The following is a guest post by Ari Ozick, a member of our SEO Community who frequently shares great insights.

The above graph is based on an intensive questionnaire of over 2500 world class SEOs, including freelancers, in-house corporate types and SEO entrepreneurs. In the questionnaire, I asked one simple question – what is the most profitable activity in your business. The results are in, and as the graph clearly shows, Twittering away the day is by far the most profitable activity for most SEOs. Apparently there is more money to be made on twitter then there is in link building and out ranking the competition.

Obviously (I hope), I’m lying. I didn’t conduct any survey. I just made up the graph with Smart Draw. In fact, if I had to guess, I imagine the most profitable activities for companies would be conversion optimization, link building, and public relations.

Here’s the thing, though: I don’t have to guess about any of these answers for my business. I know. If you’re guessing or following other people’s advice on pretty charts (even if it’s backed up by third party expert opinions), then you’re leaving a lot of money on the table. Let me show you how, with a little change in thinking and how you approach business, you can make a lot more money out of what you do, everyday.

Most SEO Blogs have an Agenda

Aaron recently mentioned that there are over 5,000 SEO blogs out there today. A lot of people read the more popular SEO blogs as if they were the Gospel itself. What most of them don’t realize, or don’t want to realize, is that almost all of these blogs have one of a few agendas:

• To promote the business running the blog so they can get more clients
• To promote the blogger as an SEO expert so he can get more clients.
• To get lots of links, so that they can rank for [SEO] and, you got it, get more clients and sell advertising

Granted, there are a few exceptions. The bottom line is, however, that most of these blogs are fundamentally aimed at increasing their readership, their clients, and their reputation. That means that the information they offer is less aimed at being fundamentally useful, and more about furthering their goals. It very rarely is about providing concrete, useful tips that will lead to a direct increase in your ROI.

Don’t Believe Anything Anybody says

Often, someone will come to me and tell me that they’ve stopped writing content, or that they don’t want any reciprocal links, or that they don’t want to be listed on site X. Then I ask them why. Invariably, the answer I get is “I read it on a blog” or “It was on a forum”, or “I saw it on Twitter”. You need to make a business decision based on data, not on what something written somewhere on some forgotten piece of the internet.

Different sites will also have different focuses that provide higher ROI. E-Commerce stores may put more focus on optimizing for conversions from existing traffic, while sites like blogs and forums that sell advertising on a CPM or flat rate model will optimize for higher traffic – link baiting and public relations. Niche Adsense publishers and others operating on the longer tail of search will look to create volume quality content and build links in a more focused manner, sending link juice to the pages that need it most.

Data is King

The only way to make a decision is by looking at data gathered and seeing if the data provides you with enough information to make an informed decision. I think Diorex said it best:

I will share with you the same answer that my employees get.

“Do you have any data?” The answer is usually “No”, or they would not have asked the question.

To which I respond “Well why don’t you run a test and get some data.” Once a test has been run, they no longer ask my opinion because they now have an answer (good or bad, testing will give an answer)

I have said it before and will probably say it again, buying data in the form of testing is the best investment you can make in your business. It is not cheap, which is what scares most would be internet marketers away.

Getting the Data

So Data is what helps make informed decisions. How do you get the data? If you’re doing anything PPC/CPM based, you just need to start running a test campaign and use that data to scale, or alternatively shut down the project before you lose too much money.

SEO is a bit different – no two web sites have the same link profile, and minor differences can lead to very different results in terms of how certain types of links and on page changes will effect changes in search results. That being said, it’s best to have a secondary group of sites so you can measure the effectiveness of different link building methods, without endangering your profitable, money making sites.

Ideally you also need to have a good idea of the link graph in the verticals you work in, and an idea of what competitors are trying to accomplish. To that end, I highly recommend Majestic SEO and SEM Rush (I’m a happy customer, nothing more). There’s nothing like having fairly accurate data without being at the complete mercy of a search engine. It’s a liberating feeling.

