Archive for the 'QualityGal' Category

As I was leaving a comment on Graywolf’s post about Guy Kawasaki and Link Payola, I realized I had more than a few words to say on the matter.

Google’s policy on paid links is impossible to enforce. Or at least it’s impossible to enforce fairly and consistently.

If I review an amazing product that was given to me for the purpose of reviewing it, does it make my review any less valuable? Any less relevant? No, of course not.

If someone gives me money to review their website - and let’s face it, just linking to someone is a form of review because you always check out a site before you link to it - it’s no different. As long as I’m not misrepresenting the site I’m linking to, I don’t see the harm.

There are billions of web pages online, and sometimes it takes a little motivation to get someone to look at and link to one of those pages. Money can be the motivation. Or a free product or service. And people need the motivation, because little sites won’t get recognized without someone linking to them.  The search engines will ignore them if no one links to them, but no one can link to them unless they can be found in a web search. Catch-22?

I think that Google should take the cue from Yahoo, who doesn’t care if a link is paid or not, as long as it has value for the user. Because seriously? If I’m looking for product reviews, I don’t care if the person reviewing it got the item for free, as long as they’re being honest and upfront about everything. As long as it lists pros and cons, that review is valuable to me, and I don’t want Google removing it from my search results just because it was paid for.

And if I’m looking for health information, and I follow a link to a helpful health website from another helpful health website, I would likely neither know nor care if the originating website had gotten some form of monetary compensation for placing the link.  If it helps me, that’s all I care about. But if Google’s going to penalize people for placing paid links, I might not be able to find either one of the helpful health websites in my web search. And for what?

If Google is really all about serving user intent, they need to focus more on worrying about their users.  Otherwise, this is all about AdWords. AdWords and AdSense provide relevant contextual paid links for many Webmasters out there.  The paid links they’re penalizing are really only cutting out Google as the middleman - and that doesn’t hurt anyone, except perhaps Google’s profit margin.

But back to Graywolf and Guy Kawasaki.  I don’t think Guy has done anything wrong, and I know that Graywolf doesn’t think that Guy has done anything wrong either. He’s just pointing out the flaws in the paid link penalties Google is handing out.  In the end, I hope Guy doesn’t get penalized; I hope the penalties disappear. And I’m not saying this because of Jim and his elite team of link ninjas.  I’m saying this as an Internet user who only wants access to the best information - whether the person providing the access has been paid for it or not.

For several months, our Content Creation Services have been closed to clients.  When my predecessor left the company to move across the country, the "Sorry…" notice appeared to let clients know that the service was no longer available.  When I started, it was up in the air as to whether or not we would offer Content Creation to clients again.

But now, We Build Pages has once again opened its doors to clients who need content.

I’ve got a team of writers who produce quality content.  I’ll accept nothing less.  I’ve got a smaller team of editors who make sure that everything is top quality.

We can take on large projects or small. We offer volume discounts for large projects.  (Large projects also keep my writers busy, which makes them happy!)

If you’re looking for linkbait, we can create that for you, too. (* Note: We can write linkbait pieces for you, but we do not promote them.)

So if you need content and want to help keep my writers and me busy,  drop by our shiny new Content Creation page and let me know what we can do for you!

Dear SEO Spammers,

If you are going to send out emails for your SEO services to get websites to rank on Google and Yahoo, don’t pick a website that is noindexed. (How did you even find it? Oh wait, that’s right. Google indexed it anyways.)

Assuming I did want this site (not the site I use for my writers) to rank on the search engines, what do you think about this sales pitch?

Dear Business Owner,

75% of POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS searching the Internet will never find your web site unless you’re on the first page of Google, Yahoo, or MSN. If I could get as much as 4 times more INTERNET traffic to your website by promoting you to the top of the search engines would you be interested?

Our company is consistently on the first page when you search on Google for our primary search term "SEO Company". We would like to do the same for your Company’s website so you can rank for your main keyword terms as well? All of our techniques use the most ethical "white hat" Search Engine Optimization methods that will not get your website banned or penalized.

This search engine optimization program includes:
• No upfront fees
• A month to month program (no long term contracts)
• Guaranteed increase in traffic

Simply reply to this email and I would be delighted to send you a custom proposal
_________________________________________________________

Warm Regards,
Ron
[Jim removed address for them]
_________________________________________________________

P.S. This is an advertisement and a promotional mail strictly on the guidelines of CAN-SPAM act of 2007 . We have clearly mentioned the source mail-id of this mail, also clearly mentioned the subject lines and they are in no way misleading in any form. We have found your mail address through our own efforts on the web search and not through any illegal way. If you find this mail unsolicited, please reply with "Remove" in the subject line and we will take care that you do not receive any further promotional mail.

*giggle*

He never mentioned the name of his high ranking SEO Company. [Jim edited this part too ...But the company has quite the bad reputation when I searched there name online]

The red flags abound.

I wonder if anyone has actually "hired" him.

Not sure if Jim’s seen it yet, but he’s part of the newest game show: SEO Squares. I love that he’s the only one without a speech bubble.

My son starts preschool tomorrow. Aside from staying home from the office tomorrow and becoming a basket case (my baby is growing up!) it got me thinking. My son loves to watch Noggin, and they have some amusing promos based on this: Noggin is like preschool on TV. Don’t you wish life was more like preschool?

Why yes, I do wish life was more like preschool. Thinking about it, Internet Marketing is part of my life now, and it does share some similarities with lessons learned in preschool…

Everything is a learning experience.

In preschool, even playtime is learning time.  Playing on the playground lets kids work on their gross motor skills and social skills.  In Internet Marketing, we never stop learning, either.  While keeping up with the latest webmaster guidelines may not be very fun and exciting, keeping connected via social networks like Twitter makes education more fun. While messaging on Twitter may seem like goofing off sometimes, there is educational value in many of the conversations there. Reading and writing blog posts keeps everyone up to date on what is happening in the industry, much like circle time in preschool.

Share.

In preschool, kids have to learn to share - something that many of them likely never had to do before, especially if they lack siblings.  It may cause tears from time to time, but it eventually gets easier.  It’s a little trickier in the field of Internet Marketing, as no one wants to give away their trade secrets, but if no one shared anything, we’d never be able to improve - individually, or as an industry.  Sharing bits and pieces of knowledge helps spark new ideas.  Even something as simple as linking out from blog posts is a form of sharing, as it encourages the sharing of both ideas and attention.

Snack time is an important part of the day.

In preschool, kids learn to sit down and relax for a little while as they enjoying healthy snacks.  In Internet Marketing, we appreciate the value of a little snack break, too.  At least in the We Build Pages office, we get free ice cream - whether we’re designers, content managers, link ninjas, or newly acquired superstars like Pat Sexton.  (One of the programmers helped himself to some before 10:00 am yesterday.)  We also celebrate birthdays with cake or other goodies.  Snacks are good for staff morale and motivation.

Arts and Crafts are important.

In preschool, arts and crafts are more a part of the lesson plans than they are in grade school, when they are considered an optional form of enrichment.  In Internet Marketing, creativity is a job requirement.  You need to experiment in order to find out what works and what doesn’t work, cobbling together your marketing plan from all of the tools you have available.  While you may not be working with pipe cleaners, cotton balls, paste, and construction paper, it’s still up to you to figure out the best way to put together the resources you have available to you.

Reading is fundamental.

This goes with along with the "never stop learning" part above.  In preschool, story time is crucial for helping kids pick up valuable literacy skills that they may or may not be learning at home.  In Internet Marketing, you have to read to stay competitive.  If you aren’t reading what others are putting out there, you’re going to miss out on some valuable information - and that could cost you both your money and your reputation.

Follow the rules.

In preschool, you have to listen to what the teacher says, or you’ll find yourself sitting in time out.  In Internet Marketing, like it or not, you have to play by the rules set by the entities that send you the traffic.  Oh sure, you can disagree with The Goog’s policies - you can even complain loudly about them - but at the end of the day, if you don’t follow the rules, they may decide to stop sending you traffic by means of a penalty.  Maybe the complaining will lead to a policy change eventually, but don’t hold your breath.  Of course, if you don’t care about Google traffic, then you don’t have to listen to Google.  But if you want to play in their house, you have to play by their rules.  The time out corner can be a quiet, lonely place to be.

