I'm here to dispel a few myths. There are lots of other Twitter mythbusting posts out there, so I decided to put my own spin on it. If you buy into any of these myths, and demonstrate by inflicting your beliefs upon me, I will unfollow you so fast your Obama particles will travel back in time:

I care where you're eating right now.
Actually, I won't unfollow you for Tweeting that you're at the neighborhood deli. But it's just not something that'll change my life. Confine your Tweets to interesting links, news or funny/deep observations. Daily routine isn't necessary. Revised per @toddhooper and @mediafortemktg: I do care if it's a really great restaurant.

The world needs another Miracle System To Generate Money Online Without Lifting A Finger.
Send me a message selling one of those, and I'll lift a finger. Then I'll unfollow you.

Folks want to see your underwear/cleavage/other unmentionables in your avatar.
We don't. If we do, we'll ask, OK?

It's cute to follow/unfollow/follow/unfollow/follow someone.
I'll actually follow you back, if you do this. That way, I can find your house and yank your cable modem so hard it flies through the wall at relativistic speed, leaving only a distinct popping sound as air rushes in to replace it. It may seem like this is a neat tactic to boost your Twitter rank or whatever, but it's really just a great way to irritate people.

People want automated direct messages saying "Thanks for the follow! :) ;) :>" when they follow you.
No.

Once I sign up for Twitter, Good Things will happen.
I sympathize on this one. From what you hear on the media, Twitter will cure cancer, keep men from peeing on toilet seats and provide unlimited clean energy. Sadly, it's a lot of work to get even a little bit of benefit from Twitter. You need to build your audience over time, for that One Time - a crisis, a success, something else - you really need to speak to them all. Then it pays off.

People on Twitter don't care about spelling.
I just saw a Tweet that made me realize how much I do care about spelling. I unfollowed them. If you're using Twitter professionally, or if folks you work with are on Twitter, you want to act professionally too. Use a spell checker, at least.

If you set up a Twitter account, it means your brand/company/organization is cool.
Yeaaaaah, sorry. If you set up a Twitter account and send me cool information, or help fix my problem with your product, then you're cool.

"Autofollow 55,000 people on Twitter, and then spam them with product offers" is a good business plan.
Not unless you've invented a way to punch people in the face over the internet, and you're sending me a free trial.

OK, I'm done. What Twitter myths drive you crazy?

When will CMOs understand that branding is not your name, or your logo? If you're a channel on my television, then your brand is your programming. When you go from FireFly and Battlestar Galactica to Warehouse 13 and Sand Serpents (WTH?), the prettiest logo and the pithiest name in the world isn't going to save you.

I just looked into 'Sand Serpents'. The summary (quoted from the SyFy web site) is: "Danger lurks beneath a platoon of American soldiers in the Afghan desert - giant man eating worms!". That DOES NOT HELP ME IMAGINE GREATER, guys.

Your brand is the sum total of your behavior, your audience's perception of you, and the quality of your product. That gets wrapped up in a pretty package called marketing, which induces potential fans to tear off the wrapping and take a look.

If your behavior is bad, your audience knows you're over, and your product is getting worse by the moment, using nicer wrapping paper won't help.

I had a whole three-page rant thought up about this. But this story tells itself...

[ economic perspectives interview 6.29.09 ]

The main topic: The book, Web Marketing All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies.

Two important notes:

1. Elizabeth and I wrote five of the sections of the book. The rest of the book was written by John Arnold (also the editor), Marty Dickinson and Michael Becker.
2. I wasn't actually talking through a huge wad of cotton. I just have to say that. Not sure what the hell was going on with my phone or the sound or whatever.

You can read my timeline here, or read the media's take on the whole mess here.

The crisis

Among those several hundred sites were 20-30 of our clients. Suddenly, we had no 'state of the art' data center, they had no web sites, we had no fast way to repoint them, and we had no idea when they'd be back. The world (my world, at least) was suddenly a very uncertain place.

So, we had a few choices: We could run in circles, screaming incoherently; we could hold our breaths; or we could help our clients get the word out.

I tried option 1 and 2 first, but after the first 2 hours, I was exhausted and oxygen-deprived, so I moved on to 3.

Social media to the rescue

Any client who had a presence on Facebook, Twitter or another social media portal could immediately let folks know:

And, the moment the site was back (26 excruciating hours later), they could again send an update:

Other clients were able to use Twitter and LinkedIn to the same effect.

The lesson: Build your social media profile!

Yes, I hate the phrase 'social media'. But you need the medium. Even if you can't think of a single way to generate an ROI; can't understand what the fuss is about; think all social media users are teenagers, you must build your presence.

• Put a link to your company's Facebook fan page on every page of your web site. If you don't have a fan page, create one. It takes about, oh, 3 minutes.
• Put a link to your company's Twitter account on your site, too.
• If there's a unique online community for your industry, create a presence there and link to that, too.
• In order confirmation e-mails, include those links.
• In presentations, include 'em, too.

Never mind the marketing potential. That one time you absolutely need a way to reach your audience, but can't do it via your web site, your pre-made social media audience will be there, waiting for news.

That makes social media an ideal crisis communications tool.

I should also point out that the news media had no clue what was going on for the first 4-5 hours of the crisis. We finally figured out the problem by piecing together Twitter posts from other folks.

In 'Free: The Future of a Radical Price', Chris Anderson says 'information wants to be free' and goes on a utopian tirade about how wonderful things will happen as free information hits critical mass.

Mistake 1: It doesn't add up

First, since I'm a picky History major: Anderson interprets Stewart Brand's original quote, but something doesn't add up:

On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.

Brand isn't saying that all information should be free. He's saying it wants to be free. And that it wants to be expensive at the same time. Anderson takes that quote, deletes analyzes it in a way that makes sense (that there's a tension between free and expensive information) and then goes on talking about how free will win out in the end. That's where our opinions differ. A lot.

I expanded on my explanation here a bit. He didn't so much ignore or delete as bob and weave a bit. I still don't agree with his analysis though. Ultimately 'expensive' must win out over 'free' or you end up with marginal quality.

Mistake 2: Information isn't self-replicating

While information may want to be free, intelligence doesn't. Talent doesn't. And hard work by intelligent, competent people doesn't want to be free.

Information doesn't spring out of the ground. It's created by people. And good information is created by good people.

Mistake 3: Over-generalizing

Marginal information may want to be free.

Crappy information may want to be free.

All other information has value.

Example: I write this blog to attract clients and boost my soggy and unpredictable ego. It's not a humanitarian exercise. If it didn't pay, I wouldn't do it.

What's really happening

This is where all you 'free' fans say "Whoa, Ian, you're an idiot. Look what happened to the music industry".

The music industry isn't collapsing because music 'wants to be free'. It's collapsing because lots of people are stealing, and music executives are reactionary nubwits. Caught in the middle are talented musicians, who work hard to create the tunes we love, only to have them stolen and placed on a file sharing site by a sweaty-palmed 12 year old in Terre Haute.

Newspapers are collapsing because they didn't keep up. It's not some sociological phenomenon. It's an economic catastrophe of the 1st order.

The mantra that Anderson hopes will sell lots of books (oh the irony) is the product of one generation of professionals who didn't understand that the model was changing, and another generation who think looting is OK.

Free sucks. If you want something valuable, pay for it. If you don't want to pay, don't whine at me when you're misinformed, sick of lousy music and spending more time trying to find accurate information than you do reading it.

How to fix it

Want to fix the information economy?

Find a way to separate distribution from value. Create a way to sell songs for $.59 that lets me play them on all my devices. Take advantage of abundant distribution and technology to make information a more profitable proposition.

Develop better compression algorithms. Find ways to get the same song onto any device, from a cell phone to a CD player, and bill me instantly. At that point, stealing is too much work.

Make distribution more and more efficient, so you can sell higher volumes at a lower price and still pay the creators what they're worth.

Declaring information should be 'free' is short-sighted and unsustainable. Make information free and you'll get what you pay for.

Hypocrisy, anyone?

What really strikes me most, though, is the hypocrisy. Chris, practice what you preach. Why not give your book away, online, for $0.00? After all, information wants to be free...

I totally screwed up on this one. Chris will be releasing digital versions of the book, for free, over the next two weeks. You can read his book online, for free, here.

Think about that when you decide to launch that blog, or create a newsletter, or set up a Twitter account.

You know me - I rarely discourage folks from trying stuff. If you don't test and try, you can't make any progress. But you have to really try. You have to go into a project with your eyes open and a genuine desire to succeed.

Approach it like you're looking at that puppy in the window:

When you bring it home, who's going to have to take care of it? Is anyone else at your company going to help out?

Do you have enough money for the vet bills? Do you have a budget?

How long will it take to housebreak? How long will it take for your new marketing project to pay off?

How long before your partner throws the dog out? How much time do you have to make the marketing project pay off?

Are you a Great Dane person looking at a toy poodle? Does this marketing project you're considering fit your organization's personality? If you're a fast-moving place, maybe Twitter is better than a blog, for example.

I'll try to come up with an even more stretched analogy for Monday...

It's just that they make it so easy.

The folks at Bing have decided to buy pay per click ads on Google Adwords. Not a bad idea.

But they need to learn a bit about phrase and exact match, I think:

And my favorite:

OK, I'll stop. I'm supposed to be on vacation, after all...

Related Posts

• Bing Goes Bonk: Marketing lessons from the search wars
• Aggregation Aggravation, Part 1

The idea: Provide internet marketing advice, in small bites, at a low price.

I've designed a landing page, created the templates, etc..

And I hate it. The landing page is nasty. Horrible. It makes me cry.

I've gotten fantastic advice from other marketers. And I've used quite a bit of it. Problem is, they gave me advice from the perspective of super-experienced internet marketers.

I need advice from potential consumers. That's where you come in. If you read this blog looking for little nuggets of advice you can use to improve your site, then please, take a look at the 1Thing page.

Then, comment below: Do you understand the service? What would make you buy it or not buy it? What do I need to say to make the benefit clear as day?

In exchange, I'll send you 1 piece of 1Thing advice, for nuthin'.

Google's made a lot of noise recently about their newfound ability to crawl javascript and links that are built into a javascript.

Last week I saw a 500% increase in 'page not found' errors in one client's Google Webmaster Tools. The links all looked like this:

At first, I didn't make the connection between that and Google's improved javascript prowess.

After looking at the client's pages, though, the only place the guilty link appears is in a javascript:

In this context, the forward slash ('/') means 'www.investmentnews.com', so the text above gives you 'www.investmentnews.com/10020708'.

The only problem: That is not a link, Google!

It's just a javascript 'bug' for the client's analytics package, Hitbox. It tells Hitbox to record the pageview with a shorter URL. But it is not a link. No visiting browser would interpret it as one, either.

Anyone else seeing this kind of behavior?

Google folks, any chance of verifying and addressing this?

Thanks,

Your servant/slave/supplicant
Ian

Related Posts

• Google 2009: The Painful Details
• SEO 2009: Adapt or Die
• Analytics Apples and Oranges

The session is at 3:30 PM, and is titled "Integrating Email, Search, Social into the Entire Online Marketing Channel".

Never mind me, though. Other folks on the panel include Anne kennedy of Beyond Ink and joblr.net, Blake Cahill from Visible Technologies, Jason Gan from Cisco and Steve Gelen as the moderator.

I didn't write the description, so I don't have to suffer from whatever hubris-inspired revenge the gods would inflict for calling myself a "World's leading expert". Here's the whole description:

You can register for OMS Seattle here.

Bonus Round

1. I use the phrase "social media" regularly (I lick 9-volts to atone).
2. Your popular idea is dumb.
3. Your unpopular idea is fantastic.
4. You did everything right. It just didn't work.
5. We did everything right. It just didn't work.

So far we've established that:

1. Search engines used to be indexes, where you go search, then toddle off to the site you want. Now, they're becoming aggregators, where you go search, then stick around to read more before they decide which site to visit.
2. That's a bad thing, if you practice stereotypical, grab-high-rankings-and-damn-the-rest SEO. Which very few good SEOs do.
3. It's a good thing if you can handle the idea that SEO is part of marketing.

So now what? Do I just abandon you, adrift in your little lifeboat, bobbing on the tide? Come now! This is Ian Lurie you're talking about. I can barely keep my mouth shut when I'm asleep.

Like it or not, here comes some advice:

Learn about Microformats

Microformats are small bits of code that tell browsers, search engines and other software more about the information on a page. For example, I might have an address on the page, like this:

A search engine might crawl that and take an educated guess that it's an address. But there's nothing structural that says "this is an address".

Enter microformats. Add a little additional code, and you get something more like this:

Point a piece of software like Optimus at a page that uses that code, and it immediately finds the tagged information:

To you, that's no big deal. But a piece of software sees that and swoons.

Learn Microformats. Search engines don't consistently support them yet, but they're coming on fast. Visit Microformats.org to learn all the cool things you can do.

Read the Bing Whitepaper

I know. Yawn. Read it anyway. There's some great insight in this whitepaper regarding how Bing builds rankings, how it works with Flash, and what Microsoft's intent is (aside from world domination):

Download the whitepaper here

Change your priorities

Ian's First Rule Of Marketing Failure: On the average web site build and launch, clients budget 1 hour of writing for every 20 hours of design.

That used to be merely misguided. Now it's suicide. The typical website visitor pattern used to be:

1. Do a search.
2. Find the top 3 rankings. Click one.
3. In the first 2-3 seconds decide if you're staying, based on the look and feel.
4. Then do boring stuff like reading.

With the rise of aggregator-style features, though, the new visitor pattern will be:

1. Do a search.
2. Find the top 5-10 rankings.
3. Spend 10-20 seconds previewing to find the site you want.
4. Click through to that site.
5. In the first 2-3 seconds decide if you're staying, based on the look and feel.
6. Then do boring stuff like reading.

You need to change your priorities. Content quality is going to play a far larger role in clickthru. No more skimping on description tags, and no more cutting and pasting content from that print piece you did for a trade show back in 1999.

Learn good web copywriting, and focus half your project budget on it.

Keep up

Read blogs like the SERoundtable and SEOMOZ to keep abreast of changes in the industry.

Or, be lazy and wait for me to catch up. I'll write about it here.

That's all folks

One thing I can guarantee: The trend towards aggregation will not stop. Search engines are fighting over visits and searches by a finite audience. The logical next step is to fight for that audience's limited attention span. That requires aggregated content.

Previously in the series

Aggravation
Controlling what shows up (as much as you can)
Making Folks Click: Content's back, baby!
Opting Out
Microformats, sorting and other nightmares

This post is blessedly short, after my last 3 epistles.

Let's say you don't want that page preview (called a 'Document Preview' by Microsoft, by the way) to show up in the Bing results:

Maybe you want to preserve the mystery of it all, or you have a lousy page preview.

You can tell Bing not to create a preview two ways:

By putting this code in <head> element:

<meta name="msnbot" content="nopreview" />

Or by putting this in your robots.txt file:

x-robots-tag: nopreview

The first method will just block the document preview for that one page. Use it, and Bing will not show a document preview for that page.

The second will block it for your entire site. Use it, and Bing will not show a document preview for any page on your site.

Not recommended

I don't recommend using these tags, by the way. If every other listing on the page has a document preview, and yours doesn't, it'll cost you clicks. You're better off focusing on clickability, instead.

Previously in the series

Aggravation
Controlling what shows up (as much as you can)
Making Folks Click: Content's back, baby!
Opting Out
Microformats, sorting and other nightmares

In a world of aggregators, you can still get visitors to your web site. It's all about clickability. But before I get to the details, I have to say...

Told ya so! I've always said SEO and internet marketing are about marketing basics. And now these fundamentals are even more important: You need a good message and great copy just to get folks to click to your site. Mwahahahaha. My evil dreams of an old-school marketing smackdown are coming true!

K. I'm done.

Now, we'll talk about...

Clickability

The best SEOs have known about clickability for a long time. It's the real reason they care about 'search friendly' urls and meta description tags: An easy-to-read URL and a great description tag will get more folks to click on your ranking.

A clickable search listing will:

• Clearly describe what I'm going to see when I click;
• Make me want to see it;
• Inspire confidence in the site to which I'll go.

Here's an example: Today, I installed Windows 7 on my Mac using a program called Parallels. First, though, I wanted to see if it was possible, so I searched for 'Windows 7 Parallels OS X'. Here's what I saw:

A glance at the Parallels listing to implies I can't do it. It sure isn't encouraging. Luckily another site does a better job selling me on Parallels than Parallels.com does. As you learned yesterday, Google grabbed the title and description tags on SimpleHelp and built a search snippet I could sink my teeth into.

After visiting the SimpleHelp site I not only learned I could install Windows 7, I bought an upgrade to Parallels. Guys, you owe SimpleHelp a commission.

That's clickability in action.

On Google and Yahoo!, it's easy (sort of)

On Google, you 'just' need a well crafted title and description tag. Then you need to hope Googlebot grabs those and not some other randomness.

Note that the SimpleHelp site doesn't actually have a description tag. Luckily, Google grabbed the first relevant copy, which is a darned good description.

If Parallels wants to get more OS X geeks installing their software, they could write a how-to for installing Windows 7 using Parallels 4. Then give it a clear title tag like:

Installing Windows 7 on OS X Using Parallels 4.0

And add a description tag that reads:

Run Windows 7 on your Mac (with no reboot!) with Parallels 4.0. Click here to read step-by-step installation and setup instructions.

The title tag tells me what I'm going to see. The description tag clarifies it a bit and adds the 'with no reboot' - that's a cool feature. And the lack of phrases like "don't upgrade" and "opens beta signup" inspires confidence.

Yahoo!'s similar, if a bit more quirky thanks to the Yahoo! Directory. See yesterday's post for ways to force Yahoo! to ignore the directory.

Bing Will Make You Market Yourself

Bing throws adds a variable with their page preview, which it pulls right from the copy on your page:

Bing uses the first copy it finds on the page. That means (gasp) that you need to start with a clear description of your product (or service) and its benefits.

Once again, SimpleHelp carries the day:

They're number 6 on the page, but I'll bet they get more clicks than the #2-5 listings, which are mostly from the Parallels site and have previews like 'To Install Windows to the VM using CD/DVD file image'.

The SimpleHelp site gets a great preview because Bing grabbed the first sentence on the page as the search snippet (since there was no description tag) and then continued on down the page for the page preview:

Bing requires fantastic marketing copy. You must - must - get right to the point: In the first 2-3 sentences on your page, state what you're going to do for the reader and how.

And those first few sentences must:

• Clearly describe what I'm going to see;
• Make me want to see it;
• Inspire confidence in the site.

Sound familiar?

Deja Vu All Over Again

The best sales letters have always used this principle. Grab the reader with your headline and first paragraph. Then explain the details.

So get retro. Put on a nice smoking jacket, read some David Ogilvy and learn how to market the old-fashioned way: With great copy. Your SEO will be the better for it.

Previously in the series

Aggravation
Controlling what shows up (as much as you can)
Making Folks Click: Content's back, baby!
Opting Out
Microformats, sorting and other nightmares

In today's installment, I'll give you my best educated guess as to how search engines (particularly Bing) decide what appears where in the search results, and how to control what they publish.

This matters a lot more than it used to. As search engines move from indexes to aggregators, clickability will be as important as rankings.

What Goes Where in Bing Search Results

Microsoft's new Bing is closest to becoming an aggregator, and therefore deserves the most attention. Yeah, their market share is tiny. That could change. Or Google could decide to copy their page preview. Either way, you'll want to understand how Bing builds its page preview.

