The Magic of The Google Rubiks Cube

When I first saw someone solve a Rubik’s cube,  it looked like magic. A bewildering flash of turning corners, spinning layers and yet flashes of some type of pattern to how it was done… I felt the same level of intimidation when I started working on websites and was being told how you get a website to rank in the search engines.

With the Rubiks cube I found myself picking it up again and again despite the fact that again and again I’d find myself stuck, or undoing all of my hard work!

In a similar way I’d begun my journey to learn Search Engine Optimization, and I’d find myself making misteps, get frustrated with how things came out and be on the border of giving up… but still sticking to it.

De-Mystifying The Process

As anyone who does slight-of-hand tricks will tell you, the first hundred times you attempt your trick it will be bumbling, slow and awkward. The same is true of learning and implementing SEO tactics online. However, now I can solve a Rubiks cube in just a couple of minutes, no matter how mixed up it is… I think that looking at how you approach a Rubiks cube is very helpful as you approach Internet Marketing. These are the basic steps you’ll need to take and the posts I will be making over the next few weeks:

• Understand The Basic Moves
• Learn the Algorithm
• Solve Layer By Layer
• Go Backwards To Go Forward
• Deal With Missteps
• Go Past Your First Win
• VICTORY IS MINE(Again and Again)!

The following is a rant that has been building up from a number of experiences me and some fellow SEO friends have had with clients that have not only ignored advice, but have taken pains to undo changes to their site. Exhibit A: Client’s INSISTING on having their Meta-Keywords tag that contained 2000 characters of spamalicious text restored after it was removed it all together (because the Meta-Keyword tag is dead). Exhibit B: Client wants the 25 spinning GIFs you just removed and replaced with Anchor text links and proper call to action buttons to be brought back in all their horrid 1990’s geocities zombie glory. However, this isn’t a rant to disparage clients, but an attempt to highlight how we can all set aside our egos, and benefit.

Why Did You Hire An Expert You Ignore?

This is the first thought that immediately comes to mind, for me is, “If you believed so solidly in your own website marketing/design prowess then why did you reach out and HIRE someone to make these changes?”  Seriously. I know what I’m doing and have justifiable reasons for implementing changes, so why won’t you just let me do my job?

Understanding Your Clients

Now with each of these situations, it has been a sole proprietor/small business owner, and that gives us a clue to unravel the mystery. These are people who have made the bold decision to strike out on their own, and have obviously made a living at their profession and have a wealth of experience in their industry/niche. As a website marketer, we need to understand and harness that experience, and hopefully guide those decisions in the right direction.

Downsize The Ego And Listen

If there’s anything bigger than my Ego around here I want it trapped and shot. – Zaphod Beeblebrox -Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

So the first step is to take your EGO out of the equation, and simply ask them why they think that it’s a good idea to have a flash introduction to their website. Do they need a flash intro? No, but hear them out and understand where they got the motivation for their bad idea. HERE’S THE KEY: Let them continue explaining until they actually ask for your opinion. This will put you back into the position as the authority in the situation, if you are addressing them and trying to convince them that their idea is bad they may be simply defending their past actions and their ego. By allowing them the chance to (attempt to) explain, it moves the situation out of the personal realm and will give you the power to logically construct a valid reason to dissuade them… If you’re successful then you’ve assisted the client in not only avoiding a bad decision, but to truly understand your reasoning and logic that brought you to that conclusion.

Personal Opinion: Email = Destroyer Of Compromise

On a personal note here, I have worked in some form of web related customer service for the past 6 years. Out of all the hundreds of situations where there’s been a heated difference of opinion between me and a client, the majority of the time it’s resolved by actually talking, and not via email. This is mostly because you don’t have to actually read and understand an email…you and your client can just skim over the email and gloss over the arguments/facts/scenarios presented so that each of you can then hit them again with an opposing opinion. Aside from that, it’s much harder to be snarky and sarcastic over the phone than it is through digital communication, ask anyone who’s been flamed on a forum/twitter/blog. (This is my opinion only..any one out there actually have more success with email?)

What if they don’t change their mind?

So you listen to them explain and bring up the most elaborate and thorough treatise on the proper use of meta-tags that mankind has ever heard..and yet they still decide to restore that tag to it’s spammful position. Who knows they may have found some small reason for bad design/marketing choice, and are still be convinced by their own argument… At that point, it would seem wise to remember the saying:

He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day!

What Say You?

So, are there any SEO/Design Horror stories out there? How did you handle the situation… any you might do different now?

This is a series of posts for some real estate agents I’ve recently worked with who were wondering what kind of video content they should create that would complement their real estate efforts online. Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting a slew of different ideas, so stay tuned!