What Data Has Taught Me

Data has taught me that what works for one site doesn’t necessarily work for another site. Strong sites with aged links have consistently performed better when they receive low quality links, while newer sites have languished until they received some better links.

In one test, we sent low quality links to an aged authority site in a competitive niche. These are links that are probably not your top priority on your link building list, and certainly not given the time of day on most SEO blogs, yet we saw a definite increase in rankings on competitive terms. In the vertical we had a newer, less linked to site – there was absolutely no movement in either direction for that site. Our testing on authority sites has shown us that you can send almost any type of link and get some benefit, either in rankings boost on a specific keyword or a larger net for long tail keywords. Yet if you tried to rank a new site using the same tactics that clearly work on an old, trusted crusty site, there’s a very good chance the new site would at the very least be filtered, and at the top end of the spectrum be penalized. Of course, defining what is an authority site is another issue – I suggest you go out and test what exactly is an authority site, and reach your own conclusions.

The Bottom Line

You need to be actively running tests and making efforts to build your business and your sites. The only data that you should trust is your own. While it’s good to have an idea of what’s going on in the larger SEO community, what really matters is your rankings. Everything else is, and should remain, secondary.

Ari Ozick is CEO of Wired Rhino and occasionally blogs at AriOzick.com. He would love any constructive feedback or questions you have, either in the comments or direct via email: first name @ wiredrhino.com

Matt Cutts has gotten the ball rolling on this “don’t vote” blog meme that asks you to tag five friends to register to vote.  With election day being just about a month away let’s help keep this moving.  So join the meme and register to vote within the next month.  Not sure how? Don’t worry. Ask Google where you register to vote.

Here’s my tags:

Todd Friesen – Because…oh wait…haha nevermind, I forgot he can’t.

Guy Kawasaki – Because he’s way more viral than that other guy.
Brent Csutoras – Because I finally learned how to spell his name.
Chris Winfield – Because … well just because.
Katja Presnal – Because she is the queen of WOMM.
Neil Patel – Because I’m his biggest fan.

Last week I attended and spoke at IMC Vancouver. It was a nice little conference that featured a lot of different speakers from the SMX/SES shows. While my sessions focused on SEO, there were a number of panels that discussed social media marketing. I heard a lot of feedback from attendees praising the social media information, saying it was valuable and tactical advice.

When I came back to work I noticed this eMarketer article that highlights a Unisfair survey asking marketers what their top plans and priorities are for 2010. 60% of the marketers surveyed said they were going to focus on acquiring new customers. What I found especially interesting about the survey is that 75% said they plan to increase social media in their 2010 marketing efforts (vs. 51% who said they’d focus more on web search and SEO).

I also found this chart to be really interesting. It depicts which social networks marketers find most valuable:

Based on the survey and what I heard at IMC Vancouver, I think a lot’s been said about social media marketing lately. Namely:

1. Social media success is multi-faceted. I still hear a lot of people touting Digg as a huge piece of the social media pie, yet only 1% of the marketers surveyed felt that Digg was the most valuable social networking tool. Yes, Digg is extremely beneficial from a traffic-driving standpoint and can bring links into your site. However, there are tons of other important social sites that are equally as valuable as Digg, especially if you’re looking to build relationships by networking and if you want to seek out and acquire new customers. Lots of people are finding value in LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, so it’s important to cast a wide net as well as figure out where your time is best spent. Some people will get the most value out of Digg, while others benefit from networking on LinkedIn or CafeMom. It depends on what your goals are, where your audience is, and what’s the best, most logical fit for your brand.
2. People want to hear about tactics, not have their time wasted with anything else. Mona Elesseily, the Director of Marketing Strategy for Page Zero Media, presented at IMC Vancouver and said that she was really impressed by the quality of social media information being given at the show. She mentioned that a lot of conferences are more basic and introductory when it comes to dispensing social media marketing advice, but at IMC people drilled down into specific tactics and shared valuable information. When a new(ish) marketing strategy like social media emerges, people want to know how they can use it to their advantage and to bring success to their business. They don’t want to waste time hearing about how “social media is the future!” and other pointless, fluffy claims and generic speak. They want useful, applicable advice on what they need to do on these sites in order to use them efficiently.
3. Social media is being accepted as an important facet of marketing. More people plan to focus their efforts on social media than on SEO in 2010, and I think that’s because they see a clearer line that attaches social media to marketing than the one that attaches SEO to marketing. Don’t get me wrong, I see obvious benefits of SEO, but I think that to businesses, social media marketing is an easier and more valuable concept to grasp because it’s simply marketing across a new medium. It holds the same principles of marketing and customer interaction and networking and relationship building, only it’s over the Internet and using new websites and tools.
4. Email campaigns aren’t dead! I know that email marketing is considered more old school while social media marketing is the NKOTB (that’s New Kid on the Block for those of you who weren’t adolescent girls in the early 90’s), but 49% of the marketers surveyed said they plan to ramp up their email marketing efforts next year. I think that email campaigns can be very valuable if they’re done right. If you’re able to bring a social element into your email newsletters and marketing materials (Yelp does a great job of marrying traditional and social in their newsletters), I think you can have a very successful campaign.
5. Social media marketing isn’t a fad. I’ve heard some SEOs and marketers grumble about how sick they are of social media marketing, thinking that it’s just the next big thing that will blow over soon and get replaced with a new up and coming fad. I think the problem is that, as with SEO, there are a lot of people in the industry who can give the craft a bad reputation because they’re messing around in a sphere they don’t know much about. However, like I said, I think that social media marketing is just an evolution of traditional marketing and will continue to be important as the Internet remains an essential part of our everyday lives. The core of marketing is all about promoting, selling and distributing a product or service, and the best way to do that has always been reaching out to your audience and resonating with them in a way that will make you memorable. Social media is exactly that — it provides you a new medium to reach out to your audience and make some sort of imprint. To say that social media marketing is a fad is to dismiss marketing itself as a fad, and we all know that marketing’s been around for hundreds of years and doesn’t show signs of slowing.

I’m happy to see that there’s an increased awareness of social media marketing and its importance/benefits. It’s rewarding and promising to hear about people wanting to hear more about it at conferences and planning to dive into it more in the coming years.

Ah, relationships. Good relationships are strong, meaningful bonds that act to hold people or objects together.  Like the furniture maker’s forgotten “dovetail” joint that once held a strong piece of furniture together and is now replaced with weak staples between faux wood fiberboard, relationships seem to be the forgotten glue that once held the business world together. Oh relationships, where have you gone?

Actually, relationships are alive and well, out there, calling your name with opportunities awaiting just beyond that first handshake. And why do we love relationships? Relationships lead to links online! Some of the best links that a business can acquire to their website are those developed through real-life relationships.

The best advice to grab these links is to get out from behind that keyboard and monitor (don’t worry, you can take your iPhone or BlackBerry with you) and go meet some real PEOPLE.

By meeting people and developing real relationships with them, you have the opportunity to garner quality links to your website. If you’re networking in the right places, these links are often targeted and of relative high value for SEO and for traffic purposes.

What do we mean by “real-life” relationships? These are relationships with people that you’ve spoken to on the telephone or have met in person. These are actual people you’ve developed a rapport with at some point at an event or in online social networking.

How does one go about garnering links from real life relationships?

First, you need to initiate or develop the relationship:

• Start by attending industry conferences and social events. Those who you meet at industry conferences, if you have a similar philosophy, will allow you to link to them and visa versa. The great thing about industry conferences is that you meet targeted prospects for link opportunities. Sometimes there are dot-org (.org) website owners who run trade or industry sites and are willing to link to you.  We all love .orgs, don’t we, for many of them are trustworthy and non-commercial in nature.

• If you’re not able to afford major industry conferences, it’s helpful to look for local networking groups and informal gatherings within your industry. It doesn’t have to be a huge once-annual event to attract a strong, focused group of attendees.

• Within industry magazines, find vendors who are offering related products but aren’t direct competitors.  Approach them and let them know that they have an opportunity with you.

