WDTalk

Reverse SEO? Does it mean – trying to get listed lower in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS)? Of course not! Reverse SEO is interpreted in a couple of ways though.

Some say it’s about – researching your competitor’s SEO efforts – analyzing their title tags, meta description, PR, links to their domain and links to a URL found via a search query for specific keywords or keyword phrases. Does their site have quality, relevant and compelling content? Is it updated regularly? Are they using social media? In short, what separates their sites from your site? This method of SEO emcompasses attempting to emulate success. I use this method daily to analyze what others are doing to rank high in the search engines.

Others believe that – reverse SEO means trying to do damage control. What happens when a search query returns results that are not advantageous to your firm or organization (or you)? Believe it or not, there are companies that will perform online damage control – by attempting to push those unfavorable results down to page 2, 3 or 4 where they won’t be so readily noticed. How? By posting a ton of positive reviews to counter anything negative.

Another take on reverse SEO is – to just not do any SEO. The angle here is to design sites for the users and not for the search engines. This sounds great in theory, but viewing patterns very clearly indicate that you need to be on page one, and the closer to number one, the better.

I read a ton of articles, threads and posts from SEO experts everyday. Why?

Because just like everyone else, I want to increase sales online. For years, SEO practitioners preached a mix of link this and content that, or touted banner advertisements or AdSense ads. Since the onset of search engines, techniques to outwit them to rank higher in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) have basically evolved beyond simply obtaining backlinks, providing lots of content or optimizing keywords and meta tags.

FREE versus Paid Traffic

Organic traffic is traffic you receive from free click-throughs in search engines (not sponsored) – the higher your site ranks, the more traffic you receive, thus higher revenues on the backside. Paid traffic would be traffic obtained via banner ads or programs like AdSense. Bottom line to increase profits – reduce overhead – increase productivity. So how do you make your website more productive without forking out a ton of money on paid advertising?

Google Algorithms Put to the Test
For years, I’ve been reading about how complex Google algorithms were. We’ve witnessed a number of cycles or shifts in how Google analyzes and ranks sites, but if you tie in Google’s history of acquisitions and free tools, their core emphasis (today) lies within three (3) PRIMARY variables – all driven by human activity. Much like Bing, they’ve transitioned from being a search engine to being a decision engine.

So What is this ‘FREE Traffic” Big Secret?
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen the phrase, “Content is King” or “Content is King Kong.” I’ve said this myself in a past life. The real KING today is Organic Search Traffic!! Think about this for a second. What does paid advertising get you – a position on a page with the expectation that being seen at the top of that page will result in a click through to your site.

Viewing Patterns Take Center Stage
Numerous studies have been conducted by leading SEO firms to determine viewing patterns and projected click through patterns over the years. Going back to the early 2000’s, banner advertising worked very well, drawing over a 30% click through rate. When banner advertising fell out of favor, the trend evolved to link building, but a ton of black hat SEO strategies forced Google to revise their algorithms.

So what do today’s viewing patterns tell us about paid ads?
Very simply that organic traffic is growing and paid is declining. Here’s a question for you – when you do a search query on Google, do you read the sponsored ads at the top of the page or the ads on the side bar? Studies have shown that those viewers who do read them is on the decline. Consider this – sponsored ads were only drawing 5% of the click throughs in their prime, and even less now. So where are the other 95% of the click throughs occurring?

The answer is in Google’s organic listings – the FREE ones!! Banner Ads don’t even register and sponsored ads aren’t much better. Currently, paid listings that appear above the organic listings receive only 2 to 3 percent of the available clicks with those on the side receiving a paltry 1 to 2 percent. To verify this, you simply have to use Google’s own internal Traffic Estimator Tool.

Organic Traffic is KING
Not only is organic traffic FREE, but it also receives the majority of all traffic. The first organic listing receives over 40% of the available traffic, while the second, or number two, receives nearly 20%. Let’s say you’re running an AdWords campaign and you’re getting 1000 clicks per day (multiply those clicks by your cost per click – OUCH). Compare that to number one in Google’s organic listing at 40%. Your paid 1000 clicks translate to 8000 FREE organic clicks. And viewing patterns indicate the first ten organic search positions outperform even the number 1 paid ad on the same page. OK, you’re saying that you know it’s important to rank high in SERPS, so how is this a big secret?

What does Google look at today to rank organic listings?
While Google doesn’t divulge their algorithms publicly, they do post recommendations and guidance. We do know they look at content, which is essentially the domain name itself, certain meta tags and so. They still look at links, both inbound and outbound, assigning authority to those links. And this should be no surprise – they look at the human element – activity. This consists of traffic, RSS subscriptions, comments on blogs, updates to your site and so on.