Neighborhood Video Tours

As part of the process in deciding where they will relocate, home buyers are going to get as much information as they can about prospective neighborhoods and cities. You can provide a valuable service to prospective buyers by taking your camera, and taking some videos of your neighborhoods. You can also highlight the amenities available, so it’s advisable for you to write that information down and do a practice run before you roll film. If you have a real estate website, then you can embed those videos directly into the page to provide extra relevance to that area and subject.

As a website owner, small business owner, marketer it is often so very very easy to get wrapped up in interpreting “what your client wants” that you forget to access the best resource to answer that question: the client!

Bottled at the Source!

You’ve all done it…you stare at your Google or Raven seo analytics trying to figure out why your bounce rate is so high. You follow the click paths, create client funnels, follow referral sources, and pour over charts and graphs until your eyes bleed but you STILL can’t figure out why the client left the page. ..You’re missing the most obvious source of feedback! The purest source you can ask for is your client! They have a usually have a “pretty good grasp” on why they would want to visit your website, what they’d like to have as a feature, what web content they’d like to read and why they might not like your current site! So how do you tap this reservoir of recommendations??

All You Gotta Do Is Ask Her Nice

Here’s my recommended tactic that you can use to get feedback from your clients to discover problem areas, services you don’t offer and type of content people are looking for. A simple interview.  First, Jot down a set of questions like:

• What would you expect to see on a site for (insert industry here)
• Is there any services our business can do for you online that would make you more likely to be our client? Like Schedule appointments?
• Do you have any unique ideas that would be neat to see on our website?

Second, is to set the client at ease first after approaching them for the survey. Perhaps a cup of coffee or a soda or if you’re a restaurant treat them to a free meal (you’ll definately make a bigger return on the investment of a single meal).

Lastly, make them feel like they’re special, and that their feedback matters deeply(which it should!). The  benefit from this tactic is that beyond drawing out some possibly new ideas, or reinforcing your current methods,  it will make an impression on that person! That additional level of contact could lead to word of mouth advertising as they tell their freind about their experience. If  your lucky, and the person is web-savvy then you could even garner a Yelp review, a blog post, tweet, facebook post or myspace comment about it as well!

Have you used this method to get feedback? Do you have some tips to making it go smoothly? Please feel free to share!

Thank you for coming out, it was nice to get some fresh opinions and share ideas on exactly what content you should be writing for your site.

Biggest Take Away

It seemed the best advice of the meeting was actually scheduling a specific time and place to dedicate yourself to the project. Since our meetup was all small business owners, the challenge was placing a website and online work in priority with the rest of the business. it’s important to remember that there are tons of resources for small businesses and opportunities in Local Search that you have to have a physical location to take advantage of online.

Where Do I Put Content First?

Photo by WordRidden

Your online presence should be like an octopus, that reaches out from the most likely place of conversion to draw people in and make them into customers. The most logical place of conversion for most businesses is going to be your “static” website. What I mean by static, is that even if it is built on a WordPress platform in a blog style, it has a large number of pages that remain the same, with the same intent that doesn’t change over time.

You should make sure that you have this central location created and optimized for both search engines and for converting visitors to users. Be sure that you’ve got your contact information easily available, and are using “calls to action” that highlight what action you’d like your users to take.

Your Site Should be a Trusted Source, not an Encyclopedia

Photo by Stewart

You should have information that relates closely to your industry. If you’re a Realtor then you should have information about your communities, and the home market. However, your pages shouldn’t be simple reams of information, (or for that matter copied and pasted from the city website or wikipedia). Yes, writing content takes time!

Variety is the spice of life!

Nobody wants to sit and read through 28 paragraphs of stale dull content. Even if your subject is interesting, it’s difficult to engage users online with large chunks of content. So make the content interesting! Be sure to spice up your huge paragraphs of text with things to keep people interested in your writing. Use interesting pictures that line up with concepts or ideas from each paragraph. Perhaps use bullet points to recap if you’ve touched on a number of topics. You can also use quotes to augment your content with authority sources or humor.

Video is Content Too

Don’t forget that if you take the time to create a video for your business, to make sure that it will return the best value to you. For example, if you were making video testimonials, make sure that you’ve got a custom Youtube channel setup. When you create your video listing, be sure to use your full URL in the description, and if you can be sure to edit it into the video itself as well in case it’s syndicated.

Thanks again for all of you who made it out today!

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to talk to some of my friends who are not in the search engine optimization industry, and made a realization as I was explaining how we understand Google  actually works. I found myself quickly relying on an analogy that I think might be useful when talking to perspective clients, so I thought I would share it.

Google Is My “Other Lady”

I came to the realization that the relationship that I have with Google is actually extremely similar to the relationship I have with my wife *shameless promotion* who runs an awesome online vintage shop. Looking at the way that I interact, communicate and understand what it is that Google is looking for mirrors the way that I find ways to communicate and interact in my romantic relationship. So we can take a stab at understanding Google’s ranking factors, by looking at the factors in our relationships.

