Business Management Consultant - Stuntdubl Search and Marketing Consulting

Enrollment is now open for you and your team to join our Q2 Master Certification courses in SEO, Social Media, PPC , Landing Page Conversion or Web Analytics at MarketMotive.com

Master one internet marketing discipline in 90 days by training online with the bestselling authors, authorities, and top speakers in each discipline. You will:

* Master one internet marketing discipline
* Boost your value to your organization
* Empower your marketing team
* Make authoritative marketing decisions
* Get the industry recognition you deserve

Select from individual or group courses in SEO, Social Media, PPC, Landing Page Conversion or Web Analytics that are 100% online* and include:

* Graded projects and assignments
* Final dissertation defense for certification
* On-demand streaming video lessons
* Weekly interactive training webinars
* Direct, anytime Q&A with the faculty

Enroll now and take control of your online marketing.
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* Courses are 100% online, with regular instructor interaction. Login 24×7 to master the latest techniques in internet marketing from the convenience of your own desk.

More information about SEO Master Certification, as well as the signup form

Checkout the SEO Curriculum here

Note: This post is fairly self-serving, but I promise watching the videos will help you make your site better. You can skip all the reading and just watch the totally FREE FULL videos (part I, and part II), or skip to the next paragraph for the details of the awesome video that Avinash (aka the Web Analytics Wizard) and I recorded on how you can “Teach a HIPPO (highest paid person’s opinion) to make your website better”. In just under 3 years, Market Motive Internet Marketing Training has become a pretty amazing resource for training webmasters and internet marketers on a diverse and well rounded skill set. While there are many places that offer great SEO training (SEObook, SEOMoz, SEO Dojo, and many others, I don’t think there is any place that offers the well rounded education solutions that MM now provides. Scott Milrad has helped me develop a pretty awesome curriculum for SEO certification (I can hear the debates starting already), and the rest of the information is really top notch (I occasionally study web analytics, ppc, pr, and other videos myself). As a whole, MM creates a no nonsense HONEST learning experience that I REALLY wish I had a decade ago when I started on the web. You won’t get rich quick, but you will learn a skill set that will aid you for a lifetime. If you’re looking for corporate solutions to training issues, please feel free to drop me a line, and I’ll be happy to answer your MM questions, or see about putting together a walk through demo of the site.

So what’s all this hoopla about?

Avinash and I decided to do a video on how to make a website better. Fortunately Mr. Kaushik is wonderfully eloquent and makes me look really smart. He is a master of disseminating data, and is helping to dissolve the myths involved with SEO by quantifying potential and results. To me, this is extremely exciting since I have always been a “gut feel” marketer, developing strong instincts that can be occasionally proved wrong with testing and data. Both approaches certainly have merit, but I have to say I love coming up with a hypothesis and seeing Avinash prove or disprove it based on quantifiable data points.

The topics (of things you can do to make your website better) in the videos include:

1. Improve the site design (without sacrificing content)
2. Credibility matters (add credibility indicators)
3. Research keywords that matter to your site
4. People can’t read computer (make your urls human and bot friendly)
5. Improve Time on Site (unless you’re a directory)
6. Reduce Bounce Rate
7. Improve the site Usability
8. Don’t hide content from your users (don’t move stuff!) & don’t hide links from search engines!
9. Get a better web host (site speed MATTERS)
10. Organize your information better
(IA matters – don’t give too many choices means no choice)
11. Make it easy to contact you
12. Make it easy to find out about your company
13. Anchor text is important
(internal and external – you are what your links say you are)
14. Attract citations (links) is critical (linking thinking)
15. Social media is not your normal user (but can create links)
16. Selectively deliver content (block duplicate content from search engines)
(robots and humans are unique and your site index quality matters)
17. Organic Search traffic converts (and is 8x higher than PPC)
18. Encourage (or even incentivize) positive off site sentiment
(degree and kind of engagement)
19. Exact match micro sites for head terms
20. Do we need subdomains or subdirectories?

