Tag: Google search results

Fire Your SEO: Here is Why and How

Should You Fire Your SEO?
Should You Fire Your SEO?


Do you think you need a search engine optimizer? Let’s get serious. Your company is not a hobby, and you’re not working to build it only because the work is fun. Companies – smart companies – want to receive profit from their investment of hard work and money. Profit is what companies use to pay the bills.

It would be unwise to throw away your profit on SEO services just because you hope it may work out – someday. Don’t pretend to be shocked if I tell you that’s exactly what a lot of people are doing every day. I see it all the time that companies test the water and shakily hand over their credit card to the next SEO that gave them a good pitch. Other companies have all the skill they need for success, but they fail to use it.

I will give you some good pointers on how to select a good SEO, the basic components of their role, and even why you may (or may not) be able to handle much of it without their help.

Before I continue, I want to note that I do not sell SEO services (but I’m still in recovery). I am just here to share what I know from a lot of well-earned experience. Unless you are ready to pay me a huge salary plus a significant benefits package, don’t worry – I’m not looking at your checkbook.

SEO be damned, I’m going to tell you the truth you may not want to hear. It may sting, but it also may save you a lot of time, money, and frustration. I’m not just out to knock search engine optimizers, either. There are a lot of very talented SEO out there who just don’t want to talk to you because you’re trying to compare apples to airliners. As I tell you this, be mindful that it’s your business on the line, so if you’re getting this wrong, your company is the one that suffers.

SEO is a Double-Edged Sword

Don’t get me wrong about the value of good SEO. If you’ve got a good SEO, by all means, hang on to them. They are probably making you a lot of money. The problem is that statistically, most SEO are not very good at the job. Good ones are few and far between. It takes a lot of knowledge and experience to be really good at SEO. The best ones are also very well connected, and you don’t buy that for a few thousand bucks.

A truly qualified search engine optimizer can make an amazing difference in your business, but search engine optimization is a sword that cuts both ways.

Let’s make no mistakes about this: A legitimate attempt to reach your online audience can multiply your business, but an uncommitted and ill-considered effort can send it the other way … fast, and in more ways than you may realize. Rather than paying an inexperienced SEO who is still learning, you may do better to handle it yourself. It is true that a bad SEO can cost you a lot more than you pay them. Seriously – if you doubt me even a little bit, read about “Google Panda, Google Bowling, and How Bad SEO Can Kill Your Business“. If you’re trying to get by the cheap way, it’s like hunting for the cheapest root canal … it’s likely to hurt.

Do You Really Need Your SEO?

What makes you believe that you need a search engine optimizer? Think about that really hard. If you don’t have the right answer, based on the right strategy, it may be time to fire your SEO.

If your answer is that you have a legitimate business case for it, like most companies do, that’s great. Examine the business need carefully, choose your provider wisely, and make a strong commitment. Be sure that they understand your goals, and that they can provide a realistic forecast based on their work.

You should be prepared to pay them for that forecast, too. Otherwise, you are likely to make some huge strategic marketing errors. If you’ve chosen wisely, it will be worth every dollar you spend for their market research. If you get a good one, don’t expect to get their research for free. I’ll tell you why if you read that link I just gave you.

You should understand that even the best search engine optimizer will fail to bring you optimal results if you “kneecap” them with short budgets, “not enough time”, or other excuses. One of the worst things you can do is to make excuses because you are just too afraid to implement things they recommend based on their solid research. That frankly just pisses them off.

The mathematical confusion of SEO destroys a lot of companies’ efforts. They struggle to grasp that a twenty percent effort will not yield one fourth of the same result as an eighty percent effort.

Understanding the math of SEO, and how it pertains to your specific business needs will matter more than you likely realize. I’m not kidding, and I’m not making this up. I’ll explain more about the math of SEO return on investment in a moment.

On the other hand, if your answer to why you need SEO services is that you’re trying it out because you are hopeful it will eventually have an impact, I have a suggestion: Fire your SEO immediately! Don’t pay them another dollar until you have a better answer. Hope alone does not create profit, and it can lead you down a really bad path. If you’re just “testing the water”, take your money and use it elsewhere in your business. There are sharks in that water!

Reaching a usefully measurable result with search engine optimization does not happen from “testing the water”. There is a bell curve (a gaussian function) at work, and it does not work in favor of minimized efforts.

The Profit is Higher on the Curve!
The Profit is Higher on the Curve!

