The Key to Beating Google’s Next Algorithm Change

If you’ve been reading my blog, or follow what’s new in the world of Google you’ve probably stumbled upon a recent revelation by Google’s Matt Cutts stating that Google is at this very moment in the process of updating their algorithm to potentially penalize over-optimized websites. The side note introduced at a Q&A session at SXSW has sent waves of panic through the SEO industry, some of which has spilled over to savvy website owners now wondering “just what the hell is going to happen to my website.”

I’ve fielded quite a few emails and phone calls from distressed webmasters wondering if I have any insight into the pending changes.

First, let me say that I have no idea what the changes are, nor do I know what the consequences are going to be to my site, your site, or any other site on the internet. No one does. In fact, if someone claims they have a “connection” in Google or are privy to insider information they’re selling you an ice cold bottle of snake oil. Trust me, it doesn’t go down smooth. Like any other Google update, the SEO and web marketing community is going to have to wait until the update takes effect before we can start adjusting our practices as a whole.

Which leads me to my second point; Stop worrying (especially if you’re a CookWheelwright customer). When Cutt’s made his announcement he was responding to a question by a seminar attendee regarding how small businesses can compete with enormous SEO budgets online. The question was really framed around the value of content and relevance. So too was Cutt’s response. I’m willing to bet that this next update will affect only ten percent of websites and applies specifically to websites that are pushing spammy SEO (SpamEO as we’ve coined it at CookWheelwright) over quality content. If you’ve been practicing black hat SEO tactics or have all but ignored the elements of user experience, content strategy, and relevance on your site while pumping up your SEO to unparalleled levels, than yes, you’re probably in for a rough few months. But webmasters and SEOs running those types of campaigns already know they’re going to struggle with every search engine update. When you choose to build your campaigns around fighting the search engines you’re going to have to anticipate the counterpunch.

Will the next Google update deliver a knockout punch to spammy SEOs?

If you’re a small business or webmaster who wants to keep your site optimized and ranking well, but you’re not willing to go out on a limb to do it, you’re probably going to have only minor adjustments to your overall campaign with each update. No one, change will end your online presence. The reason is, “good SEO” doesn’t fight against Google’s goals. It compliments them. Google wants the most relevant web pages listed first in their results. But crawling millions of sites every time a search query is performed is a difficult task for anyone. Good SEO practices are like placing a giant neon sign above your website. It helps your site to maintain visibility and help improve the Googlebots task of crawling and evaluating your site. The key to Good SEO is combining it with clean design, strong content, and focusing on user experience first. Do this and no update will ever kill off your online presence.

The bottom line is Google is going to update, bad SEOs are going to pout, but the marketers who focus on really taking care of their campaigns are going to win out in the long run. Don’t waste time and money trying to cheat the search engines today… build a strong online platform and your site will always weather the SEO storm.

Google to Penalize Overdone SEO

Sometimes all it takes is one great question to change the world. For SEOs, that question came up during a recent Q&A panel with Google’s Matt Cutts and Bing’s Duane Forrester, and moderated by Danny Sullivan of searchengineland.com at this month’s SXSW conference. About fifteen minutes into the session a webmaster approached the mic and simply asked, “What are you guys doing to help mom and pop type websites with quality content compete with inferior websites that are spending thousands (often tens of thousands) a month on SEO?” The reply sent shock waves throughout the industry.

Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Search Spam department, immediately jumped in and announced that Google is not only aware of and concerned with the problem, but has been actively working on a solution to penalize what Cutt’s referred to as “overly optimized” sites. Cutts added that this is Google’s direct attempt to level the playing field. Here is the transcript:

What about the people optimizing really hard and doing a lot of SEO. We don’t normally pre-announce changes but there is something we are working in the last few months and hope to release it in the next months or few weeks. We are trying to level the playing field a bit. All those people doing, for lack of a better word, over optimization or overly SEO – versus those making great content and great site. We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect. We have several engineers on my team working on this right now.

As you might expect, the news set the industry afire and a large number of my colleagues have spent the past week cursing Google in panic. But if you listen to the rest of the audio transcript (available here) you’ll find out why quality search engine marketers and website owners who have been investing in SEO shouldn’t be afraid.

Spammy SEO Beware: Google is coming For you!

Here’s my take.

Over-optimization, which I’m going to refer to as Spammy SEO (or SpamEO for short) has never been viewed as a good thing. In theory SEO should be about helping your website to become more accessible, more searchable, and improve the user experience on your page. Good SEO has never been about manipulating your way to the top. Unfortunately, too many SEOs started seeing big paydays in quick shortcuts and the industry largely followed suit to the point that now the bad guys outnumber the good 2 to 1. For a large percentage of webmasters this means you either need to get in line or you’re going to get left behind. Google’s announced algorithm update could help reverse that trend and put the industry back in a position where focusing on your customers experience can, and will, be every internet marketers top priority.

