3 Awesome Now Provided Report Features

1. Identifies keyword opportunities (with data to support them)
2. Provides long tail keyword information at the page level
3. Sortable by bounce rate to identify weak landing pages (great for panda problems)

The good folks over at Authoritylabs have come up with a solution to one of the many headaches that plague the world of SEO.  Not Provided was without question one of the biggest curveballs in the life of an SEO.  Many marketing “professionals” have been touting “ignore keywords” as a solution to this problem.  To this point, it was really about the only solution, as most of the workarounds, if any, were pretty terrible at best.

Brian has written about how to unlock keyword opportunities, and Tori demonstrates how to authorize analytics to pull in the data.

Tracking keywords has always been a source of contention, as well as a staple of any good SEO software.  SE’s have always frowned on automated rank tracking, so it makes it a tricky tool to maintain.  Keyword level information has always been valuable, and it seems it’s becoming harder to come by these days.

The folks at AuthorityLabs have been tackling this problem head-on, and this new feature has definitely helped add them to my essential toolset for client reporting.  Identifying opportunities in the page 2-5 area is the staple of most good SEO campaigns.  I’ve said for years you really have to “choose your battles” wisely with regards the keywords that you target.

The team at AuthorityLabs has been building and improving their software, and this feature saves time and trouble in nearly any SEO campaign.   It’s mainly a combination of google analytics, SEMRush Data, and their own application interface at the page level to provide a useful report that helps to improve and consolidate your page’s content.

The report is incredibly useful and automated once it is setup.  Find and identify keywords sitting in the “sweet spots” where you can bump them up with on-page optimization and better user engagement.  You only need Google Analytics and AuthorityLabs to take back your keywords with this wonderful report.

With the example below, you can see that one of our blog posts ranks for blackfin tuna.  It’s a fishing tips article that could easily be improved to include more consolidated information about this species as well as more than tips.  We might want to add a call to action for a specialized tuna trip, or beef up the content with photos and video to achieve a longer time on site from users.

You can see that these phrases could be beneficial to our business goals (booking more fishing trips) with some effort on the page ranking for these terms.  This is a high value term to our business, despite it being “long tail” and low in search volume.  We can also see the similar phrases to get some ideas for content expansion.

Take back your page level keyword data with the “Now Provided” report at AuthorityLabs.  You’ll get some wonderful (and incredibly reliable and accurate) rank tracking information along with it.

The post 3 Simple Reasons AuthorityLabs “Now Provided” Report is Awesome appeared first on .

Most SEO folks I know would probably be better served calling themselves a “website mechanic” – offering diagnostic information and recommendations is a critical part of staying relevant to organic search.  Understanding the best tools at your disposal and being able to create actionable high value tasks from that information is the important human layer that even the best marketing automation software will always struggle to replicate.  Sometimes half the battle is knowing the right questions to ask.

Last month I offered a webinar through Market Motive called SEO Workshop: Site Audits Part 1, The Ultimate Optimization Checklist. I have taken 50 of the 100+ audit questions and tools I discussed in the webinar and created the list for you below.  The remainder of those questions will be made available to MM students, and attendees of this month’s free webinar.

Feel the Pain! Site Audits Part 2 with Annie Cushing

Date: Tue, July 23
Time: 2pm EST / 11am PST

Join us to hear Annie give you a multitude of suggestions on how to make your website better.  This one is not to be missed (heck, I even did a blog post to tell you about it! :)  There are a few special documents (the extra questions below, as well as an amazing structured site audit template document from Annie) that will only be released to MarketMotive Members and folks who attend.

Keywords

1. What are the Key Performance Indicator’s (KPI’s)
2. What are the keywords being targeted?
   Semrush.com / Raven Research Central / GWT: Optimization > Content Keywords
3. Keyword rankings?
   Authority Labs / Moz – Rank Tracker / SEMRush / SEO Book free rank tracker

Site Index

1. How many pages are indexed?
   Google site: command combinations

Domain information

1. What type of platform?
   BuiltWith.com
2. Domain authority/ offsite equity?
   Moz – Open Site  / Raven Research Central Quality tool / Majestic
3. What is home page quality? Vs. competitors’ home page quality?
   Raven Research Central Quality tool
4. How difficult will it be to obtain rankings for desired keywords?
   Moz – Keyword Difficulty
5. www vs. non-www setting?
   Can Change in GWT: Configuration > Settings
6. Are there other sites, domains, subdomains?
   DomainTools.com

Keywords

1. What are the main short tail terms being targeted?  What are some longer tail phrases being targeted?
   SEMRush, Soovle, Ubersuggest, Wordstream
2. How competitive are these phrases?
   Moz – Keyword Difficulty
3. Which competitors are competing for these phrases?
   Raven – Site Auditor / Majestic SEO Site Comarator / Open Site Explorer
4. How specific are they to these targeted keywords?
   Internet Marketing Ninjas Optimization Tool

Content

1. Are keywords in content?
   Internet Marketing Ninjas Optimization Tool / Moz – On Page Grader
2. Top pages with authority?
   Moz – Open Site Explorer
3. Meta-tags vs. content – do they work together?
   Internet Marketing Ninjas Optimization Tool
4. Page to page content keywords and meta comparison.
   Internet Marketing Ninjas  Side-by-Side SEO Comparison Tool
5. Is any of the content plagiarized?
   Plagiarism Checker / Copyscape.com
6. Which keyword phrases are informational and could be used for content development?
   Topsy.com / Soovle.com

Duplicate Content

Off-site – Copyscape.com

Google “quotes” search or site: search

1. Is there duplicate versions of the homepage?
2. Is there easily identifiable duplicate content?
   Raven Site Auditor 
3. Could Rel=prev/next be used? Should rel=canonical be used?
4. Is there content blocked with robots.txt 
   Raven Site Auditor

Meta Elements 

1. Are the page specific meta tags in place?
2. Or are their identical title-tags and meta descriptions?
   GWT / Raven Site Auditor
3. Are they properly descriptive?
4. Are the main keyword phrases included?
5. Is the length too long or short? 70 characters for Title-Tag and 160 for description?
   GWT
6. Proper grammar and spelling?
   Grammar.ly
7. Is Schema Data being used?
   Schema-Creator.org

Social Signals

1. Does the site have social shares?
   Topsy.com / SocialMentions.com / BackTweets.com
2. Is authorship being claimed with Google+?
   G structured data testing tool
3. Had the brand identity been claimed with other social sites?
   Knowem.com
4. Is the site optimized for social?
   Knowem social optimizer 

Image Optimization

1. Are there broken Images?
   Raven Site Auditor or Research Central
2. Is alt text being used on the images?
   Raven Site Auditor
3. Are the images hot linked anywhere? Images optimized for size/speed?
   Raven Site Auditor – Images
4. Is anyone stealing your images
   Tineye.com

Site Architecture

1. Is the site structure easy to follow and use?
   Bing’s Webmaster Tools Index Explorer
2. Are they using hyphens as word separators?
3. Are there Rel Prev/Next link elements set up for paginated pages?
4. Does the site have an XML sitemap? Does the site have an HTML sitemap?
5. What does the Robots.txt file tell you? Noindex/nofollow? www.example.com/robots.txt
6. What level are pages viewed by a search spider?
   ScreamingFrog

Penalties

1. Are there any penalties or historical drops in traffic?
   Panguin Tool

Site Speed

1. How fast is the website?
   Google page speed insights
2. What pagespeed score elements can be improved?
   Raven Site Auditor
3. Is caching enabled?
   YSLOW / Firebug
4. Headers  –
   Internet Marketing Ninjas Header Checker  / Urivalet.com 

…and 5 more questions…

Internal Linking

….3 more questions…

Offsite

1. External links to domain?
   Moz – Open Site Explorer / Raven- Backlink Explorer / Webmaster Tools
2. Anchor text distribution?
   ReverseInternet.com / Moz – Open Site Explorer / LinkResearchTools.com
3. What is the quantity of inbound links?
   Moz – Open Site Explorer
4. Quality of inbound links?
   Moz – Open Site Explorer / LinkResearchTools.com
5. Links to individual pages?
   Raven – Research Central / Moz – Open Site Explorer
6. Site/ Author Social clout or impact?
   Klout.com

Offsite – Competition

1. Who are the top 5 competitors?
   Raven Competitor Manager
2. What type of anchor text are they using?
   Moz – Open Site Explorer / ReverseInternet.com
3. Do they have microsites?
   ReverseInternet.com

Offsite – Backlink Profile Health

1. How many links are nofollowed?
   Moz – Open Site Explorer
2. How many links are 301 redirects?
   Moz – Open Site Explorer
3. Are there too many sitewide links?
   ahrefs.com

• Craziest Audit Checklist on the Internet – Annie Cushing
• THE Ultimate List of SEO Bookmarklets
• How To Perform A SEO Audit – includes free template
• How to Perform a Complete SEO Audit for Your Website
• World’s Greatest SEO Audit by Steve Webb
• Site Audits: Deliverables, Follow Up, and Implementation
• The 60 Minute SEO Site Audit
• Chris Cemper’s Site Audit tools
• 25 Killer Combos for Google’s Site: Operator
• Technical Site Audit Checklist
• 71 Technical Factors For Backlink Analysis (From 30 Link Building Experts) – Part 2
• 5 SEO Audit Considerations For Publishers & News Sites
• SEO Audit Checklist 
• Danny Dover’s audit checklist (has some great samples in his book as well)
• [Infographic] Google’s 200 Ranking Factors

Remember to sign up for the free Webinar: Feel the Pain! Site Audits Part 2 with Annie Cushing on Tuesday, July 23,  2pm EST / 11am PST to get the extra questions and Annie’s template.

