aaron dalrymple dot com

I’ve mentioned that, while I provide them, I am not a huge fan of ranking reports for SEO programs. Most Recently here: The Future of SEO Services. So, I decided to come up with a pro and con list.

Pros:

• Can chart progress of an SEO program over time.
• Illustrates value of SEO to clients/boss.
• Can track important keywords against competitors.
• Tracks ranking of your brand name and its variations.
• Can highlight site issues due to design changes, links, keyword changes, etc.
• Can help identify pages that are not ranking for targeted keywords.
• Can be a great addition to an overall report package - along with traffic and conversion data.

Cons:

• Easily manipulatable by which keywords you decide to “track”.
• Weighs each keyword equally - which can be deceiving to clients/boss.
• Can over value the importance of rankings to clients/boss.
• Rankings change daily. Getting bogged down in the details of why a single keyword changes by one or two positions is usually a waste of time.
• Different data centers can produce widely different results.
• Will increasingly become irrelevant with localization and personalization of search results.

I’m sure I’ve missed a few… Anything you can add? How do these pros and cons stack up against each other?

*For a great comparison of ranking report software, visit Matt Diehl’s post here: 3 Rank Reporting Softwares Reviewed.

Tagged as: SEO, SEO Tools, search rankings, pro con, ranking reports

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I just read a great article by Mike Grehan about the future of Search Engine Optimization. The question, “what is the future of search” is getting asked a lot lately. It’s changed a whole lot since I first got involved just about 10 years ago.

One key element that Grehan points out is that SEO is a really a function of marketing, which I don’t think many people outside the industry (and some inside) really understand. He says,

…even though industry leaders acknowledge that SEO is much more of a marketing process than a technical effort, there’s still a lot of fixation on crawler activity and indexing.

Most new clients and even developers I work with tend to think that I can put up some meta tags and do some voodoo to their code and, POOF, their site will be “optimized.” A lot of people (and, again, developers) call me a week before a new site is set to go live and say, “can you make sure this is optimized?”

Another thing Grehan mentions that stands out to me is:

Personalization and digital asset optimization will end 1999-style ranking reports, as search engine results will be based on blended results from end-user specifics, such as geographic location, time of day, previous searching history, and peer group preference.

Thank god! I’ve already started to ween myself, and clients, off of ranking reports. And with the availability of good analytics programs (like Google Analytics), there is really no need to base success on a handful of keywords. Ranking reports are easy to manipulate, inaccurate, can provide a false sense of SEO success (or failure) and, today, really have very little value.

It HAS to be about conversions! 1000 #1 placements aren’t any good if users aren’t going to and taking action on your site. Unfortunately, the search industry is still pushing rankings (Guaranteed #1 in Google!) as the be-all and end-all of SEO success. Let me make this my new motto:

Rankings are not an End, But a Means to an End…

Another key here is that great rankings and great traffic still aren’t any good on a broken site. This is why I’ve started to include a site analysis incorporating usability best practices as part of my standard SEO offering. My job is not rankings, it’s to help my clients succeed.

Another thing to point out from Grehan’s piece is that SEO is really turning into Reputation Management:

Reputation management will become more important as marketing continues its reversal from a broadcast medium to a listening medium.

It’s part of your overall marketing message. It’s about having a consistent marketing message acorss all channels and monitoring the voice of consumers. It’s social networks, it’s blogs, it’s public relations, it’s search results, and… just a little bit of voodoo. (-;

The Future of SEO - ClickZ

Tagged as: Google, Search Engines, Marketing, SEO, Online Marketing, Analytics, Mike Grehan, Future of SEO

1 Comment »

I’m not sure how earth shattering this is, but this post from HotelMarketing.com refers to a study showing that most people searching for a hotel are using a search engine to find hotels rather than going directly to a hotel’s corporate site. No big surprise that the internet is helping to commoditize hotel rooms just as it assisted in pushing airline tickets that same direction.

For most people, I believe, hotel rooms are booked primarily — in this order — for their location (city & state), price, proximity to desired landmarks, amenities, and then brand loyalty. No real scientific data there, just my gut instinct on how the average person goes about finding a hotel room for a family vacation, weekend getaway, business trip, etc.

