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Does PPC Frighten You? It Should

Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is undoubtedly the fastest way to get your products or services in front of your target market via a popular search engine. It is also a great way to waste a staggering amount of money if you’re not very careful. Starting a new PPC campaign from scratch requires planning, market research and a clear set of conversion goals. You have to understand what you’re getting yourself into before funding your first Adwords or YSM account, or you’re definitely flirting with budgetary disaster. Here are a few facts you should keep in mind before deciding PPC is right for your marketing effort.

PPC is very time consuming: Building new accounts, researching keywords and testing ad copy all factor in to the ramp up time – but is there ever a point at which you’re ‘done’? Can occasional maintenance take the place of the undivided attention you were devoting in the early days of a new PPC effort? The short answer is ‘definitely not’. Although it may seem plausible that your campaigns will reach a point where they can be switched on to auto pilot, there are many reasons you should always remain active in their daily management.
PPC is expensive: The amount of money you’re going to have to bid on a given keyword will be directly related to how competitive your vertical is. If you’re a mortgage broker, a battery store, a casino or a personal injury lawyer pack in right now. If, on the other hand, you sell purple squirrel jackets, PPC may be just be just the thing. Providing, of course, anybody knows your product exists and will be searching for it. The underlying message here is take a close look at the landscape before settling on PPC. Organic search engine optimization takes much longer, but the long term ROI is much greater than paying $10 a click to be in the 7th bid position for laptop battery.
PPC is only one piece of the puzzle: PPC only drives traffic to your site which, if you’ve been fastidious in your keyword research, may be relevant to your business. It does absolutely nothing to improve your conversion rate once that visitor is on your home page. If you’re missing the basics in terms of user experience, content, the checkout process and generally instilling consumer confidence do not spend a dime on PPC until you’ve gotten your house in order. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it pull out its credit card.

This is less of an introduction to PPC than it is a cautionary tale. Under the right circumstances, and with an experienced account manager at the reins, PPC can be a tremendously deadly arrow in your online marketing quiver. It is still an arrow, however, and not a silver bullet. Banner, CPM and PPC advertising should be only be among a wide variety of options you consider when planning a budget and strategy.

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Fisher Price: My First Link

Arranging reciprocal link partnerships with other websites used to be an extremely effective tool for bolstering your organic search engine rankings. As webmasters figure out how to manipulate algorithms, however, those algorithms will inevitably be updated by the powers that be. Currently, search engine algorithms give far more credence to one-way incoming links, and the art of facilitating these is commonly referred to as link building. Link building methods are extremely diverse and the term should only be considered as an umbrella over a variety of specific strategies, including:

  1. Paid links: Links can be purchased through link brokers or manually sought out one at a time by webmasters or web marketers. Brokers will provide you with a network of sites to choose from whereby you can customize the ever-important anchor text and select publishers relevant to your subject matter for a monthly fee. If you’re more traditional, don’t send out the wedding invitations just yet – doing it the old fashioned way is a long process, involving many emails or phone calls to prospective publishers, but may ultimately lead to the best value.
  2. Link baiting: Writing original, catchy content and submitting it to news sites and social media sites has become a popular way of garnering one way incoming links, and is commonly referred to as link baiting. Particularly effective are how-to articles, top 10 lists and video clip collections. The catchier the title, the better. Should you strike gold by becoming the next viral marketing darling, the huge number of links you’ll receive from other sites, blogs and networks will be priceless.
  3. Topic and content networks: Sites like Squidoo, HubPages and WetPaint can be categorized in a number of ways content site, social media, etc. but one thing is for sure they are free and easy ways to create links pointing back to your website. If, for example, your website sells Slap Shot merchandise, you can build a resource lens about your company or a relevant topic and link using your choice of anchor text. The more your lens, hub or canvas is perceived as being an objective resource, the more traffic and incoming links it will get from other members of the network and people who stumble across it via search engines, passing the link juice on to your main site.

These points are a high-level starting point, but specific examples help paint a good link building picture for the uninitiated. Simply put, high quality and original content, coupled with a base knowledge of the emerging social media and voting sites that have been rushing onto the scene, can do wonders towards encouraging the outside world to link to you. Build it, and they will not come. Build it and make it helpful or entertaining to the right person and they will link to you in a heartbeat.

