• Visited a broken link on the site. A server should respond with a ‘404’ error code. Most of these servers instead sent a 302 redirect code.
• Visited a non ‘www’ version of the domain where the domain included ‘www’, or vice-versa. I’d expect a normal web server to send me from ‘mysite.com’ to ‘www.mysite.com’ or vice-versa via a 301 redirect. But noooooo. Not these sites. They all either used 302 redirects, effectively chopping all site authority off at the knees, or they just sat there, staring at me.

Then I spot-checked a few other sites. They all did it wrong, too. I have a feeling there are a lot of servers out there delivering completely incorrect responses:

Your browser says “Hi, can I see that web page, please?”

The server responds “My, but your carrot gets good gas mileage.”

Total chaos.

I started to feel a little insulted. Doesn’t anyone read my article about server response codes?

But I got over it. Instead, I wrote a quick little tool you can use to test your server’s (and your webmaster’s) mental stability.

It’s pretty self-explanatory: Try it here

[ The Responsinator ]

Important note!!!! I am storing the results of all these tests. I'm not going to use it to hunt you down. In fact, I have no idea who you are. I just want to see how many servers out there are correctly configured. I promise. Someday, I may hatch a plan to steal your personal data, stalk you and make millions by redirecting your GameSpy subscription to my house. Today is not that day.

Other stuff

• Content curation in 13 minutes a day
• Google analytics: Diagnosing lost SEO keywords
• We suck at teaching internet marketing. Why?!
• Quotes that make me cry inside
• Content marketing in a nutshell
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

Just the facts, folks: This is a step-by-step look at how I do my daily content curation. Nothing fancy:

The setup

I did all of these things once, to get my toolset in order:

1. Get a Timely.is account.
2. Install the Timely bookmarklet in my favorite browser.
3. Sign up for Hootsuite
4. Set up Hootsuite to use your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts.
5. Sign up for Bit.ly Pro. You can use the free version, but Pro has slightly better analytics and lets me use a custom URL shortener domain.
6. Get set up with Google+
7. Set up Bit.ly in both Hootsuite and Timely.
8. Set up Google Reader.
9. Add my favorite blogs, news feeds and Google Alerts (I have a free ebook on using Reader as a monitoring tool here).

All done. This took all of 45 minutes, by the way. One time. Divided over 2 years, that’s about 3.7 seconds per day. I spend more time burping.

10 minutes, every morning

1. Review my Google Reader list.
2. If a headline looks interesting, I read the story.
3. If I think my audience will find it useful, I open the story in a separate browser window. The reason: You probably first read the post in Google Reader. You need to view the article on the publishing web site for the next step.
4. Click the Timely.is bookmarklet. You’ll see something like this:
5. Shorten the Tweet as much as you can, and add a comment of your own. You need to add some analysis/opinion/entertainment value:
6. Click ‘Add to Queue’.

Repeat this process until you’ve got 10 or so posts lined up for the day. Timely will spread them out through the entire day, sending them out at the best times. You can check your queue at any time on Timely.is:

Total time: 10 minutes, tops.

Side benefit: You stay informed and might even learn something new.

3 minutes every afternoon

Go to bit.ly and review how your tweets have done. If one really stands out—getting a lot of clicks and/or retweets—send it to LinkedIn and Facebook via Hootsuite. And repost them to Google+.

Yo, Google: When will you have an API for Google+? I want my account in Hootsuite!

My thinking on this: Twitter is a place folks seem to expect a fairly steady stream of posts. In my testing, 10-15 tweets per day is very reasonable. On Facebook and LinkedIn, I usually see a steep decline in response after 2-3 posts. So I do most of my work on Twitter and push the stuff that gets a big response to my other accounts.

If you have more than one item suitable for Facebook/LinkedIn, schedule it using Hootsuite’s scheduling tool:

Google+ is tougher - you have to do it by hand right now. Again: Google, API? Soon? Ish?

Total time: 3 minutes.

Side benefit: You learn the ebb and flow of user attention during the day. Then you can say stuff to clients like “Well, my testing shows that we get the best response at 11:15 AM on Tuesdays.” It makes you look very authoritative.

13 minutes a day – that’s all

See? 13 minutes. You can find the time to do this. Spend 15 minutes less on Facebook. Take one less smoke break. The time’s there. Make use of it. It’ll pay off.

Other stuff

• Google analytics: Diagnosing lost SEO keywords
• We suck at teaching internet marketing. Why?!
• Internet marketing lessons: Select, don't accumulate
• Quotes that make me cry inside
• The internet marketing priority list
• Content marketing in a nutshell
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

So: I'm sorry. Usually I leave more time for delays - this time it didn't work out.

You can all leave nasty comments below:

But there are times in both when you just have to pedal harder, dammit.

The story

I had a cycling coach once. He was about 5’6" of pure muscle. I’m pretty sure he could leg press a VW Bug. He also spoke with an Italian accent so thick I could barely make out what he was saying.

He was awesome.

So one day, I’m analyzing my lousy finish in the previous weekend’s race (not unusual). I ask the coach, “What could I have done differently? Did I make a bad tactical decision? Should I have eaten different food? Maybe drink more water next time?”

He looked at me briefly and said “Pedal harder, dammit.”

I looked so wounded that he burst out laughing. But I got the point. Until your effort equals competitor efforts, you can’t win. By matching your effort to theirs, you get a chance to win.

Sometimes, you just gotta pedal harder

Here are a few signs that, in SEO, PPC, or whatever, you need to pedal harder:

1. You’re obsessing about keyword-rich URLs. Unless you’re producing one amazing, truly mind-blowing piece of content every day and pushing that out to thousands of ravening fans, you need to pedal harder. Forget the URLs.
2. You’re considering building dozens of ‘micro sites’. This is rarely a good tactic. Focus on one site and just pedal harder.
3. Your site pages load in 25 seconds or more. I can actually shave while waiting. Drop every other marketing and development initiative until your pages load in 5 seconds or less. Pedal. Harder. Dammit.
4. You are going to use a fancy ‘100% automated’ PPC tool. Unless you’re running 1,000 ads on 100,000 keywords, you’re making a huge mistake. In fact, even then, you’re making a huge mistake. Don’t expect computers to know how to market to people. PHD (Pedal Harder Dammit).
5. You’re hiring someone to write content for your site. And paying them $5/page. Yeah whatever. Go for it. Someone else will PHD and kick your ass up and down the internet. Then you’ll learn.
6. Every Tweet is a sales pitch. Social media is about curation (my short video for tomorrow). Learn to do it. It takes 10 minutes/day.

There you go. Pedal harder. Execute. Hmmm. Bet this post ranks for ‘pedal harder’ tomorrow. Maybe TheSufferfest guys will buy an ad.

Other stuff

• Google analytics: Diagnosing lost SEO keywords
• We suck at teaching internet marketing. Why?!
• Internet marketing lessons: Select, don't accumulate
• Quotes that make me cry inside
• The internet marketing priority list
• Content marketing in a nutshell
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

Quickly find and diagnose lost keyword-specific traffic in Google Analytics.

I never build these as the be-all and end-all. Instead, they're supposed to show folks what's possible and let them go from there.

Let me know what you think...

Other stuff

• We suck at teaching internet marketing. Why?!
• Internet marketing lessons: Select, don't accumulate
• Quotes that make me cry inside
• The internet marketing priority list
• Newt Gingrich, Twitter, and FollowerGate: There's nothing there
• Content marketing in a nutshell
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

I’ve studied the success/failure of:

• Montessori;
• The Khan Academy;
• Bridge programs;
• Campus learning centers (I worked in one, decades ago);
• People who taught (or failed to teach) me;
• The near-collapse of American education;
• My attempts to teach my own kids (often comical).

Here’s my random collection of theories. I have a favor to ask: Read this. Then tell me what you think:

In-person training fails

Training in person sucks. I love doing it, but the truth is, it’s of limited value. Here’s why:

1. Students learn at their own pace. Get 3 people in a room, and you’ll have a fast, medium and more deliberate learner. How do you make that work? You can’t. You teach at the slowest pace. Fail.
2. People need repeatable teaching. The best training comes in a form folks can pause, play back and repeat, at their own pace.
3. Questioners get embarrassed. Ask two questions in a row and you’ll catch yourself saying “Sorry if this is a stupid question…” That may seem polite, but it’s really our hard-wired reflex to Never Make Waves. It stops us dead in our tracks.
4. People can’t learn 8 hours at a time. I find that my stamina as a trainer or a student ends at about 2 hours, no matter how fantastic the class or teacher. My brain is just full. After that, it’s frantic note-taking so I know what to re-learn later, or me sticking to my script and trying to keep everyone entertained and learning.
5. Pupils don’t retain knowledge after just one go. They need repetition.
6. The time people really need help is when they try to apply learning the first time. Which is exactly when they do not get it.

Yes, ‘real life’ training has advantages, but they’re all related to accountability, not educational value. You pile your employees into a break room for a 4-hour lecture on customer service because you know they’re physically present. As a manager, you can check off that budget line item with pride: Training Complete.

That is a godawful justification.

Just-in-time training rocks

On the other hand, teaching via recorded material—writing, video or audio—works well.

1. Students can learn in private. If I want to learn linear algebra, I can use Khan Academy. That way, no one knows how much math I’ve forgotten, or the fact that, if you put me in competition with a chimpanzee, I’m mathematically impaired.
2. Everyone advances at their own pace. Absorbed a lesson? Great! Move on to the next one. Still having trouble? Read or play it again, Sam.
3. You get to pick ideal learning time.
4. It scales like crazy. I can deliver training via text or video to thousands of people, even if I’m asleep. Nice! I get to sleep!

Do the homework at work

This is the core of Khan Academy’s program for classrooms: Students listen to the ‘lectures’ at home. Then they go to school and do the exercises with a teacher present to help them out.

The UCSD writing center worked in a similar way when I worked there. Writers would come in. We’d facilitate as they worked on their writing. Then, they’d go home to complete that work. No lectures at all, actually.

It makes even more sense in on-the-job, internet marketing training: The stuff you’re learning is the stuff you’re doing, every day. Don’t do ‘homework’ or ‘exercises’ during slow times. Instead, study the lecture-style stuff during quiet time. Then apply it again and again while others are around to help out.

Learning = advancement

This is going to sound harsh. But with self-paced training, the people who don’t want to learn slack off. If they have training and support, then “I went to the class!” is no longer a free pass. They have to learn.

The enthusiastic students can bolt ahead, and I as an employer can reward that behavior. Internet marketing requires constant learning. I want to encourage that in my team.

Time required

You can’t just throw your staff a bunch of books and say ‘go learn’, though. You have to set time aside, one way or another, for them to do it.

That’s really hard. It’s why I still succumb to the periodic ‘training day’. Work has a nasty way of scheduling itself. If I go to everyone and say “OK, Wednesday from 9-10 AM is learning time,” it’ll fail. Clients will call. Stuff will break. Etc.

Somehow, though, you have to create time for your employees to learn. And it can’t be in a single, marathon 4-hour session. They have to be able to learn in little bites.

Let me know if you figure that one out, OK?

Trust, but verify

Finally, you have to verify that learning’s going on. I hate standardized tests. They’ve ruined American education, probably forever. But somehow you have to know how folks are doing. That’s the only way you can provide extra help where needed, or reward those who are truly kicking butt.

I haven’t figured this one out, either. By the time the employee is applying what they learned to a client, it’s too late.

Work in progress

This is a work in progress. I’ll post more about it as time passes. If you have ideas, or think something I’ve said is horrible, feel free to comment.

I still love conferences. I’ll always go. But here’s the thing: A well-run conference has lots of short sessions where you pick up one or two great tidbits. Then you can immediately try ’em out on your laptop. Plus, you get to drink until the wee hours. Whole different ball game, really.

Other stuff

• Internet marketing lessons: Select, don't accumulate
• Quotes that make me cry inside
• The internet marketing priority list
• Newt Gingrich, Twitter, and FollowerGate: There's nothing there
• Content marketing in a nutshell
• How to: Write a decent SEO recommendation
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

Accumulation marketing: We all do it

Accumulation marketing is very, very hard to resist: It’s the old principle of ‘eyeballs at any price.’ When you buy impression-based advertising on a major site because you know how many millions of visitors they get, you’re buying into accumulation marketing, just a little bit. If you rent an e-mail list, you’re raising your hands in the Church of Accumulation and shouting “I AM SAVED.”

When we slash someone’s PPC budget, and their site traffic plunges, their palms sweat. So do mine. As long as the sales keep coming, it’s OK. But we’ve had to turn the traffic back up, in spite of solid sales, more than once. It’s just too scary to watch all those visits go away. Accumulation = addictive.

Accumulation marketing isn’t always bad! It helps you find new niches, new customers and new audiences. But if you completely rely on it, things can go really wrong. Microsoft’s recent social media gaffe is an extreme example. They threw a message out there, trolling for attention. They got it. Just not the kind they wanted.

Selection marketing: Happier customers, better efficiency

Selection marketing is harder to do. It requires a carefully-targeted message, and a lot of attention to detail. It means you have to spend $20 on Google Adwords, instead of $2000, and watch what happens, one customer at a time.

But, selection marketing brings you customers right when they’re ready to buy from you. You get there by:

• Researching, choosing and testing long-tail terms in Adwords;
• Working your tail off on conversion rate optimization;
• Analyzing site performance one page at a time;
• Answering customer questions on sites like Twitter and Quora.

Selection marketing is more sustainable, more efficient, and turns every customer you get into a new salesperson.

Sanity break: Find a balance

Every business needs a balance: Some select, some accumulate, blended together. That lets you build audience with people who aren’t yet prospective customers (accumulate) while bringing in the folks who are ready to buy right now (select). The trick is tuning the dial just right.

A bit of history

Many, many years ago, I wrote about marketing and selection versus accumulation. You can read it here.

OK, done rambling for tonight.

Other stuff

• Quotes that make me cry inside
• The internet marketing priority list
• Newt Gingrich, Twitter, and FollowerGate: There's nothing there
• Content marketing in a nutshell
• How to: Write a decent SEO recommendation
• 11 reasons smart people start internet marketing agencies
• 11 reasons no sane person starts an internet marketing agency
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

1. “We don’t need marketing. Our product is great.” I’d punch you, but I’m paralyzed by the stupid.
2. “We need to test that, first.” No, you don’t. You don’t have to test whether having a ‘buy now’ button makes people buy more stuff.
3. “SEO is a fraud. Everyone knows you just buy PPC, and you’ll rank higher.” Yup. You cracked the code. Google pulverized Yahoo!, Microsoft and everyone else with that magical formula. You’re a genius.
4. “I can’t order the development team to do anything. I’m just the CEO.” Did Obi-Wan do a mind trick on you? Or were there monkeys? Terrifying space monkeys?
5. “Semantic SEO means putting more keywords on the home page.” Oh. God. I'm in the presence of genius.
6. “You can change anything you want. Just don’t change anything.” To be fair, the speaker then blinked, and we both laughed. But it was tinged with hysteria.
7. “We found a firm that’ll do it for $1500.” ‘It’ was a complete site redesign and shopping cart rebuild. ‘It’ never got done. ‘They’ didn’t learn anything from the experience.
8. “SEO? Oh, we’re set. We’ve got links in the footer.” OK. You won't mind if I put my footer someplace tender, right? Said in 2009, not 1999, by the way.
9. “If we need organic traffic, we’ll call Google.” My jaw broke when it hit the floor.
10. “Website leads are a distraction.” So’s oxygen. Please stop breathing.
11. “Should I translate my site into Belorussian?” Not unless you’re setting up a store in Eastern Europe, no.
12. “$250 for an article? That's way too expensive.” My bad. I thought you wanted stuff people could read. You probably want our Babbling Idiot Content Plan...
13. “Why aren’t my rankings improving? I’m paying you, aren’t I?!” Yes, you’re right. Paying me is what matters. Not actually following my recommendations. Once you pay me, good rankings magically emerge from my left nostril.
14. “We aren’t getting any traffic! We need a mobile app!” I’m not losing weight! I need red paint!
15. “I just don't think your work made a difference.” I understand. You hired us. The next day, your paid search cost-per-sale dropped 35%. Your ROI rose 50%. It must've been the marketing elves.
16. “We needed a firm with more years of SEO experience.” So, if I were Chuck Norris, you'd pass me up for someone with a better roundhouse kick?
17. “I need a white hat SEO firm that can buy me some links…” And I need a Democrat who can get to the point. We’re both dreamers.
18. “We’ll submit your RSS feed to our content network, getting you lots of links!” Just got this in my inbox a few minutes ago. I gotta go get my credit card…

Have a good weekend everyone.

Other stuff

• The internet marketing priority list
• Newt Gingrich, Twitter, and FollowerGate: There's nothing there
• Content marketing in a nutshell
• How to: Write a decent SEO recommendation
• 22 ways you’re making marketing difficult.
• Speak carefully
• 18 random thoughts about internet marketing
• 11 reasons smart people start internet marketing agencies
• 11 reasons no sane person starts an internet marketing agency
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

1. Appeal. A desirable product.
2. Quality. A product that doesn’t suck once people have it.
3. Visibility. People have to find you when they need you.
4. Stability. Your web site has to work.
5. Ease of use. Make your site so easy to use, a brain-dead zombie could become a customer.
6. Speed. Always strive to cut load times in half.
7. Clarity. Write well. Use relevant, quality imagery. Explain yourself.
8. Persistence. Provide lots of ways for folks to keep in touch. Don’t be a spammer. Just be available.
9. Analytics. Measure everything.
10. Aesthetics. Design your site appropriately.

Conspicuously missing are things like:

1. Lots of traffic.
2. Beautiful design. Appropriate doesn't always equal beautiful.
3. Awards.
4. Gurus.
5. Fancy jargon and the shiny thing of the day.

Keep it simple. Focus on what you need to do. Achieve the hell out of that. Then do it even better.

Other stuff

• Content marketing in a nutshell
• How to: Write a decent SEO recommendation
• 22 ways you’re making marketing difficult.
• Speak carefully
• WSJ, WTF?! Google Panda & Subdomains
• 18 random thoughts about internet marketing
• When everyone works together, SEO just works.
• 11 reasons smart people start internet marketing agencies
• 11 reasons no sane person starts an internet marketing agency
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

And I think everyone should think before they pillory a Presidential candidate. Even if I'd have to move to a deserted island and build a concrete bunker if he were elected.

At first, just pathetic

I started by looking at 42,000 Twitter users who follow Newt Gingrich, randomly selected from a larger 750,000 list of his followers. I looked at the number of times they’ve tweeted, and how many followers they had. The upshot? Newt ain’t gonna be President, that’s for sure:

These are all pretty pathetic numbers. But (admittedly old) data shows that over 50% of Twitter users Tweet. So none of this suggests he's was padding his Twitter profile, either.

Something stinks

Then I looked at the number of ‘friends’ for each follower. Twitter defines a ‘friend’ as someone you follow, but may or may not follow you back.

In my sampling, I found 27,788 people who followed Newt Gingrich but didn’t follow anyone else. That’s 66%.

Whoa.

Either 27 thousand people signed up for Twitter because they were inspired by Newt Gingrich, or something’s way off here.

And, in truth, it’s totally possible that 27,788 people did go from his web site to Twitter and sign up. I’m not casting aspersions when I say the typical Newt Gingrich fan from the 1990’s probably isn’t a Twitterholic. So he may have introduced them to social media.

So yes, something stinks. But it’s not conclusive. I still have to give the Gingrich campaign benefit of the doubt.

Explanation 1: He’s innocent

The suspicious numbers may be a product of Gingrich's demographic appeal, and his campaign's total internet marketing failure. Newt Gingrich's core audience is a demographic that last voted for him in the 1990s. Those are folks far less likely to use Twitter than the younger voters following, say, Barack Obama. I'm not being age-ist - just look at the data. Younger people use Twitter. Older people don't.

They’re not fake, as PeekYou suggests. They’re just not big Twitter users. They signed up after visiting the Gingrich campaign site, or hearing about the campaign. Or they dusted off an old account to follow Gingrich when they heard he was running for President. Other metrics, like Klout, seem to back this up.

Newt Gingrich’s Klout scores are within norms. He has 1.3 million followers, a TrueReach of 505,000, and a Klout of 71.8. That’s proportionally close to Barack Obama, who has 9.4 million followers, a TrueReach of 4 million, and a Klout of 88.9. And it seems on par with Michele Bachmann, who has 67,000 followers and a TrueReach of 25,000.

At 72.6, I have more Klout than Newt Gingrich! Woo hoo! Barack, I’m gonna catch you too! (shakes fist)

I’d expect the average Barack Obama or Michele Bachmann follower spends a lot more time on Twitter than the average Newt Gingrich follower. That would explain why he has so many more users that seem ‘real’.

Explanation 2: He’s guilty

The other possibility? Someone on the Gingrich campaign bought an auto-follower and went hog-wild on Twitter.

Auto-followers are programs marketed with headlines like “Get thousands of followers overnight!!!!”

When you run an auto-follower, it goes out and literally follows thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of Twitter users. Some of those users will have automatic ‘follow back’ scripts on their Twitter accounts. So you start to collect followers. That makes you look important. Then you delete most of the folks who are following you, and voila! You look special!

Understand: Using an auto-follower in 2011 requires a really, really amateur marketer. A campaign staffer or PR ‘professional’ dumb enough to use an auto-follower might also pay $800,000 for a web site. Which, of course, they did. So yes, it’s entirely possible.

Don’t jump to conclusions

While using automated analysis like PeekYou is great, don’t forget that your audience all unique human beings.

That uniqueness could totally explain FollowerGate.

Just like Barack Obama losing 40,000 followers was a non-event (it was about .4% of his following), Newt Gingrich’s totally polluted Twitter profile is more sad than evil. Don’t jump to conclusions.

Maybe this really is as important as a double-dip recession, Libya, Syria and a global heat wave. If that’s true, though, I think we should get conclusive data before we filet any presidential candidate. And the black-box analysis of a single startup company (I love PeekYou, but it’s still a black box) doesn’t count.

Other stuff

• Content marketing in a nutshell
• How to: Write a decent SEO recommendation
• 22 ways you’re making marketing difficult.
• Speak carefully
• WSJ, WTF?! Google Panda & Subdomains
• 18 random thoughts about internet marketing
• When everyone works together, SEO just works.
• 11 reasons smart people start internet marketing agencies
• 11 reasons no sane person starts an internet marketing agency
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

Sometimes, you have to be competent, too. Capable, even.

Act 1: Undeath (of a monitor)

At work, I have a 30” Apple Cinema HD. It is a fantastic monitor. Alas, 2 weeks ago when I plugged it into my laptop, it went all cattywampus, then dark. I pleaded. I begged. I reset PRAM. I checked firmware updates, I replaced driver libraries. No luck. Power was getting to the monitor. My laptop could see the monitor. I just couldn’t see anything on the monitor.

That sucker wasn’t dead—it was un-dead. A display zombie.

Act 2: Hope (of a fix)

But that was OK, because with my $1300 monitor I also bought AppleCare Protection. See, it protects me. For a mere $99. Sweet!

I asked one of my team to take the monitor to the Southcenter Apple Store (about 1 mile from our office) and drop it off for repair. See, I was delegating, being all efficient.

My intrepid office manager and I boxed up the monitor. She hauled it to her car and schlepped it to the store. There, the Geniuses (I’m not being sarcastic—Apple calls support staff at their stores ‘Geniuses’) took a look.

Note I said ‘took a look’. They didn’t test the monitor. The Genius rolled some magical Apple Customer Support Dice, then told my manager the display needed a new power supply, which they’d have to order.

So, she then hauled the display back to the office (without complaint, I must add). I spent the week using my laptop, minus 30” of screen real estate. I complained a lot.

Lesson 1 of tech support: If you think the problem’s the power supply, turning it on is a great test.

Act 3: Despair (for humanity)

A week later, we got a new power supply. After MozCon wrapped up, I returned to the office, quivering at the prospect of a newly-restored 30” monitor. I plugged in the power supply. Turned everything on, connected the display to my laptop, and…

Nothing.

I couldn’t ask anyone else to haul my 50-pound Apple HD Paperweight back to the Apple Store. So I boxed it up and headed over.

Act 4: Anger (carefully controlled)

As I sweated across the Southcenter parking lot, I resolved not to get angry at the Geniuses. It wouldn’t help anything. I’d keep my voice low, my expression reasonable.

I trudged into the Apple Store, dripping like I’d just finished a 2-hour workout…

[and had to repeat the same information about my monitor 3 times, but I’m editing that out]

...and in a calm, reasonable voice told the resident Genius my tale of woe. And that I’d never buy anything from their store again if they shipped the stupid monitor to stupid Apple with their stupid poo poo head repair people.

Genius asked me questions and took careful notes on his Apple laptop (with MiniDV port, perfectly configured to test my monitor, by the way). He apologized politely. He commiserated sympathetically. He opened the box and peered at the monitor, hemmed, hawed and then said they’d have to keep it for a week.

I calmly explained my unhappiness. I didn’t raise my voice. Or let loose a stream of invective that would’ve burned the flesh from his body. Nope. I was being reasonable

He went to get a manager. He returned, sans manager. Apologized more. Commiserated more. Explained they couldn’t replace or repair the monitor there at the store.

So, the verbs we’ve got so far:

Apologize Commiserate Take (notes) Open Peer Hem Haw Sweat

Notice the missing verb?

Test

He didn’t plug the monitor into a computer.

Instead, he (politely) boxed the monitor up for shipping back to Apple.

Here’s the work order:

Really?! You didn’t have anything to plug it into? You’re at a frakking Apple Store, surrounded by Apple Computers, and you can’t plug the monitor in because you “didn’t have anything to plug it into?!!!”

Bzzzzt. My left and right brains tried to flee in opposite directions, collided, and simultaneously discharged every neuron. I froze, caught in the high beams of total stupidity. Thud. Bumpa bumpa bumpa. I was road kill.

No amount of nice-ness makes up for this. Sorry. It doesn’t. You’re title is ‘Genius’. You’re paid to solve problems. You’re not a goddamned shipping clerk. So solve.

Act 5: Acceptance (not really)

Genius clearly felt bad. And I have to say, he was nothing but polite and professional the whole time. He really wanted to “make this better for me”. First, he tried to sell me a new Apple thing called ‘Joint Venture’. I, equally polite, explained I really didn’t want to buy more Apple services right then.

So, he brought corporate sales manager. She listened to me with furrowed brow, then told me they had an idea: I would purchase a new display from them on my corporate credit card. Then, in 10 days, when my repaired display came back, I’d return the new one, get a refund, and pick up my restored monitor.

So, I was going to charge about $1300 to my credit card, take a new monitor and pray I didn’t break it, then return it for some other poor bastard to then buy.

What was left of my brain farted loudly and fled my skull. It’s still down somewhere behind my uvula.

I mumbled something about making do and fled the store.

Were they earnest? Yes. Did they really want to help? Maybe. But in the end, what really matters is whether they helped. And they didn’t.

They had options:

• Do an exchange. My AppleCare plan specifically says they can do that.
• Give me a loaner. For a small deposit, not $1300, and not by making me take a brand-new monitor.
• Make some small but real gesture—expedited repair, anything—to restore a smidgen of my faith.
• Or, at least, test the monitor.

Nope. Nada.

The lesson

Customer service that doesn’t serve is just annoying.

From now on, I buy online. And monitors? I’ll be buying Dells, thanks.

By the way, Apple, Rob Croll wrote a great review of The Thank You Economy. You might want to read it. Then read the book. Especially the ‘shock and awe’ part. That’s “awe”, not “aweful”.

Other stuff

• Content marketing in a nutshell
• How to: Write a decent SEO recommendation
• 22 ways you’re making marketing difficult.
• Speak carefully
• WSJ, WTF?! Google Panda & Subdomains
• 18 random thoughts about internet marketing
• When everyone works together, SEO just works.
• 11 reasons smart people start internet marketing agencies
• 11 reasons no sane person starts an internet marketing agency
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with building fantastic tools, having a great conference, gathering all the SEO geniuses and best developers and generally smartest people in one place. I have no problem with a company so famous my parents ask me why I don’t work there.

But could you please do it in another damned city? I have a company to run, here. You guys are like a black hole of goodness, sucking up what little sunlight gets cast on the SEO industry, casting a shadow so big that us poor Portent-ites turn into glamor-deprived mushrooms. I think this is how Yahoo! felt looking down the street at Google HQ.

So, I have a healthy respect for SEOMOZ. I use all their tools. And I like everyone I’ve ever met at SEOMOZ. But can’t this be a long-distance relationship?

Getting serious

MozCon. This year is my second one. I presented on content strategies. Then I spent three days watching and listening to the other presenters.

I have a special measurement scale for all conferences: Ah-ha’s per day. An ‘ah-ha’ is one fantastic new tool, idea or strategy that I’ve just never thought of before, or that I’d forgotten.

Here’s the scale:

5+ ah-ha’s per day: I’m smiling all the time.
3-4 ah-ha’s per day: Totally worth the money.
1-2 ah-ha’s per day: I’m a little unsure about this.
0 ah-ha’s per day: I go back to my hotel room and cry.

MozCon 2011 broke 5, again. I learned new stuff about:

• Analytics
• Retargeting
• Facebook marketing
• SEO
• PPC

I also met and/or saw speak all the top people in our industry. I mean that. Avinash Kaushik. Wil Reynolds. Will Critchlow. Richard Baxter.

And I’m leaving out all the Mozzers.

More telling

I’m writing this on a break at 3 PM on Friday. Last day of the conference. The room is still full. Everyone’s still here, listening to the speakers and learning stuff. And that’s with utterly worthless wifi (thanks a lot, Westin).

You gotta go

This conference costs $900 for SEOMOZ members. $1499 if you’re a non-member.

Your first inclination is to gasp. My God. Why the hell would I pay that?!!!

You’ll pay it if learning one really great thing per year is worth that much money. Can you grow your business by $1500 with one really good piece of internet marketing learning?

Man, I hope so.

Go to MozCon next year.

