SEO ROI

Usability Testing Tool Review: UserTesting.com

Gabriel Goldenberg — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 10:22:19 +0000

I knew for a while that I wanted to try out UserTesting.com, based on the referrals from my friends at Closed Loop Marketing and various blogs on usability I read (Future Now, Usability Post), but I never really had the opportunity to go ahead and get on it.

A former client wanted to to hire me again for SEO, despite the higher return provided by usability / conversion optimization, so I decided I’d go ahead and put the site to the test and see if it might not convince him of the value in usability testing.

(They’re a former client because I let them go once they were ranking well and I wanted to work on other projects.)

The site in question is for this downtown Montreal hotel, the Hotel de Paris. (Yes, I realize Montreal is not Paris; that’s the original name.)

Rather than drone on about how incredibly valuable the service was, I’m going to share the raw data of 1 of the users I tested and let that speak for itself.

And the written summary provided by Tatiana, the tester:

What would have caused you to leave this site?

* I really wanted to see the special offers for this site, but clicking on that didn’t bring anything up.

* The text was also hard to read as there wasn’t much contrast between the background and the text colour on most of the pages, and all of the lists were horizontal (prose format) instead of vertical (bulleted lists) which saves space but makes it hard to quickly compare different choices.

* Having to agree to a policy that is written with abbreviations that I can’t decipher would have made me leave for a site where I didn’t have to guess what I was agreeing to.

* I don’t really like the idea of making an account on a site that I may only use once or at most once per year. I have enough accounts to keep track of online as it is.

What other ideas do you have about how this site could be improved?

* I had a real problem making comparisons between options on this site because of the way the information was formatted which started to become quite frustrating. Maybe adding icons or reformatting the lists so that they can be easily scanned would help.

[Me: Reformatting in a vertical table format for easy scanning would probably be a positive change; icons can help too if the legend explaining them is obvious enough.]

* The pictures on the front page were nice, but it wasn’t clear what the second picture was. It looked like a restaurant of some sort but didn’t say where. A label of some kind would have helped.

What did you like about the site?

* I liked that you could book online (although some of the dropdown menus didn’t work) and that availability was shown on the calendar.
* I liked that I could see the price breakdown before I paid. Especially since that seems to be the only place to find out about the taxes being charged and because the price looked wrong and it was a good way to check the calculations.

Anything else you would like to say to the owner of the site?

* I may have this wrong, but to me ‘double occupancy @ $89′ always meant that the price listed was per person (so the price for the room was 2x$89). But on your site when I book a room for two people, the price breakdown at ordering time shows 1x$89 for that same room for two people.

This seems wrong and the discrepancy affected which room I booked.

My Conclusion: I love the service and plan to use it much more in the future!

While I’d picked up some things like the non-working special offers button and limited amount of room pictures, other problems she raised were novel to me.

To wit:

- I hadn’t considered that outsiders to the hotel wouldn’t know there’s a little restaurant/bistro on the premises. Tatiana’s confusion about the bistro picture shows a need for clearer captions than “Experience the charm of Montreal.”

To the same effect, the separate explanation about the bistro on the Hotel Highlights page is clearly insufficient.

- The pricing clarity is obviously an essential issue for any online transaction, but as I’m single and only book rooms for one person, the per person/double occupancy pricing problem never occurred to me.

Other problems I noticed myself while reviewing the site, but this test clarified their importance.

- I guessed that the abbreviation Cxl probably meant cancel. But outsiders to the hospitality industry can’t be expected to know insider jargon.

(This is also true for mystery meat navigation, like date based blog archives.) Furthermore, as Tatiana’s video and written report highlight, this is something that could lose the sale.

- In the same vein, the pricing clarity thing is immensely important because you’re affecting your average order size if people think the rates are per person instead of the rate for the room.

The bottom line is that UserTesting.com is an easy way to double your bottom line.

If you liked this case study and usability tool review, add my rss feed to your reader.

Downloads:

Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates.
SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet.
Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data

Usability Testing Tool Review: UserTesting.com

Guest Post Links: The Difference Is Repeatability

Gabriel Goldenberg — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:38:39 +0000

At SphinnCon 2010 yesterday in Jerusalem, I presented on guest post based link building. The main advantage, in addition to the high quality of links it builds relative to other sorts, is repeatability. View the preso to see what I mean.

Goldenberg Gab SphinnCon The Difference Is Repeatability

View more presentations from guestf7474b.

If you’ve been wondering why I’m not posting regularly lately, it’s because I’ve moved to Jerusalem since mid-January and am currently studying at Hebrew University, in Jerusalem. I’ve yet to get internet in my apartment (the first month I had internet via the yeshiva I was at prior to coming to Hebrew University), hence the slow posting frequency etc. Please stay subscribed as I hope to get internet soon and write at a regular pace again.

Downloads:

Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates.
SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet.
Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data

Guest Post Links: The Difference Is Repeatability

Buying Text Links – Pre-Published vs. Post-Published

Gabriel Goldenberg — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:31:58 +0000

This is a guest post by Brandon Hopkins, a freelance Fresno website designer who blogs at Brandon-Hopkins.com

The most common way to buy links is to find a site that shows up in Google’s index, then contact the owner asking them to add your link in exchange for monetary compensation. What is often not considered is that published pages don’t change very often.

If you have a page that was published 6 months ago and the only change that page has ever see was adding an < a href... tag, isn't that a red flag?

I know it would be to me! Since this is content that is already online, we’ll call this a post-published link purchase.

So a better, but often overlooked way to buy links is in pre-published content.

Buying links on pre-published pages takes a little extra effort because you have to contact the site owner/webmaster/blogger based on their past articles, but ask for a link in an upcoming article.

Since this content hasn’t ever been seen by Google it won’t raise a [why-is-this-otherwise-stable-content-suddenly-changing-] red flag when the post has a link to your website.

A few concerns with this method:

1. Posts with a single outgoing link are dangerous. Experienced link buyers know that you can quickly get in trouble if your link is the only outgoing link on a page.

Make sure the pre-published page has a few outgoing links in addition to yours.

2. Paid link outers. Just with any link purchase, you’ll encounter a few people who like to use Google’s feedback form to report your site.

You can easily get around this by not telling the site owner which site you own, and explain that you want a few links. Give them 3 links to include in the post. Your link, and two links to trusted authority sites that are not direct competition.

[Ed: You might also consider buying links "for" the competition and ask to have yours included as well to keep things under the radar.]

3. Time and labor. This is a labor intense method. You have to suggest topics for a post that your link will fit into. For many bloggers/webmasters, they don’t know what they’re going to post about so you might have to coach them on appropriate topics that would match the anchor text for the links you’re buying.

