by Jennifer Laycock

Kudos to Matt Cutts and the team at Google for finally getting around to adding nofollow documentation to the Google Webmaster Help Center.

Matt explains:

Earlier this year, Li Evans pinged us with a good observation. We’ve answered a ton of questions about nofollow in various places around the blogosphere. Li asked us to distill the important bits about nofollow into a single page and place it in Google’s HTML documentation. We just pushed that live, so you can read more about the nofollow attribute if you’re interested.

Since I spent some time yesterday writing emails to some bloggers I know trying to help them understand nofollow and how it impacts their ability to run pay-per-post and blogvertorials on their web sites, it’s nice to see some of this information being boiled down and included in Google’s Webmaster Help section.

The new info on the Google site clearly explains what nofollow is, how to use and when Google thinks you should use it. In fact, here’s what the new page says about paid links:

Paid links: A site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to it. In order to prevent paid links from influencing search results and negatively impacting users, we urge webmasters use nofollow on such links. Search engine guidelines require machine-readable disclosure of paid links in the same way that consumers online and offline appreciate disclosure of paid relationships (for example, a full-page newspaper ad may be headed by the word “Advertisement”). More information on Google’s stance on paid links.

Nice job pestering them into that move Li!

That’s not all the info they’ve added though. According to Matt, you’ll find new or updated Google info on a variety of topics, including a spiffy Robots.txt PDF for publishers and a revised definition of a Doorway Pages.

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by Stoney deGeyter

In business, it is pretty much well known that it requires less of a financial investment to keep a customer than it does to acquire a new one. The internet is really no different. Once you get a visitor on your site, or get them wanting to be on your site, it takes less investment to keep them there than it does to go bring in another new visitor. Therefore it is important to do whatever you can to keep acquired visitors on your site helping them move through the conversion process. Everything, that is, short of hijacking their web browser!

One of the easiest ways to lose visitors from your site is through broken or invalid links. You’ve been there before… surfing through a website, looking for things that interest you only to click on a link that brings you to something like this:

What did you do when you hit that page? Hit the browser back button? Close the browser? Go to a different site? Perform a different search? Turn your computer off and go outside?

Most people will automatically hit the browser back button. If they hit that page from a your own site then that back button will do OK in keeping them on your site. Except that since they can’t the information they want from you they’ll likely leave to find someone who can.

But what if they came from a search engine? Or a link from another website? Or an old bookmark?

In these instances you just lost the visit, and quite possible the sale or lead.

What causes broken links?

Here are some common ways that broken links are created:

• You rename a page and forget to change all your internal links
• Another site links to the old page not knowing it’s been moved or removed
• A search engine ranks a deleted page and hasn’t yet removed it from the index
• Someone has bookmarked deleted or moved page in their browser or bookmarking service
• Someone links to your page but screws up the link URL

When the broken links are internal, within your own site, those are easy to prevent and correct. But when broken links are external, from other sites or bookmarks, there is not a lot you can do to correct them, short of contacting each offender and asking them to change it.

No matter what, you can’t always prevent people from linking to you incorrectly. So the onus is on you to do what you can to keep the visitor on your site despite the broken link.

Three ways to stop losing visitors from broken links:

Create a custom 404-error page

This is a catch-all solution that every site should do. If you don’t have a custom 404-error page then you need to create one ASAP.

The idea here is to prevent visitors from getting the white page shown above, in favor of a customized page that keeps the visitor engaged with the website. Below is the custom 404 page from my site own site:

A good 404-error page will look and feel just like any other page on your site. The only difference is that it let’s the visitor know that hey hit an invalid URL. Let your visitors know that they page is gone, missing or moved. Then you’ll want to present some options for the visitor. Give them some links to follow, helping them get to their intended destination.

Keep it clean and simple. Don’t burden your visitors with too many options. Provide links to your main areas but getting them as close to their original intent as can possibly be determined (this can be done well with dynamic sites).

Creating the custom 404-error page is easy. Just take any other page on your site, gut out the content and replace it with your simple message and links. Save the file into your root director as something like 404-redirect.htm.

Now edit your .htaccess file with this line of code:

ErrorDocument 404 http://www.site.com/404-redirect.html

That should do the trick. A couple of things you want to keep in mind. Be sure you use all absolute links on this page, including image paths. This will ensure that if someone hits a broken link in a sub-directory such as www.site.com/directory/directory.html you won’t have any broken links on the page that’s supposed to correct your broken link problem.

You also want to make sure you actually create a custom page, not just use the code above to redirect people to your home page. This can cause considerable confusion, especially if someone keeps trying a link that takes them back to the home page, when it’s not the page they expect. It’s polite to give them the message that something is amiss.

Implement 301 Redirects

If you are moving or renaming pages on your website then you want to implement 301 redirects. The redirect is the single best way to not lose visitors that may attempt to visit moved pages at the old location. By implementing the redirect, the visitor (and the search engine) is automatically transferred from the old page location to it’s new permanent home. The transition is seamless and the visitor will never even know that their link is broken (i.e. no thought required to keep doing what you want them to do!)

There are a number of ways to implement these redirects, but the best way is the 301 via the .htaccess file (if you have an apache server.) Simple add the following code to the .htaccess file, save and upload and you should see the redirect work:

Redirect permanent /page.htm http://www.site.com/page.htm

or

Redirect 301 /page.htm http://www.site.com/page.htm

Either of those will work. The 301 is a permanent redirect, but you can also implement a 302 temporary redirect if you’re making only temporary changes.

If you don’t implement 301 redirects on a page to page basis, then you’ll have to rely on your custom 404 to keep the visitors on the site. But why show a “page not found” message when you can deliver the visitor directly to the page they hoped to land on? The 301 redirect simply helps you provide a better, seamless experience for your visitors.

Perform a broken link check regularly

Despite the implementation of either or both of the strategies above, I highly recommend performing regular broken link checks. We do this once per month on all of the sites we manage. While many of the sites show no broken links month to month, it’s not uncommon to uncover new broken links with each monthly check. Programs such as Xenu make checking for broken links relatively easy.

