Business Management Consultant - Stuntdubl Search and Marketing Consulting

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.

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:)

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

At some point, ad agencies will be forced to come to terms with the fact that they will have to accept and work with search engine marketers even if they have to bring them in house. I must admit to having a bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to traditional ad agencies, because I’ve been totally shot down every time I tried to have an abundance mentality with them. Since I fall somewhere in between affiliate marketing mercenary and corporate stooge, I love comparing the two worlds - the personalities involved, and the lifestyle associated with each. It is truly an intriguing comparison of people that share a lot in common, but can also be polar opposites.

Perhaps the egos involved with advertising agencies has forced MOST all the people in their industry to maintain the “I know everything mentality” that I have run accross on more than a few occasions. There are certainly some egos in the SEM field, but I think the “old money” attitudes of many ad agency execs is what really chaffs my gaff the most. I’m all for burying the hatchet, however, because they need our ideas and insights as much as we want to spend their branding dollars. With this in mind, I have some speculation on 11 of the top reasons why ad agencies hate search engine marketers.

For items 8 - 11, I was lucky enough to enlist the assistance of “caveman”. Please see the end of this article for his complete bio info, and big thanks go out for him bringing his unique sagely perspective to my ramblings. With introductions complete…on with the mudslinging!

11 Reasons Ad Agencies Hate Search Engine Marketer’s

1. SEM’s are direct marketers
Search engine marketing folks are generally held directly accountable for their spending and its return. While I’m sure the same is true of an ad agency at times, they have no problems billing a couple hundred per hour to pay an intern to design a schnazzy billboard that will sit on the interstate and have no trackability whatsoever. There is no way to track the effectiveness of a billboard ad. SEO may be tough to track…but not quite as tough as watching people’s eyes from a hidden tree while they cruise by at 70 miles per hour (I couldn’t think of many other ways to track a billboard).

2. SEM’s can work without pants on
It is a joke in the search engine marketing field, but absolutely true. I am sitting here reaching a potential audience kicked up in my favorite home office chair with jeans and a t-shirt (yes I will save you the imagery of being pants-less). I suppose there are freelance ad agents as well, but since there are not a lot of large SEM agencies that are much good yet, most SEM’s have the freelancer attitude.

3. The “freelancer attitude”
Supply and demand is the big reason now for the animosity between ad agencies and SEM’s. Most any SEM that has been at it more than a year is nearly begging for a break from the pile of work. When you have too much work, you can choose one of two things - 1. Take on more work, get more behind, and become more stressed. 2. Raise your prices, act aloof, and try to discourage people into using others. Surprisingly, there is some level of intrigue that the second action elicits. I suppose it is based around the concept of elitist marketing/ pricing. Anyways, this is the reason most good doctors, lawyers, SEM’s, Ad agencies, PR people, auto mechanics, and any other top person in their profession can sometimes come across as being a dickhead. I was recently told that the WBP site comes across sounding high and mighty at certain points. This was definitely not intentional; it just only usually gets rewritten when we realize that we’re near the maximum threshold of taking on new business. It’s not that I’m trying to be a jerk and make people feel unimportant when I sometimes don’t call or e-mail people back. It’s that the phone and e-mail box are off the hook every damn day! I WISH I could squeeze more hours into a day.

4. SEM’s don’t have to get pissed on by Madison Avenue jerks to “make it big”
Most of the people in the SEM field are extremely happy to be here. Even the veterans have only been around for 10 years or so, so they’re not going to make anyone walk to Brooklyn to get them a piece of cheesecake. I think this is the “old money” attitude at play. Someone who spent 30 years working their way up the corporate ranks is much less likely to have patience and understanding for a new hungry marketing newb.

Having been in the 3rd or 4th wave of SEM I have been very happy with how the 1st and 2nd genr’s have responded to my thoughts and ideas. They are all extremely friendly, and they remember what it was like to be the new guy on the block. With this same regard, I am very happy to help next waves of SEO-hungry folks when I can rather than try to give some silly hazing ritual and act like SEM is some magical rocket science that takes a lifetime to learn. Link building is the “mail room” of SEM, and even most of the biggest SEM’s still do link building in many ways (they just give it fancy names like “linkbaiting”). I haven’t been around there much, but I would doubt there is much of an “abundance mentality” on Madison avenue.