The only way around this is to outsource the labor (which adds a hard cost) or to by pass the individual blogger and go somewhere that accepts most links (like a regional web directory or niche directories).

4. Poor post quality. Knowing that they’re writing the post for the purpose of linking to you could lead the blogger to write a lazy post. A poorly written post won’t earn many links so you’ll have to rely on the strength of the main domain to provide some juice to your post. This completely depends on who’s writing the post.

A good way around this is to write the post yourself and offer it as free content. You might be able to get around spending money this way. [Editor's note: Brandon's implying in this context that you pay the site owner and provide the post. Obviously it's not a paid link if you just offer a guest article, like Brandon's doing here.]

Here’s to staying under the radar and on top of the SERPs!

If you liked this post on buying text links, add my rss feed to your reader!

Downloads:

Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates.
SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet.
Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data

Buying Text Links – Pre-Published vs. Post-Published

Update To The Popular Internal Link Building

Gabriel Goldenberg — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:30:33 +0000

My friend Marios Alexandrou, an advanced SEO who loves to test ranking factors, worked with my programmer to update the popular Wordpress plugin I had built, Internal Link Building.

For those who don’t know, Internal Link Building automates your internal linking, so you can rank like Wikipedia without being Wikipedia. Ever notice how Wikipedia always links keywords in its articles to the relevant Wikipedia pages? This plugin does that for you.

What’s popular?

- 9000 downloads – without being in the Wordpress codex!
- Worldwide attention with coverage in: the US, Canada, Russia, France, Japan, Romania, Brazil, the UK, Belgium
- Favorable mentions from SEOs in competitive industries like gambling and pills, as well as the mainstream trade sites like SEO Book
- Translations into Russian and other East-European languages (I think there’s one in Japanese somewhere, too?)
- Ported to another CMS

And now, the plugin’s set to be even better with Marios’ updates which allow you to make the anchor text be more natural / links to occur without you typing the exact phrase.

Here’s what’s new.

Benefits:

In Marios’ words: “The features are primarily to increase the number of link matches on a page while also increasing the variability of the anchor text. The plugin is going to let me test across multiple sites without having to do a lot of work .

“Features:

1. Specify the number of words that can appear in between the keywords you provided and still have a match found

2. Specify the number of words before the match that will also be linked

3. Specify the number of words after the match that will also be linked

4. Specify the number of total links that will be inserted into a page

Note: Matching won’t cross punctuation like a period or exclamation point, but will cross commas.

Bug Fixes:

- Updated to work with WP 2.9.1

- Exact matching wasn’t working quite right

- Removing Custom Post Keywords left data in the DB

Other Changes:

- The plugin settings page is now in the Settings section rather than in the Posts section. I didn’t ask for this one, so I guess Aaron did it.

- The menu option is now called Keyword Links instead of Keywords

- Update the version to 2.0. I figured the changes were significant enough to go to 2.0.”

Marios is going to handle bug fixes / updates to this new version on his site. Marios’ Internal Link Building comments page . You should also definitely check out Marios’ blog, All Things SEM / SEO Blog, and add his RSS feed to your reader – it’s definitely in mine, because he tests and blogs about original ideas instead of rehashing like other people.

That said, as with previous versions of the plugin, you need to add my RSS feed to your reader (or subscribe to get new posts (free) by email) to download it. Why? So that you’ll find out about any future updates by myself or others. Besides, there’s also other free downloads when you subscribe to my RSS feed (or get my new posts by email), like a SEO ROI calculator spreadsheet – so you can forecast SEO ROI before tackling a keyword/niche.

Downloads:

Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates.
SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet.
Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data

Update To The Popular Internal Link Building

How Facebook Built A Competitive Advantage While Blocking Google

Gabriel Goldenberg — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:04:24 +0000

Yesterday, I described what I saw as a trend towards content communities becoming commodified. We ended on the question – how do you build a competitive advantage in such a case?

One idea that comes to mind courtesy of both Inc magazine’s article on Yelp, and from Kyle Lacy is to organize offline meetups.

Make your community more than virtual – get your users to meet offline.
The closer the bond offline, the more they'll frequent the site online.

As it is, the thing that brings people back to forums, Twitter, Facebook etc is the interaction with other members.

Domainers anxiously wait to hear whether their private message about selling a particular domain name got a favourable answer.

Hip-hop “textcees” (instead of being ‘emcees’, textcees write rap battles in text; yours truly was one in high school) can’t wait to see how judges voted on their battle against other textcees.

Facebook is a particularly potent community in this respect.

Facebook members can’t wait to get comments on their pics – and it offers users plenty of ways to interact, like pic, wall, and other comments. The interaction itself is a mini-high.

This also plays on another universal trait – humans love attention, and what better way to get it than posting interesting pictures, videos, status updates, notes etc? Indeed – one thing that you see Yelp has done, as described in Inc, is to have certain members of the community go around giving encouragement to other members for their contributions to Yelp, giving positive attention to their reviews, pics etc.

Facebook does still more to draw people into its community.

…It taps pre-existing offline communities. This started by having people only join from American colleges, who then were their ‘network.’

Facebook developed the concept by allowing people to show their attachment to communities of various religious, political, social, work and other affiliations, and has recently reinforced that with the introduction of ‘fanning’ .

And as with forums, Facebook enables direct messaging such that you can’t wait to hear back from that cute girl you messaged after meeting her at your friend’s party.

Another thing that largely explained Facebook’s meteoric rise was that it adapted a dating site’s people search function. You could look for people – in your network (college / and later city) – by marital status, sxual orientation, age (I think) religion, relationship interest (serious dating, casual dating, flings, friendship and the pathetic-sounding “whatever I can get”).

Wanted a Roman Catholic from Ohio State University in Cincinnati who wanted a fling? Well, you’d obviously fail since Catholics never have sx before marriage, but you might find one interested in casual dating.

(I’m not picking on Roman Catholics – I could just as easily say the same about Muslims, orthodox Jews etc.)

Takeaways:

- Offer multiple ways to interact and communicate.

- Enable and encourage behaviour that draws attention. Give attention yourself.

- Facilitate and help offline meetings.

- Allow people to identify with large (city / college) groups they belong to and narrower groups too (fans of Rick’s driving school, a real self-organized group that Rick didn’t start but just reflects his numerous satisfied students’ affection).

- Toss sx into the mix.

This post was guest-written by Mark for Red Fly Marketing, an Dublin internet marketing company providing search engine optimisation services in Dublin and web design, too.

Downloads:

Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates.

SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet.

Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data

How Facebook Built A Competitive Advantage While Blocking Google

Is The Trend Towards Content-Communities Commodifying Them?

