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Lani
Actually you are wrong - the Number 1 type of blog that sucks, is this one in particular.
In my opinion, it's a bit pompous for anyone in the marketing industry to sit here and say a certain type of product delivery "sucks" (very poor word for an educated person.) This is the second post by you, that baffles me.
It is not the job of the marketer to determine that something "sucks", it is the job of the marketer to deliver results by providing solutions. Your blog alone will give me enough reasons to ignore the existence of Search Engine Land and Sphinn, your delivery lacks any real solution and leaves the reader feeling upset. Poor judgement.
I look forward to articles on Search Engine Land, because often times they deliver knowledge of the industry that I might have missed over the week. Posts like this one, turn me off completely. It is the blog that goes outside of what is normal that delivers results, doesn't take a genius to figure that out. Heck you don't even have to write these days, and your blog will still deliver. You can avoid Spell Checks and they will still deliver, you can put as many darn links as you want, and they still deliver. Anchor text blogs, point out about 60% of the content on SEL and other well known industry blogs. Your About Jill footer on your post alone is Anchor Text Filled - the irony.
Perhaps I'm mistaken, I do tend to view SEL as a leading website of information for this industry, a pedestal if I may. But a post like this, leaves me wondering, if I should look elsewhere for more honest and professional content.
I tell all my clients, write your Blogs!! If you can't spell, who cares? Not everyone reading can distinguish between necessary and necessarry - not everyone carries around a dictionary to determine if the person can spell or is grammatically efficient. No one sits around and click Spell Check before they read a blog - who cares!!! A blog is about you, who you are, not about some undisclosed person that others should perceive you as. There is nothing wrong with just being yourself, 99% of todays top blogs are people being themselves and delivering results at the same time. There are more multi-millionaires who lack a college degree than there are multi-millionaires in the SEO/SEM industry.
I have a personal blog, where I write just about anything - it doesn't have the biggest traffic in the world. But it's mine, and mine alone - that I can take pride in. I work with bloggers who have some of the highest traffic in their industry, and I am proud of them, because they did it on their own. Not because I told them what sucks, but because I provided them with confidence that they can do it. I have a client who offers the little hover ad links, and last year they were selling membership at $200, in January membership is now at $7500 - should I tell them, you think they suck?
Well, I can't find anything wrong with Goldline Research. They deliver as promised fees if charged are stated on their website, INC has their page ready to run in August - so don't know what to tell ya...
All I can say - is DAYUM! I hope Bruce gets a ton of great Small Business Clients from that listing, cause OMG INC isn't such a bad option for targeting his demographic. (on topic is an amazing concept.)
The argument is highly debatable in other ways.
Case A: Are bloggers blogging about a product they have experienced. This is a trusted source. Expenses covered or not, I've known people to be honest about their experience negative or positive. This is how the real world works. Case B: A blogger lying about their experience. An untrusted source.
This post by Michael is precisely the reason I no longer subscribe to him. He fails to see the reality of how Paid Links can affect the average public and his arguments are so bad and vengeful as if he's deliberately trying to antagonize Matt Cutts. Argue about something sensible and realistic, even a 12 year old could easily tell you the differences between the two cases.
Brad,
Excellent write-up. It's information like this, that I find useful to the community as a whole, and not necessarily the art of SEM or SEO. I utilize three options you've described, I like how you refer to SEM as agencies, which in a sense is in-line to what that specific portion of the industry is. An advertising agency. Just like every Ad Agency, SEM's should pitch ideas and potential results vs experience. Many people disregard this portion of PPC, it is not simply buying keywords, but more about creating emotion by the user to click on these ads. I believe that anyone who sits in front of a potential customer and slides their sales pitch or billing options as "we research keywords for effective PPC" should be shot - literally. PPC is form of advertisement, advertisement is emotional.
PPC should be part of an overall marketing campaign. Online videos etc... Radio is sold on Demographic, TV and Magazines is as well. Newspapers and PPC are sold based on reach first, demographics second. It's why we purchase Google at the highest percentage of budget. In most media (sans-newspaper and PPC), the adopted ad agency commission is either taken from the venue. By providing additional services, to include SEO, Graphics, Video and Social Media - you can negotiate your fee, a general ad agency charges 15% of all paid advertisements, and some add on additional fees for extended services.