The post 50+ SEO Audit Questions
and the Tools to Answer Them appeared first on .

The truth is, there are tons and tons of great tools out there available at free or close to free. The only way to really know what will work well for you is to test them. I’ve long been a fan of SocialMention.com for getting a quick overview of the conversation and of Google Alerts for getting quick and easy updates on new spidered social content.

The problem is these still don’t give you a full picture. You need to also spend time learning about the tools that apply directly to your channels of choice. For instance, I’m currently a big fan of the service Pin Alert. This services allows you to get immediate (or digest) email alerts each time someone pins content from your domain to Pinterest. Even better, you can set up alerts for competitive sites, giving you the chance to see what content is playing well on those sites.

I’m also loving the new Facebook Insight data that allows you to see the organic, paid and viral reach of each of the posts from your Facebook Page. Being able to look at posts to see what percentage of your audience viewed them, and gaining an understanding of what is performing well is HUGE on that site and it doesn’t cost you a dime.

Finally, I think it’s very much worth the cost of investing in a tool like Trackur for reputation management. The chance to get a dashboard interface for keeping tabs on what’s being said about your company or brand is HUGE.

2. What things do you suggest to website owners to make their site appear more credible?

That’s an excellent question and one that’s really hard to answer in a concrete fashion. Clearly things like good design, solid usability and quality offerings are high on the “duh factor” list for this. From the social media side of things, it’s all about transparency and honesty. The best way to be credible in social media is to be transparent. Tell people who you are, tell them why you are talking about a topic, event or product and let them know the pros and the cons. People are looking for authenticity…and when they find it combined with a topic that interests them, they tend to embrace it.

 3. What social signals should be most important to an SEO?

I’ve always looked at SEO from the “Pinocchio Effect” perspective. The basic premiss here is that search algorithms want to be “a real boy.” In other words, they want to judge content in the way a human being can. When we look at social signals from the human perspective, we value things content from within our social networks. We place more value on the opinion of the Twitter user who’s links we’ve clicked and enjoyed in the past. We have more interested in the updates coming from the Facebook brands we frequently engage with. We piggyback off the connections we’ve made in social media to reach new connections with shared interest. In my opinion, the search engines will continue to look for the ways to overlay our interest graphs with the social graph while factoring in links and semantic context. Whenever Google or Facebook figures out how to properly overlay all of that content to give us search results that are heavily (and accurately) influenced by our own social activities, we’re going to reach a very different stage of the search game. For now the best bet is to focus on quality content, building strong networks and reaching out to influential members of your vertical.

There are a few methods I really find to work well…but the biggest thing I can tell people is to learn how to Daisy Chain. Running advanced searches on Twitter, searching through blog posts on Google or Technorati, even searching through LinkedIn Groups or Pinterest Boards can work very well. So much of it really depends on what your vertical is. I’m going to hunt for an influential paper crafter in a very different way than I’m going to hunt down a research scientist. The starter methods vary wildly…but once you make first contact with a handful of people, it’s all about the Daisy Chain.

What I mean by this is influential people usually interact with other influential people. So once you find a few, it’s a matter of seeing who they blog about, who they tweet to, who they interact with on LinkedIn, who they pin, etc.  If I can find 2-3 people “the hard way,” I can usually end up with a solid list of 15-20, even 50 people after using the daisy chain method.

Be ready and committed to hard work, VERY hard work. It’s not just enough to really know what you’re talking about. It’s not even just enough to be a surpurb communicator who excels at sharing knowledge. You also have to be able to pull off being ubiquitous. That means long hours writing blog posts, researching content, sharing on social media channels and so on.

The most influential people you see on social media are the ones who are willing to put an extra 10,15 or even 20 hour a week in ON TOP of their standard work schedules. Very, VERY rare is the influencer who works a light week. There are benefits to being that influencer, but it’s also important to ask yourself WHY you want to be an influencer and what the time to benefit ratio looks like for you.

4. What elements are important to creating a credible outreach email to a blogger?

Oooh, this is one of my favorite topics…mostly because so many people do it SO very wrong. The single biggest mistake people make is sending out mass emails. I really don’t care if you try to personalize them with an automated email program. Any blogger or influencer worth their salt can spot an automated email a mile a way. Take the time to write a personalized message to a single person and send that. Make it clear the message is unique to them by being personal (but not creepy) in your wording. Ideally, you’ll have reached out to them via Twitter, their blog or on another social media channel and they’ll already recognize your name. Finally, make sure you are making a concrete request that benefits both you AND the person you are pitching. Simply asking someone to “check out my new blog when you get a chance” is not a way to get something done. Asking them to take a look at and consider sharing a new infographic you created, or inviting them to attend a webinar you are planning on Topic X is a concrete request. If pitched to the right person, it is also a request that can benefit the person you are pitching as much as yourself. What it really boils down to is respecting the person enough to invest time in them and ONLY reaching out when you can really offer something of value.

5. What tools or tactics would you suggest for proactively managing reputation online?

Tool wise, I think it’s always important to have a reputation monitoring solution in place. Whether that’s as simple as utilizing Google Alerts or as complex as using a paid service like Trackur or Radian6, it’s important for every brand to be able to get the heads up when someone is talking about them. Beyond that, it’s about fostering the right mindset within your company. Companies that are open to the idea that they can improve things tend to flourish when embracing social media. They see the conversation not as criticism from angry ranters, but as opportunity to correct things that might not be going as well as they could. When we see companies approaching social media from this standpoint, we see large and loyal hoards of evangelists rise up to follow them. Every company makes mistakes and most people understand this. Foster an environment where employees can (and do) fess up to mistakes and actively reach out to correct the situation. Then make sure your environment also allows you to figure out how to avoid the same problem in the future. People just want to be heard. It’s my belief that 95% of online rants could be almost immediately diffused with a genuine “Oh no! We’re so sorry that happened, let’s talk about how we can resolve the problem.”

Pinterest opens the doors to social media in a new way for companies. Most forms of social media require a company to focus on content creation. With Pinterest, there’s the potential to build a name for yourself (and even your products) as a content curator. Big difference there…less time, less expense, less staff…but still a great chance to really impact your business. (Taking a look at how greek yogurt brand Chobani utilizes Pinterest is a great example of this.)

If you’d asked this five years ago, I probably would have said to scrap most of what you think you know and focus on getting a really great internship at a great online marketing agency so you can actually learn what you need to know. J

These days, I’m seeing more colleges and universities putting together great programs, so I think there’s much more potential for them to hit the ground running. That said, I think some of the best advice I ever heard for marketers was to always make sure you have a “hobby” site of your own to work on. There’s a very different perspective that comes with working on a project you are invested in, not to mention having your own site gives you a safe place to experiment without risking damage to a client site.

I’d also encourage them to walk the line between broad knowledge and specializing. Gone are the days where anyone can realistically be an expert in “all things social media” or “all things search related.” The playing field is just too large. What they CAN do is have a solid understanding of say SEO with a specialization in local search or have a solid understanding of social media with a specialization in reputation management or Facebook.

I’m not saying they can’t be an effective broad level marketer, I’m just saying it’s really important to add some really high knowledge focus to help give them a leg up over everyone else.

There aren’t many sites that I visit on a frequent basis, I prefer to go hunting for specific details as I need them or checking out the links shared by sources I trust on Twitter and Facebook. That said, I do visit SearchEngineLand.com and MarketingLand.com on a fairly regular basis. I also check in to Mashable pretty frequently for high level news and to AllFacebook.com to keep up on the revolving door of changing features there.

The post Interview w/ Jennifer Evans Cario on Pinterest and Social Media appeared first on .

First, don’t reinvent the wheel. Spend the most amount of time looking at the software you are going to use to produce your site. Look for a good off-the-shelf Content Management System (CMS). Almost all of the modern CMS’s contain good URL layout structure with associated keyword usage by design. Those packages and their design features are well understood by the search engines.

For the actual nuts-and-bolts layout of the site, I would think in terms of the classic Theme Pyramid. I wrote the highly cited guide article on Theme Pyramids. It is an in-depth at how to layout your site’s topicalized content in a logical manner that the search engine are comfortable indexing. It is even more appropriate today than it was 12 years ago when it was written.