Gabriel Goldenberg — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 12:33:07 +0000

Ads are increasingly being bought to promote content, rather than to create brand awareness or sell directly. What’s interesting to me about this is that it’s a trend growing in parallel with a trend amongst large, SEO-driven sites towards building blog-focused communities.

These content community sites typically follow this outline, with some variants:

Generic brand name geared towards the industry as a whole, which leaves room for subsequent growth. Eg Health World instead of Weightlifting World

(hattip stuntdubl)

Editorial content of varying depths but frequently at a high standard
User Generated Content (UGC) via blogs users can sign up for
Hawk their own products or sell loads of ads
Supplement with forums, reviews, blog comments (though frequently there are none, or they’re not taken seriously) etc.
Don’t link out, or else only to sites not germane to the industry (eg mainstream news)

The first site that did this in an industry is probably rolling in dough.

Ditto the second.

And the third.

The fourth a bit less.

The fifth still less.

Does the sixth elicit a yawn from health readers who’ve seen it before and wonder why they should sign up here when they’re already part of sites 1, 3 and 4?

Does the seventh get ignored entirely?

This leads me to ask…

If quality content becomes a generic commodity, how do you achieve competitive differentiation? If community becomes a commodity, how do you achieve competitive differentiation?

The trends also seems to imply a tax for late-comers who want to develop content communities of their own.

Aaron Wall loves to point out that newbies are always the most populous group in an industry.

What that implies is that the first handful of sites to establish themselves as content communities can continue to grow by virtue of attracting newbies to their midst. They can rank for newbie topics/terms.

Newcomers to the space can’t target newbies as easily because they don’t have the domain authority to rank for short-tail terms. Even with equivalent-quality content, the sites won’t rank.

So to attract users and establish their own base of authority, new sites need to:

Play public relations to get authority and attract users
Buy ads to build up a user base
Spend money on making incredibly remarkable content (in which I include tools and the like)

Bottom line:

There’s a tax on late-comers.

These late comer sites will have to expend significant sums on marketing to catch up. And chances are, that further commoditizes content and lowers margins.

How do you overcome that?

Come by tomorrow for part 2: What Notoriously Closed Facebook Can Teach SEOs About Competitive Advantage

This post was guest-written by Mark from Red Fly Marketing, with 3 divisions: a full service Dublin search engine optimisation firm, a general Ireland online marketing firm and web design services.

Downloads:

Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates.
SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet.
Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data

Is The Trend Towards Content-Communities Commodifying Them?

6 Steps To More Engaging Copy That Sells

Gabriel Goldenberg — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:44:18 +0000

Good copywriting does more than just explain the details of a website’s products or services. It needs to speak to a person on an emotional level, giving them hope while getting the point across fast. It also needs to compel a person to take action.

The biggest weakness of the average website today is its copywriting. Getting an awesome design is the easy part of having an online presence; saying your piece – intelligently – is much more challenging. Yet that’s what makes sales

This post looks at three internet marketing websites with exceptionally engaging copy. They lay out what they do in a conversational and clear manner, striking a chord with visitors that solves their problem and compels them to buy.

Traffic Geyser – The Power of Social Proof

In their video sales letter, Traffic Geyser does a great job of speaking to listeners as if he or she is a friend just hanging out right there with Mike Koenigs, Co-Founder of Traffic Geyser. While this video sales letter provides a little more hype than Infusionsoft’s does, it still offers friendly, informative, smart copy that includes success stories in an uncomplicated format that leaves readers wanting to learn more.

Take Aways:

• Write conversational copy that sounds like it’s from a friend who really wants to help the reader achieve their goals instead of strictly providing information.

• When the goal is lead generation, always leave readers wanting more and provide an easy sign up form so they can get more.

Infusionsoft – Genuine Personalization

If there’s one website that gives serious internet entrepreneurs hope for turning their business around to really start making a profit, it’s Infusionsoft. Through their engaging, yet informative content, Infusionsoft shows how they relate to businesses that may not be doing well by giving their problem a name, ‘follow up failure.’

Going the extra step by having Infusionsoft CEO and Co-Founder Clate Mask speak the sales copy via video on the homepage, really takes the copy a step further in personally addressing the needs of entrepreneurs.

The true desire to help an entrepreneur that comes through in the video copy is enhanced by the professional and genuine nature of Clate Mask.

He’s believable, personable, and inspires trust while the straightforward, down to earth copywriting does an excellent job of compelling visitors to learn more.

Take Aways:

• Solve the reader’s problem in your copywriting by giving the problem a name and showing how your product or service can help.

• Choosing the right speaker for a video sales letter is crucial to its success, regardless of how compelling the copy is.

Butterfly Marketing – Selling Through Telling

Mike Filsaime’s website, Butterfly Marketing, opens with headlines that grab your attention before the sales copy takes you straight into the many incredible success stories of internet entrepreneurs using the Butterfly Marketing product. In fact, you don’t get to the actual sales letter until after reading a whopping 22 success stories, many featuring proof and audio testimonials.

The strength of this lengthy sales letter comes in knowing how to tell a story using testimonials, which builds trust. The length of this sales letter doesn’t detract from its success because it flows very naturally and is engaging, friendly, conversational, clear, and compelling. As you read the sales copy, it draws you in and makes you want to read more as it provides a ‘you can do it too’ attitude.

Take Aways:

• Create a collection of success stories from your clients. If you don’t have any on hand, create a campaign to build an arsenal of success stories that you can use to prove success, rather than just promise it.

• Short and to the point is not necessarily better when it comes to copywriting. Lengthy sales letters tend to outperform short letters that just get straight to the point.

Take Action:

To recap, here are six strategies you can apply to increase the muscle of your sales copy:

• Solve the reader’s problem and give the problem a name.

• Choose the speaker for a video sales letter carefully to ensure putting forth the right image for your product or service.

• Write friendly, motivational copy instead of stiff, strictly informative sales letters.

• When your copywriting is to generate leads, leave readers wanting more and you’ll get the lead.

• Build an arsenal of success stories instead of just promising success.

• Write long sales letters with headlines that interrupt [in the sense of grabbing people] and copy that engages and educates before making an offer.

Christine O’Kelly wrote this for Red Fly Marketing, an Ireland internet marketing company.Red Fly’s fine lads, in addition to sipping Guinness, also run a search engine optimisation company (though not simultaneously…usually); they also handle the techie/graphics side via a web design company.

