Sense amongst Madness - Wit amongst Folly

Here are a few of the essential newsletter for SEO and Marketing that I enjoy every issue and learn something every time. These are the cream of the crop.

Grokdotcom by Future Now. Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg are the Gurus of Conversion. Their bi-monthly newsletter is like sitting down and picking their brains for an hour or so. This latest issue they have a blow-by-blow analysis of a non-profit website, with a running commentary on what is working, what isn’t, and what should be done at every step of the purchasing process.

Larry Chase’s Web Digest for Marketers. This weeks issue is edited by Mike Grehan, on 11 Insider tips to improve Search Results. I find this newsletter has a little too much advertising for my taste, but still, always a good read.

IR Watch – the Newsletter. . This give newsletter by Information Retrieval expert Dr. E Garcia (Orion at searchenginewatch.com) gives all the gory technical details of SEO. From his site, “Tired of SEO speculations? Our email newsletter can change that. Not fancy, but to the point. Get it one month in advanced. Stay ahead of the curve and at the pace of computer scientists, IR students and advanced search engine marketers.

Read about search research that normally does not reach mainstream. Includes optimization tips, programming advice, software/books we recommend you to buy, and monthly highlights from our blog.”

Marketing Experiments Journal. These guys are great! Practical, down to earth, advice from the experts. Free web clinics that are jam packed with information, podcasts, blogs and more. Marketing experiments recently purchased Marketing Sherpa.

Working with affiliate sites, I am continually confronted with the problem of “What should I do next?” As a small business person, the answer is you do whatever will make the most money the fastest. Pick the low hanging fruit first.

Assuming that you have a content site already, and you are adding more content regularly, submitting content for syndication, adding quality links regularly and consistently over time. So you have say, 250 products, ranging from very competitive to almost no competition. How do you decide where to focus your SEO and prioritize your efforts?

The low hanging fruit here are the product related keywords that have a relatively high search volume, and a low level of competition.

One measure of the competitiveness is the Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) which measures the search volume and the number of sites competing for that phrase.

The formula for KEI is p^2/C

Where p= Popularity – Wordtracker searches
C = Competitiveness, measured by the search volume (number of results returned in a search on Google with the search phrase in quotes)

Open an Excel spreadsheet and put your keyword phrases down column A, column B will be the Wordtracker searches, and insert this formula in column C

=((A2*2)/A2) *1000

and use FILL DOWN to populate column C.

Start filling in your data down the list. Quickly you will see some keywords have loads of competition, while others are open season.

Sort your data by column C, the KEI, and you have a prioritized list of keywords to target and can develop your plan of attack. Higher KEI is better.

The high KEI phrases can be targeted immediately for fast results, the medium level KEI keywords, can be started now for a longer campaign, and the low KEI phrases, either not targeted, or a long range plan developed for them.

Problems and issues

Determining the competitiveness of keywords is a complex issue and in this post I am looking at just one method — a more technical discussion with links to other methods is at Search Engine Watch Forum.

A few problems are that KEI is a mathematical ranking system that says nothing about the quality of competition.

A modification to the formula, proposed by Dan Theis has taken the original KEI formula and tweaked it:

s = matches for “allintitle”
p = popularity (search count)
KEI = p^2/s = p / s * p

Outside of the Box Marketing – Really Using the International Reach of the Internet.

Most people assume that using the international reach of the Internet means selling to people in other countries. What few people realize though, is selling internationally is just the start. The International reach of the Internet can be used in much more interesting and potentially profitable ways.

The international marketplace allows small companies to arbitrage their services. Arbitrage is “the purchase of securities on one market for immediate resale on another market in order to profit from a price discrepancy.” Or more simply put, buy low in one market or country, transport to another country or market, and sell high. Time tested rules of business.

How does this work on the Internet? Research your product or service and find out if it is cheaper in another jurisdiction and put together a package to serve a niche market somewhere else and get them to come to you for the service.

For example, a Float plane Pilot’s License obtained in Canada is valid in England and Germany, but costs less than half, even after airfare is factored in. Enterprising flight school’s here in British Columbia offer a package to British and German pilots which includes the float plane training course, accommodation in a local bed and breakfast and a few sightseeing outings. The result? Pilots can fly to British Columbia, have a holiday for 3 weeks, get their float plane pilot’s ticket, fly back, and save $3,000 or more!

Another example is dentures. Canadian Denturists charge $1500 – $3000 for dentures. In the US, dentures can cost anywhere from $5000 – $10,000. Add in a 10% difference in currency, where a CDN$3,000 denture converts to about US$2700, and a huge market opens up for Denturists in Canada to offer US citizens a “Denture Holiday in Canada” Package. The package includes dentures, accommodation in a Bed and Breakfast, whale watching, and other tourist excursions. This little bit of creativity has a huge potential for profit, as well as providing clients with a great service at half the price.