I highly recommend a choice of billing options for clients, I utilize the Percentage of Profit (or Sales) option most, which is the most lucrative option for me. I decide how much I want to earn on this option, the more I do to increase leads, the more money I earn. I do everything including, work directly with their sales and management team to increase sales production based on leads generated, whether leads are by phone or online. I'm viewed as a partner and an asset. This option by far, is the greatest profit earned over time, it's taken me 3 years to earn the 6 digit income from one specific client, but that income is based on Sales by the company and not by additional fees, therefore, I am never liability nor do I leave myself in a position to be removed from service. I'm a requirement - I believe the client said "Without you Lani, we don't have a company" - imagine that kind of trust by a customer. A lot comes from the risk I took to take this customer on at sales profit verses monthly fee. 3 years ago, I was earning a quarter of what I do now from all my clients, personal responsibility just makes things more interesting and definitely more viable in the end.
Doing research to on potential clients, can help you avoid taking on very high-risk clients, I do them before I say yes or no. I avoid Lasik or Drug companies, as that market is saturated. I leave those to the big dogs with the giant staff to service the customer. I'm already high-maintenance, last thing I need is a high maintenance client to deal with. it's just not worth it for me.
They are not scammers, read the faqs...
They are confirmed to run their list in the August issue of INC Magazine. They do charge a fee if there is any to assist in this cost. All on their website.
I don't understand why Fame would be a sought after goal by anyone in this industry. I don't have the time to work on my SEO website, I don't bother with advertising or writing long blogs about SEO or how I got to #1 on Google. I believe that anyone in this industry is as famous as their clients, and it is by those clients that you are measured - nothing more.
How do you define fame? Brett and Jill may be famous within the SEO industry - but unknown outside - however, ask about any of their clients, and there in itself lies the fame.
Danny Sullivan on the other hand, would be judged as famous, as his recognition extends outside the industry. Brett and Bruce come in at very close second.
Story: The Fallacy of SEO Celebrity
One of the best posts ever!! I could never understand the idea of becoming famous in this industry - it's not like Danny Sullivan or Bruce Clay would call me up for a Proposal. I have no time to run full time personal blogs, way too busy keeping up creativity for article ideas for clients.
I don't consider myself noteworthy in any respect, in this industry, as an independent consultant, I do substantially well, with my business plan. I grow each year with my clients, and survive purely on referral business. I haven't sold SEO to a company in years. I have, however; unsold myself to a company recently, out-pricing the market simply to avoid working with a client who expects growth overnight. I can afford to be picky. I prefer to work with smaller companies and take them to the next level, which ultimately benefits my income and my referral strength.
I may not be contacted by Coca-Cola or Best Buy, but I live with less headaches, and my clients continue to make money online. That's the result I'm proud off, and the one result that will keep me afloat during the economic times ahead.
Great post, thanks so much for this Alan and Danny.
We run similar graphs on a quarterly schedule, and dropped Yahoo about mid last year. We found that the CPC expense was at most times greater than that of Googles' yet the conversions came at 1/10th of Google. This was based on Clicks vs Clicks and not Dollar vs Dollar. My Clients are very well attuned to the fact, that their ad expenses are dependent on market demand, therefore daily expenses are not fixed but bloated to capture more leads/sales.
On Google, high season, we estimate a cost of 20,000 in two markets. Of the number of conversions we receive, we must close at the minimum 10% to pay for the expense, our closing ration is 70% - so we estimate a 60% profit margin with search ads, which for them is a great value.
On Yahoo, high season, one would assume an 80% decrease in expenses, due to the number of searches, unfortunately, that was not the case. We found that it cost us 60% of the Google Expenses (I can't use budget, as we do not budget Search Ads), the conversions were sparse, and we would have to close 70% of leads in order to break even. We deliberated on the brand identity factors that might be affected at dropping Yahoo but we ultimately decided to work ranking vs ad expense and call it a draw. We spend maybe, 5000 a year on Yahoo at this time.
On MSN, the costs were insignificant 3 leads were all that was necessary to pay for the campaign and retain a profit margin. MSN delivered a more qualified customer, however the costs are so low due to less traffic, that any attempt to increase our budget on MSN was futile, this left us with stipulating monthly budgets on MSN which we never reach.
If there's a market demand for our products, then our expenses should be higher, and if there is none, then it should be lower. We never alter our daily expense - currently set at 10k-100k on Google, we'll never reach that expense, and if we do - we're pretty sure it's going to generate a much greater number of leads and sales. We fluctuate anywhere from 5k to 30k per month on Google depending on demand, we jump around 150%-300% lead conversions during high season compared to low season.
Right now, my problem is having to keep my clients happy that they are seeing the numbers retain in 2008, and that they shouldn't expect such huge jumps in lead conversions unless demand for the product increases. I've now been given a budget to increase demand for the product - thanks - now where the heck do I start? And no - Digg just isn't the right demographic for us. :)
I tend to ignore ignorance as should you Danny - I feel that your time is much better spent pushing the strengths of SEO to those who listen and carry your words, rather than tackle the idiots who simply find it enjoyable to get you riled up.
I believe that SEO is a necessity - as does Google and Yahoo, that's enough for me. I have often gone in front of clients who sit there and request a discount due to their failure to recognize a bad situation when promised top rankings. I generally respond with, my time is valuable, I get paid a healthy sum of money from my clients to Optimize and Market their websites, if you're looking for a deal then perhaps you should give the guy who screwed you over a call. I never let ignorance dictate my value - as should no one else. SEO is perhaps the most important part of my business - no matter what other services we provide - ad buying, software, design etc.. SEO is the only true measure of ethics, and ethics define my value.
I do not find Compete nor Alexa data accurate or near accurate. When comparing data with both sites, I find my sites as well as competing sites with higher traffic during off-season months and lower traffic during high season. When comparing this data to Google's number of searches for specific keywords, the numbers are too low during off-season throwing the compete and alexa data out into orbit.
When comparing Spyfu's average price per click to what I actually pay per click, the number is near doubled. There's absolutely no way I pay anything near $10 a click, and I'm pretty sure my competitors do not as well. Of course, I can easily multiply my competitors per click rates by two and "assume" that is their expense, but if I have to do that - then why is the data of any use to me? I don't care what they spend, I want to know what their percentage of conversion is - now that would be a neat trick.
I do not believe that these sites will trend toward any real usability to track competitors. In fact, I deter all my customers from using these statistics as they are bloated and do not give accurate information - if used strictly to boost ego to ignorant people, it might be impressive, but as a Search Marketer, I wouldn't trust these with my life.
With the market diversifying into mac computers throwing a larger number of internet surfers into a world of restricted downloads, and the intelligence of the average user to avoid Spam and/or downloading useless things such as Compete and Alexa toolbars increases, these numbers will never be accurate.
If I wanted a more realistic number of visits by people who download multiple useless toolbars - or Search Engine Marketers/Optimizers who want to know more about my website, I will gladly refer to these websites, but until they can show some proof that these numbers are more accurate, I won't use them.
Of course, Compete proudly boasts the use of data from ISP's - if the data from ISP's are available, my question is - why would they need more information from a toolbar for more accurate data? A direct access to my ISP will give enough information with tracking my IP than it will a toolbar. So what's the deal?
One other thing:
Why do I need to sphinn an article on Search Engine Land in order to comment on it? Wouldn't this place sphinn as biased? At least until I wished to comment on this article, I used to think that Sphinn was non-biased, now I'm not so sure. It seems to me, if Digg were plugged into the NY Times or Engadget, that would cause an uproar. No offense, but I did find the article important enough for me to comment, but not worthy of a vote, since I find the information misleading and invalid.
I can easily see SpyFu being useful, but a dependence on the others would be misleading to your customer or to yourself.
if anyone made the assumption that the work was Danny's they should return their computer to back to where they purchased it from.
