Linkbaiting has to come from the heart

True linkbaiting success very rarely comes from an outsourced article. The most successful linkbaiting pieces are written:

• From within the company, using inside company information and expertise
• From concepts which have developed over quite a period of time. Even if the actual writing and creation doesn’t take long, the thought process behind it usually does.
• With rich media – additional videos, graphs and photos to help explain what has been written
• Very rarely as ‘controversy’ pieces. Picking on another blogger or company works well for some … but for most of us, it makes us look like whingers.

Don’t take yourself for granted

Every company does something that outsiders would find amazing. You just need to stop taking yourself for granted, and see it! If you just can’t, grab a few customers or family members, take them on a tour of your working day and ask them what fascinates them. This is how the ‘Will It Blend’ series on Youtube got started.

The spread of bad information in SEO is fast and notoriously inconvenient. Almost all of us have spent time or money at some stage on an SEO tactic that ended up having no relevance to our real rankings. Unfortunately, bad information continues to be published – here are the top 4 craziest myths about SEO and Google.

1. SEO is something you do once, and then never again
   Unfortunately untrue – if you want to stay on top of the rankings, you need to keep working to be there.
2. Google Analytics sends your company information to Google
   Big Brother isn’t watching you … because they just don’t have the manpower and can’t be bothered!
3. Pagerank is directly linked to search engine results
   Actually, Pagerank is an indication of your link popularity, which is only one element of your Google rankings.
4. Keyword density is soooo 2008
   Google would have you believe that if you write your copy naturally, the search engine will understand what it is about just fine. We know from experience in SEO that this is definitely not the case! There is no magic keyword density number, but ignoring density is a recipe for wasted SEO money.

Because Google keeps changing the rules!

If you invest solely in SEO and not in holistic web marketing, your company’s profitability is strongly tied to its relationship with another company – Google. A pretty high risk strategy! Google’s new ideas, like personal search, will keep making life hard is SEO is your only marketing avenue.

Because if you depend on search, you neglect visitor engagement
if you’re constantly thinking about getting new visitors and visibility through the search engines, it takes the focus off engaging your current customers and visitors through blogging, newsletters, etc. Warm marketing costs 7 times less than getting new customers.

Because popular sites get traffic without search engines
Do you think people Google for Facebook nowadays? No. The same is true of many popular sites … and you want to be one of them!

Some people will say you should never use web slang in your site copy.  Some people threaten to violently kill those that do, while some cheerfully chuck out ‘lol-bombs’ like there’s no tomorrow. So … what affect does web slang have on your SEO?

Do you REALLY need these expressions in your website?!

Potential for reader engagement

Web slang actually has the potential to make your readers fully engage with you as a writer. Reading copy with web slang is like reading a conversation with a friend for many people. If you have a very personal site (like a blog), this could be a huge advantage in your SEO, building rankings by boosting traffic and repeat visits.

Potential for reader disengagement

It’s hard to know when to stop … and even people that are happy to use ‘lol’, ‘imho’ or ‘rofl’ in net conversations can often be turned off by the deliberate misspellings and more obscure terms. Obviously you need to know your audience.

A middle ground

Facebook is a great example of a middle ground. They never use netspeak themselves, but provide plenty of opportunity for readers to talk however they like. Increase reader engagement on your website, and you could sidestep this whole SEO issue!

1. Offer a site audit
   It just makes sense to assess the task you have before starting, and every good firm will do this. Many offer this part of the service for free, so you can compare different companies.
2. Keyword research
   Even if your SEO company ultimately lets you choose your keywords, they should at least consult with you on selection and advise on the implications of choosing one or another.
3. On page SEO
   This will include meta-information review, content overhaul, and possibly web design advice.
4. Navigation optimization
   Sometimes this is billed as ’search engine friendly web design’. It isn’t included in many base packages, but companies should at least be aware of the principles.
5. Link building
   Link popularity is, and probably will always be, a big part of your Google ranking.
6. Progress monitoring
   Internet marketing isn’t set-and-forget – you need to monitor results.

And a bonus – if your internet marketing company offers staff training in SEO maintenance, they are worth hanging onto!

Is there an army of uninterested clickers on the other side of your PPC ads?

What is click fraud?

Click fraud is conducted by a variety of groups for a variety of reasons. However, the common theme is that people click on your PPC ads that have no interest in your company or intention of buying your products.

Am I a victim of click fraud?

Here are some telltale signs that your internet marketing efforts are being exploited for the purpose of doing dastardly deeds …

• High costs on your PPC program with almost no results. Of course, this can also be due to badly managed campaigns, so read on.
• A large number of clicks coming form the same IP address
• Very low time spent on site – a high ‘bounce rate’ for PPC ads
• Many ad clicks occurring within a short time frame

Of course, hiring an expert web marketing firm to oversee your PPC campaign is an excellent way to prevent click fraud occurring to your company. It has the potential to cost you thousands, and can be hard to trace … don’t take chances!

Lots of links

If there is a single link to a page on your website on the net, search engine crawlers will eventually find it. Create more links to that page, and you enhance the speed of discovery, as well as the link popularity of that page.

