Expertise in one field doesn’t equal expertise everywhere

I’ve said it before elsewhere; not sure if I’ve said it here yet, though. So just in case, I’ll say it again: just because somebody “does” web design or site development, this doesn’t mean they “get” SEO. Sure, all those tasks have something to do with websites, but they require very different skill sets and experience.

Hiring a designer to do SEO for you is a bit like being a general contractor building a house, and figuring as long as the electrician is in there running wires, you might as well get him to do the plumbing and install the insulation, too. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?

I’m not disparaging web designers or developers. They are both specialized professions with their own required skills. It can take years to properly develop expertise in either area. All I’m saying is, it’s the same thing with SEO. The tactics and techniques for optimizing a site can’t be learned overnight, and they should not be something a web designer or developer can simply “tack on” to their existing services.

To be sure, there are some designers and developers who honestly do know what they’re doing. They’re pretty rare (and, as you might expect of true web Ninja experts, often quite expensive), but they do exist.

There can be consequences

But unless a designer or developer has taken the time to really learn SEO (I mean really learn what works and what doesn’t, not just skim a few articles and declare themselves “educated”)… unless they’re willing to invest the effort to constantly test techniques, learn new tactics and update their SEO skills… then you (as a client) may be shooting yourself in the foot if you hire them to “do SEO” for your site.

Some of the bad ideas presented in Jill’s list are simply ineffective. But some cause actual harm — up to (and including) deleting your entire site from the search results. It does not pay to take chances with SEO, folks.

Misinformation abounds

Sadly, there’s misinformation o’plenty floating around the web about SEO. (None of it to be found here, of course! ) Some of this misinformation is simply outdated and some of it is just plain ol’ flat-out wrong. The problem is, even the wrong and outdated stuff is often presented with a great deal of authority. Some SEOs are enamored of declaring their opinions as though they were proven, immutable facts. And just because someone seems to be well-known is no guarantee they actually know what they’re talking about.

So in a lot of cases, the only way to separate the stupid stuff from the real deal is to test it out for yourself. This is what “real SEOs” (and in-house webmasters like me who do their own SEO) will do. Unfortunately, from what I can tell, it’s not what a majority of web designers / developers who offer “SEO” services do.

Check the list

Take a look at Jill’s list. See if anything on there looks or sounds familiar. Is it stuff your designer or developer has advocated? If you’re a do-it-yourselfer SEO, is any of it stuff you’ve fallen into believing?

If so, might be time to indulge yourself in a little continuing education… learn for yourself what works and what doesn’t. If you choose to DIY your SEO, this knowledge will stand you in good stead. And if you choose to outsource SEO, at least you’ll be in a position to better evaluate proposals and project plans from your service vendors.

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Now, my first reaction was to think, “How paranoid! It’s not as though there are ‘black hat’ SEOs lurking on every street corner, just waiting for unsuspecting webmasters to come along so they can lure them over to the Dark Side.”

But then it occurred to me that for many people outside the SEO industry, that’s might be pretty much how it seems.

Don’t Panic

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is said to have the slogan “Don’t Panic” inscribed in friendly-looking letters on its cover. (Or at least it will, thousands of years from now when it actually gets published.)

But webmasters and site owners don’t have to wait thousands of years. They can start not panicking today. Yay!

Black hat does not equal scammer

First off, don’t confuse black hat SEOs with scammers. Whether someone abides by the search engine guidelines has nothing to do with whether or not their work will be effective. There are scammers and incompetents who claim to be totally white hat (and who operate scrupulously within the guidelines of the major search engines).

The problem is, while those guidelines are helpful for keeping you out of trouble by addressing the things you shouldn’t do, they don’t necessarily cover all the things you need to do to get results.

It’s not that these folks will get your site penalized or banned… it’s just that you’ll pay them a whole bunch of money and get absolutely nothing in return, which is just about as bad.

Your biggest risk is not in “accidentally” signing up with a black hat SEO; there are actually relatively few of them out there who take on clients. Frankly, most of the real black hats with any reasonable level of skill have found they can make a lot more money (with a lot less hassle) optimizing sites for themselves.