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The Penalization Boogeyman

Surely you remember the dreaded Boogeyman from your distant childhood. He’s that frightening, nondescript monster who lived under your bed or in your closet – the thought of whom would make you cower and twitch as soon as your parents turned out the bedroom lights. My personal boog looked a lot like one of the creatures from Where the Wild Things Are, and luckily we reached a truce around the time I turned nine. Don’t kid yourself though, Braveheart. Boogeymen still exist in the adult world, and having come face-to-face with the buggers on many occasions I feel a sense of obligation to paint them with a scarlet ‘B‘ so the rest of the SEO community can steer clear themselves and, more importantly, help their clients sleep without a night light.

I’ve previously discussed the Click Fraud Boogeyman and now I’d like to introduce you to his older, meaner brother: the Penalization Boogeyman. But I’m getting ahead of myself. In my strange reality, where the sky is purple and I live on a Welsh submarine, a Boogeyman is defined as: “a bandied-about buzz-word that misinformed members of the media fill my clients’ heads with whom in turn needlessly make my life a living heck.” Said media can be as connected as an SEO “news” site, or as slow on the uptake as a CNN. The result, however, is always the same – me skating backwards, thowing punches like Tie Domi, when I should be actually working on the complainant’s behalf. And trust me, unreasonably skeptical client – I will eventually begin to bill you for that skating.

Penalization

The kids are at the campfire, and the counselor is spinning a yarn about shops of Indians clicking PPC ads with an evil purpose, the duplicate content demons, or – for our purposes – Google penalization pixies. And now, when I should be writing a kick-ass article or developing a new domain on my client’s behalf, I’m instead tasked with dispelling myths, shooing away naughty witches and convincing my stable there are no sharks in the wading pool. Alright, enough with the cutesy horse puckey.

Does Google penalization exist? Of course it does, and it’s somewhat of a relative term. You can end up with the dreaded grey 0/10 PageRank bar, or you can drop in the rankings because you’re using the exact same content in too many places. The commandments, however, are very straightforward. Across all of the many websites I have worked on over the years I have never experienced total Google expulsion. SEO and SEM is like the Wild, Wild West – hence my slightly cowpokey blog theme – and if you cower in the corner like a wallflower, afraid to branch out and try new tactics or emerging media, your skill set will die on the vine just as sure as you’re reading this.

The vast majority of the time, websites penalized by Google genuinely deserve it – either through an ignorance of offending methods or a blatant disregard for fundamental guidelines that my 11-year-old cousin can recite for you. Limiting a project’s potential due to irrational penalization fears is like… wetting the bed because you’re afraid a big, hairy hand is going to grab your ankle if you try and make it to the bathroom. Stop living in fear and start raking in performance bonuses.

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WebCEO 7.0 Article Submission

Wouldn’t you know it, as soon as I finally shell out for ASP – WebCEO 7.0 hits the scene and claims that it features article submission automation the likes of which will make your toes curl. It seems as though it is supposed to be part of the “Submission” group of tasks, but further information isn’t actually available until you get to the “Promotions” area. Is article submission though WCEO a red herring, or has someone actually used this feature in the new version. I’ll update you as I kick the tires.

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I’m not Dead. I’m in Toronto

Almost, anyway. My writing hiatus will conclude in a couple of weeks when the dust on this permanent international jaunt has settled. I will never post without a purpose, however – and this little ditty is no exception. Although I will maintain very strong professional roots in Boston, I am extremely interested in meeting any and all Toronto Search Engine Marketing peoples that may come across this website. Please reach out and say hello. Your city frightens and confuses me. Whether we cross paths in a new think tank – or an OPP drunk tank – the evening is still technically tax deductible if we talk about NOFOLLOW tags.

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Potential Revenue Streams for Parked Domain Names

Update 6/03/07:

WhyPark works. I moved all of my unused or poorly developed domain names under their roof a couple of months ago. Then I did about an hour’s work of en masse linkbuilding to get them all re-spidered and left it all to simmer. My “WhyPark” AdSense channel is now my second most profitable, averaging about $5 and growing. If you’re like me – a compulsive domain hoarder – put some of the little buggers to work and see what happens.