But just checking for broken links doesn’t mean anything if you don’t get in there and fix them too!

By using these three strategies you’ll pretty much have all your bases covered regarding broken links. This will ensure that you keep your site free of these errors, but when links are outside of your control, you can keep visitors on and engaged with your site and moving closer to that conversion.

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by Sage Lewis

Sage highlights Jennifer Laycock’s article “How Social Media (Didn’t) Change Business,” in which she uses her grandfather as an example of what business is really all about, and that’s PEOPLE. Jennifer’s grandfather was an insurance agent who delayed his retirement for a year to personally take care of all his clients’ claims after a major tornado struck the area. With the social media bandwagon riding full these days, Sage points out that even with new technology, the importance of the person, of the customer as an individual, always rises to the top. He sites the power of user-generated reviews, reinforcing that people trust people, not corporations.

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by Jennifer Laycock

I’m pleased to announce that Anita Campbell, CEO and editor of Small Business Trends will be joining us in Columbus, Ohio this fall to serve as keynote at the second Small Business Marketing Unleashed Conference. If you aren’t familiar with Anita, you should be. When it comes to small business, she’s one of the most respected sources on the web.

In fact, Anita’s job is to be on top of trends that affect small business owners before those small business owners ever even hear about it. Thanks to her background, she’s pretty much seen it all. She’s worked in technology, finance, marketing, human resources and a few other areas as well. She’s been everything from a senior executive to the head of a small business start up. She’s also a regular writer for Inc. Magazine, Success Magazine and a variety of other publications.

I’ve had the pleasure of being a guest on her radio show and have been a long time reader of her blog. We were also pleased to have Anita joining us as an attendee at our first Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference in Houston this past spring. Anita’s a fellow Buckeye, (hailing from that city up north called Cleveland) so we thought she’d be a fantastic first keynote.

Marketing Mania: Driving Business without Driving Yourself Crazy

Anita’s keynote will focus on one of the key points of learning to market as a small business: balancing running your business with promoting it. Since more than half of our attendees came from true small businesses (less than ten employees) we recognize that many of them are faced with the daily challenge of actually running the company. They don’t have marketing departments, they ARE the marketing department.

That can make it tough to keep your focus. How do you decide how much value you’re getting from your marketing efforts and where do you draw the line on when blogging should give way to picking a new hire or cutting checks to suppliers? How do you avoid getting caught up in the fun that is Twitter and Linked In and Facebook and maximize your time to get it all done?

Honestly? We don’t know the answer. That’s why we’ve asked Anita to come and enlighten us (and of course, you!) She’ll help us all gain some perspective on the best ways to maximize our marketing efforts while still leaving yourself time to focus on the things we do best; run our businesses!

Looking forward to hearing Anita as much as we are? Register today to reserve your space at Small Business Marketing Unleashed in Columbus, Ohio on September 22nd and 23rd. Attendance is limited to 100 and spaces are are already being snatched up. Register before August 28th and snag the early-bird price of $750.

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by Stoney deGeyter

During my webinar last month I received a lot of questions both before and during my presentation on website architecture. I’m trying to answer a handful of questions each week until I get through the whole bunch of them. If you have any questions of your own I’d be happy to answer them. You can either post a comment for me to respond to or email me and I’ll add them to the list here.

On with the answers…

What books or websites would be good for beginners who have a website with decent traffic that will be funded to get a lot more soon?
– Tim

A few years ago there wasn’t much to offer in the way of printed books, but today, a search on Amazon will give you quite a bit of options. Before you buy, be sure to read the reviews as this can give you great insight as to the value of any of these books.

A bit on the self-serving side, this site will give you a wealth of knowledge. Search Engine Guide has a number of authors from different areas of experience. I suggest you look through the archives and maybe pick your favorite author and read all of their stuff (hey, I warned you I was going to be self-serving!) You can also read Jennifer Laycock’s ebook on search engine marketing, or even my own ebook, E-Marketing Performance.

How have techniques migrated recently. For example, search engines no longer look at keywords in meta-data because of people abusing that technique.
– Scott

Search engines change daily. They do so for many reasons, sometimes to combat aggressive manipulation of algorithm loopholes, fix things that aren’t working they way they had hoped, improve relevance of results, or rolling out a new feature. As search engines continue to evolve there are many SEO strategies that must adapt along with them. It’s quite difficult to nail down all the SEO techniques that have changed over the past few years and a big part of that is simply because where some make changes to “adapt” others continue on using the same techniques because they have proven successful for them.

The main thing to keep in mind is that search engines ultimately attempt to mimic humans. They don’t want pages that are designed for an algorithm, they want pages that are designed for humans. Therefore, what’s good for your human visitors is, in theory, good for search engine rankings. Obviously it isn’t so cut and dry as that, we do things specifically for search engine spiders that we wouldn’t do for humans, but overall, our goals should be to make a better site that attracts people.

Instead of wondering what has changed, what’s more important is to pay attention to what works. If you focus on good website architecture, visitor usability, and focus on creating a fantastic sales message, you’re well over half way there. Keep an eye on sites that provide solid SEO advice like this one and you’ll have the information you need to keep up with whatever changes the search engines are making that will affect your SEO strategies.

But also keep in mind that good SEO is pretty much universal and not subject to the minor adjustments of the search engines. Keeping up with every little change of the search engines is largey unnecessary, provided you’re doing what’s best for your visitors.

What are the pros and cons of using CSS to create a website ? What is a good HTML to CSS ratio for a website’s code ?
– Sharyn

There is no “ideal” HTML to CSS ratio for a web page. The value of using CSS is that it allows you to move a good deal of your formatting code out of the individual page. When the style elements are within your HTML code they have to be downloaded with every page. With CSS that information only needs to be downloaded once, where it is then applied to every page as the visitor navigates. This speeds up page download times and reduces the amount of code that search engines have to sift through to find your content.

