Archive for the ‘sem’ Category

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What’s On Your Hook? Quality vs Quantity on the Web

Posted by jeb on February 21st, 2009


Is it better to have 100 hooks in the water with stale bait or only 1 or 2 with the tastiest bait in the world?

I’ve been thinking about content, SEO, blogging, etc a lot recently. Some of it has to do with a recent post that has stirred considerable interest but mostly from some private conversations with industry folks I really respect.

It suddenly hit me that there are generally two approaches to content. Quantity vs quality.

If the web is an Ocean and Google the tour guide then what is the best way to be a featured stop on the tour? Is it to have as many attractions (read pages) that aren’t necessarily that vibrant (read activity) but show up at every turn or is it better to invest more energy into the BEST stop on the tour (assuming a search query is the “tour”) that people go out of their way to find?

I think the answer is different depending on what you are trying to accomplish. If you are looking to sell a trinket and make a quick buck I would argue that having a shack at every stop makes sense. The web version of a hot dog cart.

But if you are looking to be a destination, build customer loyalty, have repeat business, charge a premium for your services and products then I would argue you should invest in one really good destination (your website or blog) and maybe put up some signs along the path pointing to your awesome place. The web version of “Rock City”.

By “invest” I mean engagement. Be active, encourage others to engage, be that “tasty bait” that the fish can’t resist. Google will see that activity and reward you for it.

Neither approach is wrong, it really matters who your audience is. I would argue that a service company is best served by being “Best In Class” and a product company is better served by having as many hooks in the water as possible to catch all the fish swimming by looking for a quick snack but not a relationship.

Ideally you want both but there are only so many hours in the day and it’s important to use your time effectively. I would argue you closely consider your audience, your product and put together a strategic plan that finds a good mix between quantity and quality.

Posted in blogging, search engine optimization, sem, seo | 6 Comments »

The problem with Compendium Blogware and how to fix it

Posted by jeb on February 16th, 2009
Note: due to the interest in this blog and the many excellent comments posted in response I want to encourage those finding this post for the first time to also take the time to review Chris Baggott’s comments in particular. He is the CEO of Compendium and I feel his responses are particularly useful as a counter balance to my points made in the following blog. Compendium blogs do a lot of good things for a lot of good companies. Although I still have concerns that I voice in my own comments below I do feel that Chris has done a great job of explaining and defending his company’s software and I encourage readers to balance my critique with his response. Chris is a real gentleman and has earned a good deal of respect from me for taking the time to answer in detail my, and others, questions and concerns.Thanks! Jeb
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I’m asked about Compendium Blogware on a regular basis. The questions come from friends, associates, clients and prospective clients. They’ve all heard about Compendium and want to know my take. This is what I tell them…

First off, I am not eager to critique a local company, especially one that is doing well, which is why I have waited months to post this blog. But I feel I need to post my concerns in a public venue since others might benefit from it as well as Compendium since I think there is definitely a market for business blogging services and I think there are some fairly simple things they can do to fix the issues I identify. Also, I don’t think it’s fair to Compendium to not give them a forum to respond to my feedback and I hope they do on their own blog or using the comments below.

What is Compendium? They are an Indianapolis company founded by Chris Baggott, of Exact Target fame. Their service is providing customized business blogs on their proprietary blogging platform. The primary “twist” that gives them an advantage over free services like Blogger and Wordpress is that they provide keyword research and create “compended” URLs based around targeted keyword phrases. Here’s a couple examples from a blog for Monon Coffee here in Broad Ripple (great place btw!)

http://mononcoffee.compendiumblog.com/blog/broad-ripple-cafe
http://mononcoffee.compendiumblog.com/blog/broad-ripple-coffee-shop

See how the content is almost the same but the URLs are different. They are set up to show up as different pages in Google and target their respective searches- “Broad Ripple Cafe” and “Broad Ripple Coffee Shop“. And they do show up right at the top of their respective searches.

So what’s wrong with that? Well the real problem is that Google doesn’t like intentional duplicate content meant to manipulate search results and this is exactly what Compendium’s software does. It “compends” the same blog (content) under different static, keyword rich URLs as I demonstrated above.