• Within industry trade journals, find other businesses and organizations that you can call on to work up a relationship. Offer up lunch in your neighborhood and then discuss with them your online opportunities.

• Look to your local Chamber of Commerce, get involved and become active as a volunteer / member. Make sure to get some linking going from the Chamber website.

• Use online social networking sites like Meetup.com, LinkedIn.com and even Twitter.com to network with users who have like-minded interests.  The search features in these sites are solid and can lead you to some of the most valuable relationships anywhere.
  • Visit targeted users’ websites from their profiles to see if they could be a good linking candidate.
  • Find local MeetUp groups with people who are interested in like-minded topics or even topics that are slightly related.  For example, if you’re in the art-supply business, find a MeetUp of artists such as photographers, painters and/or sculptors.  Attend the MeetUp, be friendly and good things will happen.
• Twitter can be a great resource for finding links because the search is efficient, targeted, pretty much real time, and the initial pitch only has to be 140 characters in a direct message!

Once you’ve established a relationship, simply brief the target linker on the potential of the relationship.  If you think it’s a good linking partner based on audiences (and not solely on SEO weighting), chances are this is a very easy pitch and beneficial to both parties. Engage and see if there can be a meaningful way to share information between sites and help each other out in whatever form would work for both parties.

Granted, in a fair amount of cases you may end up with reciprocal relationships, but a targeted and natural-looking reciprocal link may be better than no link at all, both for SEO purposes and for actual traffic over time!  In many cases too there are simple, overlooked opportunities to garner one-way links directly back to your site and content.

Linking is a cumulative effort. Don’t expect to get hundreds of links overnight from this method. This is an organic, methodical process and not one which will bounce you to page #1 for all of your target or most competitive keywords in a day, or even a week. BUT, if you start out and say to yourself, “I’m going to garner quality, meaningful links over the course of time through hard work” - and set your goals to do so – it will happen. If you take the opportunity to ask for a link from most encounters and relationships you develop in your industry, good things will happen.

Relying on real-world networking, going out and pressing the flesh and meeting people in your industry (both at events and in online social networking websites) allows you to start on this path of natural linking success.  You’ll find that your business “dovetails” with some of the best places on the Internet!

I read an interesting article that discussed the importance of targeting and bounce rates and it got me to thinking about the clients that I have had, past and present and the buckets of money I have seen thrown away. So, I decided to put a list together of 10 ways you or your client may be wasting money they could be paying you:

1. Stop sending paid traffic to your home!
   1. Your homepage is rarely the page your potential customers are looking for. If I am searching for �buy sony flatscreen 1080p� PLEASE send me to a page with sony flat screen tv�s on it!
   2. Check your homepage�s bounce rate. It is 60% than you should only be sending people searching for �sitename.com� to that page otherwise, you are throwing at least 60% of your money away. Why do I say at least? Because if you are sending all your paid traffic to your homepage than you probably haven�t optimized your paid search ads and are just looking for a high click through rate.
2. Stop duplicating terms in your paid search accounts
   1. It never ceases to amaze me when clients are using the same keyword in multiple ad groups with the same geo-targeting and timing. Don�t do this
3. Have goals for your website
   1. Set goals for your website. �I want to make money.� Isn�t a sufficient goal. Come up with trackable metrics to get you there so you can optimize your website to eventually make you some more money.
   2. Publishing sites – # of page views, repeat visitors, high CPM.
   3. Ecommerce � lifetime value
   4. Lead-gen sites are a monster in and of themselves. If you generate leads so that they become sales then focusing on the lead only is going to inhibit you from making money. Remember, unless you are selling leads, they don� t make you any money until they become a sale.
4. Don�t cut the long-tail
   1. If you aren�t tracking performance over-time, you are probably missing all of your long-tail terms. Don�t cut terms that are attracting people in the educational phase of the sales-cycle. If you market to them differently you can increase your conversion rate over time. Don�t cut them just because these phrases take a little longer to convert - MARKET TO THEM DIFFERENTLY. These are long sales cycle leads
5. Use negative keywords in your paid search campaigns
   1. This may sound basic, but if you aren�t using negative keywords than you are paying for traffic that will NEVER make you a dollar, pound or euro. If you have paid-search clients or use paid search and using mostly broad match than you really need to spend some time investigating exactly what terms are being clicked on.
6. Learn what terms lead to conversion and optimize your site accordingly
   1. Welcome to the beauty of the internet and web analytics. You can actually tell how people get to your site, what they do there and if they are making you money. It�s brilliant. So why are you optimizing your site based on what you think will work well?
7. Stop making creative decisions based on what your boss thinks is a good idea.
   1. See point 6. We have the ability to test and optimize, which means we can run multiple ad creatives (banner and search) and see what drives the greatest revenue rather than based on the CxO�s affinity to the color blue. Back your decisions with data
8. Test, test, test and SPLIT TEST!
   1. See point 7. Products like Google website optimizer and Omniture�s Test and Target (formerly Offermatica) can optimize your landing pages based on conversions. There is no excuse for not testing your landing pages and assuming that your designers first try is always correct. In all likelihood it is not optimal and assuming it is will make an ass out you but not me because I�m split testing
9. Track how changes to your website affect your bottom line
   1. If designers, programmers, your kids or whomever are making website changes that affect your business� especially your homepage � you should be recording that this is being done and how this is affecting organic placement and conversions. If there is no tracking there is no accountability.
10. Know what your users are clicking on
    1. Heatmaps and click analysis tools, like Crazy Egg are great at letting you know what your users are clicking on and responding to. Using this information to optimize page layout should help you to make the most of the traffic that you have