When looking at code to content ratio, there is no perfect percentage. Every site is different, having different coding structure needs. But it is always a good idea to reduce your code as much as possible so the content can be parsed by the search engines more quickly

This helps in a number of ways. One, the less code the search engines have to download going from page to page of your site, the more likely they’ll continue moving from page to page grabbing the code and storing it in their index. If your code is over-bloated this will slow down the process and encourage the spiders to leave sooner rather than later.

Second, minimizing your on-page code as much as possible makes your content much more prominent. Many believe that the “higher up” your content is in the code the better this will help you perform in the search engines. I don’t necessarily think that it’s a significant boost, unless your content is otherwise buried deep into the code. If you have over-bloated site code then removing it can certainly help improve the overall relevance of the content itself.

Is there a difference in site architecture based on whether you are selling a tangible product or service versus an intangible (I ask because we are a marketing consultancy typically selling to unrecognized needs.)
– Richard

Ultimately your website’s architecture is going to be built to best meet the needs of your audience. Different sites, and different styles of sites will have a different base architecture. You’ll lay out your navigation differently, different core topics, different paths to content, etc. But there are some core architectural principles that should be adhered to.

The issues that I discuss in my Website Architecture presentation (which I’ll be presenting again at Small Business Marketing Unleashed in September) are pretty much universal concepts. Things like how to set up your URLs, internal linking and page coding can be applied to any kind of site regardless of purpose or content.

What is the small image called again?
– Michael

I think you’re referring to the favicon. Favicons are typically .ico files but you can also use .png or .gif files. I recently posted more about favicons, and you can read comments from someone with much more knowledge about favicons.

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by Stoney deGeyter

During my webinar last month I received a lot of questions both before and during my presentation on website architecture. I’m trying to answer a handful of questions each week until I get through the whole bunch of them. If you have any questions of your own I’d be happy to answer them. You can either post a comment for me to respond to or email me and I’ll add them to the list here.

On with the answers…

What books or websites would be good for beginners who have a website with decent traffic that will be funded to get a lot more soon?
– Tim

A few years ago there wasn’t much to offer in the way of printed books, but today, a search on Amazon will give you quite a bit of options. Before you buy, be sure to read the reviews as this can give you great insight as to the value of any of these books.

A bit on the self-serving side, this site will give you a wealth of knowledge. Search Engine Guide has a number of authors from different areas of experience. I suggest you look through the archives and maybe pick your favorite author and read all of their stuff (hey, I warned you I was going to be self-serving!) You can also read Jennifer Laycock’s ebook on search engine marketing, or even my own ebook, E-Marketing Performance.

How have techniques migrated recently. For example, search engines no longer look at keywords in meta-data because of people abusing that technique.
– Scott

Search engines change daily. They do so for many reasons, sometimes to combat aggressive manipulation of algorithm loopholes, fix things that aren’t working they way they had hoped, improve relevance of results, or rolling out a new feature. As search engines continue to evolve there are many SEO strategies that must adapt along with them. It’s quite difficult to nail down all the SEO techniques that have changed over the past few years and a big part of that is simply because where some make changes to “adapt” others continue on using the same techniques because they have proven successful for them.

The main thing to keep in mind is that search engines ultimately attempt to mimic humans. They don’t want pages that are designed for an algorithm, they want pages that are designed for humans. Therefore, what’s good for your human visitors is, in theory, good for search engine rankings. Obviously it isn’t so cut and dry as that, we do things specifically for search engine spiders that we wouldn’t do for humans, but overall, our goals should be to make a better site that attracts people.

Instead of wondering what has changed, what’s more important is to pay attention to what works. If you focus on good website architecture, visitor usability, and focus on creating a fantastic sales message, you’re well over half way there. Keep an eye on sites that provide solid SEO advice like this one and you’ll have the information you need to keep up with whatever changes the search engines are making that will affect your SEO strategies.

But also keep in mind that good SEO is pretty much universal and not subject to the minor adjustments of the search engines. Keeping up with every little change of the search engines is largey unnecessary, provided you’re doing what’s best for your visitors.

What are the pros and cons of using CSS to create a website ? What is a good HTML to CSS ratio for a website’s code ?
– Sharyn

There is no “ideal” HTML to CSS ratio for a web page. The value of using CSS is that it allows you to move a good deal of your formatting code out of the individual page. When the style elements are within your HTML code they have to be downloaded with every page. With CSS that information only needs to be downloaded once, where it is then applied to every page as the visitor navigates. This speeds up page download times and reduces the amount of code that search engines have to sift through to find your content.

When looking at code to content ratio, there is no perfect percentage. Every site is different, having different coding structure needs. But it is always a good idea to reduce your code as much as possible so the content can be parsed by the search engines more quickly

This helps in a number of ways. One, the less code the search engines have to download going from page to page of your site, the more likely they’ll continue moving from page to page grabbing the code and storing it in their index. If your code is over-bloated this will slow down the process and encourage the spiders to leave sooner rather than later.

Second, minimizing your on-page code as much as possible makes your content much more prominent. Many believe that the “higher up” your content is in the code the better this will help you perform in the search engines. I don’t necessarily think that it’s a significant boost, unless your content is otherwise buried deep into the code. If you have over-bloated site code then removing it can certainly help improve the overall relevance of the content itself.

Is there a difference in site architecture based on whether you are selling a tangible product or service versus an intangible (I ask because we are a marketing consultancy typically selling to unrecognized needs.)
– Richard

Ultimately your website’s architecture is going to be built to best meet the needs of your audience. Different sites, and different styles of sites will have a different base architecture. You’ll lay out your navigation differently, different core topics, different paths to content, etc. But there are some core architectural principles that should be adhered to.

The issues that I discuss in my Website Architecture presentation (which I’ll be presenting again at Small Business Marketing Unleashed in September) are pretty much universal concepts. Things like how to set up your URLs, internal linking and page coding can be applied to any kind of site regardless of purpose or content.

What is the small image called again?
– Michael

I think you’re referring to the favicon. Favicons are typically .ico files but you can also use .png or .gif files. I recently posted more about favicons, and you can read comments from someone with much more knowledge about favicons.