While bad SEO might help drive traffic, it rarely helps increase revenue – largely because bad SEO encourages companies to ignore their human users and focus on manipulating search software instead. Think about it, when’s the last time your SEO agency told you to drop link building until you shore up the content on your page. When’s the last time an SEO ran an A/B split test to measure click thrus and site penetration? Have you ever read a keyword stuffed piece from an article farm and said “Gee that was a good use of my time.”?

If Google gets their update right, focusing on the customer won’t be an afterthought, it will be the endgame. SEOs will be forced to restructure their model focusing more heavily on marketing websites through quality and relevant content and driving the user experience in both the internet and social worlds. And online businesses will see tangible results.

If you don’t believe me, I encourage you to listen to the entire 45 minute transcript. Both Matt Cutts of Google and Duane Forrester of Bing answer several questions by suggesting webmasters focus on relevance, user experience, and what Forrester calls “social engagement” to help improve their traffic rankings and increase the number of visitors to their site. For small businesses that demand a return on every dollar they invest online, this is good news indeed.

If you would like more information on search marketing and user experience shoot me an email or visit my company at http://www.CookWheelwrightGroup.com.

Jayson Bailey is a 12 year marketing veteran and the co-founder and current CMO of CookWheelwright Marketing.

Your Small Business Needs Facebook

I recently had a conversation with a client where the topic turned to social media. “Jayson,” he said, “Facebook is great and all, but it’s just not for us. I don’t feel like our target audience is there, and even if they are they’re more interested in viewing photos of their family members across the country or playing games. Besides, our goal is to get our audience to our website where we have the control.”

Ouch. Unfortunately my client made two assumptions about social media that could have killed his business. The sad part is that they’re not uncommon assumptions and every day plenty of small business owners miss out on marketing to an audience 800 million users strong because they think Facebook is only for sending messages and killing time.

Fatal Mistake #1: “Our target demographic isn’t on Facebook.”

This statement is even expanded regularly to say, “Our target demographic isn’t online.” But, numbers don’t lie and the reality is that unless you’re servicing a very specific niche market or trade, your customers are already on Facebook – and if you’re not, you’re missing out on an audience of 800 million and growing.

Many business owners believe that Facebook is a medium driven almost entirely by teens and college age students. While Facebook may have its roots in providing social networking to college students today’s Facebook is far from the simple social networking site Zuckerberg and company originally conceptualized. Here are some powerful statistics small business marketers should consider:

• 51% of Facebook users are over the age of 30.
• 53% of Facebook users report an annual income exceeding $57,000 per year.
• 40% of Facebook users follow a particular brand’s page
• 51% of those who follow a brand say they have purchased from that brand as a result of Facebook.

Still think Facebook is just for kids and entertainment?

Fatal Mistake #2: “On our website, we have the control.”

Control is an area where marketers have struggled adapting to social media as a medium. To those marketers I say, “Time to shift your thought process.” Today’s web2.0 driven consumers have not only seized control; they’ve reshaped the marketing and advertising industry. Messages are no longer “pushed” to an audience, instead your audience is now “pulling” the messages they choose and spreading them for you. For savvy small business owners/marketers this creates an enormous opportunity to develop a loyal following of brand ambassadors who essentially do your marketing for you. As small business owners we all realize the value of a referral – Facebook consumers are literally your online referral source. Engage them and take care of them and they’ll spread your message further than even the most powerful advertising campaign could.

Additionally, for marketers seeking “control” over the user experience, Facebook is actually an excellent medium. For one, Facebook users spend a great deal of time on the social network. Statistics report that the 41% Facebook users log into their profiles daily and Facebook reports that their average user stays logged in for 55 minutes per visit. That equates to nearly 30 hours per month online. Why am I citing this? Because it goes to show you that Facebook users like the interface, they’re comfortable with it and it’s proving that they prefer to engage brands via this portal.

Furthermore Facebook offers a variety of features that allow you to target your specific audience on their site. From in page apps to targeted advertising features, marketing on Facebook can be a powerful tool. If your number one goal is to capture leads, why force your customers through another step by directing off Facebook (which they love) and to your site (which they are likely unsure of). If you use Facebook for no other reason – think of it as the world’s largest leads capture site and plan your company’s Facebook presence accordingly.