I liked the article, few points to expand on however.
"Oh, but there's no money in small business" and "Small business owners are too busy to be good clients"
These are perhaps the two worst statements any business should state, in-fact, it should be stricken from every sales manual in-house. If I sold my services with these beliefs, I'd seriously have to be locked up. I have a good mix of small to medium businesses in my portfolio, interestingly enough three years ago, the medium businesses where small. That is what SEO is about, it isn't about ranking up a clients website, it's about assisting businesses in their growth. I prefer to believe that in signing up a small business client, I am assisting in expanding their business to be larger and more profitable. The more profitable that business is, the more money I will make. I signed on a very small one-store business right here in Las Vegas, within two years, this business now owns three retail stores on the west coast, with additional expansions ahead of us.
The big clients eventually disappear - an expansion to your points
I started in sales at 21 years of age, and one of the best advice that led me to place top in radio for 16 US markets was "never put all your eggs in one basket". My entire list of clients comprised of 70% small business, 20% medium and 10% large. In any industry the first budget to be cut during any diversion in marketing is the advertising budget - radio was usually the first. So when beer industry decided to alter their local and national expenses on radio, it hit big, but it didn't alter my income so greatly that I was left hungry, it did however pull down my sales competitors by a great margin enabling me to pull to the first place for the year.
If you depend too greatly on big business, especially now with the economic factors that are facing the US - I strongly predict you will not survive. For myself, I have enough healthy small to medium businesses that - I will survive. A current large client of mine is considering some cutbacks in staff to assist through the economic factors, in my last meeting this client turns to me and says "You have no worries, without you - we have no company." Again, this client signed on 5 years ago as a small business - it's now one of my largest billing clients to date with expansions throughout the US and Canada.
I just published a post regarding the Target by Location, that might be of interest to others. According to Google, if you exclude "California" from your ads, you will not be seen for terms "california travel", "california golf courses" or anything California related, specifically because Google's filter not only excludes the IP location, but the term California as well. Google AdWords Location Exclusion Way too Exclusive
It's great to exclude destinations, if you are purchasing ad campaigns that are not destination specific, but destination specific keywords are taboo. Which in my opinion is an oversight by the technicians. Isn't this why they implemented negative keywords?
I'm going to have to disagree on the advice given in regards to approach by marketing/SEO to Programmers.
The Know it all should be your best friend, in this case. Giving him things to read, only tells him he doesn't know anything at all, which immediately puts him on defensive. How would you feel, if the IT department dumped every article found on Sphinn on your desk? The better approach is to bring a can of coke or Starbucks coffee and serve him up the problem you have as well as your perceived solution. Ask what he thinks about it, and if there's any easier way for him to work his magic and perform exactly what you need. The IT department, will sit there and solve the problem, giving you the same solution, but on his terms, and in his way. Marketers think the IT guys are black and white, which is far from truth - if I had only one way to write a 301 Redirect, Programming would be a bore. Make it exciting and don't ever let him know you're smarter than he is.
The close minded IT Person. Should not even be employed - if he's incompetent then he's in the wrong business. Never ever judge your IT department. From your description of what to do, you are saying that he's dumb and you're smarter. Best way to get nothing accomplished in my opinion. With this guy, you need to again give him your idea, let him come up with a way, help him come up with a solution. I reiterate, if he's incompetent then you should avoid him completely, take your perceived numbers to the boss and find a developer/programmer who is competent.
Control freaks work the same way as the know it all - make it their problem to solve. We programmers, enjoy solving problems, it's why we're in the business.
I work both Marketing and Development (IT) and I've worked with Fortune 500 IT departments, and top Vegas Casino IT Departments. They all want to make things work their way, so let them. You just give them the problem, and let them find the solution. If as marketers, we think a 301 is the only solution, we are lying to ourselves. There's more than one way to make things work - and programmers are determined to find the easiest and fastest way to make that happen. Respect them, and they will be your best friend. Show one ounce of "I'm better and Smarter or make more money" and you'll be having the most difficult time with them. The best part is watching the marketing person walk out of the room and the IT guys drawing stick cartoons with darts.