Want more from your web site?
Search Influence can help! Targeted Traffic. Increased Revenue. Results Guaranteed. Customized Internet Marketing you can afford.

by Scott Buresh

AOL, once considered a pioneer in internet technology, has fallen on hard times over the years, unable to devise an effective branding strategy. A failed merger with Time-Warner, a non-focus on search while Google built an empire (the AOL search engine eventually began serving up Google results on its portal site), and declining dial-up business are all contributing factors to the ongoing difficulties of AOL and its search engine.

However, AOL seems to have a new branding strategy in mind for the AOL search engine, which would revamp its services and target specific niches. And while many “analysts” claim that it is already a failure before the results are in, it is too soon to tell how this will affect AOL and the search engine that bears its name. Personally, I think it’s a smart play for the company - and something that bears watching. If the branding strategy is successful, another huge company may want to follow AOL’s example.

You see, AOL understands that the AOL search engine and its other services are not a brand beloved by many. The AOL search engine and AOL itself are seen as somewhat ancient, old school, 56k, etc. Nightmare stories about its online services are not in short supply. I haven’t done any specific studies on this, but in my circle of friends and business acquaintances, people consider an AOL subscriber a little behind the times.

The point is (in my opinion) that the “AOL brand” itself has decreasing value and may actually have negative value if the specific sites that it owns or has recently purchased are brought in under an umbrella branding strategy. These sites include those catering toward everything from country music fans to moms sharing photos to guys trying to pick up women. In some cases, the niche sites do not even display their affiliation with AOL or its search engine (or if they do, it is not featured very prominently).

The logic behind this branding strategy is clear. First of all, the AOL search engine and portal weren’t attracting new visitors. Secondly, the AOL search engine and brand itself are not particularly hip or fresh. Third, and probably most importantly, specific portal sites attract specific types of users, which are usually highly targeted, prompting a potential for more ad revenue (in theory).

Basically, the AOL portal has stopped trying to be all things to all people. Google is able to pull off the “all things to all people” approach primarily because it doesn’t have issues with a branding strategy yet - in fact, the new vertical searches that it adds under the Google “branding umbrella” are augmented by implied hipness and coolness. However, as AOL has discovered, hipness usually has a shelf life. If people began to see Google as the huge corporation that it is now, rather than the uber-cool underdog, the company may not be able to keep this record up. There have already been some cracks in its veneer, although by and large, the Google brand is still very positive and powerful.

There is another company much bigger than AOL that suffers from much of the same problems (and in some cases, worse problems) than AOL does but still wants to take on Google head to head. I refer, of course, to Microsoft.

In terms of a brand, Microsoft is almost universally disliked. The monopoly issue may be one thing. The fact that it is seen as ‘old school’ may be another. Gates and Ballmer don’t exactly have reputations as “nice guys,” like Sergei and Larry do (the fact that it seems natural to refer to the former two by their last names and the latter two by the first may help illustrate this point). And the list goes on.

The bottom line is that I have a hard time seeing MSN.com gaining the kind of traction that Google has, simply because the brand is less than sexy. This means, of course, that any additional vertical search options that MSN adds to its site are bound to be appreciated only by the dwindling few who already swear by the portal.

AOL has decided that its branding strategy for the AOL search engine and niche sites is not nearly as important as the amount of traffic and ad revenue that the site commands. This is not uncommon in the publishing industry, where many different publications on many different topics may be owned by one large (but largely silent) entity. Many of these offline publications have moved online and are beginning to monetize their diverse base of websites. AOL seems to have a similar model and branding strategy in mind for the AOL search engine and other niche sites.

If it works for AOL and its search engine, it could be the best possible branding strategy for Microsoft to follow. Lord knows Microsoft has the money. The company has already bought the ad networks that can service sites under its own new branding strategy. But if pride dictates that it keep everything under the MSN name or add a huge “brought to you by Microsoft” banner across the top of any popular online property that it decides to buy, MSN is, in my opinion, shooting itself in the foot.

I never said it was fair, but your brand and branding strategy can either be an asset, neutral, or a detriment. Microsoft has to realize that most people consider its brand to be in the neutral to detrimental range and that most people consider Google to be in the neutral to asset range (and that’s probably being charitable). Microsoft should not try to compete with Google head to head without considering the disparities in the conceptions of their respective brands.

Want more from your web site?
Search Influence can help! Targeted Traffic. Increased Revenue. Results Guaranteed. Customized Internet Marketing you can afford.

by Scott Buresh

AOL, once considered a pioneer in internet technology, has fallen on hard times over the years, unable to devise an effective branding strategy. A failed merger with Time-Warner, a non-focus on search while Google built an empire (the AOL search engine eventually began serving up Google results on its portal site), and declining dial-up business are all contributing factors to the ongoing difficulties of AOL and its search engine.

However, AOL seems to have a new branding strategy in mind for the AOL search engine, which would revamp its services and target specific niches. And while many “analysts” claim that it is already a failure before the results are in, it is too soon to tell how this will affect AOL and the search engine that bears its name. Personally, I think it’s a smart play for the company - and something that bears watching. If the branding strategy is successful, another huge company may want to follow AOL’s example.

You see, AOL understands that the AOL search engine and its other services are not a brand beloved by many. The AOL search engine and AOL itself are seen as somewhat ancient, old school, 56k, etc. Nightmare stories about its online services are not in short supply. I haven’t done any specific studies on this, but in my circle of friends and business acquaintances, people consider an AOL subscriber a little behind the times.

The point is (in my opinion) that the “AOL brand” itself has decreasing value and may actually have negative value if the specific sites that it owns or has recently purchased are brought in under an umbrella branding strategy. These sites include those catering toward everything from country music fans to moms sharing photos to guys trying to pick up women. In some cases, the niche sites do not even display their affiliation with AOL or its search engine (or if they do, it is not featured very prominently).