2.     What are the most common duplicate content problems?

The classic is with people wanting to deliver localized content for different local destinations. Someone wanting to target a local market, while that local content looks surprisingly similar to the local content for a neighboring city they produce. The moral is, that you content has to be unique down to the paragraph level. Google will spot duplicate content at the sentence level, but if it is not in relation to the rest of the article, you will be ok.

3.     What are the best tools for designing information architecture?

Let the cms system do it for you. Just arrange your content on a bullet point outline levels and transpose that into a theme pyramid. Tools are not going to help you come up with the right keyword layout – only you can do that.

4.     What are the most common website indexation mistakes?

Basing too much of your sites life on Google. As we have seen this year, it is obvious to those of us in the business, that over all search engine referrals are continuing to decline. There is no reason that trend isn’t going to continue. I think the biggest “indexing” mistake, is putting an over reliance on indexing in the first place. My rule-of-thumb, is to spend 4 fold the amount of time on “not search” traffic acquisition as on SEO.

Lastly, I think SEO is now to the point, where it makes sense to look at a good outside SEO agency for support.  The bigger firms clearly have an expertise in SEO that SMB’s or midsize corps can’t match.

5.     What SEO strategies did you use on WMW for the best possible indexation?

WebmasterWorld was the basis of the Theme Pyramid article. We hit “sections”, “categories”, and then “forums”, keyword content. By looking at the bread crumb navigation (which SE’s love love love), it is easy to see how a classic Pyramid is structured.

We are going to be doing more regional day conferences. We find that the smaller shows have the opportunity to bring a local audience that may never have been to a conference before.

What should we expect from WMW in the future?

I think it is all good. One of the main reasons I actually decided to sell the company was Jim Boykins committment to the site and community. I have zero doubt that the site has a strong future.

8.  What is your favorite thing about working with SEO and marketing folks for the last 10+ years?

I enjoy the fact that we have all become ‘early adopters’. Knowing what is going on in Tech and with the Search Engines is not a option – it is a requirement. That leads us to see trends long before others see trends. For example, we were on Facebook long before it was clear that Facebook was going to go mainstream. Same with Twitter, Pinterest, and other services. I think it has helped us to run better businesses.

We tend to be too quick to take what the search engines say as Gospel. For example; the label “spam” came from search engines (there is no spam, there are only poor quality search results). That has happened alot of times over the years. It also tasks me that so many SEO’s only see SEO as a viable means of site traffic.

9. If your niece, nephew, cousin, uncle, etc wanted to learn about online marketing, what would you suggest to them as starting points?

There are several good books out there. I have not seen a real bad one. The key is to read everything you can. Out of that, will come consensus and an action plan.  Scott Stratten’s “UnMarketing,” Kristopher Jones’ “SEO Visual Blueprint,” Chris Goward’s “You Should Test That,” Marty Weintraub’s “Complete Social Media Manager’s Guide,” and Krista Neher’s “Visual Social Media Marketing” are just a few good examples. The key is to read everything you can. Out of that, will come consensus and an action plan.

Additional Resources:

• Aaron interviews Brett
• Charities Brett Supports

Images courtesy of:

• Andy Beal 
• GSinc

The post Interview w/ Brett Tabke, CEO Pubcon on IA and Site Organization appeared first on .

• You need reliable hooks and good bait
• You have to understand the climate/ weather
• A great team catches together
• If you want quality, it takes time and practice
• Experience is the best teacher
• Strategy evolves with experience

I’ve even went as far as to build the “P.E.S.C.A.R Process” for teaching link building at MarketMotive. PESCAR is Spanish for “to fish”, as well as a handy acronym for teaching these concepts:

• Process Strategy
• Equity Education
• Site Prospecting Strategy
• Competitive Backlink Analysis
• Approach Assessment
• Relationship Building and Tools

A Guide to Getting Links: Part 1-7

Others have agreed with me that link building is, indeed, like fishing.

• The Power if Using Lists For Link Building
• The Top 6 Link Baiting Rules for Dummies
• 3 Ways Customer Optimization is a Lot Like Fishing and Vice-Versa
• Why Customer Acquisition Is Like Fishing & Other Online Marketing Musings by Streko

I think you can even make a pretty fair argument that the term “linkbaiting” comes from an analogy based in fishing. Unfortunately, webmasters don’t really like to be compared to fish (or other hunted animals for that matter), so the analogy sometimes comes off mildly offensive (my apologies).

There have been lots of analogies and metaphors used by SEO’s over the years to describe and teach link building, and often one is about dating.

• I’ve compared it in the past to picking up women.
• As did the beautiful and talented NinjaJen – who did it first: The Art of Getting a Links
• “Dude a nofollow link is like going on a date and getting the “lets be friends” line on the doorstep” – Interviews from Pubcon
• Rand said “link building is a lot like dating. Better to earn than to buy”.
  (**I would add that in most cases for both, buying is downright illegal)

A link is like a vote…and Danny thinks the ballot boxes are being stuffed, and that social shares might be the new vote.

A link is like asking to do business…

So what else is link building like? (caution: read at your own risk, some of these analogies are pretty bad!)

Link building is like a game of chess…

• Think
• Research your competitors
• Build up a thought-out strategy
• AND MAKE A MOVE…

Link building is like planting potatoes…

• …simple, boring, and hard work.
• …it’s a process.
• …it’s a process that can be replicated.
• …correct implementation requires the correct methodology
• …past performance does not guarantee future performance.

Link building is like an orchestra…

• …the orchestra needs something to play.
• …more is not always better.
• …1000’s of violins is not an orchestra

Link building is like losing weight…

• …it takes hard work and there are no shortcuts.
• …show up everyday with a consistent work ethic.
• …beware of scammers.
• …you can trick the system, but it won’t last.
• …the end result is worth it.

Link building is like dating… (from @martinibuster)

• …you need to find out where your potential partners hang out

Link building is like investing…

• …you need a diverse portfolio.

Link building is like a rolling snowball…

Link building is like high school…it’s a popularity contest.

I think SugarRae should really get credit for this analogy though…

Link building is like building muscle mass…

Link building is like a box of chocolates…you never know what you’re going to get.

Link building is like giving out your business card…

Link building is like getting laid.

Link building is like spinning plates…

Link building is NOT a walk in the park…

Without question, link building is both an art and a science.

• N00b guide to link building – ahref link building tools
• 101 ways to build link popularity
• ninjas on linkbuilding
• link building guide for noobs
• julie joyce
• pointblank link building resources
• pointblank link strategies
• creative link building
• garrett french
• yoast link building 101
• seomoz link building category
• sphinn link building category
• local link building queries
• rae on link building
• wiep link factors
• justin on linking
• sujan on linking
• SEJ linking
• 47 resources to carry your link building through 2013
• scale your link building
• exit the link building
• link patterns
• twitter link prospecting tool
• 79 link building resources
• 36 broken link building resources
• brokenlinkgbuilding.com
• ultimate list of seo tools via seobook

So what’s your favorite analogy for link building? Link building is like…

The post Link Building Is Like… appeared first on .

As organizations continue to see the value in SEO, many are using agencies or consultants to support those goals, due to lack of strong internal acumen, or simply the resource and time requirements to strategize and implement proper ongoing SEO program. I would split this answer into two categories, but you shouldn’t be afraid to ask from each bucket. Of course many customized questions arise as related to the industry or particular situation. I will assume that the basics will be asked, in terms of SEO processes, focus areas between IT and marketing, and so-forth. Here are 3X3 questions to begin to separate the wheat from the chaff:

What to ask if you are hiring a new agency?

How much time will you allocate to strategy, research, and execution of SEO in relation to the project/account management side?

For some industries – especially those that are regulated or with retail situations where a lot of third party vendors and brands are involved, there is a greater project management time requirement. However you want a commitment to efficiency here in most cases, but should understand that it may take some ramp up time to get into a good groove.

How much experience do you have with our industry?  Please cite examples and discuss some of the ways you creatively developed client relevance and authority.

Pretty cut and dry and will certainly expose true experience versus lack thereof. People in highly competitive markets that are considering using an agency for SEO should try to align with SEOs that have fought the similar battles – there really is no substitute for experience.

Have you ever had any clients banned or penalized by search engines?

Again depending on industry – disclosure of this type of “war scar” may not always be a bad thing. However the answer here should be a resounding “no” in most cases, perhaps coupled with a description of the ongoing volatile nature of organic rankings and how algorithm updates can and in some cases have caused temporary or permanent drops. This type of question I feel is a great trust builder, and is best asked in-person so that body language is evident.

What do you ask if you have an existing agency?

Could you share with me some ways that you are using our paid media results and/or how you are integrating RM, branding, or customer insight data we have shared?

