The enquiries I receive

Sometimes the most interesting outcomes come from the business enquiries that aren’t really business enquiries. This post came about because I received an enquiry from someone asking me to look a their website. I get a lot of these requests – some genuine, some competitor intelligence, and some where a site owner is not 100% that their current SEO provider is applying best practice techniques. In the latter case, site owners most often are looking for third party validation of their current SEO strategy to sooth any fears they have. More about this in a second.

Specialisation is good… most of the time

My academic background comes from the economics discipline. Economic theory generally recommends that specialisation is a good thing. Indeed, I would say that SEO is quite a specialised area. But what about SEO companies that focus in the main part on just one particular niche? Does this create more problems than it solves?

The case of the [city] widget

The following case came about from email communication with someone who contacted me to check their site. It quickly became apparent that their enquiry fell into the third category I mentioned above – validating a current SEO campaign/strategy.

In order to maintain confidence I wont be naming names, and I’m only going to say that consumption of the product or service offered by the enquirer is geographically dependant. There is a large number of suppliers of what I’m going to refer to as “[city] widgets”, and the niche is highly competitive. Very often ‘[city1] widget’ is not a substitue for ‘[city2] widget’, although some substitution may occur where the user is location elastic.

The specialised SEO company

After looking over the website in question I found, what in my opinion, could be very dangerous utilisation of a particular technique (I’ll be writing about that shortly). So I made my opinion known to the enquirer and asked them to contact their SEO provider and seek some further clarification.

Follow-up correspondence contained some interesting information from the SEO about the technique used and why it was ‘perfectly safe’, but, more relevant to this post, why the SEO provider was initially chosen by the enquirer to promote their site.

It turns out that the SEO company is question are very much a ‘Sectoral-based’ SEO provider. That is, they are very active in one particular niche.

Why would you choose one SEO provider to promote your ‘[city] widget’ over another?

It’s more than common to use track record when selecting a supplier for a good or service. Proven track record is often a very good indication of future performance. In this particular case track record was indeed a strong criterion. I paraphrase:

seen as they represent our three main competitors, and those competitor sites all rank on page #1 for “[city] widget”, our site should do so also by the end of the year

For me that opens a real can of worms.

Is it ethical to represent competing sites?

In this case it appears that the SEO company in question represents lot of sites selling [city] widgets. They also happen to market software that enables the purchase of ‘[city] widgets’ which I’m sure is a very strong supporting factor. And, in fairness, the competitor sites mentioned do rank well for ‘ widgets [city]‘ (the order there represents the more likely search query).

So what’s the big issue? Well, in cases where [city] is different there really is no conflict. But in the case of representing multiple sites from the same [city], can one SEO company ethically represent multiple direct competitors? I’m sure arguments can be made for and against, but I take issue with one provider promoting multiple competing sites. Why?

Well there are only 10 spots available on page #1 of the SERPs. And we know very well that the real action is in the top 3 spots. So how does a provider representing 4 websites all targeting that same honey-pot phrase “widgets [city]” do so ethically? A number of questions arise:

1. Are all clients aware that their SEO provider is also promoting their direct competition? Are NDA’s involved?
2. Will each client site be promoted equally? If so, how?
3. Is the SEO company being paid a performance-related bonus/retainer? If so, is it similar for each client site? If so, could the provider profit by rotating resources to make each site rank highest for a short period of time?
4. Is the same internal individual responsible for actually working on each of the competing client sites? If so is data from any of the client sites being used in the promotion of competing sites?
5. If the SEO company has multiple employees, and client sites are assigned to different team members/teams what steps are taken to ‘wall’ information?
6. Most importantly for me, are client expectations being properly set? Is each client aware of how much traffic each position in the SERPs will receive? Are newer clients of the competing group aware that they may never attain number #1 position as older clients may have an ageing benefit both on- and off-site?

Those are just a few questions that come to my mind when a single SEO provider is promoting multiple competing websites. I’m not saying that promoting multiple competitors has to be unethical, but I do have the view that doing so opens up a whole new set of issues that make it wholly more likely to end up being unethical.

The can of worms gets even ‘wormier’

So I’ve stated my view that providing SEO for competing websites can be unethical. But there is another dimension to this can of worms that really grinds my gears – PPC. Let’s imagine that the SEO provider is a full service SEM company.

