Aaron Wall, author of the popular SEOBook, is wondering if he should change his business model:

“As the field of SEO has grown and my share of voice has grown I have attracted far too many wankers….“

More specifically:

  “The people buying PPC stuff are already looking to spend money, but many of the people who are attracted to SEO are attracted to it because they are lazy, want a free ride, and refuse to add any value to the world around them. This is exactly why the target market for a PPC book is so much nicer than the target market for an SEO Book.“

Hit the nail on the head there, Aaron.

SEO does need a budget, and does need to be thought of within a sales/marketing framework in order to work well, but too often, SEO is perceived as a free quick fix.

It’s neither, of course, but that perception is widespread.
I, for one, would like to see Aaron do a regularly updated book on PPC.

Linkbait if I ever saw it, but what the hey:

“SEO folks are going wild–as expected. 90% of SEO (yes, I made that % up) is going to end soon as a practice because Google/Yahoo/MSN and the other search engines are going to need to eliminate it in order to maintain the integrity of their indexes. This is just the first step“

Meh.

They’ve been trying that for years. The changes the search engines make tend to take out the lightweights, but it’s impossible, and not cost effective, to stop the determined. The harder they push, the more stealth SEO becomes.

The search engines also can’t risk going in too hard, as  many SEO firms convince clients to spend up large on PPC.

One of the most useful SEO tools is your server log file.

Here’s a useful technique combining keyword research with on-topic content. The aim is to generate more traffic from search engines, and to create your own personalized keyword research tool.

1. Ensure you’re tracking referral at the keyword level. Most stats packages do this, but if you don’t have this functionality, drop your existing stats package and get one that does. Google Analytics has this functionality, and is available free.
2. Make a list of all the keyword terms people have used to find your site in the past.
3. Take this list and extrapolate using semantic variations of the keyword terms. You can use commercially available research tools like Wordtracker (free section here). You can also use Google’s free Adwords research tool. Also try a Thesaurus.
4. Use this list as a guideline for new topics. Try to create a page for each of the more popular or most relevant terms.
5. Repeat.
6. Watch traffic skyrocket.

This simple strategy helps create your own highly-focused keyword research tool. You’ll also cast a huge net by adding more on-topic content. Lastly, your site content will reflect what keywords your visitors are actually searching for, as opposed to what terms you imagine they’re searching for.

Often, web design theory has got it backwards.

A web site is often conceived as an entity which reflects the company who publishes the web site. A mission statement, given form. The reality is that people don’t care about mission statements, they care about seeing their own reflection. Or “it’s not about you, it’s about me”.

In no environment is this more true than on the web. The web is a two way communication medium, and the control of that communication, unlike, say, a film, rests not with the director, but with the user. The back button is only ever a click away.

For this reason, web design that places too much emphasis on what the publisher wants to say is doomed to irrelevance. The publisher does not have the upper hand when it comes to controlling the flow of web communication, yet a lot of web design theory assumes this as a given, mostly because web design is based on print publishing.

What are the most successful computer applications? Email. Word processing. Spreadsheets, Games. What are the most successful web sites? Amazon, Ebay, Google, MySpace. The history of computing is all about user-centric empowerment.

The way to do web design is to base design around users, specifically their wants and desires. People’s wants and desires should drive the design process, and structures imposed for other reasons will be less successful. This goes beyond usability. Web design should be, fundamentally, about listening to and addressing people’s problems.

This is where SEO-centric web design comes in.

As many SEOs know, people are broadcasting their needs and problems. Every second. They are using keyword queries in search engines to tell the search engine what they need. We can “listen” to these needs by using keyword research tools.

Once we discover the language people are using to describe their needs, we can then build pages, architectures and copy, using their language , and addressing their problems, thereby creating a website that is an accurate reflection of the people who will use the site.

For example, a search engine doesn’t see hierarchy, and most users don’t care about it. Every page is effectively a “home page”. Once people land on a page, they are at the start of the funnel which should quickly and effortlessly lead to desired action, which is the point at which you meet their needs. “Desired action” is often defined in terms of the desires of the publisher, but it’s even more useful to view it in terms of the desires of the visitor.

At this point, some readers will surely be thinking “but people don’t come to my site via search engines”. It doesn’t matter. The site should address people’s problems, and search engines reveal the language people use to do define and frame their problems. Web designers should not ignore this valuable information. Rather, this information should be integrated into the design process.

It is a Google centric web. Google achieved this feat by placing the user first.

SEO should be at the heart of the design process, not something bolted on at the end.

As I’ve been saying, I think Google have been placing emphasis on domains lately, as opposed to pages.

