Search Engine Optimization

When you register a new website, always try to register it for at least 10 years. This is important for a few reasons. First off, it shows you long term commitment to the search engines, which will help build trust. Secondly, it ensures that you won’t lose your website should the registration renewal deadline pass without you remembering.

Watch this week’s SEO video lesson from Nick Stamoulis here!

For more Internet marketing lessons from Nick Stamoulis, check out the Brick Marketing Internet marketing video lesson archive.

When beginning your SEO campaign, it’s important to get a good idea of the playing field you are about to walk onto. If you don’t have a good idea of what your competition is doing or how they are going about their own SEO you might miss the opportunity to beat them at their own game.

Here are 4 things you can look at when evaluating your online competition to see how your SEO campaign measure up:

Backlinks
If the top three ranking sites for your most important keywords have 10,000 links a piece and your site only has 6, well, you’ve got a long link building road ahead of you. Generally, the more links a site has pointing to it the more valuable it becomes in the eyes of the search engines. This also includes social signals (links from social sharing and social networking sites). To the search engine algorithm, a site with a lot of backlinks is more valuable because more people are linking to it.

However, when looking at a competitor’s backlinks it’s important that you take quality into account and not just quantity. If one of your top competitors has a link portfolio that consists mostly of spam blogs, foreign directory links and link exchanges, some white hat link building on your part might be powerful enough to chip away at their SERP dominance.

Age of site
This is one of those ranking factors that is completely out of your control. The older a site is the more trusted it is by the search engines—it’s as simple as that. If you just launched your site in the last six months and your competitors have all been online for 10 years, even the best onsite optimization and offsite link building campaign isn’t going to have much of an effect. You might be able to win some niche keywords and carve out your own online space, but don’t expect to be unsetting any industry heavyweights for highly competitive keywords any time soon.

Content
It all comes down to quality content. How many pages of great content does your website have? How many pages are so-so and how many are a waste of online space? How easy is it for a visitor to your site to find the information they need? Are you keeping your content behind a login (meaning the search engine spiders can’t read or index it)? Do your competitors have a blog that is updated daily with fresh content? Are they active in social media and video marketing? Are they creating white papers, industry-related articles and other pieces of thought leadership content? A great SEO campaign thrives on content and if your competitors are producing volumes of great, engaging and targeted content that you are going to have to step up your own content marketing game in order to compete. Contrarily, if your top competitors aren’t heavily invested in content marketing than that is a huge opportunity for your brand to dominate the online market space.

Keywords
How does your target audience search for your products/services? What is the user intent behind certain search phrases? What keywords are your top competitors targeting? A better question is what keyword variations are they NOT targeting? What long tail keywords can you go after on your site to help build your online brand presence? Keep in mind that the more search volume a keyword has the more competition there is for it. This means you’ll have to work that much harder and longer before you see the rank increase and visitor growth you might be hoping for.

A few months ago I wrote a post for SearchEngineJournal.com called “Why Yellow Pages Will Be Dead in Five Years” after a phone call I had with one of their sales representatives that wanted me to upgrade my account. You can read the full details of our conversation in that post, but the moral of the story is that it wasn’t going to be cheap and the benefits were pretty much nonexistent. It got me thinking about Yellow Pages—how does a company that dominates the offline space for years (decades even) fall so far so fast when it comes to online marketing. The answer is simple—they failed to adopt.

First and foremost, the search engines have completely revolutionized the way consumers were able to find information. How many times a day do you take to Google or Bing with a question? It could be something as simple as looking up an address or phone number for a local restaurant (which used to be the domain of Yellow Pages) or wanting to know more about the history of hydraulic fracturing. The Internet provides users with more information than they could consume in a lifetime and is constantly expanding, giving everyone with a computer access to the same knowledge. My issue with Yellow Pages is they have failed to adapt to a changing marketplace. Yellow Pages used to be the gatekeeper for all the information a consumer could want/need about their town—but not anymore. They were effectively elbowed out of their own industry and it feels like they didn’t put up much of a fight along the way.