Bing grabs the search title and snippet from the title tag and meta description tag, like most search engines. And, like most search engines, it'll go elsewhere to find the title and snippet if you don't give it one, so it pays to have a descriptive title tag, and an enticing title tag. In this result, AirFreeTires.com looks pretty good. BicycleEverything.com less so, because they've put keywords into their description tag:

Not so exciting, so far. But roll over a listing, and you get a preview of the page itself. That preview lets your potential customers read a bit of your site without ever clicking:

Bing is grabbing the text copy from the first chunk of non-heading, non-linking text on the page:

It even skipped past links and headings. Clever monkey.

The phone number seems to be pulled from the ether, or from Live Local search results. You can flip a coin on that one. I'd love to say microformats play into it, but we use microformats on our site and our phone number doesn't show up. Probably all those nasty Microsoft posts I've done.

Bing creates the 'Also on this page' links list from any text-based primary navigation on the page:

Image-based or sloppily-coded navigation gets the cold shoulder.

It shocks me, but this makes a certain amount of sense. If Bing builds previews this way, then you need to:

• State your selling proposition right away in your sales copy.
• Use clear, text-based navigation.

More details about this tomorrow.

Those Other Two

Oh, yeah, Google and Yahoo!. Them. The other 91% of the market.

Well, the good news is, they aren't doing this kind of page previewing yet. But they will, trust me.

For now, it's pretty simple: They build their search snippets with the title tag and description meta tag.

Except for two exceptions:

Google may use your Open Directory site description instead of your description tag. Getting listed in Open Directory is a Kafkaesque nightmare comprised of 10 minutes typing in your site's information and then 10 years of waiting for someone to actually review and approve it. You do not want your Open Directory Project listing in your search results. Luckily, you can tell Google not to use your ODP listing with this code:

<meta name="robots" content="noodp" />

Yahoo!, on the other hand, may use your Yahoo! Directory listing. Yahoo! Directory is like ODP, only you pay $300 to get your listing submitted. More accurately, someone who worked at your company 5 years ago paid, then lost the e-mail and password to edit the listing and quit in a huff over fridge cleaning duties.

Chances are you can't get in to edit the listing, and calling Yahoo! is impossible (unless you want to hear the CEO claim they're not a search engine) so poof, you're screwed. Yahoo! has planned for this, though, with their own version of the NOODP meta tag. Put this on every page of your site, and you're once again in control of your destiny:

<meta name="robots" content="noydir" />

Phew.

So, the rules are pretty clear here, too:

• Write a title tag that makes sense. Bicycle Tires Tires for Bicycles Tires Tires Bicycles is not a good title tag, no matter what ranking it gets you.
• Put some thought into your meta description tag. A well-written tag could get you clicks you'd otherwise lose.

Again, more on this tomorrow.

Why All This Matters

Ignore what goes where, and you may end up with unclickable search listings.

Here's a great example of a high ranking with poor clickability, thanks to Bing's new page preview. This site engaged in a little keyword spam, and put a bunch of keywords at the very top of the page:

So their Bing page preview looks like this:

Whatever 'expert' gave this fellow SEO advice got him a nice #2 spot on Bing. And a listing that will chase everyone away. Congrats. All of the work this site owner put into gaining that #2 position is being marginalized by a lousy preview.

That's all folks

That's it for today. I've skipped stuff like product search, universal search and other fine things because I've written about them before, and isn't this post long enough?

Previously in the series

Aggravation
Controlling what shows up (as much as you can)
Making Folks Click: Content's back, baby!
Opting Out
Microformats, sorting and other nightmares

Search engines are scraping content from your sites and embedding it in their own search results (aggregating). And they're doing it more and more.

Microsoft's Bing is the latest example of search engines as aggregators, rather than indexes. Go to Bing.com, search for 'LA Lakers', and you get a list of results. Roll over a search result, though, and you get a detailed look at the content on the listed site:

Go to any major search engine and you can get all sorts of information without leaving the search results page:

• Product prices;
• Sports scores;
• Weather reports;
• Stock prices;
• News abstracts.

That's convenient. It's also a major headache for us internet marketers: We can no longer measure the true effect of search engine optimization.

If your content is included on a search results page, and a searcher reads it but doesn't click through to your site, is that still good for you? Probably. They saw your brand, learned a bit about you, and may be more likely to act next time.

But how do we measure that?

Even worse: What if your site is dependent on advertising to earn a living? Your content shows up in the rankings. Folks love what you write. But they don't have to click any more. They can stay on the search engine and review to their heart's content.

I thought about this all weekend, picturing Steve Ballmer and Eric Schmidt cackling wickedly at the Big CEO Bar: "MWahahahahaha now we can own the web! No one will ever leave!"

Then they start arguing whose search engine is better, and the evening ends with Ballmer slashed by a broken beer bottle and Schmidt going to the ER with a chair in his forehead. But I digress...

Search engines are clearly in transition. If the trend continues, they'll provide more and more reason for visitors to stay on their pages, and less and less reason to visit your site.

Count on it. Particularly when it's clear Bing is eating up Yahoo!'s market share, at least for the moment.

The end is nigh. Pack up your web site. We're doomed! DOOMED I TELL YOU!

There's hope, but you have to wait

Or maybe not. Over the next few days, I'll talk about ways to market in an aggregator-driven internet, instead of an index-driven one.

Here's what I'll discuss:

Previously in the series

Aggravation
Controlling what shows up (as much as you can)
Making Folks Click: Content's back, baby!
Opting Out
Microformats, sorting and other nightmares

Just don't look at the code:

Holy ugly code, Batman. This code makes Google's look good.

It looks like this was created with Visual Studio or something. Oh, wait.

If you're a small business owner, or even a big one, and you go looking for an SEO expert, it's hard to tell the real deal from the total fraud. I've outed other firms before and used their promises and tactics as an illustration of what not to do. Now, thanks to a couple of SEO practitioners I just found here in Seattle, I can give you more signs you should run screaming from an SEO 'pro':

The keyword machine gun

If they've written stuff that looks like this then they're a danger to themselves and others:

Wow. I thought I was a keyword whore.

I mean, never mind the fact that this reads like a computer developed a horrific case of the hiccups. Do you really think search engines will accept this as OK?

The keyword machine gun technique may work for a day or two. But it's a faulty tactic that will land anyone with a long-term business plan in trouble. Avoid it.

That used-car smell

If their carefully-crafted sales copy reads like a 2nd-grade grammar quiz:

...then it doesn't matter what they're "given" away. RUN.

That kind of writing is almost certainly a precursor to the used car lot-style sales pitch:

...that is wrong on so many levels I'm not sure where to begin. Own the 1st three pages of Google? Lock competitors out of the search engines? Dude, what the hell are you smoking? Are you trying to tell me you can get my business to control the top 30 spots on Google, for every important search phrase?

Yes they are. And no, they can't do it. No matter how many times you repeat 'SEO Seattle' in a paragraph, you still only grab 1 spot.

If you feel like you're buying from a guy in a plaid jacket who swears his grandmama last owned this car, flee the scene.

Automatic weapons

The same consultant is connected with another person who purports to offer 'automated web marketing systems'. Cough.

I'm not sure what they mean by 'automated', so I won't go too far. But anyone claiming any automated technique for SEO should make you suspicious. And in case the folks in question post a comment below saying "Our automated stuff is for social media, not SEO": Automated social media marketing is even worse.

Incompetence

Ah, now we get to brass tacks. If the SEO 'guru' you're reading about can't do SEO for themselves, that's the clearest sign you'll be wasting your money.

If, for example, the guru's web site has no title tags, that's a bad sign:

See where it says 'Mozilla Firefox'? If the page had a title tag, it would say something else. Firefox defaults to its own brand name when no title tag exists.

So an SEO expert left out one of the most important elements of on-page SEO.

"Hmmm. That can't be right," I said, "I must be mis-interpreting some super-secret SEO tactic."

So, I viewed the source code to see what's up:

Alas. No title tag. And no description tag, which of course means no sensible search snippet in the search results. And a doctype declaration for XHTML when the page is all table-driven and barely compliant with HTML 3.

If you're not an SEO pro, these may seem like silly details to you. But good SEO is driven by lots of 'silly' details that, when you put them together, spell success or failure for your campaign. And a consultant should know that.

I'm angry

I really am. I don't care what kind of business you're trying to open: Car repair, copywriting or SEO. If you're opening it, you had damned well better know what you're doing.

Otherwise, you're ripping people off. You're committing fraud when you try to tell unsuspecting customers that you can help them. Because you can't. And you know it.

It makes my blood boil when I think that these guys have likely taken money from small business owners who have little enough as it is.

Go learn your profession before you practice it. Otherwise you're no better than a thief.

I got beat up a lot in elementary school.

Cough.

ANYWAY, writing uses a part of your brain that's like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the easier it gets. Here are the exercises I do, every day, to help improve my writing:

1. Sit down at a computer. Start a stopwatch. For 4 minutes, write down everything that comes to mind. Don't hesitate/edit/delete or otherwise not write something because it's "not a good idea". When you're done, do what you like with the result: Delete it, or save it so you can show it to your therapist later on. Skills developed: Smooth writing flow; brainstorming; typing (if you need it). Total time required: 05:00
2. Do a quick role-play: Look out your window. With the first person/animal you see, write down, in 2 sentences or less, what they're thinking. No, I'm not asking you to be a psychic. Write down what you think they're thinking. Skills developed: Audience analysis; imagination; smooth writing flow. Total time required: 3 minutes.
3. Take one e-mail or other document you wrote yesterday and rewrite it. Pick something short, unless you feel masochistic. Take no more than 5 minutes. Most important: Make it at least 10% shorter, while still communicating the same message. Skills developed: Editing; active voice (it'll happen); economy of words. Total time required: 5 minutes.
4. Learn a new word. Sounds totally corny, I know, but more words = more ammo. Plus, you can tell someone they're 'avuncular' and leave them wondering if you just insulted them or not. Total time required: 2 minutes.

I've seriously done all 4 of these exercises almost daily for 20 years. I'm definitely a better writer for it.

Try it: Do all 4 exercises for 2 weeks. If you aren't writing more easily, and better, at the end of those 2 weeks, you can write nasty comments below:

Awwww, who's a cute widdle puddy tat. Yes you are. Yes you are you widdle cutie puddy tat...

Slash. Bite. Garrrgghhhhhh... (insert death rattle here)

This gratuitous cuteness, followed by horrific violence, is brought to you by Google. Virginia Nussey of Bruce Clay pointed out a statement by Matt Cutts at SMX Advanced today that shows even the cutest little search engines will eventually become meat eaters.

According to Matt Cutts, Google's going to change their nofollow rules so that it soon becomes a less effective SEO tool. You can read the details in Virginia's post.

This is a big change. I won't go all geeky about it. But it's a major, major reversal, and a lot of folks who depended on nofollow for their SEO strategy are going to be sad.

The lesson? Google is a big corporation. They exist to make money. Not to make SEOs happy, or even remotely un-depressed.

We all depend on Google, to some extent, to drive traffic to our sites and build our businesses.

We have little choice.

Just remember that Google can't escape its nature as a profit-seeking animal.

Remember that when you decide whether Google's rules are ethical guidelines.

Remember that when you decide whether to try to game the algorithm (bad idea).

And really, really remember that when you get frustrated with your SEO because you're not progressing fast enough, and you just read this great article about how sculpting this or tricking that will move you up in the rankings.

Treat Google like that lion cub: A great addition to the household. And a fast-growing predator that may bite you in half later on. Not evil, but not terribly interested in what you want, either.

K, it's been a long day, and I'm not coherent, so I'll stop babbling.

Now, I've not only written about it, but I just spent 3 days building a tool that analyzes trending topics.

Check it out at HighTweets.com.

How HighTweets works

Every 5 minutes, HighTweets grabs the latest trending topics from the Twitter Search API and stores the result in a database.

Twitter's 'trending topics' list shows you the hottest topics on the service. Since there are umpteen bazillion people using Twitter now, it's not a bad measure of what's going on in the online world.

Then HighTweets pulls all of the data together and shows:

• Mass: Topics ranked by the number of times they've repeated on the trending topics list. Mass tells you which topics have staying power.
• Velocity: The number of times per 5 minute period that a topic has shown up on the trending topics list. Velocity tells you which topics are on the rise.

The results look like this:

It's free, no registration required, etc.

Unless Guy Kawasaki shows up and offers me a million dollars (OK, I'd take $10,000 and an autograph) this tool will remain free and open to the world. Enjoy.

Caveats

The domain just propagated. If you get the nasty Network Solutions parking page, wait a few hours and you should see the site.

I built this over the weekend. THE WEEKEND. I am a geek. But that may mean I finished one line of code, went for a bike ride, then wrote another one. If the site explodes when you visit it, please let me know so I can fix it.

I'll be adding date range selection later.

Same goes for graphs of activity around a topic.

If hitting Twitter's search API every 5 minutes doesn't get me in trouble or kill our database server, I'll likely speed up to every minute. But for now, I'm staying at 5.

Yes, I know that the site's title shows up as "Twitter Trends Anal..." in Firefox tabbed browsing. You're not the only sicko here. It was an accident. I'm not changing it.

No, I will not start referring to Twitter users as "Tweeple". I can't do it. I'm sorry.

Have a look, enjoy, and let me know what you think:

[ HighTweets.com: Twitter Trends Analysis ]

24 hours later, let's take a look at the hottest terms on Twitter:

Wha? How did this happen (in my best Elmer Fudd voice)?

Bing is going bonk, and it's not even out of the stable yet. Why? Because:

Microsoft still sells search like it sells Windows: In a box

Microsoft is selling Bing the way they sell their operating system:

1. Crank up massive PR machine.
2. Create logo using the most popular web colors.
3. Crank up massive marketing machine.
4. Release highly polished, on-message marketing video with attractive-yet-accessible actors and funny looking rodents.
5. Repeat.

Oh, a couple other things:

1. Ignore the fact that Google is having their developer conference right when you announce your search technology.
2. Use 10 different names for the API, the search tool and the web site where the search tool is promoted, so I'm not sure if I'm developing on Decision Engine, Live 2.0, Silk Road, Bing, Bing Road, Bing Engine, Decision Engine Bing or whatever.

Google stomps all over them moments later

In comes Google. They focus on the developer community, telling us (yes, I'm still at least 49% developer) all the cool stuff we can build, and consolidating the Wave name around an API, a protocol and a tool.

Who's going to win?

Microsoft marketed to reporters.

Google marketed to the developer community.

Who's going to win? Who do you think?

I am not a Google fanboy

Understand: I am not a Google fan. I want someone to give them a serious run for their money. I want another search engine so my clients aren't 70% dependent on the paid and unpaid traffic from one outlet.

But Microsoft ain't gonna do it. This was their last shot.

Sorry guys.

While we wait for this drama to shake out, why not buy this book?:

Usually I'm up here preaching at you, which I know can get a little annoying at times.

Today, something different: I need some opinions and recommendations.

One of my main jobs as the CEO at Portent is to teach. I write a lot of stuff down in this document called the Fat Free Guide.

2 months ago I decided this internet thing isn't going away, and I decided to move from the old, PDF-driven version of the guide to HTML.

I tried 2 different wikis. They're hideously ugly, and while they're great for project management, they're miserable at creating easy-to-read documentation. I could customize the design, but it looks like that could be a bigger chore than it's worth.

I tried plain old HTML. Right. What was I thinking?!

I tested a few knowledge base systems. Blech.

Bottom line: I want to create something that sticks to my principles of simplicity, ease of use and adaptability.

It's looking like custom may be my only option. I hate custom. I'm lazy. I want to use something someone else already built.

Any suggestions out there?

The requirements are:

1. It must support commenting.
2. It should be super-easy to enter content.
3. It should support a Procedure >> Step >> Example structure, where each of the previous items have their own page.
4. It should support reasonably complex navigation and search, so that the 170 pages of information that currently reside in the PDF version of the Fat Free Guide will remain usable in HTML.

Any advice, suggestions, etc. would be greatly, greatly appreciated.

OK, OK. I've been on a negative tear since I was born.

So today I'm mixing it up a bit, writing about ways to make customers love you, instead of hate you.

1. Make sure your site loads in 3-4 seconds or less on a standard broadband connection. That means that your dual T-3 connection at your office is NOT a good measurement tool. Use the YSlow Firefox plugin to test. Your customers will thank you!
2. Provide clear, easy-to-find contact information. On every page of your site. I've heard folks say "But then people will call us!" as if that's a bad thing. If you're afraid people will call you, maybe you should find another business?
3. Send an e-mail to customers when: They place an order; their order is confirmed; their order ships out (include shipment tracking information).
4. E-mail your customers 2 weeks after they receive their product or you complete their project. Ask them how it's going. Ask them what else you can do for them. Folks love that kind of thing. Hell, my family says I'm suffering from a 40-year bout of colic and I still like it when a company pays a little attention.
5. Don't make them log in before checkout. Wow, there it is again. I've written about this one at least 5 times in the last year. Imagine you're at a store. You have a cart with lots of tasty food. You head for the checkout stand. But before you get there someone asks you for your driver's license. You'd slap them, right? Well, that's how every customer feels when you demand an e-mail address before they can give you money. Make your customers swoon: Don't make them login to check out.
6. Use large type. Some of us ain't as young as we used to be. The rest of us sit slouched in our chairs, 3 feet from the monitor. Large type means you can sell stuff instead of buying me bifocals and lecturing everyone else on their posture. Customers will wonder where they're getting that happy glow - it's the nice, big letters.
7. Take some decent photos. Unless you sell grommets, chances are customers will appreciate a decent product photo. Consider a few detail photos, if your product's details matter.
8. Make stuff easy to find. Whether you're a consulting company or an online store, the fastest way to your customers' hearts (besides through their ribcage) is with a clear, easy path from "nice site" to "I'm ready to buy". Clear product links, sensible categories and a good search engine on your site will all help.
9. Group information in a logical way. Think about how your customers shop. Put the pricing info, the quantity and any product options all right near the 'buy now' button - all that information fits the final stages of the buying process. Put the product description, selling points and name together with the photo. Customers love that kind of thing.
10. If you're a consultant, tell folks what you do. Then tell them how wonderful you are. Customers want to know what's in it for them. Every one of your competitors says they're experienced, are thought leaders and invented the industry. Be original: Tell folks how you can help them.
11. Give your customers all the pricing information up-front. If you're an e-commerce site, don't hide the shipping cost until the end of the process. Let the customer see the shipping cost as early as possible in the checkout process. They'll thank you.
12. Write standards-compliant code. Clean, standards-compliant code will load fast. Plus, you can design it to render well on cell phones and computer monitors alike. Your customers won't have a clue about it. And that's how it should be.
13. Go high contrast. Gray text on a black background seems sooo avant garde. Thing is, you're an engineering consultant. Or you sell sandboxes. Folks who come looking for you aren't looking for an existential experience. They're looking for your product or service. Put dark text on a light background and be done with it. Use light text on a dark background only for emphasis.
14. Be secure. At least once a year, someone comes to me with a shopping cart system that's been running for 3-6 months and still has an administrative password set to 'password'. Yowzers. Your customers won't thank you for security. But they'll sure as hell curse you if you let someone make off with the credit card info.
15. Be logical about your feature set. I recently made a donation in someone else's name. I wanted them to receive an e-mail from the organization. But the organization had no way for me to make a donation in another person's name. Huh? That's an easy feature to create, and a critical one to have. If you want your customers to really love you, include only the features they need, and don't leave any out.
16. Keep it simple. Your budget's limited. So don't include a raft of useless features. Don't even include features that less than 10% of your audience will want. Keep things super, duper simple. Then, make sure the features you do have are flawlessly executed. Your wallet and your customers will both thank you for it.
17. Forget about cool. Please. I'm begging you. I implore you. Just because you love the idea of a Flash-based slide show using the best page-turning techniques 2002 had to offer doesn't mean your customers will. I say this with utmost affection: Get it through your head. You are not the customer. And your customer doesn't care about your design team's Flash prowess.
18. Always ask why. I am not going on an anti-Flash rampage in the previous item. Flash has some great sales applications. But always ask yourself, "Why am I adding this?" If you can't come up with a good reason, right away, trash it. And no, "customers will think it's cool" is not a good enough reason. Because they won't. 99% of the time, if you're justifying something with the 'cool' argument, it's your ego talking.
19. Use validation as a helping hand, not a baseball bat. If a customer leaves a form field blank, don't yell at them. Messages like "Name is required!" won't make them feel good. It makes them feel like they're back in elementary school. Try "Please enter your name" instead. Language is a powerful thing. Use it wisely. You'll win more business.
20. Save their work. If someone does leave a form field blank, show them the same page again, with all their data still in the form. Buying online or making a sales request isn't supposed to be a Kafka-esque nightmare. So don't make it one.
21. Offer ways to stay connected. Let folks sign up for an e-mail newsletter or subscribe to a latest news feed (or a special deals feed). Let 'em find you on Twitter. You'd be surprised how many folks appreciate that sort of thing.
22. Don't be sneaky. See that 'Register for our newsletter' checkbox in your information request form? Is it checked by default? Change it to unchecked. That's not a decision your customers want made for them. And you're not some smarmy huckster, building spam e-mail lists. So take the high road. They'll love you for your integrity.
23. Teach. Help your clients and customers make a good buying decision. That may sometimes mean they don't choose you. But they'll remember you helped them, and they'll be back.
24. Make them feel special. Give past customers a special deal, just for being them. Too often, brands work like crazy to bring in new business, while they treat the old business like carpet lint. Turn the tables. Check in to say 'hi'. Send them a coupon. Watch your existing customers bring you new ones a mile a minute.
25. Don't stereotype. Dell tried this ridiculous 'Della' site for about a week. The site was supposed to focus on women, so they offered stuff like 'The hottest laptops that match your lifestyle', including pretty colors and stuff. That's possibly the single stupidest marketing campaign of 2009. Never, ever assume your audience is a niche demographic. Especially if you're targeting all women.
26. Name stuff for your audience. I've written about this many times before. Don't confuse branding with labeling. If you sell spoons, knives and forks, call them spoons, knives and forks. You can explain why your product is really 'quality steel flatware' after the customer finds what they want. Use clear terminology, and your audience will beat a path to your door.
27. Be descriptive. Along the same lines as the previous hint, make sure you completely describe the page in the page's title tag and headline. The title tag is particularly important: It shows up in search listings. I want to know if your site is about car bras before I click the search listing, end up on the wrong kind of site and die of an embarrassment-induced stroke.
28. Write scannable content. Use bullets and the like to break up the page. Have no more than 14 words on a line. Don't make folks read 10-line paragraphs, because they won't. Make your site easy for visitors to scan, and visitors become customers.
29. Test your site in every browser. At a minimum, make sure your site looks and functions well in Internet Explorer 7 and 8 (6 too, if you can), Firefox, Opera and Safari. It doesn't have to look exactly the same in every browser, but it should work, and look good. Trust me, your customers won't notice a thing. And that's good.
30. Be accessible. Use the tabindex attribute to let folks tab from field to field in a form. Use clear ALT text for your images. Make sure your site is understandable in a text-only browser like Lynx. You never know who will come to your site using a screen reader or something similar. If they do, you can help them out with a few simple steps and win a customer for life.
31. Have a friendly 404 page. Help customers find what they need, even if they did get your page URL wrong. Use a friendly 404 page, not the hideous default page that your server delivers. I explain how to create a 404 page here.
32. Check for errors and fix them. Your server logs every kind of error thrown by your site: From 404 'page not found' to 500 'oh my god you broke my spine' type stuff. Review the list periodically. Fix what you find, even if it's a "user error". To a customer, there are no user errors. Only errors. So fix those errors and you'll have more happy customers.