How do today’s algorithms differ from years past?

I think we all remember PageRank. Up until about 2003, Google counted the number of inbound links to a site, applied a ranking score to each (based on quality), and the sites with the most quality inbound links ranked highest.

When Google introduced Adsense, a shift to content ensued. The focus was to create a ton of pages with content – then place Google’s ads on them. When visitors to those websites clicked thru on the ads, Google split the ad revenue with the site owners. What happened?  For a few years, content worked well, but the SERPS began to be overrun with spam. Another shift was incorporated to regain relevancy, going back to a more robust emphasis on links. This was quickly countered with SEO tactics like link wheels, irrelevant comments on do-follow blogs, robotic article rewrites that were posted everywhere linking back to a main website.

Enter Google Current Algorithms
Essentially, Google now rewards activity and freshness, meaning more relevance is given to sites that routinely update their content. They still factor in link juice and volume of relevant content, but human activity (social media) is the prevailing trend across all industries.

Over the years, Google has invested heavily in technology that measures HUMAN ACTIVITY. Think about all the programs and businesses they’ve invested in, many that never turned one penny in profit. Why? As long as SEO practitioners could automate strategies to exploit Google’s algorithms, their rankings and AdSense revenue was diluted.

Going Forward
Consider this – with the addition of FeedBurner, Chrome, Google Analytics, Google’s Toolbar and on and on, user statistics are being sent to Google on a massive scale. Google’s algorithms are updated frequently though – with primary emphasis on traffic. Note – avoid automated programs. Google has garnered a wealth of information about human trends and SEO tactics over the years, and can see through most attempts to exploit their services.

It’s best to create organic websites that are highly relevant to the service or products you offer, then create activity on that site by embracing social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc), incorporating a do-follow blog (moderating comments and disabling spam links), then tweak your site as needed.

If done properly, your website will not (realistically) leap to number one overnight, but will rise in Google’s rankings over the first 30 to 90 days. Back links and quality content are still important, but my recommendation is to emphasize ACTIVITY.

How many of you use landing pages - or do you simply use anchor text hyperlinks that point an existing order page on your site?

The goal of a landing page is - to convert prospects into clients, and that’s best accomplished by designing a specific page that causes a prospect to take action. If you’re sending prospects to your home page, then you’re leaving it up to them to search your site for what they’re really interested in. If you’re selling shared hosting, dedicated servers, web design and a dozen other services, you need to make it as easy as possible for your prospects to get from “point of interest” to “point of purchase.”

A secondary advantage to using landing pages is - that it allows you to easily track the effectiveness of your marketing programs. If you can’t measure your marketing efforts, you certainly can’t effectively manage them.

If you’re using Google Adwords, landing pages are ideal. The same applies for email campaigns and social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others.

Style, font, color theme and white space attributes for landing pages are - no less important than for any other page on your site. What should differ is that your landing pages should be focused, and by that, I mean that links to other pages on your site are a distraction.

As always, a good call to action creates a sense of urgency, either in number of items or days left.

And as every good sales representative knows - you have to ask for the sale, which includes some kind of order icon on your landing page. Split testing has shown that orange converts at a better rate than red, given all other factors remain the same.

As you search the Internet for squeeze page strategies, remember that the rules (Google algorithms) were changed recently, and many once successful one page squeeze pages fell by the wayside. But before I get ahead of myself, what exactly are squeeze pages?

By definition – Once upon a time, squeeze pages were defined as a single web page with the sole purpose of capturing information for follow-up marketing. The ultimate goal of the page was to obtain the visitor’s email address. Why? To build a list of highly targeted prospects (seems fairly simple).

Times have changed – To avoid penalties and drops in SERPS (search engine results pages), squeeze pages are now being designed across multiple pages, each with relevant content. The goal however remains the same – to build a list that affords you the opportunity to present visitors with multiple sales messages over time, develop relationships, and cross-sell other products.

Conversion Strategies – will vary depending on your goal. The best conversion strategies focus on benefits and solutions. These can be either short or long term. Success stories work well, as do freebies – but we need to backtrack again. With the onslaught of spam, convincing anyone to give up their email address means your sales copy has to be compelling and you have to convey trust.

The Trust Factor – is huge, and I contend it’s the most important element of your site. Prospects buy from sales reps, businesses and organizations they know, like and TRUST. So how can you demonstrate trust online?

• Add Your Picture
• Add Your Signature
• Proofread your copy for spelling and grammatical structure
• Have a Privacy Policy
• Use Color Psychology

Successful Squeeze Pages – often use a short video and opt in form at the very top of the home page for visitors who want to sign up immediately, followed by content that essentially explains benefits and solutions in greater detail – with another opt in form at the bottom.