“What shall we do with a parked domain name?
What shall we do with a parked domain name?
What shall we do with a parked domain name – ear-lye in the mor-ning…”

Jeepers, I think I had a little too much rum while swabbing the decks today. But it’s a heck of a good question, and one I’ve asked myself a lot lately. If you’re like me, and you’ve registered what you think is the best domain name ever thought up by humankind on a weekly basis since 1999 – you’ve probably amassed quite a collection by now. And I bet more than half of them aren’t being used at the moment, but you just can’t seem to let go because you’ll get around to building that amazing website someday. Listen, nobody likes a squatter – but those domain names were an investment and this is business.

2 Revenue Streams for Parked Domain Names

GoDaddy’s Cash Parking: A few months ago, I took a large number of dusty domains, all with some amount of existing organic traffic, that have been percolating for 2-4 years and moved them all over to GoDaddy’s Cash Parking section. In terms of ease, if you have your domains hosted with them, it’s as simple as checking a box and hitting submit. You can choose the template of the page and the specific keywords that will trigger the Yahoo ads generated there. I’ve made a few bucks, but nothing to write home about. This may be a great option for an older, established domain but would be like useless for something you’ve just registered.

WhyPark’s Content Domain Parking: This is the sort of service I am most interested in experimenting with. The service is similar to traditional parking in that they will host a page for you after you point your DNS in their direction and then host ads relevant to your domain. The major differentiator here is that you keep 100% of the Adsense revenue and can use your own code. You can host up to 100 domains for a one time fee of $100, and they generate all of the content automatically based on your custom parameters (presumably via RSS feeds, etc.). They also give you the ability to sell text links and even let you choose your own title tags (unlike GoDaddy). In theory this could work for domains which are established and those which are embryonic. A great model which will be loved by some and absolutely reviled by others, but the bottom line is – will it make more money than traditional parking services? I think… yes.

The way I see it, it can’t hurt to kick the tires on a few of these services. I am a firm believer that if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is – but I also believe that an objective resource with good content (even if that content isn’t super-original) will attract relevant search engine traffic. I’ll get back to you after I have some personal success or failure to share with you, and I welcome your comments and advice in the meantime. What sites am I missing here? Admittedly, I am a rookie parker, and perhaps even a drunken one.

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Don’t Dilute the Potential of your Press Releases

If you’ve been using press releases for direct online marketing and search engine optimization, you probably have a few favorite networks bookmarked by now. Some are pretty pricey (PR.com, PRWeb.com), but pack a lot of SERP punch depending on the keyword phrases you link back to your site with. Other sites aren’t quite as effective (SanePR.com, PRLeap.com, PRLog.org) but allow you to post releases for free, with as many outgoing links as you want, making them a sensible part of a comprehensive SEO strategy. Every time I create a press release for a client, I utilize a combination of these paid and free sites/networks – with great results.

There’s one important thing to remember – take it easy on the outgoing links. I follow a rule of thumb that I only optimize for one phrase per press release, and never have more than two outgoing links. It is generally agreed that the more outgoing links a web pages or a press release has – the more diluted their effect becomes. So call your shots carefully and don’t get greedy.

This logic also applies to valuing paid links. If you contact a webmaster about purchasing a text link and they have already sold links to 100 other websites – the value of that link is greatly reduced. The potential influence of a text link from a page is lessened the more links there are on said page, so don’t get taken for a ride.

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SEO with HubPages

Google absolutely adores Squidoo, and I have discussed several times how the network can be used for the purposes of search engine optimization. But Squidoo has a few younger siblings that shouldn’t be overlooked in a comprehensive link building effort, the most advanced and spidered of which seems to be HubPages. But what is HP, and how exactly can it complement your online marketing efforts?

After you register and open an account, pick a topic and create a new hub. The process is pretty self explanatory, but make sure you choose an objective topic and name for your lens so that it doesn’t appear like a blatant marketing ploy. Also, as you are allowed to select your URL, get some keywords or your brand name in there. If your first choice is taken, try a few different variations or use hyphens between words (pinkrhinocerousbattery can be pink-rhinocerous-battery).

Back to the subject matter of your lens – people are more likely to visit or link to your hub if it is perceived as an objective resource. If your company sells mixing bowls, create a hub with free recipes. Do you offer gym apparel? Build a lens which focuses on workout tips. Somewhere within your hub, likely one of their text modules, hyperlink to your company site using the word mixing bowls. Make sense?