Don't worry, I'm not turning over a new leaf...

The New Google Webmaster Tools: An Overview from ian lurie on Vimeo.

I am not being sarcastic. We've all been there. So, if you designed any of these banners, please don't take this personally.

The Tiny Print

For some reason, financial companies seem to think they need to cram essays into their banners:

If your lawyer is making you add all that small print to your banner, you have four options:

1. Throw your lawyer in a closet;
2. Modify your banner so you don't need the small print;
3. Put the small print (larger) in an interstitial between the banner and your landing page;
4. Skip the banner, keep your money and buy yourself something nice. 'Cause that banner just ain't going to get it done.

If adding that tiny, unreadable print actually satisfies some obscure legal requirement, then don't worry about redesigning anything, because clearly our society has failed, and we're a few weeks from a Terminator-style Judgement Day anyway.

Lesson learned: Type used on a banner must be big enough to be easily read in 3-4 seconds. It's hard enough to get someone to actually notice a banner. Don't kill yourself by making your banner look like it's written in Sanskrit.

Everything and the Kitchen Sink

Of course, once you persuade your boss to let you use big type and fewer words, she'll want to put every product on the banner. That leads to our next phenomenon: The Kitchen Sink Banner:

And of course, the ever present hosting service banner, that lists every single promise you'll use to drive them crazy after you sign a 1-year contract:

I am not going to read that. In fact, I just wrote down your company name on my "avoid like the plague" list.

Lesson learned: Banners are one of the few places where you need to place branding and design ahead of content. Gasp. There, I said it.

Understand a banner's purpose

A banner ad is 80% branding, 20% direct marketing. That's all you can hope for.

Banners really don't get clicked much. So they need to look good enough to be a positive reflection on your brand. Treat them like a billboard. What would you put on a billboard that folks will drive by at 60 miles an hour? That's what you should put on the banner, too.

That way, when folks glance quickly at a banner and forget about it, the 1% they remember - their impression of your brand - will be positive.



You'll probably see a truly awful banner below, too. What's up with that?

SEO is part of internet marketing. So is pay per click marketing. So is web design, copywriting, blah blah etc. etc..

I've struggled with one definition of internet marketing for years. I think I've reached a conclusion (until next week):

Internet marketing is comprised of the 5 S's

The 5 S's are five kinds of optimization that make up internet marketing:

Story Optimization

Marketing is storytelling. Seth Godin said it best in All Marketers Are Liars. I'm not talking about lying. I'm talking about making your product compelling by breathing life and context into your message.

I'm not some internet marketing guy. I'm Ian Lurie, the grumpy internet marketing curmudgeon. Coca Cola isn't soda. It's The Real Thing.

The first and most important part of internet marketing is story optimization: Telling that story in a way that really works for your online audience.

Strategy Optimization

Video or podcast? Should we blog? Is e-mail in our marketing future? How should our site look? Should we rely solely on SEO (no!)?

You must have a strategy. Must. MUST MUST MUST.

You don't need a 1-year strategic plan. That's not what I mean. A 'strategy' means you have an overarching goal, and guidelines for what you will or will not do to attain that goal.

"I will build a $1 million marketing agency" could be a goal. "I will do so by building my online reputation and making customers happy" could be the general guidelines.

Then, as time passes, you change and adjust that strategy, narrowing your focus and adjusting your guidelines. For example, "Making customers happy" may become "Win industry-wide customer satisfaction surveys".

Strategy optimization is a big chunk of internet marketing.

Search Engine Optimization

I've said it before, I'll keep saying it: If you ignore SEO, you're a fool. 75% of everything that happens online starts at a search engine. You need to be there.

But remember, SEO is a tactic, not a strategy. It won't stand on its own. If your web site sucks, or you blow your budget on PPC, or you alienate customers with a bad story, all the SEO in the world won't save you.

Regardless, search engine optimization is the 3rd component of smart internet marketing.

Spend Optimization

One way or another, most businesses buy clicks. Usually they're using pay per click marketing (PPC). The more aggressive marketers may look at display ads, e-mail list sponsorships, site sponsorships and other paid ads.

You need to optimize that spend by measuring results. Then you adjust what you're buying according to performance.

Spend optimization - where you ensure you're spending your money wisely - is essential to internet marketing.

Site Optimization

You're bringing people to your web site. Are you giving them what they want?

You need to measure everything: How many people click that 'buy now' button on your home page, shopping cart bailout rates, etc..

You must constantly tweak your copy, your design and your site features to make your site the best possible response to your customers' questions.

That's site optimization. It requires design, copywriting and development skills. And it's the final, essential piece of the internet marketing puzzle.

What about social media?

That's story optimization. Plus there's no such thing as 'social' media. It's just media. Saying 'social media' will no longer get you instant VC money, so give it up, OK?

Why I wrote this

"Internet marketing", I answer.

That gets a blank look. Then I get a few responses:

"Oh, you sell pornography?" or
"Cool" and then they walk away; or
"So you work on the Googles? Do you know someone there I can talk to?"

Now, I'm going to print this and hand it out, instead.

Other posts

You might also want to read The Internet Marketing List, a list of 11 essential internet marketing skills and why failure is guaranteed (but that's OK).

A 'bailout' (aka an abandonment) occurs when someone starts the checkout process, then leaves without completing their purchase. It's like someone got in line at the grocery store and then left their pears, diet soda and last-minute junk food purchases rolling around on the conveyor.

Here are 8 things you can change, right now, to reduce cart abandonment:

1. Dump the registration. I don't know why I still have to say this. Don't make people register to buy stuff from you. It's like you're waving your middle finger at your customers. If you must have registration, make it an option at the end of the checkout process. Not at the beginning. And don't even try to tell me registration gets you serious customers. That's crap. Registration drives away 90% of your customers, so only the most maniacally devoted stay with you.
2. Validate nicely. If someone misses a field, don't give them a sinister javascript popup that reads "You MUST enter your address!". They don't have to do anything. They're the customer. Instead, display a little message on the page that says "Please enter your address". And highlight the field they need to complete.
3. Check your speed. If it takes 30 seconds for the next page of checkout to load, I'm gone. Buh-bye. Make sure your cart's fast.
4. Don't distract. It's ok to include your normal site navigation in the checkout process (if you really must). It's not OK to include unrelated offers, links on the right side of the page or flashing banners advertising other sites (seriously, I've seen it). Let your customer focus.
5. Help out. If the customer has the same billing and shipping information, let them totally skip the shipping address form.
6. Be transparent. Show estimated shipping charges, discounts and itemized costs in the cart before checkout. Then show them again on the 'confirm order' page.
7. Instill trust. A clean, neat cart that carries the same basic branding as the main site builds trust. A cart that looks like Network Solutions' worst nightmare, asks me to 'chek out' and bears no resemblance to the site does not. Build trust. Don't burn it.
8. Track the funnel. Use a tool like Google Analytics to track your entire checkout funnel. That will let you pinpoint problems and improve the process.
9. Stick it to the man. Just because Sears or Diadora or some other site does something stupid (like require registration) doesn't mean you should. Be your own person. Think different. Take the road less traveled. Add cliche of your choice here.

These are the basics. I can pull together more advanced posts on things like goal funnel tracking, if folks want. Comment below.

This rant, by the way, is brought to you by a company called SeeWhy and their new product, Abandonment Tracker, which I'm reasonably certain is the creation of the Devil, ala Reaper. You can read the whole story at the NY Times. Before you resort to evil tactics like Abandonment Tracker, alienate your customer base and end up in the 9th Circle, consider the simple stuff (this post).

By the way, you can now subscribe to Conversation Marketing on the Kindle.

How much, you ask?

$1.99/month.

C'mon, that's practically nothing.

In all seriousness: There's a free 14-day trial. I don't yet own a Kindle and am very interested in hearing how this works. So if a few folks wanted to subscribe, I'd greatly appreciate it. You can cancel later on if you hate it.

Yes, I write a lot about how failure is good, internet marketing is super efficient, costs a fraction of other marketing, etc..

But the NY Times just took that idea to an extreme that leaves me shaking my head. In an article today about whether web entrepreneurs still need venture capital, the interviewee and/or writer said:

"Web start-ups are routinely started for less than $50,000."

And a few other gems. You can read the article for yourself. My response:

"Web start-ups are routinely started for less than $50,000. It's true. And 99% of them go bankrupt, for free."

Way, way wrong

Claire Cain Miller, got it way, way wrong:

We all hear the stories of the guy who started his company on $50 and a stamp collection, and now owns The Next Facebook. We don't hear the more common story: Someone puts up their life savings and ends up broke.

I've been in this business a long, long time now. I've seen some great successes. But more often than not entrepreneurs start their venture with far too rosy a forecast for their first 2 years in business.

So they under-budget.

And then they go broke.

Ms. Miller's article, and the subject article by Robert Hendershott, does a poor job of explaining that, focusing instead on the sensational idea that you can just float an application idea in the Apple App Store and bam, you're a success.

And don't tell me that's not what the article says. We all know damned well the conclusion folks will draw from it: "I can start a successful business for $50,000 or less! I can quit my job!"

Don't we have enough problems without this kind of silliness?

The truth is, you can succeed online. You don't need millions of dollars from venture capital firms. But you do need a reasonable budget planned for your business and at least a 2-3 year cushion. And you need to have reasonable expectations.

Rant over. As you were...

Careless marketing is sort of like bad chicken. It crouches, waiting patiently, looking all innocent. Then the next thing you know, bang someone sees a crappy error message like this one and realizes your company is actually a bunch of careless nubwits. Which of course means the hard drive I bought from you may be made by the same nubwits:

The message: Everything is marketing. While every piece of chicken on earth isn't out to get me, I may not be able to look at chicken for a while. And, while the guy who wrote the error message for this disk company may have nothing to do with the people who make the drives, I will think twice about using their products in the future.

Everything is marketing! Your shopping cart, your product, the 'about us' page on your web site, and the guy who answers the phone in customer support.

I'm off to eat a meal of Saltines and ginger ale...

1. Establish from the start that analytics is not a pretty graph. It's the extraction of useful business intelligence from the data. That takes it from being a toolset to being a business strategy, and makes everyone understand its importance.
2. Schedule weekly analytics reviews. Put them in your calendar, so you don't forget or stress about forgetting.
3. Get commitment from the development team, marketing team and sales team, from the start. Otherwise, you may not be able to get whatever analytics tools you need set up, or you may not be able to get insight from the marketing folks, or the sales team may have you pilloried for messing with their pipeline.
4. Be thoroughly versed in the analytics tool you select. You must be the expert. You won't want other folks seeking their own solutions. You (and your team, if you're really lucky) want to be the acknowledged resource for analytics. This isn't for job security. It's to keep the program on-track and under control.
   
5. Ask CEO, COO, CFO etc. what they'd like to see in a web site report each month. They may say they don't care. Press them. If you can't get directly in touch with them because you are Just a Lowly Peon, go through channels. Design a report that delivers the data they'd like. Make sure your boss has access to that report, too.
6. Ask the sales manager what he/she would like to see in a report. Create a report for that, too.
7. Do the same for the head of marketing.
8. If you're all of these people, you're in luck! You're also in trouble! But that's a whole other story.
9. Based on what you've learned, select your key metrics. These might be: Sales, leads, pageviews, visitors, downloads or time on site. Key metrics are direct measurements of your site's performance in the context of the site itself.
10. Now, select your key performance indicators (KPIs, if you want to geek out). KPIs place the key metrics in the context of the business as a whole. They're usually stuff like return on investment, hurdle rate, prospects to leads, leads to sales or which shade of purple the CEO turns when they see the numbers.
11. Set expectations: Tell everyone involved that they will not see useful data for the first 2-4 weeks after you launch the analytics program. It'll probably be faster, but this gives you time to verify that all is well, data is accurate and that you have a grip on what's working or not working.
12. Set expectations, 2: Make sure you know whether your analytics toolset has a processing delay - a lag between when something happens on the site and when it shows up in the reports. Google Analytics, for example, has a 3-10 hour delay. Make sure everyone knows. No one likes surprises.
    
13. Launch: The toolset's live! Woo hoo!
14. 3 days later, when someone comes asking for data, remind them of #11, and throw something at them. Start with something soft (I have a Dogbert for this very purpose). Work your way up to pointy/sharp/heavy objects as necessary.
15. Check to ensure every page of your site has the analytics code in place. EpikOne has a most excellent tool for this purpose right here. Yeah, I know, you checked before. But since you checked, Frank in Development had a fight with his best friend and forgot to check your code out of CVS, edited his own code and in a fit of depression overwrote everything you did. Or, Fran in Sales told Frank that Jack said that Robert heard that you said that this OTHER code is MUCH BETTER. Trust me, things happen.
    
16. Test your key metrics measurement. Fill out the lead form, or make a purchase, or do whatever else. Make sure that the analytics tracking code's in place on the 'thank you' page. And make sure that the metrics update in the traffic report (accounting for the processing delay, of course).
17. Automate as much as you can. You do not want to be cutting and pasting numbers every week, trust me. Learn the ins and outs of Excel or whatever spreadsheet you use to create your reports (no matter how great your analytics tool, you will still need to create your own for the top executives). Get to the point where you can import a CSV file from an automatically e-mailed report into a spreadsheet and voila, your report's all set.
18. Do your first weekly review. Don't just send a spreadsheet with numbers (see #1, above). Include your own analysis. Draw a straight line between web metrics and business metrics: "Site sales from organic search were up 10%. Corporate sales were down 5%, though. I did some tracing, and it looks like we've got fewer people coming directly to our site (or our stores). That may mean our brand is weakening." It can be good news, too: "Sales are up 10% on the site! And company-wide sales are up 5%! Yeeesss!"
19. Suggest at least one experiment/test/change to try. "Given the huge response to the last coupon, I think we should try another." Or, "No one goes to the 'About Us' page. I suggest we move it into the footer and feature a product there instead." Yes, the design team may hate you, just a little, at first. Same with the development team. You're making more work for them and they're already overloaded. But as things work better and better, they'll come around.
20. Send the weekly review to your boss. Prepare to answer all sorts of seemingly inane questions like, "Why is 'fark.net' driving so much traffic to our site?" They're not inane questions! Explain, and then bring focus back to your conclusions: "But, as you can see, Fark isn't really impacting sales either way. So let's go back to organic search." See? Even I can be diplomatic...
21. Do the monthly review. If you can, present it to the Head Honchos. Your presentation should take no more than 10 minutes. Then be ready to answer their questions. If they don't have any, be afraid.
22. Emphasize trends. Always. Always. Always.
23. Remember seasonality. OH MY GOD SALES DROPPED 50% IN APRIL!!!! Really? What happened last year? If April 2009 still outperformed April 2008 by 20%, you're probably just seeing seasonal patterns. Be sure to point that out or your CEO will turn purple again. It's not healthy.
    
24. Try to divide things up into What Worked and What Didn't. Don't just list 'em. Explain your conclusion. Remember, failure is guaranteed. What's important is that you learn from it.
25. Document everything. Your boss, the Head Honchos and everyone else should have clear instructions regarding how to read your reports, how to generate them (in case you win the lottery) and how the traffic reporting tool is implemented.
26. Be sure to do a Stat of the Month: "The stat of the month is Time On Site, which is up 40% because of...". Sounds dumb, I know. But it really focuses people.
27. Never stop learning. Analytics providers are always rolling out neat new stuff. So are their fans. Google Analytics alone has dozens of Greasemonkey scripts, etc. that help you do more with the data. Have some fun with it!

You can read it on your Kindle.

You can read it on your iPhone.

You can read it on your iPod Touch.

Most important, you can buy it, thereby putting money in my pocket, making me smile and buttressing my flagging faith in free market capitalism:

Keywords and branding do not mix.

Let's say you own your own business. Or you're a marketing exec who works for someone who owns their own business.

For years, you've invested time, energy and various internal organs getting folks to think of you as, say, an 'internet marketing agency'. Because dammit, that's what you are.

When you're face-to-face with a potential client, the concept works. You say 'internet marketing agency' and they nod sagely and pull out their checkbooks (hah).