Downloads:

Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates.
SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet.
Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data

6 Steps To More Engaging Copy That Sells

5 Surprising Sources of Competitive Intelligence

Gabriel Goldenberg — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:32:57 +0000

Competitive intelligence provides entertainment, an inside-track on industry trend-spotting, and the potential to develop tangential business opportunities before others, or at least catch up quickly. I gluttonously consume information, and thought I’d share some parts of my diet with other competitive intelligence collectors with hearty appetites.

1) Affiliate networks.

Ever wonder what a competitor’s margins are like?

What countries they focus on? What KPIs they use?

What verticals they’re in?

Get the answers to all these questions and many others by joining multiple networks.

2) Email newsletters. I recently got a newsletter disclosing [indirectly] the profitability of certain market segments. For newbies struggling to find their affiliate niche, this is valuable info!

Consumer-facing email newsletter are also valuable, although I admit that I’m slack in monitoring these. Some things you can pick up:

- Benefits emphasized – to model your copy on

- Profitable or high volume products or otherwise desirable goals

- Tone of voice for branding purposes

3) Corporate HQ websites.

I subscribe to the RSS feed of a particular company that I highly respect, where they openly share corporate strategy. It’s pretty impressive seeing the massive, fast-turning gears turning in these people’s heads, but it’s also inspirational here and there.

If you’re a fast-food restaurant owner, you can probably pay attention to McDonald’s, Harvey’s, Wendy’s, KFC and other press releases to see where they’re going in a broad sense. The same is broadly true of many industries.

4) Alerts and keyword trackers.

Think these tools just serve to measure how much brand discussion is happening in social media? Guess again.

If new, as-yet-unknown competitors are linkbaiting, you can’t subscribe to their RSS feed.

You can set up trackers to look for particular keywords linkbait might target, or roll your own solution to monitor Digg, StumbleUpon etc.

Similarly, if the approach is more traditional, why not monitor press-release sites for your industry keywords?

Find ‘em while they’re fresh to the industry and buy those sites out…securely.

5) Mainstream newspapers and newsmagazines.

This week’s edition of Maclean’s (a popular Canadian newsmagazine) has an excellent piece on the Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch and paywalls.

There are some fantastic nuggets to pick up in there, which I haven’t seen on places like Search Engine Land (despite Danny Sullivan’s thorough coverage of the issue!).

During SMX Advanced, I picked up the local Seattle paper and saw a piece about Google taking on Amazon for ebooks. Now, Slightly Shady SEO imagined that almost 2 years ago! And I had similar feelings and predictions on Google’s move into ecommerce and the implications about 7 months before SMX Advanced.

Since I love saying I told you so, here’s a little gem from my now 1+ year old post.

“The organic search results for obviously commercial searches will be dominated by Google Base products.” If you haven’t seen Google base practically become the default spot 3 on commercial searches, you’re sleeping:

Oh, and have any of you read Aaron Wall’s interview with eBay’s head of SEO?

Here’s an excerpt:

“[Millions of listings] end up cradle to grave quickly. What are some of the keys to helping search engines understand the structure and importance of content in such a fast changing environment?

[...]

“We have invested a good amount of resources in our data-feed technology & analytics. The Sitemaps protocol plays an important role here. As eBay has so many new listings every day, over the course of the day, you can almost update the sitemaps on a continuous basis.

“However, the effort to source the items from the database, generate the sitemap files, submission and pick up, takes decent amount of time. We have made good headway tuning our feeds in way to get more efficiency out of the items we send. We started optimizing based on probability of conversion. We can make these assumptions based on predictive modeling and data. Predictive modeling on large datasets will become even more important when it comes to scaling the projects. As a company, we are putting lots of efforts in building out a competitive advantage based on analytics, predictive modeling and scaling the technology to handling even larger datasets.”

If that isn’t the integration of merchandising and SEO, what is?

Well, here’s one of 5 calls I’d made about Google shifting more and more into ecommerce:

<“Merchandising will need to integrate more closely with SEO in order to feature more cheap products and expensive products where G’bot can access it.

“As a result, the middle ground of average products at average prices will see its market share gradually lost to either end of the spectrum. Just like Seth Godin suggested would happen, in his book Meatball Sundae.

And if you go to eBay, you’ll see that cruises abundantly listed there, for example, are of the cheap and generic variety. Where something is advertised in abundance, you know the ads work…
[I know about the cruises in particular because my dad combines dental CE seminars with upscale cruises and travel. Our eBay test yielded folks looking for bargains...]

Bottom line? Read, read and read some more! Add my rss feed to your reader, then check out these 30 other advanced search blogs.

Oh, and you might also like some recent guest posts of mine at Search Engine Land, Wolf Howl and Search Engine Journal. (Links go to my author profiles.)

p.p.s. I’m booked on a flight to Israel for tomorrow night. If I’ve been blogging slowly lately (or in the next little bit), that’s why!

Downloads:

Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates.
SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet.
Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data

5 Surprising Sources of Competitive Intelligence

How In-House SEOs Can Add Value Beyond Search

Everett Sizemore — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:48:54 +0000

Let’s face it – you’re only worth as much as it costs to replace you. Most businesses are going through budget cuts and lay-offs, or have at some point in the last two years, which makes it more important than ever to prove your value to your company or client.

They could hire another SEO for your salary… but they can’t hire another SEO; and a merchandising analyst; and a marketplace analyst; and a PR firm; and a blogger; and a customer service rep for your salary. Yet, a good SEO will be ALL of these things!

Be Needed Everywhere

For most businesses, Search Engine Optimization has a role to play in every stage of the buying cycle. Yet many SEOs think of themselves as only playing a significant role while someone is searching for a product or service to buy.

You can help customers become aware of their needs through various channels, including article distribution, guest posts, targeting specific industry keywords with helpful content… All of this can be done through search:

Awareness of Needs Search – “supplies for starting a widget business”
Assessment of Alternatives – “widgets” or “blue widgets VS red widgets”
Alleviation of Risks search – “blue widget reviews”
Decision Making search – “Acme blue widgets”
Achievement of Results – “Acme Blue Widget store, Denver”

Provide Value to the PR Team

While the PR team focuses on getting news out and handling major controversies (in some cases), you are focused on leveraging PR to build links.

But when you do online reputation management (ORM) or backlink laundering to improve the rankings of an external site – you are doing PR.

When you leave a helpful comment on a blog post or answer a question on Yahoo Answers – you are doing PR.

When you network with others in the industry to build a community of like-minded SEOs who can help you build links and sway results on a day’s notice – you are doing PR.

You can further help the PR team by being their eyes and ears on the ground. Help them fight fires before fires develop. Subscribe to search engine alerts for blog posts mentioning your brand. Use them to build links, but also to monitor discussion. If a blog post or comment thread starts to go sour on your brand, notify the PR team so they can respond appropriately.