Other stuff

• Content marketing in a nutshell
• How to: Write a decent SEO recommendation
• 22 ways you’re making marketing difficult.
• Speak carefully
• WSJ, WTF?! Google Panda & Subdomains
• 18 random thoughts about internet marketing
• When everyone works together, SEO just works.
• 11 reasons smart people start internet marketing agencies
• 11 reasons no sane person starts an internet marketing agency
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

A quick preview

This post is huge. So, here’s a quick preview:

The other problem. At your company, you have no budget and no status whatsoever.

The process. Start with opportunity gap analysis. Then mine content for subject matter. Plan out your headline list, source your writers. Score those writers. Measure, and repeat. I’ll go over steps and tools for each of these parts of the process.

The outcome. You connect the stuff the boss/client cares about—sales and site performance—with your content. Do it with a methodical approach to content research, sourcing and promotion.

Also, you can download the slides from my presentation from SEOMOZ, here.

Interested? OK, read on. On to the post.

Why is content a turd?

Why is it that, in internet marketing, content is treated like a dried turd? People in the room don’t notice it—they don’t even smell it—until they step on it. Then they brush it away, dealing with it as quickly and quietly as possible.

How many times have you been in a conversation like this?

Note, I’m not afraid to make fun of myself in this. In case you think I’m being nasty to other CEOs, etc., I’ve been each of these jackasses far too many times.

Why are content budgets so small they collapse in on themselves, becoming super-dense bodies from which even common sense cannot escape?

Why? Because the boss/client is so far away from content creation that they see no connection between that content and the stuff they care about: Sales, conversions. All they see is cost. So it becomes a sunk cost.

So everyone just ignored content for years. Once every 2-3 years, someone would rewrite some of the marketing copy.

The rise of ‘good enough’

Then along came search. Suddenly, writing content could get you rankings. The focus became content juuust good enough to pass search engine inspection. Write, publish, grab your traffic and hope for the best. The potential traffic volume blew away concerns about writing quality.

Scale was more important: Just keep churning out crap, throw it at the search engines and wait for something to stick.

And there was very little downside, at least as far as rankings. The real harm done was subtle: A sale lost here, an extra customer service call there. It didn’t matter. The upside was far larger. Write content that’s just good enough and you could get huge wins.

The death of ‘good enough’

But the wet-noodle approach has worked less and less over the last couple of years. Now it's a total failure. Content that's "Good enough" isn't actually good enough, for 2 big reasons.

• Site-wide ranking: The Panda update moved Google from assessing pages to assessing sites. If half your site is lousy, and half is good, the lousy half becomes an anchor, dragging you down. You can't afford to fling good and bad up on your site.
• Competition is refocusing: Instead of out-doing the other guy by cranking out more, you have to crank out better content. You have to entertain, educate and inform better than anyone else. Everyone’s starting to look at this.

So no, good enough isn't any more. You have to produce super stuff. But everyone at work still thinks you’re a chimpanzee that can type. What to do?

The lesson

If learn nothing else reading this post, remember this: If you want to grow content, establish your value and get more wins for the SEO team, connect the stuff the boss/client cares about with your content. Do it with a methodical approach to content research, sourcing and promotion. You’ll get better content, you’ll get better results, and your value will increase.

Connect the dots

If you’re going to connect the dots, you’ll need a process that:

• Finds data at each step, and records that data;
• Creates easy-to-see connections between the current step and the next;
• Is repeatable;
• Helps you figure out what to write (duh).

For the rest of this post I'm going to describe the process we use – well, the process I wish we used (reality sometimes intrudes) – at Portent to target, brainstorm and produce content.

The process ties together four basic steps:

• Opportunity gap analysis: Finding the best phrase and content opportunities for your site.
• Subject matter selection, brainstorming and analysis: Building a content plan based on the opportunity gap analysis.
• Sourcing and creating the content: Passing this information on to your team, and continuously building/refining the team’s ability to create great stuff.
• Stacking the deck: Maximizing your ability to promote your content.

Step 1: Find the opportunity gaps

I’ve done a lot of writing about this, but here’s the quick version: You want to find the easy wins. Don't beat yourself bloody ramming your head against a brick wall, chasing after phrases and concepts where you've got no ranking and no chance if you've got some easy opportunities for improvement.

Instead, find the stuff that’s an easy win: Phrases where you rank but could rank better. Content that drives a lot of traffic, but you know you could drive more.

Find the gap

I'm going to use my blog as an example here, but this works even better on lead-driven, B2B sites and e-commerce, where you've got a clear conversion goal.

Get a feel for what content is really working."Working" doesn't just mean "Getting pageviews". You want to look at any engagement data you can: Time on page, bounce rate, exit rate, and sales/conversions for visitors who viewed the page, too, if you have that data. I usually use Google Analytics to do this:

But I’ll also look at tools like PostRank. These tools are a little iffy, in my opinion—it’s hard for a computer to measure audience response. But Google just bought ‘em, so they’re on to something.

And, of course, take a look at your top traffic-driving terms:

Then check the ranking of your top traffic-driving pages. Are they #1? No? Time to work on moving them up by turning them into hubs and writing more stuff.

My smart-assed piece about social media experts is #4 for ‘social media expert’. It drives decent traffic. It shows better-than-average engagement. If I can move up, I can get a bit more.

So we have the gap part of ‘opportunity gap’. But is there an opportunity?

Determine opportunity

Do I stand a chance of moving up? To check, take a quick look at on- and offsite metrics:

I use my trusty allintitle: search to see how many pages have this exact phrase in their title tags. This isn't the only way to judge phrase competition – I'm going to look at the average bid, total competing pages, and if this is really a hot phrase, on-page SEO for each of the top 20 sites. But allintitle is a good, fast indicator of how many sites are intentionally optimizing for a given phrase. Only 35,700 competitors that have that phrase in their title. I’ll take those odds.

Then, I’ll hop on OpenSiteExplorer and look at my site’s authority versus the site just above mine. Whoa:

I flex my online muscles!

I’ll expand on that phrase, researching related searches for ‘social media expert’. I’m not going to bother with any details here. You know how to do it. WordTracker, Adwords Keywords Tool, etc.

Regardless, you’ve established an opportunity gap for this phrase.

Document opportunity gap

The last step: Document. Record opportunity gap phrases, the ranking pages, competition, and whether you’re going to create new pages or not. That creates your keyword map:

Now you’ve drawn a line from the big glob of data and content you’ve already got to the steps you need to take. If your boss asks, you can show her why one particular phrase and page offered a fantastic opportunity.

More important, you now know the subject matter area you need to research. On to the next step.

Research what folks are saying and what they want to hear

Now, it’s all about subject matter. What do your readers/customers want to read? What are other people writing about? Are there any general trends, themes, conversations going on to which you can contribute?

In other words: What are people saying related to your opportunity gap phrases and topics?

You could take the old route, do 5 minutes of research and then start writing.

Yeah. No.

Instead, you’re going to record conversations over time (not in a bad way), analyze the content of those conversations, and then brainstorm headlines and strategy.

Create the collection

First, create and access your collection:

1. Set up a Google Alert for all opportunity phrases, and anything related. Set them to type ‘everything’, deliver to ‘feed’.
2. Subscribe to those alerts in Reader.
3. Group related subscriptions into folders.

You’ll start collecting all of the articles and posts into that folder. When you’re ready to harvest

1. Make the folder feed page public. Don’t worry about other folks finding it. First, they can pull the same data. Second, the page URLs aren’t exactly intuitive—it’s unlikely competitors will stumble on them. If you’re really paranoid, make the page public for a short time, do our analysis, and then turn it off again.
2. Grab the Atom feed URL for the page: Click ‘Manage Subscriptions’ at the bottom of the Reader page, then click the ‘Folders and Tags’ tab. Click the RSS icon to make the page public. Navigate to the page. Then copy the URL for the ‘Atom Feed’ link.

The stuff I always include in a collection:

• Google Alert feeds for my opportunity gap phrases;
• Twitter search feeds for the same thing.
• Google alerts for any related terms.

Quick tip: Twitter no longer shows a nice RSS link on their search results page. But you can still set up a feed of a Twitter search result by using the URL search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=KW – replace ‘KW’ with your phrase.

With this process, you just took a bunch of feeds from alerts, web sites, etc. and assembled it into a single, unified feed of content. You can now mine that content for data.

I wrote an entire e-book about this process, if you want to go into more depth.

Analyze the collection

Now, analyze the collection. I like to grab a count of top words, plus the top bigrams and trigrams—two- and three-word phrases—from the collected content. I built a tool (in proto-new-not-finished-alpha phase) you can use to do it:

1. Take the atom feed link (be sure you use the atom feed link, which starts with ‘feed:’ instead of ‘http:’, not the page link) and navigate to portent.co/thegram.
2. Paste the link into the field and click ‘Ngramanate!’
3. Let it work its magic.
4. Voila: You’ve got a list of top terms, bigrams and trigrams.

Looking at this, I can tell fairly quickly who’s important in this debate, the fact that folks were focused on the stock market (24 hours ago – this is an old screen capture), and that we’re facing an August 2nd deadline. May seem obvious if you live in the US, but if it’s a topic with which you’re unfamiliar, this is gold.

If you don’t get a good result, you may need to deliver more items. By default, Google Reader only supplies 20 items in the atom feed. You can increase that by adding ‘?n=75’ to the end of the feed URL. Please don’t go higher than 75. This app is on a very basic Google App Engine setup, and it’s just a baby.

Now, take all that data and draw conclusions. I don’t have any great tool for that. Use your brain. It’s still the most powerful computer you’ve got.

Finally, brainstorm headlines. Again, document everything. In another tab of the opportunity gap spreadsheet, list headlines. Include space to record the writers who take on each one, the date, and whether the content is complete.

Now you’ve drawn a nice, clean line from opportunity gap to headlines. Time to get that stuff written.

Sourcing your content

Sourcing isn’t so much a process as a set of rules:

You will need freelancers, no matter what. We have a full-time, in-house copywriting team at Portent. But we write about everything from colon-cleansing regimens to cloud-based business integration apps. Sometimes, we need a specialist, or someone with a particular touch for infographics, etc.

Pay well. If you pay like crap, you’ll get crap. Great content requires great skill. Pay for it. Expect to pay at least $.50/word for a 300-word article, and a lot more for longer, specialized pieces or infographics. I bet it’s still a fraction of what you spent getting your site built. Just pay it.

Always be recruiting. We have a form up on the Portent site and frequently invite writers to send us samples. We’re constantly recruiting, hiring, tracking and grading results for each writer, too. We always have a decent idea of a writer’s strengths and weaknesses, so we can match them to the right gig.

Keep score. We keep a basic history for each writer, as well as a simple score for their writing ability, professionalism and audience response to their content. That way, we can steer work to the writers best suited for it.

That’s it. Follow those rules, pay attention to who you’re hiring, and yes, document it all.

Sourcing lets you connect the work you’ve done on opportunity gap and subject matter directly to the right writers. You’ve connected the dots. On to the last step: Stacking the deck.

Stacking the deck

This is more a list of tricks than anything else, but it's part of our process. It's a lot easier to get attention if you already have an audience. We build audience through niche curation on social media. If a client's audience is mostly on Twitter, we'll make sure we're providing a steady stream of super-useful links to other peoples' content, day in, day out. That will build listeners.

This isn't about spamming! The stream should be so good that no one cares about your motive. Again: Quality. You have to blow your audience away with the stuff you provide. They have to think "Wow, Ian just made his entire existence worthwhile by Tweeting that link."

The heart of this lives in scheduling. You need to be able to schedule Tweets, Facebook posts and posts to other networks throughout the day, without sending your audience a huge blob of information all at once.

I use Timely.is to do this. It only works on Twitter, but it makes life very easy. Here’s what I do, every morning. It takes about 10-15 minutes:

1. Go back to your Google Reader account. Remember the feeds you set up? You’re going to use them again, here.
2. Review the feeds for your opportunity gap phrases.
3. Find the posts that really interest you, and that you think will be really valuable to your audience.
4. Schedule using Timely.
5. Repeat for up to 10 posts.

So, 10 times/day, I’m tweeting out great, third-party content. I post other stuff, of course. But every day, my readers get something interesting.

There are fancier tools, too: You can use Hootsuite’s built-in scheduling feature to ‘pre-post’ to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, all at once. If you want to really get ridiculous, you can set up a Google spreadsheet that grabs feed items you tag and automatically creates a bulk scheduler file. Then you can upload that file to HootSuite, and it does the scheduling for you:

I’ve found this to be more work than it’s worth, but it’s up to you. I can even share the Google doc with you, if you like.

This is audience building, plain and simple. Then, when you publish something new on your own site, you can shout it out to all the folks who already know you're a great source of information. They're predisposed to click, and to spread the word.

And surprise! Document everything! Pay for Bit.ly pro so you get the full analytics, custom URLs, etc. Watch which times of day, tweet styles, etc. work the best. Check out some of the research done by Dan Zarella. He's done a lot of stuff on this subject.

Dots connected. Content written. Life is good.

So, go back through this entire process:

1. We found opportunity gaps and recorded them, so we have a solid starting point.
2. Then we used that to build an entire monitoring and brainstorming process. That delivers a headline list that has an analytical foundation.
3. Then we sourced content based on the writers that match our opportunities and subject matter.
4. And finally, we promoted content to an audience we’ve already served, by curating great third-party content for that audience.

It all fits together. You’ve now drawn a nice line, traceable by anyone who looks, from all that mushy content creation stuff to publishing and promotion. You can show the decisions that made it all click.

Lessons learned

It can also blow up in your face, if you don’t follow a few simple lessons:

Brain required. I can’t say this enough times. You are not automating content production. That’s a terrible idea. People always tell me they want to crank out content ‘like a printing press’. They’ve got it wrong. The printing press doesn’t create—it replicates. Think of what you’re doing in this process as the steps before you go to press.

Marketing = work. A lot of people will tell me they don’t have time for this, don’t have the budget, etc. I know. You're not entitled to an easy success. Is it fair that you have to labor away at this while companies like Target kick your ass up and down the rankings? Who said this would be fair? You've got your own advantages – use 'em.

Don’t be a jackass. It’s often tempting to try to surf on trending issues. If you do, do it carefully:

I don’t think I have to say anything else about that.

Measure a lot

I’m not an analytics fanatic. I don’t think you can measure every facet of marketing. I do, however, know that our bosses and clients disagree. They won’t pay for stuff unless you can establish that it’s working.

Measure a lot. First things clients will ask is "how many people viewed the page?!!!" But be sure to point out social media interaction:

• Tweets
• Facebook likes
• Stumbles

And other forms of citation: Links, etc. And record the results for each article and writer! That’s your reference point for later on, so you can figure out how to keep improving.

Clients may see that a specific article only acquired 10 links, or that a video only got 1,000 views. But that content may still bring huge value, delivering citations of all kinds and boosting rankings and brand.

Good enough, isn’t

That’s a lot of stuff. But the most important things to understand are:

• Good enough doesn’t work any more.
• You need a systematic, documented approach to content if you’re going to get consistent results and produce good stuff. You can use the approach I just outlined, or create your own. Either way, make sure it’s documented and measured.

Other stuff

• How to: Write a decent SEO recommendation
• 22 ways you’re making marketing difficult.
• Speak carefully
• WSJ, WTF?! Google Panda & Subdomains
• 18 random thoughts about internet marketing
• When everyone works together, SEO just works.
• 11 reasons smart people start internet marketing agencies
• 11 reasons no sane person starts an internet marketing agency
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

During my MozCon content creation session today, I announced a new tool: The Gramanator.

It is the Gramanator:

Bow down before it.

What it does

The Gramanator will take any public Google Reader Shared Feed and:

1. Clean it up, removing stop words.
2. Assemble all of the different feed items in the feed into a single ‘corpus’ or index.
3. Pull out the top 20-30 terms in that corpus and show frequency.
4. Retrieve the top 20-30 bigrams (two word phrases) and trigrams (three word phrases) from the corpus.

Why it’s useful

You can use Google Reader to assemble lots of different RSS feeds—from Google Alerts, Twitter, sites like Hacker News and other sources—into a single aggregated feed. See the e-book I wrote about this a while ago for more information.

Once all that stuff is together in one aggregate feed, you can mine that text for all kinds of useful information. Here’s an example where I pulled the 2- and 3-word phrases from an aggregate RSS feed I assembled about the debt ceiling crisis:

I haven't seen the news today, but I'm guessing from the noise that the stock market fell about 200 points. Things don't sound too optimistic, either, with phrases like 'dour tone' popping up.

That report is great brainstorming fodder, if you’re looking for writing ideas. It can also help you figure out trending topics, if you run it regularly.

More information coming soon

I’m working on a longer blog post for tomorrow that will outline my presentation at MozCon. That will explain a lot more about why this tool is useful, and how to use it. For now, I wanted to make sure I got the link up for folks who want to have a look.

Enjoy!

The Gramanator – free, no signup required.

Other stuff

• How to: Write a decent SEO recommendation
• 22 ways you’re making marketing difficult.
• Speak carefully
• WSJ, WTF?! Google Panda & Subdomains
• 18 random thoughts about internet marketing
• When everyone works together, SEO just works.
• 11 reasons smart people start internet marketing agencies
• 11 reasons no sane person starts an internet marketing agency
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

“Your goal is to rank well for your target phrases. Your site isn’t ranking well for those phrases, though. That’s because you don’t have a high enough keyword density in important parts of your pages. For example, you need to use your key phrases more often in your title tags and in on-page content.”

Someone paid an SEO ‘expert’ for that. It’s like voting for Abraham Lincoln and getting Richard Nixon.

Here’s how a client feels when they read something like that:

The result

That’s how we end up with lots of clients who think the entire SEO industry showed up in the same car.

Writing a decent recommendation

A good SEO recommendation will have:

• Atomicity. It should stand on its own.
• Clarity. It should make sense to a non-SEO.
• Actionable advice. The reader should know what to do next. Exactly.

My formula is usually something like this:

[Provide a specific example]. [Explain why it's a problem]. [Explain how to fix it]. [Provide a specific example]. [Sell the payoff].

Here’s an example:

“The title tags on your product pages don’t include the key phrases folks use to find those products. For example, the ‘Time Pedals’ page on your site has the title tag ‘Part number 123456’. But consumers search for ‘Time Pedals’. Since the title tag is the strongest on-page ranking factor, you have no chance of appearing in the top 10 for that phrase. Even if you do, the title tag, which appears at the top of the search snippet, will confuse readers, so they won’t click through to your site. To fix this, use the product name, instead of the part number, in your title tags. You can use this template: [Product name] – [Category]. I’ve attached a code snippet that will work in most PHP-based store systems. For example, on the ‘Time Pedals’ page, the title tag would be ‘Time Pedals – Clipless road pedals’.”

Not perfect, but you get the idea.

Write clear, actionable recommendations. You’ll keep more clients.

Actually, write more muddled, difficult-to-understand stuff. Then I get to keep more clients.

Other stuff

• 22 ways you’re making marketing difficult.
• Speak carefully
• WSJ, WTF?! Google Panda & Subdomains
• 18 random thoughts about internet marketing
• When everyone works together, SEO just works.
• Marketing truths: People buy pleasure, not prevention
• 11 reasons smart people start internet marketing agencies
• 11 reasons no sane person starts an internet marketing agency
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

• 22 ways you're making marketing difficult.
• Speak carefully
• WSJ, WTF?! Google Panda & Subdomains
• 18 random thoughts about internet marketing
• When everyone works together, SEO just works.
• Marketing truths: People buy pleasure, not prevention
• 11 reasons smart people start internet marketing agencies
• 11 reasons no sane person starts an internet marketing agency
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

A lot of Portent-ites helped me write this. They submitted their ideas. I added the attitude. So please don’t blame them if this is obnoxious. It’s allll me.

Excuse my phrasing, but donkey poop.

You’re making life hard on yourself, by:

1. Logging into 5 sites every day to get your analytics data. Consider using Google Spreadsheets to pull all the data into one place. Or, hire someone on Amazon Mechanical Turk to do it for you. At a minimum, get your data e-mailed to you each day, so you don’t have to go to each site.
2. Allowing information overload. Learn to manage and filter before you even look.
3. Checking Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/YouTube every ten minutes so you can ‘keep up with the industry’. When I see my staff on Twitter, or Facebook, or whatever, I don’t want to stun them with my +1 Stare of Evil Bossedness, but I wonder if I should. The greatest minds in marketing aren’t Tweeting stream of consciousness. They may post every hour or so, tops. Or they write books. Try checking in every 1-2 hours, instead. Hat tip to Portent’s @Mattgratt for this one.
4. Claiming “ADD”. When a CEO tells me “I have A.D.D.,” I want to slam my head in a metal filing cabinet. You don’t have attention deficit disorder. Very, very few people do. You’re disorganized, bored, lack a clear sense of mission or need a break. Walk away for a few minutes. Learn to manage interruptions. Grow up.
5. Naming your files “Document”. I actually think computers should deliver electric shocks when you name a document “document”, “untitled” or “stuff.” By the way, I’d probably be dead if they did. Give your documents descriptive filenames. Consider (gasp) putting them somewhere besides your desktop. That way, when you need ‘em, you won’t spend an hour trying to find ‘em. Kudos to my lead copywriter/head of word-fu, @JaelitheMilich for raising this one without pointing directly at me.
6. Scheduling meetings without agendas. Some believe that, when we die, we spend a long time being judged, doing penance, etc. Centuries. Millennia. We don’t need a preview at work. Schedule meetings with a clear, focused agenda. Set a hard stop time—when you reach that time, end the meeting, even if the CEO is sitting there. Don’t be scared. I’ve been fired for lots of things—being respectful of everyone’s time is not one of them.
7. Dwelling on past failures. Yep, you really screwed the pooch when you blocked every search engine and cost us $10,000. Seriously. Lame. But it’s over now. I just invested $10,000 in your education. You’re an intelligent person—you’ve learned. Don’t let it make you hesitant/tentative later. Sure, we may taunt you occasionally, but it’s all in good fun.
8. Getting pissed off before you know all the details. Cough. Wheeze. I would never do this myself but some people I know when I look in the mirror are awfully good at this. Getting all bunched up and angry is a huge time-waster. Doing it for no reason is even worse. And I just smashed every wall in my glass house.
9. Not researching existing solutions. You just built an entire video hosting web site? Congratulations!!!! Now, go use YouTube, and slap yourself in the face a few times. Thanks. Great one from @ajrocks.
10. Not asking for help/waiting too long to ask for help. Sometimes, it’s great to learn on your own. Sometimes, though, spending four hours trying to figure out why you can’t get rid of a bullet using CSS is just stupid.
11. Using spit and baling wire as a long-term solution. YES! You just shaved 30 minutes off your time to build a form by leaving every field named “field_1”, writing to a text file instead of a database and skipping form validation. NO! You’ll now spend an hour a day patching it back up when people find new ways to break your handiwork. Do it right the first time.
12. Carving David when a washer is all you need. I know it’s beneath us to design banner ads, or write ad copy for the latest in tube socks. You can’t make it better by writing your ads in iambic pentameter. Do what needs to be done. Make it clear. Then go write the next great sonnet.
13. Never pushing back. The client just added another 10 features. 1 day before launch. Maybe this is a good time to say ‘no?’ Sometimes that leads to an argument, or even gets you fired. There’s no way around it: You can give in, suffer, and produce a crappy product, or hold your ground, create something extraordinary and/or be a happier person. If you’re really scared, and work at an agency, get some backup: The project manager, your boss, whatever. I bet they’re on your side.
14. Always pushing back. On the other hand, arguing for 45 minutes over a 5-minute change might not be the best use of your time. Try to keep that in mind.
15. Never RT’ing the F’ing M. Read The Freaking Manual. If someone took the time to write down all the procedures, best practices or requirements, the least you can do is read it before you hold up the entire project waiting for Frank from Accounting to get back from vacation, because you can’t remember how to file your TPS report.
16. Not taking notes. I have a Nerf gun on my desk. If I do a 45-minute project launch meeting and the person I’m talking to writes nothing down, my palm starts to itch. I picture them with a dart suckered to their forehead. Sometimes I resist temptation. Sometimes I don’t. You feel lucky?
17. “Saving money.” I cry… actually, wail, when I see an employee laboring away on a computer that looks like it should be on the set of Wargames. A brand-new, speedy computer will cost me, what, $1500? A copy of MS Office, even at Microsoft’s ridiculous pricing, is another $500. So all you have to do is promise me that, in the next 2 years, those purchases will save you 20 hours, total. Don’t trip over dollar bills to pick up pennies. It make boss sad.
18. “Saving money”, 2. On the other hand, I want to rip out my own spleen when you tell me you spent 4 hours coding a WordPress plugin because the one someone’s already built, tested and launched costs $7. Sometimes, software costs too much. If you can pay for it with lunch money, this isn’t one of those times. Make your life easier. Make me happier. Buy the plugin and bill me.
19. Not keeping a task list. If you don’t have a list of ‘next actions’—simple, one-hour-or-less tasks that are next up on the agenda—you’re probably wasting a lot of time. Try it, just for a day. Get your to-do list in order. I’ll bet you a free book it’ll help.
20. Reveling in chaos. Yes, your desk looks like a landfill. Yes, you have messages written on every flat surface in your office. And woo hoo for you, you’re doing 12 things at once. That doesn’t make you important. It makes you disorganized. It makes you extremely expendable. But not important.
21. Burning the midnight oil. All the time. We all have deadlines. Sometimes I work until 1 AM. But even I, the utterly psychotic insomniac, take a break after that. If you work 18 hours days, seven days in a row, you don’t impress anyone. All folks remember is the result. Which, I’m sure, would’ve been better if you’d had eight hours’ sleep between coding jags.
22. Not taking a break every day. Walk out of the office for 5 minutes. It makes an amazing difference.

Also-rans from my team and my family: Not getting Ian a Kit-Kat. Involving the CEO (hmph). Asking daddy how something works. Not asking directions. Add yours below.

Other stuff

• Speak carefully
• WSJ, WTF?! Google Panda & Subdomains
• 18 random thoughts about internet marketing
• When everyone works together, SEO just works.
• Marketing truths: People buy pleasure, not prevention
• 11 reasons smart people start internet marketing agencies
• 11 reasons no sane person starts an internet marketing agency
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

Yesterday I wrote about the Wall Street Journal, bad SEO advice and subdomains.

There’s a deeper lesson, though: When you blog, report or speak, you have an audience. It might be 1 person or 1,000. Doesn’t matter. You might be a professional journalist, a doctor, or a single marketer with an audience of 3. That'd doesn't matter either. You have a responsibility to your audience.

Follow one rule:

Your audience assumes you’re right. Speak carefully.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Other stuff

• WSJ, WTF?! Google Panda & Subdomains
• 18 random thoughts about internet marketing
• When everyone works together, SEO just works.
• Marketing truths: People buy pleasure, not prevention
• 11 reasons smart people start internet marketing agencies
• 11 reasons no sane person starts an internet marketing agency
• Why Google+ may make it
• 8 reasons I don't care about (toolbar) PageRank
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

The Wall Street Journal published an article July 13 all about HubPages, and how the site saved itself from Google Panda’s evil clutches by spreading their site across multiple subdomains. In the article Amir Efrati implies in a very-hard-to-pin-down-but-easy-to-assume way that subdomains may be a magical solution if you’ve been nuked by the Panda update.

That pisses me off.

A lot.

But, before I rant about unqualified people writing on specialized topics, I’ll clear up the subdomains hysteria.

Subdomains ain’t all dat

Aaron Wall wrote that the WSJ article means Google’s completely reversed their previous stance on subdomains versus subfolders. Google’s always said subfolders are better, as have I.

So, when I read Aaron’s article I nearly coughed up my skull. If Google really reversed this policy, then I’d led clients and readers alike off the Rankings Cliff of Doom. Developers would hunt me down (even more than they do now). Branding teams would burn me in effigy (even more than they do now). IT staff who ‘know SEO’ would see me as an annoying, clueless pest (even more… you get it). People would come up with a new expression:

“Doing a heck of a job there, Lurie.”

But with all respect to Aaron—and understand, he knows more about SEO than 99.9% of the industry, including me—I think he’s got it wrong. This isn’t a reversal, or even a change.

Panda considers the quality of all content on a subdomain when making ranking decisions. If you’re, say, HubPages, and 50% of the content on www.hubpages.com is basically brain snot, that hurts the ability of every page on your site to rank. So the other 50% of content—the arguably decent stuff—gets zapped out of the rankings. The bad content becomes an anchor, dragging everything down.

That’s why subdomains helped HubPages. They used subdomains to separate the crappy stuff from the good stuff: crappy.hubpages.com versus good.hubpages.com. I made those up, by the way. But you get the idea. With subdomains, HubPages was able to move the bad content ‘anchor’ to a whole other site. That helped the good stuff move back up, because Google doesn’t let subdomains directly pass ranking factors back-and-forth.

This is not a change

What HubPages describes is exactly how Google has always treated subdomains. It’s not a change in their algorithm. It’s why I’ve always said putting your blog on a subdomain is a bad idea: Subdomain authority and relevance doesn’t directly transfer to other subdomains.

Apparently, the same holds true for quality.

If you’re running an SEO campaign based on content, subfolders are still the right strategy. Use subdomains to remove lousy stuff from your primary subdomain, if you want. Personally, I’d prefer you just removed the lousy stuff altogether.

So climb out of your shelters. The Google Meteor isn’t going to hit today. I’m not saying it won’t. Aaron’s distrust of huge, monopolistic search engines is, I think, dead-on. But subdomains’ status in SEO hasn’t changed.

By the way, this is another version of the hard lesson learned by Google and Twitter's breakup: In SEO, don't chase little shiny things. You'll get eaten.

Tomorrow, I’ll write about journalists and their utter inability to discuss SEO in anything resembling a sane, coherent manner. Which may lead to me talking about the general fall of civilization, and why I think communication is the most-neglected, most-important skill we’ve got.