Originally published on SEO Chicks

A few weeks back, I spoke at a small conference in Las Vegas for the Forex market called the Forex Affiliate Conference, which is run by the guys from the Casino Affiliate Conference. It was the smallest conference I ever spoke at (about 20 people) but it ended up being one of the most productive. I made some really great connections and was able to target my presentation to what information would be most useful for the attendees. From speaking there, I came up with some conference tips that are appropriate for any upcoming event you may be attending.

Lucky 7 Conference Tips

1. Reserve judgment for the end. Just because a conference has 5,000 attendees doesn’t mean that you will get anything out of it.  A conference is about who you meet and what you learn and if it is too crowded and overwhelming for you to meet anyone or learn anything, than it was probably a waste of money. On the other hand, just because there are only 20 people there, doesn’t that these aren’t the right 20 people and best leads you can find.

2. Network regardless of your mood. Just because the conference isn’t exactly what you expected is not an excuse to sit in your hotel room or bail on your presentation. Talk to other attendees or presenters, don’t be shy just strike up a conversation over a beer.

3. If nothing is planned, plan it yourself. If there are not parties, dinners or events planned for that night, get everyone together and plan and time and meeting location yourself. DK planned the Pubcon Poker Tournament, the least you can do is plan dinner.

4. If you are presenting, gear your presentation to your audience. A smaller conference gives you the benefit of meeting everyone and asking them what they want to learn. It also leads to more audience participation. If you are in the audience, ask questions and participate.

5. There is always something you can learn, so sit in on a couple of sessions. No one knows everything, so sitting in on a couple of sessions can be really beneficial.  I don’t do a lot of affiliate marketing, so the nuggets of information that I gathered will definitely be helpful for my own sites.

6. Don’t tell people overly specific information. Just because someone asks you a direct question face to face about one of your clients site doesn’t mean you have to tell them your clients best keyword/conversion tactic/seo tactic etc.

7. Don’t stick to just hanging out with people you know. I am sure your coworkers are great people, but this is your chance to broaden your horizons and meet new people.  Go up to someone you don’t know and just start a conversation. The vast majority of the time, people at your conference will be very friendly and responsive.