Surprisingly (to some at least) there are “ethical” black hat SEOs. Black hats who do provide client services generally don’t want to sucker you in to signing up for their services under false pretenses. Rather, they’ll be up-front about the fact they play to win. They’ll also be up-front about the risks inherent in their approach, and they’ll make sure you understand exactly what you’re getting yourself into, and what the consequences could be.

You’re not going to “accidentally” sign up with one of these folks. Nope, anyone who hires one of these black hats knows exactly what they’re doing — and has no room to complain if (when) the black hat tactics are discovered and search engine retribution ensues.

No, as a prospective client your biggest risk is in getting taken in by a smooth-talking con artists more interested in separating you from your cash than in getting results for your site, or an incompetent who simply doesn’t have the skills or experience to back up the prices they’re charging.

Unfortunately, both of these groups have learned they can get many more clients by declaring their undying love and respect for the SE guidelines and showing off the brilliant whiter-than-whiteness of their headgear. Personally, the more adamantly and repeatedly somebody declares himself or herself to be “totally white hat” the more suspicious I am that they’re using that as a smokescreen to hide the fact they really don’t / won’t / can’t do much of anything at all to make my site more successful or profitable.

One of the ways you can tell whether you’re dealing with a reputable company that actually has a chance of getting you results — no matter what color hat they wear — is their willingness to explain what it is they’re going to do. They should be very transparent about what they plan to do both with your site and in off-site strategies such as link acquisition.

The con artists won’t want to tell you because they don’t want you to find out they don’t plan to do much of anything at all. The incompetents can’t tell you, because they don’t know what needs to be done.

In both cases, they tend to hide behind bogus technical-sounding jargon and “secret sauce.” Look, in my opinion, if they can’t explain in plain English in two short sentences or less what it is they’re talking about and exactly how it’s going to help you make more money from your site, show them the door.

OK, maybe the “two sentences” thing was a little strict. But here’s the truth: there are no “secret sauces” in SEO. The actual tasks that need to be accomplished are relatively straightforward. The value of a professional SEO lies in the skill, experience and resources they bring to the job. It isn’t that they’re doing anything you couldn’t do on your own — it’s just that they can get the job done much better and faster and with greater chances of success out of the starting gate than you could do on your own.

The best SEOs know this, so they aren’t afraid of telling you what they’re going to do.

Another tip is to give any of their promises the “reasonableness test.” If they’re promising you’ll absolutely get #1 rankings in Google, ask yourself how they can guarantee that — given they don’t control Google.

If they say they have some sort of “special arrangement” with Google that enables them to make that promise, check the Google guidelines (where you’ll see Google state they don’t have any such “special arrangements”).

If they promise a dinner of lobster and Chateau Rothschild champagne for the price of a hot dog and a Budweiser, consider the likelihood of their being able to deliver what they promised (and still turn a profit).

It’s an oldie but a goodie (and still as true as ever): Promises that sound too good to be true usually are (too good to actually be true, that is).

Unfortunately, too many clients apparently check their brain and their common sense at the door when they meet with a prospective SEO. Don’t allow yourself to be bamboozled with impressive-sounding jargon or dazzled with impossible promises and you’re already ahead of the game.

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For instance, I’ve noticed when reviewing web copy that too many webmasters are apparently taking sales lessons from my 8-year old son. See, when he wants something (but he’s afraid his dad and I might say no), he tends to get all chatty. He’ll go on and on about all the wonderful qualities of whatever new toy it is that struck his fancy, how much fun it looks to be to play with, how some of his friends already have the toy in question and really enjoy it. He’ll talk all around the real point of what he wants, but somehow never arrive at asking right out.

I see the same problem with all too many websites.

Maybe the problem is the webmaster has taken too much to heart the advice to focus on benefits and forgotten that there also needs to be a call to action. Or perhaps the site owner is afraid if she asks for the sale the customer will say no and leave, never to return. In any case, the copy on the site goes on and on about how brilliant their products or services are, and all the wonderful things they bring about… but somehow the copy never gets around to asking for the sale.

Customers aren’t dummies. At some level, they probably know that’s what you want. So, with this in mind, possibly the web writer thinks it’s too “pushy” or forward to be so bold as to directly tell the customer to purchase the product.