It’s not so much that the domain name itself is tagged with authority, but if the domain contains enough pages that are deemed authoritative, then it can be assumed that other pages on the domain are also highly likely to be authoritative, even if the authority of those pages hasn’t been individually calculated yet.

It’s like trusting someone who has given you good advice in the past is likely to give you good advice in the present. That assumption may not be true, but it is a reasonable assumption to make, especially if you are unable to check credibility by other means, at the time.

It makes sense for Google to turn up this dial. It’s very hard to fake factors such as the longevity and influence of a web site, both factors which Google would surely see as markers of quality. Not saying that older domains are of higher quality by virtue of being older, but if you combine age with influence, then you’d have a useful metric. A new domain could also do well, so long as demonstrates a high degree of influence.

All conjecture, of course

Jason is “feeling the love” of SEO.

 ”Looks like Neil is doing an OK job so far of increasing the search traffic to Calacanis.com over the past two weeks. He’s only been able to push about 10% of the changes he wants to do…but the results are solid so far: a 21% increase according to Niel.“

Jason makes some good points: is he getting real ROI, is this just a quick hit, will this be sustainable, and aren’t other ways of promotion more effective.

They’re all true, but present something of a false dichotomy. SEO is not redundant because there are other options available. If you use only one method of promotion, SEO or otherwise, then you’re probably not going to last very long. There is long time ROI of SEO. We’ve all seen it. It all depends on how it is done.

It’s the theme of this post on Scoreboard Media. The question is this: if you can get sites ranked, why would you do it for clients? Wouldn’t you just put your own sites up, and make money by advertising, affiliate, lead generation, build-to-sell etc?

I wondered about those two good questions back when I had clients. I couldn’t come up with a good answer. So, I bit the bullet, stopped taking on SEO clients, and dedicated myself to my own projects. And writing. That was a few years ago. It has worked well for me.

However, I can see valid reasons why some people would stick with clients on a consultancy basis:

• Social aspect
• Cash now, not later.
• You get to see how others do business
• There’s still money in it
• There’s a chance advertising companies might wake up, and start acquiring search marketing firms.
• Income security

Anything else? Why do you have clients?

If you’ve ever thought about going the no-client route, read the post. Also “The First Question You Should Ask Your SEO Consultant”

I wrote a brief seo course for beginners last week. Those posts are now ranked #7 in Google for the keyword term “SEO Course”, and for a variety of other related phrases.

Remarkably clever piece of SEO? Nah. Just demonstrates the truism “it’s not what you publish, it’s where”. Or “Content isn’t king, popularity is”.

Domain reputation is just about everything in SEO in 2007. Once you’ve got a trusted domain, it’s very easy to rank well in Google. Building up that level of trust, i.e. an aged domain with strong inbounds, takes time, of course.

How to get there? If you haven’t seen this before, have a read of Mike Grehan’s “Filthy Linking Rich“.

“The problem being that Google repeatedly returns “currently popular” pages at the top of the results and ignores newer pages which are not so densely connected. Therefore it is inherently biased against “unknown” pages.“

That’s why SEOs talk a lot more about social marketing these days, and a lot less about keyword density.

What “obsession” with eye-tracking data?

Clickz:  All too often, SEO professionals become consumed with finding the one puzzle piece that fits perfectly. Result? They lose focus on the entire puzzle. The obsession with eye-tracking data is no exception..

Eye tracking data is useful. However, I’ve yet to meet anyone in SEO who is “obsessed” with it, to the exclusion of other aspects of the craft. Obsession with self-promotion, using a multitude of straw man arguments, appears to be on the increase, however

It is true that successful search marketing campaigns require a mix of strategies. I’m curious as to why Shari is singling out – of all things – eye tracking data? After all, eye tracking data is not exactly hot SEO topic #1 on blogs, in forums, at conferences, or anywhere else.

Most SEOs I know are (healthily) obsessed with conversions…

Every so often I hear an idealist talk about ranking without links. Evidently Google has the ability to algorithmically determine what is quality content and what is not.

(I, too, believe they have that ability, I just believe they look at linkage to determine what is quality and what isn’t.)

It is disturbing, however, when I hear SEO’s talking this way. SEO’s should know better. I personally think that most SEO’s who refuse to acknowledge the dominance of links in the algorithm are refusing to acknowledge that obvious fact because they themselves are unable to build links. I look at it as a kind of wishful thinking. They wish that links weren’t the primary factor, and believe that if they say it enough, it might just become true.

Psychology aside, let me address the claim of ranking without links.

So far in my forum dwelling years, I’ve encountered several claims of ranking without linkage. Upon investigation, they all fall into three types:

The algorithm today is based on a kind of trust, or authority. That authority is established through inbound links, outbound linking and age. So links are just as vital today as they were 4 years ago. Perhaps more so.