What happens when, as with many websites in this niche, PPC is used to promote the sites in question? And now consider what if the same provider of SEO also manages the PPC campaigns for the competing sites?

PPC is a very different beast in general to SEO. For a start PPC usually is managed under a % fee structure – the management firm usually gets a % of the total spend.

Now I’m no PPC expert, but I do know that PPC uses a modified auction system. Bidders can set their maximum bid, and all other things being equal, the highest bidder has their ad display above all others.

Let’s pause for a second and add back into the mix the fact that PPC management companies generally receive a % payment based on total spend. Now suppose that the same company is managing 4 separate accounts, all targeting a similar set of keywords, and all demanding results.

Personally I would be more than a little anxious that it might be very easy to manipulate the spend of all 4 accounts for reasons not entirely in the clients best interests.

We’re sorry, but the maximum bid keeps increasing…

For instance, it could become advantageous to have clients bidding directly against each other in a bidding match where there is only one winner – the management company (although the PPC engine wont ever be on the losing side either).

I can picture explanations being sent to clients explaining that the maximum bid is increasing incrementally, and that in order to attain better results a higher spend is required.

Higher spend = higher management fee.

I think you can quickly see that conflicts of interest could become all the more problematic.

Am I generalising?

The above of course is simply my own opinion. Again, I must state that the above case doesn’t necessarily mean that the SEM company in question is acting unethically. But in my view when one company promotes multiple competing sites there is an over-riding need for clients to have oversight which requires knowledge of the ‘bigger picture’, and for the provider to be absolutely transparent in order to maintain ethical standards.

Just my view. What do you think?

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: The Ethics of Sectoral-Based SEO Services

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Thankfully the ‘Facts and Figures’ session at Search Marketing World 2007 included a survey conducted by Amarach Consulting on behalf of the conference organisers.

The survey consisted of:

• a telephone survey of 1,000 adults aged 18 and over in March 2007, nationally representative sample.
• online interviews (in March) with 95 marketers on the Research Now panel, split:
  - 54 advertisers (client side) &
  - 41 agencies (mainly above the line/thru the line).

Gerard O’Neill very kindly forwarded his slides to me, some of which are discussed below.

Navigation

1. Internet Usage in Ireland
2. Average Hours On-line Per Week
3. Frequency of Use of Search Engine Websites
4. Pattern of Usage of Search Results
5. Frequency of Clicking on ‘Sponsored Links’ or ‘Sponsored Results’
6. Online Advertising & Marketing: Trend in spending in past 12 Months
7. Share of Search Engine Marketing in total online spend
8. Effectiveness of SEM versus Other Online Advertising
9. Expected Trend in Total Spending on Online Advertising & Marketing
10. Expected Trend in Share of SEM in Total Online Spending

Internet Usage in Ireland

Internet Usage in Ireland – % of each age group using internet from any location
Segment	%
18-24	74
25-34	74
35-44	53
45-54	44
55-64	43
65+	16
TOTAL	53

Average Hours On-line Per Week

Taking Time: Average Hours Online Per Week
Segment	Hours
18-24	8.4
25-34	5.8
35-44	5.5
45-54	4.2
55-64	3.8
65+	3.4
TOTAL	5.8

Frequency of Use of Search Engine Websites

Frequency of Use of Search Engine Websites
Segment	% Use Search Every Day
18-24	67
25-34	51
35-44	37
45-54	39
55-64	30
65+	35

Pattern of Usage of Search Results

Pattern of Usage of Search Results
Use	%
It depends	43
Mainly click on one or more of the top 5 links presented by the search site	32
Mainly click on one or more of the links down all of the first page of links presented by the search site	15
Mainly click on one or more links throughout the first few pages presented by the search site	10

Frequency of Clicking on ‘Sponsored Links’ or ‘Sponsored Results’

Frequency of Clicking on ‘Sponsored Links’ or ‘Sponsored Results’
Click on sponsored link every time + quite often	%
Very rarely when you do a search	48
Never	34
Quite often when you do a search	15
Almost every time you do a search	3

Online Advertising & Marketing: Trend in spending in past 12 Months

Online Advertising & Marketing: Trend in spending in past 12 Months
Trend	% Advertisers	% Agencies
Increased	59	78
Remained the same	30	12
Decreased	6	7
Remained at zero	6	2

Share of Search Engine Marketing in total online spend

Share of Search Engine Marketing in total online spend
Trend	% Advertisers	% Agencies
A growing share	43	34
A static share	16	20
A declining share	4	7
Don’t use SEM	37	39

Effectiveness of SEM versus Other Online Advertising

Effectiveness of SEM versus Other Online Advertising
Trend	% Advertisers
More effective	59
As effective	34
Less effective	6

Expected Trend in Total Spending on Online Advertising & Marketing

Expected Trend in Total Spending on Online Advertising & Marketing
Trend	% Advertisers	% Agencies
Increase	59	73
Remain the same	31	24
Decrease	6	0
Remain at zero	4	2

Expected Trend in Share of SEM in Total Online Spending

Expected Trend in Share of SEM in Total Online Spending
Trend	% Advertisers	% Agencies
Increase	48	60
Remain the same	42	28
Decrease	2	5
Remain at zero	8	8

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Search Engine Usage in Ireland – The Facts & Figures, Statistical Analysis March 2007

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Search Marketing World is a new Search Marketing conference scheduled for March 21 next here in Dublin Ireland. Organised by Interactive Return, the event promises to be Ireland’s premier search marketing event. As a search marketer I’m optimistic that the event is going to bring search marketing to a new level in Ireland.

World Class Speakers

I first heard about the event back in December of 2006 and quickly signed up to attend. At the time there was no programme available and the speaker list consisted of five or six individuals. The calibre of those speakers alone sold me on the event. Since then a number of additional high profile speakers has been added to the roster, further enhancing the event.

Does the programme live up to the speakers?

Last week I visited the official site and viewed the programme for the first time. I noticed that there was a site clinic running throughout the event which I thought was a novel feature. I’m relatively new to industry conferences and thought the clinics might be a good opportunity to get involved in some public way.

I’m very, very experienced at checking websites, having spent many hours assisting site owners on perhaps the largest site clinic on the planet – Google Webmaster Help Group. So I decided to get in touch with the organisers and offer my services for the site clinics.

There’s always a catch

Marting Murray replied to my email saying they would be delighted to have me as an expert for the site clinic. He would supply me with a PC, a desk and two chairs, and a broadband connection. All for the fee of €1,950 excluding the VAT. This certainly wasn’t the site clinic I had expected. And from my reading of the official material not the site clinic represented.

Before I go any further I want to state that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the organisers making money from this event. I’m sure the costs and risks of such an event are very high, and top calibre speakers command top calibre fees.

What I do object to is a lack of transparency and disclosure about the site clinic.

Official details about the site clinics

From the official site:

This is a clinic staffed by experienced search marketing professionals. You can have a one-to-one, no obligation consultation on any search marketing issue that is facing you. Walk away with the search marketing solution for which you have been searching.

If you would like to make an appointment with a consultant at this clinic please send an email detailing the time at which you wish to attend, your website URL, company name and any other necessary information. We will then confirm the time with you.

There is no indication there that the experienced professionals are paying for access to the attendees. Furthermore, a check of the exhibitors page fails to uncover any mention of site clinic exhibitors or sponsors.

After attending SES London last month, I have to say that Search Marketing World is starting to appear like a very commercial venture (I’ll keep my views on the Google clinics for a follow-up post). And of course this is the prerogative of the organisers. SES was also very commercial, but you did know immediately when someone was paying for the privilege of accessing you. The SES site clinics were very informal with ‘drop-in’ spontaneous sessions. To the best of my knowledge the speakers at those clinics were chosen as opposed to being involved because they paid.

Any sponsorship arrangements should be disclosed

My own view is that the official Search Marketing World material is at best vague about the expert participation in the site clinics. With all the bad coverage the SEM industry was received of late, I would have expected full disclosure on any element of the conference that could even be suggested as open to impropriety.

Whereas attendees are more likely than not very aware that exhibitors are paying for that privilege, it may not be so obvious that the site clinic experts are doing likewise.

It should be, in my opinion, fully disclosed that those companies and individuals providing advice at the site clinics are paying for that privilege, and that this track of the conference is a commercial undertaking on the part of the companies involved. After all, a company that pays a fee does so with an expectation of making a return on that investment. Again, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, as long as it is disclosed.

Moral duty of care

The duty to disclose sponsorship relationships rests solely with the event organisers. If attendees are kept unaware of this sponsorship I see only downside risks that could damage the industry as a whole. Full disclosure will not affect the site clinics in any way other than to ensure a balanced and safe interaction between sponsoring experts and advice-seeking attendees.