Trust me, it isn’t.

I’m sure most people know deep down that’s what you want them to do. I mean, seriously, otherwise what’s the point? But psychologically, even when we know what we’re “supposed” to do next, we all sometimes need a bit of a nudge to move us in the right direction. And sometimes, frankly, the most-desired next step simply isn’t clear. That’s where a well-crafted call to action comes in. Or better yet, several well-crafted calls to action.

Absolutely, make the case for why your product or service is the one the customer should choose. Differentiate yourself from the competition. Explain the benefits you bring to the table. These things are all important — crucial, even.

Just don’t forget in the midst of all your benefit-focused copy to tell people what you really want them to do: whether that’s make a purchase, or sign up for your newsletter, or click through to the next page to learn more, or donate to a charity, or whatever. Don’t make your website visitors guess what their next step should be. Tell them early and tell them often.

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Another member weighed in with the opinion that “anyone can be an SEO expert.”

As I responded on the forum, pretty much anybody can become a world-class athlete, too, but only a very very few are willing to put in the amount of time, energy and dedication it takes to develop their skills to the point where that actually happens.

Certainly, if you build a website (or a blog) with user-friendliness in mind, some site optimization will happen “automagically.” Search engines want sites that are good for human visitors, so if you make your site better for humans, in many cases you are also making your site better for the search engines.

But making a site visitor-friendly is not the same as true Search Engine Optimization. Actual SEO also includes such things as keyword analysis, code optimization, copywriting, internal navigational design and more. There’s a lot more to it than just decently-written content and inbound links.

While things like “SEO-friendly” blog plugins can help make the job easier, they are simply tools. Using software or plugins doesn’t make a person into an SEO any more than using a hammer, saw and chisel makes a person into a master woodworker.

I look at it this way. It’s relatively easy for a person to learn how to swap out the air filter or maybe even change the oil on their own car. But, while they’re good and helpful things to do, being able to do these things doesn’t make a person into a qualified mechanic.

Since the whole purpose of this site is to help do-it-yourself webmasters to learn more about optimizing their sites, I don’t want to come across as discouraging you. But I believe I also have a responsibility to make sure your expectations are reasonable.

In the words of one of my favorite sayings:

There’s fast, there’s cheap and there’s good. You get to choose two.

Since I’m going to assume you want one of your choices to be “good” that leaves a decision between “fast” and “cheap.” If you want fast results, you should expect to spend a good bit of money to hire someone else who has invested the necessary time and effort to become an SEO expert.

If you want results without spending a lot of money out of pocket, then realistically you need to be prepared to invest a good bit of time learning what real optimization is about yourself. (A good first step, of course, would be to keep reading here! )

Can anyone become an SEO expert? Well, I don’t know about anyone, but I suspect most people could if they only put their minds to it. Including you.

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In this case the leaders of the business have decided to develop a “generic” marketing plan to use for new product releases. I think this is also a good thing, as far as it goes. The problem, as I see it, is that it doesn’t go far enough.

Certainly, it’s great to have a plan for bringing new products to market. That’s more than many businesses have, so it puts this company ahead of the game.

But I believe it’s crucial to have an overall marketing plan that covers all aspects of business promotion, not just new product releases. You should be marketing and promoting your business even when you don’t have a new product to push, and you need a plan to guide all your business marketing activities.

To bring into focus why this is a good idea, I like to think about how my husband and I go about Christmas shopping. Our son is seven, and this year his big requests seem to center around Pokémon and Bakugan (if you don’t know what these are, count yourself lucky).

He’s given us an extensive list of various cards and figures and sets he’d like to have, more than we would choose to get him at once, even if we could afford them all. Likewise, we have additional lists of gift suggestions for other family members. Unfortunately, our funds are not unlimited, so it’s simply not possible for us to get everyone everything they’ve asked for.

And even if we could afford to buy everything, we believe it’s not a good idea to just hand our son everything he asks for on a silver platter. Some of the toys on his list might not be suitable for a seven year old; some might simply be flimsy or poorly designed, and we think it’s a good character-building exercise for him to work to earn and save the money to pay for some of his toys himself.