In case you never heard of The Pareto Principle – a widely used economic principle – it is worth the effort to understand it and apply it to your marketing.

Why to Fire Your SEO: Three Things You Should Know

SEO creates a lot of mixed reactions. If you ask a room full of business people about their experiences with SEO, you are likely to hear everything from extreme delight to extreme dismay. These few points are important to know if you want to avoid the dismay.

SEO is Not High Tech! I know that search engine optimization may sound very tricky and technical – and it is in some ways – but the technology aspects of SEO are only a small part of the “magic” a search engine optimizer actually does. I suggest reading “Search Engine Optimization is Not a Technology Job!” If you wonder if it is just one person’s opinion, be sure to read the comments to see what other professionals had to say.

If your SEO has ever led you to believe that their work is largely a matter of technical things, or that you don’t have the time or intelligence to understand what you are paying them for – Fire Them! No, wait … don’t fire them … incinerate them, because they are like zombies, and you don’t want them coming back to try and eat more of your brains again later.

Good SEO Are Smart Cookies! You should understand that you don’t just pay an SEO for what they do – you pay them for what they know, and for what they research on your behalf. If you want the best SEO results, you will need to hire some very talented and creative people.

Here’s the kicker: If they are smart enough to help you, they are also smart enough to help themselves. You should read further to understand “Why Good SEO Don’t Seek Your Business“. If you get a good one who loves your company as much as you do, get up off your wallet and book them before the competition does.

Otherwise, if you ever question their industry brilliance for a moment – Fire Them! Of course, I can’t condone criminal behavior, but you may want to keep a wooden stake handy. They are “un-dead”, so if you see their blood-sucking fangs – stake ’em!

$5000 is Not Half of $10,000! Maybe you think I just made a mathematical error, but I did not. I want to make a point about the vast difference between measuring efforts versus measuring results.

I already discussed the importance of having the right people handling your SEO versus the wrong ones. So, let’s assume you have the right ones – you are confident of it, and you are confident about your business goals. Let’s climb that bell curve that’s killing your success.

You can scale this to any level you like, but if you think that half of the effort will yield half of the result, you’ll waste money. The bell curve I mentioned has a nasty way of killing company hopes for profit.

Look at the bell curve of your industry’s marketing, and notice where the numbers make a sharp increase. Many companies will go right up to the curve and quit as soon as it gets too scary, but then slide back down because it was not measurable enough. A wise SEO knows that a business should push far enough up the bell curve to get the best results, but short of the point of diminishing returns.

If your SEO tries to take you to the shallow end of the bell curve because they are afraid to tell you what it will really take to make an optimal impact, then they are not doing their job properly. Many SEO dread trying to explain the vast difference between doing something and doing something well. In fact, it’s largely why I made the announcement that I stopped taking clients (it’s worth a read, by the way).

If an SEO is unable to explain the value of your strong commitment to their work, and if you are unwilling to hear it, don’t bother. Whether they realize it, they are doing you a disservice and they are lying to you. Fire Them! You can probably achieve mediocre results all on your own, so you shouldn’t be paying somebody else. Fire the SEO, and consider spending the money on an exorcism and perhaps a lobotomy – for you and for the SEO!

It can take a lot of climbing to reach the profitable part of the bell curve, but there is always a point when it becomes relatively self-sustaining. If you keep struggling just to stay on the shallow end of the curve, fire your SEO!

How to Fire Your SEO

I mentioned the matter of firing your SEO. Beyond the incinerator, the wooden stakes, and shoving them off a high cliff, there are other practical considerations. This is a tricky matter, because they have your passwords! You should change them … all of them. Even if you are the one trying to handle your own SEO like the dentist who went to dental school to fix their kids’ teeth – don’t trust the SEO. Any person who does not grasp the importance of this information should not have access to your company website.

If you want to get a better understanding of SEO, there are some basic lessons you should know. It doesn’t come without effort, but if you’re serious enough to read this far, you’re probably serious enough to read these valuable SEO lessons and subscribe for more to come.

Marketing your business should never be left to a roll of the dice, or just getting lucky that you landed the right SEO with the right skills, and who is generous enough to give you success on a minuscule budget with halfway mentality. You should take it very seriously if you expect to see results.

Remember, I’m not telling you this to sell you anything. I’m telling you this because I witness too many people with their heads up a dark place and I don’t want my readers to be among them.

You are not stupid. Don’t act like it with your search engine rankings.

Photo Credit:
Fire Breathing by Luc Viatour via Flickr

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Google Acquires Fridge, PittPatt, and PostRank, But What Does it Mean?

Google's New Data Prize
Google's New Data Prize


Google acquires many companies, but do you ever notice which ones, and do you ever speculate on why Google wants these start-up companies? I think it makes for some great water cooler gossip, but I also think it begins to form a picture of where our Internet is, and where it is moving.

Some of the recent Google acquisitions have been Fridge, which has a focus on security in social sharing, and PittPatt (Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition), a facial recognition developer. With only minimal creativity, one can imagine how these could each be useful to Google. I am confident that we will see influence from these technologies as Google continues to enhance the Google+ platform and other Google products.

In fact, if you have used Google+ at all, you can see some uncanny similarities between Google+ and Fridge.

Google and PostRank: An Obvious Match

I think perhaps one of the most telling of Google’s recent acquisitions is when they picked up PostRank in June. I wrote about PostRank back in 2010 in an article titled “Social Media Measurement Tools: What Do They Know About You?” Something I stated in that article was as follows: “PostRank pulls data from many sources, which makes it far less fallible than others which only measure single points of data.” It seems that Google noticed the value in this as well.

The image below shows an example of a PostRank score for a given article and indicates what PostRank knows about it. PostRank data can still be flawed, due to network restrictions and the sheer volume of data, but it does a good job.

Example of PostRank Measurement
Example of PostRank Measurement

We obviously know that Google has been very keen on social media for a long time. In fact, I have often said that Google is the ultimate king of social media. I do not mean because of their efforts with relative non-starters like Google Wave and Google Buzz, or the social feed in Google search results.

When I say that Google is the king of social media, I mean that because they have always made extraordinary strides toward measuring and delivering the information that is deemed important by social interaction. That social interaction has historically been in the form of websites linking to other websites. Google not only measures links from website to website, but they qualify it with the more popular websites providing amplification to the signal. This principle is not changing, but the methods and complexities of measurement are changing. In my estimation, Google is not missing a beat, and the acquisition of PostRank further adds to their reach.

People have tried to argue that Google’s measurement of links from one website to another is not social media, but let’s have a look at “social”. Social means, literally, “Of or relating to society or its organization” and it doesn’t just mean the microcosmic view of making buddies or socializing in the “let’s grab a beer” sense. By measuring website links, Google has used a social response from others to determine what people want, and what they are looking for.

So, let’s look at how the modern use of social media changed things. Google’s historical measurement of links is still just as social-based as what we see in modern social networks. The overall factors of separating the popular from the unpopular are similar. The difference today is that the simplicity of sharing those links is much easier for the non-technical “John and Mary Lunchbucket” type who don’t know anything about websites or HTML. Accordingly, it is much faster, and the amount of information to sort through is huge. There are a lot of factors to assimilate, and far more data points than ever before. Google is extremely efficient at this, but now Google has even more help gathering that data.

Since you may wonder how Google’s acquisition of PostRank really makes sense, or how it can help Google, here is a brief statement about PostRank in their own words:

What is PostRank?
The social web connects people where they share, critique and interact with content and each other. PostRank is the largest aggregator of social engagement data in the industry.

Our platform tracks where and how users engage, and what they pay attention to — in real-time. PostRank social engagement data measures actual user activity, the most accurate indicator of the relevance and influence of a site, story, or author.

PostRank provides useful data for publishers, and now that data will be useful to Google as well. I have heard a lot of people confused about how Google views the usage of modern social networks. I think it is absurd that a person could actually think they are not making efficient use of this information. For anybody who doubts the degree to which Google gives attention to modern social signals, the acquisition of PostRank should give a further indication that they are serious.

PostRank Engagement Activity Report
PostRank Engagement Activity Report

What Google Says About PostRank

According to an article on TechCrunch, Google made the statement about their acquisition of PostRank as follows:

“We’re always looking for new ways to measure and analyze data, and as social analytics become increasingly important for online businesses, we’re excited to work with the PostRank team to make this data more actionable and accountable. They have developed an innovative approach to measuring web engagement, and we think they can help us improve our products for our users and advertisers.”

As I said in my recent article about Klout, “I don’t think it is a good idea to become obsessed about statistics such as these, but I do believe it is valuable to be aware.”

If you are curious about how it works, or what PostRank knows about your presence on the web, I would encourage you to take a closer look and get familiar with PostRank.

This further emphasizes what I have always claimed, which is that SEO and social media marketing are entirely intertwined, and always will be. Through it all, I think it is important to note that Google wants to index your website, and they even go to great lengths to help you help yourself.

Please tell me what you think.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Social Media History Shows What Success is Really Made Of

Social Media Helped Launch Google Beta
Social Media Helped Launch Google Beta


History provides some excellent lessons. It frequently tells us what works, and what does not work. This goes for aircraft engineering, brain surgery, particle physics, and social media, too!

Don’t tease me for my aging view of this topic, because sometimes an old-timer may just have something useful to offer. I have been sitting here at my computer for many years longer than your average social media expert, guru, maven, evangelist, or whatever the kids are calling them these days.

I watched Yahoo rise straight out of the dirt where we planted our fax machines and ARPANET, and I used it. I used it a lot, and my friends did, too. We told people about it. Yahoo grew, and relationships flourished.

I remember the days shortly after some bright Stanford University students named Larry Page and Sergey Brinn launched a new website to help make better sense of the growing Internet. It used a sophisticated democratic process to reflect what people like. The voting happened when other people linked to your website, and that process is still used today.

There are a few people who will read this and nod with amusement and agreement, but a lot who will never imagine a scratched MP3, or their mix tape being eaten by a cassette player. If you mention 8 Track or Quadraphonic sound systems, they are lost without those clever Stanford students who had a googol-dollar idea and named it Google.

Old-timers used Google, too, and even long before “google” became a verb, we told people about it.

Whether you consider the examples of explosive growth of social networks themselves, or anything else that becomes successful online, there are some principles which always hold true. Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and even cupcakes in Topeka, Kansas all have some things in common. They have each produced something that made people want to tell others about them!

“Webmasters” and Early Online Social Media

In those early days of social media, there was actually a job status of “Webmaster”. It described somebody who had a “mastery” level understanding of the Web, including hardware, network architecture, software, programming, design, data integrity/security, and website promotion. It eventually became too much for an individual human to withstand, and those Webmasters’ duties were appropriately divided into multiple departments, and job descriptions became more specialized.

The early days of “easy online success” faded fast, and before very long, anybody with a Yahoo Geocities account or a pre-installed copy of Microsoft FrontPage Express could tag themselves as the “Webmaster”. The first generations are the people who used to actually spell things without spell check, saw programming code when they closed their eyes, and who stuck their geeky necks out to create and share the Internet as we know it.

Even back then, we had people with exceptional social media talent. They told people about great new things, they shared useful information, and they used each of the things I am about to describe. We just didn’t call it social media, yet.

The Success Tools Changed … The Rules Didn’t

Maybe you don’t think of Yahoo or Google as social networks, now that you have Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Foursquare, Gowalla, and a squillion others, plus a squillion-squillion blogs, and an app for everything.

The way I remember it is that I met some of my best friends in Yahoo Chat Clubs, Yahoo Groups, and AOL. Yes … America Online. I met people from all around the world since back in the 1990’s, and we are still communicating on Twitter, Facebook, and the rest of the evolved social networks.

Relationships Thrived When AOL Launched AOL Instant Messenger
Relationships Thrived When AOL Launched AOL Instant Messenger

Meeting most of my closest friends online sounded crazy to a lot of people back then. It was crazy enough that when I started dating my wife in 2000, we were afraid to tell her parents how we had met. Eleven years, three kids, and a lot of computer upgrades later, we still marvel at the community we built using social media.

If you don’t already know my online career history, my résumé certainly shows that I go way back as a “geek”. During that time, I have witnessed many online success stories. I have been very fortunate to participate in many, as well. So, let’s look at what has been historically successful, and why?

Each of the online successes you have heard of, including Amazon, eBay, YouTube, Google, Yahoo, and etcetera, each had some things in common. The same things that made them successful are the things that create success today … every day. Allow me to share these observations.

Social Media Success Factor One: Usefulness With Convenience

Usefulness and convenience have a huge place in the history of social media success.

Back in the old days, and even more profoundly today, Internet users show a very finicky nature. As the Internet grew bigger, users realized that if they don’t find exactly what they want, immediately, they can find it in just a couple clicks. So being useful, convenient, and worthy of their attention has always been critical to success.

Imagine if Google required you to jump through hoops to get to what you are looking for. They knew better, so they made it as convenient as possible to enjoy their usefulness.

It really doesn’t matter what industry you are in, or what cause you are promoting. Whether you are selling cars, cigars, or surgical supplies, you must find ways to become useful. Being useful can mean that you are helping somebody learn about a topic, learn what they need to know in order to buy something, or just helping them with a hearty laugh to get through the day.

Being useful and convenient are imperative. I often watch whole industries miss this point.

Social Media Success Factor Two: Creativity

Creativity is natural for some people, but it can also be learned and cultivated.

In each of these historic instances of success, there was somebody … one person, who had an idea. They shared the idea with somebody else. Some encountered luck that they shared their idea with the right person with the right talent, but they all started with a single spark of creativity.

The people around the initial spark put fuel on it and blew it into a flame. The importance of creativity, and cultivating your creativity, should never be underestimated.

Talent is something that grows when you express it, and talent can have a huge cost. It is not easy, but if it was easy, everybody would do it. It is worth the effort if you are committed.

There are bright ideas sparking up around the world, every day. If your spark is not the brightest, it will be much harder to build a flame around it. When that is the case, the next step becomes even more important than ever.

Creativity Has Changed Since The Hampster Dance Debut
Creativity Has Changed Since The Hampster Dance Debut

Do you remember Hampton and The Hampsters back in the 1990’s? They grew up and became more sophisticated!

Social Media Success Factor Three: Relationships

Relationships make or break social media success. The people truly are the most important piece of the big picture. Just as it happened in the days long before our exploration into Facebook Likes and Twitter retweets, people spread things they like and believe in. It happened this way with everything from religious and political beliefs to pet rocks and friendship pins.

This does not mean you need to make pals with everybody on the Internet. Social media marketing success is not just about making friends, but relationships are extremely important. When you communicate and get to know a few people who know a few people, it adds up. Those people who build good relationships often have things in common, including common interests and common thoughts.

If people like you, over time, they may begin to trust you. That can mean they trust your advice, your insights, and your motivations.

Relationships with people dictate a lot about the success or failure of anything in social media … on line, or the old school kind that happens around boardrooms, schools, churches, and elsewhere. The people are who decide if your spark will be fed, or die out in a flash. There are a lot of great ideas which meet the burdens of usefulness and creativity, but without good relationships, they usually don’t make it very far.

Sometimes the relationship is very loose and simple. For example, I wrote this, you read it, and maybe that is as far as our relationship has come so far. Over time, that may change. Maybe you will eventually feel comfortable to share this with others with your tweet, Facebook like, or reference it in your own blog.

The best relationships are a building process that happens over time … often many years. Trust can be improved upon and implied by longevity, but nothing really trumps good direct communications. Each relationship must start somewhere, so it is worth extending your hand. As relationships evolve, treating them like the treasure they really are is hugely important if you ever hope to encounter success.

By the way … if we have a good relationship, could you please tell somebody about me? I am currently looking for a new project to use my useful, creative, and relationship building abilities. If we don’t already have this level of relationship, my hand is extended. Please introduce yourself so we can get started.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

11 Humorous Answers to Dumb Google Searches

Google Search: How to Spell Duh
Google Search: How to Spell Duh

You may wonder how I will make this turn out to be both useful and humorous, but have a little faith, my Google searching friend. This is a list of my answers to some the dumbest Google searches I recently found in my server logs. Before I cut straight to my list of absurdities, allow me just a moment to set the stage.

I love SEO. There, I said it! I really do love my work, although it is usually much more fun to do it than to explain it to people. I am the first to suspect that, as I have often said, “When I Go to Hell, They Will Have Me Selling SEO“. Yes, fun to do it, but tortuous to explain it.

One of the reasons I love SEO so much is the great humor and insights to the human mind that it offers. This is also one of the reasons you may sometimes find me to be condescending and uppity, because there are truly some dumb people out there. Yes, saying that makes me a jerk, but actually more of a “PECKER” (Reference: “New SEO Acronym to Replace SEO by 2012“).

It takes all types to make a species, but wow … just “Wow!” I am a fan of people, but sometimes I have to feel just a little tinge of embarrassment for the floaters in our genetic pool.