I don’t doubt that brand does come into play if there are two hotels that match closely on the other factors. But average people don’t much care if it’s a Hilton or a Radisson in most cases. So, searching by destination, as this study suggests, seems perfectly matched to my theory. And, if you look at the search data you’ll find that a city name with a qualifier such as “discount” or “cheap” are the next most popular.

The danger for OTAs and Search Marketers or resellers depending on search marketing, though, is the risk of becoming nothing more than a price and amenities comparison engine that enable users to pick out a property, from a location search, and then go directly to the chain’s website to book the room. This study suggests that just that is happening:

“The BDRC said bookings are increasingly being carried out on hotel sites but third parties such as Expedia (40%), Lastminute.com (36%) and Ebookers (22%) continue to feature prominently during the research stage.”

If all you sell are hotel rooms, how do you differentiate from the rest of the pack? How do you use all of those great rankings to convert visitors to buyers?

Here may be a clue… The PhoCusWright Travel 2.0 Consumer Technology Survey, published in December of last year, says that,

“When it comes to making travel purchasing decisions, most American travelers would rather see the options for themselves than simply act on the recommendations of others. In fact, travelers want to view the options in detail via pictures, online maps and video.”

Frankly, I’m surprised at the fact that hotels aren’t trying harder to compete head-on in search engine marketing. Aren’t they leaning on their brand a little too much? Or are we just doing the hard work for them?

Search engines dominate how consumers look for hotels

Tagged as: Travel Marketing, SEM, SEO, Online Marketing, travel search marketing, PhoCusWright, BDRC, Hilton, Radisson, Hotel Marketing, HotelMarketing

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Here is a free white paper released by Blizzard Internet Marketing and written by my Pubcon friends Mary Bowling and Carrie Hill.  If you’re blogging - or getting ready to start - this white paper is an easy to follow guide on setting up your blog with Wordpress and tweaking it in order to maximize your search engine exposure and reap the rewards of a well optimized blog.  There is also a great list of plugins that help you get the most out of your blog.  In fact, after reading the white paper I setup the contextual related posts plugin, which you will now see under the comment section of my posts.

And, if you’re planning to attend Search Engine Strategies in New York next month, be sure to stop in on the workshop that Mary will be teaching, A Crash Course in Local Search, on Friday the 22nd.

Thanks, Mary!

New White Paper Released- SEO for Wordpress Blogs

Tagged as: SEO, Search Engine Strategies, WebMasterWorld, Optimization Tips, Blogging, Mary Bowling, Carrie Hill, SEO for Wordpress, Blogs, SES, White Paper

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Disclaimer: I know that this is a completely over-simplified version of search engine optimization and an SEO expert is really what most sites need to kick their search engine marketing into high gear… But, I wanted to boil it down to just a few things that any site owner can do to help out their rankings with just a little effort. Depending on a number of factors, these changes may make significant increses in your ability to drive search engine traffic, or it may be much more subtle. But with the time that you’ll invest, it’s surely worth a shot…

1. Make sure the engines can see your content. The simplest way to do this is to use your web browser to view > source. Do you see your content in the code? More than 2 or 3 times in the last few months I’ve had people ask me to take a look at their site and I’ve found that the entire site was nothing more than images or was completely constructed in frames. If you view the source of your site and don’t see your page copy, neither can the search engines. Also, make sure you’re using keyword phrases that users are actually searching for in your page copy. To help figure out what those keywords are, visit: freekeywords.wordtracker.com.
2. Rewrite your title tags. The title tags on your site serve two purposes. One is to help the engines know what your pages are about, the other is to encourage users to click on your listing in the search engine results. Write a unique title tag for each page of your site that includes one or two of those keywords from step one. In fact, use that keyword first in your title and stick your company name at the end (unless you’re specifically targeting your company/brand name). Keep titles to around 70 characters. Send that list to your web developer or update them yourself, but make sure each page has a title that is unique to its content and assures users that your site is what they are looking for when they see it in their results.
3. Get more incoming links. Link building is a discipline in and of its own. Very simply put, you need quality incoming links to your site in order to obtain top rankings. To start ask friends to link to your site, next ask strangers to link to your site. Don’t spam strangers (or friends!), ask them nicely to trade or add a link to your site because you have complementary businesses or content. Join the chamber of commerce to get a link from their member directory. Put out your press releases through PRWeb or send them to bloggers and publishers of newsletters in your industry. There are hundreds of ways to build links, if you commit a few hours to it every week you will soon be reaping the rewards.