But where else can you get content for your new hub? HubPages can pull in RSS very well. Build a custom RSS feed filtered to your key term or subject matter. Or visit a relevant site or blog and see if they offer a feed for syndication. You can also utilize photo, link, news and Amazon modules – with more being introduced all the time. You can get a decent, content filled Hub off the ground in under an hour. Once it is spidered by Google and Yahoo that’s another prominent incoming link working in your favor. Give it a shot, use your imagination and add HubPages to your SEO arsenal and best practices.

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Social Media Marketing Makes my Skin Crawl

My sister sent me this video – presumably because she’s secretly mocking my profession of choice. This clip doesn’t make me want to navigate over to this handsome bastard’s site as much as maybe… take a shower. Based on the comments on the post-specific YT page, I am not alone.

If we, the public, were called upon to perform a service to this gentleman by offering constructive criticism to his efforts, I think it would likely go something like this:

  • Spell your ultra-long URL properly on your splash screen. Unless of course a bluerpint is actually some kind of Belgian beer that I don’t know about.
  • There is a tuxedo rental shop somewhere in Minnesota that is missing a men’s jacket size 14.
  • Remember back in the late 1990’s when LLCool J would wear one leg of his sweat pants rolled up? It never really caught on, and someone should tell Gary here that the ‘one lapel flip’ won’t fare much better.
  • Rodney Dangerfield called. He wants his tie knot back.
  • I have seen hostage videos in which the subjects looked more comfortable. Is there a rabid grizzly bear on a chain just off camera? “Right, who’s doesn’t?” Strasberg is turning in his grave.
  • The Shakespeare beard should be limited to sex offenders and poet laureates. Oh eye of newt and tongue of frog and link of Digg! Hast thou forsaken me?
  • The dual eyebrow raise-head jerk move might be a precursor to a more serious neurological disorder. I kept waiting for him to yell “cock farts frigging slut monkeys!” at the end of every sentence.

Ladies, please form a line to the left. This guy should really be teaching a class in social heartbreaking, being Valentine’s Day and all.

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Swatting the RegisterFly

Still Another Update: www.RegisterFlies.com

Another Update: Enom has stepped up to the plate and completely severed their ties with RegisterFly. They have created an FAQ which will allow you to transfer domains from RF back to Enom. Since our domain is technically expired, this is going to be an even bigger hassle than a normal domain push. I am going to call Enom in the morning and see what can be done. I have also backordered the domain in question through GoDaddy in case I get lucky. Pray for the kids.

Update: Apparently we are not alone. Has RegisterFly.com stolen our domain name? “It seems RegisterFly has gotten themselves into a lot of trouble recently for their practices and have been banned by Enom from registering domain names in the future.” Who else has this happened to, and what can we do about it?

I have never blogged for the purposes of evil before. In fact, I pride myself on my burgeoing online reputation management abilities. I do so now only because I have come up against service provider treachery the likes of which would make Carol Beer cringe. “Domain registrar says no.”

I help run a website for a non-profit community center here in Boston’s North End. I took over webmastering duties when the first guy moved away and I never bothered to transfer the domain name to my registrar of choice. I didn’t see the need. Instead, I left it at RegisterFly.com with whom I had no prior dealings. I am not going to play the ‘who let the domain expire‘ blame game here. I had access to the RF account – but I did not renew it before it technically expired (never got an email telling me expiration was imminent like I do everywhere else) and one day in December I got a panicked call from one of the center’s principals wondering why the site was down.

Long story short – it is two months later and after a barrage of calls to RegisterFly and its controlling entity, Enom, the site is still down and the domain unrenewed. I have moved it to a .org as a plan ‘B’, but refuse to rest until someone has at least explained to me why we’ve been ignored to the extent that we have. RegisterFly support tickets simply tell me there is a delay and to ‘just wait’. Enom doesn’t know we’re alive.

Yes, I am in a vendetta sort of mood tonight, but I’m also hoping a few tags will draw some Technorati traffic from folks who are experiencing the same issue with this collective set of jokers. It would be a shame if someone at the Boston Globe caught wind of my non-profit being cornholed in this fashion. I played a cop in the fundraising play this year, for goodness sake. I wore makeup. I’m pissed. We’re only trying to help the kids, Enom. Do the right thing and call a brother. I did a little research to no real avail – Does anyone know what the heck is going on with these two companies?

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