Right now Compendium is essentially gaming Google’s algorithm but it may not last forever. They run the real risk of Google changing their algorithm to punish the Compendium blogs essentially pushing them down in Google’s listings. Google tweaks their algorthim about 400 times a year, so every day they run the risk of being “tweaked”. Since many of Compendium clients are on sub-domains of compendiumblog.com this could mean a big loss of traffic for their clients from Google. Not good.

In my experience Google will eventually eliminate any inefficiencies from their algorithm as they become exploited. The more successful Compendium is, ironically, the more they are at risk. While I think what Compendium is doing is novel it is essentially a Grey Hat trick. They are gaming a system for clients and it’s pretty clear from my conversations with some of their clients that most of them do not realize the risk Compendium is taking on their behalf. Compendium, however, does not see this as a risk.

Another reason their clients’ blogs get indexed quickly for relevant searches probably has something to do with the fact that many of the blogs are all a sub-domain of compendiumblog.com- i.e. clientname.compendiumblog.com- which essentially gives the blog a big push into the search engine waters. This pro could easily become a con should that main URL get blacklisted by search engines for duplicate content.

Compendium will argue that their compended blog pages are actually the best result for the related search even if there is duplicate content on them. I would disagree. Who goes to Google to make two different searches to pull up two different pages to find the same content? That is not what I use Google for- I want new, different information when I modify my search. (note: Chris’ response below does address this concern satisfactorily in my opinion).

How can Compendium fix this problem? First off, stop duplicating content under static URLs. Secondly provide content writing services for clients so they have real, relevant, not duplicate, content under every static URL. There are already other companies popping up to provide this valuable service of interviewing clients and ghost writing their blogs (not this one!). Some clients will self motivate, some really need help, provide this help and charge for it. This is potentially a huge market, go after that along with making the Compendium platform SEO friendly in a very White Hat (no tricks) way.

(note: another idea I had after posting this blog was to have their software only allow blog content to be compended in 10-25% of the static category/keyword URLs).

Chris, Ali and their team at Compendium have done a fantastic job of identifying their market and promoting their platform. I am really impressed with their sales strategy. I’ve met Chris a couple times and he is a genuinely nice guy with good ideas. This is not personal in any way, in fact, I have avoided posting this blog since I have conflicted feelings about critiquing a local company. But my main concern is that their service may be putting their clients at risk and is potentially a house of cards built on an ever changing algorthim. Maybe they will get lucky but I wouldn’t bet on it.

About Duplicate Content- here is a link to a blog on Google Webmaster addressing this issue. Not all duplicate content is bad but if it appears “intentional” with the aim of manipulating search results then Google can punish the site for this. Another Webmaster blog addresses this issue and includes this quote- “In the rare cases in which we perceive that duplicate content may be shown with intent to manipulate our rankings and deceive our users, we’ll also make appropriate adjustments in the indexing and ranking of the sites involved.”

Posted in blogging, search engine optimization, search engines, sem, seo, technology | 41 Comments »

Time To Get Serious About SEO – 3 Tips For Good SEO

Posted by jeb on February 7th, 2009
First off let’s not assume you know what SEO is. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s often used as a catch-all term for all the things that go into getting a website listed on a search engine for specific terms, usually industry terms. For instance if you sell Widgets you will want to show up for Indianapolis Widgets right?

So why is it time to get serious about how your company’s website shows up in Search Engines like Google? Bottom line is that 72% of all purchases now include research online. How do you think people research? Most will have their first stop at Google.com and their search will probably look something like this…

Are you at the top of the listings when they type in that search? If not you are losing out on business, probably on a daily basis.

How do you get to the top of your listings? Here are the three basic elements of SEO, do these well and you will probably be on page one for your local industry search.