What does all this have to do with your website? Don’t let your business become the next Yellow Pages! Just because you are the dominant force in your industry today, that doesn’t mean someone could come along tomorrow that does it better and faster than you. Even big, established brands have to be willing to grow and change to fit the ever-evolving world we live in. You also have to remember that just because you may have a powerful offline brand, that doesn’t mean that it automatically means your online brand is as well recognized.

I worked with a client that was an offline powerhouse in their industry. Their brand has been around for over 60 years and their products often set the standard that other companies tried to measure up to. However, when I took over their SEO their online brand was practically non-existent. Their site was being edged out of the SERPs by smaller, overseas competitors that they had never before seen as a threat. They didn’t understand that they needed to earn the respect on the online marketplace and the search engines, just like they had to earn it in the offline world. It took a while and a lot of work, but we eventually got their online brand to live up to the value of their offline brand.

I’m not saying that you have to completely revamp your brand or your business process overnight to adjust for every change that comes with our increasingly online world. But I am saying that you have to be ready to roll with the punches. Clinging to the past and refusing to see the way things are headed will end up ruining your business.

Many websites rely on selling online ad space in order to turn a profit. Some will invest in a Google’s AdSense campaign, while others sell ad space for related companies. Many site owners, myself included, have invested thousands of dollars in display advertising in order to build online brand awareness, or maybe even take a more direct marketing approach with it to promote a white paper or webinar. And while paid advertising has its place in a broader online marketing campaign and can be incredibly effective (I’ve had display ads on sites where the conversion rate was 20-30%!), as a whole I find the practice to be just okay.

One particular experience soured my whole opinion of display advertising, but it got me thinking—in the world of online advertising, the website selling ad space should always be focused on helping their advertiser’s campaign succeed. That should be their #1 goal. The more return an advertiser sees for their investment, the longer they will advertise on that site and the more money they will spend to do it. The site selling ad space needs to recognize that their advertisers are their clients and deserve great customer service! For many sites, if their advertising revenue were to dry up they wouldn’t be able to keep their doors open for very long.

Here are 4 ways websites can lose online advertisers:

1. Doesn’t stay in touch with their advertisers.
What’s the point of an ad rep if they never check in with their advertisers? We don’t need to have daily calls discussing the progress of my campaign, but a monthly phone call would be great! Let’s discuss how things are performing, if there are any emerging trends we can capitalize on or what tweaks I might need to make to my ads to improve my conversion rate. Don’t just send me an invoice each month!

2. Isn’t being proactive.
If my ads aren’t performing well on your site, I want to know about it. Don’t make me chase you down each month in order to get the details. If a new opportunity emerges that you think I should take advantage of, call me and let’s discuss it! If we are several months into the campaign and things don’t seem to be working let’s come up with some ideas for improvement. Don’t let me be surprised 6 months down the road and I’m still waiting for a qualified lead to come down the pipeline from my ads on your site.

3. Changes the direction of the site without a heads-up.
I once bought ads on an industry website that decided to move to a more “expert” level a few months after my campaign started. While I can understand why they wanted to take their site in a new direction, my ads were no longer appropriate for their site. I wasn’t targeting other SEO experts; I was targeting marketing managers and website owners with limited SEO knowledge. My online advertising campaign was going to be wasted on that site’s new audience, but since I had signed a yearlong contract I was stuck. You don’t want to alienate your existing advertisers when trying to take your website to the next leve

4. No value add.
Maybe I can contribute a guest post to the site’s blog or be interviewed by one of your writers. Maybe you place my company’s ad in one of your newsletters one month to help stimulate activity. These little value ad activities help remind me that what I am doing is valuable in the long run and will help grow my business. Plus, it builds good will with your advertisers.