Other stuff

• 18 random thoughts about internet marketing
• When everyone works together, SEO just works.
• Marketing truths: People buy pleasure, not prevention
• 11 reasons smart people start internet marketing agencies
• 11 reasons no sane person starts an internet marketing agency
• Why Google+ may make it
• 8 reasons I don't care about (toolbar) PageRank
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

1. Always ready our analytics reports. Understand them. Demand that someone make you understand them. Making business decisions without that knowledge will probably kill your company.
2. Never buy a product with ‘Crusher’, ‘Disintegrator’ or ‘Miracle’ in the name. Anything invoking the elements, one god or another, or faster-than-light travel is also very likely bad.
3. If someone calls themselves a ‘guru’, be suspicious. Same with ‘rockstar’. Aaron Kronis, one of my staff, gets a pass on this. He calls himself ‘SEO Rockstar’, but that’s because he really is a rockstar. He plays guitar.
4. If a marketer opens his web site or proposal with a phrase like “In a world…” or “In the blink of an eye…” they’re a tool.
5. Traditional agencies that try to move into internet marketing fail. They don’t just fail in a “oops” kind of way. They fail in a “Obi Wan just sliced off my arms and legs and left me cooking slowly next to a lava flow, only this time the Emperor isn’t coming to help me” kind of way.
6. Internet marketing agencies that try to move into traditional marketing fail equally horrifically.
7. You get what you pay for, not what you wish for.
8. Your level of success is directly proportional to your level of cooperation.
9. Your level of success is logarithmically proportional to your agency’s level of expertise.
10. If you get ripped off, it’s partly your fault. You’re the one who ignored every sign that the guy charging 80% less was a fraud. You ignored the fact that the social media expert couldn’t write a coherent sentence. You’re the one who decided to offshore development to save money. Don’t be surprised when it’s a total flop.
11. If you get ripped off, it’s not all your fault. Demand that someone who didn’t do their job make good. Don’t let mediocre work go. That just lowers the bar, worldwide. If US car manufacturers had followed this rule in the last 50 years, they’d still be on top.
12. Internet marketing is not done in a vacuum. If weeks pass without a word from your agency, SEO team, or PPC folks, something’s wrong. They might be working hard. But somewhere about 3 days after your last meeting, they took a wrong turn. For the last 10 days, they’ve been helping you rank for “sarcastic rats” instead of “plastic mats”. You should probably check in.
13. The latest thing is already dead, it just doesn’t know it yet. Chase it if you want, but when you catch it you’ll end up smelling vaguely… dead.
14. People still buy what they want and reject what they don’t want. You’re a lot better off if you can provide the former.
15. Make your password harder to guess than your last puppy’s name. Your password is your entire protection against the barbarian hordes. That one word can crush your entire career. Seriously.
16. Companies that spend more than they earn generally have problems.
17. Those who give guarantees are fools or liars. Unless they have a mind control device. Which would be pretty cool.
18. Eventually, you have to stop researching, stop pondering, and do something.

Other stuff

• When everyone works together, SEO just works.
• Marketing truths: People buy pleasure, not prevention
• 11 reasons smart people start internet marketing agencies
• 11 reasons no sane person starts an internet marketing agency
• SEO lessons: Google drops Twitter
• Why Google+ may make it
• 8 reasons I don't care about (toolbar) PageRank
• Google +1: NOT the internet marketing messiah
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

I've preached that for years. But it almost never happens. The PR agency ignores us. The dev team smiles like they just smelled sour milk and then leaves. The branding team holds up relevant holy symbols and backs out of the room. And I spend much of my day justifying, pleading, begging and cursing my way towards an aneurysm I’ll no doubt have around age 50.

Every now and then, though it all falls into place, and you get a fantastic demonstration of just how much butt a company can kick if they get everyone working together. This is one of those times.

So I’m going to brag. Deal with it.

The plot

Last week one of Portent’s clients, Full Circle, launched their service in Boise, Idaho. They wanted to make a decent-sized splash. We wanted to start moving up in the rankings. They do organic produce delivery. It didn’t take a keyword research genius to realize we needed to rank for phrases like “Boise organic produce delivery”.

We get rolling

Full Circle and their PR agency, Brotherton Strategies, put together a press release. They wrote the press release with their audience and SEO in mind. The title fully describes the release, and there are even links:

At the same time, we created a set of dedicated Boise-related pages for their site:

Instead of making these ‘orphaned’ PPC landers, though, we connected them to the rest of the site, too. Full Circle's team let us move around the site and add links here and there to ensure the page had parents.

I find new friends

I’ve never met 75% of the people involved with the Boise launch. But they’re all my friends forever:

• The PR agency told us when the press release would hit the wire.
• They coordinated with us regarding outreach. We contacted some bloggers and influencers, and they contacted others. We used a Google spreadsheet to track progress.
• Full Circle’s team bought a Living Social deal in Boise, timed for the launch.
• Everyone responded near-instantly regarding copy drafts, page designs and strategy.

It works! It really, really works!

A quick look at today’s rankings shows Full Circle dominating the rankings. I don’t think this’ll last—there’s some audition effect, plus the third-party pages will fall off after a while. But it’s sure a nice way to launch in a new city. Here are the rankings for “Boise produce delivery:”

And “Boise organic produce delivery:”

It was easy

Here’s the thing: With everyone in communication, working together, it was easy. OK, the Portent account manager on the project will probably club me to death for saying that. But it was fairly straightforward. Minimal drama. It seemed almost… routine. If everyone works together, SEO works, too. Imagine.

Now I’ve doomed us. I actually said that something went well. I’m knocking wood. spitting over my left shoulder, throwing salt over my right and saying kinna hurra four times. Remember, when Google suddenly adopts a “pesticides-only” policy bans all of my client because of their association with organic produce, it’s not my fault.

Other stuff

• Marketing truths: People buy pleasure, not prevention
• 11 reasons smart people start internet marketing agencies
• 11 reasons no sane person starts an internet marketing agency
• SEO lessons: Google drops Twitter
• Why Google+ may make it
• 8 reasons I don't care about (toolbar) PageRank
• Google +1: NOT the internet marketing messiah
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

Bike helmets and prevention: A marketing failure

It’s hard to scare people into buying something.

But half of them balked at paying $45 for a helmet. I’d beg. I’d plead. I’d tell them to buy a cheaper bike and get the helmet. I’d show them my Lucky Helmet, which took a car door at 35 mph. I explained how that helmet saved my life. Nothing.

I’d get all manner of excuses: My son won’t wear it. I never needed one when I was growing up. My daughter will just lose it. I heard a kid fell into a lake and drowned because of his helmet (I’m not kidding, someone said that).

Even today, on my street, I’ll see at least half the kids skateboarding, cycling and scootering sans helmet. The stats are crystal-clear: Wear a helmet, no brain damage. Skip the helmet get brain damage.

Doesn’t matter. Folks don’t want to pay money to prevent bad things. They’re not evil. They don’t want to even imagine their child sustaining a major head injury. So they don’t. They look the other way. Nothing to see here. La la la.

They refuse the helmet. It reminds them of Bad Things That Can Happen. And that means they have to admit bad things really can happen. Which is, of course, just ridiculous. Right?

Lots of people won’t buy prevention because it scares them.

Pet clothing and beds: The greatest boondoggle ever

Pleasure, on the other hand, sells like crazy.

I’ll bet the no-helmet parents will plunk down $150 for a nice, fluffy, heated pet bed for their yappy Terrier. This creature is descended from animals that slept on frozen snow and snared foot-long rats out of burrows with their teeth. The chance little Fifi needs a nice bed? Zero. The chance little Fifi will even use the bed? Slightly above zero.

But people buy the pet beds.

Dog beds claim to provide pleasure. If the yappy dog snoozes comfortably in the cushy bed, the owners feel good. Even if Fifi ignores the bed, the owner gets to feel like a Good Dog Owner, which is in itself a good thing.

They’re buying pleasure.

The lesson: Make it Good

This sounds pretty cynical. I guess it is. But you can use it for all manner of good stuff:

Whatever you’re selling, make it a provider of good. Not a preventer of bad.

Don’t sell burglar protection. Sell security.

Don’t sell bike helmets. Sell really cool Transformer helmets that every kid’s gonna want.

Sell a 'good', not a preventer of 'bad', and you'll beat your less savvy competitors.

Other stuff

• 11 reasons smart people start internet marketing agencies
• 11 reasons no sane person starts an internet marketing agency
• SEO lessons: Google drops Twitter
• Why Google+ may make it
• 8 reasons I don't care about (toolbar) PageRank
• Google +1: NOT the internet marketing messiah
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

1. Darwin. Lots of not-so-smart people start internet marketing agencies. They fail. In droves. Or they limp along, leaving a trail of ripped-off clients in their wake. If you’re good, you can swim past a lot of them, grow legs and climb onto the beach. You’ll hit a point where, while you can’t crack the top 10 agencies based on reputation and a skilled team, you can certainly keep the business profitable.
2. You can run a company that’s compatible with your vision. I’m all about teaching people to effectively communicate. I’ve built my agency around that mission. But, if you’re all about the importance of the color green, you can structure your business around that, instead. Internet marketing is adaptable. So is an agency, if you run it.
3. No two days are the same. One day, you’re helping a client sell car parts. The next, you’re helping another one win an election. Then, on to books, tour packages, bullet proof vests, wedding gowns, jeans, enterprise software, etc. We’ve worked with all of the above at one time or another.
4. You're in charge. This isn’t an advantage, necessarily, but if you want a challenge, there’s no greater one than sitting where the buck stops.
5. Never a dull moment. If you’re bored, you’re not awake. I once compared running an internet marketing agency to wrestling a shit-covered bear. I hold by that description. See #4, above.
6. You’re always learning. Running an internet marketing agency requires nerd know-how, writing smarts, SEO knowledge, PPC cunning and a host of other skills. And you have to always be learning. If you like learning, this is the job for you. If you don’t like learning new things, man, are you in the wrong line of work.
7. Flexibility. You can work any 100 hours per week you want. Seriously, you’ll work your butt off. But, you do control when you work. I take my kids on trips, get to see a lot of their school events and fill in as house manager (a poor one) when my wife’s choreographing the school musical. If I had a real job, I’d have a schedule, and I’d have to be at the office during Approved Times. Now, I can handle my ridiculous workload as I see fit.
8. Cool toys. Hey, don’t laugh. I have a 30" monitor at work, and a 27" iMac at home. You’ll never be able to blame a cheapskate boss for a lousy workstation again.
9. Working with cool people. You hire and fire, and while that often sucks, it means you get to build a company culture you like.
10. Watching smart people get even smarter. I love it when my team spontaneously comes up with something brilliant and I slap my forehead, saying “How did I not think of that?!” This will sound utterly patronizing, and I don’t mean it that way: It’s like the first time your kid beats you at chess, or is spontaneously generous/brilliant/thoughtful. You think “I must be doing something right.”
11. Helping other smart people make a living. Last, but maybe most important: If you run an internet marketing agency, you occasionally get to help really smart people succeed brilliantly. They just invented a new product, or published a new book, or took over as head of marketing at a big company. You can help them accomplish their goals in spectacular fashion. That’s what turns this job into a calling.

I hope anyone who’s souls nearly died reading yesterday’s post are now revived. This is a pretty great gig—just not for the faint of heart.

Other stuff

• 11 reasons no sane person starts an internet marketing agency
• SEO lessons: Google drops Twitter
• Why Google+ may make it
• 8 reasons I don't care about (toolbar) PageRank
• Google +1: NOT the internet marketing messiah
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

I had an epiphany today. Sane people do not run internet marketing agencies.

They sell training.

But agencies? No chance. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. I haven’t been sane since I was 3. If you’re relatively balanced, though, you’ll heed these warnings:

1. Online agencies are a weird hybrid of a traditional print agency and a ‘web’ company, combining the disadvantages of both: No real assets, undervalued services, 1,000 clowns all clamoring that they can do what you do, and a payroll to meet. We’re the Tromboon of the services world.
2. Our income is at the mercy of services-based contracts which can be shredded at any time. Write any contract you want. If your client decides to break it, they can break it. Then you ask yourself: Is it worth it to go to court? In 16 years, I’ve never said ‘yes’.
3. We don’t control the channels. When Madison Ave. agencies sprang up, they bought and sold the TV time and print space their clients needed. And the networks and publishers needed the agencies to sell it all. Not so on the internet, where anyone with a credit card can accidentally spend $35,000 on PPC ads, overnight.
4. The channels compete with us. Google has an SEM consulting team. So does Bing. Most e-mail marketing providers have in-house teams, too. Sure, they’re all devoted to parting hapless clients from their money. They don’t provide a lot of value—most clients understand that. But it’s still a ridiculous situation. I bring Google, Bing et al business. In exchange, they compete for our business, and our staff.
5. There’s no there, there. You’re constantly competing with morons who can’t even do SEO on their own sites, but “Dare you to compare my results to any other internet marketing consultant.” OK. How’s about I grab your top 2 clients and see if they rank in the top 5 for the first 2 words in their title tag? Oh, that’s not your target phrase? OK. Tool.
6. You don’t get much time to work on intellectual property, training, etc. That’s because you’re too busy whining on your blog.
7. You’re at the mercy of your vendors. All it takes is your web hosting provider, or your e-mail marketing provider, or your landlord to have some kind of total clusterf%$$ and you get to spend two weeks straightening it out.
8. You’re always working in the business, not on it. I’m a crappy CEO, I admit. I’m too apt to dive into client work. But most agencies, including Portent, get stuck in this awkward in-between state: Not quite big enough to push the CEO out of day-to-day affairs, and not quite small enough to let the CEO comfortably consult with each client. If you figure out how to break that deadlock, let me know.
9. Lack of legitimacy. 16 years in business and I still have companies asking me for my last 3 years of financial statements to make sure Portent is ‘for real’. Are you kidding me? I’ve been profitable more years than they have!
10. The leeches flock. If your agency’s been around more than 10 years, you start getting calls from folks who want to ‘partner’ with you. In a few cases, there’s a good relationship to be had. In most, though, ‘partner’ means ‘Attach myself to your agency like a tick, suck out a few clients, then fall off, bloated and dead, after six weeks.’ Choose partners carefully.
11. Your most valuable asset is hardest to sell. You know a lot of stuff. Your expertise is amazing. But clients want hourly rates. VC’s turn up their noses. Why? Because you can’t put knowledge in cans on a shelf. You don’t stock it or store it. It’s an invisible, intangible asset that you blurt out in a 30-second conversation. That one suggestion you just made probably increased client earnings by 15%. Billable value? $.45, and the CFO is going to call you on it.

Yep. If you’re crazy, start an agency. Then we can party together. If you’re sane, start a regular business, buy a nice house, and point and laugh at us poor souls.

Wait! Before you go slash your wrists! I wrote a follow up: 11 reasons smart people start internet marketing agencies.

Other stuff

• SEO lessons: Google drops Twitter
• Why Google+ may make it
• 8 reasons I don't care about (toolbar) PageRank
• Google +1: NOT the internet marketing messiah
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

So instead, here's a little Python script I cooked up to handle the day:

I'm happy to post this to Git if you want it, but caution: There may be an endless loop in there. It certainly feels that way.

Don't worry. Nothing really serious happened, except the whole bike rack to the head thing. The rest is just icing, which I'll keep to myself to protect the innocent, at least until they aggravate me to the point where they're no longer innocent.

Other stuff

• SEO lessons: Google drops Twitter
• Why Google+ may make it
• 8 reasons I don't care about (toolbar) PageRank
• Google +1: NOT the internet marketing messiah
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

That means Twitter's gone from real-time search, for certain. Actually, it appears real-time search is just gone. I don't see 'latest' any more:

I've never been a fan of real-time search: As I said in 2009, a real-time stream of poo is still poo.

The bigger news for the SEO world, of course, is this could mean Twitter will be less of a ranking factor in the future.

If you're a bandwagon-driven internet marketer, and you go diving after the latest gimmick, then you're probably panicking about now. A little voice in your head is shrieking "OH GOD MY TWITTERZ IS GONE NO MORE RANKINGS FOR MEEEEEEE".

That's why you need to change your ways and practice future-proof SEO.

The lesson: Future-proof SEO

I know a lot of folks started spamming Twitter the moment they learned it was a ranking factor. They're the bandwagon SEOs.

Here's how bandwagon SEO works: You hear something's a ranking factor, like links, or Twitter. Then, you spam the crappage out of it, burying Google in an avalanche of worthless links, tweets, etc., and vomiting automated follows and link requests all over the internet. For a while, you see some success, and you get really smug. Those stupid SEO's, you think. They're full of crap.

Then, poof. The ranking factor goes away. That foomp sound? That was the air rushing in to replace the rankings your site used to occupy.

Bandwagon SEO leads to tears. On the other hand, future-proof SEO leads to happiness and that sense of one-ness with the interwebs:

If you built your SEO strategy around Twitter and Facebook as outreach tools, a sound link acquisition strategy and best practices site construction with great content as the centerpiece, then you're fine.

This is the core of future-proof SEO: Do use channels like Twitter and Facebook. Google's move doesn't mean you should stop doing so.

You have to treat these tools as fantastic messaging channels. The link-building and audience-building effects are great, of course. But the real power of Twitter is its ability to put you squarely in front of influencers, media and consumers.

Don't leave Twitter!

Don't stop using Twitter because of Google's move. That would be very foolish. Twitter dwarfs Google+ by comparison. It may still be a ranking factor, too—it'd be easy enough for Google to scrape results for data. Or, they may be planning to integrate Twitter feeds into Google+.

Think strategically: Twitter and Facebook are still your best non-search outreach channels. Don't let them lie.

Other stuff

• Why Google+ may make it
• 8 reasons I don't care about (toolbar) PageRank
• The path to marketing nirvana: The peeve, and the rush
• 10 kick-ass features in Google Analytics v5
• Ian’s angriest posts
• The ultimate marketer tease
• Google +1: NOT the internet marketing messiah
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting
• Follow me on Twitter or Google Plus

]]> http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2011/07/seo-lessons-google-twitter.htm http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2011/07/seo-lessons-google-twitter.htm Search Marketing Mon, 04 Jul 2011 16:05:12 -0800

But now that I’ve used it for a while, I have to say that it’s got a lot of big advantages. I still have my doubts, but I think this could actually fly.

Why Google+ could win

In short, Google is Netscape to Facebook’s AOL-style model. Facebook is a ‘walled garden’. You log in, do your social stuff, then log out. Also, Facebook makes communicating with specific groups and lists of friends really, really difficult. Google has opted for a more open model: Google+ follows you around in Google-land, and Circles let you use any + feature but confine your message to specific groups of friends:

1. Your data can be ‘liberated’ using Google’s export toolset.
2. Google+ is a set of tools that are loosely tied together, but you can use them all while searching, using Reader, using Google Docs uploading photos, etc.. That puts Google+ where your work is happening. Which may kill productivity worldwide, but it differentiates Google’s offering in a way that could get them their own, unique audience.
3. Easy ‘mini communities’. The Circles feature lets you segment your social media following and communicate with any of them separately using chat, messaging, video, etc.
4. Google Chrome. Assuming the FTC doesn’t rip Google limb from limb, the company has a browser platform for their social media platform. That could be convenient.

The rise of independent ISPs and a choice of web browsers was a nightmare for AOL. If Google+ expands and grows to include other Google apps, and then beyond (toolbar, anyone?) it could make Facebook toss and turn, too.

Why Google+ could lose

On the other hand, Google+ could flame out, ala Buzz, Wave and (cough) SideWiki:

1. It has to grow, fast. I know Facebook and other service had time to grow. Google+ does not. The public won’t be patient. So Google has to re-open invites and get ready for a flood of users.
2. Privacy gaffes. Google+ can’t accidentally allow the entire world to see my e-mails, or let me see people outside relevant circles, or otherwise barf inappropriate data everywhere. Never mind that Facebook is about as private as a transparent commode. People are paranoid about Google and social media. They’ll run in a hurry.
3. Complexity. As Rand correctly stated yesterday, Google+ is awfully complicated. Google used to build fantastically simple tools. Lately they’re throwing cupholders on canoes. I don’t get it, and the average user will walk away confused. A hint to Google: If you have to provide a video tutorial, no one’s going to use it.
4. It’s getting crowded. Twitter. Facebook. LinkedIn. Do we need another network? I dunno.

What I’d like to see

I already like the platform, but to really take off I think Google+ needs:

1. An API. Let developers pick and choose the features they integrate into their sites. This would be a logical extension of the model.
2. Integration with Calendar. If I’m organizing an event, the ability to send a Google Calendar invite to a Circle would be a godsend.
3. Wide open. Let everyone in. You’re gonna have to do it eventually.
4. Pare back the feature set. Simplify!

We’ll see what happens. But Google+ is a hell of a lot better than Buzz, that’s for certain.

What do you think?

Note: If you want to follow me on Google+, I'm here: https://plus.google.com/109108273123284204690/

Other stuff

• 8 reasons I don't care about (toolbar) PageRank
• The path to marketing nirvana: The peeve, and the rush
• 10 kick-ass features in Google Analytics v5
• Ian’s angriest posts
• The ultimate marketer tease
• Google +1: NOT the internet marketing messiah
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting
• The PPC ebook You Gotta Buy

In case you didn't know, Google+ is Google's latest attempt to break into social media. Judging by the result, I think it'll easily eclipse... Google Buzz.

Yawn. I said it was stupid last year. I’ll say it again this year.

Toolbar PageRank is 50% meaningless, 25% misleading, 20% useless and 5% worth tracking. It has slightly more impact than Google +1.

Here’s why I wouldn’t use it to measure page value if my life depended on it:

1. Toolbar PageRank is not an accurate reflection of true PageRank. I wrote about this last year (see above). There’s even evidence that Google hand-edits toolbar PageRank. Think about that—somewhere in Mountain View, someone’s tweaking the little number you see in the Google toolbar. By hand. How accurate is that gonna be?
2. It updates every six months. But Google updates true PageRank continuously. Yeah, I know I want to base major marketing decisions on data that might be 180+ days out of date. (that’s sarcasm)
3. It’s also not the whole picture. Toolbar PageRank may reflect a site’s authority, if your authority hasn’t changed in 180 days, and if 100% of your authority is derived from links. But:
4. It ignores visibility. Yay! Your homepage has a 6 PageRank! High fives! Too bad every product page on your site has a 0. Site visibility matters, and PageRank doesn’t provide much insight there.
5. It ignores relevance. You might have an 8 PageRank, according to the almighty toolbar. If you never use the phrases people use to find your products, though, you’re still not going to get found.
6. It ignores traffic. Which is kind of important.
7. Toolbar PageRank appears to reduce otherwise intelligent marketers to babbling idiots. I’ve seen folks spend thousands of dollars per month on links or advertising on a site simply because ‘the site has a great PageRank’. I’ve also seen people buy sites based on toolbar PageRank. Not smart.
8. It’s one metric. Even if toolbar PageRank had value, it’s just one metric. It’s one tiny piece of a far larger dataset that impacts your rankings, your site’s performance and your business success.

Don’t use PageRank to guide your strategy. It’s a huge mistake. If you’re a search nerd like me, have fun learning the formula. Use your knowledge to impress your friends.

Then learn to do real SEO, and real marketing: Look at the whole picture.

Other stuff

• The path to marketing nirvana: The peeve, and the rush
• 10 kick-ass features in Google Analytics v5
• Ian’s angriest posts
• The ultimate marketer tease
• Google +1: NOT the internet marketing messiah
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting
• The PPC ebook You Gotta Buy

They’ve found Marketing Nirvana: The place where their beliefs and their product match up.

I’m not saying this as a pile of wishy-washy marketing-psychobabble crap. Marketing nirvana is on your to-do list. It’s on mine too. If you want to get there, you need to find your pet peeve, and the rush:

The marketing nirvana questionnaire

Here’s how I pursue it:

I ask myself:

1. What pisses me off. Not in the people-who-drive-slow-in-the-left-hand-lane sense. I’m talking about the here’s-what’s-wrong-with-the-world sense.
2. How I would fix it.
3. Why I would fix it.
4. What non-chemically-induced experiences give me a rush.
5. How I can make those things happen more often.

Then, I ‘sell’ that which fixes my biggest pet peeve. And I do it in a way that gives me the biggest rush.

It changes, sometimes. When it does, it’s time to do something new.

Why I do what I do

Over the last 20 years, I’ve discovered that:

1. Bad communications pisses me off. It’s just so avoidable. Most bad things that happen start with bad communications: World War I. Pearl Harbor. The NY Mets. The Motrin Moms.
2. I get a rush when I help someone put the pieces in place, communicate more effectively, and thereby improve their lives.

In my job, I get to fix bad communications and help people grow their businesses. That matches up well. But only for paying clients. Which is great, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not enough. That’s why I blog my brains out, and speak whenever I can, wherever I can.

I am not an idealist. No one with children and bills to pay is. But this blog is a nice way to satisfy the part of me that still thinks we can fix the world.

Marketing nirvana in action

I don’t agree with, or even like, Rush Limbaugh. But it’s clear he’s found a calling that connects to his deepest beliefs. It makes him very, very convincing to his potential fan base. To which I do not belong.

If you ask, the owner of the Subway near my office recommends the best sandwich. She’s always right! I could never stare at lunch meat 8 hours a day and do what she does. Clearly she’s found a slice of marketing nirvana (horrible pun, sorry).

Donald Trump, on the other hand, seems a bit… tired. Insincere. Is it possible his calling no longer matches his beliefs? I’d bet on it.

It works every time

The marketing nirvana principle works every time: Sell that which fixes your biggest pet peeve. Do so in a way that gives you the biggest rush.

When you do, your potential audience naturally finds you: You’re sincere, enthusiastic and totally believable.

The same, by the way, goes for your team—it’s a lot easier to get them excited about what they’re doing if you’re excited about it.

So, this weekend, put in a little time to find the peeve and the rush. Connect ’em to your work. Marketing nirvana.

We’re all selling. I don’t mean that in a cynical way. If you’re a developer who believes in using Ruby on Rails, you’re selling that. If you’re an auto mechanic who wants people to drive more American cars, then that’s your pitch. If you’re a brilliant scientist who thinks we should all understand the world around us, yep, you’re selling something. We all have ‘sales goals’ of some kind. Admit it, match them up with your life's work, and you'll find a lot more fans.

Other stuff

• 10 kick-ass features in Google Analytics v5
• Ian’s angriest posts
• The ultimate marketer tease
• Google +1: NOT the internet marketing messiah
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting
• The PPC ebook You Gotta Buy

1: Multi-touch attribution

Important note: This is a separate beta and is rolling out on its own. So you may have access to Google Analytics v5, but not to multi-touch attribution. Go here if you want to sign up for the beta.

This is the big one. The brass ring. The Big Woo. You can now track how different channels, like organic search and pay-per-click marketing, contribute to each conversion on your site. Until now, you could use first- or last-click attribution.

If you don’t know what this means, and the implications for marketing, read my 2-part post about attribution.

A simple example: I can do a quick Venn diagram showing how much different marketing types contribute to each other:

Why it’s good. You can finally show how SEO, PPC and other marketing efforts contribute to sales, leads and other stuff. SEOs will love it because they can show how SEO, which is often a first- or second-click driver, contributes to sales previously attributed 100% to PPC, which is often a last-click driver. And PPC-ers will love it because they can recommend increased budgets if/when PPC is assisting other channels.

Why it’s bad. It might make your brain hurt. Could force managers to learn math.

2: Create multiple dashboards

In the previous version, Google Analytics had a single dashboard. Now, you can create lots of dashboards. For example, you might show different data to different parts of your team, or create a dashboard that focuses on a single channel:

Why it’s good. You can customize Google Analytics for different clients/stakeholders.

Why it’s bad. Choice is not always a good thing. By the time you’ve created your 99th dashboard, you may want to kill Google.

3: Easier advanced filtering

Everyone should be using this feature, all the time. You can quickly add an advanced filter to any report:

Why it’s good. Zooming in on specific issues, keywords and other datapoints has never been easier.

Why it’s bad. May cause folks to use advanced filters as a shortcut, when custom reports will be more efficient long-term.

4: Site performance measurement

Add one line of code to your site and you can track the average load time, page by page:

Why it’s good. I’m obsessed with site speed. I care about this stuff. Seeing it in a report is a good thing.

Why it’s bad. I’m not convinced of its accuracy yet. Time will tell.

5: More keyboard-friendly navigation

We have a lot of clients, and that means a lot of sites. Clicking through 10 pages of domain names was… annoying. Now, I can just type in the domain and zap, there’s my site:

That’s just one example. The reports search box has a nice type-ahead function.

Why it’s good. Keeps me from going insane.

Why it’s bad. No downside I can think of, actually.

6: Navigation that actually makes sense

Much of the navigation in Google Analytics v5 actually makes sense, and no longer makes me feel like I’m navigating through a chimp-infested jungle.

For example, click the little settings button on any page and you get (gasp) access to all profile-level settings: Advanced segments, Annotations, etc.:

Why it’s good. Fewer clicks is always good.

Why it’s bad. It’s yet another change to Google Analytics’ navigation structure.

7: Event-based goals

Strictly nerd stuff here, but I love the fact that I can now set up a goal based on a previously-defined event. For example, I can now set a goal that fires when someone watches an entire video.

You could do this before with some javascript craziness, but now you can simply repurpose events as goals. It’s a big timesaver.

Why it’s good. It just is, ok?

Why it’s bad. It’s really, really hard to explain the difference between goals, events and pageviews to most clients. The reason—the distinction doesn’t really make sense.

8: New custom report types

You can now apply filters to custom reports, then save that as a new custom report:

You can also place multiple tabs in a custom report (which may have been available in v4, but I never noticed). And you can create a so-called ‘flat table report’, which then lets you drill down on multiple dimensions, metrics, combinations of both, etc. Want to see which operating system + search engine combination drives the most traffic? Go for it:

Why it’s good. This report type gives you more database-style access to Google Analytics.

Why it’s bad. Will further bury people overwhelmed by the amount of data and number of options.

9: Keyword clouds

Before you barf on your monitor at the mention of a keyword cloud, read a little further: Google Analytics v5 lets you create a keyword cloud based on visits, of course, but you can also create one based on, say, bounce rate, or average time on site:

Why it’s good. Create fast, easy visualizations for the c-suite, for yourself, or just for fun.