Originally Published on SEO Chicks

33 reasons why you should stay up late and go to the IM Charity Party at SES San Jose:

1. Networking happens AFTER the sessions are over. The best place to meet your future client/SEO/agency is at the hotel bar or at one of the conference parties
2. You might meet fookin’ dave naylor and buy him a beer
3. You may be able to witness Greg and Barbara Boser in the midst of a twitter hoax
4. You may find out Jennifer Slegg’s favorite Disney characters.
5. You can wind up Michael Gray like a jack in the box by telling him that Google does no evil, then make peace by discussing how hot the women of Battlestar Gallactica are
6. You could attempt to beat Frank the Tank to paying for the dinner check
7. Drinking for charity is a tax write-off
8. You may witness Stuntdubl spin 90s hip hop
9. You can win some awesome prizes, like a LIFETIME subscription to Shoemoney tools
10. Your boss thinks you are a good person for donating your dinner stipend to charity while off at a conference. How very responsible of you
11. You can smash Neil Patels beer before he has the chance to do it to yours
12. It’s always fun to meet new people over breakfast
13. The internet marketing ninjas will be lurking around and rumor is if you catch one, they have to divulge their secrets or swallow a shot of tequila
14. Avinash will tell you the latest analytics secrets while posing for pictures with a life size Danny Sullivan cut out
15. You can say you were there when Dax breaks into the next piece of musical equipment or gets kicked out of a hotel
16. BOTW always throws a great party
17. Find out what Lawrence Coburn’s favorite widget is
18. 4 hours of open bar for $40 is a lot less money than most of you would have spent at the hotel bar
19. Chris Winfield may drop life changing secrets about either SEO, social media, or how he has such great hair
20. Ask Andy Beal how you can become radically transparent
21. Debate the ethics of white hat SEO in honor of Jill Whalen
22. Ask Jim Boykin what his favorite national park is
23. Have Lee Odden tell you about some of the thousands of lakes in Minnesota
24. You can get tips from Jon Kelly and Lauren Vaccarello about planning a party
25. Ask Laura Lippay how the food at Yahoo compares to Google
26. Try to get quoted in Jessica Bowman’s new book
27. Have Brent Csutoras him tell you the finer points of Reddit while he’s digging on his iphone
28. Have Shoemoney perform a rear naked choke or at the very least kick your butt in thumb wrestling
29. Ask Oilman his favorite uses for duct tape
30. Find out why Captain Kirk is a master of web analytics from Matt Bailey
31. Get the scoop on Search Engine Journal’s Journal from Loren Baker
32. Being at the same party as your SEO idol is a great ice breaker, so start talking
33. Don’t be a douchebag. Why do you hate childen? Come to the party

IM Charity Party Event Details:
$40 donation will get you 4 hours of open bar with some of your favorite SES attendees
When: Monday August 18, 2008 8pm-12am
Where: Agenda Lounge – 399 S 1st street, San Jose ( 1 block from the conference)

Register early at – http://pages.teamintraining.org/sf/nikesf08/imcharityparty by donating at least $40. Make sure to leave your name so we can put you on the list the night of the event or you can pay at the door, but keep in mind that space is limited.

For more details, go to www.imcharityparty.com

Originally Published on Search Engine Journal

If you have a high bounce rate on your website, you’re not alone. Analyzing the underlying factors which lead to a high bounce rate can be the difference between hitting your conversion target or consistently losing customers. A high bounce rate should be considered as 80% upwards.

To accurately measure the bounce rate metric, you need a pretty sizable amount of visitors. If your blog or website only gets around 50 visitors and you have a high bounce rate, I would suggest waiting until you get your traffic up to at least 100 – 150 visitors p/day before you start measuring. It’s much harder to spot patterns and trends with a smaller traffic amount. Anywhere less than between 100 – 150, and consistency becomes an issue.

The issues for a high bounce rate can be segmented into three different areas:

• Site Design / IA
• Content
• Technical Issues

Poor Site Design:

The Problem:

The aesthetics of a site is the user’s first impression of your company. You want to give them a reason to return. A visit to Web Sites that Suck will give you all the details on what not to do. If your site makes it on there, it needs changing — and quick.

A user should be encouraged to stay on your site. This means that if I hear music playing as soon as your website opens, you’ve just given me a reason to leave. It’s the user’s choice to decide whether he or she wants to listen to music while browsing your site. Never assume that you know what your user wants to do.