SEO in a bottle will remain exactly that, from both human and search engines’ perspectives. Obviously, if you haven’t been sharing this data with your SEO, or you haven’t made your multiple agencies play nicely and brainstorm together, you cannot ask this question. If the SEO hasn’t asked you for it, it certainly is partially their fault as well.

How can you help us to identify what positive and negative user experiences may be happening with our organic traffic? How can you help improve this?

Any SEO worth their weight in salt these days has to understand that lead quality is important. 3-7 years ago, people just wanted traffic traffic traffic, and for some branding campaigns that still may be the case. However, more traffic without more conversions is the same as getting number one rankings for zero volume terms, and both can be the sign of not-ready-for-prime-time SEO in my opinion.

How is our site technical performance helping or hurting us today, and what can we do to improve?

If you have hired an SEO that fumbles around with this question, then you may have hired a “content marketer” or “link builder” or “social media expert,” thinking they were an SEO. I have long defended my own lack of being able to write full code, but I am also very aware of what goes on in Webmaster Tools and why.

2. What are the pros/cons of an agency versus a consultant?

To be clear I currently have worked and work in both an agency role and a consulting role for Search and Social Media. These are my personal opinions. In a nutshell, if your organization has the people that can be trained both on the IT and marketing sides, to implement and begin to draft their own strategies then a consultant is likely going to be the better value. However, many people overestimate their own teams’ capabilities, and often end up having to outsource additional work that a consultant may recommend, and that an agency would likely have resources to handle.

#1 Agency pro versus consultant: Agencies often have far superior ability to scale projects and take on additional pieces of the workflow, and often are able to leverage cross-industry and vertical experiences to bring highly customized strategies to the table.  Of course, you never know how much work the agency is outsourcing…

#1 Consultant pro versus agency: With one person all the time is directly billable towards work performed on the strategy and brainstorming/iteration, hand holding, and quality assurance after implementation.  Of course, you never know how much work the consultant is outsourcing…

3. What tools do you find indispensable (that aren’t proprietary) for SEO?

Obviously Webmaster Tools from Google and Bing are indispensable. The engines themselves and their advanced search refinements as well as other signals coming from suggest/auto-complete and “related searches,” coupled with a keen strategist’s mind, are remarkably useful.  For enterprise level toolsets that combines many other tools, I have had great experiences working with the BrightEdge tool, and look forward to being able to work with Conductor Searchlight, Sycara, SearchMetrics, and Linkdex at some point in the future.  As for more specialized tools – I like a few of the text browsers and I find URIValet to be an awesome “quick checker” for technical health issues.

What are your favorite wordpress plugins?

I haven’t used these much since not working with a ton of WordPress sites. However I do have client that is using the All in One SEO Pack and given the small size of the site it works fine for me. Based on what numerous friends have told/shown me, I really plan to take the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin for a drive on some upcoming projects.

How has on-site SEO changed in the last 3 years?

Gone is the ability to simply churn out semantically-connected content in a nice hierarchical manner on a Web site in order to drive expanded rankings for long tail and business-crucial keywords. The content-is-king purists will likely yell at this, but the authority signals are moving higher and higher on the totem pole in my broad opinion, and with increasingly complex algorithms that can tell real buzz from bullshit, the content will need real love to work!

What is the future of SEO?

The future of SEO in 20 years is that “baked in” by most developers, content authors/approvers, legal/compliance folks, and other relevant IT and marketing teams tasked with digital and integrated marketing. SEO continues to be affected by personalization, and the more that Google and Bing know about their searchers, the more likely that some sort of luck is going to be required to gain consistent exposure for top revenue- or lead-driving terms.

Planning for the future of SEO means keeping one thing in mind: is it user friendly? (aka:  Do the people that I want to like it and talk about it to their friends/online communities since the content is actually appealing and shareable)

Last image courtesy of Lee Odden of Top Rank Marketing

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1. What traits are most important to an online marketer?

Michael: Traits? You’re looking for voyeristic, cliff jumping geeks.

And I’m assuming you mean personal traits that are essential to being a successful online marketer. First I like to see a fascination with human behavior at a group or individual level, and the ability to influence both.

Say we just sent a persuasive email campaign where we’re testing two of the juiciest, most compelling subject/call to action combos ever written. An online marketer addicted to results will F5 [refresh the online email usage reports] like crazy to see which calls to action pulled the most clicks and which segments are most likely to convert. A marketer who is, by nature, analytical and persuasive is hard to beat.

I remember running the dirt bikes with you a few years ago down at Hollister Hills. You had maybe five hours of riding time, but pushed yourself to compete on the TT track until the bike wiped out underneath you. It’s about taking risks and putting yourself out there in a way that that disrupts the methodical backdrop of the online experience. When you’re on to something hot, there should be thousands of others competing for the same mind share or ‘online eyeballs’. How will you beat them? The top online marketers have the innovation/creative skills to blaze a new trail and the guts to do something audacious.

And “Techno-friendly” is a requirement.  A good online marketer doesn’t have to code, but it is essential to have an understanding of what can and can’t be achieved through code, tools,  and networks. If you don’t know what’s possible, how can you require it?

You remember that slide we built years ago? I’m getting a bit dated on those observations, but they are roughly still the same:

• Genetics Majors =  Great Web Analysts
• Sales = Conversion Optimization
• Bloggers/Twitter/News Fanatics = Social Media
• Accounting/Bookkeepers = PPC Managers
• Project Managers = SEO

So we can map a few out. Back at ClickTracks John Marshall and I observed that Genetics Majors have developed the habit distilling large amounts of data to concise observations or decisions. This closely mirrors the habits that make great web analysts. Successful sales people are often testing different opening lines and closing techniques to see which ones work best. You can see the parallels for the others.

2. What advice would you give a recent college graduate about starting a career in online marketing?

Michael: Make a personal investment in knowing the best practices — what really works. When it’s your own sweat, investment, or reputation out there, the process becomes very real to you.

Michael: From my own experience, a prior personal investment speaks worlds to an employer. This might be a small site, an attempt at ecommerce, enrollment in a class, attending a conference, reading a book cover to cover… anything that shows that the interview itself wasn’t the first trigger for an interest in online marketing.

3. What are the most important considerations for valuation of an online business model?

Michael: If you’re talking about valuation of an online business, then it is little different than valuation models used for most other businesses: Valuation is based on likelihood to generate future revenue/profits.  Valuation of a model is something I’m not qualified to comment on.

Michael: What can I add to the good information already in print?  Perhaps to address the aspect of greed/exclusivity.  Why can NBA starts demand a high paycheck? Exclusivity. Beyond that, the market is emotional and irrational  Individuals are emotional and irrational.  So long vetting processes exist to keep people from making an emotional decision when valuing a company. In the end, any valuation succumbs to what the market will bear.  If there is a rush for .com or education companies, then valuations will soar because the ones who got ahead of the market are by nature, exclusive.

4. What are the most important lessons you’ve learned in running Clicktracks, MarketMotive, and your previous businesses?

Michael: Most of my answers will sound like they are lifted from a  business book: Innovate, invest in people, take risks, keep focused, all that.  All true.   Running a growing company will reveal or amplify your personal strengths and shortcomings.  Learning which to develop, hire around, or force upon the company has been the most challenging.  Find a supporting group of like minded professionals at similar success levels to hash out problems with.

Michael. Ha! I’m SO old school, and am at heart a sales and marketing guy. Feeds? I read each of the Market Motive Faculty and the blogs of the Sales Training Institute faculty.  Books? I loved “Crossing the Chasm” by Geoff Moore back in the 90’s. Steven Schiffman’s sales books were favorites — again back in the 90’s.

5.  What’s the best way to sell a website valued under $1M?

Michael; I’m not qualified to advise here.  I sold brainwavestoys.com for around four times revenue through an ad on Craigslist. That’s about it.

Michael: The potential revenue/profit over four years made it attractive to the buyer.  We were really putting little time/$ investment into the site due to the growth and focus on Market Motive, and the buyer reasoned that if he put in 2x time we did then it would grow even more. The site had a strong history of several years of relevant links and unique content. Even though the new owner didn’t do anything with the site, it maintained a top 10 ranking for “educational toys” for several years after the sale. It’s a shame to see it unchanged from the day we sold it. Perhaps we’ll offer to buy it back and build it up again.

6. Todd: Any last thoughts?

Michael: Over the next years, it won’t be enough to know just one discipline. Tomorrow’s online marketer must understand a combination the disciplines — Social, Search, Conversion, Advertising, Mobile, Content… I’ve gotta say, it is exciting to see the market demand explode for good online marketers. The pay is great and it can be very rewarding… even addictive.

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~82% of all the clicks on search results in engines like Google & Bing go to the unpaid, organic results.

Only ~18% go to paid listings. SEO is the practice of attracting traffic from those unpaid results and involves a massive array of strategies and tactics.