Why it’s bad. Doesn’t let you use metrics like conversion rate (yet).

10: Little things

• ‘All visits’ no longer required if you pick 2+ segments.
• Goal completion URLs appear in the goals section. Previously, Google Analytics only showed the goal name, which could get pretty annoying.
• Expand the left-side navigation without reloading the page every time. Trivial, I know, but it used to drive me nuts.
• Embed multiple views in a single custom report.
• It’d surrre be nice if I could set up a goal funnel based on a series of events. Maybe in version 6?

What I don’t like

I do have some pet peeves:

1. Google, why do you tease? You release new features to 1% of your user base, then wait 6 months, then release them to another 1%, then… ARRRRGHHH.
2. Google got rid of the PDF export. Why? Oh, for the love of all that’s good and right in the universe, why?!
3. Can you please make the on-page analytics work, someday? Or did you delete it out of total frustration?
4. Intelligence alerts are actually intelligent. If you use ‘em, you know what I mean. If you don’t, don’t worry about it.
5. The drill-down doesn’t always make sense. If I’m looking at Organic Search Traffic landing pages, and click on a page, I’d expect to see a list of keywords for that page, but I get a one-line report instead. I can select a secondary dimension and get what I want. But why the extra step?

It’s a win

Regardless, Google Analytics version 5 is a huge step up. Multi-channel attribution alone makes it a must-have tool.

Other stuff

• Ian's angriest posts
• The ultimate marketer tease
• Google +1: NOT the internet marketing messiah
• Inconceivable! 4 signs your project's in big trouble.
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting
• The PPC ebook You Gotta Buy

Today, they're offering all of our e-books:

• Conversation Marketing
• The SEO CopyWriting e-book
• The Fat-Free Guide to Google Analytics
• PPC for Small Business (a two-book series)

For a total of $25.

You can get it here: AppSumo Online Marketing eBook Bundle

Posting later today: 10 things you need to know about the new Google Analytics

1. Ian is a cockroach, only less evolved.
2. Ian isn’t a bad guy, but he’s going to destroy my writing.
3. Ian is a highly-evolved cockroach who can write. We won’t stomp on him.
4. Ian is a writer who was tragically lured to the dark side.
5. Ian may have something useful to say, if you listen real carefully and ignore the parts where his head spins around.

Since I’m only going to have an hour, everyone’s gonna have to fast-forward to stage five. So, I start here by begging for mercy: Read my message. Let it sink in. Then, tomorrow night, let’s talk.

What I’m going to say

As a good, East Coast squishy liberal, I obsess about the state of journalism and news organizations. As an internet marketer, I’m driven nearly insane by the way the said news organizations fed journalists into a wood chipper, feet-first, from 2000-2010, simply because the organizations refused to grasp the internet. As a writer, I know that one day Writers Will Rule The Earth, and I’m impatient, so let’s get on with it, shall we?

So, here are my big talking points:

1. Journalists need to care about search engines.
2. They need to understand why search engines exist, and how search engines think: Search engines want happy searchers.
3. Searchers are happy when, by reading your stuff, they get what they want.
4. More than any other writers, journalists write for their audience. So, give your readers what they want, the way they want it.
5. For journalists, that’s what SEO is: Writing for your online audience.
6. Writing for your online audience means being fully descriptive.
7. Writing for your online audience means structuring content for easy scanning and reading.
8. You also need to expand your influence. So…
9. Journalists need to care about social media.
10. Expand your influence on Twitter by becoming, not just a great writer, but a fantastic curator of content.
11. Do the same thing on Facebook.
12. Google’s Panda, plus the ability to go around Google via Facebook and Twitter, present a new opportunity you haven’t seen since 2002.
13. You have more of the required skills than any other professional on the planet. You write. You curate. You inform & compel. You can steamroll halfwitted content sweatshops.

I expect lots of great questions from the audience, too. But there you have it: My message to journalists. It’s time to kick some ass.

Other stuff

• Ian's angriest posts
• The ultimate marketer tease
• Google +1: NOT the internet marketing messiah
• Inconceivable! 4 signs your project's in big trouble.
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting
• The PPC ebook You Gotta Buy

I sailed a boat called a Hobie Wave:

(image from hobiecat.com)

We nearly ended up having a major disagreement, the Wave and I.

“Ready About!… Dammit!!!”

When you’re sailing, you do this thing called tacking. The simple version: You can’t sail straight into the wind. You can, however, zig-zag into the wind. The zigs and zags are called tacks.

Normally, you tack by turning the boat towards the wind until the wind crosses the front of the boat (the bow). You yell “Ready about!!!” and then “Hard a-lee!!!”. The boat whips around, the wind starts blowing into the other side of the boat’s sail, and you’re zipping happily along. All is right with the world:

OR, the boat steers into the wind, slows down, stops, starts going backwards while the sail flaps around like a flag and any waves make you bob up and down like a cork. Then the boat decides, in spite of your pleas, curses and attempts to keep turning, to go back on the original tack:

That’s what the Hobie Wave just loooves to do. You try a normal tack and it mocks you.

And no, for you sailors out there, the boat did not have a jib, or any other headsail. Just a mainsail.

I fought with the boat for at least 2 full sailing runs around Sandpiper Bay. I considered cutting it in half and sailing back in one hull, like a canoe. I pondered bouncing it off solid objects. And I considered leaving it and walking back (the bay is pretty shallow).

We reach an agreement

But the Wave and I finally reached an agreement. It doesn’t like the wind crossing the bow. But it’s just fine with the wind crossing the back (stern) of the boat. That’s called jibing.

I was raised as a sailor to believe that jibing a sailboat can create a space-time rift that would devour the very fabric of reality. Or that it would smash your boat to smithereens. Regardless, it was A Very Bad Thing. In the 95-degree heat of Sandpiper Bay, I stubbornly refused to believe sailboats could’ve changed in the last 30 years, or that jibing is sometimes a good tactic.

But the Wave, with its teeny sail, light weight and lack of rigging, loves jibing. It jibes with flair. With panache. With enthusiasm.

Jibing changed our relationship.

That sounds so... wrong... when I read it.

Why this relates to internet marketing

Sometimes, customers are like Hobie Waves. You know they ought to approach your product a certain way. Then they do things that make zero sense. You want to hit them with 2×4′s:

• On Google, they use the ‘wrong’ phrase to find your services. They might use ‘bike tires’ to find you, when you feel you produce ‘bicycle racing tires’;
• You want them to use your online form to buy from you, but they keep calling, instead;
• You want to sell them your newest coolest product, but they keep breaking sales records buying the old one;
• They all watch the online video, but you want them to order the DVD.

When that happens, they’re refusing to tack. You steer one way, they go another.

Then you have three choices. You can:

1. Start cursing, and keep trying the same thing, again and again, while everyone else laughs; or
2. Abandon ship. Give up. Swim to shore; or
3. Try something else.

I vote for number 3.

The customer isn’t always right. But, if all your efforts to do things the ‘right’ way bring you to a standstill, you’ve got no choice. Find how your customers want to do things. Consider the ‘wrong’ way. Will it really smash your ship to smithereens? No? Then give it a try.

The goal remains the same. The perspective is what changes.

Even when the Hobie Wave refused to point into the wind, we still had the same goal: Get from point A to point B. Preferably with a cool little wake proving our speediness. I just had a very different way to accomplish that goal.

When I changed to jibing, instead, I tried the ‘wrong’ way to achieve the same goal. To the Hobie Wave, my ‘wrong’ way was the ‘right’ way. It worked. We both got what we wanted.

Your customers still want a nice pair of shoes, or SEO services, or a cloud computing solution. They still want great service and value. They just picture going about it differently. Solve that puzzle—match your common goal with their desired path to that goal—and you become:

• Zappos, who lets people return shoes, no questions asked;
• Apple, who has conquered the smartphone market with a phone that doesn’t work that well as a phone;
• Toyota, who delivered the Prius years ahead of everyone else;
• Or even Hobie, who created an inexpensive, durable sailboat that, while somewhat cranky, is lots of fun for the typical wannabe sailor.

Or, you find a way to connect your vacation to your business, and then use that to ease your way back to reality.

Other stuff

• Ian's angriest posts
• The ultimate marketer tease
• Google +1: NOT the internet marketing messiah
• Inconceivable! 4 signs your project's in big trouble.
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting
• The PPC ebook You Gotta Buy

Well, it's warranted. And I am leaving the country while he's gone and not coming back for a couple of weeks after he gets back. Perfect timing.

He suggested a "best of" or "favorites" type of post. But he didn't say what kind of favorites. My favorite posts are when he blogs angry.

So I bring to you-

Ian's Angriest Posts of All Time.

8. Blogging Tip #1: Don't Post Angry (Oct 27, 2007) You don't actually need to re-read this one, but it was the #1 search result for "angry" in site search. He also went to bed without any supper that day since he broke his cardinal rule of blogging.

7. I'm Not Mean. I'm Just Angry. (December 7, 2009)
   This explains his iTunes library of Sarah McLachlan, scented candles and the fist sized holes in the wall. Any post with H2s like "What pisses me off" and "I don't get it" is always good stuff from the mind of Ian Lurie.

   
   

6. Kicking a Bully's Ass (November 29, 2010)
   A highly warranted angry post about the awful site Jew Watch and the "literary achievements" of said site. This site still ranks in the top for the word "jew" when searched but- it would appear that Google's not letting it just slide by completely:
   
   Sometimes you should get angry. Like this time.

5. Content Thieves: I want to punch you in the face (February 24, 2010)
   Now if you've ever imagined Ian trying to punch someone- this gets funnier. He does immediately admit in the first line of the post that it's not possible though. But he is right, don't steal. Why is there no internet overlord to report this to? Some sort of trademark/copyright agency that levies huge fines and spankings? Who does Disney employ for this?

4. E-Commerce Lessons (a rant) (October 13, 2008)
   In this case he calls it "rant" but once you get in the post he clues you in on what's really going on. "I'm angry (angrier)." (Phew. For a moment there I thought he lost it.) Then begins the age old rant on developers and how good they are at getting in the way. A Lurie classic to be enjoyed by anyone who's ever been told by a dev, "Yeah we could do that. But we won't." Or "That's easy," only to arrive at the end of 3 months with something totally broken, done wrong or unfinished.

3. 22 Things I've Never Said (September 22, 2010)
   This one just makes me laugh. Real things people have said and what Ian would have liked to have said. A true "snarkfest" that will leave you giggling with glee.
   "18. Go ahead and try running a contest that trades links for prizes. After that, try dancing naked in front of Google while yelling "HAHAHAHA I'M A SPAMMER". It's much more subtle."

2. The Stupid Shall (not) Rule The Earth (May 26, 2010)
   I remember this day. Ian let us see the papers. It was glorious. Re-live rant after rant after rave after rant. 25 blank pages received from a law firm broken down in cost per packet sent, who let this atrocity happen and how you can stop stupid events from happening yourself. They're like forest fires you know. Caused by lack of responsibility and thinking. Except for the lightening ones. Those happen when someone at the law firm angers the gods.

   
   

1. Stop Plagiarism in 3 Easy Steps (October 30, 2008)
   Why this is #1? Ian got mad. But then he got even. Every time I've seen him present on this or re-tell about it, people laugh maniacally and take notes. That's when you know anger is going to good use. For the uniting of community, the raising of spirits and the crushing of souls. It's also apparently how you get on the front page of Digg.
   

All right, back to work while I'm still employed here. This guest post brought to you by Elizabeth Marsten at Portent Interactive. I don't get as angry...but I did write a post of internet marketing jokes you might enjoy wasting some time with.

What You Get
Buy this e-book and learn how to:

• Set up Google Analytics


• Define business goals


• Set up tracking for those goals in Google Analytics


• Calculate the $ value of one visitor to your web site (even if you're not running an online store


• Track value and growth generated by specific web sites and search terms


• Grow value based on real data


• Don't forget the 100% money back guarantee if you hate it!

P.S. Ian's on vacation this week. Stay tuned for tomorrow...mwhahahahaaa.

I have a secret to confess.

I actually run an agency. NO, WAIT. Don’t go away! This involves free, no-strings-attached learning stuff. And a cool web site! Bear with me.

I know you probably know I have a job. But whenever I meet folks at a conference, they seem to assume that money just sort of… manifests in my pockets. I gotta earn a living!

My company is Portent Interactive

We just relaunched our web site.

It has some pretty neat new stuff on it. Most important for you all, we have 3 different email training series. They’re all free.

Really free.

Spam-free, e-mail free, sales-free, cost-free. We won’t contact you, bug you or otherwise try to wrench a few shekels out of your fingers.

The series include:

• SEO: How it works and such
• PPC management
• Internet marketing strategy

You can sign up for all of ‘em at once, here.

There’s some other stuff I kinda like about the new site:

• All pages load in 4 seconds or less.
• It’s super-readable. I finally persuaded my creative team to use a font size larger than 9pt.
• It’s easy to tweak. We’re going to be constantly perfecting the new site. It’s our new favorite fun project.
• It actually has a books and resources page, where you can find all the non-services stuff we offer and/or sell.

It’s not 100% done—what is, really?—so if you see any problems, let me know.

But I feel so bad for the dog. So, when we decided to spoof it, we tried to think of a creature no one cares about. And we realized - it's us!!!.

I went to law school. The only thing less liked than lawyers? Marketers.

So, without further ado: The Ultimate Marketer Tease

And if you haven't seen the original, you must. It's awesome. GO WATCH IT NOW

Other stuff

• A new SEO factor: QualityRank (the name is sarcastic, but the information is not)
• How (not) to tell someone you can't afford it
• Google +1: NOT the internet marketing messiah
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• Follow me on Twitter

Exhibit B: You reply to a Craigslist ad via e-mail, attaching a picture of your six-pack? (that’s ex-Congressman Christopher Lee, folks, lest we forget)

So, 10 tips to keep yourselves out of trouble:

1. If you don’t want it found, don’t put it online. You can’t delete it once it gets out. And it will.
2. Learn how the frakking internet works!!!! How can you represent me when you clearly have zero knowledge of anything internet-related? You Tweet dirty. You answer Craigslist ads. You send nasty e-mails. My 11-year-old son knows better. Maybe if you knew the difference between a browser cookie and a Chips-A-Hoy, you’d stay out of trouble.
3. Don’t use your Twitter accounts to talk to that ‘special someone’. Uh, maybe no one told you this, but your Twitter account is kinda public. Or maybe they left out the ‘L’. Either way, don’t send pictures of your unmentionables on Twitter. Duh.
4. Don’t use your Facebook account, either. Facebook has more security holes than… well… than code written by some college kid in a caffeine frenzy.
5. Don’t e-mail sensitive stuff. Even if you delete it, it’s still out there somewhere, in the recipient’s in box, on a server, backed up, in your temp files, or in the cache of the recipient. For a bunch of bits, data is awfully hard to erase.
6. Learn to use basic encryption. For legitimate communications, learn to use encryption. If you’re on a Mac, take the 10 minutes required to learn to use GPGMail. Now your e-mail is that much harder to snoop.
7. Use https:// for Facebook, Twitter and e-mail. If you’re sitting in a coffee shop, or using a public wifi network, make sure you connect to message services using https://, not http. It’s not perfect, but it does make it a lot harder for me to hack your accounts using Firesheep.
8. Assume everyone’s for sale. We live in a political climate so ugly that Borat rejected a run for the Presidency, saying he couldn’t handle the nastiness. Assume that anyone you send stuff to—particularly near-strangers—will eventually spill the beans in exchange for cash.
9. Assume someone is watching. The internet is the single greatest asset to any political espionage operation. And trust me, every group, mainstream or fringe, has just such an operation. They’re monitoring everything you do. So do it offline.
10. Learn to behave like an adult. But maybe that’s too much to ask.

Other stuff

• A new SEO factor: QualityRank (the name is sarcastic, but the information is not)
• How (not) to tell someone you can't afford it
• Google +1: NOT the internet marketing messiah
• Infographic: The internet marketing planner
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• Follow me on Twitter

I've always been a bit scared of the AppSumo. His tough talk. His topknot. That smug smile.

But it turns out he's a pretty nice guy. He stopped by my blog a little while ago and said "Yo, Ian, I like your e-books. Can I offer one of 'em?"

I blinked in surprise and said "Yes".

So, today, you can buy the Unscary, Real-World Guide to SEO Copywriting for $5. Go to AppSumo for the deal.

Go.

Really.

Why are you still here?

[ SEO Copywriting E-Book on AppSumo ]

Google is literally adding a new factor to rankings: Site quality. They’ve hinted and inched towards it for years, but now it’s here: QualityRank is going to rule SEO for a while.

That’s the last time I’ll use ‘QualityRank’, I promise. Damn. I used it again. OK, NOW I’m done.

Google published More guidance on building high-quality sites back in early May.

Google spills the beans

In it, they write:

”...if you want to step into Google’s mindset, the questions below provide some guidance on how we’ve been looking at the issue…”

And the questions are an easy look at Google’s mindset. The high points:

Question: Would you trust the information in this article? Translation: Are you full of crap? Are you writing an article about cancer treatments when you have zero knowledge on the subject? If you used other web sites as a guide, you might be screwed, ‘cause they don’t know any more than you do.

Question: Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature? Translation: Running your own content farm may not work all that well. Yeah, I know, eHow still lives, somehow. You’re not eHow. So get real writers, and write real articles.

Question: Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations? Translation: Hiring 40 people on Mechanical Turk to each write a new version of your article isn’t going to work. You have to produce truly unique content. Or, try your hand at out-coding Google’s best language processing engineers. It’ll be FUN!

Question: Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site? Translation: This one is really interesting. Things that make me keep my credit card in my wallet include broken image links, convoluted checkout processes and, biggest of all, broken SSL on carts or expired security certificates. You’ve seen ‘em before—errors like this:

Check your site for these errors and fix ‘em. Google can almost certainly sniff out these kinds of things, and it can hurt your site quality.

A few more of my favorites:

Question: Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors? Translation: Use a dictionary. Check your facts. Learn to write gooder. If I, Ian Lurie, mediocre programmer, can write a script that checks for verbs and nouns in sentences, you can bet that Google goes quite a bit farther.

Question: Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name? Translation: Are you a known quantity? This one kind of pisses me off, actually. Google is once again favoring brands and existing content over new stuff. While QDF may mitigate that somewhat, this is still a major problem in search. If merely existing builds authority, how does great new content climb into the rankings?

Question: Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious? Translation: If you’re writing in the SEO industry, the translation is: Are you regurgitating the same useless crap 500 other SEO ‘gurus’ have spouted? Cough. Sorry. I love this one. I wish they’d apply it at conferences and cause offenders to spontaneously combust. Just for a second. We’d put ‘em out after that. I swear.

There are a 23 questions in all in the Google post. You should read them all, print them, and then ask yourself each one of them every time you ponder SEO content strategy. Also, really read the Google Webmaster Guidelines, and then ruthlessly apply them to your own site.

I’m not a Google fanboy. Google’s a profit-seeking enterprise. They have their own interests at heart. But they’re a tiger, and you’ve, at best, got them by the tail. Hang on.

It’s good for you

Conveniently, Google’s guidelines lead to a pretty nice site. So follow their recommendations and you’ll have a better product, even if your rankings don’t improve a bit.

Is there more you can do? Of course. Link acquisition, social media marketing and other SEO techniques will give you a boost. But first, do no harm. Find problems, fix ‘em and get in line with what Google’s asking.

Other stuff

• How (not) to tell someone you can't afford it
• Google +1: NOT the internet marketing messiah
• Inconceivable! 4 signs your project's in big trouble.
• Infographic: The internet marketing planner
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting
• The PPC ebook You Gotta Buy

• 30-40 we like but can’t work with for one reason or another;
• 10-20 who make us a little nervous;
• 5-10 who we like, but are in industries we just won’t represent;
• 1-2 people who make me want to retire and open a combination gaming store/bicycle shop.

I'm not suggesting that internet marketing agencies are blameless in the creation of sales nightmares. Don’t worry, all you clients. I’ll be writing about horrible proposal faux pas next.

The accidental insulter (AI) aka the a—hat

Right now, she’s reading this and feeling terribly insulted. She’d likely mumble “I didn’t mean it that way!”

I’d reply, “You are the CEO of a company, and you don’t realize how totally insulting that sounds? Wow. Do you pinch your employees’ asses and then tell them it was a team-building exercise?”

Don’t insult my intelligence. You knew exactly how that would sound. Someone pooped in your Cornflakes this morning and you decided to take it out on me when you realized that your business selling personalized soybeans isn’t going to make it.

My response. I babbled about the analysis we put in to each recommendation and report, blah blah blah while I saw spots from an anger-inspired surge in blood pressure and gripped my desk so tightly I left fingerprints in the wood.

Better alternatives. “Can you explain what you’ll be doing in more detail?” or even “Ian, are you insane?” or, God forbid, “I can’t afford it.”

The guilt-driven bargainer (GDB)

“I just can’t justify the expense…” [Trailing off into silence].

This after I’ve put in the time to do an opportunity gap analysis that shows, to the penny, what the campaign is worth.

I’m sure he’s expecting me to jump in with something like “Oh! Don’t worry! I’m running a welfare organization! I’ll make sure you get all the help you need to grow your company by $1 million, for free.”

My response. Silence. What did you expect?

Better alternatives. “Is there any way we can make this cost less?” or “I only have $x — anything we can do for that?” or, even better, “I can’t afford it.”

The psycho sycophant (PS)

“I reallllly want to work with you you guys are sooooo smart I just don’t have any moneeeyyyy right now because my last SEO quit when I couldn’t pay them for a year and my developer hates meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…”

Unfortunately, I can’t live on flattery. Plus, everyone you’ve ever worked with has united in a world-ending conspiracy against you. It could be they’re going to kill everyone who tries to help you, because you’re going to save the world from invasion by their alien overlords. Or, it could be you’re a pathological liar who’s going to stiff me the first chance you get.

My response. [Avoiding eye contact] Well, uh, that’s great. I’ll send you a proposal. No, no, don’t worry, I’ve got your e-mail address, you don’t need mine.

Better alternatives. “I had some disagreements with my last internet marketer/SEO. He hates me. But I learned. Now, I have a budget of $nn. What can you do for me?” or, of course, “I can’t afford it.”

Butthead bingo (BB)

“I ran this by the CFO, and the CMO, and the CEO. They think the roll rate isn’t high enough given our financials. They’d like to see a cost/benefit analysis to show the synergies between effort-to-asset ratios and man-hours. Also, I need you to show us four years’ financials, an hour-by-hour accounting of everything you’ll do on this project, and sign this paper promising you won’t leave the state.”

I think this is usually just an attempt to make me go away. I can’t think why else someone would talk like this. Some weird form of foreign accent syndrome?

My response. No problem. Let me get my 40-person legal team and contracts department right on that.

Better alternatives. “My boss will never go for this”, or, NO WAIT IT’S A SURPRISE, “We can’t afford it.”

Just say it

There is a point to this entire rant: Just tell your agency the truth! If you can't afford it, say so. If you don't want to pay for it, just say so.

But don't try to hide behind passive-aggressive accusations, ridiculous lingo or veiled insults. That's not smart business. It's poor business, and it's disrespectful.

If you have a budget, just say it. A good marketer will deliver value for your $.

If you can’t afford it, just say it. You won’t hurt my feelings. And we’ll always try to figure out a way to make it work.

Other stuff

• Google +1: NOT the internet marketing messiah
• What freakish and frumpy aircraft can teach you about internet marketing
• Inconceivable! 4 signs your project's in big trouble.
• The secret of internet marketing success: Because I said so
• Infographic: The internet marketing planner
• Automate Linkscape reporting with Google Spreadsheets
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting
• The PPC ebook You Gotta Buy

In it, I write about Tribbles, fish, and why you have to write, even if you think your clients are illiterate rodents.

Read Just Write!.

But now, the internet marketing world has gone insane. Even more insane than usual. I’m starting to get messages like this one:

I’ve also seen notes in forums: “I’ll trade +1 votes”, sell votes for cash, blah blah blah. Even worse, I’m seeing headlines like “Google +1 changes the game”.

Everyone’s treating Google +1 like huge news. The hype around +1 is now officially greater than the hype around the Panda Update:

Seriously? People that excited about this? Um. It’s a button. That you click. To vote on a page.

It’s not a magic ‘get me to the top’ button.

It’s a social media voting button. It’s Google’s Facebook Like, only not as good, because Google can’t hit anything approaching the critical mass of Facebook. Or even Twitter, for that matter.

Think like Google for a second

Come on, people. SEO and internet marketing require a brain. Just for a second, think like Google. Would they create a button that so profoundly impacts rankings? Something so easy to game that you can spam a few Twitter followers into voting for you and bam, up you go in the SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Pages)?

No.

They might use +1 as a check against algorithmic results.

They’ll use it to suggest other content to you in personalized results (if you’re logged in).

They’ll certainly use it as a signal for spammy sites—if you acquire 10 +1 votes for a page full of dreck one day, and 10000 votes for the same dreck the next, they’re going to take a careful look at your site.

And I bet they’ll use it as a long-term signal of overall site quality: Consistent +1 votes, in natural patterns, across an entire site might imply quality. But you’ll still need all the other signals in place. This is not a game changer.

Yet a lot of ‘SEOs’ and ‘marketers’ (deliberately in quotes) seem to think this is the next Sekrit Formoola Fer Rankings Sukssess.

Are they all dumb?

Actually, let me reorder that sentence: They are all dumb, if they think that they’re going to +1-spam their way to higher rankings.

Yes, it’s interesting…

Is Google +1 interesting? Hell yes, it’s interesting. It’s Google’s 3rd or 4th attempt to break into social media. It may eclipse such previous successes as Google Buzz and Sidewiki. It may become a beacon of greatness outshining even Google Wave.

Ahem.

In all seriousness, it’s well worth putting a +1 button on your site. Why not get the votes? Lots of people have Google accounts. Lots of people will click that little button if given the chance. And it could help, a little, with your search results. It’ll certainly help with your social profile, if this latest social media venture by Google actually succeeds.

Yes, I’m going to have a +1 button on my site. I like it, and the votes mean something. I’m not saying you should ignore +1. Just give it the attention it deserves. No more. No less.

...but don’t fall victim to shiny thing syndrome

The buzz over Google +1 is one of the worst cases of shiny thing syndrome I’ve seen. If you want to help your business, sharpen your SEO skills or otherwise succeed online, you’ve got higher priorities:

1. Google Panda, which is still rolling out, still largely a mystery and represents one of the biggest algorithm shakeups in years;
2. All of those canonicalization problems on your site;
3. The dozens of broken inlinks you’ve got;
4. Your 200-link navigation that sucks away authority from every page on your site;
5. The 500kb, 250×250-pixel image that slows your site to a crawl;
6. Twitter’s integrated follow functionality;
7. Facebook’s continued efforts to improve their search functionality—they’re about as successful as Google’s continued efforts to break into social media;
8. The real, measurable impact of established social media on SEO.

Or, you could even think about ways to come up with content people actually want to see. Whatever you do, don’t fall for the +1 hype. Treat it as one more small tool.

Not a jackhammer. Or a Marketing Messiah.

Other stuff

• What freakish and frumpy aircraft can teach you about internet marketing
• Inconceivable! 4 signs your project's in big trouble.
• The secret of internet marketing success: Because I said so
• Infographic: The internet marketing planner
• Automate Linkscape reporting with Google Spreadsheets
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting
• The PPC ebook You Gotta Buy

“Are you OK sir?”

The guy next to me at SeaTac gate S8 was eyeing me dubiously as I sat reading Seth Godin’s Poke The Box. I’d just finished yet another passage that made me think “Hell YES!” Apparently, I was also nodding vigorously. My inner monologue was showing. It creeped out my fellow traveler.

He didn’t call the TSA. Instead, he called me ‘sir’. Sir? SIR? Should I get my walker?!

Take this story as a warning: Reading Poke The Box while conscious, thinking and/or breathing may lead to strong feelings of “Hell yeah” and “Damn right”. It may also get you off your ass. If you’re leading a large, publicly-traded company or a political party, avoid this book at all costs.

Otherwise, read it in private, or people may think you're nuts.

Like many of Seth Godin’s books, Poke The Box (PTB) is a series of small, digestible ideas written to inspire. As he explains, he’s not providing a blueprint or a map—that’s your job. He’s explaining why it’s so important that you make things happen. He encapsulates that idea in the first of several great quotes in this book:

“Please stop waiting for a map. We reward those who draw maps, not those who follow them.”

And about adaptation:

“Part of initiating is being willing to discover that what you end up with is different from what you set out to accomplish. If you’re not willing to discover that surprise, it’s no wonder you’re afraid to start.

Amen.

Later on, he writes about the moral obligation to start:

“_Once you’ve engaged with an organization or a relationship or a community, you owe it to your team to start. To initiate. To be the one who makes something happen._

To do less is to steal from them."

SAY IT BRUTHAH!!!!! TESTIFY!!!!!!!!

Ahem. Sorry.

I won’t say that Poke The Box broke new ground for me. If you’re the target audience, it won’t be revolutionary for you, either. Instead, it will reinforce values you probably already have:

• Change is important.
• Without it, the best organization dies.
• You have to innovate. Have to. It’s not an option, it’s a moral imperative.

If you’re not the target audience, read Poke The Box, and you might join it. Read this book and you’ll want to create a ruckus.

And that’s good.

Poke The Box, by Seth Godin
[ Kindle Edition ]
[ Paper Edition ]

Anyone who's read this blog for a while knows I obsess about good web defensive design. I'm really excited that SmashingMag accepted this article.

The folks there put in a ton of time helping me get the article ship-shape, and put up with my caffeine-inspired confusion to boot.

Thanks!

Read Getting Started With Defensive Design

This is a rewrite of an old, old bit I wrote on the Portent web site way back when. It’s not the same. Nor are my feelings on the subject.

I can explain it better, though, by talking about a huge wooden seaplane and a small, frumpy airliner.

The Spruce Goose: All pizazz, no performance.

The Spruce Goose is the huge wooden seaplane.