We discuss how to take ACTION on these subjects using an understanding of:

• Clickstream
• Multiple outcomes
• Experimentation and testing
• Voice of customers
• Competitive intelligence
• Insights
• Foundation

Your world is one of continuous actions (that is, surveys testing, behavior targeting, keyword optimization) and continuous improvements, where customers not HiPPOS, rule. Enjoy the videos, and definitely let me know if you have an questions, and please comment on anything we missed or you’d like to see in the future.

Normally, MM videos are for members only, but we liked these videos so much we wanted the world to see them. Hope you enjoy! Part I: Teaching HiPPOS about Better Websites Part I and Part II: 10 More things You can Teach HiPPOS about Building Better Websites.

Market Motive has come a long way in a short time in my mind. In shortly over a year, I’ve seen the curriculum expand substantially to become an excellent archive for even a seasoned internet marketing professional to learn a ton. I am very proud to be a part of Market Motive, and of the upcoming event described below, as it is a highly credible source for correctly learn how to market online. You won’t ‘get rich quick’ here, but you will learn strategies to market online properly.

Market Motive continued to stay ahead of the curve on Wednesday with the announcement of their Master Certification Faculty Panel as a live web event–a unique offering, even by Market Motive standards. It’s all part of their highly-touted Internet Marketing Certification program finale slated for January 27, 2009.

The description of this final project–a live panel review gauntlet–reads like a wild fusion between American Idol, a PhD dissertation defense, and a lightning-round news roundtable show. Candidates will vie for faculty endorsements under the scrutiny of a live audience and a few surprise A-list online marketing critics.

Taking their concept a step further, Market Motive has opened up the event to the public for free—and not just for passive onlookers. Registrants may choose to absorb the dissertation on the latest standards or opt to have their website evaluated by the graduating consultants. For event information and free registration, visit http://www.marketmotive.com/master-certification-graduation.php.

Says Scott Milrad, Director of Online Education and “Dean” of the Master Consultant Certification programs, “We really wanted this final project to be fun and original, yet at the same time, continue to uphold the integrity we’ve strived for throughout the entire program. Ultimately, this format just fell into place on every level.”

The endorsing faculty panel is truly a who’s who of Internet marketing and includes:

Bryan Eisenberg on Conversion Optimization

Greg Jarboe & Jamie O’Donnell on Online PR

George Michie, Mark Evans on Paid Search / PPC

Matt Bailey on Social Media

Avinash Kaushik & John Marshall on Web Analytics

Todd Malicoat on SEO

Michael Stebbins on Email Marketing

Plus several surprise guests

Candidates who pass the final challenge will receive certification status for one year from graduation and a listing on the Market Motive site.

Registration Open for Next Master Certification

Market Motive is accepting applications for the next round of Master Certification, slated for a February 2009 start, at http://www.marketmotive.com/internet-marketing-certification.php

It’s been a pretty cool year in the world of search marketing, and the year end roundups are always a great time to build those bookmarks full of a ton of great information that you’ll likely never have a chance to go back and read (learn to skim or speedread). I thought I’d take a look at some of the topics I discussed last year, and see what panned out, and what hasn’t yet come to fruition (as well as some things I missed. It didn’t seem like I had a lot of new predictions, but there are a few near the bottom. Here’s my predictions from last year, and how I think they’re doing.

