The Maine SEO Blog

Dear Confused,

Although you can perform SEO at any point before or after the launch of a Web site, I can think of three good reasons why it’s better to start with SEO:

1. It’s less expensive. A good keyword analysis (an important part of a healthy breakfast an SEO package) will drive your content and your copy; if you do it after the site is built, you’re in effect doing the work twice.
2. It’s market research. A keyword analysis may uncover some opportunities that you hadn’t thought of yet; new topics to cover, even new services to offer.
3. It will help focus your social media strategy. You can take your optimal keywords and start working them into your tweets, your Facebook fan page, your YouTube videos and your LinkedIn profile…all things you can be working on while your Web designer builds out your new site.

There is some parts of SEO that can’t be performed until after the site is launched, specifically a link building campaign. Obviously, other sites, blogs and directories won’t want to link to a coming soon page; they’ll be looking for something of value if they’re going to be linking to you.

Rich Brooks
SEO for Small Businesses

(Geez, I hope not. I’ve now posted this same article in three places!!)

Last night during a presentation I gave at TechMaine, someone asked a question about whether it was a bad idea to post the same content at multiple blogs. I said that it wasn’t; that except for your mom, you can’t expect anyone to read all of your content so repurposing that content across multiple blogs is OK.

In fact, the content of the flyte blog and my Internet Marketing 101 blog often overlaps, so I’ve placed certain posts at both blogs. Occasionally I might change up some of the language to be more specific to one of the audiences, but often there’s just not enough time in the day. Plus, I actively engage in article marketing which–when done right–gets your article posted to mulitple Web sites that link back to you.

Her question may have origins in many people’s belief that there’s a Google penalty for duplicate content, and somehow Google will punish you for having the same content in multiple places.

Coincidentally, Google came late last week on their own blog and stated that there is no Google penalty for duplicate content…although some exceptions remain.

<tangent> Google cites an example of duplicate content that mentions the book Everyone Poops; a great kids book that we have in our house. It also inspired this politically themed t-shirt over at Threadless that I love and own. </tangent>

So, go ahead and post your content in more than one place, Google’s cool with that. Just make sure you read their whole blog post first.

Found via Search Engine Roundtable.

Rich Brooks
You Can Say That Again

A few years ago a book came out called Moneyball. It was about how Billy Beane, GM of a small market team, the Oakland A’s, competed and beat teams with a much bigger payroll, like the evil Yankees and the beloved Red Sox.

The idea was that baseball teams had been measuring the wrong things when looking at players: batting average and pitching speed for example. Instead, he looked deeper into the data and found that on-base percentage (which would include walks, hit-by-pitches, etc.) and pitchers who got ground outs were much more valuable, and completely ignored by other teams. In this manner he built a successful team at a fraction of the cost of the Yanks or Sox.

Did it work? Well, some of those big market teams took his advice (why did he share that info anyway?) and the Sox have won two world series since. Now on-base percentage is viewed as an essential metric for hitters, and shown on NESN for every at-bat.

It feels like the same sort of transition is going on now in the SEO world. The leaders in the industry seem to feel that we’ve been measuring the wrong things.

• Last week I read an article by Stephan Spencer called The Latest SEO Trends and Metrics which argues we’re measuring the wrong metrics.
• Just now I read 5 Reasons Why Rankings Are a Poor Measure of Success by Jill Whalen, who claims she hasn’t checked clients’ rankings in years. This is an excellent article that clearly explains why rankings are more subjective than you’d like to believe.
• A few weeks back Google blocked Web Position Gold, a tool used by SEO professionals (including flyte) to measure if and where their clients appear in the first three pages of Google.
• When Nicki in our office manually attempted to check a client’s visibility last week Google banned her after a dozen checks! In fact, the ban affected other computers in our office as well. (Not her fault; I think I asked her to do it. Shame on me.)

For years I’ve argued that search engine rankings don’t matter, Web sites don’t matter, and even conversions don’t matter. The only thing that matters is you sell enough widgets, book enough rooms, or mobilize enough people to your cause. Of course, conversions, attractive Web sites and good search engine rankings all lead to those successes.

So, do search engine rankings matter? Yes, I believe they do. Good search engine visibility will continue to help businesses and organization bring in new traffic. However, measuring is getting tougher as personalized search and localized search continue to evolve and affect search engine results on a person-by-person level.

Perhaps we should be less worried about our search engine rankings, and more about whether those results are driving qualified leads to our sites.

I’ve never been a fan of giving guarantees on search engine optimization. Sure, it would be nice to promise that we can get a client on the first page of Google, or that their traffic will increase 100% or their business increase 10 fold.

Unfortunately, guaranteeing search engine results is like guaranteeing a fishing trip will bring in fish. You can have the best boat, the best bait, and the best gear, but if the fish ain’t biting, they ain’t biting.

What a good fishing guide can do is increase your chances of success; making sure that you’re using the right bait, that you’re going to fishing grounds that have traditionally fished well but not been over-fished, and bring sandwiches and beer if things don’t go well. You want guarantees that the fish will bite? Call Aquaman.

What a good search engine marketer can do is put you in the best position to rank higher at the search engines. She can do her research, help you craft effective titles and copy, and encourage quality incoming links. But she doesn’t own Google, or Yahoo or any other search engine.

This all came about after reading an interesting post entitled Manage Client Expectations And Reduce Your Risk By Including A Warranty In Your Client Contracts by Sarah Bird. The warranty is meant not to promise the world, but to manage expectations.

Clients often think search engine optimization is a trick, some sort of magic. More often than not, when I explain that their search engine visibility comes directly from the words they use on their site they’re stunned. Like I’ve just pulled back the curtains on Oz.

Ms. Bird also gives some language they use on their contracts. I have to admit, the first half was a bit too lawyer-y for me to understand, but I definitely liked the second half:

By signing this agreement, you acknowledge that SEOmoz neither owns nor governs the actions of any search engine. You also acknowledge that due to fluctuations in the relative competitiveness of some search terms, recurring changes in the search engine algorithms and other competitive factors, it is impossible to guarantee number one rankings or consistent top ten rankings, or any other specific rankings for any particular search term.

From a client’s perspective I can understand the allure of a guarantee. However, as a vendor, I know that it’s like guaranteeing that it will be sunny on our camping trip in a month. The best I can guarantee is that I’ll bring an umbrella for you. And a change of dry clothing. And the number of a nearby motel. That has cable.

Rich Brooks
Guaranteed

What’s the difference between a search engine and a directory?

–Searching in Scarborough?

Dear Searching,

Search engines and directories are both tools people use to find information on the Web. The difference is in how they get and organize their information.

Search engines use little programs called spiders or bots that scour the Internet, follow links, and bring back this information to the search engine’s index. When you use Google you’re not actually searching the Web, you’re searching Google’s index of the Web. Search engines use complex algorithms to determine which Web pages are most likely to answer the questions you pose and return these pages on the search engine results pages (SERPs.)

Directories, by contrast, are human-powered. Site owners submit their sites to directories (sometimes for a fee, sometimes free) and human editors determine the value of the site and whether it should be included in the directory. Directory visitors can search the director or drill down to the appropriate category, i.e., Arts & Humanities > Museums, Galleries & Centers > Modern & Contemporary.

Although directories have fallen out of fashion (even Yahoo’s directory is now hidden at Yahoo.com under the “more” tab), there are still benefits to being listed there. Being listed in an important directory helps your search engine visibility because it counts as an incoming link, which is one of the variables in the search engine’s algorithm.

Rich Brooks
Maine SEO