This is the question that is asked time after time in forums across the world. Unfortunately it is a case of ‘when all else fails, read the user manual’. An old adage sure, but it is true.

It is amazing how many people throw words into a list, write an advert, and set it running. This almost always results in money being eaten faster than a donkey eats strawberries.

So to answer the question, you need to follow the basic steps. I intend drip feeding the various elements that are involved, and will be guided by user comments.

The easiest way to bleed money is by poor matching of your phrases. I have assumed that you have carried out proper keyword research, because keyword research is the King AND Queen of internet marketing. Get That wrong and (Read on …)

As anyone who has not been sleeping off the mother of all hangovers for the last week knows, Google are now showing Search Volumes in their keyword research tool. HURRAH! I hear all you posh types say, but here is the thing, Life is not that simple, many are now rushing out, grabbing numbers, and off they go on the back of a virtual donkey, complete with a spade and a pan to find their gold. It is the Yukon all over again. 

So before you follow them off chasing rainbows, let me show you that the pot of gold is NOT at the end of your rainbow, it is at the bottom of a hole, you just have to dig for it.

When using the AdWords keyword researcher, there are a couple of things to take into consideration.  (Read on …)

Back to the original purpose of this blog, to answer Questions.  and the question is ” how can Google identify bought links?” for obvious reasons the guy who asked the question didn’t want to be linked to (I wonder why)

How can Google tell if a link is a vote or bought?

The simple answer is they CAN’T. yep because it is impossible algorithmically to determine if money has changed hands! But it is not as simple as that. The question really is not ‘CAN Google identify individual paid links’?, but rather,

(Read on …)

WHY do people and companies decide to risk jail by using statements like “we have a special relationship with Google” ? Google doesn’t position is own rankings (much), so to claim it does, and with some new company working from above a shoe shop in some backwater town, is ridiculous in the extreme.

 One of the members over at UK Webmaster world forum has experienced one such company. They rang her, actually claimed they have done a deal with Google that allows them to get their business on page 1 of Google and all for £99 a month. The discussion took an interesting term when… (Read on …)

Many people have been critical of Google for their delays in replying to emails, when email is the only method of contact.

it is a little known fact however that a helpline exists for Google AdWords account holders in the UK. The number is…. (Read on …)

This is a question I get asked a lot, are all links equal? Does it matter if I change the outgoing links on my page? Is it ok to buy short term links?

To answer these questions, take  a step back, and look at it from a non SEO offline example.

You see a sign in a mortgage companies window and it says

‘we recommend abc mortgage lender as they are the best EVER’

a week later the sign has changed to

‘we recommend def mortgage lender as they are the best EVER’
another week later the sign has changed to

‘we recommend ghi mortgage lender as they are the best EVER’

What are your thoughts on the recommendations of that mortgage company? Personally I would say that their recommendations are not worth the time to read them.

A guy calls on your business, he is selling insurance.

2 months later, he calls again this time to sell you a water cooler.

2 months later he calls again and he is now selling photocopiers.

What are your thoughts on THIS persons reliability, his recommendation of product?

A different guy comes to you regularly, he works for a company, the company are good, their products are good, and they have never recommended a product that failed you or a solution that failed to deliver. They do NOT have a broad range of products, but the range they specialise in is good, and you have appreciated how the products they recommend truly were ’solutions’ that suited your company, as a result, you have dealt with them for years.

What are your thoughts on this specialist company?

Do you see what I am saying now?

Change links and you look unreliable, change anchor text and you can’t make up your mind what you think the site does. get a link, stick to it, and leave it there, and it is a solid recommendation.

To think like a search engine analyst, step back into the real world, because artificial intelligence is based around real world belief and opinion. 

So Google are trying to weed out the un natural links, paid links call it what you like. What Google are doing now is flying in the face of traditional marketing, and the BIG agencies will slap them down for it (in the Uk anyhow).

WHY does a guy sit in a bath of beans? WHY does someone run the london Marathon in a suit of armour? PUBLICITY that is why. and WHAT is publicity translated into in Web terms? LINK BAIT plain and simple. The traditional marketers from the offline world (Like myself) have promoted link baiting constantly from day 1.  NOW Google think it is wrong

On the one hand they say create content worth linking to. On the other hand they now say, dont try to attract links by link baiting and false linking methods.