5. SEM’s are often associated with affiliate marketers
While this is not inherently a problem, affiliate marketers are often mercenaries with very low levels of merchant/ brand loyalty which is a very scary concept to 9 - 5 corporate drones. The idea of exposing a brand to the mercy of other website’s copywriters, bloggers, and lord knows whoever else is petrifying.

6. Big egos at stake
We know we want to spend their money, and they know they need us to do it effectively. Everyone wants the big markup and no one wants to budge on discounts, kickbacks, or project control. Both sides want to do the proposals and have the client relationship. Nobody wants to do the “grunt work”.

7. SEM is a threat to ad budgets
We know that spending in search marketing is constantly on the rise, and it probably will be for some time. The ad agencies know they need to be migrating their budgets to new media. This doesn’t make the billboard or print ad managers very happy obviously. They create resistance that is felt through the entire agency. If I felt a threat to what I was best at I would probably feel that way too. Evolve or die. We still need your print expertise, but you’re going to be better at both if you spend time to understand the web. Co-mentor an SEM junkie - teach them timeless applications from the print world in exchange for learning about web marketing. The tighter you squeeze your budget the more it will slip away.

For items 8 - 11, I was lucky enough to enlist the assistance of “caveman”. Please see the end of this article for his complete bio info, and big thanks for his bringing his unique sagely perspective to my ramblings.

#begin caveman#
8. Advertising used to be fun
Back in the day, advertising used to be fun. Yeah, client service will always have its share of pain, but in the 70’s and 80’s, advertising as a business was still permeated with a bit of a gunslinger mentality. Employees were rewarded for risk taking and clever rule breaking. And the parties were legendary. But the late 80’s brought a wave of cost cutting and corporate downsizing that shifted the power to the bean counters, and by the 90’s, advertising as a business was a shell of its former self. One can’t help but wonder if today’s ad execs don’t look at the SEM/SEO world with more than a little bit of envy. Surely it reminds them of days gone by. The SEM world today is, after all, more fun, crazy, and challenging than advertising ever was. And we’ve certainly got more than our fair share of gunslingers, rock stars, and well, you know.

9. Anything you can’t brag about is bad (and so are the people involved)
Advertising people love to make a big deal of their exploits, when talking to friends and family. “Hey, you gotta come over so I can screen my new beer commercial. We shot it down in Mexico. It’s really cool, and the client’s gonna run it on the Super Bowl!” Fair enough, I used to do that. But now, as an SEM, I’m stuck trying to explain to people at a party what “SEO” means. Assuming that I want people to know what I do (hehe), the conversation usually starts with, and ends with, me trying to explain SEO. It’s not easy, believe me. (And I can tell you from experience, don’t start by telling people that Google’s search results can be manipulated.) Listen; there are entire threads at Webmaster forums devoted to determining how to explain SEO and SEM to friends and family. Ad people have got wind of this, and this makes them disdainful of us. We cannot easily brag about what we do.

10. Web ads are tiny, and tiny is despicable
Ad execs hate tiny. Tiny is bad. Tiny is weak. And tiny means low budgets. In advertising, executives are measured by the size of their, ummm, ads. Print ads are big. Billboards are HUGE. TV ads are big, bright and sexy (especially beer commercials)…and they last for at least 30 seconds. Is it any wonder that ad execs are disdainful of those whose stock in trade is two and three word text link ads, or banner ads measured in, well, pixels. Let’s call it what it is: Ad people think we have tiny … ads.

11. It’s easy to hate what you don’t understand
Ad people are often insecure, and tend to hate what they don’t understand (Todd’s point on direct marketing a case in point). In SEO/SEM, our business is understanding: Organic listings, SERP’s, blogs, pings, trackbacks, nofollow’s, algorithms, META tags, PageRank, LocalRank, BlockRank, IBL’s, IP’s, SE’s, PPC’s, ROTFLMAO’s … OMG it’s enough to make your head spin. Well, not your head, but certainly the heads of ad people. I’m not saying ad people aren’t smart. The good ones are brilliant … at what they do. But they’re specialists: Creative people create, PR people spin, Media people plan, Researchers research, Account people handle. But SEM’s do everything from creative writing to analytics to algorithmic assessment. Yikes, how intimidating is that? No wonder they hate us.

