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  • Online PR – Making A Positive Contribution

    My friend, and a very smart local entrepreneur, Chris Schultz wrote an interesting piece entitled 10 Tips for Launching Your Startup in which he makes a pretty bold statement relative to PR (that’s public relations, not PageRank, for you search geeks).

    There are a ton of other great posts on startups and bootstrapping including a recent one from a guy I’ve been reading since he was in print Guy Kawasaki.

    So, whether or not a young startup needs a PR firm will no doubt be hotly debated for some time to come but I think there’s an important message in there: make a positive contribution .

    This was never more apparent than in a phone call I got last night from the Online Editor at New Orleans City Business, Deon Roberts.

    Mr. Roberts calls the office last night looking for one of our writers, Andrew Stratton. Turns out Andrew Stratton is an amalgam. I don’t want to call him fictitious, because he’s based on a young man who used to work with us but he represents the occasional work of 30 or so of our writers.

    We use these aggregators, if you will, for expedience and issues of ownership. If we had to set up accounts on multiple content sites in the name of a new writer each time our pool expanded or contracted we’d never get anything done.

    Well, needless to say, Mr. Roberts was a little surprised at the news. Turns out he found the position taken in the pieces interesting enough to reach out and it turns out there’s no one but me to whom he can talk.

    I’m sure there are other companies like ours who understand that publishing content is a great way to obtain links. We publish a ton of content and Andrew Stratton gets the byline on a lot of it.

    But here’s the point, and I think it’s well spoken to by Chris’ statements regarding PR . Ultimately we’re responsible for making a positive contribution to the online dialog and I think this is what Mr. Roberts was responding to. He found the position taken a little inconsistent with his view and the voice authoritative enough to give him pause.

    Unmasked or not, Andrew Stratton contributed to the dialog in a positive way. We created content in support of a client which was accepted as authoritative and a valid basis for dialog — Mission accomplished.

    Hopefully we can keep the conversation going with Deon and City Business and fulfill Chris’ assertions regarding PR .

  • Revised Website Design Thanks To All Your Input

    Updated after another day of marathon editing by Aimee:

    Wow!

    Talk about some great feedback!

    Thanks to everyone’s input we already have an updated theme incorporating all that feedback.

    Please feel free to reference the original (and of course the comments). I’m feeling pretty good about the current design. I think it needs a little more polish, like amplification of the navigation but otherwise it’s approaching Ideal. Then of course there’s the sub-pages and blog-theme (whew, it’s a good thing Aimee ‘s a friend of mine).

    So without further ado, here’s the version incorporating all the feedback of the last couple days + some which didn’t make the blog, like my mom :).

    Revised to include all commentary – Click Image for Full Size View

    Please feel free to have a look at the originals from which this is derived.

    Thanks again to everyone who gave input!

  • Please Help Redesign The Search Influence Web Site

    UPDATE: We have incorporated all of the weekend’s input and put together a new version ).

    Please go have a look! And of course, feel free to look at the below and comment in either place.

    —

    My good friend and colleague Aimee Ellingsen, a fabulous designer who’s portfolio is a little overweight in plastic surgeon web sites, is helping me out with a redesign of the Search Influence web site.

    Like many sites, the Search Influence site has grown organically and is now a bit of a jumbled mess.

    So, Aimee being a diligent designer and a little obsessive has put together 3 gorgeous site layouts. They are by no means press ready but they sketch some broad strokes of concepts, colors and sensibility.

    I’m not going to say which is my favorite (mostly because I have more than one) but I have elements of each that I love. These represent a great variety from which to choose. The biggest challenge is one of self-definition: who are we? what do we do? with whom do we want most to work? — all that kinda stuff.

    Good questions. I know the answers to some and hopefully in this design process we’ll find answers to the rest.

    You may click the image below to see the full size mock-up image.

    Layout #1

    Layout #2

    Layout #3

    Thanks in advance for your feedback! I’m excited to get this finalized and implemented (hopefully by the new year).

    Will

    Update: It occurs to me, since I’m asking for your opinions, if you have sites which you think are good examples of what we’re after here please feel free to link to them in your comments.

  • BizzSpot & BBB taking a page from the Merchant Circle playbook

    BBB, BizzSpot partnership takes a shady tack to entice local businesses.

    So, it’s taken me a few days to get back to this, but I was blown away by a recent cold-call from a company purporting to be the marketing arm of the Better Business Bureau.

    I think everybody knows that the BBB is a commercial venture, but this was a little over the top.

    Here’s why I liken it to Merchant Circle: The caller says “This is Valerie calling for William Scott. Calling on behalf of the better business bureau if you could please contact me at 888-xxx-xxxx. Thank you.”