2.     If you had to identify the TOP 10 ranking factors, what would they be?

1. Relevance
2. User Experience
3. Popularity
4. Quality
5. Accessibility
6. Branding/Ubiquity
7. UI/Design
8. Engagement
9. Freshness
10. Speed

3.     What are the most common SEO mistakes?

Nearly all of them revolve around two fundamentally flawed (and often diametrically opposed) core beliefs:
#1 – SEO is about optimizing toward a perfect formula vs. building a great brand and optimizing that brand’s signals to the engines

#2 – SEO will take care of itself if you get the product right

4.     If you were teaching a new college graduate with a degree in marketing how to do SEO, what resources and tools would you point them to first?

I’m biased, but I’d start with the Beginner’s Guide to SEO: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo, then recommend they read and follow the major blogs and news sources in the industry which are reasonably aggregated here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/best-seo-blogs-top-10-sources-to-stay-uptodate and individual posts that show up on http://inbound.org.

If they’re seeking a deeper dive into professional knowledge, I’d recommend http://www.marketmotive.com/ and/or http://www.distilled.net/u/

5. Define quality, relevance, value, and authority.

Quality – a combination of potentially subjective and objective measures of the experience provided by a product or service
Relevance – the degree to which something meets a desired intent
Value – the combination of psychological, physical, financial, or other subjective/objective return(s) provided by a given product or service
Authority – the perceived importance and reliability of a source, often based on historical performance/accuracy, brand association(s), and social proof

See also https://twitter.com/bobrains/status/260874623393091584 :-)

6.     What is the future of SEO?

The practice will continue to exist, but it will be less and less a silo and more of a piece of the broader earned/inbound/organic marketing puzzle. User experience, search, social, content, links, and branding are all connected. The engines are constantly working to make their algorithms reward those who build genuine interest and value across these channels and devalue those who exploit any individual signal.

I think of SEO just like any other facet of marketing – it’s an ongoing, competitive process that requires consistent, diligent effort and solid measurement to determine what’s working vs. not. SEO is also an extremely fast moving and constantly evolving field (even if you’re doing only the most white hat, timeless techniques, there are new opportunities presented by the engines and the marketplace every week!).

We’re definitely planning to maintain a free service similar to what GetListed does today. Long term, though, there’s a team internally (headed up by David Mihm) working on a more substantial subscription product that we hope can help both small business owners and the marketers who serve them to better track and optimize their local campaigns and follow their competition’s activities, similar to what SEOmoz PRO does today.

I feel far less qualified than David to chip in on this one (another reason to love acquisitions – talent that knows the field far better than I!), but I’ll do my best :-)

1. Claimed listings in Google, Bing, and Yelp at a minimum
2. Verification of citations from the major providers (GetListed today works pretty well for this) that the correct address/phone/etc info is displayed
3. A website that’s mobile friendly, fast loading, and provides the critical information consumers look up (stuff like menus, products, hours, phone number, address/map/parking, etc)
4. Listings/citations that are claimed in any of the region-specific portals in your area (for example, in Seattle, The Stranger, Seattle Weekly, and NWSource would all be important)
5. Pay attention to your ratings and reviews on a semi-regular basis – what’s going right and wrong? What needs improvement? What can you do that will encourage more exceptionally positive experiences (and fewer negative ones) so your online reviews move up in quality and quantity?

Yes indeed! We’re planning to launch them at Mozcon July 8, 9, and 10. The project ownership belongs to our head of data science, Dr. Matt Peters, and he’ll be working with Dr. Pete and others on definition and execution. If you have ideas, feel free to send them over!

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General thoughts on website appraisal; TLDR version

Rule #1 – You can’t sell potential.  Take the word out of your vocabulary.  Cringe when you hear it from others.

Selling a website: Selling a website is tough.  Most people can’t even understand how a website works, let alone take over your franken-site.  You need to plan for your sale from day one.  You won’t ever recoup your investment unless you plan for an exit at some point.  There’s no one sitting around with cash willing to pay for “potential” in your creative ideas, or the excessive amount of money you spent on poor development and marketing strategy speculation.

Revenue models:  There’s a handful of ways to make money with a website.  Pick one and stick with it, and don’t be lured by the murky waters of “potential” revenue sources.  Understand the questions a buyer will ask before you even start your site.  Stick to your model.

Valuation: The best way to put a value on a website is multiple of revenue.  No buyer wants “potential”.  Potential is just motivation on top of a valuation – it adds nothing to the valuation.  Understand the fundamentals of valuation.

Most sites currently sell for between 12-36 months of revenue, or a 1-3x annual revenue multiple.  Yes, Instagram got $1B dollars, but you sir, are no instagram. You’ll be lucky to get a 3x multiple – don’t push your luck and learn to plan accordingly if you want to live to build another website another day.

Here’s a nice update to website valuation and building a website you can sell at Quiet Light Brokerage.

Revenue Models are one of the most important considerations of a website – here’s a list to consider.

No current model – Informational or resource site. Most blogs and websites usually start off in this fashion – as a resource site to discuss a specific topic. Most blogs especially start off this way until the blog has developed enough of an audience to begin planning a monetization strategy.

Subscription. Once a blogger or webmaster has attracted a decent amount of regular traffic to their site, they might create very resourceful information and tools that are just to valuable to give away for free. This can then be developed into a subscription based revenue model, where users pay monthly or annually to access these resources.

Advertising. Perhaps the most sought after form of monetizing information on the web, an advertising model can take many different shapes. Most websites start running impression-based or pay-per-click ad systems, or look into affiliate programs to generate revenue, and super-successful sites may eventually partner with specific brands in very profitable ad deals.

Service. Many who run information-based websites usually at some point become known as “experts” in their niche. As their expertise increases, visitors who may need a service performed will hire the blogger or webmaster to perform these duties for them, and thus the website becomes a source of revenue by performing there services.

Lead generation. While similar to advertising, lead generation ties advertising into “service” model by providing leads for other companies, and then getting compensated for generating those leads. So for example instead of performing the service from an inquiry, the website could then hand the lead off to another company that does the work and gets a recruiter fee as the prize.

Product. Finally, the last major business model is also the oldest model in the book – utilizing e-commerce to sell a product. Typically this involves a traditional brick-and-motor company that sells these products in the real world, but could also include a “look ma, no hands” model where the website sells a product that is therein drop-shipped by another company altogether.

Donation. Usually the first step to monetizing a site involves some sort of donation strategy, usually set-up with a Paypal button. Useful if you are providing very resourceful information on a regular basis or providing some sort of open-source software for visitors to download.  Not really a business model, more of a charity model, but it can be a start to generating income for a website.

So now that we understand the types of business models associated with making money off of any given website, we need to delve further into a specific model and find out whether or not it’s actually a solid one. Just because a website can theoretically turn a profit does not mean that it does or will in the future – their still is the business side of it that has to run properly. The following questions are a good starting point when appraising a websites real value.

What is the revenue model? Go through the list of revenue models listed above, and figure out which one applies to a site. Is there more than one model? It’s possible that a site may only have one current model but has the possibility to have additional models (and of course make additional money).

What is the current revenue? This is probably the most important aspect when it comes to finding the real price of a web business. Does the site actually make any money? Sure, a site may have a powerful domain or decent amount of traffic, but is the revenue model actually working?

What is the current profitability? Now it’s time to actually understand the business behind the website. A website may be pulling in lots of cash, but that does not make it profitable. If the costs of doing business are high (i.e. paying employees to generate content, hosting, or product handling/manufacturing) then profits may or may not even exist. You’ll also have to look into how the business is actually structured to see if the behind the scenes processes are affecting the profitability of the site.

What are the current liabilities? In other-wards, what are the things that cost the owner of the business money in order for it to survive? Does the web business have employees? Is there a brick-and-motor side of the business that needs rent and utilities paid every month? And don’t forget hosting – every website has at the very least a hosting liability.

What are the current assets? If liabilities are what cost a web business money, the the businesses assets are what makes it money. For example, a websites email list is considered an asset, as it’s something that is owned by the business and has a proverbial price tag associated with it. Is there some kind of application or tool that belongs to the website that holds some sort of monetary value (i.e. code that could be sold?) Trying to pin down the assets of a given website can be difficult as they are less tangible, but important to assess the value of the business.

What risks are involved with assigning annualized revenue? Basically, knowing what the liabilities and assets are, and whether or not the site is profitable then determining the risk? If the website has low liability, some kind of measurable assets, and is turning a profit, then it would be considered low risk, theoretically. High liability and short profit margins make make for an obvious riskier investment.

What is the value of the industry? This is the one thing that could bite an investor in the ass if not properly understood. Let’s use an example. Let’s say it’s 2003 and you are thinking about purchasing a website that sells CD’s and DVD’s. The site is profitable, liability is low and the email list is huge. Would that have made a good investment? Absolutely not, as those industry’s are dying everyday. So while an investment may seem low risk, if you don’t have the foresight down (and in some cases that might just be your gut), you might be making a mistake. Study the industry, the competition, and know it like the back of your hand.