2006 SEO Predictions Review

1. viral link attraction - the increase in popularity of social network sites will continue to make this more and more important. The ability to cater your message to individual demographics, and reach the mavens, salespeople, and connectors within a specific industry will continue to make this skill an increasingly valuable one.
2. user generated content - Content is the "blocking" of search marketing. If you can get your users to do the work for you, you are doing something right. Make image tagging a game and get someone cool on board to promote it.
3. bashing pagerank - I will always have a secret love of toolbar pagerank - at least it’s still good to explain link popularity. Just be sure to explain the history and contradictions of pagerank to your clients.
4. on-page naturalization - fix your overkill SEO. You don’t need to go overboard. Three things - content, links, structure. If you can’t figure out on page, you had better start selling some "branding based services"
5. "non-seo" links - Think google doesn’t have a nice big map of scummy seo links? I think you had better have a career backup plan.
6. trusted links - trust is the new SEO. Good business is trust. The best SEO’s know how to budget their time effectively for things that make the most impact. I spend A LOT of time on trusted links.
7. content with links exchange - recips are dead. Long live context exchange, and cooperative business model cross-pollination.
8. geovertical targeting - I hope you’ve figured out that local search WASN’T just hype. I think geovertical targeting will be the major catalyst for mobile search once we all have better devices, where it isn’t easier to just fire up a laptop.
9. community reviewed content - I should have seen digg coming sooner. Peer reviewed content (more importantly by qualified expert) will be the "audit" level that is needed on top of traditional search in vertical areas. Strong expert peer review is the unique selling point needed by any vertical or niche search engine or website.
10. url rewriting for user appearance and viral distribution - Wordpress helped to propogate this idea, and it has been extremely effective. Sites that use effective rewriting from launch (or relaunch) position themselves much more effectively for long term growth. There are several benefits to creating proper urls, and the value will only continue to grow over time.
11. trustbox - I’m a bit surprised there isn’t more discussion of the "trustbox". The idea of the sandbox took off, but ideas for improving credibility and trust seem to be few and far between. Perhaps this stems from most ideas being overly used and abused to some extent once they are shared.
12. article submission - I doubt this will ever go away. Targeting specific sites with well written article to obtain trusted links will always be a good strategy. They want exceptional content. You NEED strong trusted links. Don’t be afraid to pitch big sites with good ideas.
13. media distrubution communication - The lines between social media and public relations has, and will continue to blur. The more you understand both, the more effective you will become at packaging and delivering your message.
14. blog community outreach - If you’re not reaching out to big bloggers in your arena (and sucking up to them) - your competitors are likely giving you an ass whooping in the SERPS.
15. web-copy language synonymy substitution - please use thesaurus.com regularly. SEO copywriting IS NOT repeating keywords anymore. Not even BOTS want to read an article that repeats itself and looks like it was written by a fourth grader anymore.
16. information architecture and strategic deeplinking - I am continually amazed at how underestimated this is to the overall process of search marketing. A strong information architecture is the critical to the success of any SEM campaign. Start with your foundation - or start over. Plan a deeplink strategy to any and all of your many categories. Decide between subdomains and subdirectories. If your CEO didn’t do this - find a new company or tell them why you should be doing their job.
17. gut feel and multi recipe conversion tracking - Split testing, funnel testing, landing page optimization - whatever you call it, you should be doing it. If you’re not converting, your SEO is pretty pointless
18. algorithm variable hedge betting - Even if Matt, Brian, Aaron, or any other generous soul at google gave me the current secret sauce, I would likely change very little of the process I use for an online marketing campaign. Developing a process that isn’t dependent on the latest algorithm shift is the best type of SEM you can create. Plan for fluxuations - don’t build sites for search engines - but build sites that search engineers would approve of.
19. rise of user tagging and bookmarking incentivization - User tagging has gained some momentum, but there is still a WIDE OPEN marketplace for creative new business models that offer worthwhile incentivization for community contribution. This is one of the areas I think I was looking a bit too far ahead on.