Howard Hughes built it in the 1940s as a transport for the US military. It’s damned cool. First, it’s humungous. Gargantuan. It has eight engines. It’s 218 feet long. The wings are 319 feet, tip-to-tip. It’s 80 feet high. That’s 6+ stories tall.

It’s got a bigger wingspan than Airbus’s huge airliner, the A380.

It also broke new ground with unique technologies: Composite wood construction and ground effects, to name two.

Do you know how many were built? 1.

Do you know how many miles it flew, total? 1 mile. Ever.

The Spruce Goose was an fantastic failure. It was the product of Howard Hughes’ ego and a fat government contract. It suffered from feature creep and cost overruns. A 3-year-late delivery made it obsolete the moment it was done.

A lot like the last internet marketing project you worked on.

Most internet marketing is a Spruce Goose: Web sites that win Webbies. Designs that rival Picasso. Writing that rivals Shakespeare. The audience says ‘oooooh aaaaaah’. And then they move on, never to return.

These campaigns are driven by the ego of the designer, the CEO, the boss or the agency and a fat client contract. They’re not based on the true needs of the customer. They suffer from feature creep, cost overruns, and late delivery. On a Spruce Goose marketing campaign, the marketing takes over. It becomes the end goal and pushes the business out of the picture.

The result? All pizazz, no performance.

The 737: Low pizazz, high performance.

Boeing built the first 737s in the 1960s. It’s the hobbit of aircraft. It’s not the biggest, or the fastest. It looks a bit stubby. Inside, it’s about as comfortable as a bus. It’s… frumpy.

Seriously, this plane is about as exciting as me at a dance party.

Do you know how many have been built so far? 8,000.

Total, 737s have flown over 65 billion miles. Sixty. Five. Billion.

One takes off or lands every five seconds. The average male doesn’t even think of sex that often.

The 737 is both humble and high-performance. No chest-thumping necessary.

On the internet, 737-style marketing works best—a humble, high-performance vehicle for your business. It does the job by:

• Putting you in front of customers at the right time.
• Helping customers make informed decisions.
• Leaving no doubt as to why your stuff is unique, useful and important.
• Being clear, readable and usable first, artistic second.

Great online marketing is a vehicle, not an end in itself. It transports the client’s product or service to the customer. You can worry about the style score later.

The result? Sales. Qualified visitors. Loyal customers. Profit.

Low pizazz, high performance.

The Spruce Goose test

Next time you’re confronted with a choice between marketing that’s spectacularly unclear and quietly effective, ask yourself:

Ten years from now, which will be more exciting for you:

• Your web site, in a museum, with people gawking at it; or
• Your business, cranking out sales and winning customers.

?

That’s what I thought.

Other stuff

• Inconceivable! 4 signs your project's in big trouble.
• The secret of internet marketing success: Because I said so
• Infographic: The internet marketing planner
• Automate Linkscape reporting with Google Spreadsheets
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting
• The PPC ebook You Gotta Buy

I’ve been on both sides of that exchange. You probably have, too.

Here are a few signs of a coming inconceivable apocalypse.

1: Your project has more people than deliverables.

You’re building a 10-page web site for your company. But the CEO, the COO, the CFO, the office decorating committee, three consultants, the CEO’s mom (who once created a flier for the CEO’s burgeoning lawn care business) and a few passersby are all on the Web Site Committee.

What the boss is thinking: If 10 people are good, 50 must be better! After all, that means I have more good ideas to work with.

The harsh reality: 50 good ideas is no better than 10 good ideas, unless someone’s going to pick the winner. And the larger the group, the harder that becomes.

Possible outcomes: Total failure. Riots. Backchannel finger-pointing. Many meetings to ‘get everyone on the same page’. Or all of the above.

An alternative: Build a core team of essential players. Report to the Everyone Committee once a month. Prepare to run a lot of interference. That’s life in charge, I’m afraid.

2: You have a star player

The star player is a jack-of-all-trades. They can do anything.

What the boss is thinking: Sure, they started out in system administration, but the star player kicks butt at design, and they just rock at SEO. This is someone who can Get Things Done.

The harsh reality: The star player has never completed a project. The failures were never their fault—there’s always an explanation—but they’re like a bipedal omen of doom. Once they show up, you’re screwed. The real problem, of course, is that they can’t say no. The star player may be a good person, and they genuinely want everyone to succeed. But they’ve been pulled into so many different types of work they can’t even remember their own job title.

Possible outcomes: Star player has a nervous breakdown. Team gets together and locks him in a car until project is over (don’t worry, they feed him). He takes over three different jobs, project falls behind by weeks, then months, and everyone else wanders off, feeling superfluous. Manager is fired and star player replaces him. Or all of the above, in some random order.

An alternative: Bring in the star player. Tell her she rocks, ’cause she does. Get her working on one thing. Plan for her working on one thing. Show her how much fun it is to focus on one thing. If the poop really hits the fan, then ask her to switch tasks for a specified amount of time.

3: You have a black hole

The black hole is the guy who constantly points out all the reasons everything’s going to fail. They don’t have a plan for success, but they sure as hell know what not to do.

Before you start snickering: I am not a black hole. I plan for success, and hope a meteor won’t destroy the earth before I get a chance to finish.

What the boss is thinking: The black hole is someone who’s seen everything. They know how and why projects fail. They can be the canary in the coal mine, warning everyone if something’s gone wrong.

The harsh reality: You do need someone with experience to point out potential issues. But they should move work forward, too. The black hole just sucks every idea, and all air, out of the project.

Possible outcomes: Mass suicide. Mass murder. Black hole resigns, sure they’re all dooommmmmeeed. The 3rd is your best hope.

4: There are more meetings than days of the week

There’s a check-in meeting on Monday morning. A check-in on the check-in meeting over Monday lunch. Then a check-out meeting on Monday afternoon. Tuesday starts with the task assignment meeting, then moves into a 2-hour status check, where no one’s done anything because of all the meetings, so they end up having to have a crisis meeting right after. Oh, and did I mention? All team members are in every meeting.

What the boss is thinking: She really doesn’t like you. That, or she’s freaking out, because on the last project she ran, the whole team went off to work. A few weeks later, they returned (24 hours before the deadline) to report they’d accomplished nothing. This time, she’s going to stay involved, and maintain accountability.

The harsh reality: Unless your project is to have meetings, not much will get done.

Possible outcomes: Lots of meetings. Vastly improved team doodling skills. Invention of 10 new games of Bingo. A soul-sucking feeling of hopelessness.

An alternative: You’re better off setting up small meetings of essential team members. Keep them down to 15-30 minutes, maximum. The boss can be in each meeting, keep tabs on what’s going on, and still let the team get their work done.

What to do?

If you’re the boss, do everything you can to avoid 1 and 4. Plan for and mitigate 2 and 3. And be ready for the 99 other things you can’t prepare for.

If you’re a worker bee, you probably know if you’re a black hole or a star player. I know I am. Cough. Just repeat to yourself, every day, “I will not be the — [insert title here]”.

Okey dokey. Now off to work!

Other stuff

• The secret of internet marketing success: Because I said so
• Infographic: The internet marketing planner
• Disarm the ICBM of Goodwill: Write a smart social media policy
• What bayonet-wielding professors can teach you about online marketing
• Automate Linkscape reporting with Google Spreadsheets
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting
• The PPC ebook You Gotta Buy

Sometimes, you have to say ‘Because I said so’.

Part of leadership is willingness to go out on a limb—to make a decision that isn’t supported by consensus or reams of data.

There are times when you just know, in your gut, that you’re right. If you’re the copywriter in the fourth cubicle to the left and happy with that, you don’t have to do anything about it. If you’re heading up a marketing team, though, you have to follow your gut and take your team with you.

That’s how you take your company in a direction that no one else thought would work, and turn that into a huge, market-changing event. It’s how you give clients a competitive advantage. It’s how you fix bayonets and charge at the worst possible moment, and win the battle.

You can go with the group. Or you can say ‘Because I said so’.

Is it risky? Hell yes. When it goes wrong it’s damned embarrassing, too. You might get fired. It’s scary.

Scary

Deal with it. Internet marketing isn’t about the data—if it was, then we could have computers do it all.

Internet marketing is about creativity. Data helps only because it can guide creativity. You won’t always have reports that tell you exactly what to do. Sometimes the survey data is contradictory; the traffic report is incomplete; or the rest of your team interprets the numbers differently.

That’s really scary. That means you have to take responsibility for whatever you decide. If you flush an entire internet marketing strategy down the toilet, it’s on your head.

Hopefully, that’s why you wanted to be in charge—you want to take the risk, because you know something really cool can come of it.

Because you said so.

Assumptions

Couple of final notes:

I’m assuming, of course, that you’re in charge because you’ve got the expertise. You’ve put in the 10,000+ hours to really know what you’re doing. If you don’t, then saying ‘Because I said so’ may feel good right now, but you’re probably leading your whole team down a rat hole. You’re just guessing and hoping you’re right. That’s not leadership—that’s arrogant stupidity.

I’m also assuming that you heard everyone out before you made your decision. Most people can take rejection, if they had their say. If they can’t handle it, this is a good chance for them to learn. If you just punt them out the door without listening to their ideas, though, all you’re teaching them is that you’re a jerk.

And now, I’m off to bed. To lie awake for awhile, scared poopless over whatever I did today based on my own ‘Because I said so’.

Other stuff

• Infographic: The internet marketing planner
• Disarm the ICBM of Goodwill: Write a smart social media policy
• What bayonet-wielding professors can teach you about online marketing
• Automate Linkscape reporting with Google Spreadsheets
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting
• The PPC ebook You Gotta Buy

1. It'd be in beta for the next 4 years;
2. They'd check your e-mail messages to see if you were eligible;
3. Famous people would get to the head of the line, but Google would argue it's just a natural outcome of the algorithm;
4. Matt Cutts would fly overhead, explaining why the rest of us are stuck in the lava (sorry, Matt, couldn't resist);
5. 40% of SEOs would write "I'm righteous" all over themselves, hoping to be chosen;
6. 30% of SEOs would hire 10,000 people on Mechanical Turk to pray for them;
7. 20% of SEOs would hire someone who looks just like them but actually fits the definition of a deserving rapturee. Then, at just the right moment, they'd leap in front of their double and get sucked up to Heaven;
8. 10% of SEOs would write "10 ways to be enraptured" blog posts;
9. Halfway through the day, 1/2 the people in Heaven would be dumped back to earth, and a bunch of other souls would ascend in an 'algorithm adjustment'; and
10. Me and about 10 other SEOs would be mysteriously mauled to death by angry honey badgers;
11. Saying "I feel lucky" would be a TERRIBLE IDEA.

I'm not going anyway, being a Heeb. By the way, can I have your web site when you're gone...?

I actually heard an SEO tell that to someone at a conference, many years ago. The hapless listener (let’s call him HL) owned a shoe store.

I don’t know if the SEO involved:

• Hated HL;
• Wanted the property that HL’s store occupied;
• Was was actually a robot sent back from the future to destroy HL’s business before it could take over the world.

Or, he was a complete dunderhead.

Keyword research is not about traffic volume. It’s about opportunity.

So, before you go off chasing keyword unicorns, check out this process. The Portent SEO team has come up with it over the years, and it generally keeps us out of trouble:

Build a picture of your site

1. Run Xenu Link Sleuth or similar on your site. You need to determine how many unique pages the site has, and get title tags, etc. so you can get a rough idea what those pages are about.
2. Make a list of title tags, page URLs, etc.
3. Use OpenSiteExplorer's Top Pages tool: Grab the top 10+ pages—how many you get depends on how much time you want to spend on this research.
4. If you can't easily tell what any of the top pages are optimized for, and you’ve got an SEOMOZ Pro account (BWOOOP BWOOOP BWOOOP AFFILIATE LINK), then run the SEOMOZ term extractor on each page: That should tell you what you’re optimizing for right now.

Review analytics

If you have access to analytics, do the following:

In analytics, go to referring keywords. Filter out branded terms. Sort by any of these, depending on what data you have:

• Conversion rate
• Revenue
• Time on site
• Bounce rate
• Pageviews/visit

Take the top N terms, where 'N' is the total number of unique pages on the site. Export that list, and be sure to include:

• Visits
• Conversion rate (if available)
• Revenue (if available)
• Time on site
• Bounce rate
• Pageviews per visit.
• Import all of this data into Excel or Google Docs or whatever spreadsheet software you prefer.

Now, get your current ranking for each of these terms, and the ranking page. Add that to the spreadsheet, too.

You should now have this:

This is your seed list. Obviously, if you already rank #1 for a particular term, you can ignore it, or at least move it to a separate list.

Measure opportunity gap

If you saw my SEO + analytics = Content presentation, you already understand opportunity gap. If you haven’t seen that yet, you should watch it before you read this. It’ll make a lot more sense.

For each term in your seed list, fetch the monthly local search volume from Google Adwords or your favorite keyword research tool.

1. Subtract the current site traffic for each phrase from the total search volume for that phrase. Put that in a column called 'Raw gap'.
2. Add 3 more columns. Label them Opp Gap #1, Opp Gap #2, and Opp Gap #3.
3. Set Opp Gap #1 to equal Raw gap X 36.4%. That's the traffic you might get if they rank #1.
4. Set Opp Gap #2 to equal Raw gap X 12.5%.
5. Set Opp Gap #3 to equal Raw gap X 9.5%.
6. If you have access to conversion rate data, you should also show the number of transactions possible at each ranking position.

Remember that any search volume data you get is suspect. You have no choice, so you gotta use it. But don’t stake your career on Google’s or anyone else’s public data.

If you don't have access to analytics, feel free to panic. You’re kind of screwed.

Compare seed list to top pages

Now, compare the seed list of terms to the top pages. The goal here is to find:

1. Terms have the highest potential to generate real business growth.
2. Pages that have the highest potential to rank for those terms. These would include pages that already rank in the top 30 or so, and/or 'top pages' that are already optimized around that term.
3. Go down the entire list of terms.
4. Look at the ranking page for each term (if there is one).
5. Look at the opportunity gap.
6. If you have conversion data or revenue data, obviously include that in your decision. A high-conversion, high-traffic term that can generate even more business is always a good bet.
7. If you want to get fancy, pull the SEMRush competitiveness score for each term, too.
8. Highlight the terms that best balance potential for more traffic/conversions and ability to move up for that term.
9. Size does matter. Depending on the size of your site, you may find 10, 50 or more good potential terms and pages. You have to use your own judgment on that.

This is your initial list of optimization targets. You're not done! But in a pinch you can use this to get started.

Review competitor data

1. Use a competitive research tool. My favorite is SEMRush. SpyFu can give you similar data, as can Compete.
2. Use the Open Site Explorer Top Pages tool.
3. If you have access to it, use the Term Extractor on Top Pages.
4. Use that to build a short list of the phrases competitors are after.

This list should not drive keyword decisions. It's just a reference. Just because a bunch of competitors are all being stupid doesn't mean you should, too.

But, if you see great phrases for which you don’t rank, add 'em to your seed list. Grab traffic (if there is any), search volume and competitiveness data just like you did above.

Expand the list

Now, expand your keyword list.

1. Use your own instincts. What terms aren't there that should be?
2. Use Google Suggest. If there's a fantastic, high-traffic phrase for which we don't stand a chance of ranking, use Google Suggest to find less-competitive ones.
3. Or use Suggest to just find more possibilities.
4. Use tools like WordTracker and SEMRush.
5. Add all these terms, too. Then do the same comparison of rankings/ranking pages/potential for these terms.

Clean the list

Now, remove all the terms that make no sense. There are bound to be some.

"Makes no sense" means they aren't relevant. It does not mean ‘too difficult to rank’. Super-competitive phrases need to remain on the list.

Highlight the winners.

Make one more run through the list. Highlight any terms that balance potential for growth and ability to rank.

If your site already has well-optimized pages, you'll probably need to create more content and add it to the site, interlinking the new pages to create high-relevance hubs.

If the site doesn't have a page or pages optimized around the term, you'll either need to pick existing pages (and add them to the spreadsheet) or designate new pages and a content strategy.

There you have it

The not-so-quick but still-very-dirty keyword research method we use at Portent.

And yes, I did leave out a few things. I’m not giving it all away for free, folks.

Other stuff

• Infographic: The internet marketing planner
• Disarm the ICBM of Goodwill: Write a smart social media policy
• What bayonet-wielding professors can teach you about online marketing
• Automate Linkscape reporting with Google Spreadsheets
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting

1. Check links. Make sure they work! I blow this one all the time. It feels really stupid. Spare yourself the embarrassment of linkus interruptus.
2. Delete the 1st two sentences. Whenever I write a post, the first two sentences turn out to be me prattling on about raccoons or some such. They’re never relevant. So, I either delete them, or move them to the end. Check your post for the same thing. You make your point a lot better when you actually get to it.
3. Count lines per paragraph. Sounds silly, but try to keep your paragraphs to no more than 5-6 lines each. It’s easier for folks to read. If your paragraphs are longer, give ’em a trim.
4. Turn two words into one. If you’ve written something in a long form, but know it could be shorter, make it shorter Tighten up your sentences. Your readers will thank you.
5. Link to related posts. A couple years ago, I started adding the ‘other stuff’ list to each post. My page views immediately went up 25%.
6. Preview your post. Don’t just review it in your blog editor. Click ‘preview’ and make sure it looks OK. I’ve maimed my poor blog beyond all recognition by ignoring this rule.
7. Check your spelling. That will catapult you into the top 5% of all bloggers.
8. Check your grammar. A little intentionally bad grammar is fun. But make sure you’ve got the right their there. Readers take you more seriously.
9. Think for a second: Should you publish this right now? I’m horrible about this. When I write something, I want it out there right now. Ideally, though, I should consider the time of day and day of the week. For my audience, earlier in the day and earlier in the week is generally better. A Friday post is rarely read. A Tuesday morning post, on the other hand, gets lots of readers.

OK. Now click ‘publish’.

Other stuff

• 3 rules of great writing, taught by Vogon Poetry
• Infographic: The internet marketing planner
• Stop crying, start writing
• Disarm the ICBM of Goodwill: Write a smart social media policy
• What bayonet-wielding professors can teach you about online marketing
• Automate Linkscape reporting with Google Spreadsheets
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting

Vogon Poetry, described in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as “The third-worst poetry in the Universe”, is a fantastic look at writing done right.

In case you’ve never read The Hitchhiker’s Guide (shame on you), here’s a quick sample of Vogon verse:

Oh freddled gruntbuggly
thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.
Groop I implore thee,
my foonting turlingdromes.
And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
see if I don’t!

Caution: Do not, under any circumstances, read this poetry out loud. It’s sheer badness has caused psychotic breaks, hemorrhoids, sunburn on the tops of your feet and mange.

Douglas Adams was a literary genius—this godawful poetry is some of the best writing you’ll ever read. Here’s why:

1: Vogon poetry taps our basic linguistic wiring

I’ve come to realize that great writing—great storytelling—has to tap basic human impluses. Vogon poetry does that. Read the poem above (silently, for God’s sake!) again. Can you pick out the verbs? Nouns? Adjectives?

I have no idea what a bindlewurdle is (and I’m grateful), but I know it’s a noun. Drangle is clearly a verb that I don’t want to experience.

Great copy sets context so well that, even if you don’t understand the topic, you can get the gist. It taps the most basic ways that we process language—it is sub-verbal (don’t know if that’s the right use of the phrase but hopefully it makes sense).

2: Vogon poetry sticks in your mind

Once you’ve heard the phrase ‘Freddled gruntbuggly’, you can’t let it go. What is it? Is it cute and cuddly? Is it a mode of transportation? Or a geological feature?

No idea, but man, it sticks in the mind. You can forget all about it, but if someone walks up to you on the street and says “Oh, freddled gruntbuggly”, you’ll snap your fingers and say “HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY”. The Vogons own that phrase.

This is a combination of #1 and #3, really, but it deserves its own mention: Great writing sticks in your mind. You may hate Shakespeare, but you still know “To be, or not to be.”

3: Vogon poetry has rhythm

Lack of sleep, lack of exercise and helping my daughter with her homework have made me totally addled and more than a little silly. But there’s another great copywriting lesson to be had: Rhythm is as important in copywriting as it is in (truly) great poetry. Which sounds better?

Coke is it!

Coke really rocks!

The first. It’s not a happy accident. Look at great mottos/phrases and see how many have a rhythm that:

• Punctuates in threes: Just do it; Coke is it; Ideas for life; Shift_the future;
• Rolls off the tongue: Finger lickin’ good; All the news that’s fit to print; Semper Fidelus; or
• Is so catastrophically bad it sticks in your brain like a rusty nail: You gotta love these guys; Anything is possible, the impossible just takes longer.

Vogons may have no literary taste, but ‘foonting turlingdromes’ still has a nice ring to it, yes?

Anwayyyyy.

You get the point: Rhythm makes all great writing—including marketing copywriting—work. It’s the icing on the cake. The yin to the yang. The Pippen for Jordan.

It’s all intangible

All great copywriting has these three characteristics:

1. Tap our basic language skills at the sub-verbal level;
2. Is ‘sticky’, clinging to our brains like velcro;
3. Has rhythm that makes it easy to read & remember.

…and Vogon poetry is no exception.

Douglas Adams would’ve been a great marketing copywriter.

I’m glad he stuck with fiction, though.

Other stuff

• Infographic: The internet marketing planner
• Stop crying, start writing
• Disarm the ICBM of Goodwill: Write a smart social media policy
• What bayonet-wielding professors can teach you about online marketing
• Automate Linkscape reporting with Google Spreadsheets
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting

I was inspired by Julian Hansen's So You Need A Typeface piece.

While it doesn't have every single step/channel/tactic in it, it does give you a high-level view of the various strategies (SEO, PPC, social media, etc.) and when and how I recommend them.

Download it. Look at it. Tell your friends.

Just don't print it unless you have a large-format printer, or you want to waste lots of paper. It's pretty big.

*It's not really an infographic - it's a flow chart. But since the entire world has forgotten what a 'flow chart' is, and starts salivating at the word 'infographic', I used that in the title. Poetic license. Marketing compromise. Selling my soul. Call it what you will.

[ An internet marketing planner - PNG format - 200kb ]

Slightly prettier version:
[ An internet marketing planner - PNG format - 670kb ]

Other stuff

• Stop crying, start writing
• Disarm the ICBM of Goodwill: Write a smart social media policy
• What bayonet-wielding professors can teach you about online marketing
• Automate Linkscape reporting with Google Spreadsheets
• Why SEOs should learn programming
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting
• PPC for small business: A 2-ebook set

Yesterday, David Wheeler published an article about web copywriting, SEO, and headlines: ‘Google Doesn’t Laugh’: Saving Witty Headlines in the Age of SEO is a great piece, and not just because he quotes me in paragraph 14.

Then The Awl wrote this amusing little poem, titled This is Why We Can’t Have Funny Headlines. I’m guessing it’s meant to be more funny than informative.

But then I started seeing it popping alongside The Atlantic article in hand-wringing rants about the death of creativity in writing.

I’ve heard this from a lot of writers over the last two years. “We want to write creative headlines, but we can’t, because you told us not to with your blank sheet of paper test.”

You’re wrong, and you haven’t been listening. Or listened selectively. Or something. If we were in class, I’d throw an eraser at you. In a nice way. Nuthin’ but love.

It’s easier to go to extremes

I guess it’s easier to see things as an on/off, yes/no proposition. That’s probably the source of The Awl’s poem, and of Matthew Crowley’s sentiment in The Atlantic article. Wheeler quotes Crowley as saying “I think we’re losing something when we take the wordplay and surprise out of headline writing.”

You don’t have to take the wordplay and surprise out of headline writing. You have to work to be descriptive and clever at the same time. I’d swear that’s what great writers have done for thousands of years.

Too hard? Too bad.

It’s about your readers

First off, this isn’t about Google. Don’t confuse cause and effect.

Google’s team didn’t sit down and say “Mwahahahahahaha, let’s change how the world thinks and force people to look for descriptive headlines.” Google looks for headlines that accurately describe article content because that’s what the readers want. They want descriptive headlines online because they’ll often see those headlines in a search result, or an RSS feed, or on another site. There’s little context, so the reader wants a headline that tells them what they’ll see.

Write a non-descriptive headline and you can get all sorts of cringe-worthy disasters, like:

“Colon pounded”

In print, that might work. Online, your readers have no idea what you’re talking about.

It’s about readers, not Google.

It’s not about you

Second, it’s not about you. I know that I, as a writer, hate it when I have to change a really clever headline. But long before the web, editors made me do just that if the headline was utterly uninformative.

Shed the ego. You’re writing for readers, not for your own edification. Otherwise, journalists and other writers could end up like many web designers: More concerned with winning awards than creating something of real value.

It’s a challenge, not a roadblock

Third, who the hell said you can’t write interesting headlines? I said you have to write descriptive headlines. The Atlantic says you have to write descriptive headlines.

Why can’t a headline be (gasp) informative and funny/pithy/catchy?

Great headlines should be both.

Also, remember, you can write longer headlines online than off, because online means little or no space restrictions.

For example: “‘Google Doesn’t Laugh’: Saving Witty Headlines in the Age of SEO”

Or: “What bayonet-wielding professors can teach you about online marketing”

Or, if you want to use the headline examples from The Atlantic:

“The Beast Within: Animal Planet shows it’s all about us”
“Spice: Cooking is Nimoy’s Final Frontier”

SEOs, learn to write

This debate cuts both ways: If you’re an SEO, you’d damned well better learn to write. Most SEOs barely grasp grammar. If you really want writers to put up with your meddling, you’d better meet them halfway. Don’t point and say “make it descriptive” if you can’t explain how to do it.

‘Cause it’s not about you and your ego, either. It’s. About. The. Readers.

Rail or write: It’s your choice

You can rail against the injustice of it all, or you can start writing. Find solutions. Write fantastic headlines and inform readers at the same time.

If you can’t do it, that’s fine. There are plenty of writers who can.

Other stuff

• Disarm the ICBM of Goodwill: Write a smart social media policy
• What bayonet-wielding professors can teach you about online marketing
• 14 nice things you can do for your customers
• Automate Linkscape reporting with Google Spreadsheets
• Why all web developers should learn SEO
• Why SEOs should learn programming
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting

This is what I call the ICBM of goodwill. Someone pushes the button. You say “No, wait, stop…” and then KAABOOOOOOOOMM. Too late.

Or, you can think for a minute, and maybe, juuuuust maybe, develop a policy that can harness all that energy and protect you from any, er, excess enthusiasm.

Keep it simple, not stupid

You can turn the whole thing over to your legal department, or hire an attorney to write it. Then you’ll get a 2,500-word monstrosity that none of your employees will read. Kaboom.

The better bet: Keep it simple. Don’t be stupid. Make it easy to digest, but cover your bases. Those bases are:

1. An understanding between you and your staff that when they’re are online, the views they express are theirs and theirs alone.
2. Respect. At the same time, employees will always treat the company, their co-workers and yes, even their bosses with respect.
3. Confidentiality. Employees will always keep the company’s secrets, secret.
4. Responsibility. Employees are grownups. Make it clear that you expect them to behave as such.
5. Limits. Finally, their social media activities can’t get in the way of their job. because it is, you know, a job.

An example: Portent’s (still rough) social media policy

1. We and our clients have stuff that needs to be confidential. Keep it that way.
2. You will always make sure that people know the views you express online are yours, and not Portent’s.
3. When you write a blog post, say anything on Twitter or other services or sites, you will respect fellow employees, this company, and me.
4. It can be tough to separate them, but you will make sure that personal social media activity doesn’t interfere with your job.
5. We’re an internet marketing company. You know how social media works. I expect you to be responsible and use good judgment. If you’re ever unsure, ask before you act.

Resist the urge to cover everything

That’s it. Five rules. I could write thousands of words in an attempt to cover every eventuality. And then I’d miss something—someone would do something I couldn’t predict, and then all those thousands of words would be worthless.

It never works. The most detailed policy can’t cover all the silliness people get into once they start typing.

Instead, have some faith in your employees and set guidelines that make it clear what you want.

Other stuff

• What bayonet-wielding professors can teach you about online marketing
• 14 nice things you can do for your customers
• Automate Linkscape reporting with Google Spreadsheets
• Why all web developers should learn SEO
• Why SEOs should learn programming
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting

You’re a plumber. You want to rank #1 for ‘Seattle plumbing’. That means you have to write interesting content about plumbing, in Seattle, every 2 days, for the next year. All you can think is “Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap.”

Do something irrational. It’s only reasonable.

The Battle of Gettysburg—during the US Civil War, for you folks who aren’t in the US—was a defining moment in US history. And the defining moment of the battle was arguably when the 20th Maine, led by Col. Chamberlain, ran out of ammunition.

Chamberlain did something totally irrational. He ordered his regiment, which had a handful of bullets left, to fix bayonets and charge down the hill.

Given the circumstances, it was the only reasonable thing to do.

The courage to be bizarre

Chamberlain had the courage to be bizarre if it meant achieving his goal.

Do you have the same? Yes. Especially since no one’s shooting at you.

If you have to write about plumbing, write about the plumbing required for the Death Star. Seriously, how would that work?

Need to talk about spa treatments? How many famous historical figures would’ve benefitted from a quick mud bath? I bet George Washington would’ve smiled for the occasional painting.

Every subject can become fascinating if you let it. You just have to have the courage to be bizarre every now and then.

I’m not suggesting you write one ridiculous post after another. But taking a flyer now and then can’t hurt, and it might attract whole audiences you didn’t know you had.

Sometimes, bizarre tells the story

Every now and then, explaining what you do in a totally unique way helps your audience understand.

I tried to explain PageRank and authority for years. What finally worked? Turning pages into buckets

Want to understand the problems with quantum theory? Read about a cat in a box.

Weird can be a great teaching tool.

So, what happened?!

Oh, yeah, the battle.

If I’d been in Chamberlain’s place, we’d all need passports to visit South Carolina.

But Chamberlain’s move worked. The 20th Maine ran screaming down Little Round Top with sharp pointy things at the ready. The 15th Alabama was exhausted from a long march, no water and a day of fighting uphill. Chamberlain’s regiment turned the battle at a critical moment. The move helped the North hold the line and possibly win the Civil War.