The term “SEO”, for the uninitiated, is an acronym for “search engine optimization”, and as a practitioner in the field, it means that I can generally rank at the top of the list for damn near anything I choose. That is why companies pay me to provide this service for them. Yeah, can you believe it? Being ranked at the top of search results is actually worth paying for. That is totally crazy, I know!

Don’t hate me for it, because it comes with a touch of insanity, and a good dose of time. Like well over a decade of practice and studying SEO to know what works.

A good amount of this particular achievement comes down to having a squillion website links pointing to my blog from other websites, and having just a touch of Murnahan wit and charm. OK, you can call it “BS”, or whatever you like, but let’s face it, some websites will rank well in search engines, and some will never be indexed for popular searches. This one ranks particularly well, which comes with a great potential for humor.

I previously wrote about the downside of being obsessed with statistics and over-monitoring of user data, but it is also very important to know how people are finding a website. It tells us what we need to know, and how to make things even better. When you dig really deep, it can sometimes make hot coffee shoot uncontrollably from your nose as you laugh. This is especially the case when you try to picture what in the world those people were actually hoping to find in their online search.

NOTE: Although I am a huge proponent of targeting a market based on specific propensity of readers to become a customer or to refer business. Targeting is why I write things to attract specific searches from specific people. For example, I wrote about NASCAR start and park teams to reach the racing community, while offering good marketing thoughts.

With the good comes the bad, and sometimes it all goes wonky. If you rank well for the useful search terms, always it comes with unexpected absurdities. Although some of these may not seem so humorous on the surface, if you squint and look closely, there is something just a bit funny going on here.

Each of these searches have come in many variations of the search, and each is an actual verbatim quote taken from the top 5,000 searches in my website analytics within the past 30 days (typographical errors and all).

  • Dumb Google Search One: “icecream for sore bum“

    OK, I hate to drop this little peach so early, but this one does set a certain tone. This is an actual search that has been repeated in many various forms, including some that were probably typed urgently like “what;s good for hemorrhoids” (Twitter, of course!). It leads users to an article that asks “Is Twitter Good for SEO?“. The article may actually be useful, but I didn’t write this one for bums. If your butt hurts, I really don’t have a lot for you, but dozens of people seem to think that ice cream may help.

  • Dumb Google Search Two: “can your testicals reconnect them selves“

    I can forgive this fella for misspelling testicles, and for not realizing that “themselves” is actually just one word. This came from a Korean speaking individual in Burke, Virginia, USA. What I picture is a really frustrated little Korean guy sitting cross-legged at his computer screaming at his lover and murmuring “You betteh be right woman, oh I keow you!”

    I actually took a screen capture of this one when it happened. My guess is that he did not want to call 9-1-1, just in case he actually ended up killing somebody. I hope that poor guy is alright! I also hope he does not come for my testicles for wasting his precious moment with my article titled “SEO, Social Media, and Marketing Balls“. In my defense, I did not use the word “testicles” in the article, even once, and there was no medical advice.

  • Dumb Google Search Three: “best hookers“

    I suppose I kind of asked for this one when I titled an article “Hookers Write the Best Blogs“. What I didn’t realize at the time was just how many people would be performing Google image searches for pictures of hookers. I searched it one time, just to see what they were seeing. A few transsexual hookers and other creepy images later, I washed my eyes out with Listerine and vowed to never do that again!

  • Dumb Google Search Four: “buy termites online“

    Who knew that termites were so in-demand? I see a lot of variations for the query of where to buy termites. Although I am sure a number of these are people seeking to study termites in their laboratory, it makes me wonder how many angry ex-husbands are dumping these voracious little monsters around the foundations of their former homes. For those looking for termites, I offer this article titled “Things You Cannot Sell Online“. Termites are not one of those things, and it is highly unlikely that what you sell is on the list, too!

  • Dumb Google Search Five: “blog trolls“

    I wonder what they want with a blog troll. Yeah, I am sure that some people are just looking for a picture of a blog troll, but nobody I know has actually ever seen one. They sneak around in the shadows of the Internet. Here is what I had to say about them: A Few Words About Blog Trolls and Lurkers.

  • Dumb Google Search Six: “cheap sutures“

    This one is really dumb for a couple reasons. Sutures are those things they use to stitch people up after surgery. They generally come at an extremely high cost to we consumers. I guess maybe there is not enough markup in the medical field, so they have to find their sutures cheap so they can earn an extra four dollars on a $40,000 surgery.

