and we’ll be back to square one.

For the last couple of years there has been a reasonable amount of talk that the search industry will see some major changes.  This has already started with the introduction of all the ‘blended’ search results and Google branching further into the social media fields with YouTube, Feedburner, Knol and perhaps adding Digg to their portfolio.  Plus the potential that an ‘underdog’ search engine could make some waves in the industry… maybe we’ll start seeing some of those changes.

Or perhaps I’ve just jumping to conclusions, over analysing and getting prematurely excited over deals and search engines that may eventuate to nothing… but that’s what happens when I try and digest six weeks worth of industry reading over the space of a couple of days.

You go away and look what happens

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The interesting thing is that the reason beer commercials are so good is because legislation prevents them from demonstrating their product being used for what it was originally intended. For instance:

• Beer advertising and marketing materials should portray beer in a responsible manner
• Beer advertising and marketing materials should not portray persons in a state of intoxication or in any way suggest that intoxication is acceptable conduct
• Beer advertising and marketing materials should not depict Santa Claus (not important for the point I’m going to make, but I just wanted to include this one)
• Beer advertising and marketing materials should not convey the impression that a beer has special or unique qualities if in fact it does not
• Beer advertising and marketing materials should contain no claims or representations that individuals cannot obtain social, professional, educational, athletic, or financial success or status without beer consumption; nor should they claim or represent that individuals cannot solve social, personal, or physical problems without beer consumption
• Beer advertising and marketing materials should not contain any lewd or indecent language or images
• Beer advertising and marketing materials should not portray sexual passion, promiscuity, or any other amorous activity as a result of consuming beer
• Beer advertising and marketing materials should not refer to any intoxicating effect that the product may produce
• Beer advertising and marketing materials should not depict the act of drinking

The list goes on and on, but basically the only way to advertise beer is to not advertise beer.

The motoring industry also suffers similar restrictions and in many parts of the world, (among other things) you cannot give the impression that cars are capable of being driving at high speeds. That’s the key selling point for a sports car – the fact that it looks sexy and goes fast.

Imagine what it would be like if you couldn’t demonstrate your product when advertising? Let’s say you made blue widgets… you could tell people that you make blue widgets, but you couldn’t show people what a blue widget does, how it is used, what it is designed for, how it would make your life better if you purchased said blue widget… etc. etc.

It would certainly make you be more creative with your marketing.

You’re probably thinking that this isn’t really an issue for most online marketers because our main aim is to rank for specific keywords that generate traffic and convert well into sales. While watching a beer advertisement might be funny when we’re flicking through the channels on TV, it’s not as likely that someone will do a search for the worlds largest domino effect to create a huge pint of Guinness when they simply want to decide which beer to buy for a party on the weekend.

But we would be insane neglect such advertising because of the viral nature it has – due to the humour and entertainment value of beer ads, they find their way onto YouTube, blogs, people’s inboxes and rss feeds. This not only re-enforces ones brand and drives traffic, but most importantly (at least from an SEOs perspective) it creates links which then help make your organic rankings sky-rocket.

So next time you’re reviewing your online marketing campaign and thinking how well it’s performing – just imagine how much better it could be doing if you had an advert that may not relate directly back to your product, but was virally doing laps of the world building you traffic, links and exposure without you having to lift a finger to spread the word.

Not demonstrating your product could turn-out to be one of the best marketing campaigns you ever run!

What if you couldn’t demonstrate the product you’re advertising – A story about Beer

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• Purchasing my first house, then spending a couple of weeks moving, another couple of weeks unpacking, assembling furniture and all the other things that happen when you move
• Spent a few days away attending SMX Sydney (here’s a great write-up of the event), not to mention the fantastic people I met, such as Danny, Rand, Jane, Ciaran, Lucas, Andy, Matt, Phil, Kirsten, Mike, Meg, Monte, Mark, Kalena, Jason, Barry… and I’m sure there are a lot of other people I can’t think of right now (so if you’re one of them – sorry… shoot me an email or add a comment and I’ll add you to the list).

So I’ve been in catch-up mode for the last few weeks, and I can’t lie – to unwind from the many stresses of moving house I may have invested a little more time than usual playing my PS3… but now I’m back on track and you can expect to start seeing regular weekly posts as well as my cheesy grinning avatar popping-up in the social media circles once-again.  I’m also thinking about doing some short SEO vids which will appear on the blog as well… but that’s a little further down the track.

Back again

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We’re interested in all feedback (both positive and negative… as long as it’s constructive) so feel free to let us know what you think.

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