If you’re in charge of marketing a small business, you’re likely familiar with the concept of having a long list of tasks and a much shorter list of resources available to accomplish them. You probably also have had the experience of someone in your company asking for marketing activities that you know aren’t such a good idea.

Now, as my husband and I plan shopping trips, we make lists of what we plan to buy on that trip. Those lists correspond to the new product launch marketing plan the company is creating. They’re short lists related to the specific task of that shopping trip.

It’s good that we have those lists; otherwise we might end up buying things we don’t need, or forgetting to buy things we do need.

But without a “master list” of all the gifts we plan to buy, constantly updated to reflect the gifts we’ve already purchased, we could well find ourselves inadvertently buying duplicate gifts, or leaving off something important. A business without a marketing plan runs the very real risk of wasting time and money on ineffective advertising and promotional activities, or overlooking great public relations opportunities.

To prepare that master list, we need to compare our everyone’s wish lists against our available funds and how much we’re comfortable spending — much as a small business needs to compare their wish list of publicity and promotion activities against their available resources. We both have to prioritize. We have to make a plan.

Once we’ve made our initial plan, we also know we need to update every time we go shopping. Mark off items that have been purchased, remove items we’ve decided are too expensive or too flimsy or otherwise undesirable, and add new items that come to our (or our son’s) attention after the initial list was prepared. In other words, we have to maintain and adjust the plan to meet changing circumstances.

Does your business have a marketing plan? Do you think you need one? If the answer to either of these questions is no, I’d strongly advise you to reconsider.

If you need some help or inspiration to create your marketing plan, my friend Bobette Kyle has an excellent marketing plan information website. (Please note, I don’t get any compensation for this recommendation; I just think Bobette’s got it going on where marketing plans are concerned.) Check it out.

As the old saying goes, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Plan to succeed instead.

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As reported in the Fall 2008 issue of Search Marketing Standard magazine, 70% said they went ahead, registered and made the purchase. Not bad, maybe… but if you think about it, that also means nearly a third of the potential customers either left the website outright (23%) or registered, but changed their mind and didn’t buy anything (7%).

Let’s be clear — these were people who were “sold” on the product or service to the point they started the purchase process. And these websites that required registration prior to purchase basically changed their minds, and convinced 30% of them to not by.

Which, given how hard we all try to persuade people to buy from us, seems kinda crazy. Pretty much the opposite of what we normally try to do. And not just a little bit wasteful.

I mean, can you afford to turn away one-third of your customers?

If you currently require registration or you’re considering it… first, it would probably be a good idea to stop and think for at least a minute or two about why you want people to register before purchasing. What is it that they’ll get out of it? What do you get out of it — and, more specifically, what will you get out of it (that you can’t just as easily get through other means)?

While you’re pondering those questions, here are a few other things to consider:

• Find another way to get the info you want. For instance, customers expect to furnish their contact information as part of making a purchase anyway, so you don’t need them to register to get that. If you want a newsletter opt-in, why not simply ask for it as part of the purchase process? If you think about it , you may find you can get the information you want without any registration necessary.

• Offer customers something extra. In the same Forrester Research survey, 51% of site visitors said they’d be willing to share personal information with a website in order to receive an extra discount on their purchase. Some other reasons they said they’d give up their information: to receive fewer ads (41%), to save time (on future purchases, maybe? — 40%), to receive free content (39%) or to have a more personalized experience (27%). You can try to figure out what your customers most want and offer that as a “carrot” to reward them for registering.

• Consider making registration optional. When it comes down to it, you need to decide which will work better for your business — to require registration and possibly lose 23% of your prospects (those who will bail without registering) and up to 30% of potential sales (the 23% plus the 7% who register but don’t buy)… or to make registation optional, and maybe save those sales (admittedly, while probably losing sign-ups from some unknown percentage of people who will buy without registering).

Bottom line, don’t assume registration has no effect on your conversions and sales. Be sure you’ve considered the consequences before you make registration mandatory.

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1. Do You Yelp?