How can this work for you? Here are a few tips to really using the international reach of the Internet.

1. What does your service cost everywhere else? Use the Internet to research the price of your service in other countries. Is it possible for clients to travel to you, obtain your services, and go back and still save money? If so, build a small website and host it in the target country, and target your keywords with the location.

2. Use currencies. Does your country have a currency advantage? The Canadian and US currencies offer Canadian companies an advantage of about 10%.

3. Talk to your customers and listen to your customers. Likely one of your customers has already figured this out and put together their own ‘package.’ If one of your customers is doing something unusual, pay attention. While it is easy to dismiss a customer as ‘just a funny customer,’ whom they might be, but much more likely they have figured out something and are doing what they are doing for a reason. For example, you talk to a customer that has traveled quite far to use your services. Engage them in conversation and find out why they are traveling so far.

Using a little creativity and thinking outside the box can opens up new opportunities and generally, there is very little competition.

Over the last few months I have watched my own sites and client sites increase traffic and sales considerably and largely due to the amount of content being added, so I thought I would take a look at a successful content site and see what they are doing.

Here is the theory first:

The theory of a content site is that almost nobody is going to go straight for the shopping cart, or click on your affiliate links, and pull out their credit card. Nice work if you can get it, but generally it isn’t so easy.

Instead, browsers, who are after all looking for free stuff, want to read subject matter relating to their search, and if they like what you have to say, they will click on your affiliate link. Once they have read what you have to say, and you have helped them, (i.e. they have learned something) they have started to trust you.

If they like what you have to say, then clicking on your affiliate links, joining your membership site, adding to cart or whatever for desired response, is something they want to do, not something they are avoiding.

That is the critical difference.

Here are some examples:

My favorite content site is www.audioloftreport.com .

The site is run by Alan Lofft, whose picture appears on the front page, and who is an expert on Stereos. If you want a good quality stereo system, but aren’t a stereo geek, this site will give you all kinds of great information, recommendations and how to advice for putting together a great system.

There is no footer menu, loads of free information about stereos with recommendations backed by technical advice and information. Affiliate links are throughout the site embedded in the text. You can contact him for advice and recommendations from several different places, including for a custom loudspeaker consultation.

The site has a nice personal touch, saying things like “It will make a world of difference… Take it from me! (Alan Lofft). ”

I think this is a great content site.

Interested in compelling content for your site? We can help

One of the factors Google uses to ranks sites, from among the reputed hundreds of factors, is the breadth of a sites’ content.

The breadth of a site is a factor in Google’s algorithm for several reasons. Google uses some form of Latent Semantic Indexing, LSI (or so I contend). LSI is a complex and exceedingly clever way for computers to understand what text is about using mathematics. This is a gross over-simplification and other people have discussed this issue and all the technical details for a different audience. Nevertheless, it serves our purpose.

One way to think about how the algorithm functions is first the keywords with the highest density are removed from the page. Hence talk of an ‘over-optimization’ penalty. With the highest density words removed, the algorithm attempts to make sense of the page with the remaining text. If the webpage text contains a complete and broad set of related keywords, the meaning of the text can be extracted by a machine.

Another factor in Google’s algorithm that broad content triggers is click tracking. Google is known to track clicks on search results occasionally. When a browsers does a search and clicks on one of the listings, a timer starts. If the browser visits a site, and doesn’t find what they are looking for, they hit the back button and choose another listing to click on. Google tracks this short visit, co-related with the keywords and the site and determines the site is not relevant. If a browser clicks on a search result and don’t come back to the search results, Google reasons that the browser must have found what they were looking for and the site is relevant to the keywords.

By creating a site that covers every aspect of a topic increases the chances that you will have something of interest to browsers using your targeted keywords.

Examples of Broad Coverage

A search for “art” on Google shows the top site is art.com and the next is art.net
A search for “baby” — the top site is babycenter.com and the #2 is baby.com

www.art.com is a great site and a great example of a site that covers their topic broadly. A browser searching for the keyword “art” may have many things in mind, but if they go to art.com, chances are they will find what they are looking for.

Consider some of the things that someone searching for “art” may be looking for:

1. Different types of art: posters, tapestries or canvases, etc.
2. Different styles of art: modern, still life, advertising, photography, etc.
3. Different artists: Picasso, Monet, etc.
4. Different Schools of art: Impressionist, Realism, Romanticism etc.

Consider how this same principal applies to smaller sites targeting 2 and 3 word keyword phrases.

Tips for Making Sites with Broad Coverage

1. Keyword Research. Find variations of your targeted keyword phrases and create content and add affiliate products to increase the breadth of your coverage.

2. Check your competitors. Visit the top 20 sites for your targeted keywords and make a note of the categories on their sites.

For more tips on creating a content site with broad coverage HERE