Filed under: General, SEM Research, Search Engine Optimization by Stuntdubl SEO at 6:41 pm, 11/8/2005
Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.
-Frank Lloyd Wright:
I don’t envy search engine engineers at all. It must be pretty tough to combate thousands of spammers on a daily basis while not pissing off a lot of business owners in the process. Their job sounds like a pretty delicate balancing act.
With that in mind, there must be threshholds for the different variables. They are of course much more intradependent on one another then I will get into here, but I thought I’d throw out some general guidelines that seemed fairly logical to me. I would imagine G, Y, and M have VERY in depth statistical analysis of what is “natural” on the web. Here’s some of my quick down and dirty guesses at what would be “natural”.
It should be noted that this is all sheer speculation from just a few minutes of pondering a subject that often comes to mind. Repeat: these are pure speculation, and several are weighted “on the safe side” (at least in my mind).
Simple benchmark rules for an SEO campaign
- Direct Reciprocal links
Under 50% of backlinks
- 3-way and neighborhood links
Under 70%
- Title tags
Between 3 - 20 words seems about normal
- Heading tags
3 - 10 words
- Alt tags
3 - 5 words
- % of “keyword anchor text”
less than 60%
- % of “natural anchor text” (click here, url, site name)
greater than 10%
- % of unique anchor text (only occuring once)
greater than 10%
- Unique linking domains to total backlink ratio
Logic may dictate the lower the better for G (ROS links are a good indicator of purchased advertising)
- Deeplink ratio
greater than 10% (but probably higher relative to site or size)
- Unique linking domains on same class C IP address
Greater than 10(?) may indicate a network (like a web host) and be devalued
- Outbound link text characters to total content characters %
Greater than 80% of characters as anchor text is probably bad
I can see how it would be fairly easy to setup rules, and relative rules. I can also see how tricky this would get real fast, and why there is collateral damage with every update. Act natural…they’re watching!?! 
Filed under: General, SEM Research, Search Engine Optimization by Stuntdubl SEO at 7:27 pm, 11/7/2005
As long as your going to be thinking anyway, think big.
- Donald Trump
Whenever someone asks me about meta tags I try to remind them that time is better spent elsewhere. Some variables matter…and some REALLY matter…I like to try to stick to the “trump factors” to use my time efficiently when working on sites.
If you could pick three factors to be tops on what would they be?
There’s hundreds of variables, but based on the algorithms, there always seem to be a few that stand out as the “trump cards” that make the others seem much less important to worry about.
First there was alt tags combined with titles and h1’s.
Then there was PageRank combined with Titles and internal anchor text.
Now, I think I’d take lots of unique linking domains linking to me from within body copy deeplinking to my content pages that are semantically related. (yes, this has gotten much tougher.)
Tomorrow it will probably be lots of users tagging my page with my targeted keywords combined with links from sites in the top 1000 and some type of editorial approval.
Filed under: Business Issues, General, Mr. Ploppy, Tools by Stuntdubl SEO at 9:46 am,
“Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.”
- Zig Ziglar
Sales can be a tough but essential part of business for anyone interested in freelancing or consulting. Good sales can make or break a business. There are not a lot of “online tools” for learning to sell web design and search engine marketing, but there are a lot of fantastic articles and discussions on the subject.
There are a lot of subtle considerations to a sale. Time, budget, risk, likelihood for success, and margins being only a few of the many factors to take into account. As a freelancer just getting started, it is very tough to break it to someone for the first time that you will be charging them $50/ hr. It does get a little easier, but it’s always tough to deliver the blow the first time you decide to raise your prices. I generally only raise prices for NEW clients and give a nice long grandfathered period for older clients. Telling your new rate to someone for the first time is still tough. Not only do they have to decide if you’re worth it…YOU have to decide if YOUR worth it to them.
The number one rule in SEO and web development sales is to conduct yourself in a professional manner. Even if your a greenhorn frontpage webmaster working out of your parents basement, your conduct will leave a lasting impression. Wear a suit (or at least a tie)…it’s only for a few hours. Use professional letterhead, business cards, and contracts. Little details in regards to business go a LONG way when you are getting started as an SEO consultant or web developer.
SEO and Web Development Sales Tools
Resources and top reads on SEO and web development sales
Tags: Mr. Ploppy, SEO Tools, Internet Marketing, Internet Marketing Tools, Business Tools, Small Business, Sales, Web Design
Filed under: General, Google, Industry Stuff by Stuntdubl SEO at 6:53 pm, 11/2/2005
“All great truths are simple in final analysis, and easily understood; if they are not, they are not great truths.” - Napolean Hill
Don’t search for great truths with search engine updates! Analyzing updates is a necessary evil of practicing SEO, made increasingly painful if you try to wade through “update threads”. Staying on top of things is important, but even more important is maintaining your sanity (and thus power of observation). The simple fact is that like it or not Google’s engineers will probably always be much smarter than you or I on a macro-search scale. Google will continue to lead the pack with their mountains of P.H.d’s, and cause headaches for those SEO’s that take a reactive approach to updates and base their conclusions on small fragmented data sets.
They are going to continue to combat SEO tactics that manipulate the relevancy of their results. The methods used to combat the “hot button” issues will be create some colleteral damage. A big part of learning to not worry too much about analyzing the updates comes from trying to foresee what that damage will be to avoid it. By knowing that duplicate content is a key issue, you should work harder to avoid that. When the dust settles in a month or so, and some true logical conclusions come into play…we’ll know what to be avoiding for next time.