Provide Value to the Dev Team

Aside from your usual SEO duties to work with development on crawlability issues and such – provide added value by helping them spot vulnarabilities or alerting them of spam issues, cross site scripting attacks, etc… Again, Google alerts comes in handy here. For instance, use it to find out if your site has been hacked for spammy linkdropping purposes.

Provide Value to the Customer Service Team

As an SEO, you are out there every day interacting with blogs and social media profiles, and probably comments on your company or clients’ websites. When working on a give-a-way project with an industry blogger, pay attention to the comments. People often have questions about the product or service being given away: “Does that come in a different color?” “why does it cost so much?” These make great customer service opportunities. The same goes for Twitter, Facebook, forums, or your own blog. If you can help your customer service department show the public that your company cares about and pays attention to what they have to say – that’s value above and beyond your rank on Google.

Provide Value to Business Development and Merchandising

An SEO is in a unique position to answer questions like:

“What is selling well for our competitors?”
“What else are our customers trying to buy?”
“What is the next hot thing?”

This can be of great benefit to those responsible for sourcing new products or services.

During your competitive analysis and link building efforts, you’ve probably also developed an in-depth knowledge of the players in your industry, both as competitors and potential strategic partners. Provide ideas and links to the business development team regarding who they might want to contact.

Sure, you may not get the credit when a big deal goes down – but that business management VP will have your back when the budget cuts come around.

Those are just a few of the general ways to provide added value as an SEO in a large company.
Here are some specifics just to put things in perspective:

Give the buyers / merchandisers a quarterly report showing which keywords were searched for internally but returned zero results. These are things your customers want you to offer.
Give the buyers / merchandisers a quarterly report showing which non-brand, product-related keywords your competitors are bidding for and/or ranking on, highlighting those that you do not carry. If a competitor bids highly or spends time optimizing for a certain product or service, chances are they’re doing it for a reason.
Give the business development and/or executive team an annual report called “The State of the Industry in Search” highlighting your biggest competitors in search, those who are gaining ground, those who are losing ground, and those who are not directly competitive but similar enough to perhaps be a potential strategic partner. Your biggest competitors on search engines aren’t always your biggest competitors in the industry. Search is a more level playing field than catalog or TV. The “little guys” can come up fast to catch your VPs by surprise.
Keep an ongoing list of the top ten questions and/or top ten complaints and/or top ten compliments from blog entries, blog comments, Twitter and Facebook posts, forums… and provide it to the customer service team so they can compare it with their own lists and perhaps find some new issues to resolve.
Provide your copywriters with a list of questions people have asked in blog comments, forums, etc… like “how heavy is this thing?” so they can make sure such questions are answered in the product or service description. This provides a better user experience, more keyword-rich web content, and lifts the load on the customer service team by answering questions before customers have to call.

I’m sure you can think of plenty of other examples yourself. I’d love to hear about them in the comments field below so I can add them to my list!

Everett Sizemore is the Manager of SEO Strategy for Gaiam, Inc. and blogs about e-commerce SEO on his website www.esizemore.com. You can follow him on Twitter and connect on Linked-In.

Downloads:

Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates.
SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet.
Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data

How In-House SEOs Can Add Value Beyond Search

I’m Nominated For The 2010 SEMMY Awards !

Gabriel Goldenberg — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:03:21 +0000

And I’m lucky to have been nominated in two categories!

1. My post, “The 4.5 Personas of My SEO Site,” is nominated in the SEO category! If I get into the Finalists round, I’d love for you to vote for me to win!

The post has also made it as a reference for Full Sail’s Internet Marketing Master’s Degree.

2. My article on 101 advanced tips to buy text links also got nominated in the Link Building category.

Here’s hoping the judges will consider my writing good enough to go through and win!

Downloads:

Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates.
SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet.
Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data

I’m Nominated For The 2010 SEMMY Awards !

Guest Post On Training Your Web Team

Gabriel Goldenberg — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 03:26:05 +0000

Check it out at Wolf Howl: 7 Tips To Make Training Your Web Team Merry Downloads: Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates. SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet. Backlink Analysis With [...]

Downloads:

Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates.
SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet.
Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data

Guest Post On Training Your Web Team

Two Highly Valuable WP Plugins For Testing Landers

Gabriel Goldenberg — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:43:02 +0000

Get the scoop at Janet’s Search Marketing Sage: “Two Must Have Plugins for Landing Page Testing.” The second one you probably never heard of, but Janet makes a great case for !

Downloads:

Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates.
SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet.
Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data

Two Highly Valuable WP Plugins For Testing Landers

5 Sure Fire Ways To Win Your SEO Clients’ Hearts

Gabriel Goldenberg — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:24:42 +0000

This is a guest post by Arnold Zafra for TopHost.gr, a hosting company offering shared web hosting plans as well as dedicated servers. The English is a little awkward at points, but Arnold still shares some valuable tips.

So, you just snagged a deal with a client. Everything seems to flow smoothly and according to plan. You’re able to deliver the goods, but somewhere along the way, you client become restless and starts playing hardball.

And you wonder what could you be possibly doing wrong? Why is the deal running not so smoothly, where in fact you’re doing everything that you promised to do. How can you re-establish rapport with your client especially when your SEO deal is still ongoing?

Here are five easy ways of improving your relationship with SEO clients.

1. Check if you’re bringing the goods you promised

If you set a deadline to achieve first page SERPs ranking for you client’s site, check whether you have achieved it. If not and you’re already nearing the deadline, explain to your client your progress. And assure him that you’re going to achieve the agreed target.

If you think that you won’t be able to achieve the set target, explain to your clients the reason why you’re not going to meet the deadline and if possible ask for a reconsideration or extension. Then work doubly hard to make sure that you achieve the target the next time as earlier as you can.

2. Explain intangible SEO results/achievements

Use all the available analytics tools to explain to your client what your SEO work has achieved so far for the client’s website. Present site traffic trending, traffic spikes and downturns and site related statistics in the simpler terms that can be understood by your client. These results/achievements may not be fully understood by your client so much so that the client may think that you are not doing anything. So, it is of utmost important that the client understand the nature of SEO work.

3. Listen to client’s follow-up requirements

If in case your client demands some extra output from you, gladly listen and find out whether what is being asked for is achievable and within reason. Avoid replying in a negative way, unless you want to lose your client’s trust. If what the client is asking for is not achievable, explain the prerequisites to achieve it and negotiate whether the client is amenable to amending your SEO contract to reflect the changes in the client’s requirements.

4. Explain what you are doing in the simplest layman’s terms possible

We got to admit that the SEO field is full of technical jargons that only we SEO workers can understand. Hence to improve your relations with your clients, it is a must that the two of you are in the same level of understanding in terms of general knowledge about SEO terminologies.