    The other reason this one cracks me up is that I was once contracted to place a client at the top of searches for cheap sutures. They still owe me many tens of thousands of dollars, but then, that is why I now hold five of the top ten search results for their company name, “Suture Express“, along with their coveted “cheap sutures” and the names of each of their executives. Oops! 😉

  • Dumb Google Search Seven: “what happens if i set up a facebook page and dont use it?“

    This one should be simple. What else could a person logically expect would happen? Your computer will be infected with a virus that causes it to explode into a squillion pieces. I would not suggest this, especially with a laptop, but if it happens to you, just Google me when you need those testicles reconnected.

    In case you need to know more about Facebook or their computer-exploding virus, here is more information on the topic.

  • Dumb Google Search Eight: “SEO meta tags“

    This one is actually a very popular search, and it blows my mind. I mean, seriously, just look at the source code on any one of my blog’s pages if you need a mental re-adjustment on the topic of SEO tips. I would like to give you a quote from the article these search patrons find:

    “As long as there are people who ask “do meta tags help with SEO” there will be plenty of people to con them out of their money.”

    I hope you are not searching for information about meta tags. If so, you really should stick around and read some more.

  • Dumb Google Search Nine: “what to do when your too good at your job“

    My answer would perhaps be to quit the job and seek something better. Please just don’t make it a writing career until you at least learn the difference between your and you’re. Sure, maybe this is no big deal, but if “your too good at your job”, you’re probably going to need a better resume writer.

    This search landed the user on an article titled “Are You Too Good at Your Job?“, but what I think they really needed was to learn about Cousin Prolly in the article titled “Grammatical Reasons They’re Taking Their Business Over There”

    Another idea for being too good at your job is to give it all up and become an SEO and social media expert. That seems to be mighty damn popular (in searches, too)!

  • Dumb Google Search Ten: “things people find“

    My first thought here is “huh?” I am not so sure why, but a lot of searches just don’t make any sense to me at all. Apparently a limited few people are trying to find things people find. What they actually find is an article titled “Crazy Things People Search For” which addresses the ways people use search engines. It kind of goes well with this piece, so you may enjoy it.

  • Dumb Google Search Eleven: “how much does seo cost“

    This one actually comes with a whole lot of related searches that are equally as ridiculous. Some of those are social media rates, seo hourly rate, how much does it cost for SEO, social media marketing cost, how much will a social media strategy cost, and literally thousands more.

    What these searchers are obviously completely terrified and confused about is that there is a vast difference from one SEO to another. Asking the cost without knowing what to expect or understanding that it is not about cost, but rather increased profit, is about as wasteful and dumb as any question ever asked.

    Have you seen the Grand Canyon? I would like to submit that the difference in good SEO and bad SEO makes that thing look like a crack in a sidewalk.

My Dumb Summary of Dumb Google Searches

I guess eleven is enough for now. I gave you a whole lot of truly useful links dispersed throughout this article. In fact, probably enough that if you sit there and read them all at once, it will make your bum hurt. So, please bookmark this page, get yourself some ice cream to sit in, come back, and take some time checking them out.

Also, please add your comments and tell me how you arrived here. If you are that poor Korean fella represented in this image, I’d love to know how things turned out.

If you are not that Korean guy, be sure you subscribe, because I’ve got a whole lot more where this came from!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Reciprocal Link Exchanges Don’t Work!

Reciprocal Link Exchange Bullseye
Reciprocal Link Exchange Bullseye


I decided to title this article “Reciprocal Link Exchanges Don’t Work”. Perhaps even more appropriately, what I really mean is that reciprocal link exchanges are fool’s work.

Of course, I also know what people are more likely to search for after some crooked or inexperienced SEO (search engine optimizer) runs off with their money and leaves them with worse results than they started. So that is what I am here to explain. Join in the discussion if you have the need to defend your reciprocal link exchange strategy after reading this.

I know this may put a huge bullseye on my forehead with the slimier side of the SEO industry, but I say “bring it on!” Show me your best reciprocal link exchange, and I will show you foolishly exhaustive efforts with lackluster results.

I am not saying that it is a bad thing to cross-link websites, because sometimes there can be a synergy created. It can be useful in a limited few cases, but reciprocal link exchange is a very weak link building strategy. In fact, it is far more common for reciprocal link exchanges to be counterproductive. I’ll bet the last SEO you talked to didn’t tell you that.