The Solution:

Hire a designer who understands the concepts of modern web design, which will give your company credibility. So, out are flashing gifs, Comic Sans font, and a table-based design. In are images that compliment the content, semantically structured copy, and readable web fonts.

Never autoplay video or music. Make sure the choice is available, however, in case that’s the user’s preference. Oh, and those annoying flashing banner ads need to go.

Poor Information Architecture:

The Problem:

A navigation that doesn’t aid or funnel the user into information is a wasted process. The user needs to be aware of where he is, how to get where he wants to go, where he has been, and to see it all on a consistent basis. Amazon does a great job of this. When looking at a product page, you can see which products you’ve looked at previously and which products you might like.

The presentation of your content can be a significant barrier to the user’s finding what he wants — so much so that the user may just quit trying and go to a competitor’s site. You may have the larger selection of items, but if the user becomes frustrated trying to find whatever he is looking for, you’ve just lost a potential sale. In today’s world of Social Media, that one negative experience could potentially be shared with the user’s friends, which in turn could cause you to lose future revenue.

The Solution:

A good navigation is based on simplicity – overly complex will only create confusion for your users. Think intuitively. There’s a reason that the vast majority of navigation on websites is predominantly the same – because they work. Don’t try to think outside the box when designing your navigation.

Without doubt, if you own or run an e-commerce site, displaying Top 5 or Top 10 lists of items in certain categories can provide an alternate form of navigation. They may not be related to the item(s) on that page, but you’ve just provided multiple options in case the user has been unable to find what he wants.

Content Unrelated to User’s Search Query:

The Problem:

If you check your analytics thoroughly, you will quite often find users who have found your site through the most unusual terms, like Mexican Donkey Show Pictures. Digging through your analytics is a must if you’re truly to discover the user’s intent. Obviously, there are only so many niches where Mexican Donkey Show Pictures would be an appropriate search. However, if you look hard enough, you will begin to see a pattern.

The Solution:

A web user can be split into two different categories — those who are just browsing and those who are searching. For the most part, the user who is performing a search query knows what he is looking for. The casual browsing user is searching without as much intent.

Contextually, an intentional searcher is much more open and along the purchase path than a casual browser. You need to find patterns and consistencies, then create funnels where the intentional searchers are concerned. Find out what page the user is landing on and work from there. However, don’t ignore the casual browsers. They can be persuaded by list items such as Top Sellers, Highest Rated, and also discounted items.

Content Unrelated to Inbound Link:

The Problem:

A user clicks on a link that lands the user on your website. However, the link the user clicked on is unrelated to your website. This leads to a frustrated user experience.

The Solution:

If the link is an organic link and you have no control over it, a good step to rectify the situation is to email the webmaster and suggest another page to which the website could link.

An alternative would be to display internal links on the landing page(s) with something like ‘perhaps you were looking for X, Y, or Z ?’. If you promote your site using Digg, Reddit, or StumbleUpon, another technique would be to suggest to the user something else he might like which is related to the page he landed on — for instance, a sentence similar to ‘If you like what’s on this page, you may also like these articles’. This encourages the user to further explore your site.

Technical Issues:

The Problem:

A user lands on your site and is struck by slow loading times, 404’s, and non-working links. As a result, the user has a bad experience and leaves the site. This is not an uncommon scenario, and it’s something the majority of us have experienced.

The Solution:

A valuable piece of software that should be part of any website owner’s tools is Integrity – Mac only (Windows users should use Xenu’s Link Sleuth). You will need to input your URL; the software will follow all of your internal links to find your pages and will check the server response code for all internal and external links found.

Google’s own Webmaster Tools can also be used to check how the search bots are crawling your site and will notify you of any spidering problems.

Remember, it’s entirely possible that the user found everything he needed without having to go any deeper on your web site. If you’re vigilant and check your stats often, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t get that bounce rate down to within normal range.

1. Pay extra for premium domains (if you develop them)

If you can’t find and buy a good aftermarket domain and get creative – you need some marketing classes

2. Don’t skimp on hosting

Such a painful expensive lesson to learn.