Problem is, no one searches for internet marketing agencies. They search for Seattle search engine optimization companies, or PPC management companies, or whatever they think you should be.

But that's OK, because DAMMIT THAT IS NOT WHAT YOU ARE AND YOU WILL SHOW THEM WON'T YOU.

So you keep optimizing for 'internet marketing agency', which gets 0 searches/month, and the world just passes you by.

Yup, you showed them.

That is why, for companies not named 'Nike' or 'Coke' or 'McDonalds' or 'Blackwater', keywords and branding do. not. mix.

Keywords are what bring people to your site. They are what give you the opportunity to set 'em straight. If they never find you, you don't get that opportunity.

If you think you sell 'footwear', you still need to rank for 'shoes'.

If you think you sell 'classic automobiles', you still need rank for 'muscle cars'.

And, if you think you're a 'psychoanalyst', you still need to rank for 'therapist'.

Of course, if you sell a product, you want to rank for your product name. But you shouldn't have to optimize your site for your own product name. You should rank for it naturally. If you don't, something's very wrong with the way your site's built, or the way you're writing about your product.

Which I will probably need after the world is done ripping me asunder for this post. But, I'll say it again:

For 99% of companies, keywords are traffic drivers, not branding tools. In SEO, keywords and branding do not mix.

Kristopher hammers home doing keyword research correctly. He offers up a bevy of useful research tools and suggests drilling down to the most targeted terms for your business. Always a prudent methodology for immediate impact.

This book really shines in the "Extra" sections, found at the end of each topic. Jones makes most of his best commentary there - from "addressing canonical issues between www and non-www pages on your domain" to "mixing up your anchor text when acquiring backlinks." If you were to only read those, you'd still take away quite a few useful pieces of wisdom from this tome.

Where this SEO reference gets a little iffy is on link building and social media tactics. With sections on networking with MySpace, obtaining directory listings, and randomly fishing for one-way links, it'd probably distract beginners from more beneficial strategies. Jones does admit, though, that establishing direct conversations with bloggers is a much better way to get truly great links.

Bottom line: This text does a fantastic job educating and providing savvy SEO insights that even non-technical folks can grasp.

So, when I click 'publish' for this post, I'm going to flinch a little, waiting for someone who's actually math-competent to call me out as the fraud that I am. But I'm writing this anyway, because some folks responded to last week's 11 Things Post by saying stuff like "OK, wise ass, explain some of this stuff."

What's a Rolling Average?

A simple rolling average (also called a moving average, if you wanted to know) is the unweighted mean of the last n values.

My first reaction when I read a definition like that was, "Buh?". Maybe it made sense to you, but to me it's total mathinese.

Here's my definition of a simple rolling average: An average of the last n values in a data set, applied row-by-row, so that you get a series of averages.

Buh?

OK, try this example. The column on the right is the rolling average:

See how that works? I'm just taking the average of the last 7 rows, all the way down the column. That's a simple rolling average.

And trust me, I stop at 'simple'. If you want to learn more complex rolling averages, read the Wikipedia page.

Why Use a Rolling Average?

A rolling average can help you find trends that would otherwise be hard to detect. Using the data from above, you get a graph that looks like this:

That's not terribly helpful as a trend detector. It looks like my website got a case of the hiccups.

Use a rolling average, though, and you start to see a pattern emerge, with peaks happening more and more often:

That's why rolling averages are so useful: Apply them at the right time and you can get an idea of emerging trends, even if those trends are happening because of sudden jumps in your data.

I'll stop there. Math-competent folk, feel free to leave endless comments about how I just mangled your favorite concept...

I try to do only one post that gets me labeled as sarcastic and condescending per week. Otherwise my head gets too big. So this one takes it down a notch. I listened to The Doors while writing it, just to play it safe.

You need to know the following, inside-out, backwards and forwards. They must be second nature. If they ain't, you ain't ready:

1. XHTML and CSS. You don't have to be a god(ess) of web programming. But so help me God the next 'internet marketer' who gives me a blank stare when I mention CSS gets an atomic wedgie. And by the way, web standards have nothing to do with the metric system.
2. Search engine optimization. Search engine results are the starting point for at least 70% of all online behavior. How on earth will you help someone market themselves online if you don't even know what moves a site up and down in the rankings? Quick hint: Saying "SEO? Oh, we optimize your meta tags" is the same as saying "I am a severely impaired nubwit".
3. Pay per click marketing. Nothing sucks money out of a marketing budget faster than undisciplined PPC marketing. Assuming you care about your clients, you need to know a lot about PPC. Knowing where PPC ads show up doesn't count, by the way. You need to know and understand concepts like negative keywords, quality scoring, dynamic keywords and content networks. Another hint: "Negative keyword" doesn't mean "Keywords that make you feel bad".
4. Analysis. Let me make this clear: A bar chart is not analytics. If I ask for analysis and you e-mail me a bar chart I will so kick your behind. Analysis/analytics is the practice of turning data (the bar chart) into action steps and conclusions like "Wow, our ROI on this keyword is great. We need to build a landing page."
5. Usability. Please, please read Don't Make Me Think. Just for starters. Then start keeping an eye on Jakob Nielsen's site and other resources. Usability is a non-stop learning process. So get going.
6. Complete sentences. Write every day. Every day. I don't care what you write about. But you need to be able to write a post like this in 30-40 minutes, and it needs to be readable. If not, I shall become Conan the Grammarian and smite thee. (awesome image submitted by OneTakeMedia)
7. RSS and feeds. I shouldn't even have to say this. But you do know how to use Google Reader, right? Right?!
8. Blogging and social media. Write at least one blog. See 'Complete Sentences', above. And know what people mean when they say 'social media'. They really mean media. Understand what makes it all tick, and how you can help someone interact with their audience in a meaningful way.
9. E-mail marketing. Learn to build a house e-mail list. Learn why most rental e-mail lists suck eggs. Know what makes an e-mail work or fail.
10. Statistics 101. If you don't know what a rolling average is, don't even talk to me.
11. Marketing. Oh, did I mention? You need to be good at, you know, making people understand why something is The Product For Them.

Remember when you first learned to drive? You were so busy remembering to signal before turning, maintain safe following distances and generally not humiliate yourself in front of your friends it's amazing you didn't drive right into the car in front of you.

Now, of course, the mechanics of driving are second nature. So is tailgating, but we'll skip that part.

If you're going to be an internet marketer, all the secondary skills have to be second nature, too. Until they are, you've still got a big 'STUDENT DRIVER' sign on top of your car.

Every business owner wants a diversified base of satisfied, profitable customers who are loyal to the business and who refer you to others like themselves. It certainly leads to more money, and it also leads to more time to do the things that you really want including a better nights' sleep. Successful businesses usually start strong in this area. As they grow, however, it is common for customer relationships to become a bit more hit-and-miss due to poor communication, inconsistent procedures, inadequate systems and lack of accountability. Throwing more people or technology at the problem often creates additional chaos without solving the underlying issues.

Here are five things that I help to keep customers longer, happier and more profitable:

Choose your customers wisely.

1. I recommend creating a customer success profile based on the attributes that you know will lead to successful projects and good relationships. Use it to evaluate every potential customer. Some potential customers should just be avoided and, while no customer is a 'perfect fit', if you are clear about areas of compromise you can manage the risks more effectively.
2. Perform periodic reviews of each customer. In addition to the typical financial metrics, re-evaluate them against your success profile to see how well they currently 'fit'. You may find that it is time to firmly "reset" a relationship or "manage a customer out" of your business.

Get the right people together to think through the details of your proposal before you present it.

Making the time to hold a structured proposal review meeting could be the most profitable thirty minutes you invest in a project. Include key employees who know the potential pitfalls to look for and who are willing to ask hard questions no matter who is in the room. You will go into the deal with a better chance of success and, if you do make compromises, at least you all go in with your eyes open.

Follow a structured process of internal and external communications before the work begins.

1. Create an Internal Customer Profile that includes useful "intelligence" and insights gained from the sales process such as: who are the decision makers and what do they expect from the project; who are your strong supporters and who are not; what are the unique qualities of this customer (and project); why did they choose you over your competition. Use this in conjunction with the contract as the basis of an internal kickoff that includes every relevant group (i.e. management, accounting, production, support). You will save a ton of time and energy down the road if you make the effort to get everyone in the same room at the beginning to hear one version of the truth.
2. Provide your customer with some sort of welcome document where you introduce your team, explain your processes, let them know what they can expect from you and what you need from them for the project and relationship to be a success (there should be no surprises here). Then hold a kickoff meeting with your customer to introduce your team and make sure they understand the information you sent them. This is also the time to review the project scope, make sure everyone understands what "success" means and establish mutual responsibility for achieving that success.

Communicate in a proactive, consistent and honest manner throughout the project and relationship.

1. This needs to be modeled as well as explicitly taught to your employees in order to become part of your culture. You can develop systems and procedures to support this objective, but it is the habits and behavior of your employees that make the difference here.
2. In addition to routine status meetings with the customer, it is important to hold regular high-level meetings with the decision maker who may not be that involved in the day-to-day activities of the project. This is an important and valuable opportunity to see things from their perspective, build the relationship and realign the expectations of both parties.

Always follow through and follow-up.

1. This is where so many companies fall short. Again this is a combination of training and modeling along with systems and procedures to create accountability. For example, when you deliver your product or resolve a problem make sure that you positively confirm with your customer that they consider it delivered or resolved.
2. Schedule a follow-up after some time has passed since delivery. Make it personal; don't just rely on surveys and email. You might find that initial expectations have 'morphed' into something that the customer now feels are unmet. Don't let feelings sit there and fester - find out and deal with it. This doesn't mean doing more work for nothing. It means clarifying and understanding and moving ahead on the basis of mutual knowledge and respect. These follow-ups also cement your relationship and are great opportunities to generate new business and get referrals.

While the specifics of each of these need to be adapted to fit different businesses and industries, if they are well implemented and maintained you will improve the value of your business.

You can read more on Fred's web site: www.fredjanssen.com

It's dang funny. However, I don't agree with their definition of 'Conversation Marketing'. To me, the 'conversation' means it's two-way between you and every member of your audience. Not that you pursue influencers or leave out 'marketing fluff'. Check out my book for my version.

That said, it's a great video, and it's not like I'm the sole authority on the subject:

As I launch new ebooks, they'll be called the Fat Free Guide, too. See, I'm branding! Clever, huh?

Also, I'm now offering the ebook in cooperation with Mike Corso and Cool Site of the Day. Mike is an all-around great guy, and a far better salesman than I, as evidenced by the fact that he's sold more copies of the book in 2 weeks than I have since 2008. Sigh.

So, from now on, you can buy the book from Cool Sites, here.

PS: The checkout and download process is a little wonky right now. We're aware that it asks for your e-mail address about 999 times. We're working on fixing it. For now, if you choose the 'no thanks' or 'just download' option you'll get through. Rest assured I'm not trying to spam you.

You now know why link building sucks, what tools to use, how to research competitors' links, and how to get the links once you find 'em.

So here's the thing: All of the advice I gave you in the last 4 posts just catches you up to your competitors. It doesn't help you win.

This post will give you the Magical Secret Formula to Link Domination.

Get a piece of paper.

And a pen. You don't want to miss this.

Ready?

OK.

Do it better than your competitors do.

Wait! Don't smack our forehead (or mine, for that matter) just yet. You do need to out-execute your competition. That's how you win in the link-building wars.

Out-executing means finding links where they don't, and making sure you squeeze every last bit of authority out of every link. Here's how you do it:

Build Authority Slow and Steady: Article Marketing

Sign up for a service like Article Marketer. Write 10 biography blocks. Be sure you link to your site in the bio block. Then publish 10 good articles a month, each one with one of your biography blocks.

The article site will syndicate your content to sites that want it. Those sites publish your article, including the bio block.

Bingo: More links.

These are not high quality links. They're kind of lame, actually. But they add up, and in my experience article marketing builds a great foundation for your link building campaign.

Fix Every Broken Link: Google Webmaster Tools

The easiest links to get are the ones you already have. How zen is that? But it's true: Fix broken links and you'll boost your authority right away. And it's a lot easier to fix a busted link than it is to find a new one.

Get your site set up and verified with Google Webmaster Tools.

Then go straight to Diagnostics > Web Crawl > Not Found.

Look the list of not found URLs. In particular, look for ones with multiple 'linked from' pages, like this:

Click the 'linked from' count and you'll see where those broken links come from:

Every one of those links comes from another web site. They could be sending you link authority but they aren't, since they're broken.

It's a pain to contact every webmaster and ask them to fix the links.

Instead, create a 301 redirect from the broken link to the working one. It must be a 301 redirect. Search engines pass most of the link authority through a 301 redirect to the correct page. Voila. All fixed.

Once you've fixed all of those, fix all the broken links you created on your site, will ya?

If you don't know what a 301 redirect is, contact your web hosting provider. You probably have a control panel or some such that will let you set them up. If they won't set it up, fire them immediately and switch providers. 301s aren't that hard to do.

Your goal: Zero 'not found' URLs in your Webmaster Tools Report. I'm not saying it's possible. But it's a good goal.

Buy Links...?

I can't say 'buy links' because Google Hath Proclaimed Link Buying Is Bad. However, I can almost guarantee your competitors are beating the crap out of you, in part, by buying links.

So, if I were going to suggest buying links, I'd say something like this: Don't buy from link-building services. Instead:

• Sponsor industry associations. They often provide great links in exchange.
• Join the Better Business Bureau. They'll link to you.
• Get your site certified by a service like McAfee Web Security. Yes, it's basically a sticker. Your site is only as secure as your most pissed off webmaster. But they'll list you in a directory of certified sites, which means a nice link.
• Get your site listed in every relevant directory. SEOMOZ has a fine list of resources here.

There are more, I'm sure, but since I'm not actually saying this, I can't tell you about them here.

Grab the low-hanging fruit

There are lots of links out there that don't cost a dime, too. I can't just give you a list, because it varies depending on your industry and location. But possible link resources that your competitors likely missed include:

• City business directories.
• Social media sites: LinkedIn, Facebook and lesser-known sites all provide a few quality links if you know where to get 'em.
• Press releases do still provide links. Use a service like PRWeb and include a link or two in your press release. As the press release gets passed around, it'll create a nice base of links for you. Not great ones, but links are links.

What not to do

Whatever you do, do not:

• Trade links. Reciprocal link trades went out with trickle-down economics. They don't work.
• Buy links from a service. Have to say it again. I'm not paranoid but if I were, I'd worry about Google sitting and watching just those services to see who's cheating.
• Hire some service that calls you out of the blue promising to get you 199 quality links. Run. Screaming.
• Use an automated program, unless you really, really know what you're doing. Someone just accidentally plagiarized 1/2 my site using one of those programs. He had to read one angry Tweet after another from me and everyone else I told about him.

It's not about the plan. It's about doing it.

You can read the whole series again and again. But at some point, you'll have to get out there and just get to work. So go do it.

Why are you still here?

The Link Building Series

Part 1: Why Link Building Sucks
Part 2: 3 Competitive Link Research Tools
Part 3: Finding the Opportunity Gap
Part 4: Get those links
Part 5: Out-execute the competition

Let me tell you why.

It all starts with the Seattle Parks Department.

See, once a year they come by our office, which is backed up against a very nice greenspace, with this huge weedwhacker machine that looks like a Terminator nightmare. They turn it on (pushing it with a full-sized tractor, by the way) and it goes bzzzzzzzzzz, chopping down all that pesky green stuff.

This year, it threw a small rock through one of the windows in my office. I wasn't there at the time but near as I can tell it was going about 186,000 miles/second. It left a small hole in the window.

I reported this to our landlord.

5 weeks go by.

Then, with no notice, these guys show up to fix the window. They have a nice, shiny new piece of glass. Cool! Except apparently Neanderthal Man never saw one of these:

THIS IS A MEASURING TAPE, YOU NUBWITTED MISSING LINK. You use it to MEASURE STUFF. BEFORE YOU RIP OUT THE OLD WINDOW.

Alas, they yanked the old window and then realized that the glass they'd brought was the wrong size.

So they left my office open to the elements for a few hours, then came back and boarded up the window in fine zombie-apocalypse fashion. Which is to say it looks awful, provides no insulation and generally makes my office feel like I'm working in a war zone.

So yeah, I've been a tad distracted. No fear, though, part 5 in the link building series is going live tonight.

OK, maybe I am. Waaay back in 1996, when I was a struggling entrepreneur (and what's changed exactly?), I sent a long letter to Schwinn's marketing department offering to build their site.

They sent back a somewhat mocking reply. So when I happened to do a search today and discovered that their site only shows 4 pages to Google:

...you'll imagine I didn't exactly weep.

My schadenfreude is in spite of the fact that I won my first-ever BMX race on a Schwinn Scrambler, rode across New England on a Schwinn Varsity, and even tried sell their bikes in a store in LA before I realized they'd begun building bricks with wheels.

Nice job, guys. Keep up the good work and even the nameplate will soon disappear. Congrats.

If you're expecting a miraculous piece of software that automatically acquires Thousands of Links For You Overnight, you're going to be sorely disappointed, though. In today's post I'll show you how to get links, the good old-fashioned way:

• Find the choice links.
• Make your requests.
• Keep track of progress.
• Don't waste your time.
• Don't trust anyone.

Find the choice links

If you used yesterday's procedure, then you've got a nice list of links in a spreadsheet. You also have the original list you generated using Linkscape.

Prep your link list spreadsheet by adding a few columns: Pagerank, MozRank, date requested, date obtained and note.

For me, 'choice' links are high value, easily-obtained links from sites that are relevant to your business. So go find those and you're set.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Sniff.

Snort.

Ahem.

OK, the chances of you finding links with all three attributes are practically nil. So try to balance them as best you can. Here's what I do:

1. Grab the first link on the list.
2. Visit the site. What's its pagerank? Yah, toolbar pagerank is a crappy metric. But it's the only one we've got right now.
3. If the site has no pagerank or a pagerank of 0, skip it. Make a note if you want to.
4. If the site has pagerank, enter it in the sheet.

Do this for the first 10-20 sites on the list. You'll get something that looks like this:

You'll notice I'm not being terribly picky. If there's pagerank, I select the link. That's because no one really knows, 100%, how Google, Yahoo! and Live select a 'choice' link. We have a general idea, but not a great one. Best to get 'em all. In my opinion.

Make Your Requests

Now comes the least-fun, most intestinally fortitudinous part: Go to each site and request the link.

That doesn't mean spamming the site owner with an e-mail telling them what a wonderful site they have and could they please for the love of God give you a link. Here's what you do:

1. If the site is a directory, look for the 'add site' button. If it costs money, you have to decide whether it's worth it. Many directory links are worth it purely as advertisements (never mind the link value). I've gotten leads from sites that I thought were purely a link play for me and my company. Don't rule 'em out.
2. If the site is a blog, make a note in the notes column. We'll work with that in Out Execute Your Competition, in the next post in this series.
3. If the site is a private business, you should probably skip it. It's unlikely they're going to link to you out of the blue. If you think you have an angle, like a complementary business or a contact at the business, go for it. But contact them directly, and for God's sake don't use a subject like 'link exchange request'. Open a conversation with them that focuses on the angle. Grub for the link later on.
4. If the site's a news site or social bookmarking site that for some reason still provides 'dofollowed' links, wow. Write a great blog post and ask someone to bookmark it for you.
5. If the site's a certification or organization directory, such as the Better Business Bureau, sign up! Don't be cheap. These organizations build trust in your company and, since they showed up in your link search, you know they'll give you a link, too.
6. Add the date you requested the link in the 'date requested' column.

What, you thought this would be easy? Sorry. Making pancakes is easy. Link building is closer to making a perfect chocolate souffle. With no oven and a herd of elephants running by outside.

Keep track of your progress

You can check each site manually, if you want to, for your link.