5. Establish a personal relationship

Many people will tend to disagree with this point. And there’s nothing wrong with that since SEO is still a business endeavor and so client relationship must remain at the business level. But then, the SEO field is still an informal industry characterized by workers who go against the norms if those norms are not technically related. So there’s nothing really wrong about establishing a good relations with client. And to achieve “good client relations” that relationship may or can extend to a more personal level.

Being friendly towards another still works, no matter how old of a business trick it is.

Downloads:

Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates.
SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet.
Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data

5 Sure Fire Ways To Win Your SEO Clients’ Hearts

Affiliate Marketing Gets Sluttier In Time For 2010

Gabriel Goldenberg — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 12:34:34 +0000

It’s a weird thing that some of the smartest affiliate marketers are also the dirtiest.

1 – Ever heard of “PPV”? Aka pay-per-view? I wish I was talking about boxing matches on TV. No, the larger ROI-centric affiliates are tending to move into “PPV” or “CPV” traffic, which many of you might know under its non-euphemism name, pop-ups.

The funny thing to me is that the dirtier you’re willing to play, the dirtier others are willing to play back. I was watching a TV show I like, and the site hosting it sells PPV traffic. Here’s an indication on traffic quality: the new ad page opens when you click play the first time. Yeah, totally what the visitor intended.

Bottom line is that PPV is the talk of the town in ROI-driven affiliate circles, and that’s a sad thing.

2 – The blackhat SEOs are tending increasingly towards the hacking side of things. In an SEO-driven version of a common scam, interruption marketing is used to make you think your website has bugs and you need to buy the virus “anti-virus” these helpful ‘warning’ providers are offering.

I’m trying to find the right reference on Ben Edelman’s site, but it’s not surfacing.

Coincidentally, what does show up the overlap in adware makers [which serve to generate popup "traffic"] and phony anti-virus scams. All of which dovetail with Zango’s jolly products.

3 – Annoying people and slowing their computers with your crummy software, plus hacking their sites … don’t think it doesn’t get better! Indeed it does. Phishers are going for AdWords accounts. Probably for the credit card info, firstly (the fastest cash), but I’m sure the campaign data can’t be something they’re possibly ignoring.

4 – Facebook application providers drive useless incentivized traffic. A whole lot of scaffiliates were pissed when Dennis Yu outed them on TechCrunch, but I’ve yet to hear them complaining about Farmville sending junk traffic to advertisers who will lower their payouts accordingly.

That’s what happened with cookie stuffing and other crap at eBay, until they dug into the data, booted the thieves and switched to CPC pricing based on quality. The good affiliates got paid more and the riff raff got the door.

We really, really need consumer advocacy organizations and Attorneys General to sue more of the big-time jokers for the benefit of the industry. Just a shame they can’t sue certain goons in the Kremlin who profit from this. Or, more optimistically, there are market solutions, as per Alex Rampel of TrialPay.

p.s. While I’ve almost never answered her [mostly unsolicited] emails, this interview with Emma Kupiak makes Neverblue sound like a good network to run traffic with. Almost – they still run the scammy junk like the rest of them… But at least Emma makes a good case about them being helpful to affiliates who want to be scammy! …

Downloads:

Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates.
SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet.
Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data

Affiliate Marketing Gets Sluttier In Time For 2010

Google Does Something Right (OMG! Stop The Presses ;) )

Gabriel Goldenberg — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:17:07 +0000

You all know how strong of a critic I am towards Google, but I thought this user research and testing was pretty unique, cutting edge, and can potentially lead to some great benefits for Sub-Saharan Africans (like finding health info, as mentioned…). http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/designing-useful-mobile-services-for.html

Downloads:

Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates.
SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet.
Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data

Google Does Something Right (OMG! Stop The Presses ;) )

What Cicero the Roman Knew About Link Building

Gabriel Goldenberg — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:24:23 +0000

This is a guest post by Mark Ius, on behalf of Red Fly Marketing, a digital marketing agency in Ireland, which includes both a web design company, and an SEO company.

It’s well known that most SEOs hate link building with a passion. Why? Two reasons.

1. The best quality links in terms of SEO value are tedious to obtain and involve the traditional research-and-request model. Aka link begging.

2. Even if you do everything right, you might still not get a response for a multitude of reasons, going from stale contact information to derelict sites so old they’re grown over with ivy.

As a link builder, I can tell you that I feel the same way about it. But when push comes to shove, I remember these classic lines that Cicero wrote.

Section 1.10.33 of “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum”, written by Cicero in 45 BC

“At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus qui blanditiis praesentium voluptatum deleniti atque corrupti quos dolores et quas molestias excepturi sint occaecati cupiditate non provident, similique sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollitia animi, id est laborum et dolorum fuga. Et harum quidem rerum facilis est et expedita distinctio. Nam libero tempore, cum soluta nobis est eligendi optio cumque nihil impedit quo minus id quod maxime placeat facere possimus, omnis voluptas assumenda est, omnis dolor repellendus. Temporibus autem quibusdam et aut officiis debitis aut rerum necessitatibus saepe eveniet ut et voluptates repudiandae sint et molestiae non recusandae. Itaque earum rerum hic tenetur a sapiente delectus, ut aut reiciendis voluptatibus maiores alias consequatur aut perferendis doloribus asperiores repellat.”
1914 translation by H. Rackham

“On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammelled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.”

Bottom line? Stop procrastinating, because you’ll be grateful tomorrow for the links you obtained today. Suck it up!

Downloads:

Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates.
SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet.
Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data

What Cicero the Roman Knew About Link Building

On Exam Break…

Gabriel Goldenberg — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 00:14:42 +0000

Until about December 22nd. In the meantime, 2803.fr brings us news on one of the first information products for the iPhone: A consumer reports guide that uses the iPhone camera to scan barcodes and report back its product rating accordingly. (Post is in French, fyi.)

Downloads:

Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates.
SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet.
Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data

On Exam Break…

Can Buying Reviews Be… Illegal? (Gasp)

Gabriel Goldenberg — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:44:29 +0000

I got the question recently from a friend at a big corporation, in the context of buying reviews. Of course, Google does not make the law (yet), but there are laws restricting misleading marketing.

In Canada, the main law in this field would be the Competition Act, whose sections 52 and 74 (or is that 54 and 72?) deal with misleading advertising.

The law was revised in March 2009 to, amongst other things, raise fines for criminal prosecutions under the Act. Which is awesome!

Fines were at $50,000 to $100,000 penalties for individuals, and $100,000 to $200,000 for companies.