    Message from Valerie of BBB (.wav file)

    Notice, nowhere does the caller indicate she’s calling to sell me something. So here I am presuming it’s something about a complaint or a renewal or something.

    I feel compelled to get back to them.

    Surely it’s not as bad as Merchant Circle telling me I’ve got bad reviews, but c’mon, why else would the BBB be calling.

    So I call Valerie back and she instantly goes into how she’s so excited to hear from me because we are a search marketing company. She then asks me how I would self identify and I say “internet marketing” and she walks me into a search for “New Orleans Internet Marketing” (for which we’re second organically and #3 on the map behind neworleansinternetmarketing [dot] com which I feel pretty good about given our low level of effort).

    Local Handyman Columbus OH

    Local Handyman Columbus OH

    She blows right past that and then walks me through an examples of a search for a “Local Handyman in Columbus OH

    ” at which point she shows me a sponsored listing in the right hand margin at about half-mast. In the example it’s at least top of page.

    Clearly I was impressed. Makes my organic and earned map ranking pale in comparison, no? 😉

    So I asked “how much”? And I think she said $195.00 a month! Really though, it’s a bargain compared to $300.00 for Yelp! I’m not 100% sure that was the quoted amount and I may call back just because.

    Like a dope I hustled to get off the phone. She offered to let me talk to a specialist and I said no rather than sticking around to get the real dope.

    Handyman Columbus OH
    Handyman Columbus OH

    Then I decided to do a little more digging. I backed out from “Local Handyman in Columbus OH” (a little long-tail to get much bang for that $195) and tried something more likely “Handyman Columbus OH” I saw our sponsored link and two 10 pack listings for different advertisers on BizzSpot: “Affordable Handyman” and “Handyman Professionals”. The website address on the “Handyman Professionals” listing goes to some guy in San Francisco (?!).

    And, the on-page optimization is awful — no h1, bad title — a generally weak offering.

    In short, I’m confused. BBB & BizzSpot have put together what looks like a mediocre listing product, with some attempt at distribution.

    It seems as though the BBB is taking advantage of its members in a Merchant Circle style approach to position a weak eLocalListing knockoff at 4X the price. I know it’s not the eLocal co-brand because Steve would never let such drek out the door.

    If anyone else has gotten this call and stuck around to listen to the full rap I’d love to hear about it.

  • Interviewing An SEO Company – It Helps to Ask The Right Questions

    I had the great experience recently to be interviewed in a lengthy email by Natalie, the Office and Marketing Manger, of an Atlanta Office Cleaning company Clean-Guard Inc.

    She sent me an email with a list of questions which were based in large measure on a list at SEOConsultants.com. It was a great list, I’m a guy who likes being challenged and with Natalie’s permission I’m reposting the bulk of that email here:

    It’s funny this is the first time I’ve been asked to answer so specific a set of questions but I’m happy to have the opportunity.

    Perhaps we should make it the basis of an FAQ page 🙂

    Please see my answers in line below.

    Very best regards,

    Will

    Natalie wrote:

    > Will,

    >

    > Great speaking with you on Tuesday. Below you will find a lot of questions. Due to our inexperience and knowledge on this subject we tried to compile a list of questions that could help us understand things a bit more. Thanks for your time and patience.

    I’m going to say again, you’re pretty darn savvy and this list proves it.

    > 1. Have you optimized other cleaning services? If so can you give us an example of feedback/response they have received?

    We have not worked with a cleaning service. We work with many different businesses both consumer and business to business. These have included printers, sign brokers, medical professionals, soil testing companies and many more.

    The tools we use are appropriate for any business and most particularly effective with locally oriented service businesses like yours.

    There is a great quote on our web site in the testimonials section from our soil testing company.

    This past Tuesday, Midwest Laboratories had the largest receiving day on record. We received 17,800 soil samples. The previous record was 13,200. That is the equivalent of 790 UPS Boxes – 3 UPS Trucks.

    We are now averaging about 85-120 hits per day on the eStore. Thanks again for your help in this process.

    Also, we recently published a press release on our success in internet marketing for plastic surgeons with a New Jersey plastic surgeon: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/10/prweb1410684.htm

    > 2. Based upon your professional opinion when should we expect results?

    It is a constant process, and we see continued improvement in sites we’ve worked with for years. In the worst case you should see something definitive within 6 months. If we are aggressive it should be markedly less, perhaps as little as 60 – 90 days.

    > 3. Will you/company be undertaking the seo work yourselves or will you be outsourcing to another country?

    We have both US and offshore staff. We do not outsource our core work and aside from 1 or 2 discreet tasks all work is done by our employees, some of whom are offshore.

    > 4. What is the payment schedule?

    We bill by credit card on the 1st of the month.