I use Google Alerts to help out: Go to Google.com/alerts and do a search for your domain name. Set the search to display in your Google Reader Account:

Click 'create alert'.

Click 'add to Google Reader'.

What, you don't have Google Reader? Are you insane? Follow these directions and set it up!

I don't use the link: operator because I want the widest possible set of results each day for my domain name.

Add other alerts mixing the link: operator and any keywords you're using as link text. So, if you're going to use "internet marketing" as your link text (when given the opportunity), add an alert for link:www.portentinteractive.com "internet marketing".

As new links show up, add the date in the 'date obtained' column. If these links have an expiration date, I suggest adding a note that reads 'expires [date]' so that you can renew them before they go bye-bye.

Bingo. You're now tracking link progress. There are, by the way, tools that purport to do all this automatically. I haven't found any that work to my liking. I'm a picky bugger, though, so feel free to try 'em if you find 'em.

Don't waste your time

If a link looks hopeless, don't waste your time! Examples of time-wasters include:

• A site that's not been updated for 1+ years. Submit your request if you want, but don't spend much time following up.
• A site for a small, individual practitioner who used to work at the company to which she links. Forget it, OK?
• Sites that charge $3000 for a link from a Pagerank 2 page. Just laugh and move on.

You can likely build links faster by writing cool stuff on your site, networking via Twitter or other tools, and generally keeping your online house in order. Keep your priorities straight.

Don't trust anyone

I'm slightly paranoid, so you may want to ignore this. But I never, ever, ever outsource link building. It's tempting to hire some guy overseas to get you 999 links for $99. But you just don't know who they are, what they're really doing with your money, or who else they're working with.

I do have the luxury of a great team here at Portent, so I can afford to be paranoid. But regardless, watch yourself.

Slow and steady...

Got those first 10-20 done? Time to repeat the whole process for the next 10-20 links. Remember, slow and steady will win this race.

What about...?

Right now the link geeks out there are warming up their flame cannons, getting ready to ask questions like:

• What about second-degree links?
• What about associations?
• What about all those sources of free links?
• Ian, what is your problem?!

I'll be answering these questions, except that last one, in Part 5, out-execute your competition.

Ta-ta for now.

The Link Building Series

Part 1: Why Link Building Sucks
Part 2: 3 Competitive Link Research Tools
Part 3: Finding the Opportunity Gap
Part 4: Get those links
Part 5: Out-execute the competition

Today, we'll take those tools, grab more links, then figure out which links you don't yet have.

1. Using Linkscape for link research

I'm definitely partial to SEOMOZ's Linkscape as my primary research tool. So we'll use that for this example. Note, though, that you can use Yahoo! Site Explorer or any other tools that can tell you whose linking to your competitors. You can read yesterday's post to find out why I like Linkscape so much.

I'll start as if you haven't done any research yet.

First, grab the competitor's links:

1. In Linkscape, type in the web address of a competitor's site (those buggers at SEOMOZ are always stealing my thunder):
2. Run the basic report.
3. Then click 'run advanced report'.
4. Go grab a Kit-Kat while Linkscape goes through several hundred million links for you.
5. Once it's done, click the 'Links to URL' tab. That'll give you links just to the home page, which I find saves my sanity when I'm scraping through thousands of links.
6. Set every field to 'hide' for now. You can get fancy later.
7. Click 'Download CSV'. Save the file to your desktop.

You can repeat this for other competitors if you want. I find one list of links is enough to drive me batty, but if you're a glutton for punishment, go for it.

Next, repeat the process for your own site.

Now you have at least two lists of links, along with MozRank and other data. The data's a good indicator of link value, but I find one way or another I end up going after every link. So for now, don't worry about anything except the links themselves. We'll worry about the MozRank stuff in Part 4 of this series.

2. Choose: Domain or page?

Now you have a choice: You can grab the links on a page-by-page basis, or domain-by-domain.

Glutton for Punishment option: Page-by-page is more difficult because it means you'll get a list of every individual link that points at the competing site, including multiple links from each web site. That's a lot of links. But it gives you the most complete list. If you're going to do that, copy the entire 'URL' column and paste it into another Excel worksheet.

Lazybones Option: If you're a lazybones like me, cut-and-paste the 'root domain' column into another Excel worksheet.

Regardless, name the tab in that worksheet 'competitors' or something else easy to remember.

Then do the same thing for your own site. Paste your list into the file that has the 'competitors' tab, but use a different tab. Name that tab 'mysite' or something easy to remember.

You now have a single worksheet with 2 tabs named 'competitors' and 'mysite'.

Don't worry, you can download my sample worksheet here. No strings attached, just remember me at Christmas.

3. Remove the duplicates

If you went with the lazybones option in 2, above, you'll need to remove duplicates. To do that using Excel:

1. Open the competitor's list of domains.
2. Sort by domain.
3. Select Filter >> Advanced Filter >> Unique Records Only

Voila - you now have a list of unique domains that provide links to your competitor. Do the same thing for your own link list, too.

4. Mind the gap

The opportunity gap consists of all the links that your competitor has but you don't. Somewhere in those links are the ones responsible for them kicking your fanny all over the rankings.

So, you need to create a list that shows those links that your competitor has but you don't.

1. Open the worksheet that has the competitor and mysite tabs.
2. In the competitor tab, add the 'match' function to the column to the right of the URLs. Use the exact format I've got here: .
   Be sure to use the $ format for the comparison range.
3. Copy the formula down for the entire list.
4. Any URL with an 'N/A' next to it is one that your competitor has, but you don't. Cut-and-paste all of those into the 'gap' tab.

I know, I know. Excel - why are you doing this to me?! But once you get the hang of using 'match' it gets easier. You can download my sample spreadsheet here, if you want to get a head start.

5. Now get to work

Now it's time to go get those links. Read Part 4, tomorrow.

The Link Building Series

Part 1: Why Link Building Sucks
Part 2: 3 Competitive Link Research Tools
Part 3: Finding the Opportunity Gap
Part 4: Get those links
Part 5: Out-execute the competition

If you're treating search engines as attackers, you're probably in trouble.

Usually, when a book title includes things like 'brand' and 'success' or a book deals with a topic like 'personal branding' I buy the book based on its ability to act as a doorstop.

But I've been reading Dan Schawbel's blog for a while and have always liked his stuff. So I gave this one a go.

It reads well, and (gasp) provides actual, individual steps and ideas for building a personal brand.

This is not a 'how to get a job' book. That's important. It's also a good thing. Personal branding is important. It's just that very few writers get it right.

Dan does, so you need to buy this book. Two thumbs up. Four if I had 'em.

In this, part 2 of my little 5-part series on link building, I'm going to outline the tools I use.

It's important to keep yesterday's post in mind. I do not like link building. I do it to survive. So my tools list is not the most complete. Instead, I focus on the tools that make the task as painless as possible. If you want to read the writings of people who obsess about links the way I obsess about grammar, try Search Engine Land.

SEOMOZ's Linkscape

This has become my primary link research tool, which I know makes me a second-rate link builder. But the truth is SEOMOZ's Linkscape is a lazy link builder's best friend. Type in a web address, and you get a high-level view of of a site's link health. That's neat, but not terribly helpful if you're researching why Joe's Plumbing now has 99999 links.

Then click 'Advanced Reports', though, and you can get a list of all links to the competitor site. Even better, you can filter out stuff you don't want. I usually set it up like this, so I'm getting the narrowest possible sampling:

Then download the whole list, find the ones you still need and get to work. I'll be talking about that part of the process in Part 3.

Caveat: Linkscape isn't free. To get the advanced reports, you have to be an SEOMOZ Pro member. It's worth every penny.

Google's Link: Operator

I know, I know, Google's Link: operator isn't accurate blah blah blah. It's what I've got, OK?

Go to Google and do this search:

link:www.domainname.com -site:domainname.com
(for some reason, Google's being mean to me and -site isn't working at the moment. Updates as I figure it out).

That'll get you all links Google's willing to show you to that domain. , minus links from within the domain itself. You can try it for my site right here.

Problem, of course: You can't just download these links. You'll have to review 'em by hand. But I'm sure some clever link builder like Hamlet Batista can get you all set up to grab what you need.

Yahoo! Site Explorer

Yahoo!'s Site Explorer will get you another peek at a competitor's links:

Go to siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com, enter a web address, then click 'inlinks'. I usually set the drop downs to 'only this URL' and 'except from this subdomain', too, so I can filter out any internal site links.

You can export the 1st 1000 or so links to a spreadsheet.

Later, once you've worked through those 1000 links, you can use some creative sorting and API tricks (not for the faint of heart) to get more of them.

TextMate

I use TextMate, the most wonderful text editor for Mac OS X, to compare all these lists of links and remove duplicates. Then I use it again to remove any links my site already has. I'll provide the details on this tomorrow, in part 3.

Other Tools

There are a lot of link research tools out there, including Aaron Wall's, and a few bazillion others.

If you know of one I've missed, feel free to post it in a comment. Note that I will check on the tool before I publish, so if you're about to suggest some ridiculous comment spamming tool, save yourself the time.

Tomorrow, on to Part 3: Finding the opportunity gaps.

The Link Building Series

Part 1: Why Link Building Sucks
Part 2: 3 Competitive Link Research Tools
Part 3: Finding the Opportunity Gap
Part 4: Get those links
Part 5: Out-execute the competition

And some of those posts might seem directed at clients.

I want to point out, super-clearly: I am a selfish SOB. I only work with clients I truly can support and that I enjoy helping. So it is very, very rare that I have anything other than within-the-family-because-I-like-you disagreements with clients.

When I'm whining on Twitter, you can safely assume it has nothing to do with the folks I work with.

I do often tell clients "That's a really bad idea." So don't get me wrong - I'm a curmudgeon with them, too. But only because I care.

I hate building links. I mean I hate it. It's either:

• Begging for a link.
• Begging for attention.
• Tricking people.
• Paying people absurd amounts of money for 3 words on a page.
• Engaging in a criminal enterprise (to Google, anyway).

Inevitably, after working hard on a link campaign for a day or two, I feel like I've been doing breaststroke in raw sewage with my mouth wide open.

And, there are almost no metrics. You can keep a list of links to show what you've added to your client's portfolio. So what? Are those links really helping them move up? Did that article about cubic zirconium really attract any useful authority? Who knows?

The best part: There are rules. But no one will tell you what they are:

• Some purchased links are OK, if they're called things like sponsorships. Other purchased links are anathema. In between are those that are a waste of money. Good luck figuring out which are which.
• The best links are from authoritative, relevant sites. OK. What the hell does that mean?! See "there are almost no metrics", above.
• The guy with the most cash typically wins. Whether you're buying links or writing great link-attracting stuff, you have to spend, spend, spend. There's nothing controlling that race to the top/bottom.

So Why Bother?

Because links are important. You have to have them. Without a link strategy, your competitors will eventually pass you by in the rankings. Like it or not, links are votes in an internet-wide popularity contest.

What Works

Smug internet marketers like me will tell you 'organic link growth' through 'compelling content' is the best strategy. If I say that to you, I won't resent it if you kick my teeth in.

The truth is, the best way to build links is to adopt a 4-part strategy:

• Research the competition.
• Find your opportunity gaps.
• Go get those links!
• Out-execute your competition.

There's more, of course, like coming up with brilliantly creative ideas that compel thousands of people to link to you. Can't say I know how to consistently do that. So I'll leave that kind of advice to omniscient beings.

Read Part 2, tomorrow, for tools I use to do competitive research. Don't worry, I won't give away all the secrets.

Part 1: Why Link Building Sucks
Part 2: 3 Competitive Link Research Tools
Part 3: Finding the Opportunity Gap
Part 4: Get those links
Part 5: Out-execute the competition

If you don't know, the Hot Seat allows site owners to get their web site reviewed by a panel of SEO and web geeks.

One of the reviewees had follow up questions, which turned into a bit of an ongoing conversation between me and their CTO. It's a great peek at how these conversations often go. You can read it here:

Searchfest Hot Seat Panel Review, Continued

1. I'd buy a lot more links. Really, I should. It seems to work anyway.
2. I'd own a lot more internet access accounts, so I could spam StumbleUpon, Digg and other social networks.
3. You wouldn't be reading this blog. 'Cause I sure wouldn't want to tell anyone what I know. Luckily my need for attention outweighs my evil tendencies.
4. I'd be rich.
5. My guinea pigs would be far more nervous. They look tasty.
6. I'd be an avid plagiarist.
7. I would offer a $99 Rank Number One On Google Guaranteed package. Sign here, please.
8. I would tell clients what they want to hear.
9. I would write movies like Manos, the Hands of Fate, and then make my kids watch them. Mwahahahahahahaha...
10. I'd hire 40,000 people abroad to click the PPC ads on this site. C'mon, guys, I make $2 a day. Are you kidding me?
11. I sooo would've slapped that guy who said "All you can do is write".
12. I'd be less whiny.
13. I'd correct everyone's grammar. Oh, wait...

Why waste your time?

While you may understand this, it's possible there are clear thinkers in your organization who insist on collecting all this needless data. Here's how you drive them utterly batty:

1. Change everything. All the time. Rename files. Move pages around. Replace images on the home page. Soon no one will know what worked and what didn't, and you can create those 60 second Flash intros in peace.
2. Remove the tracking code. Nothing screws up some nice, clean HTML 3.0 more than some stupid analytics package tracking javascript. Delete it. It's useless.
3. Use lots of redirects. Reroute visitors from one page to the next in an endless ping-pong series of temporary and permanent redirects. This will cause any analytics package to have a total nervous breakdown. As a bonus, it totally wrecks SEO. Sweet!
4. Become an expert. Don't worry, I'm not suggesting you actually READ ANYTHING. It's far easier than that. When you're in a meeting with your internet marketing team, respond to every request with statements like "I don't really think that's necessary" or, even better, "IT says we don't need that".
5. Shred the evidence. Get access to the Google Analytics account, and then delete it. Not even God or Matt Cutts can bring it back once you do that.
6. Misinterpret the data. In basketball, bounce rate is good, right? So why is it dropping on our home page? You want a 90% bounce rate NO MATTER WHAT!!!
7. Put on blinders. Focus on one tiny aspect of the marketing team's data. Obsess about the word "heffalump" and why you don't get any traffic from it. Ignore the 50% conversion rate on all the other terms. Combine this method with #6 and you may actually hear marketers' teeth crack during meetings.
8. Mission accomplished. Read one analytics report per year. Declare the campaign a success and shut down the project. Hey, it worked for our last President, right?
9. Test to death. When all else fails, turn those nerds' weapons against them. Demand that they test everything, no matter how obviously stupid it is. You never know. Maybe pink writing on a red background will work better than high-contrast.
10. Deny, deny, deny. Whatever you do, DO NOT ACCEPT THE TRUTH if it proves you wrong. Who gives a crap if PPC generated a 5:1 return on investment? What really matters is that you don't like this newfangled stuff.

Remember, data is helpless when confronted by sufficiently persistent ignorance.

OK, I've always wanted to do that. But I do have some real advice for writing on Twitter.

I get a lot of of new Tweeple (That's Twitter slang for 'people'. See? You're already becoming One of Us.) asking me: "What should I write?" or "How should I write?"

Here are my quick guidelines:

Kill the adverbs. You don't need that "Obviously". That'll save you 9 characters! 10 if you include the comma. When you only have 140 characters to write, that's a lot of extra room.

Write in active voice. "I washed my car" is easier to read, and shorter, than "My car was washed by me". Twitter is no place for passive voice.

Use shorthand sparingly. OMG your last TWT had me ROTFL. If that made no sense, that means you still have a life. If it made sense, I'm sorry for you. Either way, avoid using too much shorthand, or your online BFFs may run away.

Notice how a lot of these tips are just good writing habits? It's almost like writing well makes you a better communicator. Makes ya think, doesn't it...

Use hashtags. Don't worry about what hashtags are in a technical sense. Consider them keywords or tags for your Tweets. Use them whenever possible. You can get a list of popular hashtags at Hashtags.org.

Be pithy. Don't write about your trip to the coffee shop, unless something profound happened. Answer a question someone asked you at work. Provide a brief tip in whatever field you work. Give an opinion on the day's events. Example: "Put your keywords first in the title tag. Search engines care about that stuff."

OR

Be amusing. Everyone appreciates it when you make them laugh. Example: "Did you know I'm 99% organic? I had no idea..."

OR

Be controversial. Use sparingly. No one likes a troll, and that's what you become if you constantly write outrageous stuff in a desperate plea for attention.

BUT

Don't be dull. There are enough of us on there writing stuff like "I'm tired. Going to bed." That's my line, OK? Don't steal it.

Variety is the spice of life. Mix it up. Be funny sometimes, pithy others.

Don't dig for ideas. Write if and when something springs to mind. That's the nature of Twitter and other 'microblogs' like it. You don't need to set a goal of writing 5 Tweets a day.

Promote sparingly. It's perfectly OK to post an occasional link to a blog post or a special deal on your site. However, if all I get from you is an endless stream of links to your web site, I'll click 'nofollow'. I will. I mean it.

Reply. If someone else wrote something you really liked, or really didn't, or that you just wanted to answer, then reply to their Tweet. Twitter is the world's largest chat room. So chat!

Moderate. Don't be mean on Twitter. Unless you're already famous and have 5,000+ followers, being mean only drives people away. After you have 5,000 followers it's apparently funny. For now, though, be nice.

Consider. Once you write a tweet, it's out there. You can't delete it. So consider how you'll feel when your boss/potential boss/spouse/mom/child reads about your latest debauchery.

Enjoy. If every second on Twitter is like being strapped over growing bamboo shoots, stop. Readers can tell when you hate your surroundings, and they don't like it. Unless they're sadists. So why suffer?

With that, I leave you to Twitter.

Of course you can try a focus group. Do your design. Then put 10 strangers in a small box, give them free candy, point 10 cameras at them and start firing questions. Oh, and don't forget to make sure there's a painfully obvious slab of one-way glass on one wall so they know they're being observed.

You know you'll get their natural reaction in that situation...

Thanks!

There are a lot of tools out there to help you manage the flood of information. My personal favorite is TweetDeck. It's got a multi-column format that lets me organize my twitter friends, their messages and other stuff:

Here's how you set up:

Download and Install Tweetdeck

Download Tweetdeck and install it. When prompted, enter your Twitter username and password. Phew. That was hard.

The Buttons

Once you run Tweetdeck, you may just see a single column, like this:

Click this button at the upper-right-hand corner of the window:

Voila! You've got more columns. Each of those columns can give you a different view of Twitter's data.

Remove columns you don't want by clicking the 'x' at the upper-right of each column:

Set Up Your Desktop

Then add the columns you need. I'd definitely start with these four:

All friends shows the tweets of everyone you currently follow.

Replies shows you all tweets replying to you.

Groups is invaluable. Use it to break up your hundreds of friends into smaller, more manageable groups, like 'Twitterati' and 'Rock stars'.

Twitter search lets you constantly monitor search results for a specific keyword. For example, you might monitor search results for your brand name, or your favorite food:

Try All The Buttons

There are other cool features. You can list all direct messages, for example. The buttons at the bottom of each column let you filter that column by keywords, mark 'em as stuff you've already seen and other fun things.

Tweetdeck is super-versatile, and I'm no longer part of the Twitter Elite. If you find other cool tricks, be sure to leave a comment.

Got any questions? You can always follow me on Twitter: I'm @portentint.

Update. Just found a great post that lists 12 Twitter Tools you need. Diane's list is comprehensive. So I won't have to write one.

Why I Wrote This I've made fun of Twitter. I've promised not to write about it. But if you know me you know that I'm (A) Easily bribed, (B) A lightweight, (C) Fickle.

I just had dinner with two great clients who shall remain nameless. They plied me with booze, asked me about Twitter and said I should write it down. Now I'm buzzed on Diet Coke, slightly tipsy from one whole beer and there you go.