Google will be working on:
-Latent semantic indexing
-Duplicate content filtering
-Better and faster spidering
-Devaluing manipulated variables
-Migrating vertical search results
SEO tactics on the decline:
-Reciprocal links
-Keyword stuffing
-Link Networks
-Meta Information
-Internal anchor text stuffing
SEO tactics on the rise:
-Related phrases/ Semantic analysis
-Keyword co-occurence
-Unique IP links
- “Trusted” links
-Quality indicators
-Geo-targeting
-Behavioral targeting, more
-Personalization
-Trustrank
-Many of the other things in their patent paper
-More editorial control via eval.google.com
-User Tagging
-(oxymoron alert!) Community intelligence
What I try to spend the most time analyzing:
-Which purchased links I think still pass value
-Which sites have improved their “trust value”
-How I can find links from old trusted sites better
-What content are my users looking for
-How I can improve the indexability of my sites
-How I can improve the site architecture in the “eyes of the engines”
-What I would focus on if buying links becomes ineffective
Don’t get too used to “free” traffic, and if you like it…figure out how to keep it.
I don’t like violence, Tom. I’m a businessman; blood is a big expense.
- Sollozzo
Disclaimer: I’ve never engaged in any of these practices, nor will I ever engage in these practices. I don’t think anyone else should either. They are unethical, and downright wrong. Even the mob knows that wars are “bad for business”. The Google TOS state there is “almost nothing” a competitor can do to harm your rankings. I’d just like to be prepared for not being that low percentage statistic.
The purpose of this post is also to demonstrate that you shouldn’t place the fate of your business in the hands of your natural search engine rankings alone. Be prepared to hedge your bets with alternative traffic sources if something like these were to ever happend to you. Don’t believe everything that you hear from a search engine rep.
Don’t be OVERLY paranoid, just an open-minded skeptic. Be prepared, enjoy the ride, and start a good PPC campaign. Even exceptional SEO’s don’t have control over all the circumstantial variables - a good SEO just uses as many of those variables to their advantage as possible, very similar to the way a sports bettor knows all the angles in a game.
I would imagine Google’s view on the subject goes something like this - You’re not ever gonna stop ALL the evil folks, so just let them gun for each other in industries like pharmaceuticals, travel, mortgages, loans, and real estate where we’ll just hand edit the top results. Of course this would be “off the record”, and eventually all their base will belong to us anyways. I think the search engines are all working quite hard in this area to keep the collateral damage of fighting spammers low.
Things Your Competitor Can do to Tank Your Rank
- Google Bowling
- Google Washing - more googlewashing
- 302 hijack
- Blog *ahem* signing on your behalf
- Get you a crappy Yahoo directory listing?
- Get you a crappy DMOZ directory listing (or keep submitting so they never get listed)
- Send out a couple hundred thousand link requests on your behalf
More reading:
Disclaimer reiterated: I have never done any of this, and don’t think that you should either. The idea is to be prepared for unscrupulous competitors.
Filed under: Business Issues, General by Stuntdubl SEO at 9:55 am, 11/1/2005
There was a very interesting section in the “Big Moo” by Seth’s group of 33 wonderful authors. It was about the fact that most authors or folks you respect are fairly approachable, or that if they’re not, you can often find a way to contact them.
I thought this was a very interesting and inspired idea for a couple reasons. Firstly, it is really cool to be able to have a discussions with someone you highly respect. For me, search conferences have offered this great opportunity, and I’ve also had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Godin during a small seminar at his office. He’s also been kind enough to respond to e-mails that I’ve sent on occasion. I’m sure he probably gets mountains of e-mails, but the fact that he hasn’t went far from his readership is one of the reasons he will continue to have great ideas and many will continue to respect and proselytize his work.
The second reason I thought that this is an interesting idea, is that every company has gatekeepers. There have been plenty of times that I have really thought that if I got to give my elevator pitch to the right person, I could probably do business with that company. Nothing drives me crazy more than when I see a web site with mountains of potential and no one will listen. While I have not always been right and often times unsuccessful, I have learned some techniques for finding and approaching the right person, and getting by the “gatekeepers”. This is helpful both for salespeople, or even for those trying to get information about the competition, or shopping for services.
Getting past the gatekeeper is important in both job hunting, sales, competitive analysis, and other aspects of business. It is not intended to be sneaky or tricky from a sales standpoint, but rather a solution to the problems created those using it for competitive analysis or other such selfish motives . The true art comes in when you get by the gatekeeper and have to give you elevator pitch that is life changing enough to get the attention (or admiration) of your target. If you sound like something they’ve heard before you’re dead in the water. They’re “not interested” before you get five sentences out of your mouth.
I’m glad to say that most our business now comes word of mouth, or from our own SEO efforts. It’s not always fun, but getting by the gatekeepers is an essential skill for those who are ambitious in their field. Remember also that there is a fine line between persistence, being annoying, and stalking.
Guide to getting by the gatekeepers
- Always be friendly with the gatekeepers - if they learn to not like you you’re in trouble
- If you talk with them often, try to joke with them and be friendly
- Try calling after hours - sometimes the person you are looking for may answer
- Learn to use their phone (or e-mail system - if you find a direct line you’ve got much better odds
Resources for getting by the gatekeepers:
