iWebEarth

I don’t know whether you ever get this thought when touring the web, but there are some sites that I think ‘I wish I could get my hands on it!’…where you can see that SEO hasn’t even been given a second thought, but where great gains could be made from a few simple improvements! 

This would be the honeymoon period: simple changes and fast results.

Honeymoon: Fast Results

I know I have seen and worked on a number of sites where I can see that a couple of relatively straight-forward changes would make a huge difference…

Simple changes and fast results can be from things like:

• Title tag optimisation
• Semantically structuring the text on each page
• Dropping images for CSS and floating text
• Internal linking structures and anchor text optimisation
• Installing an analytics package (and analysing the results of course).
• Keyword research and analysis – site-wide and page-by-page
• Including a clear call-to-action

…the simplicity of implementing these examples naturally varies, and might quite obviously depend on the CMS’s versatility, for instance but these are examples of items to look out for.

Honeymoon: An Untapped Resource

So, OK, you take on a new project…what happens next?  Some sites have a whole host of resources and a genuine USP that nobody knows about…whereby the owners have followed the principle ‘build-it and they will come’!  Well, it’s not always as simple as that, so a little bit of promo and improved onsite management could go a long way.  The results from this might be impressive but how are you going to sustain them and naturally manage this client relationship.  The SEO honeymoon period could have a sting in the tail.  So what can you do about it?

The honeymoon is over

You’ve made the site more accessible, you’ve tackled some duplicate content issues, the site is developing a clearer landing page strategy, the keyword research is paying off and the results have been tremendous in such little time…now the real work begins! 

You now need to ensure that you can maintain a return on investment that warrants keeping you in a job. 

Educate the client in the process

If you want to enjoy the SEO honeymoon period, ensure that you are placing resources into the longer-term results with these kind of sites.  How are you going to take advantage of this increased visibility?  How are you going to keep up the momentum and build this into the planning with the client?  Here are a few ideas…

• How does SEO, social media, link-building, online PR etc  work together for longevity of results?  How will the results look in 6, 12, 24 months…can you even begin to lay down targets here?
• Expectations management –some quick wins but these should not be devalued just because they were quick.  The long-term results will be where the real profits (for both parties) are made.
• What you are reporting on and how this can feed in to planning decisions.

Transparency in Result Aspirations: Good and Bad

Talk them through the initial quick-wins.  Be honest.  Maintaining credible and justified results through transparent planning is a great way to develop your client relationship. 

An adverse example of this is taking on a client with an unhealthy amount of Text Link Ads in their link-profile, and gradually phasing them out at but at the expense of some short-term losses. 

Budgetary management

Following the honeymoon period, results may slow and as a result reducing CPA’s (cost per account / purchase / sign-up) may stall.  It’s worth being mindful of this early-on because it will help work out where your budgets are best aligned to maintain some of this growth.  Ploughing all your budgets in to front-end activity, without planning for when and where longer-term results will come from could be disastrous for longer-term CPA’s and end the honeymoon period with a thump, as you’re kicked out of bed.  This naturally depends on a regular review of which account metrics are the short-term and long-term priority.

Importantly though, be proactive. 

You can work to build more momentum with this growth and extend your honeymoon period.  Just because you see some easy results coming your way, you can quite easily maintain this growth in results (if the niche has the volume), if you remember one thing…visibility breeds visibility. 

So, ask yourself, how are you going to capitalise on this increased exposure?

An increase in the volumes and frequency of the people that see you in the SERPs means a greater brand awareness, the more people that talk about your brand, and the more people that cite your website.  Easy.  Both traditional and digital forms of marketing work on this cumulative, multiplier principle.

Oh, but in reality…

Even the fast results don’t come easily.  Taking on a new client, involves a great deal of work for both a freelance SEO consultant and a team of SEO’s working on behalf of corporate clients.  At the very least you need to put time into:

• Aligning, integrating and understanding each other’s data, management systems and analysis techniques.
• Agreeing on targets, strategy and tactics.
• And merging two (often) very different cultural worlds.

…so this whole SEO Honeymoon period is over-rated right?  Well, no, not really…great results are of course very achievable quite quickly, but they’re even greater if you can put a plan in place to maintain their growth, that’s all.