The logic behind this branding strategy is clear. First of all, the AOL search engine and portal weren’t attracting new visitors. Secondly, the AOL search engine and brand itself are not particularly hip or fresh. Third, and probably most importantly, specific portal sites attract specific types of users, which are usually highly targeted, prompting a potential for more ad revenue (in theory).

Basically, the AOL portal has stopped trying to be all things to all people. Google is able to pull off the “all things to all people” approach primarily because it doesn’t have issues with a branding strategy yet - in fact, the new vertical searches that it adds under the Google “branding umbrella” are augmented by implied hipness and coolness. However, as AOL has discovered, hipness usually has a shelf life. If people began to see Google as the huge corporation that it is now, rather than the uber-cool underdog, the company may not be able to keep this record up. There have already been some cracks in its veneer, although by and large, the Google brand is still very positive and powerful.

There is another company much bigger than AOL that suffers from much of the same problems (and in some cases, worse problems) than AOL does but still wants to take on Google head to head. I refer, of course, to Microsoft.

In terms of a brand, Microsoft is almost universally disliked. The monopoly issue may be one thing. The fact that it is seen as ‘old school’ may be another. Gates and Ballmer don’t exactly have reputations as “nice guys,” like Sergei and Larry do (the fact that it seems natural to refer to the former two by their last names and the latter two by the first may help illustrate this point). And the list goes on.

The bottom line is that I have a hard time seeing MSN.com gaining the kind of traction that Google has, simply because the brand is less than sexy. This means, of course, that any additional vertical search options that MSN adds to its site are bound to be appreciated only by the dwindling few who already swear by the portal.

AOL has decided that its branding strategy for the AOL search engine and niche sites is not nearly as important as the amount of traffic and ad revenue that the site commands. This is not uncommon in the publishing industry, where many different publications on many different topics may be owned by one large (but largely silent) entity. Many of these offline publications have moved online and are beginning to monetize their diverse base of websites. AOL seems to have a similar model and branding strategy in mind for the AOL search engine and other niche sites.

If it works for AOL and its search engine, it could be the best possible branding strategy for Microsoft to follow. Lord knows Microsoft has the money. The company has already bought the ad networks that can service sites under its own new branding strategy. But if pride dictates that it keep everything under the MSN name or add a huge “brought to you by Microsoft” banner across the top of any popular online property that it decides to buy, MSN is, in my opinion, shooting itself in the foot.

I never said it was fair, but your brand and branding strategy can either be an asset, neutral, or a detriment. Microsoft has to realize that most people consider its brand to be in the neutral to detrimental range and that most people consider Google to be in the neutral to asset range (and that’s probably being charitable). Microsoft should not try to compete with Google head to head without considering the disparities in the conceptions of their respective brands.

Want more from your web site?
Search Influence can help! Targeted Traffic. Increased Revenue. Results Guaranteed. Customized Internet Marketing you can afford.

by Jennifer Laycock

I’m continually amazed at how people go barreling into social media sites like a bull in a china shop and then wonder why they aren’t well received. They hear social media is changing the way people do business and they make the mistake of thinking it’s changing it to something “new” instead of simply changing it back to the way things used to be. (Yes, I know Twitter is new, I mean in spirit.)

I hear people focusing on what’s in it for them…and how they can benefit and completely disregarding the idea of participating because they might be able to give something back. It’s like the person at a networking event who only wants to size up whether or not you can advance their business before moving on to the next person. It’s clear they view people as commodities and stepping stones instead of…well, people.

That’s a shame, because when it comes to business, there’s nothing that matters more than people and how you treat them.

Building a Business by Building Relationships

My grandfather opened up the first independent insurance agency in the small town I grew up in. Now we all know the stereotypical image of the insurance agent…in-your-face, buddy-buddy, but always trying to make the sale. My grandfather was the complete opposite of this. Oh, he was buddy-buddy…but it’s because he’s one of the most social people I’ve ever known.

Grandpa was everyone’s friend and wouldn’t hesitate to do anything he could to help you out. He knew his customers well. He knew if he should pull out hard candy when you came in the door, or offer you pack of Chicklets chewing gum. He knew your kids names and who they were married to. One time, he put coverage on someone’s new car when he saw them drive by the office. Turns out that was a good thing because the fellow had an accident the next day and came in upset about not having coverage yet. You can imagine the word of mouth that was generated when Grandpa told him he had it taken care of.

My grandfather was due to retire in 1985, but that spring our town got hit with an F5 tornado that decimated a huge portion of the township. My grandfather put off his retirement for more than a year so he could stay in the office, working with those families until each and every claim had been processed and paid. He knew those families, knew their needs, knew who they were and didn’t feel like the “company” he sold for could handle them as well as he could. More so, he viewed them as friends first and clients second. He couldn’t and wouldn’t walk out on a friend.

In fact, when talking to my mom this morning to verify the stories, she reminded me that back when Grandpa was an agent, there were no claims offices. That meant you called your insurance agent and they got up in the middle of the night and came to take care of things. She said one time he got a call because his neighbor had been in a bad car accident. He went to the hospital and found him laying on a gurney in the hallway with a sheet pulled over him. The doctors told my grandfather there was nothing they could do for him. My grandfather got on the phone, called an ambulance from another hospital, got him transferred for treatment and…well, the man lived a long, long time after that.

So why did I just tell you that feel good story?

The Guy Who Knew Everyone

It’s to demonstrate how business “used” to be run in towns across America and throughout the world. Back before you bought your insurance online based on the lowest bid, you bought it from a friend who you knew would take care of you. Back before everyone started focusing on making a bazillion dollars, people had time to make relationships without worrying about how those relationships might “advance” their career.

My grandfather practiced the original form of “social networking.”

There’s a lot of talk around social media lately and how great it is to see relationships being made. Social media is giving people the tools to make those personal connections again, though how we use those tools is up to us. Sure, you can hop on Twitter or Facebook and start friending all the “famous” people or the “influentials” but is that really the best way to spend your time?