Today they’re at $750,000 to $1M for individuals, and $15M to $20M for companies. A considerably greater dissuasive force, imho .

You can find my more eloquent and detailed post on this, in French, at Blogue Marketing Interactif. (I guest-write for the Montreal Marketing Association.)

p.s. What does this tell you about flogs?

Downloads:

Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates.
SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet.
Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data

Can Buying Reviews Be… Illegal? (Gasp)

Affiliate PPC Tip For Mixing Facebook, Shareasale & Prosper 202 Tracking

Gabriel Goldenberg — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:50:19 +0000

I just spent a few hours creating and editing an affiliate PPC campaign with Facebook Ad Manager, a Firefox extension that lets you mass-create, upload and split test ads (including split-testing images) on Facebook.

Now, while Facebook Ad Manager saved me a bunch of time, I screwed up with my Prosper 202 tracking setup and so the whole campaign needs to be rebuilt from the start.

Here’s what happened, and how to avoid it happening to you.I wanted to use Shareasale’s subid for tracking at the campaign level and Prosper 202 for tracking at the ad level (since Shareasale doesn’t let you use multiple subids/variables on a given link).

Well, in addition to redirecting to Shareasale’s link, Prosper 202 adds its own link ID on to the end of the URL, which causes a 404. Or at least, it did in my case because the end of the URL here was a Shareasale ‘custom link” – the name they give to deep links that affiliates can make to particular merchant pages.

So, for example, instead of executing my tracking script and redirecting to merchantsite.com/page.html , Prosper 202 caused the redirect to end up at merchantsite.com/page.html2341 or merchantsite.com/page.html9163 .

Now, in fairness to Prosper 202, this was my own fault.

The program specifies, when asking for your affiliate link at the campaign set-up stage, that you need to have the end of the URL allow for the subid to be added.

Because it’s late, and Facebook Ad Manager says the same thing (so that it can add its own subids to your ads when it mass-creates and split-tests them for you), I got Prosper 202 and Ad Manager confused. When Prosper outputs its own redirect link, it ends with ” t202kw= “. Somehow I confused that – which would allow Facebook Ad Manager to add its own subid numbers after the t202kw= parameter – with the input URL that you need to give Prosper.

The story has a happy ending though. I figured out a simple workaround to get the tracking and redirects to work!

You just move the ” afftrack= ” parameter (Shareasale’s subid) to the end of the URL that Shareasale gives you. Since that subid can be anything, Prosper’s adding a random number to it is no problem. Of course, it’ll make my Shareasale tracking a little messier, since now the same campaign subid will be duplicated multiple times by Prosper 202. Eg. afftrack=campaignA1234 afftrack=campaignA5678 etc.

Downloads:

Updated Feb 8, 2010: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. General info: Check the Internal Link Building page. Update info: Check Marios' updates.
SEO ROI Calculator spreadsheet.
Backlink Analysis With Majestic SEO's Data

Affiliate PPC Tip For Mixing Facebook, Shareasale & Prosper 202 Tracking

A Reader’s Guide To 30+ Advanced Search Marketing Blogs

Gabriel Goldenberg — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:06:40 +0000

The following is my favoured reading list when it comes to search marketing, especially on the SEO side. It includes PPC and usability/conversion optimization stuff too, because you can’t really become advanced in this field without focusing on the bottom line. Check out my description of each blog to see if it fits your interests.

I’m focusing on those that, while they may have some following (a few thousand RSS readers), are not mega brands in the space. On a related note, my own blog fits the generalist / link building categories, so if that’s your bag, add my rss feed to your reader.

Original & Creative Internet Marketing Generalists

The folks in this category will blog the gamut from analytics to social media.

Dave Davis’ of Red Fly Marketing’s Online Marketing Blog . Dave’s writing features some of the best material on AdWords you can find, as well as its frequent overlap with SEO. What’s great is that the writing is accessible, insofar as it’s not too heavy on tech jargon.

Marty Weintraub @ Aimclear Search Marketing Blog for ad agency, inhouse and PR . Marty’s got to be one of the most creative thinkers and writers in the business, and his writing reflects that. I can’t honestly recall reading a rehashed post here, while the original insights – which just share a fraction of the advanced stuff they do – are abundant.

Wil Reynolds and the gang @ Seer Interactive’s SEO Blog – Again, I enjoy the creative thinking a lot! The case studies and tactics they share often reveal a new approach to skinning the cat, which a tactician like yours truly just can’t get enough of. As with Marty’s blogging, it feels good to get confirmation for your own ideas when you see them show up on Seer’s blog [without having told the idea to the Seer guys], which has happened a few times.

Blogstorm search engine optimiSation blog (that’s UK spelling for ya!) – Pat Altoft runs a wonderful, well read blog that covers a range of internet marketing topics. While it’s generalist in scope, the posts are very much original and useful to your ordinary SEO consultant.

Tom Demers & gang @Wordstream’s Internet Marketing Blog – Out of nowhere, the guys at Wordstream keyword research have quickly emerged on the search marketing scene with a series of excellent interviews with insightful SEOs/PPC marketers. Of course, their own material

SEO Smarty’s SEO Consulting Blog – Ann doesn’t blog regularly, but when she does, you KNOW it’s going to be something valuable. She’s a pleasant woman to work with as well, and an excellent contact to have as she’s a connector in the “Tipping Point” social media sense.

Nick Wilsdon, UK/Russian SEO – Nick is experienced in foreign [SEO affairs] and his blog accordingly touches international SEO issues. You’ll also see him covering social media questions and tech/security stuff. Nick was one of the SEOs I spoke to regarding how SEOs deal with international currency fluctuations.

Stephan Spencer’s SEO & Web Marketing Blog (aka Stephen’s Scatterings, which is an unfortunate name imho, since it sounds kind of like what pigeons do…). Featuring a wide mix of content, Stephan’s frequently got advanced nuggets buried around his blog. It’s worth digging through his archives.

Richard Baxter’s London SEO Blog, SEO Gadget – Richard’s writing tends more towards the technical, covering particular tags, formats, Ubuntu etc. His interests are wide ranging though, and his own link building ideas and tips on the human relationships necessary for successful SEO are quite valuable.

Link Building Devotees

As the name suggests, these are the expert link builders.

Wiep’s Link Building Blog – Wiep’s monthly link roundups are must reads. You can’t really be following the latest in link building unless you pay attention to Wiep’s roundups, which canvas both the popular and the unknown [where lots of goodies are]. And Wiep’s own link bait content is is quality, too. I can’t say enough good things about Wiep’s blog, so to supplement, I’ll say something bad – he doesn’t publish frequently enough!