I did ask request further clarification from Martin Murray of Interactive Return (the conference organisers) but received no response to my follow-up email.

Protecting a very nascent Search Marketing industry

It is my hope that the organisers will act on my concerns. Again, I believe that the organisers have a duty of care to disclose whether conference participants are paying for access to the attendees.

Doing so will only enhance the reputation of the event, and protect and enhance Ireland’s nascent Search Marketing industry.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Search Marketing World – Full Disclosure About Site Clinics Required

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

If you are one of the many people who rely on Adwords to bring visitors to your site you really need to read this fantastic guide to optimising your PPC campaigns.

Possibly the best post to date from Dave. I saw this late on Wednesday night but haven’t had a chance to point at it till now.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: If You Run Adwords Reading This Will Save You Money, Guaranteed

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Overture, the free keyword tool from Yahoo!, is either dead or dying

Most people will be familiar with Overture’s keyword tool which has been returning free keyword estimates for many years. Now the old adage the you get what you pay for still holds true, and most professionals have long since moved to paid services.

But apparently the Overture tool isn’t too well cared for by its owners, as Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal finds out from John Slade, Global Product Management with Yahoo Search Marketing:

First, I’d like to clarify that Yahoo! Search Marketing’s public keyword research tool (formerly known as the Overture’s Keyword Selector Tool- KST) continues to exist today… the responsiveness of this free tool is diminished due to the sheer volume of hits it receives each day, therefore browsers may time out and error pages may appear…

The same Yahoo! representative is then quoted as saying:

… the public tool continues to be available but my advice to our advertisers is to use the protected keyword research tool.

which bascially confirms something we all knew a long time ago – the Overture keyword tool pretty much sucks.

One man’s risk is another man’s opportunity

And lo and behold, hot on the tracks of the rumours about the demise of Overture’s tool comes an announcement via Aaron Wall that Wordtracker has introduced a new free version of Wordtracker that returns up yo 100 keywords.

The Wordtracker tool can be found at http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/.

Want a little bit more?

I use a number of keyword tools, both free and paid. To be honest there’s no fail safe method to generate 100% accurate keyword lists, but by using a combination of tools you can come up with pretty decent ones.

As I wrote previously, I’m using NicheBot (that’s an affiliate link) which has some great features for generating and processing keyword lists. Recently I’ve also added another professional tool to the armoury which I’m really liking a lot (I’ll post about that later).

If anyone knows of other tools that fly a little below the radar I’d love to hear about them.

[UPDATE - Now Trillian is offering a free keyword tool - http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html]

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Overture Keyword Tool Dead, but Wordtracker Saves The Day (and now Trillain jumps on board)

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Selling links can hurt your website’s health

Last Friday a Googler by the name of Stephanie, who is based in Dublin no less, made a posting on the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog concerning the official Google stance on paid links, and in particular link sales. (Strangely, the author’s name has been subsequently changed to – I recall there being a full name on the post initially and it was French I believe?)

Perhaps of particular note:

We have more people working on Google’s link-weighting for quality control and to correct issues we find. So nowadays, undermining the PageRank algorithm is likely to result in the loss of the ability of link-selling sites to pass on reputation via links to other sites.

There have been rumours that Google has a team of covert link buyers who identify link-selling sites (I’m not sure this isn’t fairly obvious though?).

So if you do sell links you might be at risk of being blacklisted within the pagerank algorithm.

[As an aside, can't wait for WP2.1 and the auto save feature - I wrote a post about this on Friday only to see it disappear in front of my eyes when FF made an uncharacteristic history-1 manoeuvre :(]

Adam Lasnik on Duplicate Content

An issue that seems to pop up again and again is duplicate content. Canonical URL has been referenced a number of times by the likes of Matt Cutts, and now Adam Lasnik has written an official post on the Webmaster Blog:

We recognize that there are many nuances and a bit of confusion on the topic, so we’d like to help set the record straight.

Adam discusses what exactly duplicate content is and isn’t, and then offers some advice on how to avoid the issues that are usually associated with the problem.

The usual remedies are advised along with one or two nerve-soothers:

1. use robots.txt to block access to dupe content;
2. use proper 301 redirects;
3. ensure internal linking is consistent;
4. ccTLD for country specific content;
5. advice for syndicated content;
6. preferred domain from Webmaster Console;
7. keep boilerplate content to a minimum;
8. avoid thin-content pages;
9. CMS issues;
10. Scrapper sites.