Communication is Key

When you are talking to a girl, and hope to begin a relationship you have to let them know about you, who you are, what you do, and what your interests are in life. When you are building a website, you need to also be communicating to Google who you are, what you do, and what interests might bring people to your website. You can’t just be fluff, you have to have content that’s relevant and makes “semantic sense”. This means that the year 2000 tactics of stuffing pages full of keywords and not actually using real sentences is out. The way you present yourself and dress does say something about you, no it’s not just being shallow. If you like to wear a stained and faded black sabbath t shirt with hopelessly ripped jeans, it sends a message about you. Header tags ( h1, h2, h3 etc) have the same effect, they send a clear signal about your page’s content, so be sure to use them effectively.

Meta-tags: The Pick Up Line

Do you believe in love at first sight…or should I walk by again?

You only have one chance to make a first impression, and being far too forceful can have just a negative impact on your chances of impressing Google, as an attractive woman. In your first conversation, you also need to be truthful about what it is you actually do. If you claim to be “in finance” and turn out to be a cashier at the local Quikie Mart, then you aren’t going to be seen as particularly trust worthy.

In your meta-title, description and keywords you need to describe what it is your site is about, without adding items that you don’t actually cover. Also be sure not to stuff your meta-keywords with tons of repetitions or words and topics your site doesn’t cover. Recently Google made a change to it’s handling of meta-tags for longer queries, and uses items from the page to understand context, and this is important because it means that Google is looking past the “pick up lines” and looking at the content of your site, and letting searchers see more of the context from your page before they even click through to your site.

Don’t hate the Player, Hate the Game

If the people who know you refer to you as “shady”, or “flirtatious”, then a woman you want to be in a relationship with is going to be second guessing you, questioning your actions and generally not going to be secure in her relationship with you. Likewise, if you hang out with a crowd of people that are constantly having “drama”, getting in arguments with their girlfriends, go out gambling and hanging out in strip clubs, you are most likely hurting your chances. Whether you think it’s fair or not, people are going to make assumptions about you and your character based off the company you keep. Even worse is if you consistently stand up and talk up these people as your close friends who can be trusted…when they can’t be.

Google also looks at who your website is “hanging out with”, and is going to analyze your online relationships. If you’re linking out to adult and gaming websites, and recommending your visitors to those types of sites, you’re going to lose credibility with Google. What other sites say about you will be used by Google to evaluate your relevance to a particular topic, so be sure you’re getting good “anchor text” from reputable websites that are related to your site’s theme, topic, or geographic area.

It’s All About Trust

To summarize my analogy, no relationship can function without trust. Without it, both partners will start taking on negative behaviors, and trust me, you do NOT want to have Google as your Ex-Girlfriend! But if you stick to the straight and narrow, and faithfully update your content, find trustworthy links and friends to support you, then you will over time become more and more trustworthy to Google and your girlfriend.

I Now Pronounce You Man and Search Engine

A relationship in the end is about commitment. If you do not commit yourself to the time needed to write content, create videos, blog, respond to blog comments, submit yourself to directories, put out link bait, promote yourself socially then you’re not going to have a very successful website or online presence. So get over your commitment issues, and go for it! Now repeat after me:

I SEOer,
Take Thee Google,
To Love and to Optimize for,
With useful, unique content
through serp changes and algorithm updates,
For Adsense or Adwords campaigns,
Till Death or Server Outage do us part.

You’ve Been Grunge Rolled!

Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader something to look for so they aren’t distracted by the total lack of content in your writing.

Randy K. Milholland

When you own a website, sometimes it can feel like a very insular project, where your website is an island. I’ll be hosting a meetup for site owners in the Riverside, California area to discuss content writing advice and SEO strategies for business owners,  Internet marketers and site owners.

The meetup will be held at Back to the Grind, in Downtown Riverside California on Saturday 7/25/2009 at 10:00 Am.  Please bring your laptops to the meeting if posible!

In this last year I worked with a client to put up a website for him for La Quinta, California. As usual I added a sitemap( BTW this site makes quick and easy xml sitemap files) and verified the site with Google’s webmaster tools (Which just underwent an awesome Google facelift and gives more data and feed back than ever).

Pay attention to the bones of your Site: File Names

Well, I just went back and checked in to my Google webmaster tools account and discovered something very strange for this real estate and local centric website for La Quinta, CA…

I was totally confused why this site had so many different terms that it ranked for for “Skeleton”… Well I did some digging and realized that when I built the site, I had added the background image with the file name “images/skeleton.gif”. The rest of the site has NOTHING to do with skeletons but here Google is giving rankings for a wide mix of terms related to the main content of the page, as well as for terms related to skeletons! For example Google webmaster tools showed me ranking 48 for [Jack Skeleton] from Nightmare Before Christmas, as well as [skeleton in desert] which seemed to have used the geographic context along with the filename. The lesson here for your site is that filen ames are one of the many factors in how Google understands your website, so do everything you can to name them appropriately!