20. discussion of online media - Traditional media outlets are definitely making the discussions more interesting. As more people catch on to what we’ve been doing for years, more people start to get interested and talk about it. Just the sheer growth size of the conferences proves the attention that it is getting.
21. parasite SEO - This will only grow, and likely continue to add to the stigma associated with SEO.
22. sandbox existence debates - This has died down as people gain understanding of the new principles of search engine ranking factors. (Thank God!)
23. real marketing principles actually start to matter again - I guess they never went away. In a year’s time, I’ve come to appreciate "traditional marketing" a whole lot more.
24. automated mass tag distibution - this still hasn’t been beat up TOO badly (I’m surpised some better wordpress extensions haven’t been developed), but as tagging gets easier, I would imagine it will, and "meta-tags 2.0" will become less useful unless they are audited by human quality control.
25. reputation management through the blogosphere - I think more folks will either embrace reputation management and optimization for their names and/or alter egos and do so proactively. It was kinda cool to see Ted Leonsis address this issue, and it was a shame we didn’t pull him into the search marketing community a bit more.
26. one box optimization - Many more people should listen to Brian Mark about one-box optimization. I’m sure he’s not the only one who’s used the one box (among other things) to build a company’s site traffic to the point they can barely keep up. There is growing opportunity and competition in this area every day.
27. affiliate content network based sales generation - CPA would have been an easier way to say this. I think Cost Per Acquisition networks are growing by leaps and bounds, but they also bring their own unique problems with fraud, and CPC will continue to be a model that is effective and not always replaceable.
28. SE based PPC tools - PPC is the search engine’s bread and butter. Not surprisingly, we saw Google release tools like their adwords editor, adwords landing page optimizer, and a whole ton of tutorials and information for PPC managers. The release of panama from yahoo was a big step, and could certainly be seen as a better "tool" for managing YSM.
29. SE click fraud tools in response to increased advertiser pressure - There’s still plenty of room for improvement, but improvement HAS been made by both 3rd parties, an understanding from advertisers on auditing quality clicks, and the search engine’s tracking and enforcement of click fraud.
30. lots of msn acquisitions and products - It seems like there were many more google and yahoo buys. Bill or Balmer - it’s TIME to break out the checkbooks. You can’t HIRE the good developers anymore. It’s time to take search serious and starting shelling out some cash. It would not be at all surprising to see yahoo and msn join forces. The battle for search is no longer about relevance - it’s about loyal user base.
31. vertical niche specialization - Pick a vertical niche and automate. Write what you know, etc. Just ask the guys at local launch what a good idea focusing on local search was.
32. page view maximization - I’m really happy when the page view averages improve on my sites. Incorporate statistic and analytic information you can actually USE, and yours might improve as well.
33. page view duration optimization - see above
34. usability and standards compliance - Not too many big lawsuits on this front during the year, but this will become more and more of an issue as we all start to depend more on the internet for the tasks of daily life.
35. content contribution incentivization - Still LOTS of opportunity here. Incentivization is NOT necessarily always monetary. Unique business models are what dominate the web. If it wasn’t so damn cliche and anti-creative, I would tell you to "think outside the box" or "shift your paradigm".
36. mobile content optimization - still a bit early on this one. Everyone needs the cool mobile devices they have in Japan. It’s hard to sell people on thumbtyping when normally we’re only minutes away from a laptop and a net connection if we’re truly net junkies. As devices get improve there is still opportunities in this area.
37. fictional users - HOW many users does myspace, facebook, and digg have? Riiiiiiiight.
38. "trust spam" - See parasite SEO.
39. improved tracking capability - Tools for tracking are the most important developments in search. If you don’t have good tracking tools for your company - you had better hope someone catches on to it soon, or start polishing your resume.
40. personalization manipulation - Personalized search is still not quite mainstream - this will likely be the future of "blackhat seo". In my humble opinion blackhat is only worthwhile in niches I don’t personally work in. If you’re going to go to all that trouble, you might as well put together a plan that will ultimately be legit to a search engine quality control rep.