There you have it. Just a few simple steps that anyone can do to help their search engine rankings. Again, you won’t replace a search engine marketing expert with these, but they may help you get to the place where you can afford to hire one…

Tagged as: SEO, Link Building, PR, Optimization Tips, SEO Tips, Search Engine Optimization, PRWeb, WordTracker, title tags, keyword discovery

1 Comment »

Here is Why:

Eyetools Eyetracking Research

This eye tracking research by Eyetools, Enquiro, and Did-it states that 100% of users look at the top three organic listings on Google’s search results page. Only 85% even LOOK at the number four listing and after that it’s all down hill to number 10, which only 20% of searchers even take a peak at.

In addition, the importance of managing SEO along with PPC campaigns is further strengthened by the fact that only 50% of users are even giving a glance to sponsored ad units on the search results pages.

“We see a marked difference in how people say they search and what they actually do. Previous research had indicated that people were considered searchers and spent some time before choosing a link. The past few studies we’ve done, this one included, shows that there’s a huge importance placed on where the eyeballs end up on the page. Clicks happen pretty quickly. It just shows that search marketing is a real estate game. It’s all about location, location, location.” - Enquiro’s Gord Hotchkiss

Tagged as: Google, Search Engines, SEM, SEO, Online Marketing, enquiro, eyetools, did-it, eye tracking, heat map, serp

1 Comment »

I just got back from PubCon Las Vegas. As usual, this was a great conference if you make your living in e-Commerce, search engine optimization, and search engine marketing. I was very impressed by the presenters this year, and I want to take a moment to recognize several by name and to highlight why they made such a strong impression on me:

Robin Liss

Robin gave a highly informative presentation of content production for the web. She used a beautiful manufacturing analogy to illustrate her points. To summarize, she informed us that creating quality content is like manufacturing any product. As a manufacturing endeavor, both the quality of your end product and the efficiency of getting it to market depends heavily on the process you use to get there.

Robin is founder of Reviewed.com, a network of independent product review sites, including CamcorderInfo.com and DigitalCameraInfo.com. Her sites are known for their high journalistic quality, their stringent independence of thought and for meticulously sticking to a consumer advocacy mindset.

I was impressed with the discipline and attention to detail that Robin’s company brings to the content they put on the web. Not only does Robin understand the process to drive a piece of content from Assignment to Research, Research to First Draft, Draft to Edit and down the pipeline to a finished, ready for web document. She also has an expert grasp of the economics of this kind of endeavor. By meticulously tracking each step of the process, Robin insists you can arrive at a very accurate understanding of the resources necessary to keep your content pipeline full, whether you want to generate one or two quality articles and postings a week or ten million words of high-quality, valuable content per year.

Robin Liss is a bright light, and I was personally very impressed with and appreciative of her insights.

Michael Stebbins

Some people impress you by their breadth of knowledge and marketing acumen. Some people impress you with their generosity of mind and their willingness to share what they know in order to raise the overall level of our craft to new heights. In Michael Stebbins PubCon presentations, I was impressed with both. Clearly Michael and his colleagues at MarketMotive are doing excellent research, which benefits both their clients and the rest of the web marketing profession. His willingness to share key insights in a plain and easily executed manner is quite refreshing, and I really appreciated Michael Stebbins’s contribution to the conference.

I had a chance to visit with Michael at one of the cocktail receptions, and he is also a hell of a good guy.

Ted Ulle

Talk about a veteran of SEO and someone with a fantastic ability to convey in a clear manner the importance of adhering to sound Information Architecture and Design principles.

Ted encouraged and argued strongly that folks interested in creating websites should look at key resources from Information Architecture and print typography to gain an understanding of the appropriate methods of organizing and semantically categorizing information and for displaying the written word. As always, content is king, but Ted Ulle adds the important caveat that content is king, if and only if users can navigate and find your high-quality content and search engines can crawl and index your content appropriately.