Of course, now that's it's been published, 150,000 other people will immediately run out, abuse the hell out of it, make Google take notice, and flush the entire technique down the toilet.

I am all for sharing information. I do a lot of it on this blog. But before you publish that secret technique, think about whether you're:

• A journalist, reporting on happenings in the industry; or
• An internet marketing professional with a responsibility to represent your clients.

I mean this as the friendliest criticism. I will continue to read the blog in question: The authors rock. But our first responsibility is to our clients.

We cannot kill valuable techniques and assets we use to build our clients' businesses in a quest to get attention.

If you know a 'secret weapon', share it with other SEOs you know and trust over a beer. Don't provide it to the entire internet so every spammer from Mumbai to Manhattan can turn it into a worthless turd.

Respectfully,

Ian

The book is divided up into short, neat sections. Each section is a 'truth', such as:

• Wag the long tail. A reference to 'long tail' keywords.
• You don't have a homepage any more. Amen!!!
• SEO is not an afterthought. Amen, sister!!!!!!

Rebecca's book is a fantastic introduction to SEO. It's great for total marketing beginners and novices, as well as savvy marketers who don't know SEO just yet.

One Teeny Issue

The author implies, in a few places, that link trading still works. I'm not a link ninja, so I don't know for certain, but I suspect that link trades went out with Donald Rumsfeld. I apologize if I'm wrong. Nothing's a sure thing in the linking world, so don't let this stop you from reading the book.

Buy it

If you need an intro to SEO, this is the book. It serves up the subject in little bites - you can easily read a few sections in 15 minutes, then put the book aside for a few days and start again later.

This one gets two thumbs up.

And of course, there's always my ebook:

Selling stuff in another country? Surprise! Google, Yahoo! and Live don't just transfer your .com rankings worldwide. You might keep the same position abroad. But if you want to compete in the rankings on, say Google.ca or Google.de, you'll probably need to take some steps:

• Create a separate site. Oh my god you say. Ian, how can you ask us to make another site? The first one almost killed us! This one doesn't have to. First, if the new site is in another language, you can just translate what you've got. Second, if the new site is in the same language, you can create a smaller site with unique content. It's worth the effort.
• Localize your site. ‘Translated’ means you converted your yeses to jas and your nos to neins. Localized means someone who understands the culture and mores of the country reviewed your site to make sure you don't insult anyone. It's entirely possible the attractive model on your home page is giving an entire nation the finger. It pays to check. Hire a translation/localization company that does this - it pays off.
• Buy a local domain. On Google.de, www.mybikeshop.de will get preference over www.mybikeshop.com. It pays to host your localized site at the first level domain for that country. Most major registrars make it easy to reserve nation-specific domains.
• Host locally. IT teams realllly love me when I say this. Nothing like having your web sites spread across 10 different hosting providers to really make site maintenance a breeze (that's sarcasm). Search engines check your web site's ip address — that weird number that designates your web site's unique home on the internet — to see where the site's hosted. If your server is located within the relevant country, you'll get extra ranking juice.
• Use the right keywords. In the USA we might search for ‘18-wheelers’. In Britain, though, folks search for ‘articulated lorries’ (I love that term. I could say it all day...). Make sure you're using the words folks search for within that country. Do the research. Use that localization company you just hired to help you find the right phrases.
• Do not use an automated translation service. You probably get e-mails from Dr. Richard Dixon or some other fictional character saying he specializes in getting your site ranked abroad. This spammer's real specialty? Relieving you of $99 or so, then using Google Translate to convert your site to something that reads like the drugged ramblings of a mentally ill parrot. Use a real translator.

We Americans are legendary for our ability to misunderstand, ignore, insult or otherwise write off other cultures. If you live in the US, please, break the trend. We now have a President who can spell. Everyone has their hopes up. Don't let the world down. You can do your patriotic duty and make some extra money in the mean time.

Harrison, my son, had his video podcast debut. Alas, he spent at least 1/2 the podcast making faces and trying to get me to crack up, which he's far too good at. So if I sound a bit distracted, blame him.

I talk about:

• How to get to the keywords report in Google Analytics.
• A few measures of keyword quality: Time on site, pages per visit, and bounce rate.
• How to use paid search as a measure of organic search potential.

It goes fast!

Note: Watch the hi-res version here, on Vimeo.

Previous 5-Minute Tutorials

I am, as it turns out, a Mentor:

Since a stranger once referred to me as "The unfun parent", I find "mentor" to be a step up.

You can take the quiz, which is full of nift and a great example of how simple but well executed is best, right here:

Edu-Parent Quiz provided by DreamBox Learning a kindergarten, 1st grade and 2nd grade math game.

In the mean time, here are some of the strangest, most bizarre key phrases generating traffic to my blog:

• "Buy a wife". Actually explained by this post, which ranks in the top 20 on Google. I will not sell wife-market ads on this page, sorry.
• "Snidely Whiplash". This one's generated by the image search result and top-10 ranking for 'snidely whiplash' for this article.
• "I hate customers". No I don't! You pay me money!
• "Lemming". I have no words.
• "Parthenon cake". I'm not surprised by this one as I did a post about it. But who the hell searches for 'parthenon cake'?!
• "Biggest goldfish". Bwah?
• "Uvula". No idea.
• "Poop blog". I have to accept blame for this one.
• "Dumb dumb stupid head". OK dokey.
• "How many people jumped off the brooklyn bridge". ???
• "Roxicet 30mg". Sorry, if I had any I'd take it.
• "Start a sexy conversation on the internet". No. I have no content about this. No finger pointing please.

So there you go. Amazing what folks search for out there...

I had a brief Tweeted conversation with Lisa Barone this morning about the state of the SEO industry.

If you're in marketing and aren't following her, you need to.

Lisa feels a lot of folks get ripped off by carpetbagger-like 'professionals' who offer Top Rankings In Days For Just $99.95.

I agree. I'm on your side in this, all you clients out there. Nuthin' but love.

And now, I'm going to get in your face. All ranty-like.

I am sick - sick I tell you - of smart business people coming to me and saying their site is an SEO nightmare because "they trusted the last guy". I am sick of hearing that they won't hire another practitioner without 25 references and a complete SEO training course.

I'm sick of it all because these smart people have no excuse. The carpetbaggers of old went into battle against an unarmed opponent: Half-starved, semi-literate people whose homes had been devastated by the US Civil War.

Everyone else: You are not unarmed. You are smart. You are sharp cookies. I've seen it myself. You've built businesses, negotiated contracts, refined your pitch and generally kicked ass.

If you hired an attorney and they promised you they could win a multi-million dollar lawsuit against a major corporation in just weeks, you'd be suspicious. But you didn't go to law school. Somehow, you just know.

So don't come to me now, shaking your head sadly. Own up. You got pwned. It happens to the best of us. Buy me a beer and ask about crappy accountants I hired in the 90s. That doesn't mean you're dumb, or a bad business person. It. Just. Happens. Sometimes.

But own up! SEO is now a priority. Internet marketing is now a functioning part of your business strategy. So apply some of that brain power. Assign some mental resources. Start being a more intelligent consumer of all forms of internet marketing. Think, Man/Woman!:

1. If something seems too good to be true - do you really think someone can get you a top ranking on Google for a real, traffic-generating phrase for $200? In 2 weeks? - then it is.
2. If your gut tells you someone's a huckster, leave. Don't worry about the truth of it. In the end, you'd be uncomfortable working with them anyway. Just move on.
3. If someone seems really smart, trustworthy and capable, check their references.
4. Don't trust references as an indication of business success. Trust them as evidence of someone's character. If the references make you squirm, what does that say about the referencee?

We'll all be the better for it.

We now return you to scheduled programming...

Articles About Hiring Good (or bad) Internet Marketers

• Signs your SEM firm is good or bad.
• Hire a crappy SEO firm in only 10 steps.
• SEO Fraud
• Truthiness and getting fired: What's An Agency's Role?
• Beware SEO Snake Oil

First Look

Here it is, fresh outta the box:

Proof positive that Elizabeth and I did write part of this book:

It's an all-in-one, which means it's about 8 books in a single volume. This is one big book. 2+ inches of web marketing goodness:

Meeting the Family

We hit it off the moment it arrived:

The book meets my grandfather's Depression-era typewriter:

...and my other grandfather's Depression-era adding machine (the book kept fidgeting):

It's always a challenge introducing a new book to the household. I was afraid they'd fight, or Conversation Marketing would sulk. But after a few nervous moments they got along famously:

I get ready to take the book home for the first time:

1001 Uses

You can read it, but it has other uses, too:

I re-enact an episode of The Shield. Tracy didn't mind - we had ice.

I wanted to play hide and seek but the book just couldn't quite figure it out:

It's an excellent fridge deodorizer:

And of course, it's a great furniture accessory:

Get a Free E-book

If you buy Web Marketing for Dummies All In One, and send me a great unboxing photo, I'll send you a free copy of my e-book The Fat Free Guide to Copywriting (previously known as the The Unscary, Real World Guide to SEO Copywriting).

Buy it here:

This one is about Referrer Analytics using Google Analytics. It replaces an older tutorial that used the old Google Analytics interface. In it, I describe how to figure out:

• Who's sending traffic to your site.
• Specific pages on other sites that are sending that traffic.
• What's happening when folks get to your site.
• A few things you can do with this data.

What do you think of the length/format/style? Is this helpful? I can do a lot more of these a month than those honking huge 20 minute ones...

Other 5-Minute Tutorials

I am very excited. Amazon claims they now have 'em in stock. I just ordered 4. How many have you ordered?

Well, I've gone a bit mercenary and am going to try to actually make some decent money on the thing, so fair warning: Tomorrow night the price will go up to $7 (gasp!). More important, I'll be re-releasing it under a standard do-not-duplicate-or-I'll-hire-lawyers-to-harass-you-into-your-grave type of license.

If this works, I'll use a similar system for future books: An early release at a low price and with open distribution, with a slightly higher price and more restrictive license.

If it doesn't work, I'm going to hoard all my knowledge for myself. Mwahahahahahaha...

Click the banner if you want to buy the book before the price goes up:

After spending 3 days trying to convert this presentation to a slides-with-audio recording, dealing with endless Keynote bugs, I had given up. I uploaded the slides sans audio. But then I noticed Slideshare lets me sync up audio with the slides. Woo hoo!

You can listen to the audio-only version here: Webinar in MP3 Format [18 meg]

And the slides, with audio, are here:

By the way, I have a much-neglected podcast feed that includes about 18-20 other podcasts, presentations and the like. It's here.

My post this week about social media appears to have, er, riled a few folk. Not my intent, but I figured I'd roll with it.

Here's a list of the posts/comments about my post, as well as my panel discussion regarding social media at the NWEN:

• Ian Lurie Says He Hates Social Media. Do You?
• A Tweet titled: Ian Lurie hates "Social Media," and thinks 99% of the human race is sub-literate? Correction - I only think 98% of the human race is sub-literate, and not ONE PERCENTAGE MORE. By the way, you mis-spelled 'adress' in your blog post.
• A commentary about the NWEN session I spoke at. It was a blast, by the way.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Marketing departments that used to sniff at internet marketing are now falling over themselves trying to shift dollars from offline to online marketing. I believe the thinking is that online marketing will get them a better return for less dollars in a tight economy.

Okaaaay...

While it's certainly a solid strategy to move online, it pays to put a little thought into it, first:

1. Verify your infrastructure. Before you shift dollars from offline to online, make sure you can actually take care of all those online customers. Do you have analytics in place? Can you rapidly revise landing pages and site copy? No sense putting money into online ads if you're going to send visitors to a site that sucks.
2. Set reasonable goals. If you're shifting money from offline to online hoping to generate a 5:1 return within two weeks, cut back on the Prozac and think again. It's not going to happen. Set goals you can achieve. Don't depend on a home run.
3. Manage expectations. The biggest mistake I see when companies shift their budgets online is they assume it's a 'run and done' thing. Marketers and their bosses think they can build the landing page or launch the PPC campaign and then forget about it for a month. While that cycle works in print or television, it won't work online. Online is highly, highly iterative and requires constant attention. So a lot of the money you save in ad fees goes into labor.
4. Adjust your style. In print, on television and such the emphasis is grabbing attention and drawing people deeper into your message by putting an ad in context. You place the headline right next to a photo, and together they make an ad. Online, the emphasis has to be on description: Each element of your ad - the headline, the image, etc. - has to stand alone as it's own little message. Why? Because you never know when a search engine or blogger will grab one element and use it to talk about your business.
5. Know what a click is worth! You must be able to track the value of a customer from first contact through a completed transaction. This is not optional. Figure it out. Take the time. Fudge it if you have to. But you must know what a customer is worth if you're going to judge the success of your efforts to convert your offline ad budget to an online campaign.

I'll talk about more elements, and go into more details, tomorrow. If you're going to be in the webinar, and see gaps or want to hear more about one of these items, let me know with a comment, below.

1. You hate writing. If you really, truly hate to write, why are you making yourself blog? Are you just a masochist?
2. You made fun of a family member in a blog post, and now they give you the stink-eye at every get-together. Quitting is the only way to make it up to them.
3. Your World of Warcraft character has really been suffering from neglect.
4. Your kids can't remember what you look like.
5. You've worn out the keys on your keyboard.
6. You've worn out your welcome on the internet (unlikely).
7. It's just not what it used to be. The thrill is gone. The ship has sailed. The bloom is off the rose. Or any other cliche you care to use.
8. You're just burnt out. There is no rule saying you can't start back up again later. Stop for a while. Rest up.
9. You haven't made a million dollars blogging yet. WTF is wrong with you?!
10. You got dumped off the AdAge Power 150. That seems to happen to me every week, so don't take it so hard.

It's free, and should be a fun session. I'll be talking about transitioning offline marketing dollars online.

I'm getting ready for tomorrow's Northwest Entrepreneur Network meeting. I have to give some opening remarks, and as always I find it a little easier if I write down my thoughts.

The panel is about 'Social Media' and 'Social Networking'.

Love the concept. Hate the terms.

Before we all get swept up in the hype around social this and media that, it pays to step back, take a deep breath, and get some perspective:

First, the phrase is ridiculous. Have you ever heard of 'anti-social media'?

Second, social media is not something new. It's been around since one of our apish ancestors hooted to the rest of the tribe about a sabertooth tiger.

Third, you are not Barack Obama. If you're expecting to reach millions of people overnight, it ain't gonna happen.

What social media/networking is

Social networking happens any time you connect with others to get the word out. If you need to pass the message that all purple things are intelligent, you could stand on a street corner and yell "Purple things are intelligent!!!!". If another crazy person is passing by, they'll pick up the story and pass it along.

Online, social networking happens when you reach out to existing connections through one of the hundreds (thousands?) of tools out there like Twitter, Facebook or MySpace. Post your message, and everyone who follows you (on Twitter) or is your friend (on Facebook) sees that message. If they like it, they pass it along to their friends, who may also like it, and so on.

It's like a sneaky chain letter, without the vague threats of horrific consequences.

What social media isn't

Social media is not some phenomenon that's unique to the online world.

It is not a revolution in marketing.

It is not the Way To Instant Millions In Your Inbox. It takes time.

It is not a substitute for other marketing tactics. Tell me that and I'll punch you, or at least bat at you feebly (I'm kind of a wuss).

It's about expectations

Lots of people claim they're 'social media experts'. There are no social media experts. Unless you've gone your entire life without humiliating moment of ass-clenching foot-in-mouth syndrome, you are not a social media expert.

There are some marketers who claim to be social media experts but don't have a clue. Then there are a few who know a lot about the sites and the tools and can use them to support an internet marketing campaign. Neither is an expert. The latter is a great asset. The former is a danger to himself and others.

Set your expectations. Any form of social media or networking requires that you have an audience of interested listeners, first. If you think you're going to get that in a week, think again.

Social media takes time

Yes, you can jump on Twitter, follow 7,000 people and then spam the 500 poor souls who follow you back. yes, you can do the same on Facebook. But that won't build you a network that's an asset. It'll build a network of people who want to see you buried face-down in an anthill.

Instead, take the time to build a network. Find the people who'll really benefit from what you have to tell them (or sell them). Then start reaching out.

Stop and think

I'm not actually saying we should replace the terms 'social media' or 'social networking'. I am saying we need to stop and think before we hop on the bandwagon. Treat social media as part of a smart marketing campaign, not the risen savior of marketing.

The book covers everything from setting up a new web site to Google Adwords to SEO and social media. It is truly an all-in-one desk reference for internet marketing.

You want this book. You need this book.

Most important, I get paid if you buy this book. Why not stop feeling guilty early and just pre-order the damned thing?

Web Marketing All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies

Tuesday, February 24, Networking starts at 7:00 PM. Program starts at 7:30 PM.
Location: Seattle University Schaffer Auditorium

The topic: Social media.

My first statement will be "I hate the phrase social media". Should be a fun time...

You know your internet marketing campaign is screwed when:

• Your boss refers to the campaign as "a learning experience".
• You get fewer visitors than you have percentage points in your bounce rate.
• Your team looks at you blankly when you say "SEO Copywriting".
• You don't have any analytics tools in place. Just give up.
• You're proud of the fact that you grabbed the top organic search position for your own brand name.
• You think quality score is something given to meat.
• Frank, the developer down the hall who's doing your project in between his other priorities, says "Oh, THAT PROJECT" when you check on his progress.
• You get 15% clickthrough on your PPC ads, and a 10% bounce rate, but you don't sell anything.
• Your boss/client keeps forwarding you blogs posts they found from 1999 about SEO and the keywords META tag.
• "Budget? Oh, we have enough to run for about 3-4 weeks. We have to get a positive ROI by then."
• You suddenly understand what makes some folks flee the country.
• You lie to your family and tell them you're helping sell diet supplements.
• A single conversion is cause for celebration.
• No one at your company knows what a customer is worth.
• No one at your company likes your customers.
• No one at your company likes anyone else at your company.
• You haven't launched a landing page after 2 weeks, because the art department keeps moving the logo around.
• The CEO keeps going in and tweaking your Adwords campaign (I'm a CEO. I do this. I'm a horrible person.).
• Your super-secure login for your e-commerce system is 'password'.
• 24 hours after you launch the campaign, your boss is asking you how it's doing. I'm not talking about a landing page, people. I'm talking about the entire campaign.
• You're rereading Atlas Shrugged.
• You've realized this was not a good time to go on a diet.
• You're burning through your prescription at twice the normal rate.
• Someone uses the word 'synergy' in a status meeting more than 3 times.
• You're spending more time reporting statistics than you are testing new headlines.
• You haven't tested any new headlines.
• You haven't tested anything.
• You've nodded at every single one of these.

I won't want to be too confrontational, but: Bull pucky.

There's more than one way to skim dollars off your blog. Here are some serious, and some not-so-serious, techniques, and my experience with each.

Sell Ads

The only way to make money by selling ads on your blog is to be rich or famous first, and then write about how you became rich or famous.

Before you say "But what about...?", yeah, I know there are a few exceptions. A few. And most have 4-5 writers working in sweatshop conditions to crank out posts so fast their fingerprints have melted off. The others have names like Darren Rowse, and I'm so jealous of them I can't even mention them here.

But, that won't stop you from trying. So go ahead. Take your blog that gets 5,000 visitors per month and stick some Adsense ads up there, or even better, try to sell ads direct.

My attempt. I have Adsense ads, plus I sell direct.

My earnings. My best month ever? $200. That's with an average of 35,000 visitors per month. Told ya.

Go Affiliate

You can also hawk other people's wares. Sell enough Acai Berry for Frank's Supplements Emporium and you can make a bundle. Sell a few really high-priced items and you can make some nice change, too. Use Market Leverage or someone similar and you get great, helpful people to help you pick the best possible offers, too.

