SEO Spam Primer Featuring Key Insights From Major Search Engines

Found this really great video of SMX East (US Search Engine Optimisation Conference) session on SEO Spam on Search Engine Land. Nothing really new from my point of view. But a succinct introduction to tactics that will get you in trouble with search engines… If your search engine optimisation company recommends the things discussed in this video, fire them.

This video is a useful primer on SEO spam for anyone who isn’t familiar with the issues. And it offers great information on finding out if you have been penalised by search engines and what to do about it. But it also has significant value as an insight into big search engines’ assessment of sites and attitude to links.

Talking About SEO Spam Means Talking About What Search Engines are Looking For

Random quotes/notes, many of which are music to my ears, as an exponent of an “offer content that is of value to your target audience and the search engines will value it too” approach to SEO:

• Don’t “lose track of the user perspective” in building links — for Yahoo it isn’t about whether a link is paid but whether it is a value link that makes sense with respect to the content of the source and destination of the link… good links point your users to content they will value.
• Nathan Buggia of Live Search reminds people of the all-important search engine perspective on assessing the Web. A perspective too often lost in the discussion around obtaining search engine visibility –
  

  “Goal of a search engine is trying to find really great content and connecting people that want that content”

• Nathan again: “stay focused on creating good content” … ahem… content is… um… king!
• For Aaron D’Souza of Google site owners should concentrate on, “building great content that users are going to create the links for you” — that is, offer content that people will want to link to rather than get involved in trading links, etc.
• Aaron also reassures people that the removal of the suggestion that people submit their sites to online directories from Google’s Webmaster guidelines didn’t mean those links had been devalued. Seems it is about discouraging the plethora of low value directories. Removing the suggestion makes it harder for these directories to convince nieve site owners that investment in listings on their sites was an essential part of obtaining search visibility.
• Sean Suchter of Yahoo! Search talks about an approach to web content I would heartily endorse, suggesting site owners create content that has “timeless user value”. He cautioned against adopting the latest techniques based on SEO’s interpretation of the latest algorithm changes. Future algorithm changes will inevitably discount that content’s value… “What might work this year or this quarter might stop working at some near future point if it isn’t necessarily user focused.”

So it might be a session about what you shouldn’t do to get search engine rankings but it ends up being a powerful insight in what you should do.

Search Engine Optimiser or SEO Buyer This is Stuff Worth Knowing… Worth Watching

Watch it for that and a really interesting discussion around the issue of paid links and PageRank (Google’s measure of link popularity/site authority, Link Flux” for Yahoo! and “Static Rank” for Live Search) and whether search engine rankings should take account of big brands’ profile…

All sound a little geeky? Some of it is. SEO spam involves some tricks that take you to the border of geek world. But if you are trying to get search visibility or employing search engine optimisers, you should take a look. You will learn something.


SMX East 2008: What Is Spam? from Search Marketing Expo on Vimeo.

Website Optimisation, Internet Marketers & Your Website’s Role

This website is not optimised. No website is but this one really isn’t optimised. There are all sorts of changes I should be making. And it nags at me. But my sub-optimal site doesn’t stop me getting clients…

Your website is not the panacea for all marketing woes some would have you believe it is.

E-business - A Crowded Playing Field: Level Maybe But Muddy With Many Players Embedded in the Mud

My challenge with this website is that I am a new player on a crowded online marketing playing field. The valued positions have been taken. Taken by people who are, understandably, reluctant to relinquish those positions.

Search engines take notice of what results get clicked on and, again understandably, top results get more clicks. So — even factoring in customisation of search results pages, which means that different people will see different results — it will be difficult to achieve natural search visibility for the more popular search terms.

And larger players have much deeper pockets with respect to paying for clicks associated with those same terms.

Don’t think I’m fishing for, “you poor marketing David amongst those search visibility hogging Goliaths”, sympathy. I’m not.

Website Optimisation Isn’t Enough To Win Website Optimisers Clients

The issue here is that, although I am committed to maintaining this site as a useful resource and introduction to my services, I don’t have huge expectations with respect to lead generation from it. At least, short term I don’t. Experience tells me building a site’s traffic is a long term project. And it takes time to build up content that demonstrates one’s expertise.

The website is an important part of my marketing strategy. But it is not the sole element. I have been involved in marketing web marketing services for long enough to know that other lead generation techniques often play a bigger part in the process. Referrals are key. And getting out and meeting prospects is essential.

I’m not the world’s most accomplished networker/smoozer. Indeed, I’d be happier if promoting my business was down to offering a best practice web site. It’s not though.

Happily, the Web does provide for those of us who are comfortable with off-line networking. Forums, online social networks and blogs provide opportunities to engage with your target market without having to cross a crowed room with a shaking hand extended.