Social Media Marketing Will Kill Social Media

But I worry about this push for “social media marketing.” In fact, when I spoke on the topic at Small Business Marketing Unleashed in Houston, I crossed out the word “marketing” and replaced it with “conversations.” Companies that flock to social media because they think it gives them a powerful new place to sell are not only missing the boat, but are destroying the medium for those who are tapping it correctly.

My grandfather didn’t go to Rotary meetings or the VFW and focus on chatting up the mayor or city council. Sure, he went to those meetings, but he also knew the guy who worked the gas station pump, the bag boy at the grocery store, the folks who came into the food pantry and pretty much anyone else he ran into.

He lived life by building connections with people, not business potential. Those connections with people paid off because no one felt like he was trying to sell them something. Because of that, he was the first person who came to mind if the topic of insurance agents came up. His business flourished and when he did retire, State Farm had to split his accounts among two agents because one couldn’t handle the volume.

These days, if you think of an insurance agent, chances are good you picture someone like Ned Ryerson. You remember…the annoying old school mate of Bill Murray who hounded him relentlessly with fake enthusiasm in Groundhog Day. What happened to the insurance industry? The guys with the fake charm who were only out for the sale made everyone suspicious of even the guy who was genuine.

Smart Companies Are in it for the People

Social Media isn’t some amazing new concept that’s changing the way we do business. It’s simply amazing new technology that’s allowing us to return to the way people USED to do business. In the last fifty years we’ve gone from business being done the way my grandfather did it, to business being run by multi-national corporations who view you as a billing number and who you pick based on price. In the last five to ten years, the Internet has opened things back up.

You don’t have to buy from Toys R Us anymore. You can buy from Brainwaves Toys, a small shop run by a woman in California who answers customer service calls even at 2am. You don’t have to buy a Costco cake for your next birthday party, you can order a CUPCAKES IN A JAR(TM) from Bangerang Bake Shop, a small bakery in Illinois that puts up their inventory on Etsy each Tuesday?

Social Media gives you, as a small business owner, the tool to make and build relationships with people all over the world. The trick, is to focus on the relationship and not the sale. People are happy to buy from people they like and trust. If you have a good product, you don’t need to push it. You simply need to raise awareness. Making personal connections and trusting things to flow from there worked 40 years ago for my grandfather. Chances are good it will work for you today in the social media world.

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by Scott Allen

With all the hot topics in SEO these days, it’s easy for newcomers to miss out on the basics, or for those more experienced to forget about them. As long as there is a need for
search engine optimization, the core elements will always be Relevance and Authority, and it’s important for us to understand what these mean.

Understanding Relevance and Authority

Relevance at its most basic level, involves the quality of your content for the topic you are looking to target, and how well-optimized (or search engine friendly) it is. This is also referred to as content optimization or “on-page optimization”. There are a lot of techniques for creating quality content and for on-page optimization, but for now you just need know that Relevance is based on content.

Authority involves how many sites are linking to your content. Search engines see links as editorial votes for a site, and to them, when one site links to another site, it’s essentially saying “Yeah, I vouch for that site. It’s cool.” (Other factors can include the quality of the sites linking to yours and whether those sites are on the same or similar topics, but all you need to remember is that Authority is based on inbound links.)

While each search engine may place a different emphasis on these elements in their ranking algorithm, every single search engine bases their rankings on some combination of Relevance (content) and Authority (links).

Incomplete SEO Will Fail

Some lean in favor of building links and say, “forget content”. (”Links are King!”) Others lean in favor of optimizing content and say, “forget links”. (”Content is King!”) Well, the truth is it’s impossible to have an effective search engine optimization strategy without tightly integrating both content creation/optimization and link building. If either core element is left out, your website will not even come close to reaching its potential for rankings, traffic, and sales.

Take a look at water: It’s a unique entity made up of elements Hydrogen
and Oxygen, in perfect combination. However if one of these elements is
missing, it isn’t water. Water only exists when both elements are there. SEO works the same way: You need both
Relevance and Authority for a website to achieve the best possible
rankings. Unfortunately, a lot of people these days are trying to
optimize sites and are forgetting one or the other of these core
elements. What they’re doing isn’t SEO.

Why doesn’t it work when one of these is missing?

A site can have 1 million links, but if it doesn’t contain any quality content on the topic you want to rank for, or you do but the search engine can’t reach it, it probably won’t rank well. In this situation, this site has a High Authority (Links) but Low Relevance (Content) as far as the search engine is concerned.

Conversely, a site can have amazing content that is perfectly optimized, but if it only has a few inbound links, it probably won’t rank well. This kind of site has a High Relevance, but Low Authority.

However if you have a site that has great topical content, that is well-optimized (in other words, search engines can reach it easily), and you build strong inbound links from other sites, it will rank. It might take some time, but it will rank.

There definitely are exceptions here and there - we’ve all seen them - but these are the general principles at the core of search engine optimization, and they work.

At this point, if you’re newer to SEO, you’re probably asking, “How do I create great optimized content? How do I build strong inbound links?” I’d love to answer those questions here, but the answers could fill up several books.

Obviously there are many other nuances and factors that go into improving rankings, but it’s important for all of us, whether experienced or newbie, to understand Relevance and Authority first, and build our SEO strategies from there. 

Want more from your web site?
Search Influence can help! Targeted Traffic. Increased Revenue. Results Guaranteed. Customized Internet Marketing you can afford.

by Scott Allen

With all the hot topics in SEO these days, it’s easy for newcomers to miss out on the basics, or for those more experienced to forget about them. As long as there is a need for
search engine optimization, the core elements will always be Relevance and Authority, and it’s important for us to understand what these mean.

Understanding Relevance and Authority

Relevance at its most basic level, involves the quality of your content for the topic you are looking to target, and how well-optimized (or search engine friendly) it is. This is also referred to as content optimization or “on-page optimization”. There are a lot of techniques for creating quality content and for on-page optimization, but for now you just need know that Relevance is based on content.

Authority involves how many sites are linking to your content. Search engines see links as editorial votes for a site, and to them, when one site links to another site, it’s essentially saying “Yeah, I vouch for that site. It’s cool.” (Other factors can include the quality of the sites linking to yours and whether those sites are on the same or similar topics, but all you need to remember is that Authority is based on inbound links.)