***UPDATE! PLEASE READ THE EMAIL THAT I RECEIVED FROM PROFILE MAGAZINE AT THE END OF THIS POST, IT APPEARS THAT THIS MAGAZINE MAY NOT BE AN ACTUAL SCAM, BUT I RECOMMEND THAT YOU PLEASE READ THE WHOLE POST AND THE EMAIL AT THE BOTTOM, I HAVE ADJUSTED THE TITLE OF THIS POST AND REMOVED SCAM AS WELL…THANKS FOR READING!***

A few weeks ago I got a voice mail message from a representative at Profile Magazine. He said that Profile Magazine was interested in writing a feature article about my SEO company, Brick Marketing and that the first step was a 10-15 minute preliminary interview to learn a little bit more about me and the company. I was both excited and a little skeptical…Excited for the fact that the Brick Marketing brand was getting enough recognition that a print magazine would want to write up a feature article, but skeptical because I had never heard of Profile Magazine before. Offline print media isn’t really my niche, so I thought that might be why I was unfamiliar with the magazine. However, I have been burned before by online magazines that say they want to write an article, when in reality it’s more of an advertorial that I have to pay for. I shot the representative a quick email to set up the phone interview, and also asked if there was any cost associated with the article. “There is no fee for the article” was the response I got, and continued to hear throughout the interview.
The representative was really nice on the phone and I found myself getting more and more excited for this article. It was a great chance for brand exposure and the SEO wheels started turning in my head to figure out how I could leverage this offline publicity online. All in all I was really excited to continue with Profile Magazine’s process. The representative told me he needed to run our interview by his editorial staff (they were talking to a few other SEO companies as well) and that if Brick Marketing was chosen for the feature article we would move onto the next step in the process.

A few days later I heard back from Profile Magazine that Brick Marketing was approved for the feature article. They only needed a few more things from me. First off, they wanted headshots of me and the Brick Marketing team. That’s easy enough, I thought. I said I could get those photos to them within the week. And secondly, they asked if I had any vendors I thought might be interested in advertising. I was a little confused. I had to bring in advertisers for my own feature article? The representative told me that it was standard Profile Magazine policy—any company being written about in a featured article was required to bring in one or two advertisers for the magazine. The price for a 1/3 sheet ad–$4,350!!

Here is where I take issue with Profile Magazine. I asked multiple times throughout the interview process if there were any costs associated with this article. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth but I have been burned one too many times to assume that anything comes with no strings attached. The SEO industry especially is full of people/companies looking to make a quick buck and take advantage of an unsuspecting business owner; I wasn’t going to commit to anything that was going to bite me in the you-know-what in the end.

Granted, I wasn’t going to have to hand over anything out of my pockets, but the fact that they expected me to solicit my vendors, business partners and clients on their behalf is unbelievable! I would never ask my business partners if they wanted to advertise in an article about Brick Marketing. First and foremost, it’s incredibly self-serving. Secondly, why on earth would I want to put my relationships with my business partners at risk with a request like that? I wouldn’t be too happy if one of them came to me with such a proposal, so why would I think they would react any differently?

I can appreciate that the magazine needs to make revenue in order to survive, but the fact that they only told me about this “required” advertising when we were 90% of the way through the process, after I had repeatedly asked about any associated costs, is downright scummy. If the representative had been upfront about it from the beginning I might still have considered it, but at least I would have known what I was getting myself into from the get-go!

I should have done my homework before agreeing to the interview. A quick Google search for “Profile Magazine Scam” turned up this gem on 800notes.com. Many of the comments replay the experience I had but I think one comment in particular pretty much sums it up:

Jim called our offices yesterday from Profile Magazine. Very polite asking to do free review on our company. Later in the conversation the truth came out. We had to give them 3 -5 references for the article. They would call our references and ask them to donate to pay for our FREE review and article about our Company. If those business’s did not donate or buy advertising from them, Profiles Magazine would mail us a bill for the cost of the article. So FREE is not really FREE.

So to any and all business owners that get a phone call from Profile Magazine, beware! Yes, you might be able to get an article in a print magazine but there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Hi Nick,

I came across your blog post today and thought I should reach out. First and foremost, I wanted to apologize about the negative experience that you had with one of our researchers. I think transparency is very important for every business, and when one of our potential features misunderstands how our writing process works we must take responsibility.

I was not present on the conversations you had, but I think it is important to clarify how our writing process works.