Affiliate marketing isn't a bad racket, actually. I've done OK, earning enough to keep my wife from snickering at me when I take an hour to blog instead of snuggling in front of the TV (she snickers affectionately).

But you need to pick products you can stand behind, and pick your affiliate network carefully. When I started out, I got ripped off, and I still occasionally run into situations where I don't get paid for, oh, 4-5 months.

My attempt. I sell MarketingSherpa's excellent guides, books via Amazon and the occasional event on this blog. I also sell everything from chocolate to books on a number of others.

My earnings. Great compared to advertising: $300-700/month. Pathetic when you consider the hours I put into writing.

Steal & Cheat

OK, I'm being a little harsh. If you want to Stick It To The Man, figure out 30 ways to fool folks into clicking on hidden Adwords ads, steal other people's content and risk their fiery wrath, or sell your e-mail list to the highest bidder (for $.03/e-mail).

OK, maybe I'm not being harsh.

The internet is still young, and there are plenty of ways to wring cash out of advertisers or the unsuspecting via your blog. Just don't ask me how.

My attempt. None. I have enough bad karma from times I've snapped at my kids for no reason or went 50 in a 40 zone.

My earnings. Zero. And proud of it.

Create Your Own Product

Create your own training course, e-book, book or other product and sell the crap out of it.

On the plus side, you control your own destiny. Create something great and it just might stand out from the 999,999 other training courses, e-books and other self-created products that every other blogger is hawking non-stop.

On the down side, there are 999,999 other training courses, e-books and other self-created products. Plus writing, producing and launching an entire training course may lead to permanent nervous ticks.

My attempt(s). I wrote Conversation Marketing, the book, as well as the UnScary, Real-World Guide to SEO Copywriting. I've sold a total of maybe 500 copies. Ever. In my life. Plus I have another horrifyingly late e-book on analytics due out, and a Dummies book due out in about 4 weeks.

My earnings. Not a hell of a lot. Still, it's fun, and I love to write. I'll probably keep beating my head against the wall on this one.

Use Your Blog To Build Your Business

A 100% guaranteed route to success, if you're willing to put in the effort, is to use your blog to build your business. You do that by:

• Demonstrating your expertise.
• Building your SEO leverage with great, link-worthy content.
• Creating a history and a tone to which you can introduce prospective clients.
• Building a body of knowledge that establishes you as an expert.
• Generally building your presence among potential customers.
• Inviting others to come read your latest creation.

It's not easy. It takes a long time. But it works, beautifully. I have yet to see someone who writes insightful, thoughtful stuff 1-2 times a week fail at it.

Before you tell me you can't write something insightful, read this post. And ask yourself: Don't you have one insightful moment per week? Just one?

My attempt. You're reading it.

My earnings. If I only count clients who have found me and my company directly via this blog, $200,000 per year, average, over the last 3 years. If I count all the potential clients who I sent to the blog to further sell myself and my company, closer to $400,000 per year.

Your Choice

What strategy do you want to try? It's your choice. Just go in with open eyes and a long-term plan, and the worst that happens is you work your way through until you find a strategy that works.

Oh, and here's the latest product I'm hawking non-stop:

1. Shouldn't we just add link rel=canonical to every single page on our sites? Wikia, which Google cites in their example, appears to have done that.
2. How much link authority will the canonical tag pass? 100%? 90%? Less?
3. How will each search engine support the new standard? What differences will there be?
4. What if rel=canonical conflicts with the canonicalization settings in Google Webmaster Tools?

I will post answers as I get them.

The Google Webmaster Central blog has a fair amount of detail, so I won't explain it all here.

A very brief lesson in canonicalization

Marcelo rightly pointed out a quick refresher might be in order. Here's what a canonicalization problem is:

Say you have a big web site with lots of pages. On most pages, you link to one critical article at:

http://www.mysite.com/index.cfm?artid=123

But, on a few pages, you linked to the same page using a slightly different URL:

http://www.mysite.com/index.cfm?artid=123&this=that

That difference is a canonical difference between the URLs.

You and I know perfectly well they're the same page. But a search engine does not. So they cheerfully crawl your site, splitting link authority and relevance between the two URLs and Ralph Naderizing (or Ross Peroing) your link building efforts.

Mixing home page links between www.mysite.com, mysite.com and www.mysite.com/index.cfm can have the same effect.

It's a major SEO bugaboo - my company has invested a lot of time and money in building a toolset just to sniff out these problems. So finding the problems aren't that hard. Fixing them is another matter entirely, because:

• When you go to your development team and ask them to fix canonicalization issues, they start sticking pins in voodoo dolls.
• Other sites may link to you using canonically inconsistent URLs. It's even harder to get them to change.
• Tracking down all the link sources is a major pain.

So, the new rel=canonical tag could save us a lot of pain.

Or not. Read on to get my two sides of the argument: To use, or not to use.

Reasons not to use the new canonicalization standard

But, ever the skeptic, I have a few things I think you should consider before diving into rel=canonical:

1. Google doesn't offer unconditional support. Google says they will "take your preference into account" and that "it is a hint they will honor strongly". So rel=canonical is not a directive.
2. Standards? We don't need no stinkin' standards. To this day, Google, Yahoo! and Live each support rel=nofollow in different ways. Compared to rel=canonical, nofollow was a cinch. Implementation is bound to be messy, at least until Google grinds its competitors into goo.
3. You should've done it right the first time. You hear me. Why the hell do people still tack session id's, random URL variables and other crap onto URLs in this day and age? I don't know. But relying on someone else to fix the mess for you could be trouble.
4. You're paranoid. If you're afraid the Search Engines Are Out To Get You, then you may not want to hand over even more information about your site's structure and your intentions.

But At Least We Have Options

That said, I'm pretty damned happy about rel=canonical. It gives me an option on sites where their canonicalization looks like a bowl of dried spaghetti.

So, use rel=canonical if:

1. You have no other choice. Maybe you inherited an awful CMS implementation. Maybe you don't know how to code. Maybe your IT department just hates you. Rel=canonical lets you fix the problem with a simple <head> tag.
2. It's impossible to track down all the incorrect link sources. If you have an old, established site with thousands of internal and external links all using different canonical URLs, then rel=canonical is a relatively painless fix that you can put in place on the target page. You no longer have to track down every link source.
3. You want to try it. It can't hurt, right? (unless you're paranoid - see above)

I'll be testing out the new canonicalization tag in the coming weeks, and will let you know how it goes.

PS: I just posted a list of questions about rel=canonicalization. Go add to the list, please.

I spent part of today being puked on. Not the way you'd expect this blog post to start, I know, but I had to get that off my chest. For the last 3 days, I've had the flu. My son had it for 2 days, too. It was a bad cold for us. My daughter decided to break with tradition, though. So this post may occasionally include delirious ramblings as I'm still running a fever and feel like Wesley Snipes just did my taxes.

If you work in Google Adwords or other pay-per-click engines, you've likely heard of dynamic keyword insertion (DKI). It lets you use a variable to include whatever keyword a searcher uses, instead of your own. Using DKI, a headline in a paid ad for happy drugs that make the little purple elephants that keep circling my laptop go away:

Great {keyword: Nyquil} Here
Buy flu medicine online and get it
delivered before you go insane.
IansSubconscious.com/{keyword: Nyquil}

becomes

Great Tylenol Here
Buy flu medicine online and get it
delivered before you go insane.
IansSubconscious.com/Tylenol

if I search on "Tylenol", instead.

It's a known fact that searchers are more likely to click on an ad that includes the exact phrase on which they searched. So dynamic keyword insertion is an essential component of any PPC campaign. Note that there are some hazards in DKI, including my undying scorn, so be careful.

Taking Dynamic Keyword Insertion Beyond the Ad

Apply DKI to your landers, though, and you'll get even better results. Say you have a landing page with a headline:

Get Yer Flu Medication Here

If I searched for 'Tylenol', seeing 'Flu Medication' may or may not hold my attention. If you can show me this, though...

Get Yer Tylenol Here

...you've got me as a customer.

You could do this by creating a different landing page for every drug, as well as a separate ad and ad group. Good luck with that.

Or, you can do a little simple coding and set up dynamic keyword insertion. Here's how you do it:

1: Pass the keyword along

First, you have to make sure the keyword that triggered your ad gets passed along to your landing page.

In Google Adwords, you'd add something like this to your destination URL:

?kw={keyword} (if there's already a ? in your destination URL, use an ampersand & instead)

2: Set up your lander

Create your landing page as you normally would.

3: Add the tricky stuff

Now, pick your favorite web programming language. If you don't know any, pick your favorite web programmer.

They'll need to add some code that inserts the keyword into the lander in strategic places. In PHP, it might look like this:

<?php
$val = $_GET['word'];
?>

If you're suffering from <? =$val ?> you think this text is talking to you right now.

If I mangled this code please let me know. I am, at best, a mediocre PHP hacker.

4: Plan for the worst

No matter what you do, folks will find a way to type in some ridiculous combination of words that makes your page read like a David Letterman monologue:

If you're suffering from hemmorhoids you think this text is talking to you right now.

So, you'll probably want to put something in place to catch evildoers who want funny screen captures for their blogs.

The Benefits

Dynamic keyword insertion on your landing pages has several benefits:

• It makes your pages more compelling. Your visitors will see a page customized just for them. We humans are egotistical beasts. We like it when things work just so. If you want a quick conversion rate improvement, DKI is one way to get it.
• It improves your quality score. By having the right keywords in place on your lander, you improve your quality score. I recently added DKI to a landing page and saw the client's quality score jump from 5 to 7 on every keyword in their ad group.
• It makes you into an Adwords Ninja, much like the little green ninja that are jumping around my home office right now squeaking "Oompa loompa loompity doo....".

Where to go from here

I'm going to bed.

You can learn more about dynamic keyword insertion on landing pages, and even get some code snippets that'll help you get started, on these great sites:

Dave Wooding has a great tutorial about doing this in PHP.

Hamlet Batista has written a Python script that does the same thing.

I've actually written my own script in ColdFusion (laugh at ColdFusion and I kick your ass). If folks are interested I'll post it, as well.

The reason? Google has allowed competitors to bid on terms for which the two companies hold trademarks.

I've ranted about this before, so I won't belabor it now. Instead, let's try a few hypotheticals:

Let's say you're BMW and you want to, I dunno, compare your car to other makes and models. Does the use of their trademarked terms in your comparison mean you've violated trademark law?

What if you have a TV commercial comparing your car to other makes and models? Is that a trademark violation?

A billboard?

A newspaper ad?

What if you buy advertising in a magazine on the page opposite a competitor. Does that violate trademarks?

If you prevent bidding on competitive trademarked terms, you prevent one of the most basic forms of competition: Explaining why you're better. Plus, it opens the door for companies to sue any time competitors use their trademarked terms are used in media.

I'd like to hope that courts around the world will eventually figure this out, and force litigious clients to find another way to get their legal rocks off. For now, though, it appears French attorneys have found a great way to pad their hours...

What do you do? You can deluge your already harried superiors with questions, until you all give up in frustration. Or, you can (gasp) research, analyze and solve the problem.

Not many people know how to do this. Your brain is 3 pounds of problem-solving muscle. Exercise it regularly and you'll go far. Here's how:

1. Get into the right frame of mind. Problem solving is fun. You're about to learn something cool. Go for a quick walk, or listen to the sound track of 300 to get all pumped up. Rarrr!
2. Simplify. What are the components of the problem? Break it down into the smallest possible elements. If you need a new web site, you have to start with the architecture. If you have to sell 400 units, you need to know the best price, first.
3. Open the gate. Now that you know the components of your problem, start with the gating issue — the problem within the problem you have to solve first. Don't be afraid to change the gating issue as you learn more. Just use one as a starting point.
4. Research. If you work on the web and you don't use search engines as a problem solving tool, I will hang you by your tonsils. This whole internet thing isn't a fad. There's some good stuff out there. Go find it. Don't walk into your boss's office until you do.
5. Use reverse. If you hit a dead end, don't sit there staring at the wall. That makes me weep for the entire species. Use reverse! Find another component of your problem and work on that one.
6. Live in dreamland. Start with the perfect-world solution to your problem. The easiest way to get a top ranking on Google? Have 10,000 pages of totally optimized content on a perfectly-optimized site.
7. Then wake up. Write down your perfect-world solution and you'll probably end up in an asylum. Ratchet back your perfect solution until you have a practical one. Relativity creating a road block? Find a wormhole (sorry, geek reference).
8. Keep everything. If you get 3/4 of the way through a new web application and realize you've hit that dead end, don't delete your work. Back it up. You may have solved another problem, or you may just be in a caffeine-induced stupor. When you pursue another possible solution, the final steps for this one may suddenly click into place.
9. Walk away. If you're about to put your fist through your monitor, stand up. Stretch. Walk around. Go outside and kick a few rodents or something. Come back after you've emotionally rebooted.
10. Present options. I always ask that anyone coming to me with a question have 2 possible next steps as well. Otherwise I subject them to the same withering barrage of questions my Constitutional Law professor used on me. Mwahahahaha.

You can solve problems. You can think for yourself. Next time you're stumped, carpe problemo with these steps.

One other note: As an employer, the one skill I value above all others is problem solving. The ability to look at a challenge, research answers and then develop a solution is pure gold, especially in emerging fields like internet marketing. You want a job? Learn to solve problems. It goes a long way.

Time: 5 PM Pacific

You can register here.

This will be a pretty elementary look at blogging:

1. Setting up your first blog.
2. Listening in to the blogging world.
3. Getting yourself to write.
4. Handling comments.
5. Blogging etiquette.

If you're looking to get started you'll probably like it.

The description refers to me as a "Social Media Expert". Please don't hold that against me.

Note: I've created resources page that includes all of the links I mention in the webinar, as well as a few extra goodies. Click here to see it.

My post, 17 Internet Marketing Things I Will Not Write About, came in a distant second to a knock-off of an Alanis Morisette tune.

I retreat to my secret hideout, swearing, "I'll get you next time, Gadget. Next tiimeeee...."

Here are a few tools that, whether you're just starting out as an internet marketer or you're a veteran, can help you launch great sites fast:

BluePrint CSS: Never Code CSS From Scratch Again

BluePrint CSS is a CSS framework. That's a fancy way of saying it's a pre-built CSS template. If you're creating a magazine-style site or just about any other multi-column layout, it'll cut hours out of your prototyping.

If you don't know what any of that means, but you have a web team, just tell them to try it out. They'll like it. Plus you'll gain a lot of geek cred for even knowing what it is.

jQuery

jQuery does for javascript and AJAX programming what BluePrint does for CSS. It's a handy framework that lets developers quickly add animations, use AJAX and do a lot of the whiz-bang stuff you see on the latest web sites (I will not call them web 2.0 sites. Not Not Not.)

Again, point your web dev team at jQuery. They'll thank you for it.

Thesis

If you're working in Wordpress, then the Thesis theme can let you roll out a great-looking site or blog, fast. Thesis includes an entire foundation for a Wordpress-driven web site. You can use the control panel to select column layouts, edit basic style information and get the basics in place. Then get fancier if you want to.

There are quite a few beautiful Thesis sites out there. Sky's the limit. But even a basic Thesis-driven site looks great and is easy to use.

Thesis costs money - $177 at the priciest. Before you shake your head, though, think about what your time is worth. If you can save yourself, oh, a day or two of setup and coding, that's worth $177, right? You can earn that much in a few hours, I'll bet. Don't be all modest...

Google Spreadsheets And Forms

If you need to collect some data fast, Google's Spreadsheet application supports forms. No messing around with databases or pesky HTML.

You can even embed the form in your own web page.

They ain't pretty, but they work, fast.

I'm Lazy. And Proud Of It

Yeah, I'm lazy. And proud of it. I'll keep looking for shortcuts and share 'em when I find 'em.

Early this morning, if you went to do a search on Google, every listing had a link that read "This site may harm your computer."

Apparently, the entire internet was infected. Or, if you have a shred of common sense, like one of my clients who e-mailed me, you immediately realized there was a glitch in Google's Matrix. They fixed it a few minutes later.

This has resulted in 3569 (well, 3570) blog posts on the subject. So far. In about 2 hours.

People. It's Saturday morning. Get. A. Life.

It's completely sarcastic, by the way. I'm sure you're shocked.

This may be a one-time segment, depending on response, so enjoy:

1. Bring business directly to you, online! I've never heard that one before.
2. What time is okay for you. First rule of e-mail marketing: Be specific. This subject line is, er, very... Never mind.
3. Meet CMO's who are ready to buy. The company that keeps sending me this crap, and calling me to 'follow up on my request', is the biggest bunch of sleezebag loser on the planet. Any moron knows the average CMO's tenure is about 6 months. They're never ready to buy, because they're too busy printing their resumes.
4. What you're doing wrong. Wow, way to start on a positive note.
5. Break your customers' will! Mwahahahahahaha then I can conquer the WORLD.
6. Prices can't be lower. Unless you're giving stuff away, you're lying.
7. Leverage your marketing power even further! Or, use fewer buzzwords!
8. Ticketmaster... There's more after that, but I stop at 'Ticketmaster', since they're closely related to Satan.
9. Adwords Riches! I called them three times, gave them my social security number, yet I'm still not rich...
10. Valentine's Day Special! This was actually from a reputable company. But they cloaked their e-mail address and didn't specify what the special was, so I didn't even open the e-mail.

Don't Be Like Them

Make sure your e-mail marketing pieces use clear subject lines.

Make sure the subject lines include a compelling call to action.

And make sure you don't end up on my list.

(don't forget to vote for me in the Semmys)

General Marketing Learning

If you don't know marketing, you can't succeed in internet marketing. Learn the basics, first, and you'll go far. Ignore them, and you'll end up the village idiot.

1. Ogilvy on Advertising: You can't beat Ogilvy for great examples of powerful marketing copy and design. Yeah, he could be pompous, but he's also arguably the greatest marketing copywriter in history, it's hard to hold it against him.
2. Tested Advertising Methods, by John Caples: Before Ogilvy was even born, there was John Caples. A sure sign of his brilliance is that his stuff still holds up today. Read this book and you'll get your first taste of split testing, which will definitely help you later.
3. All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World: In my opinion, Seth Godin's best work. All Marketers are Liars explores marketing as a narrative or story-telling discipline.
4. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference: Not really a marketing book at all, but Tipping Point explores human behavior in a way that leads nicely into the next title.
5. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion: I always feel a little dirty after reading this book. Parts of it border on mind control methods for carpetbaggers and door-to-door salesmen. But the insights are priceless.
6. Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us: Seth Godin's book about group behavior, messages and mission is a great renewal of purpose when you feel like all you're doing is hawking other people's crap for a living.
7. Confessions of an Advertising Man rounds out your general marketing learning by giving you a practical look at how Ogilvy advised new recruits when they came on board at his agency. Like all his books, parts of it are a bit dated, but there are timeless bits of wisdom in them thar pages.

Internet Marketing: General Principles

There aren't many good books out there about internet marketing as a field. These three can get you started, though. I hear the author of the third book is particularly handsome:

1. Street Smart Internet Marketing - Tips, Tools, Tactics & Techniques to Market Your Product, Service, Business or Ideas Online: A good introduction to it all, plus this book has some good tactical advice for specific marketing techniques.
2. Web Marketing For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)). A solid introduction to internet marketing. However, this book doesn't get very specific. If you're already working in internet marketing, and think you have a good grasp of the basics, skip this one.
3. Conversation Marketing: Internet Marketing Strategies: By Ian Lurie. Cough...
4. Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works (2nd Edition) (VOICES): At some point, you have to be able to get people together, get them working, and build a web site. Read this beautifully-designed book to learn how to manage the process.