Of course, I’m just kidding about all this. Sorta.

#end caveman

Caveman’s BIO:
Caveman (who sometimes also answers to “Scott”) has worked in marketing since the late 1970’s. Prior to becoming a Web entrepreneur and SEO consultant, he held positions as a senior marketing executive at several large advertising agencies, working with top international marketers. His current company, which he founded in 2001, focuses on online direct marketing and SEO for a limited number of clients. Scott also serves as an outside consultant to various members of the financial community, and is currently a moderator of the .
Search Engine Promotion forum at WebmasterWorld .

-Footnotes from Todd
Personally, I have tried on several occasions to reach out to advertising agencies with very discouraging results. I’ve spent a lot of hours preparing for and attending incredibly fruitless meetings where I have become discouraged beyond belief for a variety of reasons. This is one of the main reasons I really enjoy medium size “mom and pop” companies that can get things done. There is often very little red tape, quick reaction time, and the ability to learn and develop their own creative SEM ideas that do not conflict with the overall strategy. These are my favorite clients to work with and the people I most enjoy making money for. I do like the idea of working with big brands on occasion, but I suppose with big brands comes some bigger problems. I think the relations between SEM’s and agencies can improve and I’m certainly willing to try in places that I can add value and not be just milked of my intellectual property.

So the question becomes, “How do we reduce the malevolence between SEM’s and Ad agencies”?

Managing an advertising agency isn’t all beer and skittles. After fourteen years of it, I have come to the conclusion that the top man has one principle responsibility: to provide an atmosphere in which creative mavericks can do useful work.
-David Ogilvy
David - put “ad agency” in your title tag, and call me when rise above Leo

Inspirational discussions

• 5 Reasons ad agencies hate search engine marketing
• Rand visits Seattle ad agency club part I and part II
• Do designers hate SEO?
• Why Bloggers hate SEOs

If you want to inspire confidence, give plenty of statistics. It does not matter that they should be accurate, or even intelligible, as long as there is enough of them.
-Lewis Carroll

I have listed below my favorite website analytics software packages. I must give the disclaimer that learning stats packages is not a fun experience. If a package is slow or frustrating, I generally don’t stick around too long. I value my time pretty highly, and I don’t want to spend it waiting for information that is only marginally important a large majority of the time. This is one reason other providers (of any software really) should take a page from Clicktracks and study usability first.

The below list is fairly biased from my experiences with stats packages. It’s also based on the criteria of needs I have an an analytics software. I won’t name the handful of packages that I have used that were brutally slow, unreliable, or difficult to interpret.

Statistics tracking is *critical*. For most companies, it’s not important in the sense that you dropped two spots in the rankings, or that a certain product does not convert as well three days before Columbus day. That level of granular reporting is sometimes a cause for the lack of usability in packages. Beware of “paralysis by analysis”. The more time you spend looking at your stats, the less time you are spending developing relevant content and links, which what will help to make you feel much happier during the time actually spent viewing your statistics.

What *is* absolutely important is consistency with reporting. To gauge improvement and trends, you need accurate data that is reliable. The integrity of the data needs to be high. If you switch packages too often, you will not have a good level of consistency and will be comparing apples to oranges due to the various idiosyncracies in each package.

Paid Web Analytics Tools

• Clicktracks Demo - Hands down my overall favorite. I am definitely an evangelist for their products. Any areas they COULD have been faulted on they have listened to their customers and improved. Not only a good stats package, but a good example of how to run a business.
• Net Tracker - Played with a demo and had a booth next to some of their friendly folks once. Nice product with some handy path analysis. Check out their free lite edition
• Visitorville - I haven’t used this extensively, but you gotta give them credit for a fun interface

Free Web Traffic Tools

• Webalizer About as basic as it gets, but very free and easy to use
• Analog Stats Again very basic but free and easy to use.
• Relax - quality referral tracking, thanks to Web Professor

Yes, there are probably many more tools available, and I’m sure some of them are even good. In this case, however, there are lots of CRAPPY tools that I’m always amazed that people have spent money on. Many of the web analytics packages are slow and clunky and don’t really assist with running a business (no wonder so many websites STILL don’t use their statistics more effectively). If you have a package that you’re adamant about (and are not a company rep or someone trying to use your affiliate code) please let me know.