While each search engine may place a different emphasis on these elements in their ranking algorithm, every single search engine bases their rankings on some combination of Relevance (content) and Authority (links).

Incomplete SEO Will Fail

Some lean in favor of building links and say, “forget content”. (”Links are King!”) Others lean in favor of optimizing content and say, “forget links”. (”Content is King!”) Well, the truth is it’s impossible to have an effective search engine optimization strategy without tightly integrating both content creation/optimization and link building. If either core element is left out, your website will not even come close to reaching its potential for rankings, traffic, and sales.

Take a look at water: It’s a unique entity made up of elements Hydrogen
and Oxygen, in perfect combination. However if one of these elements is
missing, it isn’t water. Water only exists when both elements are there. SEO works the same way: You need both
Relevance and Authority for a website to achieve the best possible
rankings. Unfortunately, a lot of people these days are trying to
optimize sites and are forgetting one or the other of these core
elements. What they’re doing isn’t SEO.

Why doesn’t it work when one of these is missing?

A site can have 1 million links, but if it doesn’t contain any quality content on the topic you want to rank for, or you do but the search engine can’t reach it, it probably won’t rank well. In this situation, this site has a High Authority (Links) but Low Relevance (Content) as far as the search engine is concerned.

Conversely, a site can have amazing content that is perfectly optimized, but if it only has a few inbound links, it probably won’t rank well. This kind of site has a High Relevance, but Low Authority.

However if you have a site that has great topical content, that is well-optimized (in other words, search engines can reach it easily), and you build strong inbound links from other sites, it will rank. It might take some time, but it will rank.

There definitely are exceptions here and there - we’ve all seen them - but these are the general principles at the core of search engine optimization, and they work.

At this point, if you’re newer to SEO, you’re probably asking, “How do I create great optimized content? How do I build strong inbound links?” I’d love to answer those questions here, but the answers could fill up several books.

Obviously there are many other nuances and factors that go into improving rankings, but it’s important for all of us, whether experienced or newbie, to understand Relevance and Authority first, and build our SEO strategies from there. 

Want more from your web site?
Search Influence can help! Targeted Traffic. Increased Revenue. Results Guaranteed. Customized Internet Marketing you can afford.

by Jennifer Laycock

While we’re starting to see a shift toward more and more people understanding and embracing the idea of social media, there are still quite a few folks out there that simply don’t get it. That’s not to say they don’t understand what it is, it’s that they don’t understand why it’s so important and how it can impact their business.

That’s where Lee LeFever really delivers with the latest Common Craft video. (If you arne’t familiar with Common Craft videos, you should check them out. They do a wonderful job of explaining things simply and quickly using fun and quirky videos.)

Social Media in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

Hat tip to John over at BrandAutopsy on this one.

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by Stoney deGeyter

Last month I wrote a post about How Poor Product Categorization Creates Duplicate Content and Frustrates Your Shoppers. Strictly from a user standpoint, improperly thinking out how each product should be categorized can cause many products from being found by your shoppers. When determining the category or categories of any product, you have to put yourself in the mind of the searcher. How would they look for it?

In much the same way, the domain name(s) you select can also be a preventative measure against someone not finding you. Let me rephrase that a bit more clearly. Buying up alternative domains can help people find you when they inadvertently type in the wrong domain, or when they are just randomly typing in keywords in the address bar.

Let’s use The Home Depot as an example once again. My first attempt to get to their site I typed in www.thehomedepot.com. That goes nowhere. The URL to reach them is www.homedepot.com. This is a clear case of “what are they thinking?” The last time I checked they bill themselves as THE Home Depot, not just Home Depot. It’s right there in their logo!

Note, when I first wrote this article and published it on my blog in April, a Home Depot rep found it and has since fixed the issue. I received a nice note from Home Depot thanking me for point out the issue. You can read the comments from Nick at the original post.

Would you believe that, according to WordTracker, approximately 63 people per day search for www.thehomedepot.com? That’s a reflection only of those typing that into a search box. Who knows how many are typing it into the address bar.

Just for fun, let’s assume that twice as many people mistype The Home Depot’s URL into the address bar as do those who attempt to search for it. If we then assume that only 10% of those searchers give up after the first try, The Home Depot is losing almost 5,000 potential shoppers each year, and that, I think, is a pretty conservative figure. That may not be a lot for a company like them, but no one ever makes money by being hard to find!

URL Alternatives

While the majority of people may naturally type your URL in properly, there will always be a handful that won’t. You have to consider carefully any variations that someone else might use, including:

• Alternate spellings
• Misspellings
• Abbreviated / Long-form versions
• phonetically similar versions
• Plural / singular versions
• .net, .org, etc.
• …sucks.com, …sux.com, etc.

Home Depot got the misspelling correct. If you type in www.homedepo.com you’re redirected to their site. But again, not if you type in www.thehomedepo.com. Another missed opportunity which still hasn’t been fixed.

A couple of years back I did an interview for an online radio station. At the end of the interview they asked me for my domain name, which I pronounced but didn’t spell. As soon as the interview was done I realized my error. How many different ways are there to spell “pole”? “Pull” and “Poll” both come to mind! I immediately registered those domain names and redirected them to the main site.

Minimizing the competition

By purchasing these extra domain names, you’re not only securing alternate, yet mistaken paths to your website, you are also preventing your competition from siphoning off traffic meant for you. If you don’t buy these alternates, chances are someone else will. At best, the URL will have nothing on it and just show an “unavailable” error. At worst, they’ll redirect your visitors to their own website!

How strong your branding is will be a pretty significant factor in what domain people type in when looking for you. But no matter how good it is, there are always those that will get it wrong. Are you OK losing them to a competitor? If not, then consider carefully what domain names you might want to own and redirect to your primary URL. In The Home Depot’s case, I’m sure an additional 5,000 visitors each year is worth the purchase price of any alternative URLs.