It’s a good read to get the official Google line on duplicate content.

Using images in the vicinity of your AdSense blocks

This actually seems to be a policy shift by Google. The use of images close to ad blocks had been found to increase the CTR on publishing sites. Although publishers previously had to clearly separate ad and image blocks, it appears that Google no longer wants to see images near to ad blocks:

We ask that publishers not line up images and ads in a way that suggests a relationship between the images and the ads.

The posting also gives some visual examples of what’s now outside the guidelines, and one of the images included a clear border between the images and the adblock.

The actual guideline seems somewhat fuzzy to me, and it is not clear just what is and what isn’t viable within TOS. The examples given and the wording of the post require some implicit assumptions – it appears that having 4 images aligned with a four ad block is unacceptable, but how about having three images?

More debate to come methinks…

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Link Sellers, Duplicate Content & AdSense Guidelines – Google Pronouncements

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

SEM for Emerging Markets.

Quite interesting and shares some parallels with Ireland, which is very much at the nascent stage of search marketing.

Does anyone think that Search Marketing is going to take off next year here in Ireland, and if so what will drive that?

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Search Marketing in Emerging Markets

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

On any given day, Google may be testing a couple of new tweaks of its algorithms – the formulas that decide where web pages appear in the listings. Norvig said the company may divert 0.1% of its traffic through a trial version of its search engine to see if users like the results.

Now 0.1% of its traffic may sound inconsequential, but when you execute over 91m searches per day in the US alone (source: searchenginewatch.com) that amounts to 91,000 searches using modified technology.

This would also account for some of the strange appearances with Google’s SERPs (screenshot of request is there). While the Google Adwords quality feedback system has been known about for some time (click on an AdWords link from Google SERPs, go back to the SERPs and you may see a ‘Was this link useful?’ request), this new system seems to solicit similar user feedback for organic listings. (Here’s a short but interesting side discussion about tainted feedback responses WebMasterWorld.com.)

This is an obvious attempt by Google to weed out the countless spam sites that have plagued their index for quite some time now. Of course, the effectiveness of getting your users to do your work for you must be questioned, and I very much doubt we will see this functionality rolled out to a wider audience (getting prepared to eat hat now that I have said that ).

(You can find some other interesting discussions about Spam over on the Google Webmaster Group.)

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Google’s Head of Research on SERP Split Testing

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!

Google again…

Now we all know Google. Google has changed the way we interact on a daily basis. We use their Search Engine more than any other. They supply us with lots of great free services. And they act as the ad broker of choice on the Internet.

While some people may find it curious that I don’t block Google ads (it’s relatively easy to do you know), the main reason for not doing so is to see what’s being advertised and to whom.

Adwords

Adwords is a great way for any site to get noticed. The system is cheap, reliable and trust-worthy. However, Adwords only leads the horse to the water. That’s all you’re paying for.

So what happens when the horse doesn’t drink? Google gets paid and you’re out of pocket. So how often do you check to see what keywords are performing? Not just on clickthroughs, but on conversions? If you don’t check these things your practically throwing away your money. Let me explain by going back to John.

I was reading John’s post and noticed the ad block after his post:

It got me curious. What were they offering and why target John’s site? So as a curious individual I clicked on the ad:

You see I clicked on an ad for

Presentation Skills
Natural, effective and interesting presentations at all levels

I liked the strong copy and was interested in how it related to John’s site. And here’s the big problem. The landing page I hit makes no reference that I can see to ‘Presentation Skills’. In fact, at an Internet glance it seems like the site in question is in the call/contact centre business. There’s no relevance.

When I click on an ad for ‘Presentation Skills’ (assuming that it’s going to be advice or products) and land on your site you have about 5 seconds of my time to give me what I’m looking for.

After those 5 seconds have elapsed I’m back with John again.

And that’s why landing page theme is the most important factor for conversion. You can have the best copy and design in the world, but if it’s off-theme you’ve just lost a prospect.

(As an aside: It seems to me that there could be quite a market for SEM (Adwords etc.) optimisers here in Ireland. For more on this subject see this discussion.)

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Are Your Adwords Campaigns Leaking?

Follow RedCardinal on Twitter!