So I get 5000 backlinks because I write something that goes viral, and that is ok? but I buy 5000 backlinks and that is wrong. Google can’t tell the difference so assume that it MUST be crap linking.

Tis a sad day for web marketing when this happens.

This is a common question, and one that is asked across forums day and night. My reply would be that SEO is personal to everyone as there is no real carved in stone definition of it, with even the wiki definition of SEO being an opinion. 

I would say that the key is in the last word. OPTIMISATION. Optimisation means simply to reach an optimum. so that means make your site the best it can be. For me SEO goes WAAAAAAAAYYYY beyond the easy bit of getting a site to the top of the search engine reusults pages. For me and many other top practitioners of SEO, we take a hollistic SEO approach, looking at the whole thing, NOT just the rankings (although of course they are very important). Hollistic SEO’s look at everything, including ALL the potential keywords, not just the one or two site owners want to rank for.

Professional SEO for me is hollistic, it is about about conversions, profitability usability visitor retention maximising spend etc REAL WORLD outcomes. The things that matter. So you think that the most important thing is to be at the top of the search engines? NOPE.

If I was to ask you all what your goal is for your site, you would mostly say ‘to get to number one for all my keywords’. This is so sad. A person goes to the hardware store to buy a drill bit. WHY? does he WANT a drill bit? NO he WANTS a HOLE, but you need a drill bit to MAKE the hole, to insert the hanger to hang the picture of thee family on the wall. The drill bit is simply a means to an end, NOT the end goal itself.

So ask yourself again, what do I want from my site? 

let’s say what you want is £30,000 per year. HOW can you achieve this? Say each visitor is worth £0.25, then you need 120,000 visitors right? WRONG. While getting to the top of google might well bring in this volume of traffic, it is NOT what a true SEO would recommend as a sole course of action.

If you can up the visitor value to £0.50 then you can earn £30k with 60k visitors. Assume for the purpose of illustration that your conversion ratio is 1 in 100. Get the conversion ratio down to 1:50 and you can earn £30 with 30,000 visitors. With me so far?

HERE IS THE KICKER THOUGH.

You now have an optimised site and are earning £1 per visitor. Remeber that 120,000 visitors you needed to earn £30,000and how being at the top of Google was going to earn you your £30,000 a year goal?

 NOW it will earn you £120,000

THAT my friends is my take on professional SEO!

Recently I have been getting a lot of emails asking about the merits of so called multilanguage optimisation. These are normally from so called ‘SEO’s’ who offer this service for anything from $200-500 per language.

Is it worth it OWG I get asked. Well the answer is NO… and YES

Is it worth having multilanguage pages on your site? YES if they are done well AND provided you can deal with an enquiry in that language, because f you can’t then you are going to appear like a big ole fraud to that potentially large customer. Large in the meaning of spend, not calling them fat or anything like that.

Another thing to consider is the quality of the translation. Let me tell you a story about that. A while ago someone came up with a script that exploits the translation facility of the Google toolbar and also Yahoo toolbar etc. This script was circulated around, and eventually it, or a script LIKE it was sold for a chunk of money in one of these fantastic ‘use it or lose it , the next big thing on the web’ type broadcasts.

Google has now decided that as it is against the acceptable use terms and conditions to auto-query Google, and as these scripts ARE auto-querying Google, it will block the IP of the site that is using them. So think about the implications of that for a moment if you will.

To put it simply, using these scripts is against the terms and conditions of Google and yahoo etc. While not getting your site banned (apart from for the translation side of things), it might well raise a Google flag above your site, and might gain you unwanted notice.

Most of these SEO’s offering multilanguage promotion use these tools.

So to everyone who has asked me if it is worth it, I say… Draw your own conclusions

Google Move further into offline advertising with a deal for an undisclosed amount with Clear Channel Communications, the largest radio advertising company in the US. (reported by the New York Times today) Now we all know that google are pushing further and further into areas that are seen as … (Read on …)