In the end…

I left out the part about playing well with others, because that seems to be something our industry is struggling with on a daily basis.  Can you think of any other ways that Internet Marketing is like preschool?  I’d love to hear them.

Kurt Krejny of Fathom SEO is causing a bit of a ruckus on Sphinn with his piece about Domain Name Gaming. Basically, he’s irritated with keyword-rich domain names being bought up and filled with useless content that ranks well. I have to agree. What’s the controversy?

First, johnandrews commented that Kurt’s argument is "naive and uninformed." I made a comment about human reviewers to which SpostareDuro replied, "Terrific resolve… in theory."

I’d like to expand upon my argument.

We all know what these keyword-happy domains look like. I’m sure a good number of people reading this have created some. (In the name of experimentation, of course.) And we all know that, while the keywords rock the AdSense and bring in loads of cash, the people who visit these sites are not quite happy with the content they find. That’s why they click on the ads, of course, which is why they’re created so poorly in the first place.

But if we look at these sites with our user hats on instead of our SEO hats, it’s not a pretty picture. They fail at meeting user intent. Hard. And while they may rank well for a while, human reviewers could flatten them in no time.

Kurt encouraged his readers to submit a Spam Report to Google whenever they come across these sucky keyword sites. (Most likely because we want to compete with them, of course.) Commenter berto pointed out that these sites don’t fit the strict definition of spam as set out by the search engines.

Submitting a spam report could still help, even if the search engines don’t kick the sites to the curb for spamming. Why? Because human eyeballs still need to evaluate the spam report, and human reviewers would likely end up demoting sites that aren’t kicked out of the index.

Not convinced? Let’s take Google for example. Google utilizes human reviewers. Now I don’t know how different sites end up getting reviewed, but it would make sense that spam reports would kick up various URLs for them to look at. So if you submit a spam report, and the reviewer determines that the site doesn’t meet the Google definition of spam, that’s not the only thing they’re going to look at.

No, the human reviewer is going to look at the site that you already know is useless, and they are going to recognize that it isn’t "useful." It may have some relevance, if it’s able to dodge the spam label, but being bumped off the "useful" peg should leave room for good results to rank.

And that’s where you come in, with your site that is ready to rank competitively for the keyword that the sucky site formerly dominated. With useful information that meets user intent instead of copying and pasting important keywords into a generic template that uses many words to say nothing. Pay someone to write that useful content.  You paid for the domain; this is just another part of the investment, or else you’re throwing your money away.

That’s one reason I have my job: to create content that both helps boost SERP rank and provides value to the user. So my advice may seem a bit self-serving…

But it also helps you. Because your sucky keyword site may be raking in traffic and ad revenue now, but it’s only a matter of time before one of your competitors hits the spam report button and outranks you with actual content. I will begrudgingly admit that sucky content can serve as a placeholder while quality content is generated, but using it that way is a gamble and a race against time - can you replace the crap with something of substance before your site makes it to human review?

Holes in my argument: Maybe the spam report doesn’t automatically kick a site into the queue for human review. Maybe the human reviewer(s) will disagree with you on the value of the site. Maybe the human reviewer(s) will agree with you, but their evaluation has no real effect on the rankings. Maybe you can fly under the radar and not get caught. BUT… are those risks you’re willing to take?

* Jim’s note: Feel free to Sphinn this.

Tough love. It’s something I’m going to have to start getting used to as the office consultant on user intent.

It’s hard to tell someone - like your boss, or a client - that their keyword targeting campaign is due to fail miserably because it doesn’t match up with user intent. You know, it fails the Your Mom Test.

I’m learning a lot about SEO. Before Jim hired me, the extent of my SEO knowledge was served up to me by a leading web content portal for which I was an author. There are different sets of rules for SEO writers and SEO gurus. I’m trying to absorb as much of the guru side as I can, but SEO is not primarily my job. Content is my job.