This post wasn’t intended to explain how to market on Facebook. Instead, I simply wanted to take a moment to dispel the common myth that Facebook isn’t for everyone. It is. You wouldn’t walk away from 800 Million customers lining up at your office door… Instead, embrace Facebook for what it is and understand that no matter what your businesses goals are, Facebook can be an excellent medium to help reach your audience and market your company.

Want more information on social media marketing, visit the CookWheelwright facebook page for advice, updates, and resources on the world of online marketing.

Why LinkedIn Should Be In Your Social Media Strategy

Add LinkedIn to your social media platform following this suggestions

There’s a reason LinkedIn should be one of the most important components of your social media marketing platform. Unlike most social media channels, LinkedIn isn’t based in the realm of entertainment. Instead, LinkedIn stands alone as a true business oriented social media channel. This provides an instant built in audience for business to business users that platforms like Facebook and Twitter can’t deliver.

But maybe, like plenty of other marketers, you don’t believe that LinkedIn offers enough bang for your marketing buck. You might be surprised. According to my colleagues at Top Rank Marketing LinkedIn has a membership base 60 million strong. In addition a new member joins every 60 seconds and just about every CEO of every Fortune level corporation has a LinkedIn account. Considering these are all B2B accounts – that’s a lot of marketing juice.

But there’s a bigger reason than targeted volume why you should be marketing on LinkedIn. As every successful business person knows, the best leads are the ones that come from people you know and trust. I’m talking about referrals. Referral marketing has always been the lifeblood of small business sales and in a world of online business LinkedIn becomes a valuable resource for leveraging contacts and garnering referrals.

Here’s are some tips to leverage your LinkedIn account.

1. Cast a wide net. Connect with anyone and everyone you’ve done business with in the past. Even if you’re afraid they won’t remember you – it never hurts to reach out, and who knows maybe they do remember you and will be excited to reconnect.

2. Ask for recommendations. This is one of those features that is unique to LinkedIn and a powerful business tool. Ask your most loyal customers to add a recommendation on your profile, the more other people advocate for you – the better the message resonates.

3. Join groups and offer your expertise for free. You don’t have to give away the farm, but it never hurts to let the customers sample an ice cold glass of milk. LinkedIn groups are tight-knit and you’ll find if you engage and contribute you’ll not only develop a number of new prospect relationships, you’ll probably connect with a few like minded individuals in your industry with whom you can build strategic partnerships.

This exact scenario happened to my wife on one of her LinkedIn groups. She began communicating with a direct competitor of ours in her group. Eventually a project came along that they didn’t have the infrastructure or skill set to handle, and her LinkedIn buddy called and offered it to our company – point blank! Her justification, through their interaction on LinkedIn she knew we’d do right by her customer.

There are a number of reasons LinkedIn should be an essential part of your social media marketing strategy. If you are a B2B marketer looking to strengthen your portfolio don’t write LinkedIn off. Instead dust off that url, hit that submit password reset button, and start connecting with the only social media audience built entirely around professional B2B relationships.

3 Things Brand Marketers Need To Know About Facebook Timeline

A few weeks ago Facebook launched its most ambitious update to date. By now you’ve probably already seen Facebook’s new Timeline feature in action, but you might be skeptical to adopt it yourself. If so, I’m sorry to tell you you’re living on borrowed time. Timeline goes mandatory on March 30th and the best advice I can give brands looking to market on Facebook now is to start preparing. In that spirit, here are 3 things you need to know about Timeline for brands.

Say hello to cover photos... and other changes with Facebook Timeline feature.

1. Say Goodbye to Landing Pages

One of the favorite features of Facebook for marketers has always been the ability to create custom landing pages using iFrames or Facebook Markup Language. Sorry marketers, but landing pages are a thing of the past. I’m just guessing here, but my assumption is that landing pages are gone as a result of Facebook’s directive to keep all their content within the network.

The lack of landing pages will undoubtedly force most social media marketers to revisit their Facebook platform. A lot of marketers preferred landing pages for lead capture and enjoyed the flexibility and level of control they offered. Going forward, Timelines will be the only option for landing pages which means optimizing the effectiveness of your main page becomes paramount.

2. Say Hello to Cover Photos

What Facebook taketh, Facebook giveth… One nice advantage to Timeline is the new cover photo element. The cover photo is really just a 851 x 315 canvas billboard for you to optimize. You should really put some serious time and thought into this space because it’s going to be the first thing your visitors see and set the tone for your social media presence.

By all accounts Facebook has been trying to tie up what they perceive as lost revenue due to free advertising opportunities with brand pages, and yet they offer marketers this giant billboard to promote their company. I’m sure I’m not the only one puzzled by the move. That being said, I’m excited to see what my colleagues come up with for the space.