How do you measure quality?
Is it measured in new sales? More traffic to your website or blog?

Controversy
Can you use controversy to increase your sales? This is actually used quite frequently, especially in titles, to draw attention to the intended product or service. Books, magazines, websites, forums and blogs are great at tapping into controversy. Right way – wrong way. What it can do – what it can’t do. What’s expected – what’s not expected. What works -  what doesn’t work.

Marketing vehicles
An example: For blogs to be an effective marketing vehicle, should they be relatively free of sales hype? My take is that even if prospects are searching to buy, they don’t necessarily want to be sold to. Does that make any sense? Prospects are searching for information, about you and your services as they relate to their specific needs. When they take that leap to buy, from you or your competition, what will tip the scale your way?

Content, and lots of it. First and foremost, your content has to be readable. If you write marketing material in long, unbroken blocks of text, 99.9% of your prospects will either fall asleep halfway through your presentation or move on to your competition. And color contrast is HUGE!! Who designs marketing materials with blue text on a purple background?!! Or uses 13 different fonts and point sizes on the same page?

Clarity
I think clarity varies by whatever marketing vehicle you pursue, but there should be a common thread that ties your campaign – rather it’s in terms of ROI, branding or whatever. Marketing campaigns should be a blend of persuasion, advertising, marketing, writing and knowledge in a manner that prompts a CALL TO ACTION.

Does it surprise anyone that over one-fourth of search results – for the world’s largest brands are links to USER generated content? Peer recommendations are the know, like and trust factors that have catapulted social media into mainstream commerce.

In fact, over 75% of consumers trust – peer recommendations while less than 15% trust advertisements. Is it any wonder so many companies have jumped on the bandwagon, branding themselves via Facebook, Twitter and corporate blogs?

To be truly successful in Social Media ventures – you need to ENGAGE your potential customers. It isn’t enough to simply set up a corporate blog and allow comments to your posts. I know I read quite a few blogs and their ensuing comments, and I’m amazed how many readers ask questions that are never answered by the publisher. Where’s the engagement? Not only does your blog need fresh content – you need to field questions in the comments. It’s called dialog. In marketing circles, it’s called MONEY TALKS.

Social Media strategies – are akin to networking strategies. It’s about building your friends’ networks and keeping your profile status updated. It encompasses more than allowing others to write on your Facebook wall – it’s contributing to their success as well. There are potential clients on your friends sites (their sphere of influence) that you could or would never be able to reach on your own.

Quantity versus quality – what works, what doesn’t? Reading Tweets from a user every 30 seconds gets annoying. I’d rather see quality versus quantity, and I bet I’m not alone. I believe social media pays best via meaningful engagement.

You cannot manage what you cannot measure
I stumbled across this phrase as I was reading about managing power consumption in data centers, and it occurred to me that this applies to all facets of business. Of course, some companies take measuring to extremes, right down to how many times their employees visit the restrooms. Yipes! My sister worked for a well known firm in St. Louis that allowed six recorded incidents per year before automatic termination, of those being one minute late punching into the time clock – didn’t matter if you were 20 minutes early 4 of 5 days each week.

What is measureable in business?
In a simple answer – everything is measureable. How you manage those measurements often determine the success of your business.

How does measuring relate to the web hosting industry?
Analytical programs reflect the strengths and weaknesses of our websites. The value we present to our prospects can be reflected in the average length of time visitors remain on our sites, how many unique visitors we attract, the keywords or phrases they used to find our sites, what they clicked through to, whether they bookmarked our site, and countless other measureable queries.

Measurements are done in:

• Customer Satisfaction Surveys
• Profit and Loss Statements
• Balance Sheets
• CPU and RAM Performance
• Network Saturation
• Firewall Analysis
• eCommerce Conversion Ratios

Where I see a need for more attention to measurement in many buinesses

Shows
Analyzing show results and following up (promptly) with everyone who visited your booth. What was their interest – what drew them to you? If there’s any match for your service, set up an appointment to visit their business first (not yours). Let them open up opportunities for you. Showing interest in their business increases the odds that they’ll reciprocate.

Networking Events
Analyzing networking events – instead of just going for the meal and exchange of business cards, work on spreading the word. This essentially means to break away from your group and introduce yourself to other groups at these events. Log every business card and send them a personal, “I’m glad we had the opportunity to meet” postcard or memo. Meet them again for lunch, one-on-one. You’d be amazed how many business decisions are made over lunch.

Everything about your business is measureable
I’ve only scratched the surface here. We could go on about how measurements relate to disaster recovery, network monitoring, load balancing, power consumption, space and bandwidth allotments, and so much more.