    > 5. Who owns the rights to the work?

    You do

    > 6. Please define maintenance after site is up and running. What does maintenance include and why is the start-up and maintenance price the same? Do you have a maintenance program?

    The bulk of our ongoing maintenance is link-building and content development. See fuller answer in #7.

    > 7. Will you be providing any additional value added services with the setup? Example: blog, ezine, newsletters, PR, etc.

    We often use all of the above. Currently for link-building we are very fond of Articles (distributed to ezine sites and press releases. When desired, some of the effort that would go toward off-site content creation can be used for on-site blogs. As an added service we can help with newsletters and email marketing.

    For more about link-building in the local space please feel free to have a look at my presentation from SMX Local/Mobile.

    http://www.searchinfluence.com/blog/2008/07/local-search-ranking-presentation/

    > 8. Is there a limited number of keywords that will be used?

    We usually select a basket of 20 search terms to focus on. These are terms which we agree together will drive valuable traffic. In our typical relationships we have a 1 year contract which has a 6-month checkpoint. If at the end of 6 months you’re not on page 1 of Google for 10 of those 20 selected terms we keep working for free until you are for up to another 6 months.

    Typically we track many more than 20. The selection of 20 search terms is merely intended to be used as a yardstick by which our clients may hold us accountable.

    > 9. What is Google PageRank™ and how does it affect our website(s)? How would you address improving our PageRank™ with Google, and other search engines that calculate the number of quality inbound links to our website?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank

    PageRank, in a nutshell is Google’s indication of the relative authority of your site among its peers. All of the search engines do some level of weighted link analysis which helps to sort the sites competing for a given set of searches.

    In other words, if you have two sites which say exactly the same things and one of them has 10 inbound links and the other has 100 links, the one with more links should clearly win.

    That said, per the algorithm MORE links doesn’t always mean better. The authority of the links matters too. if the site with 10 links has links from Harvard, Emory, NASA, The Pentagon, your local newspaper and the like and the site with 100 links has nothing but free directory links, the 10 trump the 100.

    To improve PageRank, it’s important to focus on trusted inbound links (of the type discussed in 6 & 7)

    > 10. What is link popularity? What linking strategies would you use to increase link popularity for our website? Is this service part of the proposed price? What types of websites will you target for link exchange?

    Link popularity is no longer as widely used given the advent of PageRank and similar systems from the other major engines. Many times Link Popularity was referenced when talking about reciprocal links (you’ll notice this question references “link exchange”) — I’m sure you get the emails offering these exchanges.

    Per the PageRank algorithm, the number of links is no longer weighted nearly as strongly as the trust of the sites linking in.

    In fact, in the last 2 years Google has specifically come out against link exchanges and there was even and issue a year or so ago where hundreds of realtors disappeared from the listings due to aggressive use of this technique.

    > 11. What changes can we expect you to make to our website to improve our positioning in the search engines? Will these changes be visible? Will there be changes in the coding of our website?

    We typically change a number of on-page elements including the title and description which are not readily apparent. We also will often make changes to the visible copy to enhance the use of search terms in copy and the use of page elements such as heading tags which are cues to the search engines of the importance of certain text.

    We typically don’t change the code which structures your site unless it is inherently blocking search engine spiders.

    > 12. What type of reporting will you provide to us? How often will you provide those reports? Will you provide consultation on how to interpret the reports so that we have a basic understanding of the statistics?

    We typically offer both position reporting (e.g. you rank # 10 for phrase X) and traffic reporting using Google Analytics. We send monthly reports interpreting these data and are happy to walk you through the reports to explain items which may be unclear. We will also have separate call tracking #s for better visibility on the actual leads.

    > 13. What is a PR0 penalty?

    Sometimes, when site owners behave very badly their PageRank and ability to rank will be greatly diminished sometimes to zero. Recently Google has been clamping down on paid links. Some have suggested that a PageRank of zero is a warning to clean up one’s act. There are a lot of differing opinions on this point. In short, if a site has been online a year or more has a fair number of inbound links and a PR0 it’s not a good sign.

    To really be able to tell what’s going on with your site we’d need to do some analysis and then submit a re-inclusion request to Google and see what happened.

    > 14. How many pages will you be optimizing in our website?

    All of them.

    > 15. What techniques does Google consider spam?

    The Google Webmaster Guidelines say it better than I can: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769#3

    > 16. Can you assure us that the optimization strategies and methods that you are utilizing fall under the criteria of Best Practices for the SEO/SEM Industry? Can we assume that this means no penalties for our website? Penalties could include, but are not limited to; removal from the search engines or directories index, or a possible Google PageRank™ penalty.