Things I didn’t see coming in search this year -

Paid reviews on blogs - services like ReviewMe, Payperpost, Blogsvertise, and many others that will continue to evolve and improve in the marketplace. I think these are a great idea as they pick up traction in vertical spaces they will become absolutely essential to the search marketing/ online marketing mix.

Danny leaving SEW - gonna be really interesting to see what our fearless leader does next (Did ANYONE see that one coming?).

New predictions for 2007

• Google is no longer a media darling - but will handle the press fine and continue to dominate search, and creep their way into every other media further and further. Good luck stopping them.
• Wikipedia will not "kill" Google
• A proliferation of pligg sites (or subdomains on sites) - as people try to adapt and improve the digg model to given verticals.
• People will realize social media is really just the human quality audit that search needed
• Best SEO’s will embrace "defensible traffic"
• At least 3 larger SEO companies will get gobbled up by big ad agencies for technology, personnel, or process
• Social media optimization will become part of public relations
• Reputation management will become a part of public relations
• Billions of man hours will be wasted watching online videos
• AJAX, gradients, and beta tags will continue to rule the world
• CPA will not solve clickfraud
• Mobile search still won’t be HUGE this year

• Rand’s predictions
• Rohit Bhargava’s 2007 marketing trends *very nice stuff
• Techipedia - Best blog posts of 2006
• Best of CopyBlogger for 2006
• David Zuls best monetization posts of 2006
• Andy Beal’s top 10 posts of the 2006
• Chris at 10e20’s 101 top stories of 2006
• 2006 top 10 mistakes in web design - Jakob Nielsen
• Bill’s 2007 psychic visions
• Top 10 lists of top 10 lists for 2006 by Karl Ribas
• Kim’s 2007 predictions
• 50 best hacks of 2006 from lifehack
• Graywolf’s end of year meme roundup
• Brian Turner’s predictions

Let me know if anyone else has any cool 2006 roundups or lists.

Happy New Year’s Everyone - Have a great 2007

A good SEO is both a geek and a suit, and is able to speak the language of both worlds. Providing SEO services without understanding both business and techie principles is the equivalent of trying to teach english to spanish children without knowing both languages and cultural mores of both fluently.

A few ways to judge if you may even be a tech guy that speaks marketing:

1 - You’re a card carrying member of the DMA, AMA, or MMA and know what USB, C-class IP, DNS, WHOIS, PPC, and G stands for.

2 - Every morning you recite the 4 P’s of the marketing mix as well as all mnemonics for the OSI Model including how it is like a 7 layer burrito.

3 - You know what city Madison Avenue is in as well as who invented the altair, TI, and Atari.

4 - You dream about purple cows and have listened to pink floyd synched with the wizard of oz after consuming various forms of caffeine.

5 - You read Adweek, Adage, Brand Republic, Fast Magazine, Inc.com, Linux Journal, Linux Mag, and Apache Week.

6 - You use linkedin and 2600 in the same day.

7 - You’ve heard of Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, Saatchi and Saatchi, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, BBDO, and can speculate how many boxes they run, their bandwidth speeds and marvel at how well Grand Theft Auto would run on their intranet infrastructures.

8 - You buy text links and optimize webhost performance.

9 - You are a certified Ambassador, Adwords professional, A+, network +, and cisco certified MCSE (marketing computer speak explainer).

10 - You can name the top 5 most run banner ads of all time, and still surf with javascript off from a proxy, and cloaking your user agent

Your marketing guys and gals need to communicate the how’s and why’s of both marketing and SEO to their caffeine and sugar sipping cohorts coding databases down the hall.

SEO/SEM is getting your marketing guys to talk to your techies (and maybe even hang out and ENJOY their differences of world and work views). SEO is bridging the business/ technology communication digital divide. I really enjoy both worlds, and training on the areas that oftentimes get missed when the dialogue is incomplete or strained due to how different they have traditionally been. Think of the stereotype of both groups (while stereotypes are not great, they are often based somewhat in reality), and you couldn’t have two more different type of people. These differences cause the cognitive dissonance that IS SEO.

This is the essence of SEO - project management that improves the communication between folks who specialize in marketing and those that specialize in technology for a better understanding of improving the relevance of a website for optimial search performance. This is a new idea, and even the personality type is a completely new one (thus the demand right now). If you work for a marketing company, ad agency, PR firm or SEO company that needs some strategic advice - I have a deal for you, Drop me a line, and I’ll fill you in, or point you in the direction of some good folks and information that may be able to help you.

Stock people on a website decreases your credibility. No, I haven’t done extensive studies on this, but I can spot stock photos of people from a mile off, and sites with it are much less likely to get my dollar than a site with a REAL picture of REAL people on it. Yes, I may be a little more saavy than your average web consumer…but how long do you think it will be until they catch up? Do you ALWAYS treat your customers like they’re idiots? Do you really think they believe you dress in a suit everyday and your skin is flawless?