However, marketers can’t expect free reign with cover photos. Early adopters should be especially careful of what messages they’re putting up there. According to Facebook’s official Timeline rules cover photos can not contain:

• Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
• Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section
• References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
• Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”

Basically Facebook doesn’t want you using cover photos to step on the advertising toes of the company, nor do they want visitors confused between paid/sponsored advertisements and free features.

3. Just Pin It

One feature I think marketers will grow to love about Timeline is the option to pin posts to the top of your brand page. Think about it, one big downside to Facebook for brands is the rate at which information on this site cycles. Users don’t want to drill down through pages of content to get what they need. For someone with 100 or more friends, posts can get pushed to the bottom of their feed quickly. The new pin option is great for keeping information in front of your audience’s eyes. This allows brand marketers to keep their viewers attention on the issues that are most important to them. Have a contest running all month? Don’t spend hours reposting the same information daily, instead just pin it to your page. Just won a big industry award? Show it off to the world for more than a couple of hours by pinning that sucker front and center.

These are just 3 changes marketers need to know about Facebook Timeline. Stay tuned for an in depth examination of Timeline later this month.

5 Reasons Your SEO Campaign Will Fail

These 5 mistakes will ensure your SEO fails!

Truth be told, I spend a lot of my time talking with clients about why most SEO campaigns fail. It may sound weird for an online marketer to say such but it’s true none-the-less. And it’s not just do it yourself SEO campaigns that bite the dust, a large percentage of “expert” SEO campaigns crash and burn before they ever leave the ground. Why? Because SEO in and of itself is largely comprised of “shoulds.”

What do I mean? The success of most SEO campaigns is predicated on the concept that SEO should ultimately result in increased revenue. More specifically, a good SEO campaign should improve a website’s rankings in the search engines. Improved rankings should equate to more traffic to the website. That increased traffic should create more leads, and ultimately those additional leads should become paying customers. That’s a lot of shoulds, and if you really break it down it all equates to a lot of areas where your SEO campaign can break down and fail.

Here are 5 areas your SEO campaign can fail:

1. Taking a One Size Fits All Approach

I hate SEOs who prepackage SEO services and offer cookie cutter approaches to all of their clients. At its core SEO is still marketing and no professional marketer in his right mind has or would ever tell their client that they can deliver results without knowing anything about that customers business, competitors, or market. Imagine an advertising agency pitching the same exact commercial concept to United Airlines, Pepsi, and the neighborhood corner market. Its pure insanity and yet SEOs do it all the time – offering the same packages over and over again. These SEOs aren’t offering marketing – they’re offering a place for you to deposit that money they think is burning a hole in your pocket.

I’m not saying that all package deals are bad. In fact, at CookWheelwright we’ve run package promos incorporating SEO before and we’ll probably do it again. However, my problem is with prepackaged SEOs that essentially promise the same results to everyone, regardless of competition. Any marketer worth their weight in salt will tell you that the amount you need to spend on SEO is largely dependent on the competition in your industry. Trying to cram your SEO campaign into a one size fits all mold is simply setting your campaign up for disaster.

2. Targeting Obscure Keywords

Keyword targeting is possibly the most important aspect of a successful SEO campaign. Choosing the right keywords can be the difference between thousands of leads and a handful. Most small businesses can’t afford to compete for the top keyword rankings, but too often they are encouraged to target keywords that drive little to no relevant traffic to their website. Too many times I see SEOs go after what they perceive as low hanging fruit when in reality it’s nothing more than dead wood. Just because a keyword is easy, doesn’t mean it’s worthwhile for the customer. Too many times SEOs will target these keywords to help bolster their results and justify their budgets.

My advice to small businesses is to stop focusing on rankings and instead focus on the traffic volumes contained in your monthly analytics reports. By focusing on traffic you can effectively skip one of those “shoulds” and place more ownership on your SEO to deliver real-quantifiable results.

3. Focusing The Campaign on Off Page Optimization

There are two main categories to SEO, on-page and off-page optimization. While on-page is all the elements contained within your website that contribute to the rankings, off-page is all the external elements Google takes into consideration. Off-page optimization is much easier to perform and historically generates a quicker response in the search engine rankings. As a result many SEOs focus most all their attention off-page.

The problem with focusing on off-page optimization first and foremost is that even if you succeed, you fail. I liken it to opening a storefront, putting up eye catching neon signage, and placing billboards around town but forgetting to stock the shelves. Sure, people are probably going to show up, but what are they going to do once they get there?