Trust me - this is the era of the IT department, growth is their only way of survival and encouragement. They want to hear what you want done, and the more challenging, the better - but do not ever tell them, how you want it done - you're just asking for trouble.
And all I'm saying, is if you want results from the IT department, treat them as equals and not try to spoon feed them so they are left feeling defensive. The idea that you should send your IT department research, is by far the worst thing anyone could do. Again - in return, the IT department shoving Bruce Clay articles on your desk makes things a bit awkward.
If you have an IT department that's not willing to develop a 404 page, simply because it cannot be seen, then the IT department, is not who should be speaking with. Something such as a 404 page should have already been sold to the decision maker making your job easier, and the IT departments job a must. Any SEO/Marketer who has not sold their boss or client on the fact that a 404 page is important to a website, is the flawed one, not the IT department. They get paid to do a job, it's our job to make sure that job is outlined and approved so we can achieve the results we want. SEO is about results, IT is about results - together that's an awesome equation.
I am not stating that you are wrong, what I am saying is that I disagree - I disagree fully because your technique of dealing with different personalities are flawed in my eyes. It doesn't mean it's wrong, I am sharing my opinion. My opinion is clear to myself and the happy IT departments I work with - I'm no better than they are, just because Google has a page rank drop - doesn't mean my IT department has to suffer under my duress - I simply work with them to find a solution.
Here's a fun tip: IT is always Smarter than the SEO/MarketersBill Gates, Sergey Brin and Larry Page
Another way to look at this, is that SEO needs to grow with technology. Search Friendly should not hinder technology, and Google should never be god and expect the Internet to translate at 100% to it's spider. Web 2.0 websites, are not without rankings on Search Engines either, and even without ranking, they still manage to produce a large number of visitors.
Isn't the reason for link baiting, social networking and other forms of off-site strategies due to the growth of Technology? Aren't the websites we are dependent on, to produce these off-site promotions based on Web 2.0?
The article is misleading, by scaring webmasters into staying away from rich media websites because based on SEO advice, they are not "search friendly", yet the Internet and Google and other Search Engines have displayed otherwise, by producing high rankings for websites built on Flash and Ajax. SEO Consultants who sit and deter their customers from producing the next grand web 2.0 idea is delusional in thinking that the internet is still based on text. The internet has grown, and so must SEO - so instead of sitting around complaining about how growth is passing us by, jump on the team that's looking for other ways to produce traffic and/or rankings. - because essentially, it is not the Job of the SEO consultant to Optimize a Website - but instead to produce traffic and increase sales.
If you are not making that your goal, then SEO will continue to simply be about text - and the internet will pass you by.
Agree with IncredBILL - With all the upgrades and add-ons available for the countless blogging software available, there should be no reason for spam comments. The latest Wordpress also adds "nofollow" to all links within comments as well.
Contrary to popular belief, not many website owners care about SEO or want to worry about it. We would like to believe that the entire internet world exists on SEO alone, but it doesn't. In fact - the industry itself is very small compared to the number of websites online.
CMS have created a way for people to get online easier, with that comes our part to deliver education on the importance of SEO and how it relates to delivering sales and results for the user. I enjoy clients who call me with commercialized CMS websites, I'm a software developer, network administrator, Search Engine Optimizer, Search Marketer etc.. etc.. etc.. it's much easier for me to go in and request a larger budget for the entire system to include proprietary CMS optimized specifically for SEO to deliver results I have a 99% closing with these types of clients, and they eventually become even larger clients - my oldest client is now 7 years.
I'd much rather grow a client from nothing - They are who seeds my future, not the ones who already know everything.
Sometimes, you just gotta work to find that diamond.
I sometimes think, we over analyze SEO a bit, that it becomes more complex than it really is. I agree that we should know why we do things compared to just doing them out of necessity, we've all seen the results with the knowledge we've applied. But the reality is, it's still rather simple to handle the basic SEO necessities. The only real science, is who does it better than who.
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