Why Reciprocal Link Exchanges Exist

Links are the single most important and effective means to help your website rank highly in search engines. The links pointing to a website are used by search engines to measure the authority of a website overall, and for a given topic.

There are a lot of important contributors to high search engine ranking, but incoming links are the biggest factor. The structure and content of a website is extremely important, but without links pointing to all of that greatness, it will never rank well for competitive search phrases.

Because of the importance of incoming links, link exchanges have become the focus for many novice search engine optimizers and website owners who just don’t know how much they don’t know. Link exchanges fuel enough failed SEO link building efforts that if we could turn that into electricity, we could light a small country.

There are at least a squillion people out there trying to sell you links and trade links with you. If they have not reached you yet, it is because you don’t have any links. Once you have links to your website, and especially if you have a high Google PageRank, they will come to you in droves! All I have to do is check my email spam folder to find at least a thousand requests to exchange links or to hire some self-proclaimed “expert” to handle all of those link exchanges for me.

Reciprocal Link Exchange Motivation

I told you a bit of the motivation behind people wanting to exchange links with you, but what motivated me to write this? Maybe you think I am just trying to stand my industry on it’s ear, or maybe you will just think I am trying to mislead you. Yes, perhaps I am just trying to fool you in order to keep the SEO mystique alive, and try to cover up the truth about SEO. Maybe this whole “reciprocal link exchange” thing really is the big secret to SEO.

Just in case you are truly skeptical about this, I offer you this quote directly from Google Webmaster Central.

Your site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating. The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity. However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include:

  • Links intended to manipulate PageRank
  • Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
  • Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging (“Link to me and I’ll link to you.”)
  • Buying or selling links that pass PageRank

Of course, there are a lot of people who will say that Google is lying, too. The complete failure of that logic is that it is contrary to Google’s own interest to lie about how to rank well in their search engine. Google wants to include your website in their results, and they work hard to try and help website owners to do the right thing. If you still feel skeptical, please read this article titled “Brandon’s Baseball Cards and Google SEO Starter Guide” which explains Google’s motivation, and their efforts to help you.

If you really want more links, do something useful, creative, or otherwise more like sex and bacon. Take it from Google’s head of webspam, Matt Cutts. Here is a video of Matt talking about building links.

Matt Cutts (and common sense) said this: “the best links are earned and given by choice.“ Unless common sense is a totally worthless concept, what Matt said still holds true today, tomorrow, and always.

Reciprocal Link Exchange Foolishness

I will write more about link building soon, but I want to offer you some thoughts about links. If it was really as easy as just trading reciprocal links and submitting your website to search engines and directories, don’t you think the usefulness would wear off? If there was a way to cheat search engines, don’t you think they would fix the problem?

Maybe you heard that the magical fix is to use indirect, three way link exchanges. If you buy into that, you still have the wrong mindset of trying to shortcut the best practices. I mean the practices which work within the guidelines of a well organized system of both technology and people.

Consider that if you are seeking a link exchange with another website, who do you expect it to benefit the most … your website, or the other website? That’s right, you want it to benefit you more than the other guy. Now, when people come to you seeking a link exchange, don’t you think their answer is the same?

Links Are Not Equal in Value

According to Google Webmaster Tools, this blog you are reading has just a little over 50,000 links pointing to it. It is a small number compared to a lot of projects I work on, but large compared to a lot of one-person blogs. The number is not the part which matters the most, and not the point I want to make. They are not all “awesometacular” links from “amazinglicious” websites, but there is not a single one of them that comes by way of a reciprocal link exchange. These links exist because I concentrate on providing value to people first, and search engines second.

Not a Single Link Exchange!
Not a Single Link Exchange!

Links are not created equally. I could demonstrate this in about as many ways as I can chug a beer, and I am Irish, so that is a lot. Only a limited percentage of the links to any website will provide significant value. As an example of this, just compare the more than 50,000 links referenced in Google Webmaster Tools to the 8,774 which are measured by the respected SEOmoz Open Site Explorer. A huge number of the 50K links are not even visible by most measures. That is the same kind of links that comprise the vast majority of reciprocal link exchanges!

aWebGuy.com Links Measured by Open Site Explorer
aWebGuy.com Links Measured by Open Site Explorer

Consider the the ratio of quality links created “organically” because somebody saw value in your website, compared to “junk” links. If you can measure it, don’t you think a search engine such as Google can as well?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download