If Chamberlain and his regiment could do that in the face of dying, I’ll bet you can come up with a few creative ways to explain your business to your customers.

Like writing about Civil War battles…

Other stuff

• 14 nice things you can do for your customers
• Automate Linkscape reporting with Google Spreadsheets
• Why all web developers should learn SEO
• Why SEOs should learn programming
• Dan Cobley: What Physics teaches about marketing
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting

First, here's the short version of the story, in a graphic:

Well, duh.

I’m not that interested in outing people for bad practices any more. Do what you want. But I took a look at FTD.com’s link profile and it’s just great for a Saturday morning chuckle. I’m pretty sure that Google already knows FTD is spamming the crap out of the rankings. Plus, post-Panda, I’m not sure how much buying dozens of totally fake links accomplishes.

FTD’s link profile: Liar, liar, pants on fire

In the Seattle Times article, FTD said “the vast majority of its links were on websites owned by FTD.” So, I cranked up OpenSiteExplorer and looked at 10,000 of ’em.

Of the 10,000 links, only 500 or so come from pages that mention ‘FTD’ or ‘Flowers’ in the title tags.

A quick sampling of the other 9,500 sites shows hosting companies, dead sites on hosting company servers, security software/spam sites and other fun stuff. I’m not going to list those sites. Google can sniff ’em out if they want to.

Really? FTD? You’re going into the hosting business? And the security software business? And you’re going to start selling social games?

Uh-huh. And I've just diversified into adult entertainment.

Benefit of the doubt

I’m not an unreasonable person. I’m sure a lot of the 9,500 links are from news, financial, dating and other sites that might have some tangential relationship with FTD and flowers. But more than half? I kinda doubt it. So that means FTD has a link profile that’s only about 50% purchased, or that they’re the luckiest web site in link building history.

Plus, I took a look at a few of the links. Again, I’m not going to show the links and give away the sites that are selling. But guys, you could at least try to look like you’re not selling links. When you put a table at the bottom of the page, outlined in green, with five neatly outlined links and nothing else around them, you might as well just say:

Have a little pride.

What does it meaaannnn?

For Google, these links may be meaningless: They might have it all handled now with the Panda update. We’ll see about that.

For FTD, well, you might want to clean that crap up, before the New York Times writes about it, embarrasses Google and gets you banned.

Other stuff

• 14 nice things you can do for your customers
• Automate Linkscape reporting with Google Spreadsheets
• Why all web developers should learn SEO
• Why SEOs should learn programming
• Dan Cobley: What Physics teaches about marketing
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting

1. Make every page on your site load 1 second faster. Start by taking every image on your site and compressing it. Please. It makes a difference.
2. Accept PayPal. Just because you hate it doesn’t mean they do.
3. Do a little basic typography: Increase line spacing, use a bigger font. Make your site easy to read.
4. Put no more than 15 words on a line. See above.
5. Put no more than 5 lines in a paragraph.
6. Break up your page. Use lists, images, subheads and such. Don’t give them one big blob of images or text.
7. If they ask you a question on Twitter or Facebook, answer it.
8. If they compliment you on Twitter or Facebook, say thanks.
9. Instead of giving them a discount, give them a better product.
10. Before you pay $45000 to redesign your web site, pay $4500 to make the existing site easier to use. Then use what you learned on the new site.
11. Don’t even imply that your customers have to log in before they can buy. Put that stuff at the very end of the checkout process, on the ‘thank you’ page.
12. Trade ‘elegance’ or ‘personality’ for ‘clarity’ and ‘obviousness’. Watch your sales go up.
13. Remove one feature that you wanted, but your customers didn’t, from your site.
14. Stop reading about marketing stuff and go do it.

Other stuff

• Automate Linkscape reporting with Google Spreadsheets
• Why all web developers should learn SEO
• Why SEOs should learn programming
• Dan Cobley: What Physics teaches about marketing
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• The internet marketer’s guide to the apocalypse
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting

Here are some common signs you need a break:

1. You think trying that same thing for a 40th time will fix the problem. It won’t.
2. You’ve begun giggling at the thought of world-ending asteroids. Or am I the only one who does this? I just said too much, didn’t I…
3. You find yourself staring off into space, thinking of nothing. That’s your brain telling you to take a break. So take it.
4. You’re obsessing about the trivial: Did you just spend 30 minutes trying to get every last fingerprint off your monitor? Yeah. Again, that’s your brain telling you to cut it out. Listen to your brain! It’s got all your marbles.
5. The problem is no longer the problem. Say you’re trying to figure out the best way to make an Excel spreadsheet to calculate total sales for 2003. You’ve worked on it for hours. Somewhere around hour 2, though, you started looking for the ideal font. That’s now sucked up all your brain power. Time to reboot—walk away, refocus on the core problem (the math) and deal with the formatting later.
6. You’re getting cranky. Joke all you want, but I’m not a naturally cranky person. I’m a little gruff, maybe sarcastic. If I start sounding whiny, it’s definitely time to push back from the keyboard.
7. You’re driving over the mountain instead of around it. Look at what you’re doing. No, really look. Are you doing this the hard way? Is there an easier alternative? Unless there’s a benefit to the tougher solution, you’re wasting energy. take a breather.

I’m one of the worst at this, by the way. I’ve been putting a lot of time into coding lately, I’ve found a pattern:

1. I plan out the app I’m writing.
2. I start writing it.
3. Something trivial, like replacing all instances of “buh” in a paragraph, or grabbing one number from an API, leads to utter brain gridlock.
4. I fight the desire to hit my computer with a desk chair.
5. I walk away for a while.
6. I solve the problem.

Don’t be me. Take a break around step 3, and you’ll be far better off.

Other stuff

• Automate Linkscape reporting with Google Spreadsheets
• Why all web developers should learn SEO
• Why SEOs should learn programming
• Dan Cobley: What Physics teaches about marketing
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• The internet marketer’s guide to the apocalypse
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting

Yep. Ender's Game. One of the greatest pieces of science fiction ever written. On the US Marine Corps. reading list.

That is awesome.

Learn from the Marines

There are great lessons in 'irrelevant' books if you take the time to look. Ender's Game has amazing learning about teamwork, the consequences of war, indoctrination, tactics and planning. It would get any military trainee thinking a bit outside the box in productive ways.

You should do the same with your team, and yourself. Read outside your profession.

Want to learn great people management skills? Read Pillars of the Earth. Phillip is a master.

Need lessons in running a shoestring operation? Read Zodiac, by Neal Stephenson. It's more about eco-terrorism, but man, they're creative with their budget!

Saturday, by Ian McCewan, is a great story. But the main character is also the poster child for meticulousness, and for doing his job when his patient (read client) isn't exactly his favorite person.

To excel in your specialty, get away from it

I've written about the dangers of overspecialization. Broaden your horizons and you avoid the trap. I have a 14-inch stack of books on my nightstand. They're all business books. Sometimes, though, I gotta take a break and read something else.

And wouldn't you know it? That's when I usually get inspired.

I got the idea for select, don't accumulate from Atlas Shrugged.

Lord of the Rings inspired me to start my company (loooong story).

I wrote 20 reasons you shouldn't listen to a word I say after watching the Hudsucker Proxy.

Portent's entire bonus system came to me after I read A Winter's Tale.

You get the idea.

Reading all those self-improvement and technical books is just foundation building. You're putting all the bricks in place. Getting away from that stuff is what will spark something really inspired. So be sure to do both.

Other stuff

• SEOMOZ Linkscape, in Google Spreadsheets
• Why all web developers should learn SEO
• Why SEOs should learn programming
• Dan Cobley: What Physics teaches about marketing
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• The internet marketer’s guide to the apocalypse
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting

AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGHHH

OK. I’m good now. Primal scream complete.

The documentation for Google App Scripts is… less than perfect. So I have to start by thanking Tom Critchlow of Distilled. He sent me the initial script that made Google Spreadsheets play well with the LinkScape API. Otherwise, I’d be in a small, padded cell right now, rocking gently forward and backward while humming ‘Good Times Bad Times’ and writing doodling with a crayon clutched daintily between my toes.

But, I now have a script that:

1. Fetches linking root domains and domain authority from Linkscape;
2. Finds the right place to insert it into the spreadsheet; and
3. Does it automatically, once a month.

See? Look:

It doesn't look like much, but it brings tears to my eyes every time I look at it.

Here’s how you can do it:

Sure, just copy the code

First off, if you’re such a smarty-pants, you can ignore this post and just copy the code:

See? Nothing to it. If you just giggled hysterically, you may want to keep reading.

Step 1: Store your values somewhere

First things first. You need to put your Linkscape data somewhere easy-to-access. You can just stuff it into your script. But I prefer to put it in the spreadsheet itself. That way, I can change it later on if I need to.

I created a locked tab in my spreadsheet called ‘utility’ and put it there. Then, this code grabs that info for me:

	  var active_spreadsheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
	  var utility_sheet = active_spreadsheet.getSheetByName("Utilities");
	  params = utility_sheet.getRange(5,3,7,3).getValues();
	  url = params[2][0];
	  AccessID = params[0][0];
	  secret = params[1][0];

The first three lines go to the “Utilities” tab of my spreadsheet, then grab the values that are stored in rows 5-7, column 3. The last three set my url, AccessID and Secret to the values found in those cells.

Obviously, you have to be careful who gets their grubby paws on your spreadsheet. But remember, you can always generate a new AccessID and Secret if you get paranoid.

Step 2: Generate a secure signature

Linkscape’s API uses a security method that’s probably a cinch for real developers. For me, it made no sense whatsoever. HMAC hash? Sounds like a salty breakfast dish.

But I did finally cobble it together:

	  method = "HMAC_SHA_1";
	  uDate = new Date().getTime();
	  uDate = Math.round(uDate/1000);
	  Expires = uDate + 1200;
	  theString = AccessID + "\n" + Expires; 
	  signature = Utilities.computeHmacSignature(Utilities.MacAlgorithm.HMAC_SHA_1,theString,secret);
	  signature64 = Utilities.base64Encode(signature);
	  signature64 = encodeURIComponent(signature64);

The tricky parts were:

1. Finding the right Utilities code to generate the HMAC hash;
2. Figuring out how to generate a timestamp I could work with;
3. Not punching myself in the face repeatedly.

Lines 1 and 4-8 handle the hash. Lines 2 and 3 generate the timestamp. I can’t write it in any more detail without going post-traumatic. Just take my word for it – it works.

Step 3: Send the request

Once you’ve got the signature, it’s time to send the request:

	inV="http://lsapi.seomoz.com/linkscape/url-metrics/" + url + "?AccessID=" + AccessID + "&Expires=" + Expires
 + "&Signature=" + signature64 + "&Cols=85899345920";
	jsonStringResponse = UrlFetchApp.fetch(inV);   

That’s it. That code creates the URL (line 1) and then sends the request to Linkscape (line 2). It stores it in the variable jsonStringResponse.

Step 4: Figure out what you’ve got

Next, the script parses the response, which is delivered in JSON format. Google Apps Script has a great built in function called jsonParse. That does the whole job in line 2:

	var data1 = jsonStringResponse.getContentText();
	data2 = Utilities.jsonParse(data1);
	IDomains = data2["fipl"];
	Dauth = data2["pda"];

Then it reads in the linking domains and domain authority, which have the variable names fipl and pda when delivered from Linkscape.

Step 5: Do something with it

Finally, time to insert the data into the spreadsheet. This would’ve been a headache, except for this great little function, which finds the last row containing data.

So, the first two lines of the script are:

	lastRow = FindRows();
	startRow = lastRow + 1;

That’s it. It finds the last row with data, then sets the start row to the next. Just be sure you grab the FindRows() code here, too!

Then the script sets the values of the cells accordingly:

	SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet().getRange(startRow,3).setValue(IDomains);
	SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet().getRange(startRow,4).setValue(Dauth);
	monthYear =  utility_sheet.getRange(12,4).getValue();
	today = monthYear;
	SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet().getRange(startRow,2).setValue(today);
	SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet().getRange(4,3).setValue(today);

And, finally, adds a nice black outline to the table itself. This loops through columns 2-12, outlining each box with black border:

	for (z=2; z<12; z++)
		{
			SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet().getRange(startRow,z).setBorder(true,true,true,true,true,true);
		}

I have other data I’m storing in this table—Blekko inlinks, for example—so I format the whole row.

Step 6: Set a trigger

One last step: You have to set a trigger to fire the script when you need it. Linkscape’s database updates every few weeks, so I don’t need to hit it every day.

I’m not going to write all the script out here, but basically I:

1. Wrote a script that checks if the it’s the first day of the month. If it is, then it fires the getLinkscape script.
2. Set a nightly trigger to run the date checker. Don’t worry, setting up a trigger is point-and-click easiness.

There you have it

There you go: One Linkscape data grabber thingamabobber.

I wrote this as part of my ongoing quest for the perfect internet marketing dashboard.

Challenges I still face:

1. Google’s charting capabilities are awful.
2. The social media side of the sheet is buggier than Nova Scotia in August.
3. I may have lost last, tiny grip on sanity.

Other stuff

• Why all web developers should learn SEO
• Why SEOs should learn programming
• Dan Cobley: What Physics teaches about marketing
• 1 tip for faster blogging: Use Textile
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• The internet marketer’s guide to the apocalypse
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting

Now time for the hate, I suspect.

If SEOs need to learn to program, then web developers need to learn SEO.

Scream if you want. You can reach me on Twitter at @portentint.

Who this is for

If you build web sites that the public sees, then this is for you. If you build stuff that’s hidden behind forms and firewalls, or for Target Stores, this probably won’t help you a bit.

Learn SEO because:

It will make you a better developer

Truly future-proof SEO isn’t about spamming search engines. It’s about:

• Clean canonicalization practices;
• Accessibility—ensuring 100% visibility of appropriate content to web users and search engines;
• Building fast sites;
• RESTful URLs;
• Smart information architecture, supported by equally smart database design;
• Security—not letting casual browsers and search engines find stuff they shouldn’t.

Huh.

A lot of that sounds like good development, too.

I know you’re not causing any SEO problems. But I still see lots of sites:

• Linking back to the home page at ‘default.aspx’;
• Loading pages in over 10 seconds;
• Using AJAX as search engine repellent;
• Presenting information structures that look like steel wool after 2 hours in a microwave.

Clearly it’s not you, but someone’s up to no good. Read the rest of this article and then check the guy you share a PC with.

It will help you understand why SEOs are such a pain

SEO is a huge list of things that are simple, but not easy. It’s an endless list of to-do items. Every one of them is a no-brainer if you’re a decent developer, and if you do them ahead of time.

Once the site launches, or that new feature goes live, fixing SEO problems gets tougher. You won’t have time. Your manager, who thinks SEOs are idiots, will run them around like headless chickens. Or something else. I know from painful personal experience that, post launch, there are always 10 reasons that a change to one line of code has to wait for at least six weeks.

On the other hand, 85% of your site’s search-driven clicks will come from organic search results. And a huge chunk of your site’s traffic will come from search. Screw up SEO, screw over the entire business.

That’s why we’re such a pain. This stuff is really important. And it’s easy for you, but really hard for everyone else.

It will teach you marketing, without giving you marketing cooties

SEOs that don’t suck are likely very similar to you. We’re geeky, creative and like building cool stuff. We like to win. And we want to eventually buy expensive cars and sailboats.

We’re also marketers. We learn stuff like personas, competitive analysis, that kind of thing.

If you want to talk to a marketer who won’t infect you with some horrific virus that makes you use terms like ‘engagement’ and ‘roll rate’ and (God forbid) ‘ROI’, talk to an SEO.

It’ll save you a lot of time. And misery.

At some point, your CEO is going to use Google to search for the products you sell. Then, she’s going to storm into the VP of Marketing’s office and say:

“Why the f—k don’t we rank for ‘briefcases’?!”

The VP of Marketing just started last week and knows his last 3 predecessors had a tenure of 1 year. Total. So he sas the only logical thing:

“The development team screwed up the site!”

Then the CEO will storm over to the VP of Development. But he has a ready answer:

“It wasn’t in the specification.”

That will lead the CEO back to the VP of Marketing, who will then hire an SEO consultant in hopes of saving his job.

The SEO consultant will draw up a huge list. Huge means 50-100 fundamental changes to your site.

That will lead to a meeting where you, the VP of Development, the VP of Marketing and the CEO confront the SEO while all trying to blame each other for the utter sack of SEO crap your site has become.

And, finally, you’ll have to work nights and weekends. Because the VP of Marketing’s job is in jeopardy. He’s kicking as much blame as possible to the VP of Development. That wouldn’t matter, except the VP of Marketing did some of this kicking in the last board meeting. So now the VP of Development’s job is in jeopardy. That really pisses him off. He’s made it clear your life will be a living hell.

Or, you can learn SEO basics, develop for them from the start, and make everyone happy. Your nights and weekends are saved!

Works for me, either way

I’m happy regardless. If you continue to treat SEO like a fungal infection, I’ll continue to get hired for lots of money to point out why the web site is a failure. If you build sites with at least a little SEO in mind, though, I get to concentrate on moving up in the rankings, instead of moving into them.

Your call.

Where to start

If you want to learn a little SEO, read this blog, or the SEOMOZ blog. They have a superb cheat sheet for developers, as well as a best practices guide. I rant about the last maddening mistake I saw, and sometimes post tutorials like this one.

Other stuff

• Why SEOs should learn programming
• Dan Cobley: What Physics teaches about marketing
• 1 tip for faster blogging: Use Textile
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• The internet marketer’s guide to the apocalypse
• 20 reasons you shouldn’t listen to a word I say
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting

Here’s why:

Two languages means you can program. One means you can read a manual.

You can easily learn one language and have no grasp of programming. Learn two, though, and you learn some of the stuff that all programming languages have in common. You have to focus on the method as much as the syntax.

My early ColdFusion experience taught me that. The first time I looked at a Python script, I felt like I was reading a transcript of 400 gibbering monkeys. Once I figured it out, though, PHP was pretty easy.

You’ll learn why developers hate you

You’ll understand why, when you tell a development team your recommendations, they look at you like you’re a damp, smelly cigarette butt in their soup. Programming is hard. I don’t care what the elite say. It’s a pain in the arse. You’re asking them to do more of it.

Most scripting languages are documented by small troops of demons-in-training. They earn their first Sadism Merit Badge when they complete a developer wiki that provides 85% of what some hapless schmuck will need to know.

For developers, that means small changes can be a nightmare of scornful Stackoverflow.com replies, hours of tooth-grinding Google searches and several smashed keyboards.

The worst part? You’re probably asking them to do something ridiculous like change every third instance of ‘car’ to ‘automobile’. If they’re going to suffer the Wrath of the DocuTormentor, they’d rather be building the next Twitter.

You’ll understand the mindset

There’s a certain problem-solving method that supports good programming. ‘Good’ problem solving does not mean another nested loop.

A good programmer divides problems into small, digestible chunks and solves them, one at a time. And they’re driven to find elegant solutions.

I’m not a good programmer. I generate code that reads like a James Joyce novel. But at least I understand why that code sucks. It’s a start.

More important, I’ve started applying this kind of thinking to my whole company over the years, and it really works. Some great strategies come from the programmer’s mindset: Scrum, for example.

Learn to code and you’ll understand the coder’s mindset. That’ll help you in lots of pursuits.

APIs will open before you

A lot of your job as an SEO is gathering numbers. Lots of numbers. From all over the place.

If you learn just a wee bit about scripting languages, you can access APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and collect all of that data in one place. Then, you can build your perfect internet marketing dashboard. Which I’m almost done doing in Google Spreadsheets, thanks to their App Script.

It will upgrade your bullshit detector

As an SEO, you probably work on teams that include developers and designers. You’ve probably also been in conversations like this:

SEO: I’ll need to be able to edit the title tag on each page.
Dev: That’s not possible.

SEO: Huh?
Dev: The frendidges of the bensinator won’t let us froggle the cubist.

SEO: head explodes

Learn programming and you learn a bit of the guts of your web site. You’ll have a clearer idea of what’s possible and what’s not.

You can help, instead of causing trouble

The term ‘SEO’ triggers a number of defensive responses in developers. They either:

• Say ‘SEO is a bunch of crap’ and walk out;
• Squeak ‘We don’t have any resources’ and flee;
• Hit you with a piece of furniture, roll you down the steps and outside, and walk away, whistling.

There’s a good reason: Developers interact with their coworkers in two ways:

• When the coworker presents a ridiculous problem like ‘I don’t want to hit the SHIFT key any more. Why can’t the computer just know when to capitalize?’;
• When the coworker rakes the hapless developer over hot coals because they didn’t write the automatic shiftinator in 2 hours.

When you walk in, you become one more troublemaker.

You, though, can do two things to make their day brighter: First, you can very diplomatically suggest a solution to the problem you’ve presented. Second, you can accept their estimated schedule without a single hrmph, guffaw or sniff. You can even (gasp) ally with them. Present a united front. Fight the good fight for speedy sites and good SEO.

Some notes

HTML doesn’t count as a programming language. Javascript might, but not if you’re using it to create popup windows.

If you want to learn Python, try Learn Python the Hard Way. Buy the book and support the guy who wrote it, too.

If you want to learn Ruby on Rails, I have no idea. I start up the RoR server on my laptop, and my brain shuts off. I can’t write a single line of code in it.

Learn SQL! Even if you think I’m full of poo, learn the Structured Query Language. It makes a lot of stuff go, from simple search tools to content management systems. Pointing and yelling incoherently when things break is bad. Knowing what makes stuff go and contributing to the solution when things break is good.

Other stuff

• Dan Cobley: What Physics teaches about marketing
• 1 tip for faster blogging: Use Textile
• Analytics plus SEO equals content
• The internet marketer’s guide to the apocalypse
• 20 reasons you shouldn’t listen to a word I say
• Follow me on Twitter
• The Real World Unscary Guide to SEO Copywriting

However, this piece about marketing and physics is beyond brilliant: It defines marketing in a way that totally, completely makes sense. It's only 7 minutes long. Watch it.

• Save you 20 minutes per blog post; or
• Lead to much better-looking blog posts.

I write all of my blog posts using Textmate, a text editor for the Mac. I write them all using a very simple text formatting language called Textile.

I recommend E-Text Editor for the same tools on Windows. However, I’ve been told that NotePad++ isn’t bad, either. Windows folks, if you have recommendations, post ’em down below.

It’s easy to learn (far easier than HTML, if you haven’t already learned HTML). It’s also far easier to format your post while you write it, because Textile commands are far ‘lighter’—translate that to easier to use—than their HTML cousins. Best of all, you can convert a Textile document to a nicely-formatted HTML document in about 10 seconds.

In the process, a text editor like TextMate will:

1. Convert all apostrophes and quotes to ‘smart’ quotes.
2. Generate lists from two simple Textile symbols: "#" or "*". That's a lot easier than typing <ol><li>blah blah</li></ol>', yes?
3. Convert any special characters like a greater than symbol (>) to the respective HTML entity, so it displays properly.
4. Convert everything else to well-formatted HTML code.

Then you can just cut and paste it all into your blogging software, add any images or photos, and you’re good to go.

Here’s what this post looked like in Textile before I converted it:

Then I clicked “Textile >> Convert to HTML” and voila! An HTML-formatted post.

And, of course, you can see how it looks in HTML. You’re reading that right now.

Sometimes the little tips are what count. Give this a shot. Even if you know HTML like the back of your hand, I’ll bet you’ll find that for writing blog posts, Textile is easier.

Other stuff

• Follow me on Twitter
• Analytics + SEO = Content
• The internet marketer's guide to the apocalypse
• 20 reasons you shouldn't listen to a word I say
• A marketing agency boss’s guide to employees
• 15 report writing tips
• Elizabeth Marsten’s new 2-part PPC e-book for small business. $37 for books 1 and 2, and a money back guarantee.

Content marketing this.

Content marketing that.

For some of us, though, content's been around since we, well, since we learned to read.

Here's the process I've put together over the last ten years. I presented this at Wappow Search & Social last week.

Shockingly, it involves content. And marketing. With some analytics and SEO thrown in.

Download PDF version

If you like this kind of resource, subscribe to my blog update, and you'll know the moment I add stuff like this:

Other stuff

• The internet marketer's guide to the apocalypse
• Follow me on Twitter
• 20 reasons you shouldn't listen to a word I say
• 10 tips for writing that sells
• The agency employees’ guide to bosses
• A marketing agency boss’s guide to employees
• 15 report writing tips
• Elizabeth Marsten’s new 2-part PPC e-book for small business. $37 for books 1 and 2, and a money back guarantee.

I don't know why I'm so excited, but somehow it makes me feel so... grown up.

Gang pose courtesy of one of Portent's fine SEO team.

And no, Angela is not giving me a link, or paying me. She didn’t even send me a Kit Kat.

1. I have started writing at least 100 books. All of them begin with some sort of letter to someone who has irritated the hell out of me. I generally abandon said book after chapter 3 when I've grown up and gotten over it.
2. Major marketing folks speak out of their a$$es much of the time. I've found that they like to take what they have read from the latest greatest marketing book and spin it to look like their own.
3. I haven't made $100K. Ok, over the course of my career, yeah. Not ever in one year though.. TAKE THAT!
4. I waste my time playing Mahjong Trails on Facebook. My main goal is slaughtering my friends high scores. Try that and see how many hours you can lose in 1 day. My high score in hours is 3 hours.
5. I'm a people person who really doesn't like people. I'm not sure if that is wishy-washy or a disorder of some sort.
6. I'm a Democrat who feels like most people don't take responsibility for their actions. I believe in social welfare for people who really have fallen on hard times, but our line in the sand is so far out there that it creates sloth (I'll stop right there… no Kevin Spacey, head-in-a box, Pitt/Freeman drama to follow).
7. My blog earns $0 because I obviously haven't followed the "How to make money with your blog" guidelines.
8. I have closed 3 of my businesses because I broke even THEN realized I worked far too hard at something that gave me absolutely no sense of fulfillment. "Your skin looks beautiful Mary!" or "data security is more important than you think..." I could go on.
9. I'm not a l33t hax0r, nor do I know what that means.
10. I recently went back to "Lead Gen", which is really just a different word for telemarketing. I actually pitch my services as, "Your sales people close better if they practice closing often. If they are out getting kicked in the throat every day, they aren't spending much time closing aren't they? Let me take care of that part for you." It's nauseating. It pays the bills. My throat is really sore.
11. I generally attract the people at conferences who are looking for the person who sits in the crowd taking notes and making smart assed comments.
12. I will forgive you for not appreciating good wine. If we're going to rate non-alcoholic beverages, I would highly recommend the Monster Lo-carb FTW!
13. Charlie Sheen? You're kidding, right? It's a train wreck full of tiger blood. Who can resist tiger blood?!
14. I once wrote something to Penthouse Forum. That counts right?
15. Every time I've had a break up, I feel like the people who made P.S. I Love You are geniuses. We can't be right all of the time.
16. Try hockey.
17. I aced every single class in college that required a lot of writing. I love writing, but hated every single minute of those classes.
18. I look nothing like Angelina Jolie. Who cares? Millions of people love Stephen King… have you SEEN that guy?
19. Three out of five people I work with have their own businesses. I have a sneaking suspicion they only come to work to use the phones and internet for free. Obviously anyone can have a business, but successful… I'm with you on that one.
20. On this point I can only say, "Bravo!" The fact is, marketing is only the "opening your mouth" stage of building a relationship. If you're not prepared to put your money where your mouth is, you have failed. I spent three years stripping down and building up Microsoft canned marketing campaigns for their partners. In the end it didn't matter how brilliant the verbiage was, how driving the call-to-action was, or how inexpensive the service was… if the partner wasn't ready to go after the business and follow up follow up follow up, it was going to fail.

By the way, if you wanted to see a real-life example of a good social media/guest blogging strategy, this is it. Angela didn’t send me a random, crappy article about a ‘new marketing trend’. Nor did she leave a comment on my post like 'nice job!' She wrote a direct response to something I wrote, and sent it to me. She didn’t ask for it to be published. I didn't get the sense she had an agenda when she sent it, either.

Sometimes, your best social media strategy is to have a little fun.

Setting the stage: Stinky cigarette guy

A few years ago, a guy who reeked of cigarette smoke handed me a smudged business card. He handed it to me right after telling me I was ‘not bad at SEO’ but that ‘any time I need expert help’ I can ‘give him a ring’.

I didn’t burn the card. Nor did I shove the still-burning embers down his throat while yelling “HOW’S THIS FOR A RING YOU IGNORANT GIT”. Why? Because of his title, as written on the card:

Semantic SEO search analyst

Yes, you read it correctly. He’s a semantic search engine optimization search analyst.

I was stunned by his niche-fu. He’d created an entire industry that folded in on itself: A black hole of stupidity that no client could escape.

Specializing ourselves to death

Specialization is everything: You can’t be ‘an SEO’ any more. Noooooo. You have to be a semantic SEO search analyst. There aren’t any writers; there are content marketers, as if marketing using words is revolutionary.

Web designers? Nope. Web experience developers. Web UX specialists. HTML User Interface Designers.

Marketers? Uh-uh. Social media experts. Twitter gurus. Facebook optimizers.

Somewhere, someone specializes in writing the first line of Adwords ads. You know it’s true.

Where it comes from

Some folks think this is about a drive for efficiency: Focus on what you do best, outsource everything else.

I don’t think that’s the whole story, though.

Over-specialization is also great camouflage for shallow knowledge. If you want to sell the crap out of a second-rate vegetable peeler, re-label it a turnip twaddler (stolen from Berkeley Breathed) and sell it to turnip fiends. If you want to sell the crap out of second-rate SEO service, re-label it ‘semantic’ whatever and sell it to folks impressed by big words.

Create a new niche and you create a micro-market that, at least for a little while, is your very own. If there are enough suckers consumers who want your ‘unique, new approach’, you’re in business.

Why this spells your doom

In any post-apocalypse story, the generalists survive, and the specialists die. Horribly.