3. Respect contractors, but don’t overpay

Don’t ever talk down to anyone you work with, but don’t allow people to tell you how smart they are without them proving it.

4. Always pay on time

Evereyone always appreciates this, and you will lose contractors respect if you don’t.

5. Pay attention to cashflow

See above. If you can’t balance cashflow and production, you will cut corners and build a house with cheap parts.

6. Price services for yourself – not for your clients

If you do consulting to pay the bills, make sure you take ample time for both, and charge on the value you provide, and provide the value you charge.

7. Take time for yourself

If you don’t take time off when you need it, you will end up taking surprisingly more time off than you originally intended.

8. Stay unflinchingly positive

When you doubt yourself you lose. Confidence in failure and humility in success is a trait that exemplifies most true heros, role models, and success stories that I’m aware of.

9. Stick with winners, fold the losers

While you’re being positive, maintain enough realism to be a critic and know when you’re beat or have a bad hand.

10. Stay well organized

You can never be too organized.

11. Set goals

1 hour, 1 sitting, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year, 2 year, 5 year are generally good.

12. Track yourself

This is why keyword reports and QBtimer ARE a good idea. Adjust your goals as necessary based on your results.

I almost never live by this one, but I’d be smarter if I did.

13. Take lots of notes

I’ve pretty much never thought to myself "self, I wish I had taken less notes during that meeting." When you have a good idea, take a note about it.

14. Only consume news media 10 – 20% of the time (once you figure it out)

Only consume media and information at a high rate while you’re trying diligently to learn a new skill. Otherwise, it is pretty fruitless and will burn you out if it is beyond your capacity for input.

15. Focus on execution, not research

Do something instead of writing another blog post:) That’s why this one has taken quite a while. Build links, write content, learn perl, python, linux, apache, mysql, php, social media, seo, or web design, but don’t sit too long reading about it before you DO it. Do something today, instead of learning, researching, or whining about why you can’t.

16. Be upfront and honest

Don’t bullshit people. Lies will follow you a lot farther than the truth ever will.

3 Things to post here at Stuntdubl Land. 1. IM Charity Party – Please help by spreading the word. If you were there last year, you know, and can help spread the word. Should be a great time for a great cause. 2. Affiliate Summit Panel of social media for affiliates – should be good with a great group of speakers. 3. MarketMotive and SEO Clinic panel at SES San Jose – MM folks have built something awesome, and we get to show it off a bit at SES this year. More details on everything below. Looking forward to lots of great meals, great drinks, and awesome seo discussion in my near future:) Be sure to say hi.

IM Charity Party

IM Charity Party.com

Donate to drink and have a good time. Don’t miss it, or I’ll remember that you hate sick kids and puppies.

Affiliate Summit East ‘09

Social Media Marketing for Affiliates at Affiliate Summit East, and SES San Jose in the next two weeks. Details listed below.

• Neil Patel, Co-Founder, KISSmetrics (Twitter @neilpatel) (Moderator)
• Brent Csutoras, Social Media Consultant, Brent Csutoras, Inc. (Twitter @brentcsutoras)
• Chris Winfield, President, 10e20 (Twitter @chriswinfield)

Search Engine Strategies – San Jose, California

Organic Track
Advanced SEO Roundtable: What is it Really? And Where is it Going?
It’s been said that you stand a better chance of getting two SEOs to share a toothbrush than to agree on a common definition. If that’s so, what really qualifies someone as an advanced SEO expert and how should “the next level” of SEO be defined? Don’t miss what is sure to be a spirited debate as we try to separate “the art” from “the science” and figure out what actually constitutes an Advanced SEO.

* Moderator:
Richard Zwicky
Founder & CEO, Enquisite
* Speakers:
Matthew Bailey
SES Advisory Board & President, Site Logic Marketing, Marketmotive faculty
Bruce Clay, President, Bruce Clay, Inc.
Mike Grehan, SES Advisory Board Co-Chair
Todd Friesen, VP Search, Position Technologies