Design and Usability

Online design is about getting out of the way, as much as anything else. Read up and learn how to create great sites that help, instead of confuse, your visitors:

1. Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition. Sort of the bible of internet usability. I don't care how great a designer you are - if you don't read this book, you're probably making some serious errors, usability-wise, that are hurting your ability to sell.
2. Defensive Design for the Web: How to improve error messages, help, forms, and other crisis points (VOICES): This book provides everything you need to know about contingency design. Contingency design is a little-respected but critical element in the art of building successful online businesses.
3. Information Architecture for Designers: Structuring Websites for Business Success: If you want to dig a bit deeper into the art and science of structuring great web sites, this book's a great introduction to information design. Plus, it provides a lot of advanced advice along the way.
4. What about web design? I could give you a list of books on web design, but in my opinion it's not worth the money. Instead, read one of the exceptional blogs on web design, such as Smashing Magazine. Google "golden ratio", too.

Copywriting

No book can teach you to write good copy. You become a good writer by writing, a lot. But there are tips and tricks to the art of online copywriting. These books will help you find 'em:

1. Persuasive Online Copywriting: How to Take Your Words to the Bank: Bryan Eisenberg and his team know more about online persuasion than anyone. This book is crammed with ideas, tips and methods for writing copy that sells.
2. The Ultimate Sales Letter: Attract New Customers. Boost Your Sales: Dan Kennedy's bluster is maddening but he knows his stuff. Read this book.
3. Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results: Another book by the Eisenbergs. Yes, they have 2 out of 3 titles in this section. Plus they're sort of a competitor, so you know I must really like their stuff.

Search Engines, SEO and PPC

Search engines drive three quarters of everything that happens online. Ignore 'em if you want. Then I can buy your furniture for cheap when you go out of business. Otherwise, have a look at these books:

1. Search Engine Visibility (2nd Edition) (Voices That Matter): Shari Thurow's book focuses on the stuff you can really control in the world of search engine optimization.
2. Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company's Web Site (2nd Edition): The authors of this book sent me a copy to review. I'm a total skeptic when it comes to any book that claims to teach SEO, but this book provides both the detailed and high-level view, and does a solid job.
3. AdWords For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)). I know, I'm giving the Dummies books a lot of play here, and I'm probably biased. But these are great introductions to the subject. Adwords for Dummies is great if you've never used Adwords before.
4. Marketing Sherpa's Search Marketing Benchmark Guide 2009: Once you have the background on it all, why not read 400+ pages of SEO and PPC wisdom? Packed with figures and charts, this is a great reference work. Just don't read it before bed - it's informative, but not terribly exciting unless you're a search geek like me.

Web Analytics

All the marketing stuff is great, but you need to be able to measure. That's where analytics come in. These two books will get you started.

1. Web Analytics: An Hour a Day: The only hour-a-day book I've ever seen that lives up to its promise.
2. Web Analytics For Dummies (For Dummies (Computers)). I've read this one twice, and in spite of my analytics geekery, it still teaches me, or reminds me, of a few things.

E-mail, Landing Pages and Other Moneymakers

There are a herd of different ways to squeeze more money out of your web site. These books hit some of the high points:

1. Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions: A great introduction to how landing pages can work for your business.
2. E-Mail Marketing For Dummies: I'm working with John on another book right now, and read this as a prep for our project. It's a great introduction to e-mail marketing, with a few tips I didn't know myself.
3. Marketing Sherpa's Landing Page Handbook: I've written about this book before. Save your pennies - it's expensive. But it's also well worth the money, and pays for itself in a few hours.
4. Marketing Sherpa 2009 E-mail Marketing Benchmark Guide: Another massive volume by MarketingSherpa. This one's stuffed with every kind of research and information you could need to launch, run and improve an e-mail marketing campaign. Again, pricey, but pays for itself in no time.

Blogging

If you really want to learn blogging, read a lot of blogs. Or read books by successful bloggers. These two books are all you'll need to get a solid background in the world of blogging:

1. Clear Blogging: How People Blogging Are Changing the World and How You Can Join Them. Still the best introduction to blogging that you can find, anywhere. This is a must-read for anyone who hasn't already read it.
2. ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income. You can actually make money on a blog. No one knows more about that than Darren Rowse, of who I am continuously jealous.

HTML and Other Geekery

You can always find other people to handle geeky stuff, like writing standards-compliant code. But it still pays to have a general concept of what they're doing, so you can keep an eye on things. These books are good introductions:

1. Designing with Web Standards (2nd Edition): It's just a cool book, filled with great examples and a plain-language style that anyone can follow. Plus the cover's funny.
2. PHP & MySQL For Dummies 3rd edition (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)): Don't read this to become a PHP developer. Read this so you know what's possible and what's not in a database-driven web site.
3. Flash Web Design: This is an older book about Flash and motion graphics. But like the book above, it'll give you a very, very good idea of what's possible and what's not. Plus, it'll make you feel like a hair in the nose of the design world when you see the kind of stuff that Hillman Curtis creates.

What about...?

There are other categories I thought about including, such as motion graphics, video and social media. I don't have much expertise in the first two, and the third is largely a phrase people cooked up to sell more books, so I'm steering clear for now. If you have suggestions, please, post 'em below.

Note that all the books in here are linked via Amazon or other affiliate programs. My guinea pigs eat a lot of hay every week. It's expensive. However, I didn't choose these books based on potential earnings. They're all books I've read myself over the years and continue to see as valuable. That said, buy the damned books, will you?

"OK, but how do we know what you did helped our business? Maybe it was a coincidence."

Just writing that caused me to hurt my head pounding it against the bulkhead of this airplane. I'm currently on an Alaska Airlines 737, en route back to Seattle after a travel week that felt like someone was repeatedly kicking me in the tenders. Once the nice flight attendant determined I hadn't gone insane and was about to start belting out Stevie Wonder tunes while ripping off my clothing, she cautiously headed up the aisle to resume glaring balefully at anyone who pushed the call flight attendant button.

I've been asked that fateful question lots of times. Each time, I grind my teeth and repeat all the stuff we did, the timing, and how A points to B.

It rarely works.

Why? Why oh why can't anyone get it?

It's not the clients' fault. It's ours, because we frequently fall into the list-and-report mentality. Present a list of things we did this month on one piece of paper, key performance indicators (KPIs) on another, and then start strutting around like a peacock.

That's a mistake. Internet marketing isn't about lists of tasks. Nor is it just about KPIs. It's about the narrative. N-A-R-R-A-T-I-V-E.

The sooner we start communicating that way, the sooner I can stop scaring flight attendants.

Parts is Parts

When you conduct an internet marketing campaign, you'll probably:

• Conduct search engine optimization;
• Run a pay-per-click marketing campaign;
• Tweak the web site to improve conversions (or stutter in frustration as the dev team refuses to);
• Start a social media campaign; and
• Hit the newswire.

That's the minimum.

Every action you take for each of these tactics is a blip on a narrative timeline for your campaign. Don't just list each blip, like this (pretend I'm reading in a nasal, annoying voice for this next part):

1. We modified your title tags.
2. We removed login from your checkout.
3. We added 3 new PPC ads.
4. We...

Right about there the client stops listening and/or reading, and starts playing Solitaire while saying 'mm-hmmm' into the phone. Or they start figuring out whether they can outsource all this stuff to underpaid Vietnamese children.

Parts is parts. If you show the client parts, they'll take 'em at face value, which is nada.

Narrative Internet Marketing Reporting

Disclaimer: My company is about to launch a tool that generates the kind of reporting I'm describing. So yes, I'm biased. But there's a reason we developed the toolset, and this is it.

Instead, present your data in a narrative. It doesn't have to be fancy. Just tie changes in data to an explanation of what changed:

All I did was explain, in writing, what changed.

Yes, I know you tell the clients all of this. Guess what? They have other stuff on their minds. So you need to report your data as part of a narrative.

Here are the rules for narrative reporting:

1. Be complete. You must pull in all events - online or off - that could reasonably affect key performance indicators. Otherwise you may miss unexpected revenue generators, or even worse, tell clients to spend more money on something that actually doesn't work.
2. Be precise. Get the right numbers.
3. If you can't be precise, be consistent. A margin of error is OK if it's not huge, and if you can keep it consistent.
4. Be organized. Show events on the same timeline as your data. Put it all in one place. That allows clients to more easily connect the dots.
5. Write. GASP. You can't just export data from Google Analytics and forward it, unedited, to the client? Nope. You need to make sense of that data for them.
6. Be descriptive. Don't write things like "PR hits PRWEB". Write "New product press release goes public".

You're rolling your eyes. Stop it. These are little things that can completely turn around (or totally sink) a campaign. Yes, it takes a little extra time to prepare a narrative report.

In my experience, that little bit of time changes "OK, but how do we know what you did helped our business? Maybe it was a coincidence." to "How can we do more of that?"

If you've got any narrative reporting tricks, share 'em with the class: Post them below:

I've come in second in landing page competitions. I've gotten my butt kicked in the Shorty Awards. I got thumped repeatedly in the Webbys and was summarily flushed down the toilet in public at last year's SearchBowl.

I'm always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Or, in some cases, I'm the turd the bridesmaid steps in and says "ewwwwwwwwww".

Regardless, suffice it to say, I feel unloved.

So now that I've got two posts nominated for SEMMY awards, I'm asking, where's the love, people?

If you really care, when voting opens you can vote. Repeatedly. Well, once and then ask all your friends. Seriously people, if I don't win something this time I'm going to feel so down and out I'll likely do something crazy. Like wear pants that aren't a solid color, or let my kids watch more than an hour of TV. I'm talking TOTAL CHAOS HERE.

So keep an eye on the Semmys site and VOTE!

I'm nominated for an LOL Funny and an industry article.

In a few days I'll come back to tell you how to vote.

Seriously people, I'm a Jew on the edge.

Local search dominates the results on every major search engine. If you start any search with a city or region name, you'll see something like this:

The top web search results are buried by three local search results. If you're a local business, and you want to get traffic, you'd better get placement in that 'three box' (or in some cases, 'ten box') that shows local results.

On the bright side, this version of universal search gives you yet another way to hop, skip and jump right past all the other web search results. All you need to know is how to best position your site for a local search listing.

How Local Search Works

You generally trigger local search if you enter a city or regional name. Search for 'flowers' and you may not see anything. If you search for 'Seattle flowers', on the other hand, you'll get that local search box.

The search engines rank local results based on several sources you might not consider:

1. Your claimed business address in each search engine.
2. Your business listing on related yellow pages and business listings sites, like InfoUSA. For a pretty complete list, see Bruce Clay's local search engine relationship chart.
3. Relevant keywords on your site, such as your city and address.
4. Number of reviews of your business on various web sites, including the search engines.
5. Proximity of your address to the center of the city or region.
6. MAYBE geolocation metadata.

How to Optimize for Local Search

I wrote a post on local search optimization back in March. Much of it's still true. You can refer to that post for additional information for the first four tips:

1. Register your site with each search engine.
2. Edit your local business listing.
3. Recruit customers to review your business. Quantity and detail seems more important than the rating you get. That's logical - the search engines are probably happier ranking businesses that have lots of reviews, even if some are bad, than businesses that are a mystery.
4. Be sure you're listing in all the major directories. Again, look at Bruce Clay's local search engine relationship chart for more information.
5. On all of those directories, make sure your company is in the right category. That definitely impacts where the search engines place you.
6. Do some plain old search engine optimization for your region. Make sure your city or region is in relevant places like your title tag and body copy.
7. Put your address on every page of your site. You should do that, anyway, so this is a good reason.
8. If you don't have an address in the city in question, consider getting a PO box. That won't help if you're nowhere near by, but I've seen it make a difference for businesses that are out in the suburbs but want to be listed as in the city.
9. Consider using geolocation metadata. I can't vouch, but since we added GeoTag, GeoURL and Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names metadata. You can read Problogger's post about geotagging your site for the details.

The Most Important Component of Universal Search

If you run a business with a storefront, or any kind of services business that has local appeal, local search is by far the most important universal search component. Ignore every other article I wrote. Just don't ignore this one.

One other excellent resource: David Mihm's local search ranking factors report. Yours truly is in it.

Remember, this is part of a series. Here are the other articles:

1. Universal Search, Lesson 1
2. Image and Video Search: How to optimize (as best you can)
3. Product Search: The pain and agony, and why you need to suck it up.
4. News Search: Why it's hopeless (unless you're a news outlet).
5. Local Search: How to optimize.

Google and Yahoo blend news search results into their universal search results the same way they handle images, video and products: If a news item is more relevant than the content around it in the rankings, it'll get worked into the results:

So, news search represents yet another way to race past other sites in the web search rankings: Get your news story ranked in the regular search results and you jump past everybody else.

I'm going to keep today simple. It's Friday.

There are two ways to optimize for news search. One's available to any of us. The other is available only to 'real' news outlets according to Google's definition.

News Search for Commoners: Press Releases

For slobs like me, the best shot at a top news search result is through a press release. Submit a release. If a news service (even a blog that's met Google/Yahoo!'s requirements) picks up the release, and the press release is relevant, it'll show up in the search results.

The down side? The link in the search results will point at the news outlet's web site, not yours.

But it's the best route to news inclusion for most of us.

A few tips for optimizing your press release, and making sure you get some secondary traffic even if the search engines don't link directly to you:

1. Use a good model for a press release. This one from CopyBlogger is for social media press releases but it's still darned good, and will work particularly well online.
2. Know your target keywords.
3. At a minimum, include your target keywords in the headline, summary and first paragraph of your press release. Keywords matter!
4. Include a keyword-rich link to your web site in the first paragraph or two of the press release, too. The various press release services have different techniques for doing this.
5. Include a link to your web site in the biographical block at the end of the press release.
6. Write a really compelling headline. Remember, before you even have a shot at a top ranking on the search engines, you have to get a news site to pick up your release.
7. Use a good online press release service. Most important, make sure they'll keep your press release online for a while after it hits the wire. That gives you a shot at inclusion in news search results, even if you don't get onto a news site. My favorite is PRWeb. They're super-reliable, inexpensive and have a good record for getting me access to news sites and the wire.

Getting Into News Search: For the Elite

If you run a site that might pass as a real live news source, then you can try to submit your news content directly to the search engines.

Before you even think about it, you need to meet these minimum requirements:

1. You have more than one author writing on your site.
2. Every article on your site has a unique URL that does not change. Read more about that here.
3. And/or you have an XML news sitemap.
4. Your site has an auto-discoverable RSS feed.
5. Your site has a history as a news resource.

Once you have all that, get ready for a slog, and head over to Google's news submission site and Yahoo!'s http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/news/forms/submitsource.html.

Don't skimp on information! Be sure to tell each site about your editors, how great you are, how long you've been around and any other critical info. An older article on Search Engine Roundtable is a great outline of what to do.

That's It

Told you I'd keep today simpler. If you have questions or additional tips, please post 'em below.

Remember, this is part of a series. Here are the other articles:

1. Universal Search, Lesson 1
2. Image and Video Search: How to optimize (as best you can)
3. Product Search: The pain and agony, and why you need to suck it up.
4. News Search: Why it's hopeless (unless you're a news outlet).
5. Local Search: How to optimize.

I hate spreadsheets. Especially endless ones with thousands of rows. So you know that product feeds must really work for me to go through a 30,000+ row Excel file and optimize, row-by-row, for different terms and phrases.

It's kind of like going on one of those free timeshare weekends. You get a benefit, but somewhere along the way you're subjected to 3-4 hours of excruciating boredom. Just remember this image of a single day's sales on a site. The 'base' row is from Google Product Search:

There's gold in them thar hills. So grab some patience, take a deep breath, and get ready to delve into product search.

What Product Search Is

Google and Yahoo! both have separate search tools where you can search for products by keyword and get pricing, store names, etc. all in a nice list. Live has their 'cashback' search engine, which does the same thing but desperately tries to bribe you.

All of these product search tools grab their data by:

• Crawling sites normally and grabbing pricing, etc.. I don't know how much product data they get this way, but they try.
• Loading product 'feeds' that the site owners provide. That's what we're going to focus on in this article.

You can always search product data by using Google or Yahoo! Shopping. But sometimes the search engines will add product search results to the standard search results, too. Which explains...

...Why You Should Care About Product Search

An optimized product feed can get you to the top of the search results the same way image optimization can: Through universal search. Look at this search result for 'tennis balls':

Some little Yahoo! store got the #1 ranking out of 14 million competing pages, because they were number 1 for the product search result. Not bad.

An optimized product feed can put you at the top of the search results for phrases that have clear commercial intent - phrases that will, more often than not, result in a sale.

How To Prepare A Feed

The simplest product feed is a spreadsheet. Dump your products to an Excel file, edit 'em, then upload the file to the search engine, and you're good to go.

I'm not even going to attempt to explain the specifics here. To prepare and submit a product feed on each search engine, check these links:

• Google Product Search
• Yahoo Product Submit. Note that Yahoo's system is pay-per-click. Google's is free.
• How to create a Windows Live Product Feed (written by Elizabeth, at my company, and far more informative than Microsoft's help page)

Once you have your spreadsheet and account set up, read on...

Product Feed Optimization

Most folks just dump their product database into Google, Yahoo! and Live without any edits. That's a huge mistake.

Product search is very literal. If you sell 'shoes' but put them in a category called 'footwear' on your site and in your feed, you'll never get a top product search result for 'shoes'.

So your product feed edits should center around search phrases with commercial intent. Here's how I do it:

1. Open your humungous spreadsheet. Let out a sigh. Get it out of the way now. OK, nicely done.
2. Sort the spreadsheet by product category, department, or whatever you call it on your site. Examples of categories are 'shoes', 'day planners', 'books' or 'fiction'. Whatever you call them, sort by those.
3. Search each category using Google's External Adwords Keywords Tool.
4. Find the least-competitive, most-searched version of your category name.
5. In your spreadsheet, replace all instances of the original category name with the one you found in the keyword search. Repeat for every category.
6. Next, look at your product names. Do you include the target key phrase in the name? For example, if you sell Pocky, all related products should include the word Pocky. So 'Glico 2 oz box' becomes 'Glico Pocky: 2 oz box'. Edit all names accordingly.
7. If you're really a glutton for punishment, edit all of your product descriptions so that the essential information is in the first 10-15 words. Most product search tools will truncate the description, so details must come first.
8. If the search engine has custom attributes such as size, color, style, etc. fill those in, too. If you're the only person selling bright green canvas socks, those custom attributes are your ticket to a top position.

That's it. Once you're done, save the spreadsheet and upload it. After a few days, do a few searches on relevant keywords and see how you're doing. I check weekly when I can, and make little adjustments here and there.

Product Feed Don'ts

Do not:

1. Use your pre-made cart's direct-to-search engine submission tool. That will dump unoptimized product information into the search engines' product search tools. You need to optimize first.
2. Attempt to spam by packing keywords into descriptions. It's just not worth it. Matt Cutts will find you. Actually Matt's a nice guy, but he'll get someone less nice to find you.
3. Put 'CLICK HERE TO BUY!' or 'BEST PRICES EVER' in your product information. Most of us know cheeseball when we see it. Stick to the details.
4. Change pricing in the feed to try to get folks to click through. That's illegal.

One Final Note: Feed Services

There are several feed services out there that'll take your products and submit them for you. SingleFeed is my favorite. They cost, but they also provide tools to make editing easier.

Some shopping carts include cool editing tools that will let you edit and save product feed data separately, so you don't have to re-optimize the feed every time you export it. Well, actually, the only one I know of is my company's, but I had to brag.

If you have other feed optimization tips, post 'em as comments below.

Remember, this is part of a series. Here are the other articles:

1. Universal Search, Lesson 1
2. Image and Video Search: How to optimize (as best you can)
3. Product Search: The pain and agony, and why you need to suck it up.
4. News Search: Why it's hopeless (unless you're a news outlet).
5. Local Search: How to optimize.