Think about it. When the zombies/asteroids/swarms of killer insects arrive, the park ranger survives. So does the handyman. The lawyer? Not so much.

Marketing has its own civilization-enders: The Great Recession. The recession of 2001. The arrival of the internet. The arrival of television.

Every time, the specialists get eaten, because they don’t actually know marketing. They know how to buy TV time. They know how to write a sales letter. They know how to spam blogs and get a #1 ranking for ‘cheap cialis for sale’. But they don’t understand how it all works, or why. So they lack any knowledge or skill they can transfer from one specialty to another.

Now, we’ve got:

• SEOs who can’t build a web site
• Mobile app consultants who have no idea what a call to action looks like
• Designers who can’t write a single line of HTML
• Developers who have no idea how to use a database
• Writers who can’t enter an article into WordPress

They’re all marketing zombie food. Fossil fuels waiting to happen. Darwin bait.

I, for one, welcome our insect overlords

I have no plan. I have no idea how to fix any of this. Instead, I look forward to the next marketing Extinction Event. I’ll get a few months where I can stop using phrases like ‘content marketing’ and ‘social media audience acquisition’, and just say ‘marketing’.

More important, our clients will briefly get decent service from people who know how to sell stories and products, not catch phrases and recycled concepts.

Or, I'll go quietly into extinction with all the other oversized dinosaurs.

See you on the other side.

Other stuff

• 20 reasons you shouldn't listen to a word I say
• The Potential Misery Index: Ranking potential clients
• Conversation Marketing: A definition
• Fast pages convert 2 times better
• 10 tips for writing that sells
• The agency employees’ guide to bosses
• A marketing agency boss’s guide to employees
• 15 report writing tips
• Elizabeth Marsten’s new 2-part PPC e-book for small business. $37 for books 1 and 2, and a money back guarantee.

1. I don’t have a best selling book. Nor, at this rate, will I ever.
2. Major marketing conferences bark with laughter when I submit a speaker’s pitch.
3. I haven’t made $10 million. I haven’t even made $1 million. I’m just a guy who writes a lot.
4. I have been known to play Dungeons and Dragons, and we know what those people are like.
5. I’m a cat person. And a dog person. And a guinea pig person. And an octopus person. I’m wishy-washy.
6. I’m a Democrat who believes in free enterprise and Atlas Shrugged. Again with the wishy washy.
7. My blog earns me a whopping $350/month.
8. I didn’t sell my first company for millions when I was 25.
9. I’m not a l33t hax0r.
10. I once worked as a telemarketer. I was really good at it. I quit because it made me nauseous.
11. I don’t have throngs of people following me around at conferences.
12. Good wine does nothing for me. Diet Coke FTW.
13. I don’t get the whole Charlie Sheen thing.
14. Not one major magazine gives a crap what I have to say.
15. I think They Might Be Giants are artistic geniuses. There. I said it.
16. Baseball feels like 30 minutes of action crammed into 5 hours. I’m un-American.
17. My legal research & writing professor gave me a C-, telling me I had ‘little promise as a writer’. Of course, she didn’t last as long as I did at UCLA Law—I graduated. She quit after 2 semesters.
18. I look nothing like Don Draper. I look more like a tall, slightly overweight Woody Allen with a gland problem.
19. I don’t believe that anyone can run a successful business. I actually don’t believe sane people can run a successful business at all.
20. I promise nothing. There are no guarantees in marketing. It’s total chaos, and you don’t control your own destiny. The best you can do is maximize the chances that something good will happen. Which is what it’s all about.

Other stuff

• The Potential Misery Index: Ranking potential clients
• Conversation Marketing: A definition
• Fast pages convert 2 times better
• 10 tips for writing that sells
• The agency employees’ guide to bosses
• A marketing agency boss’s guide to employees
• 15 report writing tips
• Elizabeth Marsten’s new 2-part PPC e-book for small business. $37 for books 1 and 2, and a money back guarantee.

One thing that nearly drove me batty, though, was figuring out how to automatically add a new row below the last row with data.

Turns out, Google App Script has it's own nifty command, called getLastRow. Here's how you do it:

function FindRows() {
range = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet().getLastRow();
return range;
}


That's it. It'll return the value range. That value is the number of the last row on the sheet that has data. You can then pass that back to other functions to start adding new rows in the right place, delete rows, etc..

If this is all gibberish, fear not. Marketing Ian will be back Monday. Today is Nerd Ian.

I love my clients. Sometimes it’s hard to tell, I know. But once Portent signs on to work with someone, we’ve got one job: Help the client kick ass. We’re committed.

That means we need to be pretty picky about clients and contracts. I use a special scale called the Potential Misery Index (PMI). You can call it the Potential Happiness Index, if you prefer. But I’m more of a misery guy. Go figure.

Here’s how it works:

Add 1 point if

1. You haggle over price. I don’t haggle. I’m not a used car dealer. I’m not going to provide a discount because you beat me about the head and shoulders.
2. Things move realllllyyyyy sloooowwwlly. Sometimes there’s a reason stuff slows down. But often it’s just inertia. Some behaviors that may make me weep with despair: A 10-week RFP process for a $1500 contract; a 12-person ‘hiring committee’ for a one-time, $1000 site review; a renegotiation because we had to add $50 to the contract price (really happened).
3. Your site is a customer-repelling crime against humanity, but you won’t change it. I have to get qualified visitors to your site. If they claw their own eyes out in horror, I feel guilty.
4. You give me a long list of injustices suffered at the hands of past marketers, then tell me I’m guilty until proven innocent.
5. You refuse to give me access to analytics data. I’ve tried that, against my better judgment, and it was frustrating as hell. You’re happy to send me a report every day? Great! But I can’t tell you where the data will take me. Sometimes, I just have to dig around.
6. Your business is cheating people. Add 99999 points. Then leave.
7. You look at every case study & idea I present and explain how worthless I am. Really? Is this your way of making friends?
8. Your expectations are insane. You expect 25,000 subscribers 4 weeks after launch? For your cooking blog? It’s possible you have the next GoogleBook. It could be. But just in case, can you base your marketing budget on reality-based projections?
9. You tell me 5,231 things that my company can’t touch. You want SEO, PPC and social media work. But we can’t change the web site, are forbidden to use Facebook or Twitter, and all of your PPC ads have to include the words ‘happy joy’. And you sell caskets. Yeah, I’ll pass.
10. You talk smack about employees, past vendors and predecessors. We all vent. But if you’re spending half the conversation ripping the last poor slob who worked with you, I gotta wonder: How are you going to treat me?

Bonus: If you tell me you want to “Jew me down” on my contract amount, I may actually kill you. If I don’t, add 10 points. Really happened – twice, actually. Well, not the killing part. You know what I mean.

Look, none of these are deal-breakers. In marketing, there’s a lot of crap flying around. We all have misconceptions. If you come to Portent, though, and are clinging to these kinds of assumptions/behaviors no matter how politely we try to explain them away, you’re probably better off hiring someone else.

Subtract 1 point if

1. You’ve got a really cool product/service.
2. You’re excited about your really cool product/service.
3. You have some clear business goals.
4. You tell me a lot about your business, or about your role in the business. That means you know it, and you’re excited about it. Plus, I love to hear about other people’s work.
5. You listen, too. Communications is a two-way street. I won’t prattle on for hours, I promise, but there’s some basic information you probably need to know.
6. There will be a clear person in charge on the project. My team works on a lot of headless projects. These projects stagger around, flapping their wings and spouting blood everywhere. But inevitably they fall over, twitching feebly. I’d really like to cut back on those.
7. You are direct. Not rude. Not mean. But direct. You get to the point. There’s not a lot of that around these days, and I love it when I can find it.
8. You select. You do not accumulate. If you’ve gone beyond the more-is-better mentality, you rock.
9. You expect us to kick ass. That is our job. Low standards don’t make it easier for me and my team—they make us into a commodity.
10. You’ve got a competitive streak. See #9.

Add it up

The lower the score, the less potential for misery when we work together.

Other stuff

• Conversation Marketing: A definition


• Fast pages convert 2 times better
• 10 tips for writing that sells
• The agency employees’ guide to bosses
• A marketing agency boss’s guide to employees
• 15 report writing tips
• Elizabeth Marsten’s new 2-part PPC e-book for small business. $37 for books 1 and 2, and a money back guarantee.

1. Royals to get a taste of Angels’ Colon. Ewwwwwwwwwww.
2. Colon pounded. They just couldn’t get enough of this one.
3. Supreme Court Tries Sodomy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but do we all need to know?
4. Deer kill 17,000. Wow. I know they’re justified being a little ticked, but man.
5. Stud tires out. I’m a 42 year old nerd. I feel no sympathy.
6. Air Head Fired. About damned time.
7. Eye drops off of shelf. …
8. War dims hope for peace. I’m sorry, what? Which war? Peace where? Your lame headline dims hope for peace.
9. UN to remove Taliban from blacklist: Karzai. Er what? We made peace with the Taliban?
10. Come on in, the water is fine. Nothing funny, but this headline is so utterly uninformative I found it intrinsically giggle-inducing.
11. Tits bouncing back in warmer weather. The bird. Not the… Never mind. They’re actually called ‘Blue Tits’. Which might not help… Now I’m just embarrassed.
12. Get it free!! This was an e-mail subject line. Nothing else to tell me what’s going on. Nice.
13. A new business model. And…?
14. Hard wait. Buh…?
15. Bishops agree sex abuse rules. I wish this was funny.
16. Microsoft User Research is looking for Seattle area parents with kids. Can you narrow that down just a little?
17. Why it failed. Maybe ‘it’ needed more focus?
18. April 6, 2011. The next time I see someone using a date as a headline I’ll… I’ll… probably just cry.
19. SEO services SEO. This one just pisses me off. It got onto Hacker News? Really?
20. Photo. This is more a case of not writing a headline at all, I suspect. I find 10-20 of these every week.
21. No good to great. Dammit. That was my other business plan.
22. Fired up! That’s great! About what?
23. What does it all mean? I dunno.
24. Cameron attacks ‘annoying’ Balls. Is it just me, or do most vague headlines end up being double entendres. Use the guy’s first name next time, K?
25. Man Fatally Slain. OK, this one is actually fully descriptive. It’s too fully descriptive.

You have been warned.

If you’ve got any other dreadful headlines, feel free to post 'em in the comments.

Other stuff

• Conversation Marketing: A definition
• Fast pages convert 2 times better
• 10 tips for writing that sells
• The agency employees’ guide to bosses
• A marketing agency boss’s guide to employees
• 15 report writing tips
• Elizabeth Marsten’s new 2-part PPC e-book for small business. $37 for books 1 and 2, and a money back guarantee.

But I've never actually provided a definition of Conversation Marketing.

Lots of other people have. Some did OK. Some are just ridiculous. So I figured I'd give it a shot.

I'm not trying to define it in a "this is what it means, so screw the rest of you" way. I just mean, define what I mean when I say the phrase.

So, here goes:

Conversation marketing: Highly iterative, internet-driven marketing where customer needs drive design, content and technology, analysis drives changes, and customers are long-term participants.

I figure I should go into a bit more detail, though. I'm going to do it in reverse:

Customers are long-term participants

I am not going to use the word 'engagement'. When I say 'long-term participants' I mean that:

1. Companies give customers the option to keep in touch. Think of a Facebook 'like' button, or an e-mail signup form.
2. The company provides value in exchange: Useful information, free stuff, coupons, or just the intrinsic benefits of 'belonging'.
3. The company invites participation. The company talks to the customers who opt in. 'Talks to' means 'starts discussions' and 'informs', not just 'rams coupons down their throats'. For example, the company might send out a quick guide for getting the most out of their product.

Analysis drives changes

I'm all for gut instinct when it comes to marketing. But at some point you need to observe and adjust.

This was actually why I started using the phrase 'conversation marketing' in the first place. The internet is the first place, short of an in-person discussion, where you can make a statement, watch how your audience responds, and adjust your next statement accordingly.

With analytics tools, log files, surveys, etc., you can easily use data to tweak and refine your message.

Customer needs drive design, content, technology

This one sounds like corporate marketspeak. Cringe.

But ego-driven marketing still seems to have the edge out there, and I find that infuriating. Just because you, Ms. CEO, think that purple mouse trails are the greatest thing ever, doesn't mean your customers agree.

Let the customers drive what you do. Not your ego.

Highly iterative

Finally, conversation marketing means a lot of iteration. If analysis drives change, and you can constantly observe, then you should constantly adjust, too.

That's the other unique property of internet marketing: You can change content in a heartbeat. If you're not iterating, you're probably wasting a lot of potential.

There you have it

I'll warn you: I change this definition with frightening regularity. But the basics are the same: Create, observe, analyze, iterate.

If you have your own definition, fire away.

Other stuff

• Fast pages convert 2 times better
• 10 tips for writing that sells
• The agency employees’ guide to bosses
• A marketing agency boss’s guide to employees
• 15 report writing tips
• Elizabeth Marsten’s new 2-part PPC e-book for small business. $37 for books 1 and 2, and a money back guarantee.

So, I want to know: What's the biggest problem you have with internet marketing?

Answer this teeny little survey, and you get a chance to win one of two free sets of all of the Conversation Marketing e-books: Conversation Marketing, The SEO Copywriting Guide, and the Fat-Free Guide to Google Analytics. $30 of ebooks, for 2 minutes of your time:

Take the survey

Survey ends on April 8. I'll draw the lucky winner then.

Yes, you're giving me your e-mail address. No, I won't spam you. After this survey's over, you'll get three e-mails:

1. The first will tell you if you won the e-book set.
2. The second will send you the results of the survey.
3. The third will invite you to sign up for the newsletter.

Then you'll never hear from me again. Unless you read my blog, of course.

Take the survey

Other stuff

• Fast pages convert 2 times better


• 10 tips for writing that sells


• The agency employees’ guide to bosses
• A marketing agency boss’s guide to employees


• 15 report writing tips


• Elizabeth Marsten’s new 2-part PPC e-book for small business. $37 for books 1 and 2, and a money back guarantee.

29 ways to speed up your web site

It's timely for me, because we just finished a review of page performance versus page speed, and found that everything—conversions, time on page, scroll depth—improves when a page loads faster.

That's obvious. But the difference is amazing:

Pages that load in 3,000ms (3 seconds) or less converted 2x better than average.

Average page load time on Portent's company site is 4,400ms (4.4 seconds)

So trimming 1.4 seconds off of page load time doubled conversion rates.

Doubled. Conversion. Rates.

Do you want to double your conversion rates? Speed up your site.

Note: This is preliminary research, run site-wide. Our next test will compare the same page before and after speed improvements.

Search Engine Land article: 29 ways to speed up your web site

No matter why you have it, your web site needs to sell. You need to get visitors to do something, whether that something is ‘sign up’, ‘buy now’ or just ‘keep reading’.

Here are 10 quick tips for copy persuades, sells and converts:

1. Start by telling people why they should read. Marketing copywriting 101: You have to get folks to read before you can persuade them. Write a headline that gets them reading. Something like, I dunno, ‘Writing that converts’.
2. Put on the brakes. Online readers start by scanning the page. Use subheadings, images and other rhythm-changers to provide a fast preview of the page. That tells them why they should read, per #1.
3. Invite agreement. I love Robert Cialdini’s brilliant book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (affiliate link). One of the first lessons in the book is ‘invite agreement’. Say something your ideal customer can agree with. Don’t worry whether everyone will agree. You aren’t speaking to everyone. Focus on your customer. Pssst: Read the first line of this post again to see an example.
4. Make a concession. Again, from Cialdini: Give your readers something. They’re more likely to stick around. I always try to give folks information they don’t already have. It provides strong incentive for them to keep reading, subscribe and maybe even retweet. It makes them deeper participants.
5. Provide social proof. This term’s been beaten into a raw, stinky pulp, but it still applies. Demonstrate that others agree with you, or that 100000 people already love your product, you may get higher conversion rates. Note – this only applies if you want folks who desire social proof. If you’re looking for first adopters, this may not matter as much. Pssst: Look at #2 in this list. That’s social proof. It says “A guy 100x smarter than me agrees with me.”
6. Know the no’s. AKA, the buts. Anticipate readers’ concerns, then allay them. Easy for me to write, hard for you to do, but there you have it.
7. Don’t fear the long page. Write lots. Long landing pages kick ass. Don’t believe me? Read what Conversion Rate Experts did for SEOMOZ. Design your long lander in ‘chunks’. Put the first chunk and call to action above the fold. Continue the page, building in increasing detail and repeat calls to action. Watch it work.
8. Put no more than 4-5 lines in a paragraph. A single, massive paragraph tells the reader “big, forbidding blob of information here”. Shorter paragraphs tell her “lots of little, digestible bits of information here.” Which is more inviting?
9. Repeat yourself. First, make your point: You need copywriting that converts. Then, give an example, social proof or something similar. Then, wrap it all up by working your main point into your call to action.
10. Call to action. If I look at 20 random web sites, at least 10 of them will be utterly devoid of any call to action. If your visitor has read an entire page, they like you. They want to do something. Help them out!

That’s it. There’s a reason you’re doing all this work. Make sure your writing seals the deal and turns visitors into readers into customers.

Oh, and a call to action: Buy my e-book, The Unscary, Real World Guide to SEO Copywriting. $7, and chock full o’ writing advice.

Also, follow me on Quora. I'm addicted, apparently.

Other stuff

• The agency employees’ guide to bosses
• A marketing agency boss’s guide to employees
• Fluffy rainbow bunnies devour marketing agencies
• 15 report writing tips
• The content revolution is here, and it’s full of crap
• Elizabeth Marsten’s new 2-part PPC e-book for small business. $37 for books 1 and 2, and a money back guarantee.

Turns out, the same is true of automated chat bots. Google just launched Google Talk Guru in Google Labs. You're supposed to be able to send it basic queries like 'calculate 2 * 4' or 'define bicycle'.

I think they need to keep it in the lab for a while longer:

Other stuff

• A marketing agency boss's guide to employees
• 25 tips for building your own agency
• Fluffy rainbow bunnies devour marketing agencies
• 15 report writing tips
• The content revolution is here, and it’s full of crap
• My SEO copywriting e-book – $7
• Elizabeth Marsten's new 2-part PPC e-book for small business. $37 for books 1 and 2, and a money back guarantee.

Unfortunately, this is really only a guide to me. I can’t see inside other boss’s heads. And they can’t see inside mine, I hope. So take this with a grain of salt.

But some of this is probably going on in your boss's pointy little head:

1. Your boss has your back.
2. Sometimes, having your back means they accidentally plunge a three-foot spear through it. See yesterday's post.
3. She probably likes you. She likes most of her employees. She wants everyone to make lots of money. If everyone earns it.
4. Unfortunately, the chances that your boss is a she are pretty slim. Our industry still apparently exists in the 1960s. I was raised by an ardent feminist, so it’s hard for me not to notice.
5. It takes a lot to really piss off your boss. He’s more patient than you might think. Honest mistakes happen.
6. On the other hand, persistent, unwavering incompetence may cause his head to explode like a cantaloupe in a microwave. Please learn from your mistakes.
7. And, your boss is a person. He doesn’t plug into the wall to recharge every night. So he can run out of gas like anyone else. Keep that in mind and try not to take it too personally if he seems impatient.
8. He loves—loves—when you learn something new, and apply it to a client.
9. He loves when stuff Just Gets Taken Care Of.
10. He loves to sing your praises.
11. He really loves to hear clients sing your praises.
12. He has limited patience for helplessness.
13. Asking for help does not equal helplessness.
14. Letting projects quietly spin out of control without telling anyone = helplessness.
15. Trying the same thing again and again while hoping for a better result = insanity, as well as helplessness.
16. Clients are not allowed to abuse you. Only your boss is allowed to do that. If a client does get abusive (I’m talking cursing, screaming, insulting, not just frustrated. There’s a difference.) tell your boss, and client ass-kicking will ensue posthaste.
17. He wants you to go home at night. And on Friday.
18. But he also wants you to work efficiently, manage your time and be smart about how you get your work done.
19. He wants you to put your best effort in on every project.
20. He doesn’t want to hear editorializing about who the agency represents. He’s trying to pay the bills. Including your salary. Deal with it.
21. If stuff goes wrong, he’d appreciate a warning. A stupidity ambush will cause that whole cantaloupe-in-a-microwave thing again.
22. Your boss knows you won’t work for him forever. It’s OK. All he asks is that you give him more than 2 days’ warning when you decide to pull up stakes and move to the Bahamas to pursue a new career as a wakeboarding instructor.
23. Really, what your boss wants is to earn a lot of money, pay you a lot of money, grow his company (maybe her company, I hope) and fight the good fight. The less he has to work on day-to-day stuff, and the more he can work on teaching the team, the happier everyone will be.

Most important:

If you want your boss to think you’re the greatest thing ever:

1. Get your tasks done on time, with minimal drama. Or warn when you can’t get them done. With minimal drama.
2. Take initiative to find better ways to do things.
3. Work to become more efficient.
4. Be a great ‘face of the company’ with clients, other staff and the public.

Now, I need to go plug in and recharge…

Other stuff

• A marketing agency boss's guide to employees
• 25 tips for building your own agency
• Fluffy rainbow bunnies devour marketing agencies
• 15 report writing tips
• The content revolution is here, and it’s full of crap
• My SEO copywriting e-book – $7
• Elizabeth Marsten's new 2-part PPC e-book for small business. $37 for books 1 and 2, and a money back guarantee.

Important note! I should point out that these lessons had nothing to do the crapstorm that was my Monday. In fact, my employees probably kept me from flinging myself, clothed in raccoon pelts and howling with laughter, into the Green River. No one at Portent is in trouble! Except me, maybe.

Yesterday, I finished some writing, pulled together a training presentation and wiped my inbox down to only four e-mails. I was ready for the week, baby. I was professional, ready to go. Hot to trot.

Today, I walked out the front door. An enormous butt descended from the sky. Said buttocks proceeded follow me around, all day, poo-ing upon everything I attempted.

While dodging the poo-cano, I jotted down some lessons for future marketers who happen to be bosses:

The marketing boss’s guide to employees

1. Your employees have your back. They’ll always try to do what it takes to make you happy.
2. Sometimes, having your back means they accidentally plunge a three-foot spear through it. Usually, if that happens, it’s your fault. Seriously. Either you failed to train them, or you hired someone who can’t do their job, or you failed to fire someone who shouldn’t be there.
3. When that happens, extract the spear with a smooth, swift jerk. Retreat. Calm down.
4. Think. Could you have given your team the tools to avoid the screw-up?
5. If the answer is yes, figure out how to impart that wisdom. Then do it.
6. If the answer is no, consider a warning, a firing, or a re-assignment of responsibilities. Don’t do it angry. This isn’t about angry. It’s about the health of your business and the long-term happiness of your team.
7. Emphasize that you trust your team. If you let your employees know that they can make decisions on their own, you can minimize tragic incidents of back-splitting spear-plunging.
8. Keep your oversized proboscis (aka your nose) out of what they’re doing, particularly in a crisis.
9. Doing so will drive you insane. It will make you want to scream. It may make you actually scream. Too bad. Deal with it.
10. In order to deal with it, consider the worst case. If your employees totally, utterly blow it, you’ll have to fix the resulting tornado of stink. Which is exactly what you’ll have to do, right now, if you don’t keep your nose out of it. This way, your employees learn. They’ll probably successfully resolve the crisis, too.
11. Use the time you just freed up to teach your employees the stuff you do need to teach them: The basic expertise they need to do their jobs. Not checklists. Not rules. Knowledge.
12. The more complex the situation, the less a checklist will help, and the more important knowledge becomes.
13. Use any remaining time to drink heavily, eat chocolate or reflect on the fact that there are infinitely worse things that can happen.

As the buttocks retreat over the horizon, you’ll find yourself breathing easier. You can’t fix everything. You can’t teach everything. You can’t learn everything. But you can continuously improve on all three.

Now, I have some chocolate to consume. Toodles.

Other stuff

• 25 tips for building your own agency
• Fluffy rainbow bunnies devour marketing agencies
• 15 report writing tips
• The content revolution is here, and it’s full of crap
• My SEO copywriting e-book – $7
• Elizabeth Marsten's new 2-part PPC e-book for small business. $37 for books 1 and 2, and a money back guarantee.

Wrong. I'm biased towards ripping teammates' writing apart. I edit. I niggle. I ask for changes. I rewrite stuff. When the author is within reach, they may get kicked. I’m downright harsh. So yeah, I’m biased. The fact that I’m saying these books are good means they've met the Ian Stamp of Neurotic Approval.

Carrying on...

Elizabeth Marsten, Director of Search at Portent, just finished this two e-book series about PPC for small business. It taught me a few things.

If you’re going to understand the niftiness of these books, though, I have to start with the story of the author.

About Elizabeth

We hired Elizabeth 4 or so years ago. When we hired her, we mentioned ‘pay per click’ marketing to her. But over the phone she thought my COO had said ‘paper clip marketing’. So she spent a day before coming in for her interview trying to figure out what the hell paperclip marketing was.

In spite of that dubious start, she’s gone from an utter PPC neophyte to:

• Writing the entire PPC section of the Web Marketing All In One Desk Reference for Dummies;
• Presenting at SMX Advanced on PPC (by the way, I’ve never been accepted to speak at SMX Advanced, so I’m jealous);
• Directing the entire search team at Portent;
• Took and passed every certification exam the search engines threw at her;
• Refereeing intern races at Portent. We take our sports seriously;
• Striking fear in the hearts of PPC slackers worldwide.

In short, she started clueless about PPC and, in a few years, became a top expert. So she not only knows PPC, she knows how to explain it.

About the books

Here’s the tables of contents for the two books:

Book 1

1. What is PPC and how does it work?
2. What should my budget be?
3. Which product and service to try first
4. Ready to Start an Account

1. Which keywords to use
2. How to determine what terms people are searching
3. Match types
4. What match types to apply
5. Figure out how much to bid
6. Negative Keywords
7. What to write in ads
8. Ready to Start Bidding and Buying

1. Where to start
2. Important account settings
3. How to determine if PPC is working
4. Where to send visitors
5. Do you need a PPC specific landing page?
6. Now What?

Book 2

1. Troubleshooting

1. Have you already started or tried PPC but think it's eating all your money?
2. Important account settings
3. Getting more out of your budget.
4. Expanding Your Account

1. Advertising on the Content (Display) Network

1. Adwords Tools and Features

1. Sitelinks
2. Product extension ads
3. Conversion optimizer
4. Enhanced CPC
5. Now What?

Just buy it. There's no risk.

These books are worth it. Yeah, they cost $37 for both, or $23 for one, and in today’s world of cheap, crappy e-books, that seems expensive. But these aren’t cheap, crappy e-books. They’re real, with quality info.

Buy both books for $37

Buy e-book 1 for $23

Buy e-book 2 for $23

And I’ll make you a promise, since I’m the guy running the store: If you buy these books and hate them, e-mail me, mention you read Conversation Marketing and I’ll refund your money.

Other stuff

• 15 report writing tips
• Great ideas from Guy Kawasaki’s Enchantment
• Fluffy rainbow bunnies devour marketing agencies
• The content revolution is here, and it’s full of crap
• Log files bring sexy back
• 25 tips for building your own agency
• My SEO copywriting e-book – $7

You couldn't be helping me more.

Bless you. You’re totally disappointing your client, because they understand that a report is not the same thing as analysis. And, they understand that they’re paying for analysis.

If you don’t like sending me business, I suggest you learn to write reports:

Crunch the numbers and do your analysis first.

I used to think this was obvious: Don’t write your report until you know what you’re going to say. Alas, I’ve been proven wrong several times.

I usually put together a spreadsheet, first. It includes all of the raw metrics plus a brief analysis.

Then I turn that into a rough outline. I don’t usually do outlines, but for a report I find them helpful.

Provide data.

Duh. But don’t just cut-and-paste nasty-looking charts. Don’t even cut-and-paste beautiful charts. Create and format the data yourself. That way, you can put those diverse data sources together. You can also illustrate trends, annotate and clarify the information.

Provide analysis.

Tell the client why the data’s important. This is where most report writers fall apart. They’ll say stuff like:

“Traffic went up.”

“Sales went down.”

“You got more traffic from the word ‘fudge’.”

Great. But why does that matter???!!!!! If I wanted to know that ‘traffic went up’, I could look in Google Analytics.

I want to know why traffic went up, and what impact it had on my web business as a whole.

Provide analysis. Analysis is your first opportunity to lend something to the discussion.

Provide a next action.

The data and analysis is useless if it results in nothing. You want to show your client the next step.

Wrap up each bit of analysis with a ‘todo’—some recommended next step based on your data and analysis.

Also, don’t wait for the end of the document to make your recommendations. Make each recommendation after each bit of analysis. That puts the recommendation in context.

Correlate diverse data sources.

Pull different metrics together and see if there’s insight. Show the client how no, links didn’t go up with their last link bait piece, but yes, social media mentions went up, and traffic from organic search went up, too.

That kind of correlation is what separates you from Google Analytics and Chim Chim the reporting Chimp. You can actually correlate data.

Compare like with like.

If you show multiple charts together as a comparative tool, use the same axes and ranges for each one. Or make it very clear why you’re not. Otherwise, your data could be very deceptive.

Don’t embellish.

No 3d charts. No flowing descriptive prose. Get to the point, fast. This isn’t a 7th-grade creative writing assignment, it’s a report.

Avoid platitudes.

Say you’ve just reported bad news, like:

“Sales dropped 15% after we shut down the PPC campaign.”

Following it with something like:

“But SEO is up nicely, and I’m looking forward to a good 4th quarter.”

Is like saying:

“I suck, have failed you utterly, and have no future. Abuse me as you like.”

Just give the message and move on. If there’s a solution to the problem, suggest it. If it was a mistake, admit it. But move on.

Use a real word processor.

I once had a client who complained I wasn’t sending him any data. Thing is, I was sending him a report every week. But each report was just an e-mail. He’d read the first 2 sentences and delete it. Make your report a Word doc and suddenly everyone reads it. I don’t make the rules. I just explain ’em.

Use a real word processor, the right way.