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by Jennifer Laycock

Sometimes it’s the really simple advice that can have the most impact on how you do business. That’s the basis of Tim’s advice over at Convert Offline this week. Tim harkens back to his Yellow Pages days and offers up some great suggestions on building a better local search presence. Now some people might find it odd to learn SEO lessons from something as old school as the Yellow Pages, but Tim offers up some good advice on improving your site.

Tim explains that he fell naturally into strong rankings for local search terms simply by implementing some lessons he learned while crafting good Yellow Page ads.

The first site I got to the first of page of results for a specific keyword, I did so, quite by accident. When I designed the site I did so with PPC in mind and I included all the copy points that I knew from years of yellow pages ad design were necessary to motivate a potential buyer to call.

Tim goes on to explain the value of including all of your services, listing your service areas and preparing your content based on what your competitors are presenting.

It’s simple, practical advice, but it can go a long way toward improving your rankings. Well worth the read.

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by Jennifer Laycock

Sometimes it’s the really simple advice that can have the most impact on how you do business. That’s the basis of Tim’s advice over at Convert Offline this week. Tim harkens back to his Yellow Pages days and offers up some great suggestions on building a better local search presence. Now some people might find it odd to learn SEO lessons from something as old school as the Yellow Pages, but Tim offers up some good advice on improving your site.

Tim explains that he fell naturally into strong rankings for local search terms simply by implementing some lessons he learned while crafting good Yellow Page ads.

The first site I got to the first of page of results for a specific keyword, I did so, quite by accident. When I designed the site I did so with PPC in mind and I included all the copy points that I knew from years of yellow pages ad design were necessary to motivate a potential buyer to call.

Tim goes on to explain the value of including all of your services, listing your service areas and preparing your content based on what your competitors are presenting.

It’s simple, practical advice, but it can go a long way toward improving your rankings. Well worth the read.

Want more from your web site?
Search Influence can help! Targeted Traffic. Increased Revenue. Results Guaranteed. Customized Internet Marketing you can afford.

by Jennifer Laycock

I’ve read a lot of posts lately tearing down the public relations industry for what a poor job they do when pitching bloggers. I’ve also read (and written) quite a few posts about what a terrible job companies do relating to bloggers and having conversations with them. While there’s no doubt companies and PR firms have a long way to go, a blast from my past reminded me that bloggers need to share some responsibility in all this.

Last month I had the pleasure of attending the first ever Blogger Social event in NYC. It wasn’t a conference, it was just a chance for a lot of marketing bloggers to get together and visit with each other. I went because I wanted the chance to make personal contact with a lot of people I’ve met via blogs and Twitter over the last few years. At dinner one night, I found myself sitting with Connie Reece of Every Dot Connects. During the course of conversation, a mutual friend Aruni Gunasegaram of Babblesoft came up.

I unleashed my inner snark…

Last year Aruni was launching her new parenting software. I happened to pick up the press release right as it went across the wires and had some pretty harsh words for the idea on my Lactivist blog.

Apparently, the company feels that there’s an untapped market in parents with extreme breastfeeding OCD issues, so they’ve made available some snazzy (I use the word loosely) new software that will allow these Ezzo-wannabes the absolute, total scheduling control that they long for.

It got worse though. In fact, rereading that post I made more than a year ago I found myself chuckling and wincing at the same time. Chuckling because some lines in my post were really funny, but wincing as I realized just how biting and scathing my critique was. I’m generally a pretty easy going and nice person. I don’t tend to like to rely on snark, and yet there I was, throwing out snark like I was Perez Hilton.

As you can imagine, Aruni was crushed by the review. At the time, my blog was one of the leading blogs among her target audience. The Lactivist would have been a site she’d hope to score a positive review from and yet, before she even had a chance to pitch me, I’d found her product and ripped it to shreds.

And this is where Aruni did things EXACTLY right.

She didn’t get defensive, she didn’t get angry, she didn’t even respond.

Instead, she called Connie Reece and asked for help. Connie helped Aruni understand how to do some research on me (which quickly revealed I’m also a marketer) and how to read through my comments and posts to get a take for the best way to approach me. Connie outlines her response in an online reputation management case study she just released.

So What Did Aruni Do Right?

When Aruni did respond, she was able to calmly and rationally explain her point of view and her reasons for developing the software. In fact, I was so surprised and pleased to see her respond the way she did, I ended up eating a bit of crow for going overboard.

That’s the great thing about this blog. If I go on a rant without thinking something through from all angles, my readers aren’t afraid to call me on it.

Ultimately, many of my readers ended up checking out the software and seeing the value in it for certain situations and while I still think the software’s a little on the anal side for the average mom, I fully recognize how helpful it could be for moms who DO need to track things.

Even more important to the story is the relationship that developed because of the way Aruni responded. Aruni became a regular reader of my blog and I became a reader of hers. We follow each other on Twitter and we’ve exchanged quite a few emails over the past year. Not long after the incident, I ended up sending her an email to share how refreshed I was at the way she handled things.

I want to compliment you on the way you handled your response to my blog post. I was pretty hard on you guys and you came in with class and style and really did a great job of turning the situation around to make yourself look good. I work in online reputation management and it’s rare to see a company respond so well. Just thought you should know that you gained my respect with that.

So what’s the lesson here for bloggers?

Sometimes it’s easy for bloggers to get caught up in keeping their audiences entertained. I look back and read my post and I can see I got completely carried away. It’s one thing to be funny, it’s one thing to critique, but it’s a whole other thing to attack something you know little about. Had I bothered to contact Aruni before writing my post, she could have given me some excellent examples of parents that might benefit from using the software.

Instead, I chose to entertain my readers at the expense of someone else…an action that could have resulted in irreparable damage to a company that wasn’t savvy enough or patient enough to respond the way Aruni did. While it’s fine for bloggers to entertain, to share opinions and even to get a little snarky…I think we sometimes forget just how powerful our words can be.

I don’t write all of this to excuse bad pitches or companies that bury their heads in the sand while shouting “we won’t engage