“Why Are so Many Internet Marketing Consultant’s Websites Terrible?”

Larry Chase, founder and publisher of Web Digest for Marketers, recently asked “Why Are so Many Internet Marketing Consultant’s Websites Terrible?” He wondered how people presenting themselves as experts on everything from email marketing to search engine optimisation and internet marketing could fail to follow even basics of best practice for their specialty.

Good question. “Walk the talk,” and all that. I know I have been embarassed on more than one occassion when a client has wondered why the site of my organisation doesn’t do what I am suggesting they do. I have used the “do as I say not as I do” line in this blog more than once…

Even Website Optimisers and Internet Marketers Can’t Rely on a Website Alone

In an ideal world an online marketer’s site would be a bastion of best practice. Trouble is other priorities — crucially, billable hours helping clients achieve best practive — often get in the way. And then there is all the networking, traditional marketing, etc.

Focusing on providing an optimised website is a part of my marketing strategy. But one that could eat up all my marketing time if I let it. I know there is more to be done… There always will be but I can’t fixate on that at the expense of other parts of my strategy.

As a useful reply to Chase’s question suggested internet marketers’ site might be terrible because they are not where their work comes from. Alternatively, commenter Michael Lineham pointed out, professionals with neglected websites may have so much work that they have let their site slip.

Not a good look. And not advisable… Letting your marketing slide because you are too busy leads to plenty of time for marketing when the busy period ends. If an internet marketer or website optimiser’s site is truly terrible then I would start to question the value of their services.

But a little neglect isn’t necessarily an indication of ignorance.

So is this post an attempt to assuage my guilt/embarrassment about my own site’s failings? Honestly? Partly.

There is a message I’m leading up to though.

Bottom line:
Even for internet marketing professionals, a website can’t do all the marketing work. In some cases it is a small element in their marketing mix. And I worry that some internet marketers, so busy keeping up and promoting the wonders of internet marketing opportunities, can’t stand back enough to see whether the latest tactic or strategy is actually an opportunity for clients’ businesses.

I make a point of building a detailed understanding of clients’ businesses whenever I start working them. For me its the only way to be sure that you are recommending the right strategies.

If I ever came across a prospect or client who shouldn’t be allocating too much budget to optimizing their website, I’d tell them so.

Article Marketing: A Question of Value

The dynamics of the article marketing content market are a classic example of the failure of simple supply and demand to create a value-based outcome. The Web offers writers easy access but low-pay opportunities but they should be withholding supply to this cheapskate demand. The Web would be a better place for it: less junk, more worthwhile content.

Aspiring freelance writers, the supply side of the market, as Jennifer Williamson of Catalystblogger asserts, need to understand that they can say no to poor pay for article marketing copy.

Trouble is the Web, which makes it so much easier to sell writing, provides a medium for putting people who don’t understand the value of good content together. It also provides a medium for getting the “don’t sell yourself short short-term in hope of long term gain” message out to writers and freelancers in general. But the noise of the supply and demand curves meeting in a chorus of low-bids drowns out the voice of reason…

It Goes Beyond Low-Value Content

The noise drowns out the good sense. Hmmm… How like the web. How like modern media. How like modern life… [At which point I am going to stop before I start my essay on the ills of our information saturated time... Others, better qualified, can deal with that. Back to the issue: Article marketing...]

But the Ugly Article Marketing Picture is the Matter at Hand

It’s an ugly picture. Poorly… No… Abysmally paid writers producing articles of dubious value that offer minor link profile value and make it harder for people to find valuable information. The web is flooded with hundreds of articles making it harder for people and search engines to find useful information.

And I don’t think I captured the whole picture when I bemoaned the article marketing generated junk website content phenomenon a while back.

• I was naive to think that the bulk of bids for $5 article writing would come from the less prosperous countries of the world.
• I forgot that there is a large supply pool of people for whom earning money from stringing words together — even at a fraction of a cent per word in the string — is a “major life goal”. (Silly; I was involved with a site for aspiring writers on a daily basis for six years.) And then there’’s the whole “build up your portfolio” temptation.
• And, because of my first two errors, I neglected to address the supply side of the market equation properly.

Value Your Writing to Enhance the Value of Writing Work

In a compelling argument for ignoring those fraction-of-a-cent-per-word writing “opportunities”, Williamson of encourages people to ask for more. As she said, the low value article writing market prices writers time at well below minimum wage.

Who’d work for less than minimum wage? Well, it seems, lots of people — $3, $4 and $5 per 500 word article projects on Elance.com, Guru.com and the like are seldom short of bidders.

What to do then?

Williamson’s blog earned a comment from, master copywriter and freelance writing information seller extraordinaire, Bob Bly about sites like Elance turning article writing into a commodity market. He urged people to concentrate on copy more directly linked to revenue to get/demand a premium price.