The experts

• Seth Besmertnik, CEO, Conductor
• Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOMoz
• Todd D. Malicoat, founder, Stuntdubl.com
• Eric Ward, president, EricWard.com
• Debra Mastaler, president of Alliance-Link

These folks represent some significant firepower in the world of link building. Things to note from what they said:

• Internal navigation is a significant portion of most any successful SEO campaign. Pay attention to your site’s menus and other internal links.
• Linking out, far from being a problem, can potentially help (maybe) if you link out to good resources to demonstrate your site is a “good web citizen.”
• Don’t get so worked up about whether or not your outbound links are passing link popularity to somebody else.
• Link anchor text is very important in determining how a page ranks in the search results.
• Don’t pay so much attention to the little green bar on the Google Toolbar displaying PageRank (PR). That number isn’t related to Actual PR, which is used in the ranking algorithm, and may in some cases actually be misleading.

There’s plenty of additional information in the post. Strongly advise you to check it out if you have any questions about effective link building for search.

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Yikes! Seems like it wasn’t that long ago that everybody and his dog was singing the praises of blogging as indispensable for business marketing. So what in the world is going on here?

Over at bloghound, Lois Kelly speculates that maybe businesses who got into blogging early on had unrealistic expectations, or set the wrong measurements and goals. As she points out, blogging is a conversation, not a “campaign tactic.”

And, of course, as mentioned in a post at Direct, one reason corporate blogs may not have lived up to those expectations is that too many of them “read like tired, warmed-over press releases,” according to the Forrester analysis.

Which is probably true. We’ve been through this kind of issue at my company, and it’s something I harp on all the time. There are some in the company who find it incredibly tempting to stick to stiff and stilted corporate-speak or that fake-enthusiastic “rah, rah, we’re the best so buy our product“ sales-pitch mode… neither of which work particularly well, especially over the long run. I think a little bit of that stuff goes a long way.

I’ve run into something similar in my personal life, too. Maybe you have, as well. You know, when you’re trying to have a conversation with somebody, and it’s clear they’re so busy formulating what brilliant thing they’ve going to say next, they have no brainpower left to pay attention to what you’re saying right now. The conversation quickly becomes limited to them pontificating on their favorite topic du jour and you listening — which may be fine if you’re on the pontificating end of things, but for the listener it becomes pretty tedious pretty fast.

So it’s something I’m aware of, and something I try to be on constant alert for to make sure I’m not guilty of the same thing. Not always successful, but at least I’m trying.

But, you know, I understand. It’s pretty scary for a corporation, or even a small one- or two-person show, to open up and get honest with their customers (and, worse, let their customers get honest with them). I mean, who knows what The Great Unwashed out there are going to say if you give them a platform to speak? And there are some real potential legal liabilities to letting other people outside your company post content (like blog comments) to your website.

It’s certainly easier and less frightening to stick to what the legal and corporate communications departments have vetted and steer clear of all this crazy “open conversations with your customers” stuff. Yep, I really do understand. (Of course, “understanding” doesn’t mean I think they’re right, just that I comprehend where their wrongness comes from.)

Hmm. Well, I’m not sure where I’m going with this one, except to say that I really admire those companies that have found a way to get beyond those fears, step outside the legal-department-sanctioned corporate-speak and have authentic conversations with their customers. And I think, maybe, if other companies can learn to loosen up their ties and relax a bit, they might find blogging — and the real connections they can forge with their customers through blogging and other social media/Web 2.0 outlets — aren’t necessarily so “irrelevant” to their business marketing after all.

Related posts:

1. Great Expectations (for SEO) — Part Two
2. Great Expectations (for SEO)

See, what I hear a lot on the marketing forums are questions from small business owners trying to figure out how to get other people to do what they want: point links to their website, sign up for their newsletter, sign up as affiliates, buy their products. And what’s really weird (well, it seems weird to me) is how often, when I ask whether they’ve tried simply asking politely for what they want, the answer is basically, “no.”

If you want people to buy your product when they come to your website, your web pages need to include a call to action. Don’t just assume people will “naturally” do what you want. Ask them (politely).

One really neat idea I’ve come across recently is to make sure your thank-you or confirmation emails are doing double-duty. You don’t have to stop at simply confirming the customer’s order — you can also ask for links to your website, cross-sell or upsell products, encourage people to read your business blog or sign up for your newsletter, whatever. The possibilities are really limited only by what you want.