Debra Mastaler – Alliance Link Building Spiel – What more can I say besides that Debra knows link building inside and out and reading her blog is a great way to get up to speed in the field.

Justilien Gaspard’s Web Site Marketing blog / SEW column is another link building resource. While I’m still new to Justilien’s writing, it’s clear to me that he speaks with authority .

Local Marketers

Local SEO, search and related internet marketing tips and news get done by these fellows.

Understanding G Maps and Local Search – Mike Blumenthal is the de facto starting point for local SEO. I think many SEOs who ever practiced local SEO learned the trade from Mike’s site (including myself!), and it continues to be a reference today. From tactics to bugs and spam in Google Maps, Mike’s got the scoop.

David Mihm’s SMB Web Design and Local SEO blog – Another reference for anyone involved in local search, David Mihm has made a reputation for himself notably via his annual local search ranking factors linkbait, as well as his informed contributions to Search Engine Land and SMX.

SMB & Local SEO Guide – Andrew Shotland mixes the traditional local search marketing fare (comparisons with the Yellow Pages) with the latest in local tech, like social local search (yeah, I think it’s a mouthful, too).

Greg Sterling’s Screenwerk blog on Local Internet Marketing – Greg has got the lowdown on the Yellow Pages, having worked at one of the largest Yellow Pages publishers around (The Kelsey Group), but he’s also got the latest news coverage of the topic. No kidding – if it’s a story with any local connection, Greg’s on it.

Dev Basu’s Search Marketing Insights – My fellow resident of Soviet Canuckistan (that’s Canada for those of you who don’t know) shares a lot of the same interests with me: building a following, how to sell more effectively, affiliate marketing and local search. The topics range around, but Dev keeps it fresh.

Critical Thinkers

Not only do the folks in this group think critically, they take your hand and get you do so as well.

Michael Martinez’s SEO Theory and Analysis – Michael’s one of the deep thinkers in SEO. He’s one of the few people around who understand what the scientific method is (I’m guessing most SEOs who don’t have a math/programming/science background slept through those classes in high school), and that’s reflected in his critical thinking. I respect and really look up to Mike, but he at times turns others off with what is easily perceived as arguing for its own sake, and/or as nit-picking technicalities.

SEO Scientist – As the name implies, Branko Rihtman is cut from the same cloth as Michael and Marios. While he doesn’t publish regularly, Branko does run experiments to discover how the algorithms work in specific instances, and he also provides a great roundup of advanced SEO posts similar to what Wiep does with link building.

All Things SEM – Marios Alexandrou is one of those who, like Mike Martinez, understands the scientific method and can actually apply a/b split testing to discover ranking factors. When this guy publishes his research results, you are compelled to read… on pain of banning from the index . Now if only he’d publish more than once a month…

Tim Nash’s SEO consulting and techie/code blog is another writer in this category of standouts, who got my attention via Sphinn I believe, but also gained a lot of notoriety generally for his Flash indexing studies and tests on PDFs and the like.

Dave Harry’s SEO Blog feat. Search and IM News, at Huomah.com . A self-proclaimed patent and information retrieval (IR) geek, Dave helps make the techie speak accessible to the rest of us, though he’s still a bit heavy on the jargon at times.

Eli’s Blue Hat SEO – The goto man on blackhat techniques, Eli’s tactics have inspired more than one person’s creative thinking. In fact, his desert scraping combined with Slightly Shady SEO’s scrape of expired domains with Yahoo backlinks lead to my idea on resurrecting sites from the dead.

PPC

Easy Tricks For Great PPC by Dan Soha – If you’ve ever thought of a trick to use in AdWords… get over yourself, because Dan thought of it first. Between his background in math and his unbridled creativity, Dan is probably the most advanced PPC guy I know.

BG’s PPC Theory – If you’re looking for AdWords and conversion optimization nuggets, Brad Geddes is your man. I have to admit that I’m not a regular reader, but only because I don’t spend lots of time on PPC. Those times I played around in Brad’s archives, I had a big grin on my face like a kid with a birthday cake.

Conversion Optimization & Usability

All the work we do to get traffic would be useless if it didn’t convert, right? Well, that’s why you need to read these people’s blogs!

Malcolm Coles’ blog on newspapers, SEO, Wordpress etc. – Malcolm’s take on things allows me to get a fresh perspective on several issues I wouldn’t think about on my own. For instance, I believe it was his review of various newspapers’ usability that led me to increase font size here.

Enquiro’s B2B Marketing Blog – Similarly mixing SEO and usability, Gord Hotchkiss’ outfit has a penchant for heatmaps and anecdotes. I like that he’s a big reader, too.

Ion Interactive’s Post Click Marketing Blog – I have a love-hate relationship with Ion’s blog. I love that they have great ways of explaining things that I find make more sense than, for example, FutureNow’s Eisenberg brothers. I love when they share new ideas or methods. But I HATE how they repeat themselves so frequently…

CLM’s Thoughts on Usability and Conversion – Closed Loop Marketing’s founders, Sandra Niehaus and Lance Loveday, really got me started on conversion optimization by giving me their classic book, Web Design 4 ROI. Their blog continues to innovate and shares a mix of tips on PPC and conversion optimization.

WiderFunnel’s Marketing Optimization Blog – I forget how I discovered Wider Funnel, but they have a great way of illustrating their posts and sharing case studies that just keeps you hooked. I find their site pretty impressive as well, so it’s nice to see the shoemaker’s kids wearing patent leather booties !

Tim Ash @ SEW – Tim shares a variety of ideas, and lately he’s been on a kick of helping conversion newbs get into optimization. What stands out to me about Tim and his writing – and this is also true of his book – is that he doesn’t accept assumptions easily, but is rather inclined towards critical thinking. And that’s a theme of advanced search marketing in my books… or book rather, as I’m working on an Advanced SEO book…

Usability Post – What’s neat is that this site talks about usability beyond the standard stuff that you hear over and over on other usability blogs. I’ve also found Dimitry’s ads exceptionally useful as I catalog usability tools.

The Conversion Doctor – Eric Graham is particularly focused on writing quality sales copy. And I don’t mean just any keyword stuffed descriptive text. I mean copy that sells. You see so many fluffy copywriter blogs full of posers online… Eric is at the opposite end and kind of goes overboard on the pushy sales technique side of things.

VigorFish – They’ve got case studies, tips and all sorts of goodness. Me likey .

Web Analysts Web Business and Conversion Optimization Blog -While this site features some great content, it’s really oriented to hardcore web analytics guys and gals. They’re not overly enamored of jargon, but you need to have your thinking cap on to follow. (For more blogs on conversion, check out this preso and the firms who ran these tests.)

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