Value Shouldn’t Only Be Associated with Obvious ROI

All makes sense:

• If writers start ignoring the $5 article opportunities the price starts to rise. So, its important for writers to value their time and their writing.
• It is much easier to demonstrate the value in a landing page or email newsletter content that asks for a sale.

But the message I’d prefer to get through the low-pay article market noise is the first. The second message — pragmatic in it’s “accept of the way things are and work around them” approach — could contribute to the continued devaluing of all article marketing.

Demonstrating expertise and building trust through article marketing can be an important part of achieving sales and ROI online. But low-pay, low-value articles make it harder to stand out…

Bottom line:

The situation is a classic case of the dark side of the Web. The web facilitates a market, bringing people who need content together with people who can provide it. But it’s too easy for both parties. Neither party understand the potential value of that content because they can get together without doing the groundwork that might have been required to join a less accessible market. The content traded is devalued.

All of which makes it harder for writers to get a return on their writing effort that reflects the effort put in and harder for valuable content to stand out. Eventually people find voices of reason like Williamson and Bly but the ease of access means the supply of people willing to offer super-cheap writing services won’t dry up any time soon.

Later:

Here is a classic case in point. This Tennessee based business owner doesn’t attach much value to the time of the “Freelance Article Writers” he/she asks to submit proposals…

“Project Description:I am looking to hire a freelance writer that is willing to write three (3) articles a day for $1.00 per article for one (1) week. After a relationship has been established and I get to know your work, we can talk about future business involving more articles at a slightly higher rate[...]

Project Category:Article

Document Length:450 words

But there is also the issue of the quality of the articles in question. If he/she finds someone willing to do the job, are they likely to produce work that you’d want associated with your business? [sigh]

The Often Neglected Part of Blogging… Caution!

Blogging should be about interaction not just shouting into the void from your virtual step ladder.

Which means? Which means commenting on other blogs and generally interacting with relevant parts of the blogosphere. But be careful what you say and how you say it.

Well. You might be thinking: often neglected=posting, in my case. True in many other cases too…

Get the Word Out With Comments on Other Blogs

But while I haven’t been posting much lately the never ending quest to keep on top of what works online continues and I have felt compelled to offer an opinion or two as I worked my way through my feeds.

A comment here, a bit of related experience here, a bit of unsolicited advice on a landing page in that forum… It’s all about sharing your experience with others facing the same online marketing challenges. Or sharing your take on whatever challenges you might be blogging about.

Picture a man walking briskly across London’s Hyde Park towards Speaker’s Corner*. He has a two step ladder, a resigned look on his face and a sign that reads “I know better!”

At his destination, a crowd is gathered around a man with a shiny new 6 step ladder. A buzz of heated conversation emanates from the crowd. People excitedly offer the man who stands above them opinions and words of praise.

Our hero ignores the excitement. He sets up his ladder and climbs up the two steps. He takes a deep breath and begins to talk loudly. But not loudly enough for the crowd to take notice…

Introduce Yourself to the Relevant Blogosphere Community

Checking my analytics I was pleased to see that my opinion made enough sense to prompt a few people to check out who this Hamish guy was by clicking through to my site… We might not be talking about lots of traffic but we are talking about essential engagement with a relevant online community. If you don’t venture beyond your own blog you may find blogging a lonely experience…

• People find blogs via other blogs — commenting on other blogs is a way to proactively introduce your blog to people with relevant interests.
• There is no point in demonstrating your expertise and exploring your opinions if nobody is listening — if you blog and nobody reads your blog you don’t make a noise.
• The beauty of the blogosphere is the ongoing conversation that helps build people’s understanding of the subject at hand — comment threads concentrate this learning rather than it being distributed across blogs commenting on other blogs.
• But try to contribute meaningfully rather than just giving the blogger a virtual pat on the back — the odd “well done sir/madam” comment is ok but the real value in commenting comes when you have something to add the discussion around a blog entry.

But Join the Blogosphere Conversation with a Little Care

Be sure to join the conversation at the blogs that gather crowds in your part of the blogosphere as well as referencing them in your own posts.

But exercise caution: Being a bit of a word guy, I know the difference between “there” and “their”. Well, duh… Thing is I have a habit of typing the later when I mean the former when typing at speed. So here I was rushing to share my recent experience with evaluating security logos^ and their impact on conversion on a recent Get Elastic blog and my regular typo demon strikes…

Who is going to hire a Web content specialist that doesn’t know the difference between “there” and “their”? Be careful out there!

Bottom line:
If you are blogging, you should be spending some of your blogging time commenting on relevant blogs, joining the conversation and demonstrating your expertise. But make sure you read your comments twice before submitting them.

* Stretching for a location people will recognize and failing to find a US or more local example.
^ Now there’s an idea for a blog…