    We haven’t lost one yet. We don’t do anything risky. We don’t hide text and we don’t auto-generate 15,000 links overnight. We trade content in the form of articles, PR, blog posts and submission text for links.

    As I’m sure you can see from the above, this is a GREAT way to start a relationship. If only all our clients were this rigorous in interviewing an SEO company we’d all be better off.

  • Humble Apology to My Commenters

    Oddest thing, We seem to have lost the comment notification emails. Hmmm…

    So, my apologies to my recent commenters for so long an approval process.

  • Do You Know The Way to (SES) San Jose

    As it turns out I have a spared full pass to SES San Jose. One of my team mates couldn’t make it.

    So, anybody who’s been procrastinating rejoice! You’ll have to sport the brand of my friend Mike Jansma’s online jewelry store Gem Affair. They have a great selection of birthstone jewelry

    by the way.

    Since we bought way ahead in bulk we only paid $850 or so, and so for you (because I like you) I’ll happily give it up for $500.00.

    Yes, that’s less than a third of the going rate. What a bargain!

    And now for a musical interlude:

    Oh, one more thing. If anybody won’t be making their speaking engagement in link building, local search or small business related panels I’d be happy to stand in 🙂

    We now return to our scheduled broadcast.

  • PrivateLinksBuilder.com (Peter Cogan) Thinks I’m A Plastic Surgeon

    Private Links Builder is trying to help me rank better for Plastic Surgeons New Orleans. I’m highlighting some particularly amusing stuff.

    These are actually pretty good from a sales perspective. What they lack is any kind of real preparation and review.

    See also: Links Hog and High Web Rank

    Subject: I visited your searchinfluence.com site and had a question

    I was looking at websites under the keyword plastic surgeons new orleans and came across your site searchinfluence.com. I see that you’re ranked #10 on page 5 in google.

    I am not sure if you are aware of why you’re ranked this low but more importantly how easily correctable this is.

    There is no reason you cannot have a top three ranking for this keyword based on your site structure and content. You have a very nice site, with quality content.

    You need significantly more one way anchor text backlinks. If you are interested I can help you with this…

    I am talking about getting you ranked for ALL your keywords. Adding new backlinks on a steady and consistent basis from high PR quality websites is what produces the rankings you
    are looking for.

    The right kind of links are very critical in getting top ranking….and I can hand deliver these quality links to you.

    My partners and I own 1000’s websites and offer private linking to hundreds of website owners just like yourself.

    I did not send this email out to thousands of people but I am currently reaching out to a list of your “keyword competitors” as well. You are the one I really favor and the one I see can monetizing the targeted website traffic this can deliver.

    I have your contact info as: phone #(504) 617-6096. Is it Ok to give you a call?

    I have a very simple way to prove that what I do works and it is risk free for you to try. Nothing beats seeing the results with your own eyes.

    Is it ok if I give you a call? I would love to pursue this further over the phone with you or should I go somewhere else?

    Sincerely,

    Peter Cogan
    PrivateLinksBuilder.com
    704-489-0616

    P.S – Please just hit reply and tell me specifically who to ask for when I call and what time of day is best to reach that person and what is their position with the company?

  • Another SEO that sucks

    I got this email from a friend and web designer. It’s no wonder SEO sometimes gets a bad name. I do wish my conscience would allow me to include the redacted points but you get the point.

    Subject: Another SEO that sucks

    http://www.XXXXXXXX.com/

    They claim to rank #4 for XXXXXXXX on their web site…

    They are XXXXXXXX’s SEO (remember he is an Olesen friend/LJCSC competitor).

    Dr. XXXXXXXX isn’t ranking well is he? www.XXXXXXXX.com

    They copied XXXXXXXX’s home page text into an e-mail to Dr. XXXXXXXX’s
    office and said they/I should add keywords per that example! Umm,
    isn’t that their job? And if it were our job, isn’t it weird to write
    official company mail suggesting we copy a competitor?

  • Local Search Ranking Presentation – SMX LoMo 2008

    I spent last week traveling including a visit to San Francisco for SMX Local Mobile.

    All I’m saying is I don’t know why more of you weren’t there. As far as I’m concerned this was a big time win for anyone in attendance. I got some great tips from the speakers and an equal amount of good stuff from the attendees, some of which will be the focus of future posts.

    I had the pleasure to sit on a panel with 3 really smart guys: Gib Olander , Michael Jensen of SoloSEO.com and Stephen Espinosa of eLocalListings. I’d had some experience with Michael and Stephen prior and I highly recommend reading their blogs.

    So, for anyone who’s interested, here is my presentation:

    I promise, I’m going to document more of the great stuff I picked up over the next few weeks

    Update:

    TinyURL.com now allows you to customize your tiny URL. I used the phrase: Cheap Links