Use the damned template! If there’s a preset style for ‘heading2’, use that for your second-level heading. If there’s a preset style for a table, use that, too.

Doing that will let you generate a table of contents, table of tables, list of images and cross references with a click. Failing to do that will make your boss want to maim you.

Write for 9th grade, at most.

The reader isn’t going to have a lot of time. Don’t use ‘trended upwards’ if ‘increased’ will work. Some other favorites:

“Underperformed” could be “lost money”
“Bad strategy” could be “mistake”
“Budgetary limitations” could be “budget”

I’m starting to grit my teeth, so I’ll stop there.

Break up the text.

A lot. A great report will naturally have a mix of charts, text and tabular data on nearly every page, so the reader can get a break from reading paragraph prose. Even if that doesn’t happen naturally, break up the text the same way you break up text on a web page.

Bring it back to business goals.

Always tie your analysis and recommendations back to business goals. Remember, you live and breathe the web site every day. The CEO probably doesn’t, unless you’re a web company. And even then, she’s not in the details the way you are.

If you can bring each finding back to overall business goals, you put it all in a context that makes sense to everyone at the company. And, you’re doing what a good marketer should – giving communications direction to every level of the company.

Provide a high-level preview at the start.

Lead off your report with a quick summary of the critical metrics, and what they mean. That lets the reader get an ‘at-a-glance’ look at how things are going.

Brag a little

It's perfectly OK to brag a little. Be sure to point out what you and your team did that helped. Make the connection between your work and the results 100% clear.

Please don't

But actually, please ignore all the previous tips. Your crappy reports, oh great crappy report writers of the world, generate at least 50% of my leads. Carry on.

Other stuff

• My director of search, Elizabeth Marsten, has written a small business PPC ebook series. She is the queen of PPC - you want to get this book. She's also a gifted Kendo practitioner, and I don't want to be beaten senseless. Please buy.
• Great ideas from Guy Kawasaki's Enchantment
• Fluffy rainbow bunnies devour marketing agencies
• The content revolution is here, and it’s full of crap
• Log files bring sexy back
• 25 tips for building your own agency
• My SEO copywriting e-book – $7

I've got this amazing team at Portent, right? They produce all sorts of great training content, link bait, funny lists, news, etc. that we post for clients and for our own bizarre sites.

But I want more, dammit.

We keep a list of headlines, topics and stuff that we want to write about. Topics range from bikinis to cloud computing to SEO.

I want to start hand-picking really good writers to help us write some of this stuff. We're going to start sending out the headline list to those hand-picked writers.

Note: If your idea of 'great writing' is '100 words on eHow', please don't apply.

That was my first impression. I was at Gnomedex a few years back. He stood up in front of the audience and said, “I’ve got lots of stuff I can talk about.” Then he presented three possibilities and let us choose. Are you kidding me? He didn’t even prepare?! The nerve.

Then he started speaking.

I got more out of his short talk than every other presentation that day. And some of those were great, too. While he talked, I frantically scribbled a few dozen ideas he spawned.

His latest book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions (affiliate link), did the same thing for me. So instead of spamming you about how wonderful the book is, I’m going to list the ideas I got from the book. Then you decide if you want it.

Ideas

1. Create a ‘yes’ page instead of an FAQ. Put the answer to the questions at the top: Yes. Then put the questions below it, on the page.
2. Push our message around trust even harder. Don’t work with clients who can’t trust us. Focus on clients who do, and can turn that into results for themselves.
3. Always express disagreement by first finding something to agree in.
4. Conduct a ‘premortem’ on every project: Get the team together. Pretend the project failed. Then talk it out.
5. Try to develop crow’s feet (you have to read the book to understand).
6. Reinforce my employees’ autonomy whenever possible.
7. Prototype everything.
8. Become a better curator of content. Start on Twitter and expand from there.
9. Build our marketing on total transparency: Tell people exactly what we’ll do when they sign up for a newsletter. Then deliver just that.

I admit, there are more than that. Some are humdingers. But I won’t give everything away, for once.

Ego, well earned

If Kawasaki does have a big ego, he’s earned it.

You should read this book. If you’re running your own company, you must read this book.

Other stuff

• Fluffy rainbow bunnies devour marketing agencies
• The content revolution is here, and it’s full of crap
• Log files bring sexy back
• 25 tips for building your own agency
• 11 signs you’re not ready to run your own company
• Groupon’s days are numbered
• Discounts: The vicodin of internet marketing
• My SEO copywriting e-book – $7

And, in a typical marketing agency, very little gets done. Very few things improve. People spend most of their time in meetings rather than learning, or doing, or I dunno, making a decision. Those rainbow bunnies? They just poisoned your company with a paralysis-inducing toxin. Now they can devour you at their leisure.

Let me give you a quick tip: If you’re running an agency, then you’re leading an agency. Leaders need to shoo away the bunnies!

See, some ideas are just bad. Or good. And you should understand that in your gut. Take the test below. If you have a difficult time choosing 'good' or 'bad' for more than 2 of these, step away from your multivariate testing tools and get tested for fluffy rainbow bunny toxin immediately:

My real point

Some things you need to know in your gut. Use testing when you need to learn something. Not when you need to cover your ass.

Above all: Solicit advice, input and expertise when you need it. Not when you need reassurance, or groupthink. It'll make your agency more efficient, and keep the bunny population down.

Okaaaayyyyyyyy I'm going to stop writing now and step. away. from the keyboard.

Other stuff

• The content revolution is here, and it's full of crap
• Log files bring sexy back
• 25 tips for building your own agency
• 11 signs you’re not ready to run your own company
• Groupon’s days are numbered
• Discounts: The vicodin of internet marketing
• Companies need tension: Avoiding the ‘you go’ effect.
• My SEO copywriting e-book – $7

‘2011 is the Year of Content!!!!’

That’s what the addled woman who smelled slightly of sour beer belched into her cell phone yesterday. We were both waiting in line to get food at the airport.

She said it as if she’d just discovered the secret business success.

She saved me $10, though, because when I heard this amazing quote, I had a blinding flash of insight. Over a decade in business, and I’ve never taken my agency to the promised land (lots of money, or acquisition, or something). Now, I understand why:

I assume people already know stuff like ‘content is important’ and ‘writing is important’ and ‘if your product sucks aluminum bolts, no marketer can save you’.

Apparently, they don’t. So when someone proclaims that 2011 is the ‘Year of the content revolution’, they’re haled as the risen savior of business.

At that point, I lost my appetite and ate my own molars, instead.

Um…

OK, if you really don’t get it, here it is:

‘Content’ has been important since your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great ancestor clubbed a close relative and explained themselves by saying ‘ook’. And content drives internet marketing. It always has. Saying it’s revolutionary is like taking a deep breath and declaring “OH MY GOD I’VE DISCOVERED AIR.”

So don’t encourage the goobers who try to tell us it’s a revolution, OK?

PS

If you don’t understand the mind-crushing stupidity of it all, I’m sorry for you. But you might want my new e-book, ‘2011, The Year of Selling Stuff For More Than You Spent To Make It’. It’s coming out in 9 months, and it’s a guaranteed plan for business success!

Other stuff

• Log files bring sexy back
• 25 tips for building your own agency
• 11 signs you’re not ready to run your own company
• Groupon’s days are numbered
• Discounts: The vicodin of internet marketing
• Companies need tension: Avoiding the ‘you go’ effect.
• My SEO copywriting e-book – $7

My life as a college sex symbol

In college and law school, I raced bikes. That’s bicycles. I sucked. And I had to wear lycra shorts, which apparently were supposed to be sexy, but make me feel like a dark, shiny sausage to this day. It was fun, though:

At that point, most racers used these tires called sew-ups or tubulars. These tires have the tube sewn inside the tire. They’re literally glued onto your wheels, and the wheels are super-light and super-responsive because they don’t have to have any of the hardware to hold a tire and tube in place. Racing on tubulars literally transformed me to an almost-acceptable road racer.

But, tubulars are for advanced riders. Gurus. Experts, even. And, if you’re gonna use ‘em, you’d better know how to glue them on.

The glue you use to attach a tire to a rim generally sticks to everything except the rim—your fingers, the furniture, your hair, your clothes. Just not the damned wheel.

It may seem like a ridiculous task. Why not have someone else do it?! Or just throw the tire on there with a few dabs of glue. But if you improperly glue a tubular on to a wheel, this is what happens:

I don't know the source for this image. If you know it, please let me know so I can give credit.

Not so advanced.

Now, as you gracefully flip over your handlebars and watch the road/velodrome rise up to greet you with a wave and a smile, your brain is saying something I can’t print. But the loose translation, from the part of your brain that’s still functioning, is something like:

But I’m advaaaannnnnnnccceeeddddddd

In SEO, log files are like glue. If you really want to get ahead and stay there, you have to learn that basic stuff that holds everything together. So, if you want to avoid those ass-on-asphalt moments, you want to learn to look through the log files.

Other tools miss stuff

Wait right there. I can see you’re about to snort and head back to Google Analytics, or Coremetrics, or whatever. Don’t.

Tools like Google Analytics are great. But they rely on javascript ‘web bugs’ to track visits. And most of the time, they totally miss visits from search bots.

Tools like Sawmill and Urchin are nifty, too. But they don’t let you drill down and analyze the data with the level of precision you want and need.

All those tools miss stuff. So learn the log files.

So, finally, here’s the process:

Step 1: Get a bot list

First off, you need a list of bots: Data you can use to identify the search engine crawlers based on their IP address, and on the user-agent identifier in your log file.

My favorite is Fantomaster’s SpiderSpy database. I’ve got no special affiliation with them. It’s just a rockin’ database that has yet to let me down.

Step 2: Get your log files

Now, you need to get your web server log files. Depending on how busy your site is, these files might be a couple million lines for a month, or a couple million for an hour’s worth of data.

The files can be quite large, so get them ZIPped before you download them.

Don’t tell me you can’t get at your logs!!!! You want to be advanced? Find a way. If your web host, IT person or webmaster won’t hand ’em over, torture can work:

But truthfully, bribery works better. I’ve gotten log files with as little as a ‘please’ and as much as a case of Mt. Dew. Whatever works. You need this data.

Try to get at least 1 week’s worth of data. If you have a huge, busy site and the log files are huge, the good news is that you can probably get enough data with just a day’s worth of logs.

Step 3: Filter the log files

Now, the log file contains every single ‘hit’ on your site: Every request for every file, from images to javascript to actual pages, by any browser. You don’t need that much stuff. You only want two datasets:

1. All visits from known search engine spiders.
2. All visits resulting in a 404 error code (page not found), a 302 response (temporary redirect) or a 500 response (augh, the software croaked) from referrers other than your own site or ‘direct’. That last bit is important. You want to find link opportunities.

For both of these datasets, you need to retrieve, at a minimum:

1. The IP address of the visiting browser/bot;
2. The user agent for that visitor;
3. The URL they tried to retrieve;
4. The response code your server delivered;
5. The total bytes transferred; and
6. The date and time of the attempt.

If you don’t know how to read a log file, check this article I wrote a while back.

I wrote a Python script that does all of this for me. If you know how to use the command line, you can download the script and try it for yourself. I make no guarantees, but it’s saved me a lot of time.

You can also use Adam Audette’s most excellent log filter script.

Or you can try importing the whole log file into Excel, space-delimited. But Excel will choke on any file bigger than 60-70,000 lines. You’ll likely need to learn one of the following:

• Some form of SQL database, like MySQL. Then you can import a huge log file and run queries against it.
• Excel’s datasource query tools. Then you can (arguably) query the log file directly (maybe).
• NoSQL-style databases, which still twist my frontal lobe a bit, but are faster than stink.

Regardless, generate the two datasets.

Then pull those into whatever tool you want to use. Excel usually works for me at this point, because the filtered dataset is smaller. On to step 4.

Step 4: Check for image problems

I usually start my analysis by looking for problems with image indexation. Filter your list for Google or MSN’s imagebots. Then look for 404 or other errors:

Bam. Easy, quick fixes for image indexation.

You can also look for repeated transfers of smaller images:

Those are likely imagebots wasting time to access navigation buttons and such. Find those, and set them to ‘304’ status, meaning ‘unchanged’. Or find another way to tell bots to skip them. Step 5 is where we get to the really nerdgasmic stuff, though.

Step 5: Check for crawl budget and bandwidth use

Here’s the really good stuff, though: I want to see if Google’s wasting crawl budget and efficiency on crappy URLs, bad redirects and such. So, I go back to my same Excel sheet and try a quick look, filtering just for Googlebot. Then I filter out clicks from things like PPC ads, so I get a good look at important urls.

OK, first thing is we’ve got session IDs getting crawled. That’s duplicate content and wasted budget. Plus, they’re 302-redirecting somewhere else. That’s probably a well-intended fix that’s causing even more problems:

Next, UTM codes are in links, somewhere, and they’re getting crawled, which is undoubtedly creating duplicate content:

And here’s the thing: None of this stuff shows up in Google Webmaster Tools. What the hell?!!! Googlebot is crawling them, so we know it’s wasting time, and that we’re spending crawl budget on these links.

You never would’ve found this stuff without going into the log file. So nyah.

Step 6: Find links quick

OK, now I’ll jump to links. Easiest way to build links? Find the ones you have, but are broken.

Google Webmaster Tools helps a little. Bing helps a little. But not much.

So, I take my other script, which runs a report based on busted links, collecting the referrers and such. I pull that into Excel and again set up a filter, checking for broken links from edu sites:

I’ve got a great .edu link that’s broken?!! I’ll build some content at the target URL and get a great link in a few minutes.

Oh, and by the way – that link didn’t show up in Google or Bing webmaster tools.

Get to work

None of this stuff is sexy. No one’s going to call you an SEO ninja for doing it. But SEO is about lots of little details. You win at SEO with a tool belt, not a black belt. So put in the time to figure this stuff out. Or, end up on the asphalt.

Up to you.

Other stuff

• Hootsuite’s new analytics toolset
• 25 tips for building your own agency
• Trash the web sites: What Gawker Media (probably) said
• 11 signs you’re not ready to run your own company
• Groupon’s days are numbered
• Discounts: The vicodin of internet marketing
• Companies need tension: Avoiding the ‘you go’ effect.
• My SEO copywriting e-book – $7

Cool features include:

• Nice PDF report export;
• Basic branding: Put in your logo, contact info;
• Track Google Analytics against retweets;
• Track Facebook likes/unlikes all on one page;
• 'Quick analytics' looks at clicks on ow.ly traffic, Facebook response, Google Analytics data (these aren't new, but they're easier to find).

It's simple, elegant and easy to use. Here's a quick report I set up. I haven't used Ow.ly much, so you'll have to use your imagination a bit:

Other stuff

• 25 tips for building your own agency
• Trash the web sites: What Gawker Media (probably) said
• 11 signs you're not ready to run your own company
• Groupon’s days are numbered
• Discounts: The vicodin of internet marketing
• Companies need tension: Avoiding the ‘you go’ effect.
• My SEO copywriting e-book - $7

It's all [choose one: Black Hat SEOs, Google, Bing, gremlins]'s fault.

All SEOs are liars, so don't listen to what they say.

Don't bother arguing, because I'm a(n) [choose one: expert, guru, god, jedi] of [choose one: business, marketing, internet marketing, SEO, spouting manure].

This post inspired by an article I just read. I will not link to it. Or even mention the title. I don't mind these arguments. That's why I rarely weigh in. But if you're going to make broad, sweeping claims about a marketing strategy, do your damned research. Don't rely on 2 lousy case studies and one search result.

Other stuff

• 25 tips for building your own agency


• Trash the web sites: What Gawker Media (probably) said


• 11 signs you're not ready to run your own company


• Groupon’s days are numbered


• Discounts: The vicodin of internet marketing


• Companies need tension: Avoiding the ‘you go’ effect.


• My SEO copywriting e-book - $7

I do have experience with small agency cash flow. I guess these fit for any small business, but I know they work for me, and I’ve learned some hard lessons around all this:

1. Cash is king. Clients will offer you equity, barter, free product, services to be named later, etc. etc.. But the city utilities company, the landlord, and the grocery store generally prefer cash. So you need to collect cash first and foremost. Barter sounds lovely, and it’s useful to a point, but you’re going to need money in the bank. Especially if you have employees.
2. Get a retainer. When a client hires you, get at least 30% up front. For me, the smaller the contract, the larger the percentage. You want a $1000 consulting gig? 100% in advance, please. Unfortunately, the smaller contracts are the ones that most often end up in collections. So get a retainer payment.
3. Trust, but verify. If a client doesn’t want to pay a large retainer, and says you can trust them, then suggest the use of an escrow service. These services cost money, but they’re worth it if they keep everyone happy, and get you paid. If the client won’t do that, either, then don’t trust them. They may have the best of intentions, but right now, they don’t have the money.
4. Keep an artificial ‘floor’. Set a minimum amount you want in the bank. Then set that to the effective ‘zero’ for your account balance, so that you always have that buffer. Be realistic—sometimes it’s impossible to have a $50,000 buffer. But do keep a buffer. The one time you don’t will be the time one client pays late on purpose, another decides to ‘hold onto your invoices’, another fires their payables person, and the rest all go on vacation.
5. Don’t treat revolving credit like cash. Banks are evil. Get used to it. If you have a line of credit to keep yourself afloat, that’s fine. But pay it off every month. If you and I charged the same interest rates as banks do on month-to-month revolving lines of credit, we’d get sent to prison.
6. Stagger billing. Try billing some clients on the 1st of the month, others on the 15th. This smooths out cash flow.
7. Have a collections policy. At Portent, it goes like this: Everything is due net 30. At 31+, we start calling you. At 45+, we start calling you so often you think we’re that psycho ex-girl/boyfriend. At 60+, we may turn off your web site or stop other services. At 90+, we call a lawyer. People complain we don’t give them a break and we aren’t understanding. I believe that clients should be understanding that I am running a business, I have 27 people to pay, and need to be paid for the work I do.
8. Be nice. While we pursue late payors, we try to do it nicely. I tell my staff to be nice. If you don’t think they’re being nice, well, wait until it gets to 90 days and I get on the phone with you.
9. Don’t rely on contracts to save you. I went to law school. I can tell you that, in the end, people can screw you with or without an ironclad contract. And if it’s over $5000, are you really going to take them to court? Not if you’re doing a cost/benefits analysis. So be sure you understand your clients. Choose them carefully.
10. Remind people you exist. If there’s a big change in leadership, check in with everyone and make sure they know who you are.
11. Add 50% to any salary. When you hire an employee, add 50% to their salary. That’ll give you a reasonably accurate look at how much they’re going to cost you. Otherwise, you could be in for a nasty surprise at the end of the first few months.
12. Think about taxes. Oh god. The first year Portent earned a profit—1996—I didn’t account for my tax bill. I owed $15,000 at the end of the year. Luckily, I got the money and paid my tax bill on time. But it could’ve been an utter disaster. So make sure you account for your tax bill at the end of the year.

This may all sound pretty grim. It’s not. If you’re worrying about cash flow, you probably have cash flow. You’re succeeding. I break at least one of the above rules on a monthly basis. That’s OK. If you’re considering them then you’re automatically ahead of 95% of American businesses.

Oh, and never think you’re too big to fail.

Other stuff

• 25 tips for building your own agency


• Trash the web sites: What Gawker Media (probably) said


• 11 signs you're not ready to run your own company


• Groupon’s days are numbered


• Discounts: The vicodin of internet marketing


• Companies need tension: Avoiding the ‘you go’ effect.


• My SEO copywriting e-book - $7

But I can never seem to find it.

Here's what it needs to look like:

Why is that so hard?

If I'm missing something, let me know.

Other stuff

• 25 tips for building your own agency


• Trash the web sites: What Gawker Media (probably) said


• 11 signs you're not ready to run your own company


• Groupon’s days are numbered


• Discounts: The vicodin of internet marketing


• Companies need tension: Avoiding the ‘you go’ effect.


• My SEO copywriting e-book - $7

Yeah, I'm keeping the day job, don't worry.

Other stuff

• 25 tips for building your own agency
• Trash the web sites: What Gawker Media (probably) said
• 11 signs you're not ready to run your own company
• Groupon’s days are numbered
• Discounts: The vicodin of internet marketing
• Companies need tension: Avoiding the ‘you go’ effect.
• My SEO copywriting e-book - $7

1. Cash is king. Business 101, folks. Revenue is not cash flow. Income is not cash flow. Cash, in the bank, is what you need. I find the best business model is to make more money than you spend.
2. You are not a software company. Don’t try to run your agency like one. Whether you’re one person or one hundred, you have to be set up to handle multiple projects, priorities and goals at once.
3. You are serving clients. Clients often have these things called ‘questions’. They’ll want ‘answers’. Plan for interruptions, and be ready to respond fast. You need a sprint-and-pause workflow that will let you do that.
4. Document everything. At Portent we have a sort of knowledge base called the Fat Free Guide. It’s an internal blog that holds what we learn about SEO, PPC, client care, time management, analytics and business in general. It also includes step-by-step how we introduce new clients to Portent, how we run a typical project, etc.. We update it often, and try to keep it somewhat organized.
5. Reinforce learning. If someone comes to you with a question, and you know the answer is in your company’s knowledge base, ask them to go find the answer there. Don’t be a jerk about it. Just reinforce learning.
6. Teach all the time. Every 2-3 weeks we have a 1-hour training at Portent. You must—must—do the same. But there’s more to it than that. I would argue that one of your biggest jobs should eventually be teaching your team. I’m not there yet. But I hope to be.
7. Hire for brains, not skills. I’ve hired a lot of people. The ones who don’t make it are the ones who try to tell me they’re ‘experienced’. Hire people who are sharp. They’ll learn and grow with you.
8. Hire for honesty. There is no place in business for liars. If you think there is, you can leave now.
9. Hire the intellectually curious. You want folks who are enthused about learning.
10. Hire for emphathy/emotional intelligence. Someday, you’ll have a week where, if you talk to one more client, you’re going to rip off your clothes, run out of the office and stagger gibbering down Main Street. Before that happens, you’ll want people who can talk to clients for you. That requires smart, curious, honest people who also know how to listen.
11. Have a sense of mission. I don’t mean a mission statement. I mean that your business goal can’t just be ‘make more money’. Money’s great—it’s how we buy stuff. But it won’t keep you and your team motivated forever. I’m all about making people better communicators, and then teaching them to use that to improve their lives. What’s yours? Don’t worry if it seems corny. It is corny. It’s corny as hell. So’s wiping out polio because it hurts kids.
12. Root for the home team. Don’t forget you need to market to your own team, too. They need to know why your company is better than the one down the street: Because of them.
13. Delegate for efficiency, not for speed. It’s easy to hold onto tasks and projects because you know you can do it faster. While you can do it faster, you’re hurting your company’s efficiency. Your time is far too expensive. If you can successfully delegate and teach others on your team to perform the task instead, you’ve just invested in future efficiency. You can now focus on your core jobs.
14. [The next two are adapted from a book by Patrick Lencoini – The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive It’s worth a read.] Build a good leadership team. I don’t mean you have to go out and hire an executive team. I’ve never seen that work well. You know what happens when you hire an executive team? They come in and fire your ass. They bring their own biases, feelings about how things ‘should’ be done, and a desire to impose their own beliefs about a ‘right’ way to do things. That’s not what you need. You’re building your own company. Instead, build your leadership team from the inside. Encourage the folks who show leadership potential. Challenge them, and coach them. If they leave, shake their hands and feel good that you helped their career. But more likely they’ll stay because they’re getting to learn a ton. Those people become your leaders.
15. Foster organizational clarity. As soon as you hire 1 person, you’re going to end up with conflicts. You won’t agree on stuff. Companies live or die on their ability make decisions. That requires that everyone knows their job, who their boss is, and the sense of mission for the company. Those three things mean that: Decisions will be made and enforced; there’s accountability; there’s a fundamental belief that drives those decisions. This sounds really mushy, I know. I used to roll my eyes at it. Go ahead. Then do it anyway. Create an org chart with your first hire. Update it as necessary.
16. Manage the tug of war. There’s always a necessary tension between people at your company. That’s fine, as long as it’s in the open. Your job is to keep everyone in-bounds, as far as conduct, clarity and intelligent decision-making.
17. Don’t be the ‘cool’ parent. It’s really hard to be a boss. Sometimes you’re going to have to fire people, or criticize their work, or make an unpopular decisions. Then people look at you like you’re an asshole. Grow a spine.
18. Don’t be a psycho. On the other hand, you’re not Simon, either. Praise when someone’s praiseworthy. Criticize calmly, if you can.
19. Beware the stupidity ambush. Sometimes, there are days when everyone at the company, including you, will drink from the stupid fountain long and deep. You’ll totally lose it. It happens. Apologize and move on. (note – my leadership idol: Adama)
20. Pick a toolset and use it. There are some remarkable SEO toolsets out there: SEOMOZ, Majestic, RavenTools. Pick one and use it. Get your whole team using it. It will save you huge amounts of time.
21. Automate reporting. Reporting requires that you pull together tons of stuff. Traffic, rankings, link counts, etc.. It’s a pain in the ass. Automate it. Learn to use the import functions in Google Spreadsheets and/or Excel. Learn to use the APIs. If you use something like RavenTools you can automate your reports complete, and have ‘em e-mailed to you. That’s how you scale. Otherwise, you practically have to add a new person every freaking time you add a client.
22. Be nimble. But not too nimble. Outsource what you can. But in my book, you can’t outsource your best creative, quality link building, onsite SEO and such. You can outsource basic copywriting, if you don’t care about the quality. Depends on whether you someday want to have serious, big clients, or you’re content working for the Dunder Mifflins of the world. Your work will follow you around. Do it on the cheap, that’ll follow you, too. Outsource accounting. Outsource office cleaning. Competitive link research? I don’t think so. Link bait creation? Only if you’re an idiot.
23. Don’t fart in public. When a client rips you off (It’ll happen) you’re going to be really, really angry. Same goes for disagreements at the office. Be careful what you say on Facebook and Twitter.
24. Encourage your team to argue with you. If someone disagrees with you, let them have their say. Don’t ever stifle folks. They’ll provide perspective you could otherwise lose. Of course make sure they know it’s your prerogative to disregard their advice. That’s life.
25. Take it personally. Anyone who reads my blog knows this one: People will tell you business is nothing personal. Yeah, whatever. It’d damned well better be personal. Do you think Steve Jobs takes business personally? Bill Gates? Damn right they do.

Other stuff

• Trash the web sites: What Gawker Media (probably) said
• 11 signs you're not ready to run your own company
• Groupon’s days are numbered
• Discounts: The vicodin of internet marketing
• Companies need tension: Avoiding the ‘you go’ effect.
• Don’t be a literary prude: How to write with personality
• Buy my analytics e-book, will ya?

If you're going to Searchfest tomorrow (and you should be), come up to me and say 'hi'. I'll even bribe you to do it:

I'll be giving out 30 copies of my book, Conversation Marketing, for free. It's nice and small, easy to carry. And it's free. Did I mention that?

Gawker. Media.

They launched a new design for all their sites—LifeHacker, Gizmodo, etc.—a few weeks back. In doing so, they reduced their sites from great information sources to a whirling black hole of bad. I started writing a long, technical rant, then realized lots of others have done so.

Instead, I looked at the web site, carefully, and tried to imagine the instructions management sent to the team in the first project memo. Here goes:

Memorandum
To: Design & editorial & development
Re: New site design

• I don’t want to be a blog any more! I’m tired of people calling us a blog. We are a premium online publisher. Remove anything blog-ish, like navigation.
• Show single story on the home page. Conceal other recent stories far below the fold. Show only the ‘hottest’ story, since that’s the one getting the clicks.
• Put an apparently random list of recent stories on the right under ‘latest’.
• Make sure the ‘latest’ bar doesn’t scroll with the window, but the left-hand branding bar does, leaving visitors wondering if two different coders build the left- and right-hand columns. Our users want variety.
• Someone told me our site has RSS. That sounds really bad. If we want to recover, we have to remove all obvious links to RSS. Make it so.
• I want visitors to be able to use the j + k keys on their keyboards to browse. I hear that’s hot.
• Be sure to use AJAX. I hear it’s cool. Not sure when they stopped being a cleanser, but we need it on our site.
• Fire everyone who mentions SEO.
• Follow Google’s instructions on how to set up our site with AJAX. They like us, I’m sure they’d never suggest anything that would hurt our traffic.
• Bigger ads.
• Change the layout between pages. Put the headline at the top about 60% of the time. Put paragraph text at the top, but make it really big, another 20% of the time. You choose the rest.
• Use every inch of space! None of this whitespace crap. I want people’s eyeballs to explode out of their heads, bounce off their monitors and then land back in their sockets. That’s publishing baby!

Thank you,

Your bosses

This is not actually from Gawker. I made it up. Don’t sue me. Or if you do, send me a long letter so I can scan it and post it on my blog.

Why I wrote this

See, this is the kind of thing that drives me up the freaking wall. Gizmodo.com, one of Gawker’s biggest sites, is seeing their pageviews down 15-20% over the last month.

It’s actually likely a lot worse. But since their site no longer loads pages, per se, I’m taking the 30% drop everyone’s reporting and adjusting it for that change.

Pages indexed by Bing? Down 65%. But that’s OK. Bing’s only, what, 20% of search (that’s sarcasm).

Who gets screwed by that?

The writers do.

Either:

A: The Gawker redesign is uninformed decision making on a scale we haven’t seen since they decided to use the cheaper rivets on the Titanic; or

B: They are privy to some great mystery of publishing that I’ve missed. Something about how creating a user-unfriendly, search-unfriendly, hard-to-use, overly complex site is the path to publishing success.

Now I’ll probably hear from Gawker staff posing as users telling me they love the site.

Sigh. I’m really, really, really, really tired of watching publishers self-destruct online.

Update: Real numbers

Image from Sitemeter

Other stuff

• 11 signs you're not ready to run your own company
• Groupon’s days are numbered
• Discounts: The vicodin of internet marketing
• Companies need tension: Avoiding the ‘you go’ effect.
• Don’t be a literary prude: How to write with personality
• Buy my analytics e-book, will ya?