A strong SEO campaign should focus first on building the core strengths of the website. This includes ensuring that the right meta-tags are in place and the content on the page is easy for the search engines to crawl and index. When you build a house you start with the foundation, building a website is no different; start with the on-page elements before you add the windows and doors.

4. Writing for Robots

Another area where the shoulds usually fail is when SEOs advocate writing content for the search engines. Your website has two different types of visitors, crawlers (software) and people (liveware). Too many times SEOs get caught up in manipulating content for the crawlers and forget their natural audience. Content written specifically for robots is unnatural and confusing, and leaving your visitors confused and unhappy is a sure way to see your site bounce rates rocket.

Web content should be written with the customer’s needs first. Your keyword strategy should look and feel natural in the body of the text. There should be a clear call to action and the content should be pleasant and engaging. Manipulating the search engines by alienating your audience is simply cutting off your nose to spite your face. Don’t let your SEO talk you into focusing your content strategy on the search engines alone – make sure your content strategy reflects the overall marketing strategy and message you convey in all your marketing pieces.

5. Short Sighted Goals

It’s difficult being a small business. You are often required to do infinitely more with infinitely less time and resources. These demands often put small business marketers in a situation where they can’t or won’t wait for results. Unfortunately this “need results now or else” mentality is the number #1 results killer for most SEO campaigns. SEO is not a short term marketing strategy. It’s a long term venture that requires a steady hand and consistent dedication. The average SEO campaign will not see results for 3-6 months. However, many small businesses evaluate their success in 30 day terms. If they don’t see immediate results they pull the plug or start making drastic changes to the campaign.

You don’t want to enter a workhorse in the Kentucky Derby and you don’t want to enter a quarter horse in a marathon. If you’re in a position where you need immediate results, SEO probably isn’t for you. If you can’t spend six months organically building your website traffic you might be better off undertaking a more traditional outbound marketing strategy like email marketing or paid search (PPC). These types of campaigns are designed to provide immediate short term results – albeit at a much higher cost per acquisition than long term inbound strategies.

Take care to avoid these 5 common SEO mistakes or instead of talking about how you campaign should generate this much return you’ll find yourself taking about how it would have generated that much return if only someone on your team had avoided one or more of these pitfalls.

Why You Can’t Trust SEO Guarantees

Every time I hear a prospective client ask, “Do you guarantee rankings?” I cringe.

In fact, every time this question pops up my brain starts reciting lines from 90s movies… “Why do they put a guarantee on the box? Because they know all they sold you was a guaranteed piece of shit. Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I’ve got spare time.” SEO guarantees aren’t any different.

Why do bad SEOs make ridiculous guarantees? Cuz they know all they sold you was a guaranteed piece of...

Some SEOs will even forgo payment until they’ve achieved their goals. To many small business owners this seems like a win-win situation. Either the SEO delivers or the website owner gets to keep their money. The catch is in the fine print. Don’t fall for this trick. In reality they’re simply targeting obscure keywords that generate little to know traffic.

I’m sure I could rank my blog #1 for “Alligator Skin Moccasins,” but that’s largely because no one is searching for that phrase. Low competition key phrases usually mean low search volumes. Beware of SEOs that focus on long tail keywords with little or no traffic volume. It’s a dead giveaway that the SEO you’re working with is only interested in their objectives and has little concern for your business’s welfare.

Every once in a while an SEO will guarantee you top position rankings for a relatively competitive keyword. If this happens to you, run! While just about anyone can rank for low competition keywords, ranking for high competition key phrases takes a considerable amount of time, effort, and of course money. If someone claims they can get you on page one or guarantee you a position in a short time frame or for a highly competitive keyword you can almost be certain their strategy involves “blackhat” techniques.

Blackhat is a term for SEO strategies that violate Google’s terms and conditions. These types of strategies include things like placing white text on a white background to trick the search engine spiders into thinking your webpage has more valuable content than it does, keyword stuffing, and paid back-links (deceitfully paying other websites to link to your site to bolster authority). The problem with blackhat tactics is that if the tactic is uncovered your business is the one that will suffer the consequences. Is one week at the top of Google worth having your website permanently banned from Google’s search results?

No SEO can really guarantee you rankings. While you might have visions of guarantee fairies running around in your head, it’s just as likely the guarantee fairy is a crazy glue sniffer… I’ve seen it a hundred times (Tommy Boy). SEO is a long term marketing process and if you’re desperate for immediate short term results your money would be better spent on paid search. The bottom line is if a company claims they can guarantee you specific ranking positions your best bet is to turn and run. In the end it will save you a lot of time and heartache.