What is the scope of keywords? Now were getting into some of the SEO aspects of analyzing your potential purchase. The larger the scope of your keywords can possibly be, the more options you have when it comes to generating traffic and leads. A lot of creativity is involved when deciphering your keyword potential. Is it very narrow or very broad? A site that sells fishing supplies, for example, is very broad – you have so many topics to break into (wildlife, nature, boating, etc). One that sells chess boards, not so much.

How many unique keywords are there? Okay, so let’s use the fishing example we discussed above. Now how UNIQUE can these topics be? Well we have a whole ton of specific kinds of fish, styles of boats, brands of fishing rods and so on. The unique keywords we could generate for this topic would be infinite. Again, you have to have a creative mind to really soak up the subject matter and decide how many ways you can spin the content to rank for as many keywords as possible.

Is it a “longtail” or “shorttail” keyword industry? In the fishing example, we have a very “longtail” industry – meaning the keyword itself is very broad. If that were to be the only keyword we wanted/needed to rank for in order for the business to turn a profit, there would be a lot of competition and barrier to entry would be immense. However, because there are so many different types of fishing (spear fishing, for example), content can be geared to these less competitive keywords while still driving valuable traffic.

What is the CPC range of keywords on PPC? When utilizing Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns, it’s important to understand the costs of doing so. Analyzing the Cost-Per-Click can give you a good idea not only of the cost of actually running a campaign (price verses potential profit from visitor generation) but also the competition of the keywords you’re site wants to rank for, which can help in assessing the barrier to entry.

Is there room in the industry for a big competitor? In any business, it’s a dog-eat-dog world. And if you’re a little puppy, chances are there is a big, mean dog out there that will steal your bone at some point. Try to decide whether there is either a larger competitor that already exists that has the resources (or potential resources) to bark louder and drive you out of business.

How many major competitors are established in the industry? A great way to determine if your potential web business is on the ground floor is looking at the competition. Are there competing websites out there? Do you have the resources to compete with them? Competition isn’t always a bad thing, it’s proof that there is a market. Sometimes having NO competition may suggest there is no demand for whatever it is you are selling.

Do any bigger companies have their eyes on the niche? Again, there might not be a big dog in the pound yet, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be one some day. What is a small niche one day can become a very profitable niche for an established brand the next. Do your research and try to dig up information on companies that might be spending money to move into your territory.

What is the Alexa rank? While not the be-all-end all of analyzing a site’s place in the web, taking a quick peek into Alexa, and web monitoring tool that’s been collecting user data since the dinosaurs, can give you some insight as to how well a domain has the potential of doing online, with lots of different metrics that break down a websites Alexa score.

Does the demographic skew the Alexa rank? One of the reasons why an Alexa rank can sometimes be taken with a grain of salt can be related to the demographic; this lies in the fact that Alexa’s rank only figures in data from it’s actual users. So for example if your site has a tech-based demographic then the Alexa stats might be skewed high because many of Alexa’s users also fit into that demographic. If your demographic is say a younger, pre-teen aged one it might not have any data at all simply because they have no idea what the hell Alexa even is.

What is the value of the domain name? This can be an entire discussion all by itself, but let’s summarize, because the value of the domain is very important in terms of SEO. How old is the domain? Are there any existing links, and how valuable are those? Is your keyword located in the domain. Is the extension (.com, .net, .org) a trusted one?

How brand-able/memorable/marketable is the domain? These are factors that can also be considered as part of the “value” of the domain, but on a conceptual level. Can the domain be easily remembered if you told someone at the bar without them having to right down? Does the domain give a clear example of what the website is all about? Or is the domain a “brand-able” word that you can develop into different business opportunities as it grows?

Is there type- in traffic? Most of your traffic efforts are going to revolve around search and social, ranking for keywords and getting people to share links. However, a domain can yield much more value if it already has some kind of type-in traffic, meaning the site is getting traffic directly from someone typing its domain into the browser (which means it has some level of notoriety or is such a common word people just assume to go there).

What is the current traffic level of the site? Obviously a no-brain-er when determining the value of a site. The cost of a web property almost always comes down to it’s traffic level, as if a site doesn’t have any traffic then it’s probably not making any money. The more traffic a site has the more established it probably is. this making it more valuable.

What is the current estimated value per unique user? Any website with a business model for the most part can then figure out the cost of a unique visitor. First you need to determine the conversion rate of the site’s traffic, i.e. the percentage of visitors that come to the site that actually converts into whatever the conversion may be – a purchase or lead, whatever the model may be. If your model is advertising based then you would use average page view data compared with your impression as rate to determine the value of a unique visitor.

Is there any current brand value to the site? When it comes to discussing things like “brand value”, it can be hard to decipher, as a “brand” is often a conceptual or emotional thing. There are tangible, for lack of a better word, aspects to a brand – logo, sales copy, existing notoriety. However, other questions to help assess a brand’s value are “What comes to mind when mentioning the name” or “What emotions are felt when loading the website”. This is where focus groups come into play.

What is the current natural search traffic like? We’ve already mentioned how valuable your traffic is and how it’s a major force in determining the value of a web property. Now you’ll want to break it down and see where that traffic is coming from, what keywords it’s ranking for in which search engines, etc. and analyze it’s current place in regards to search in general.

What is the potential for future search traffic? After the initial analysis of search traffic, you’ll then want to ask yourself how you can increase it and what it’s going to take in order to do so. A good example would be a website is currently ranking highly for a number of keyword phrases, but is stuck on page 3 for a very lucrative one. How much work would you need to give that page a boost and in return significantly generate more traffic?

What is the quality of the search traffic? A-ha! Now were getting somewhere. When we discussed placing the value on a visitor, we discussed the conversion rates, which ultimately lies in the “quality” of search traffic. If the majority of your traffic is coming from places or keywords that really don’t relate to whatever it is your selling, then chances are the quality is low, because your conversion rates will be low. Related referral sites? Very targeted keywords? Higher conversions and quality traffic.

How well does the site convert? We’ve discussed “quality” traffic is traffic that is very target to the material of the site; however, just because the traffic is the there doesn’t necessarily mean that it converts well. Other factors may play a role in whether or not the conversion rate is good, such as sales copy, design, and the actual business model (product or service’s reputation)

What costs would be involved in re-creating the site? Many times when purchasing an existing website, the design, content, or infrastructure may be out of date. In this case you’ll need to decipher how you want to re-create the site and what amount of time and work will go into it. The number of pages/content, whether or not the site currently has a CMS (content management system), a database of content, etc will be your initial steps in determining the costs of a re-design.

What is the level of brand loyalty? Again when we think of the “brand” it may at times be difficult to understand the metrics that determines it’s value. Is there a strong email or social media presence for the brand? Do readers comment regularly on blog posts? Is there some level of recurring usage or product/service purchases from existing customers? Does the site have user data or testimonials to back it up?

Alexa.com
Alexa and it’s popular toolbar has been around since the mid-1990’s, when the Internet really started to come into it’s own. Since then it has been using this toolbar to collect all kinds of data regarding traffic and user statistics of the web and has created a sort of ranking system to determine a site’s popularity on the web.  This is the old stand by tool, but there are better premium tools to appraise search traffic these days.

SEMRush.com
SEMrush is a must have in the search marketer’s premium toolset.  Find out historical ranking and traffic valuation information, and start making some educated guesses on valuation.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool
Adwords is the popular service from Google which let’s webmasters setup PPC campaigns in order to drive relevant traffic. It’s keyword tool offers plenty of insight into a specific market for keyword demand, allows you to see competitors, global and local search data, and give you an idea on the ease or difficulty in trying to break into the top of the search results for a keyword phrase.

SEOBook Keyword Tool
Aaron Wall has put together a number of fantastic tools and services to help you navigate the world of SEO, and one of the most valuable is his Keyword Suggestion Tool. Enter a keyword and you’ll get access to a breakdown of monthly search data about your keyword phrase across a number of different search channels.

Compete.com
Interested in looking a quick snapshot of how your website compares to others in your industry? Compete.com will allows you to quickly compare a website along side others in a similar niche, comparing data such as traffic and engagement metrics, link building opportunities, and analyzing competitor keywords and search strategies.

Google Analytics
You’re not going to get anywhere unless you can analyze the user and traffic data from a website, and you need the right tools in order to do that. Google analytics will be your best bet in determining all the analytical data you can handle, from traffic to keyword sources to even geographical data and more.

ebizvaluation.com
There a ton of so called “website evaluation” tools out there that claim to put a price tag on a website using their so-called analysis; many of these sites inflate the suppossed value to give the website owner some kind of empowered feeling (and so they place a badge on their site claiming it’s worth and giving a link back to the tool). ebizvaluation is a little more in-depth becasue it places the value of a site based on how much other, similar sites have sold for. It was built based on SitePoint.com’s “The Ultimate Site Valuation Guide“.