Anchor text

People now understand how links on the web work … even my 70-odd year old grandparents both do. You don’t have to link with the words ‘click here’ or ‘please click’. Use anchor text – this is a huge boost to your internet marketing and SEO results, given the (assumed!) current state of the Google algorithm.

Use the hash

If you have multiple pages on site that all have very similar content, use the hash symbol in the URL to avoid being penalised for having duplicate content by a search engine. The hash symbol means similar pages are treated as one.

Masking - can it be used for good as well as evil?

What’s the problem with masking?

Well, if you use the same password for everything, and it is all in lower case letters with no special characters, capitals or numbers, then it usually isn’t a problem.

However, as password cracking becomes more common and hackers get increased access to computers around the world, people increasingly have quite complex passwords, which vary for different sites. If people get a password wrong three times and are kicked off your site, it certainly isn’t good for business!

Also, as mobile devices with tiny keypads matched with big fingers become more common, so do password errors and the resulting frustration.

What’s the alternative?

Personally, I see two alternatives. One is to simply remove masking altogether, and this is the option that Jakob Nielsen recommends. This would leave your password up on the screen for anyone to glance at and see … I don’t believe that it is just as easy to see what someone is typing by looking at their fingers, as to look at a screen and notice what they’ve typed. This would mean that using a computer in a public space would be extremely limited … or extremely unsafe.

The other option would be to routinely build a ‘Mask’ button into the login page of every website that uses a password, so people could turn masking off when they are in a private space, or on when they are in public. As with many of the best things in life … this is unfortunately NOT free!

Which would be the better option?

I honestly believe that a large proportion of web users would be LESS comfortable without password masking. Please feel free to correct me in the comments if that is the case.

While it is not currently a ‘done’ thing, I also believe that giving users the option to mask or unmask, or creating software that can automatically mask passwords to install on public computers, while websites themselves remain masking-free, are the ultimate solutions.

It is certainly time to challenge the norms … but with new ideas, not just ‘the stuff we used to do’.

Kids - Not like adults

1. Kids are not necessarily masters of the technological universe

There’s a general perception that kids can work out any computer problem set before them, in half the speed of Mum or Dad. They do learn fast … but they also lack the tools to research solutions to problems when they run up against them.

2. Kids are not patient

Kids are even less patient than adults. If your site or download is slow, they might try to download something multiple times in an effort to make things go faster. Chaos results.

3. Use sound for pre-readers

Even tiny amounts of text will completely foil pre-readers. Mum or Dad will have to be sitting there with them the whole time … and your site will end up being passed over in favour of an ‘easier’ one. Use sounds upon mouse-over for pre-readers.

4. Use small words for readers

You can have your text assessed according to the Flesch-Kincaid reading ease scale to help determine if it is actually age-appropriate.

5. Use simulated environments

Kids are not really designed for extensive abstraction. Pictures of rooms, towns, maps etc are actually a great ‘navigational’ aid, tacky as it sounds!

6. Kids don’t mind reading instructions

Adults will almost always use the trial and error method first … and if that doesn’t work, will then go back to the instructions. Kids are more pragmatic. They actually like reading instructions – so use them!

7. Kids will click off the site through advertising much more often

It’s in your internet marketing interests not to have too much advertising on your site, because kids can’t distinguish between ads and site content. They often click ads believing that they are just another part of your site. You might make a few cents on an ad-click … but your little visitor may also not know how to get back to your website!

8. Know the gender of your audience

The differences in what girls and boys prefer to see on websites when they are young is much more pronounced than when they are adults. Boys hate to see too much text. Girls hate it when there isn’t enough instruction. If you have a clearly defined gender audience, make sure you design your website for them.

1. Because you can usually get the same company to do both!

A great number of excellent internet marketing firms today have the capability both to do professional, creative, highly functional website designs, and then get the things to rank highly in Google. Dealing with just one company will make it much easier all round for you.

2. Because there are technical ways to ensure you don’t lose your Google ranking when you re-design

Those ways are a little involved (and truthfully, a little boring!) to be going into at the moment. Suffice it to say that Google’s little bots can make some mean assumptions, and SEO firms know how to placate the presumptive beast.

3. Because website design is about more than good looks

Sometimes, website designers have a keen eye for design … but are completely blind to both search-engine friendliness and website usability guidelines. Both of these factors are part of the discipline of SEO, which is why it is valuable to either use the same company, or have your two firms collaborating for your site redesign.

4. Because Flash can be tricky in terms of SEO

Sooooo many website redesigns include Flash elements. That’s because Flash is a wonderful invention and a blessing to the web (despite Jakob Nielsen’s protestations to the contrary!). However, it does need to be handled carefully in an SEO context. It is tempting to have the most important information about your site – headings, taglines etc – within a Flash element, because it is so visible to visitors. However, Flash is invisible to search engines, so you need to be careful what you do with it.

5. Because a redesign is the perfect time to add or change content

And your content is one of the most important on-site aspects of your Google ranking, and because having an internet marketing firm go over it can make a huge difference to your Google positioning!

I know that budget-wise, optimising in conjunction with a redesign can be hard. But there is so much evidence that doing so is best practice for online businesses, that I would always recommend leaving the old site up there a bit longer, and saving up enough cash to do both. Or at least, talk to your internet marketing firm about payment terms!