For our upcoming issue we are looking to feature the work of SEO experts. In our research, we came across you, and thought that it might be possible that you and Brick Marketing would be a good fit for for this section.

Typically, our researchers conduct a preliminary interview to learn more about the feature company’s philosophies, what sets them apart from the competition, and what they have planned for the future. We also touch on the career path of the person that is potentially being interviewed.

There is no cost for a feature company to participate. If there is a mutual fit, we set up a time for a more thorough phone interview that serves as the backbone of the article. We also request photography to accompany the article. This can include headshots, product shots, or anything else the feature company thinks would complement the feature.

We also ask for a list of some of the vendor companies they buy goods and services from or refer business to on a regular basis (not clients). We reach out to them, let them know about the feature and invite them to advertise alongside the article. This is strictly an invitation to see if they might be interested in marketing their services alongside a relevant article. If they respond positively, we work with them on sizing and pricing. If they decline, we simply move on. Since there is no cost for feature companies and no cost to subscribe, all we ask for is the opportunity to present the idea of advertising to vendors. Because of this, we give preference to feature companies with advertising. Referral advertisers receive 50-150 words as a side-note to comment on the business relationship they have with the feature company, and we offer free ad design to anyone who needs it.

Again, I apologize that this was not thoroughly explained to you when you had asked if there is a cost to be in the magazine. This is supposed to be explained to you very early in the process and very thoroughly.

Sometimes there is interest on both sides but the feature company does not want to provide a vendor list. If that is the case, we allow feature companies to purchase their own advertisement in lieu of providing a list of potential advertisers.

To supplement our print edition, we have developed an iPad version that will be released April 1st 2012 and all our articles are going to be permanently available on our website. This will allow featured companies to link to their article; serving as an additional way of utilizing this for their marketing efforts. You can see the newly revamped website at www.profilemagazine.com.

I hope this offers some clarity on our writing process and what we are trying to put together.

Your article is thorough, but not entirely accurate. I’m very comfortable with our writing process being posted online in its entirety as long as it’s accurate. I wanted to comment on some of the things you wrote:

“the fact that they expected me to solicit my vendors, business partners and clients on their behalf is unbelievable!”
-We do not ask any of our featured firms to solicit their vendors on our behalf. We reach out to them ourselves over the phone or email. All we ask for is the opportunity to present the idea of advertising to the feature company’s vendors. We are very professional, explain to them exactly what we are working on and how they fit into the picture. It is simply an invitation. Often times, they are very receptive to the rare opportunity of marketing their services alongside the article of one of their clients in a business magazine. They see this as an effective networking tool to let our readers know which key clients they are associated with. Usually, the decision is not whether they want to do it (they almost always want to), but rather whether they have the budget to do so. We work with them as best as we can. If they are unable to make room in their budget to participate, we politely part ways and wish them the best.

You also re-posted “If those business’s did not donate or buy advertising from them, Profiles Magazine would mail us a bill for the cost of the article.”
-This is simply not true. We have never done this and never will. This is another example of someone misunderstanding our writing process and misleading people online.

Lastly, you mention that Profile is a “scam”. A scam is something that is fraudulent; something we are certainly not. I think there may have been a misunderstanding, but putting the word “scam” in your post title is very strong and misleading.

Over the last 6 years we have written over 8,000 articles in our printed magazines, most of them with advertising associated with them. We have many satisfied feature companies. If you take a close look at the comments posted online, they all come from people that have never actually followed through with our writing process and likely misunderstood what was going on.

So yes, we call people a lot. It’s a lot of work to do research over the phone. We do this because some of the best stories of leadership and excellence are not yet published, so we must come up with an editorial idea and call people to see who might be a good fit… like we did with you.

Again, my apologies for the inconvenience and miscommunication. I hope that you take my email seriously and correct your post. I hope we can speak sometime soon to offer further clarity.

Because of your negative experience, I would be happy to offer an article in the print and iPad edition, the permanent article on our website, as well as a complimentary PDF of the article that you can share with your potential clients.

Please reach out when you have the chance.

Thanks,
George
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George Bozonelos | Director of Strategic Partnerships
Guerrero Howe Custom Media