It was a bit scary for me to put up a picture of myself on my site at first. Heck, it still is sometimes and there are times I’ve considered taking it down. What it ABSOLUTELY does, however, is keeps me honest and accountable for the goods or services that I sell. It puts MY ass on the line, because I know you could hunt me down if I sell you some sh*t. If you REALLY have a good product that you believe in, and a team you believe in…why not do the same?

Don’t believe me:

Who would you rather buy SEO services from: This sharp looking crew (good luck hiring them;) - or one of the thousands of faceless companies (didn’t want to pick an individual - you know 98% of you do it;)

Just looking through a few sites today (one that was a GOOD product with GOOD people and a stock photo of some random imaginary “stock people”), and felt like making a semi-random post. Yes, it’s nice to see smiling faces of people, but admit the lie you’re telling with a stock photo of half a dozen smiling well dressed super models with laptops. Admit your nose is a little crooked, bite the bullet, and put a little more faith in your product or service.

Don’t be a stock person! Would you buy from a site with stock people on it? Would you be more likely to buy from a site with REAL people on it?

Your online credibility is only as good as who you link to. Your ‘hood..your peeps, and even your advertisers.

If you link to ugly, dorky, sarcastic, mean, condescending, people like me, then you could potentially soil your credibility, lose website traffic, be banned from all current and future indexes, and be accused of kicking your neighbor’s dog and eating babies. If you put a nofollow on your advertisers…it says to saavy users that you don’t really trust them…so why should your users?

I’m not real excited about the whole WorldBlogCenter fiasco, but it did help to open my eyes to something and inspire a post. The general idea (for good or bad) was that they used who they linked to as their credibility. Of course, the fact that it was deceptive contradicted the purpose, but the idea was valid. Had they contacted all of the people they used as “forward linking references” (and had a more original idea), the idea may have actually worked much better than the failure it is doomed to now.

Link Smart
One of the dumbest things you can do is take your readers’ intelligence for granted. If you cater to dumb people…you will ALWAYS be surrounded by dumb people (and probably b*tch about it too). As good ol’ PT Barnum says…it is true that no one ever “made millions overestimating the intelligence of the public”, but it’s also true that if you’re a small operation you want to work with good SMART people, and want to educate your customers.

Link to people that are more intelligent than yourself, and eventually people might actually believe that you’re smart too.

Obligatory smart links:

• SEO 12 deadly sins
• SEORockstars
• Mensa
• SEO Beginner’s Guide

Link Sexy
Find pretty people to link to because everyone likes to be attractive. As GW says, no one wants to be fat and poor. Think sexy within your niche. If you sell life insurance (among the least sexy things on the planet)…figure out how to be the ipod of your industry. Have a freakin’ personality Thinking and linking sexy allows you to decommodify.

Link to people that are sexy, and people might eventually think that you’re sexy too.

Obligatory sexy links:

• Sex sells
• Adjab’s Sexy Category
• Sexy Advertising

Link Funny

Humor shows personality. Yes, you may offend someone. Chances are you didn’t want to work with that person anyways if they are that easily offended. You need to consider also that your audience’s sense of humor may be a bit different than your own. I said “eating babies” in the first paragraph…is this very professional? Not really, but it is also so ludicrous that I thought it was kinda funny. Advertising folks and SEO’s generally have a pretty liberal sense of humor and can appreciate excessive humor for what it is rather than being offended by it. If I was selling diapers, carriages, or super baby formula this might not be the best idea, and I would be better off with some more family friendly humor.

Obligatory funny links:

• Clientcopia
• 10 Reasons to link to my blog
• i don’t get commissions from my wife
• Ex-girlfriend Adsense revenge

Link Trusted

Obligatory trusted links:

• W3C
• Wikipedia
• DMOZ
• Better Business Bureau

Don’t try to hoard your links, and don’t try to pimp your site out to people. Surround yourself with good people and learn from people smarter, sexier, funnier, and more trusted than yourself. Create resources, but give them some personality. With information available at the push of a button you really need something to differentiate your presentation of it. One of the things people LIKE about blogs is that they HAVE personality. Let your outbound link references reflect your personality and present yourself more sexy, funny, smart, and trusted to your users.