You may have to work hard to get a small fraction of the recipients to open and read a “regular” email message. The cool thing about confirmation emails is they’re almost guaranteed to get read — giving you potentially a much bigger audience for your message. And those thank-you emails go to people who have already purchased something from you (who, presumably, will be more receptive to your message than random strangers).

I’ve got an article here at Search Engine Guide to give you some more ideas.

So, have you tried asking your customers for what you want? How did it work out? I’d love to hear about your experiences!

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1. Can “Good Enough” be Good Enough?

As Ann points out, keyword rankings shouldn’t be the goal of search engine optimization — they’re a means to an end, not the end itself. But rankings are easy to measure and easy to understand, so they often turn up as the reporting metric from a lot of SEO firms, and they get used as measurements by a lot of DIY webmasters.

The problems with rankings — and some possible alternatives

Of course, a big problem with using rankings as a metric is they change all the time, and not necessarily in response to anything you’ve done as part of your optimization — which makes them an unreliable measurement of how well you’ve been optimizing your site. And what with Google’s push toward “personalized” search results, the rankings you see may not be the rankings anybody else sees… again, not the most reliable measurement of your success.

Ann suggests two alternative metrics: traffic from search engines, and conversions.

Traffic could be a decent measurement, except — as she points out — just because traffic goes up, this doesn’t mean your site is making any more profits. It’s actually pretty easy to drive traffic to a site… as long as you don’t care about the quality of the traffic. High-quality traffic is a bit harder to come by for most of us.

The conversion ratio is possibly a better measurement, because it takes into account the quality of the traffic the site is getting. The issue with conversions, though, as pointed out by some of the commenters on Ann’s post, is that maximizing conversions may potentially require changes in copywriting, site architecture, page layout, marketing strategy and tactics… pretty much everything related to online marketing.

Not surprisingly, all the necessary testing and making all the required changes is labor intensive and time consuming. It may be a bigger chunk to bite off than some small businesses are prepared for, at least when they’re just starting out with site optimization.

And not all sites have easily measured “conversions,” even keeping in mind that a conversion doesn’t have to be a sale. They can be things like newsletter signups, or white paper downloads, or forum registrations.

At the most basic level, a conversion is whatever action you want the visitor to take when they land on a particular page on your site. So every page has a conversion goal, even if that goal is simply for the visitor to read the page and leave. Unfortunately, as you can probably see, not all conversions are created equal, and some are pretty darned hard to measure.

There are other metrics that could be used, particularly for sites that have hard to measure conversions. For instance, if your site is simply an informational site, you might measure success by an increase in page views, or in “time on site,” indicating people are reading more of your content.

And, of course, you aren’t limited to measuring one thing. Perhaps a combination of metrics would be appropriate for your site — maybe traffic plus average page views per visitor, or traffic combined with time on site and conversions.

How do you decide?

As a DIY webmaster, how do you decide what measurement to use to track the success of your optimization efforts?

Well, you know, there’s an old saying: what gets measured, gets managed.

So decide what your goal is for your optimization. Do you simply want more #1 rankings for bragging rights among your business colleagues? Do you want to increase traffic to your site? Do you want people to spend more time reading? Do you want them to buy more of your product, or do you want more people to contact you requesting more information about your services?

Decide what your goal is, and pick metrics that tie directly to that goal. For instance, if your goal is greater sales revenue, then maybe you’d want to measure the overall number of web sales you get as well as the conversion ratio, plus the gross revenue from online sales, the revenue per sale, and the revenue per visitor. Putting all these together would give you a pretty good picture of how well you’re doing, and comparing them over time would tell you whether your optimization efforts are working as planned.

Focus your optimization campaign on things that you think will help get you closer to your goal. What things you choose to measure will depend on what goal you’ve set. Track the changes you make, and the effect they have (if any) on these metrics.

Don’t let yourself get sidetracked measuring statistics that have no relationship to your goal. Statistics can be fun and addictive, and it’s easy to get buried in numbers that look lovely but don’t tell you anything you need to know. So make sure you’re not wasting time measuring and trying to improve metrics that won’t help you get closer to your goal.

Keep your eyes on the prize. You can get there if you maintain focus.

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