Critical aspects to consider when purchasing Web Analytics Software

Speed of reporting
If I have to wait 5 minutes (or even 2 minutes) for my report it is too long. Initial parsing time is fine, but keep it snappy. Most times, statistical data is needed to backup a brainstorm. Waiting is not very conducive to good creative thinking.

Breadth and depth of reporting - Make it scalable but not overwhelming
You don’t need to know that record cleaning fluid doesn’t sell to Poland on Canadian leap year if you’re a record shop in NYC. You definitely CAN go overkill with setting up your stats packages. Try to start with a scalable product that will cover lots of areas of your statistical needs. Focus on the statistics that will HELP YOU TO IMPROVE ROI. Try to break out each area of your marketing campaigns when possible to get the best and most accurate return on ad spend for each.

Accuracy of reporting
Does the package track visits from your company netowork’s IP address (where everyone’s default start page is your homepage)? How does it determine “unique visitors”? Does it count search spiders and bots as visitors? Every stats package handles things differently, so if you change packages it is important to understand the data interpretation discrepencies, otherwise you might have BIG trouble when going to interpret the data to your BOSS (of course you could look like the HERO if you do it the right way).

Ease of use - Keep the learning curve low
Many people may potentially have to use the program. Probably at least several people should. They all need to know how to use and interpret the data. When a program is difficult to use, or difficult to remember it is very frustrating and counterproductive. You have 73 other things to do, pick a package that is going to make your life quicker and easier.

Know what you need
Your website technology architecture will play a role in which package you pick. I like LAMP myself because it’s less expensive and reliable. Linux/Apache/MySQL/Pearl - PHP - Python. Find out your web platform and how compatible all your elements are. Strategically reducing retrofittings saves lives.

Best Website Statistic Tracking and Logging Resources:

• Which stats package is right for you?
• How to track visitors
• Referral strings - most suspect data on the net
• Stat recognition - valuable information
• How do you improve ROI
• The difference between “above the line” and “below the line” tracking
• Run Webalizer on a local machine
• Tracking and Logging forum at WMW
• ROI and Tracking forum at SEW

Tags: Search Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, SEO Tools, Analytics, Project Management, Web Stats, Business

Redirects, Url-rewriting, changing and moving sites, and purchasing new sites are all hot topics in the world of SEO. These are things that you don’t want to make too many mistakes on, so you have better know them well even if you can’t necessarily do them yourself. A mistake in this area can wipe out months or even years of hard work very quickly. They can also make a huge difference if understood and applied correctly. I am constantly asked questions about redirects, and constantly trying to improve my own understanding of the subject. For these reasons I have put together what I found to be the best information for a “Redirect Knowledgebase”.

There’s a lot more out there than this, but I’m sure if you’re lookin’ for redirect info, you can dig the web a bit.

• 301’s and site age
• Redirects for fun and profit
• Redirecting non-www to www version of your site
• Warning against 301’s
• Re-branding vs. Re-sandboxing
• Revisiting hijacking and redirects
• Guide to applying redirects in Apache
• Lost in Google…after 301
• Google 301 club
• Will a 301′d site get re-sandboxed?
• Cleaning up canonical redirects

Try out the URL rewriting tools along with all that tasty 301 deliciousness.

Despite being unsolicited, good e-mail link requests still *do* exist. Their not easy to do, because any webmaster with sites in the top 1000 for ANYTHING is tired of gettin’ arelis generated garbage requests that go out to everyone elese in the top 1000. Make your e-mails personal and relevant, and use the techniques that you can to get better conversion rates.

This makes it more difficult to write a good request that will have a likelihood for success. Crafting e-mails for successful link request conversion is an art and science like increasing conversions on a website.

I got the first VERY good request for a link that I’ve received in quite a while from someone that I didn’t know. I am going to republish the request with the permission of the author below. I’ve added a bit of insight of exactly what he did right, and a few things he may have done a bit better (or just different) below the mail.

It’s HARD to get good links, but if you do it right it can be done. If you’re gonna fish for lunkers, be sure to sharpen your hooks.

Example of a Good Link Request E-mail

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