But once in a while, I’m called in to take a look at a web site and look at it from a user prospective.

"Pretend you typed in this phrase," Jim says, "and this was the site you clicked on. Tell me your thoughts."

It only takes me a second or two to establish what I would want to see for any given keyword phrase. (So far, at least, nothing has been overly technical.)

The most common problem I’ve had to point out so far is when a landing page - generally the index page for the site - contains only a passing blurb on the keyword subject.

As I’m going to be heading out soon to enjoy a concert at SPAC, let’s use [Maroon 5] as our keyword phrase. They happen to be one of my favorite bands, so I’m fairly comfortable talking about them.

So my hypothetical landing page that I’m looking at is musicrelatedtermhere.com. The index page is what I’m examining. The homepage blurb explains that the purpose of the site is to provide "you" - as a rock music fan - with all of the latest information on your favorite rock bands, including Maroon 5. The blurb includes one of the band’s latest single releases, "Wak eUp Call," but that is the extent of the band’s homepage coverage.

Oh, and the top link in the site’s navigation is "Maroon 5." Site navigation is a prominent left sidebar. The "Maroon 5" link is the first link visible on the page, right below the homepage logo banner. There’s no doubt about the link’s visibility and accessibility. Users landing on this page couldn’t miss the "Maroon 5" link.

So I click on the "Maroon 5" link. There are rotating band pics, with thumbnails linking to the rest of the band photo gallery. The band’s discography and upcoming tour dates are featured. The Maroon 5 page also has links to a fan forum, some Maroon 5 Myspace graphics, and some downloadable Maroon 5 ringtones. This page is amazing! I love it! This page passes and surpasses any user intent standards I could throw at it.

But it’s not the landing page I’m supposed to be looking at. I press the back button. Oh yeah, that’s right. I have a little blurb mentioning one of the band’s singles. And there’s a link to the amazing page.

Color me disappointed.

But how to explain this to my boss, or my boss’s client?

The easiest way is to describe how amazing the second page is. It’s virtually everything a user could want when typing in [Maroon 5]. THAT is the page I would want to see at the top of my Google results. (Or Yahoo, or Ask.com results. But I’ll be honest - I love my Google Toolbar.)

The homepage? Not so much. Why should I bother with the site homepage when I can go right to the Maroon 5 page? The homepage offers me no real value. A link is of little value. I clicked on a link to get there - the link from the SERP. Why click the homepage link instead of the Maroon 5 page link? As a user, my attention span is short, as is my patience. Sure, the link to the good page is prominent, but why waste my time with an intermediate page?

So what happens to the site owner who is targeting their homepage for [Maroon 5]? A great SEO campaign could very well get the homepage quite high in the rankings. Top 10 for [Maroon 5]? Top 5? Even 1 or 2?

Yeah. Until the search engine does a little investigating. Algorithms may have gotten the site to the top, but some search engines *coughgoogleandmsncough* use human reviewers, right? If newly acquired rank draws human eyeballs to the homepage, those human eyeballs could lead to a manual demotion if that particular human agrees with me about unmet user intent.

So what now? If the keyword campaign has been going for a while, and you get smacked by the HUMAN REVIEW hammer, that’s a lot of time and money down the drain. You have two options: add value to the homepage so that it meets [Maroon 5] user intent, or ditch that keyword for homepage and focus on what you actually offer there.

Chances are, the first option isn’t going to be very feasible when Maroon 5 is only one of hundreds or thousands of bands featured on the site, even if it happens to be one of the most popular ones. If the site runs on a smaller scale, and features only 5 or 6 rock bands, it could work.

But more than likely, it makes a lot more sense to focus your [Maroon 5] campaign on the Maroon 5 page, and target something more appropriately generic link [rock bands] on the homepage.

Take home message: A navigation link, no matter how prominent, does not equate value. Consider your keywords carefully. Make sure you target your keywords on a page level basis, or you could get smacked with the Human Review Hammer.

 * Jim’s note: Feel free to Sphinn this.