Take a hard look at your design process was Ted’s big message that resonated with me. Consider the purpose of your website and of most websites. You are trying to provide valuable information to a user, or you want them to trust you enough to make a purchase from your company instead of a dozen other options. You are presenting your content to those users, one way or another. The way you organize and structure your website and its pages effects both the end-user’s ability to find what he or she wants and the ability of the search engines to appropriately identify, crawl, and index what is most important and meaningful about your site.

ALL aspects of your Information Architecture, Graphic Design, and coding should support the proper organization and display of your content. Page navigation, headers, sub-headers, internal page linking structure, and graphical page elements all need to support the user’s ability to quickly find what he needs and take the appropriate action to get from first step to final step in a logical and intuitive manner.

I was very impressed with Ted Ulle’s undeniable expertise in his profession, but I was more impressed with his ability to convey his wisdom in a largely unequivocal and authoritative way backed up by clear examples of why and how this matters.

And I have to say that I also appreciated Ted’s very humorous cautionary tales about things as simple as your site’s error messages. They’re important, and if your IT geeks wrote them, please review them today!

I wanted to call these three indivuals out in the marketing community. I learned a lot. I appreciate their contributions to our profession.

Patrick Soch
Marketing Manager
www.eBags.com

Tagged as: Uncategorized, Search Engines, SEM, SEO, Online Marketing, Search Engine Strategies, Optimization Tips, pubcon, pubcon2007, seo, search marketing, search engine optimization, robin liss, michael stebbins, ted ulle

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Shawn over at diydollars.com has a great post on Blackhat SEO. I largely agree with Shawn’s conclusions about Google and blackhat vs. whitehat. I’ve been known to say, “Google is not the boss of me!” at times. And, I tend to get a little tired of “Matt Cutts said this” posts all over the SEO blogs and forums (I do like Matt, though - really good guy), so this is a nice change of pace.

There could be some lively debate shaping up in the comments at diy, so click over and chime in:

Is Blackhat SEO Wrong? | diydollars.com

Tagged as: Uncategorized, Google, Search Engines, SEO, diydollars, blackhat, whaitehat,

1 Comment »

Great post here from Marketing Pilgrim, and a good lively conversation in the comments. What I would add to the discussion is that many clients WANT exactly what Greg is cautioning against in his post. Most of his points are great, but, unfortunately, a lot of people who call me (I don’t cold call) are looking for a quick meta tag and link building type campaign because the IT folks don’t want to hear your suggestions, the marketing folks don’t want your ideas and the product people don’t want your advice. I agree that SEO programs should be fully integrated, but convincing customers of that is sometimes difficult. They view it as a condiment instead of an integral part of the website sandwich…

The tips here are valid, but I don’t think they should necessarily be presented as find out if your SEO guy is unscrupulous… They should be presented as suggestions to help businesses understand why they need an integrated SEO program with a respectable budget attached to it - and, perhaps, why it is better to do it in-house…
Read on:

8 Tips for Avoiding an SEO Fraudster

Tagged as: Travel Marketing, Search Engines, Marketing, SEM, SEO, Online Marketing, Link Building, PR, SEO Consultants, Greg Howlett, marketing Pilgrim

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Nothing too earth shattering here.  But, Stephan Spencer has posted some tidbits from Matt Cutts’ talk at WordCamp 2007.  Most aren’t specific to just bloggers and offer more insight into ranking well (or ranking poorly) with Google.  Matt never gives up the real juicy stuff, so I assume this is just an opiate for the SEO masses more than anything else…

Here are a few of the general SEO items that Spencer notes:

• Underscores in URLs are now seen as word separators, just as hyphens have always been.
• Keep query parameters in the URLs to no more than 2 or 3 and Google will treat your URL the same as a static one.
• Directory depth of your pages does not matter to Google.
• Page file extensions don’t affect your rankings.  Do avoid using .EXE, however.

To read Spencer’s entire piece:

Underscores are now word separators, proclaims Google | Tech news blog - CNET News.com