Calulating the Value of a Business
Managing a business is no different just because you’re on the web – you have to understand the model and it’s financials, and using pen and paper you might make a mistake and throw the whole investment deal off. Using these tools and spreadhseets will give you a better idea of how the financial side of your investment really looks.

Earning Analysis Tools

Be aware that most valuation tools don’t consider all the factors.

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

Content site (no current revenue model) – Value of domain name + value of content + value of backlinks

Considerations – content origination, link stamina (how long will they remain)

• What is the value of the theme industry keyword traffic?
• How will the site be monetized?

Content site (advertising revenue model) –

Future traffic projections and earnings based on past earnings per unique visitor or net income or revenue annual multiples

Considerations – content origination, link stamina (how long will they remain)

• What is the value of the theme industry keyword traffic?
• How will the site be monetized?

Subscription site

Value of current mailing and subscription base – Users + time + trust and ability to adjust to change. Much more easy to monetize than to value.

• What is the loyalty level of the user base?
• What are the current response rates?
• What dependence/ expertise is reliant on current ownership?

Service site

Based more on traditional business valuation

• Will the service scale?
• Will customers remain after change of ownership?
• What are the growth trends in the service sector?

Lead generation site

Lead generation net x time period desired

• Will the lead commissions increase or decrease over time?
• How are leads currently tracked?
• Will the current commission structure remain in place?

Product site

Net sales or profit x time period desired

• How are orders fulfilled?
• Can orders be outsourced or drop shipped?
• Will the fulfillment process remain the same?
• Where is the product stored?
• What is the current inventory?
• How much of the inventory is “stale”?

Revenue. How much money is the website pulling in every year?

Profits. After looking at that revenue, subtract the cost of doing business. How much profit is being made?  Be sure to consider “owner’s discretionary income” – which include the business owner’s “fringe benefits” like a home office expense or automobile depreciation expense.

Earnings per click. What is the conversion rate? How much revenue can be generated from someone clicking on your link or ad and converting into a customer?

Costs per click. Now that you know the earnings of a click, how much can you then afford to spend on a click using PPC and still create revenue?

Site overhead. What are in the costs of doing business. How much does it cost to host the site? Are there programmers or content writers employed to keep the site up to date?

Search rankings. Does the site currently rank for any important keywords, and are those keywords generating traffic?

Stability of search rankings. Just because you currently rank for something doesn’t mean you will tomorrow. How competitive are the rankings and what are your chances of losing them?

Defensibility of search rankings. As with stability, how you are ranking could affect you in the long run. Are your ranking because of some sort of link spam that Google will eventually catch on to, or does the site rank because it had authoritative links? Legitimacy is key for long term ranking.

Size of the site. Pretty self explanatory metric, but how large is the site? We’re not talking about the width of the design, we’re talking about the number of pages. Is there just a few pages of content, or are there thousands? The more content, the more unique keywords the site can possibly rank for.

Unique Content. Now, they’re may be a thousand pages of content on the site, but is it unique? There are plenty of sites that either steal content or re-hash old articles from directories; unique content is very valuable and important when it comes to rankings.

Content Assets. Are there linkable content assets such as widgets, tools, guides, etc.  Will these assets need updates or maintenance?

Current and future revenue potential. Is there enough current revenue to warrant an actual business investment? Even more importantly, can the current business model grow, or can other business models be explored in order to purse additional revenue?

Loyalty of user base and brand loyalty. Is there a community of active users and visitors? Are there recurring purchases or leads from within the current community?

Lifetime value of visitors. Is having a new unique visitor only worth the initial sale or ad impression, or is there value in having that visitor come back for more through the lifetime of the site?

Affiliate relationships. Does the site currently have any affiliate marketing relationships established, and if not, is there a place for possible relationships to be established in the future?

Content creation relationships. How is the sites current content updated? Is there a team of writers and programmers in place that can continue updating the site with fresh content, or will you have to start from scratch and build your own/maintain the site yourself?

Links pointing to the domain. How many links are currently pointing to the domain? Are there enough to possibly affect rankings or will you have to run an aggressive link building campaign to compete?

Unique domains linking in. Out of the number of links you have pointing towards your domain, how many of those are from unique domains? Is the number high or do you have only a large number of links from just a few domains? This greatly affects the value of those links.

.edu and .gov links. Does the site have any incoming links from websites that have the .edu or .gov extention? These links are  valuable in the Google algorithm and have additional authority value to consider.

“Resource value”. At the end of the day, how resourceful is your website in the industry or niche you’re trying to break into? Ask yourself if you were a competitor looking at the site in question if you think the site is worth linking to, as in would your visitors benefit from the resources and information on the site?

Expense considerations for any website purchass 

• Advertising expenses
• Hosting
• Merchant Fees
• Licenses
• Book keeping
• Inventory
• Supplies
• Bank Fees
• Content creation costs
• Contractors
• Payroll
• Other expenses

1. Build an optimized website with a state-of-the art CMS
The first step is actually building the website, and you’ll want to make sure you build is properly from the get-go. Find a legitimate hosting company that can handle a large boost of traffic, use a solid CMS like WordPress or Drupal, and optimize the site out of the box to get ranked in search as you begin to build traffic.

2. Develop a team of content writers and build “legacy” content
Building traffic to your new site is all in the traffic, no matter how you want to look at it. Chances are you’re schedule isn’t open to site around writing blog posts, lists, and articles all day long. Determine the keywords you want to rank for and hire a small team of content writers. Build up your “legacy” content (start with 10-20 killer resourceful articles that will get you attention right off the bat) and continue to offer up killer content on a consistent basis.

3. Begin building an email list and building the brand
At first, you’re only in the game to drive traffic and build your reputation. While you’re waiting to develop your traffic level to the point where you can monetize the site, begin building an email list and RSS subscribers. This will build the brand equity we’ve discussed, and down the road as you build more trust with your list you’ll be able to monetize this as well.

4. Build traffic and links, wash, rinse and repeat.
Your site will never be worth a dime unless you can build sustainable traffic, and that’s going to take lots of hard work and time. Use that team of writers you’ve assembled to crank out valuable content, network with those in the social media world to create some viral campaigns, and develop a link building campaign to keep the momentum going.

5. Explore and develop the site’s business model(s)
We’ve been talking about this all day long at this point, so you should have an idea of where you want to go with your business model even before you start building it. Will their only be one revenue model, or can you incorporate more? Obviously having more then one model leads to a more complex business as far as operations are concerned, but any solid business plan takes advantages of multiple revenue streams to maximize profits.

6. Create and maintain cashflow
Just because you now have a business model in place doesn’t mean you can maintain cashflow – this has to reach a point where month in, month out the site is making some kind of money for any serious buyers to step into the picture. While you’ll still need to focus on growing traffic to up the ante when it comes to the sites potential, you’ll also have to keep in mind other things – conversion mainly (maximizing your current traffic for highest amount of profit generated) and basic business operations (cost cutting, task management) to maintain a solid level on money coming in the door each and every month.

7. Keep good financial statements
This might be the farthest thing from your mind when it comes to running a website, but don’t forget that you’re also running a legitimate business and any buyer worth his salt is going to want to see the numbers. If accounting isn’t your cup of tea, then outsource that to someone who knows how to do this effectively. If your buyer sees that your financial statements are written on napkins, they’ll no doubt pull the plug on a deal in a heartbeat. Who is going to trust a business owner who can’t keep the most important part of operations organized?

8. Create defensible traffic
With all the talk about search being your primary source of traffic, you can’t rely ENTIRELY on it. Search ranking algorithms changes very often, and you have to realize that one day you might for some reason get pulled; if you’re not creating defensible traffic, your business is going down the toilet. Savvy web buyers know this and will look at the traffic to see where it’s coming from. Of course they are going to want to see very solid and competitive search rankings but hopefully, you have traffic coming from other areas – other referrals (links, blogs), social media, and even traditional media efforts (type in traffic).

9. Make the site transitional to a new owner
This little bit of advice is going to provide you (and the new owner) the ability to complete the purchase without too many headaches. Making the site transitional is a must, otherwise both parties will end up wasting too much time trying to figure out where all the pieces fit and the business will suffer. This starts with making sure the hosting can be transferred properly, that the back end business infrastructure will be easily manged by the new owner, that any software that is being used by the current team is transferable – the works.

10. Have strong documentation
Want to know how to make that transition period a breeze? Document everything. Do you have a team of content writers? Document exactly how the creative and technical processes get taken care of. Does the owner need to figure out his or her way around the CMS – document all of this too, with screenshots so the new owner can easily jump right in. How about your research, business development, and other pieces of the puzzle? The more documentation you have on the business could easily seal any deal you’ve got on the table, as it shows you really know what you’re doing and eliminates some of the risk a potential buyer might be worried about making.