  1. On-site keyword optimization. This is mostly title tags (what shows up in the browser) and on page content. Don’t stress out too much over Meta Tags, do them if you can, they aren’t too important anymore. Use tools like Google Adwords Keyword Suggest to find out what keywords you should be using. Here is a screen shot of some of the results for “web design” a search we compete for locally. Note that it shows the volume of searches on a monthly basis. In general you will want to optimize your site for the searches that get the most traffic.
  2. External links. Make sure your site has lots of good links from other sites including relevant industry directories. Be wary of companies offering to sell you links. Google usually recognizes these links and it can actually hurt your rankings. Not sure how many links your have? Use good research tools like SEO for Firefox to help. Once you have it set up, search for your company and then, with the tool turned on, you can easily see how well your site is doing. Here is what we look like with SEO Firefox turned on when searching for “Small Box”. 
  3. Update your site regularly. A good policy is to update your site in some way at least once a week. To do this you will need a good Content Management System. If you have to use a web company to update your site then you probably need a new web company! A good company will build your site wil a CMS so that you can easily make the changes without having to pay and wait on them everytime you want to update the site. This leads to sites never being updated which is a big no-no. Here is what our CMS for this site, smallboxweb.com, looks like (only partial view but hopefully you get the idea). You can demo our CMS by contacting us.

Obviously there is a lot more to SEO but these are great starting
points. Obviously this is what we do at Small Box full time. Everything
we do relates in some way to SEO. We obsess over it for ourselves and
our clients. We would love to obsess over it for you! Want to see how
good we are? Search for “Indianapolis SEO Companies” or “Indianapolis Web Design” and see for yourself.



Posted in internet marketing, search engine optimization, sem, seo, social networks | No Comments »

What Is Inbound Marketing?

Posted by jeb on January 31st, 2009

Have you recently heard the phrase “inbound marketing” bouncing around? As with most new fangled terms it actually means something quite simple- being found by your customers instead of you seeking them out. Basically you are playing a grown up version of hide and seek where you actually want to be found.

If you own a company you know that it’s much cheaper and more effective to make a sale with a customer that is actually seeking your services. Essentially you are cashing in on someone else’s work. Someone else has already convinced the customer that they need your product or services. Maybe a friend, a co-worker, peer or a blog. Doesn’t matter really, the bottom line is that this customer has their wallet open and is ready to go. All you have to do is not screw it up!

Since we all know and agree that Inbound marketing is much more effective than traditional (Outbound) marketing the question becomes now do we most effectively practice Inbound marketing?

The answer is in how your company uses the web. People are looking for your products and services. More than ever their first stop is a search engine. Are they finding you there for your industry related searches? If you are selling “green widgets” and when they type in “where to buy green widgets in Indianapolis” are you the first listing? If not then you aren’t being found and it doesn’t matter if you have a better green widget. The customer has already completed the transaction with another company.

So don’t hide from your customers, get found. More specifically, use the web to get found or get you will get left behind.


Note: Thanks to Hubspot for their informative post on Inbound Marketing that I referenced in writing this blog.

Posted in internet marketing, search engine optimization, search engines, sem, seo | 1 Comment »

Want Your Business To Survive The Recession? Use The Web

Posted by jeb on October 9th, 2008
It’s hard to stay optimistic these days with the stock market tanking, credit drying up and the financial crisis spreading around the globe. Companies are going to be looking closely at every expense just as families will be reigning their budgets. So how do we make it through these tough times? In short- metrics. Make sure everything your company is doing can be measured and tweaked to improve ROI. The web is perfect for this. You can track what keywords people are using to find you, what pages they go to, what you are paying for every conversion, etc. The web is all about metrics.

When you start with a robust web presence it multiplies all your other marketing efforts. If you dominate searches for your location and industry then all your traditional marketing will be that much effective. It’s like creating this huge net to catch all the leads that your marketing creates. If someone hears about you on the radio then runs into you again on a search and then see you linked from a site they respect and then sees you commenting on a popular business site, like SmallerIndiana.com, you will become their only real choice for the service or product you are offering. This puts in the position to charge the prices you need to be profitable.

Having a website alone is not enough. Beyond having a dynamic, updated site you have to engage across many different web platforms- blogs, community sites and email. You have to be ubiquitous. It’s like having a store front and not putting out a sign. The website is the storefront but your activity on the web is your sign. Put up as many signs as you can, you will be able to clearly measure the increase in traffic and the increase in revenue.

So if you are spending thousands on a Yellow Pages ad or other media that have no real metrics built in, drop or reduce them, push the money to the web and start fine tuning your way to success.

Posted in internet marketing, search engine optimization, sem, seo | No Comments »

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