Business Management Consultant - Stuntdubl Search and Marketing Consulting

Okay, You all know all the blogs and forums that everyone reads. You may know some of these, but you may have missed some as well, and damn it, I wouldn’t want that because I like ‘em. Since I don’t post one off stuff very often, I’ve built a list of my recent “newer blog” favorites.

• Incredibill - and I thought I got a lil’ upset sometimes
• SEO Speedwagon - It actually took me months to understand the hidden humor *slaps head*
• Web Professor uber emo programmer seo blogger
• Guy Kawasaki - well known outside of SEO circles - you should know this man
• DigitalGhost - glad to see DG back in action - please egg him on a bit
• Stanford captology blog - If you don’t know these guys, you should - brilliant.
• SEObytheSea - Bill’s rundowns of whitepapers and patents are top notch bar none.
• Insearchofstuff - it’s good to laugh.
• Maculua - Marc hit the bigtime with his recent linkbait, but I’ve been watchin’ his nice blogwork for a while now. Very nice work.
• SEOBuzzbox - Aaron has taken interviews to a new level.
• SugarRae - Sharp looking new design with a cool theme.
• Fiftyfoureleven - Mike is one of few web developers I know with good SEO understanding
• JasonHendricks - His blog is more original than his domain name.
• RogerD - Roger is an admin at WMW, and all around sharp guy. If you haven’t seen his site, you’re missing out.
• PresentationZen - I should read this one more
• NotSleepy - Tony’s been at it quite a while, but just got introduced at the SEO powwow
• JoeDuck - Joe’s got some cool stuff, but blogger is rough on the reader - pssst…switching to WP is easy (and categories are invaluable). Drop me a note if you need a hand:)
• GregHartnett - Greg is one of few people I met in “real life” before his virtual identity online - great blog, great guy, great directory.
• ShoeMoney - How did I not find this sooner? Drink some knowledge from a guy with the “skills to pay the bills”
• MusicThing - totally offtopic blog about music gear which I love. I’m a terrible musician, but the gear is a lot of fun.

Did I miss anybody? What is new and good that you are reading these days?

If you own a website, you should understand how to buy or sell one. Buying and selling is at the basis of any viable business. The web business sure has changed the ways of thinking about business with wild valuationn, deals with incredible return, and everything in between. During the first dot com bubble, ALL rules of business somehow magically flew out the window. There was a sense of urgency during the first bubble to “get in on the ground floor”. Even pet food was going to be sold online by sockpuppets! Hindsight is 20/20, and a lot of the promise of the web that was founded on business principles is returning after confidence has returned. Now investors are more skeptical, owners are more savvy, and everyone still wants to get in on the promising ground floor.

There are two main ways I can see to value a website:

1-Cashflow (profit/ revenue) multiples

2-Value of re-creation

So over and over the question is asked of how a website should be valuated. There are a variety of metrics available to the general public, but how accurate are these metrics, and what should they be combined with to determine a true valuation? Where is the line between a website appraisal, and the valuation of an online business?

I think website valuation is one of the most difficult questions in the world of the web. It is based on principles, but it is also based on gut feel. I don’t think you can truly value a website these days without a sense of how to valuate the links a site has. If it were based solely around principles then anyone could do it. Buying and selling websites is somewhere between buying and selling established businesses, real estate, and stocks and bonds. The magic in it is that not too many people have figured out how to do it effectively. There is so much overspeculation and instability in the space that there are wild-eyed investors all over the place chasin’ a dream that is only sometimes based on reality. Here are some questions, tools, and criteria, potential equations, and general thoughts that I would check out for appraising a single website.

With the current state of search engine algorithms, and distribution of marketshare in the space, recreating and maintaining high rankings is one of the very large unknowns with any website. Part of a website valuation should be placed on search engine rankings and/or the potential for them. Without qualified, relevant, targeted traffic (or the potential for it) a website is barely worth the space it is hosted on.

Types of Website Revenue Models

All of these can probably be broken down into additional categories of business to business or business to consumer. The type of site will play a key role in choosing which valuation criteria are most applicable to the site, or more importantly if the site should be valued with the criteria used for 1. strictly a domain, 2. a web-based business, or 3. a “traditional” business.

• No current model - informational or resource site
• Donation
• Subscription
• Advertising
• Service
• Lead generation
• Product

Obviously there are hybrids of these models to make matters more confusing.

Questions for appraising a website

Note: for today we’ll leave domain only and “traditional business” valuations to their respective industry experts. Many times, to get the answer you are looking for you have to craft the proper questions to ask.

• What is the revenue model?
• What is the current revenue?
• What is the current profitability?
• What are the current liabilities?
• What are the current assets?
• What risks are involved with assigning annualized revenue?
• What is the value of the industry?
• What is the scope of keywords?
• How many unique keywords are there?
• Is it a “longtail” or “shorttail” keyword industry? (online education is longtail - poker is short tail)
• What is the CPC range of keywords on PPC?
• Is there room in the industry for a big competitor?
• How many major competitors are established in the industry?
• Do any bigger companies have their eyes on the niche?
• What is the alexa rank?
• Does the demographic skew the alexa rank? (lots of webmasters, etc)
• What is the value of the domain name? (an entire discussion to itself)
• How brandable/memorable/marketable is the domain?
• Is there type in traffic?
• What is the current traffic level of the site?
• What is the current estimated value per unique user?
• Is there any current brand value to the site?
• What is the current natural search traffic like?
• What is the potential for future search traffic?
• What is the quality of the search traffic?
• How well does the site convert?
• What costs would be involved in re-creating the site?
• What is the level of brand loyalty?

Tools for appraising a website

Without accurate tracking logs and financials it’s going to be tough to put a value on a website. KEEP those log files - you’re gonna want ‘em later.

• Alexa
• Overture bid tool
• Aaron’s KW tool
• Site log files
• Site financials
• Free quick domain appraisal tool

Potential Website Valuation Equations

There are probably a million different ways to value a website based on the situation and intentions of both buyer and seller. This is just a handful of ways I can think of to put a price tag on a website

• Ad Expenses
  Pay Per Clicks
  Print Ads
  Other Advertising
• General and Admin Expenses
  Hosting
  Merchant Fees ($)
  Bank Fees
  Other Expenses
  After getting through nearly all of this post, I found a pretty darn good resource with a spreadsheet included for $20 via clickbank. I almost put it in without an affiliate link (then decided that would be pretty dumb), so I’m writing this small disclaimer instead. I bought it myself, and it seems like a pretty handy little guide for the price. You can get the ebook valuation guide and spreadsheet for $20 here.

Greg Niland and I sat down and talked links, SEO, karma, and many things internet marketing. I also noticed that sometime today he demonstrates in Webmasterworld supporters forum why it’s good pay attention to what good smart people are saying with his recent - How a one person operation can build a team of workers

Being the dolt I am, I forgot to post about the show before we did it, but lucky for us, they’ve got a mp3 podcast download. Greg and I get down to business discussing link strategy and ideas for attracting and obtaining better links. Goodroi Greg is a smart guy with a new blog and a contest to go to Boston.

I’m pretty sure Nick Wilson gets credit for the idea of bringing linkbaiting mainstream. While Nick is certainly now well known in blogger circles, he’s got a background in the SEO community. Linkbaiting is a viral marketing idea created by someone with the mind of an SEO in my opinion. As I thought more about the ideas behind link baiting, I was suddenly hit with a simple ephiphany…”Finally, an SEO idea that Seth might be able to get on board with!” I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been pretty shameless over the course of a few years in trying to get a link from Seth (as of yet to no avail). I think that he may be partly reluctant due to having a sour taste in his mouth for anyone after his “googlejuice”. While the thought certainly has crossed my mind, I am much more excited about spreading Seth’s thought provoking ideas, and applying my own ideas and twists to them. Maybe if it’s about him spreading the juice to a “bad SEO neighborhood”, I’ll just get a rel=nofollow one day with a little help from my friends.

It took me a little while to equate the new craze in SEO back to the principle it is based on…and I think identifying the basis of linkbaiting (an old technique with a new name) will help to take the discussions even further (maybe even into the *gasp* “mainstream” blogosphere).

Fundamental difference between bloggers and SEO’s
Okay, maybe it’s just been me struggling with a blogger/ SEO identity crisis since Greg, Todd, and Brett started blogs (I thought maybe hell was freezing over), and until then I was quite resistent to embrace the blogger in me. Through this personal struggle, I think I’ve established one of the fundamental difference between bloggers and SEO’s: the self realization of love for links (and thus love of linkbaiting). Now that SEO’s love to blog (because of the viral link value) I’m more accepting of my split personality and trying to come to terms with why it is so.

There has been a severe disconnect between bloggers and SEOs in my mind…probably partly due to blogspam (the dark arts often get lumped into SEO by non-SEO’s), and partly due to the fact that SEO’s are open about their love of links, and bloggers hold a secret closet love of links, and will only admit to liking the traffic and exposure. Since they are still reluctant to admit their love of getting links, bloggers have a secret disdain for the world of SEO and their self actualization for their love of links. SEO’s are none too fond of bloggers for the simple fact bloggers can’t admit that they too pimp themselves for links (which = rankings and traffic).

Maybe now we can all get along with this new common idea of linkbaiting.
…Bloggers…you don’t have to hate on SEO’s anymore (and vice versa…we’re really quite similar in many ways!). Linkbaiting is not always nasty and negative, and it’s really okay to admit that you write and do things for the love of links and the results that follow them!:)

Enter - Linkbaiting - viral marketing for links!
Linkbaiting, which has become all the rage in the SEO blogosphere, and it’s really just a nice fancy way of saying “viral marketing for links”. Maybe that’s why bloggers and marketers sometimes take issue with SEO’s. We’re all about the links. Yes, I admit it, I used to weigh my purchasing decision on how much pagerank I could buy for that same purchase (hmmm…$100 shoes vs. a PR7 that could boost my rankings), back when text links were valued in terms of that pretty little pixie dust.

SEO’s are guerrilla marketers for the links. Why? Because the links drive rankings and rankings drive traffic and traffic drives more exposure, sales, and $$. In fact, we love links so much that we sprouted a cottage industry based on the buying and selling of those lovely little text links. We all know how much we love links, and we’re not afraid to admit it. You can keep your fancy TV and print ads (you make us want to slit our wrists when you don’t put your url in your ad). Give me the links! Now it may not always be this way (that links get us so excited), but it has been for a while, and that’s why just about any SEO worth their salt that you talk to will steer the conversation to how to obtain quantity and quality links in a matter of minutes. Sure other things are changing the face of the web and search marketing, but I think it will be a long time before I won’t get a rush of joy when I see my site name wrapped in a a href tag on someone else’s website.

Evolutionary Change - SEO Goes Viral…Marketing Goes to SEO
SEO’s are an incredible evolutionary breed. They are able to roll with the punches of change quicker than any other occupation that I am aware of. Viral marketing is amazing, and is a natural progression of SEO.

SEO has very seldom yet been a consideration for viral marketing campaigns. There are a few instances of marketing agencies considering search value before launching campaigns, but the examples are still few and far between. We’re making SEO better with linkbaiting…why not make viral marketing better by considering SEO before a campaign? It is so cool what can happen when the ball gets rolling and people start talking. If you haven’t read Seth’s ideas on viral marketing, Unleashing the Ideavirus, Permission marketing, or some of his other great books, then you had better get with the program if you want to survive in SEO/SEM, or marketing in general. Seth is the godfather of viral marketing, and I think SEO’s might finally have found an idea that he might like.

With all the new filters, checks, and balances in the Google search engine algorithm, linkbaiting is the natural progression of SEO. We need user data to back up those links now, so it’s much tougher to just buy the link love. Linkbaiting induces natural linking through viral marketing methods and fuses the new necessities of SEO with the established ideas of viral marketing.

Linkbaiting is the New SEO
So the big new catchphrase that has caught fire is “linkbait”. Why has it caught hold? It describes a new twist to an old idea extremely effectively. I’ll spare you the definition of linkbait, and let you decipher the intricate semantics of it yourself through a few searches and links listed below. Essentially, it’s the idea of building a well architectured site with the idea of garnering links naturally through word of mouth rather than through purchase or solicitation (kind of like getting free PR through other viral marketing methods). Free links are the best links! Of course these links aren’t “free”…they’re going to cost you some time to come up with a purple cow of an idea and make it happen (maybe the web 2.0 idea generator might help).

I want to revisit a few old (and hopefully a couple new) ideas for linkbaiting. Why go out and hunt for links when you can INSPIRE others to give them to you without asking, begging, pleading, or paying? Why continue to buy, borrow, beg, and barter when you can instill lasting loyalty and leverage through long living linkbaited link love!

Nick Wilson of performancing.com has really helped to glamourize the art of linkbaiting during his stint with threadwatch.org where he put the below techniques into action quite frequently.

• News hook
• Contrary Hook
• Attack Hook
• Resource Hook
• Humour Hook

Nick has perfected the art of linkbaiting with a take no prisoners attitude to web publishing. He’s not afraid to speak his mind, and has amassed a large portion of his notoriety simply by pissing the right people off, and then having quality discussions of constructive criticisim with them when they were chided by others into a response.

Pick on somebody bigger than you (but not too much bigger)
Picking on someone online is a tricky proposition, you don’t want to offend them enough to get “nofollowed” or worse yet, hunted down, but calling someone out with constructive criticism is a good way to spark dialogue and make friends. I don’t recommend talking about someone’s mother, wife, or family (no matter how ugly they are), or taking pot shots at their religious or political views (even if they do belief in almighty aliens from outer space). Generally, “picking” at all is probably not a good idea. A better idea would be to both constructively criticize and proselytize for someone that you respect. You can go the picking route (it’s quicker), but it’s bad for karma.

Jeremy Z., Robert Scoble, Matt, Hugh, Steve Rubel, Jason Calacanis, Dave Winer, Jason Kottke, Om Malik, Seth Godin, John Battelle, Joi Ito, Doc Searls, Chris Pirillo, Anil Dash, Matt Cutts or or anybody else with thousands of subscribers are not going to respond to everyone who picks on them, so if you pick on them you had better make it REALLY good so some other blog disciples pick it up first (sometimes this might be even better). Big bloggers get lazy (blogging really *is* difficult), and tired of people constantly trying to bait them for the googlejuice. They love the links too (whether they admit it or not), and aren’t going to link to your skanky little blog just because you call them out by name. They are big because their ideas are (or were) great. You gotta put in the same work.

If your just getting started your best bet is to find someone else in their comments that is as hungry as you for shameless self promotion and start coming up with ways you can mutually gain some notice. Find some other folks that have the same lines of thinking and your ideas will evolve into much better once that will become viral together.

Make a lot of little friends
Bloggers are like army ants. Everyone is a little guy when they start. Practice good karma (last time I’ll bring up karma I promise), and do what you can for other little guys. Maintain a good little guy reputation. Stay humble, help the other little guys, and don’t be an as*hole. Even as your linkbait grows keep the little guys on your side. Their gonna be big one day if you help each other to learn and grow. You’re always gonna need good sneezers.

Friends are probably the most important aspect to link baiting. When you do come up with some great ideas, it doesn’t really do any good to go yelling about it yourself. If you have friends with good ideas, you’re happy to do the same with them. Surround yourself with smart little people and you can all get bigger together. I’ve always been told “If you have to tell everyone how cool you are then it probably isn’t so”. Stay humble, and help your friends. You’ll be master link baiters in the end.

Just remember…if your successful…you’ll be getting baited soon too (okay one more mention of karma), so play nice unless you are ready for the rough stuff. Keep a sense of humor and don’t do meanspirited things no matter which side of the baiting you’re on. Help keep a positive connotation associated with linkbait.
More on linkbaiting:

• Why bloggers hate SEOs
• 5 tips to making it in the SEO community
• A new name for an old rule
• How to get your non-tech site into digg
• Viral marketing at wikipedia

Matt, Jim, Nick, Rand (again), 2, Rob, Aaron, Lee, and even Brett have some ideas on linkbait as well.

Other attempts to reap Seth’s Googlejuice:

• Why I think Seth doesn’t like SEO
• Summary of trip to Seth’s office
• Yes, there is an SEO Industry
• Big Moo Review
• All Marketer’s are Liars Review
• These are humble suggestions to get more traffic

If you really want bloggers and SEO’s to get along…here’s a button for you…go ahead…tell the world how you feel:)

A simple rule that sums up most of this post: “write what you know and what everyone else is thinking but hasn’t said yet, but don’t give away the gold”. A blog is a great asset, but can create liabilities if you don’t approach it properly.

Blogging really isn’t easy. Well, it *is* easy to spew a bunch of mindless bullsh*t onto a page and expect that a bunch of unemployed zombies will find some entertainment value in it. What *isn’t* easy is developing value-added material that vistors will find genuinely helpful and valuable to their personal needs.

To make things even more difficult, there is a delicate balance between creating good informational blog posts and being a straight up fool giving away information that is of extremely high value for a relatively short period of time (algo loopholes, niche opportunities, arbitrage opportunities, etc.). This is a dilemma that has faced folks long before blogs in the SEO/ webmaster forums as well. Since I was lucky enough to be taught by folks with an “abundance mentality”, I try hard to keep one myself, but sometimes a post just DOESN’T justify the link value (would a stock broker that knew the value of a link post his best information?).

Knowing what to blog is difficult. I’ve went through several phases myself, but what seems the most useful to me is aggregated lists of quality information to use as reference points when I need them. When I asked people to introduce themselves, many of them mentioned that the Mr. Ploppy SEM Tool lists were part of what kept folks coming back. I have to agree that they are extremely useful, and the intent of creating those lists was not entirely altruistic. I knew that they would be a valuable resource for ME to reference as well. The point is that they are valuable because I spent time to research and build lists of what I thought was good. Anyone could do a search and compile lists. It was quite time consuming, but it has been very worthwhile both in terms of traffic, and having effective personal reference points.

With lots of new folks entering the blogosphere all the time, I think it’s worth noting some things to keep you from making mistakes that some of us have made in the past.

Do’s
Blog about…

• What you know
• A specific niche topic
• How to balance user experience and good search rankings
• How to improve your website
• How to improve rankings with long term strategy
• Applications of marketing to SEO
• Emerging SE trends
• Speculation of SE updates
• The state of the SEM space
• Your personal insights on whitepapers
• Non-bias reviews of web technology vendors

Don’ts

Don’t blog about…

• someone else’s idea without asking that someone’s permission
• an unsavory story you heard 3rd hand
• brand new techniques that aren’t talked about on panel sessions yet
• an array of specific niches
• how bad other SEO’s techniques are
• sites that quality control engineers will torch an hour after reading your post
• how great the affiliate garbage you’re hawking is

I think Barry and Rand both have some nice opinions on the topic, but I couldn’t seem to find either of their posts when I dug for them (I hate when I forget to bookmark stuff right). Special thanks to Jason for his questions and discussion on the topic.

A little while back I posted, “How to access Myspace by proxy through your school’s firewall“. I was pretty amazed by the lengths these users are willing to go to access their favorite site (if only they were so determined to do their schoolwork!).
Myspace users are indeed fiercely loyal to being able to access their favorite site. Here’s Just over a weeks worth of various search queries in January that happend to pop up somewhere because of that post:

First 2 weeks of Febuary

Conclusions:

I really don’t have many conclusions, as this was a very non-scientific experiment with very few hypothesis or test controls. Myspace users that want to access their favorite site are incredibly loyal (bordering on obsessive). Most of these phrases I’m not even ranking well for (like page 2 or 3), which is pretty amazing to me. They are trying HARD to get to this site. Are your users that passionate about YOUR site? What are some ways you can establish this fierce level of loyalty?

The best long-term SEO strategy is well researched website project management that maintains users and search engines as co-existing priorities by utilizing a combined understanding of search engines, consumers, and web technology. I am mind boggled by the garbage that passes as SEO and makes anyone claiming to practice SEO look like a dolt. Yes, SEO moves fast. Yes, the strategies change periodically, but the essence of SEO basically stays the same.
This post started just picking on BAD SEO companies, but I figured I’d keep with the theme of picking on ad agencies a little bit instead (mainly because I couldn’t think of any good reasons not to). These same lies are told by clueless account executives at ineffective SEO companies as well as ad agencies. If you hear one…run for cover.

On the heels of Hugh (who’s a big hero of mine), and Guy, I present you with the top 10 SEO lies told by ad agencies.

1.You really need metatags
…if this was 1999. Now you need social bookmarking, press releases, content syndication, a blog and someone to run it, some viral content as linkbait, and about 500 more good sites linking to yours with your targeted anchor text, but we don’t actually DO any of that yet.

2. We shouldn’t have a problem ranking you for “home loans”.
Actually, we could probably buy your way in on PPC if you can afford $5 clicks. Even if you had 100k budget to spend just on ranking for that phrase you’re probably screwed, but you’ll be fine just ranking for “low rate home refinancing loans in detroit” instead right?

3. Links aren’t really that important.
Don’t worry, our crappy corporate-speak content should attract them naturally. If it doesn’t we’ll just continue to charge you until we get so fed up with each other that we’ll just outsource your project to someone else.

4. No, they’re not doorway pages, they’re “landing pages”
(It’s okay, BMW does it)

5. Rankings in 30 days? No problem.
…for your obscure 7 word keyphrase it should only take a couple months after we get all the copy approved by the legal team.

6. It’s easy to rank well (*cough* in dogpile), We’ll just submit your site to 150,000 search engines.
I learned about search engine marketing in 1997, and really don’t give a damn about your rankings. Pony up the dough, and I’ll help you come up with a real pretty powerpoint presentation made of important sounding statistics and graphs that don’t actually mean anything to show your boss how well our voodoo is working.

7. We would never do anything that violated the SE’s insanely ambiguous webmaster guidelines.
…we’re huge pussies that don’t experiment with anything except meta-tags, or have fed our clients so much sh*t over the years that we’re starting to believe it ourselves.

8. Most companies AREN’T number one for their own name.
Most of OUR clients don’t rank for their own name, because we never bothered to get them a link.

9. There’s no benefit in SEO, we can’t track it like PPC.
We don’t know how to do it and it seems kinda hard.

10. Cool flash pages and user experience are more important than SEO
Get rid of the $5,000 flash intro page? That would destroy the whole user experience (and you’d probably be p*ssed if we admitted we were wrong!)…so what if they can’t find you on a search for your name, they can just type in your domain name. Not that many people really use search engines to find stuff anyways.

…and don’t think that SEO clients don’t tell a fib or two now and then.

Good working relationships between SEO’s and their clients are hugely dependant on managing expectations. Whether you are a consultant or a client, be sure to spend some time communicating your expectations or process to be sure you are on the same page. You’ll all be happier in the long run.

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.
- Benjamin “D-to-the-hizzy” Disraeli.

More reading

• How to hire a SEO company or consultant
• Rand’s list of recommended SEO’s
• Why ad agencies hate SEM
• 10 Things to ask your SEO company
• 10 Things to ask your SEO clients
• 10 Tips for better client relationships