11. Stay Focused.
For every idea you add.  Take one off the list.  You don’t have time for everything.

If you want to discuss your website – feel free to drop me a line

The post Building a Website You Can Sell in 2013 appeared first on .

When re-doing my site for the first time in 4 years – I had to get rid of a lot of 404’s.  I also found all my posts to threadwatch.  My buddy Tony Spencer mentioned doing a roundup of some of the favorites.  Enjoy your stroll down memory lane :)

Crucial Skills You Need to be a Good SEO

Most believe SEO is a skill in itself and once mastered can be used to orchestrate successful campaigns, a belief that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Instead, one needs to learn many different sets of skills in order to truly understand SEO.

Directories Started Losing Their Value…8 years ago.

We all know in recent years that the value of link building via directories has dropped significantly, but many act as though this is a new thing. The discussion has been going on for a lot longer then you think.

The Debate Over the Lifespan of SEO as a Profession.

It’s far too clear today that reliance on certain types of SEO practices as your only way to pay the bills can ruin your business when big daddy Google waves his hands and updates the algo. What’s interesting is for how long the “death of SEO” discussion has been taking place (hint:forever).

Yet Another Monster Link Building Post.

They never get old, believe it or not. A nice set of resources to re-visit, and see whether or not these various link building tactics can still be used, are still relevent, or possibly even considered penalties in 2012. Great inspiration for those off-page campaigns.

The War Against Blog Comment Spamming

It’s hard to imagine a time without no-follow links, forcing users to sign in to Facebook or just all together not moderating comments and letting threads run free. Well, at one point spamming was a much bigger issue, and it’s interesting to see how we got to where we are today.

Google Filter 101 Discussion

Anyone who knows their SEO lingo should be able to spout off the standard list of Google filters like they do their ABC’s, but if you need a good introduction this thread has it. Also includes a good discussion about early duplicate content filtering.

Yahoo and MySpace Fight Over Pageviews

I’m only including this here to remind everyone to remain humble, no matter what industry you’re in. These sites were once huge considerations, and now account for a very small percentage of search and social market share.  Even the giants can fall.

Google Decides to Take Us to the Dance

Long before the days of Google celebrity Matt Cutts shooting videos explaining algorithm changes and updates, us SEO folk had to figure it out for ourselves. Here we see Google finally taking PR approach to anckowledging SEO.

Clickstreams Enter the Algorithm

Clickstream and user data has evolved into a large part of the algo.  Here’s some insights as to where it started.

Whiny SEO – Big Brands Will Always Win

Over the years SEO’s have ousted big brands not playing by the rules Google has set forth, only to complain when those brands were not penalized in a harsher manner. Unfortunately these brands ARE relevant to consumers and Google will always have their backs (and Adwords budgets).

Google VS Link Selling Networks

Once links became a commodity that people could profit from, an economy was created. Google has since attempted to crush that economy based on their system of editorial ethics. I’m sure the debate will continue…

No-Follow Leads to Page Sculpting, Headaches

Google’s reaction to blog comment spamming with “no-follow” lead to the idea of page sculpting, where sites would hoard their link equity. Google’s attack on SEO’s was met with an unexpected counter offensive.  The idea of page sculpting has been revisited often, in this case during the no-follow frenzy.

Valid Code Is Not a Factor

If you really want to get a web developer or SEO fired up about “how the search engines” think – this is a great discussion.  Make sure to introduce the ideas of “black hat and white hat” as well.

Truth is it’s likely never been a direct factor, but well written code has a multitude of other benefits that indirectly aid in search rankings.

The Origins Of Social Network/Media Marketing

When MySpace first arrived on the scene it denifnately got “used” by spammy types creating pages for products and brands, never really developing a mature method of advertising options. But the seed was planted that social networks would lead to marketing and advertising opportunities down the road (in other words, Facebook).

You Don’t Have to Blog to be a Decent SEO

One of the problems with this industry is everyone wants to be talked about, wants to be in the SEO spotlight. Yes, blogging can help bring you exposure and business if you know how to create a conversation, but it’s not essential; many of the world’s greatest SEO minds do so without ever writing an article.

Search Engines Are Not Absolute

As much as we optimize and scrutinize the search engine, one must not forget to think about other traffic sources and visitor retention. The search engine is a tool but for marketing, but too much dependance will always cause problems in the long run.

The Mystery of the Sandbox

Once upon a time the “sandbox” was a place new or penalized websites went and couldn’t rank for anything. Purgatory would have been a better nickname, when the God-like Google judged your worth.

The Good Ole’ Days of the Digg Effect

If you got to experience the Digg effect, you know it was fantastic to be able to crush a server with raw social traffic. R.I.P. digg.

Moves Like Jagger

If you think the recent Panda/Penguin/Insert Stupid Algo Name here updates hurt webmasters, know it’s been going on for years. The same sob story about how Google “ruined” a business that didn’t have a solid buinsess model to begin with.

Seth Godin’s Irrelevant Online Ambition

Anyone using or talking about Squidoo today? Didn’t think so. The title of this thread alone spells out what went wrong with seth’s fact site.

Take a Look, It’s in a Book

We can all read blogs and forums until our eyes pop put of our head, but if you’re running a business you need to know the fundamentals of lots of things – finances, economics, marketing (outside of the web). Take the time each month to digest a classic, it will put everything you do online into perspective.

Understanding These Quality Indicators

It’s amazing reading a thread like this that discusses quality indicators (on-page) that people to this very day still do not prioritize. Eight years later and many of these are a playing a big part in how Google views your site.

Lawsuit Over Blog Comments?!

It’s pretty crazy to think that you could get sued over some random person commenting on a blog post you wrote. But it happened!

Judging Your Site’s Link Building Potential

A straight-up simple but killer thread on how to get into the right kind of mindset to get links. Today there are more social factors involved which makes this mindset all the more important.

How to Determine the Cost in Buying or Selling Links

Understanding the metrics and determining why a link is valauble then determines the monetary value.  Public service announcement – don’t buy links!

Public Relations Disasters Can Easily Be Avoided

This thread isn’t about SEO per se but man can we all learn from it. The intial post itself has some great points about creating positive PR opportunites (and how negative ones will blow up in your face and get the other guy a ton of links!)

The Art & Science of the Link Request

A thread about an old post I did, in the heyday of link building the link request is what coined the term “link ninja”. It’s all about getting your foot in the door.

Dealing With Pain in The Ass Clients

I wish this thread was longer – I could write a book about dealing with client demands. If you’re just jumping into SEO I highly suggest learning the ropes of how to explain things to clients (and knowing how to deal with them)

To Be a Great SEO, Be a Great Business Person

Just because you are good at optimizing web pages doesn’t mean you can help a business. Fundamentals of every aspect of business is also required to be a great SEO.

Google Punishments on Link Sellers

One of the more interesting ways Google has tried to penalize webmasters over the years is by putting the handcuffs on a site’s PageRank. It still shows up but the theory is a penalized site won’t pass the juice.

The Dawn of Persoanlized Search

Yes it was the stone age, a time where everyone saw the same search results. Then along came personalized search and things became more complicated.

How the Public Percieves SEO

Even to this very day it’s quite interesting how the public percieves what it is we do. A good discussion every SEO should sit back and have with someone outside of the biz.

Negative SEO is Nothing New

After Penguin hit last year, everyone began crying about the possibility of “negative SEO”. Truth is it’s been around for years in the form of “Google Bowling”.

All Your Enterprise Clients Belong to Google

Once the big G started figuring out they could get more bang for their buck by managing client accounts themselves, they went after the big accounts. Don’t be fooled by their complimentary assistance – they want you to buy more ads!

A Nice Breakdown of an Early Algorithm Patent

Michael Gray aka Graywolf breaks down a patent that still holds up as a good basic understanding of what Google’s looking for. While many new factors exist, this is a nice breakdown that every SEO should know verbetum.

The Wadrobe Choice of an SEO

What color hat do you wear? The distinction between different styles of SEO will continue to be a question clients ask. While black-hat used to get the job done the more Goolge flexes it’s muscle the less their tactics will be effective.

The SEO Game is Getting Harder? Puhleeze!

It’s amazing to think how good we had it back in 2005 – and even then we new the game was getting harder. Those who really paid attention were smart enough to see most of the updates we complain about now coming from a mile away.

User Metrics Again Begin to Surface

It’s funny to read some of the comments in this thread, as we have some doubters here. RSS reader user metrics influencing spam removal? Makes total sense.

Google and Your Brand’s PR Nightmare

Who would have thought that search would result in a major brand’s PR struggle. It happened with one of the most hated companies in the world, so they struck back SEO-style.

Search Engines NOT Hand Checking Results?

Search used to be an automated land of rankings. Then us SEO’s figured out how to play the game and Google had no choice but to hand pick the results in the most competitive verticals.

Hope you enjoyed the post.  Feel free to post your TW favorites in the comments.

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