Are you suffering from a honeymoon hangover?  Put yourself down as an ‘Anon’ and share your thoughts below…

Ben McKay is a SEO Manager for Mediaedge:cia / WPP,  and writes about managing SEO and social media projects over at his blog, Just Me and My.  Say hello to Ben on Twitter.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Are You on an SEO Honeymoon?

Here’s one handy tool allowing you to play around to get an idea how your page listing might look within Google SERPs (well, actually, I’ve seen similar tools before but this one looks really cool):

1. Enter your page title, meta description, URL and the term you expect it to be ranked for;
2. Play with other options (show date, choose “forum” format: posts/author/last, preview as pdf page);
3. Compare with current Google results for your “bold” search query

Additional features:

• Grab the link to your listing preview to be able to share it (with the client, for example);
• Compare your listing with current listings in one window:

Sample SERP listing preview:

Important: please keep in mind, it is not guaranteed your listing is going to contain your page meta description. Google generates the snippet based on the separate algorithm and will pick it from your on-page text or meta description depending on the fact which one looks more relevant to the search phrase.

The tool was reviewed under SEJ policy.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

How to Preview Your Google SERPs Listing

Today is July 7, and if you’ve been paying any attention to the news in the past week, you’d know that that means today is the day of the big Michael Jackson circus out in LA.  At 10:00am Pacific Time, Jackson’s memorial service will begin at the Staples Center.  A mere 17,500 fans will be in attendance, and with over 1.6 million fans having applied to win tickets to the service, there is certainly a demand to see the memorial.  While many are likely to make the pilgrimage to LA to stand outside the arena, many more will be at home in front of their computers and TVs looking to catch a glimpse of the action.  Fortunately, a number of our favorite websites will be streaming live video of the event.

It will be interesting to see how the websites offering the video feed will handle what is expected to be high levels of traffic and demand for the videos.  The demand that the singer’s death alone caused on various websites and search engines was incredible, and since video is so a resource intensive, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to expect some glitches.

If you’re looking to witness the spectacle, and see some of the music industry’s most famous stars pay tribute to Michael Jackson – including Smokey Robinson, Lionel Ritchie, Stevie Wonder, and Mariah Carey, amongst others – here’s a list of sites you can go to to tune in:

• CBSNews.com – will stream live video from Los Angeles-based KCBS & other sources.
• TV.com – will also stream the CBS content.
• Cnn.com – will stream the service with hosts Larry King, Anderson Cooper, and Soledad O’Brien.
• ABCNews.com – will stream live with commentary from Charles Gibson.
• FoxNews.com – will stream live with Megyn Kelly, Shepard Smith, and Greta Van Susteren providing on-scene reports.
• Facebook.com – members can access the CNN Live feed.
• MySpace.com – members can access a live stream provided by AEG, the entertainment company that owns the Staples Center and who underwrote the Jackson tour.
• Hulu.com – will stream the Fox News feed live.

Hulu seems best poised to handle the load as one of the internet’s most popular destinations for videos already.  Most of the other sites are also used to large spikes of traffic, so I doubt any will crash completely, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some people get shut out of the video feeds or if things slow to a crawl at times.

What will also be interesting to take a look at today is the Google Hot Trends, which is sure to be dominated by Michael Jackson related searches.  I’m predicting that at least half of the 100 or so queries that make the cut will be MJ-related.

Do you have any predictions?

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Websites Where You Can Watch the Michael Jackson Memorial Online Today

A Disconnect Between Social Media Marketing And Amazon.com

Recently I had an interesting interaction with Amazon’s affiliate program.

Rather than telling you the story from start to finish, I am going to Tarantino it. I am going to tell you what happened, and then take you on a journey.

Amazon.com refused to pay any commission on a link that I distributed through Twitter and Facebook, sending me a link to their T&C as the reasoning.

By pure coincidence, I happened to be logged into my amazon account because I was using one of my old computers. I was about to copy a link from an amazon product page, and I thought to myself, why not use the affiliate link? I generally do not do this because it is a hassle to go find the proper affiliate link from Amazon and the distribution of the link is generally not high enough to warrant the effort.

I had the link in hand, I shortened it with 9MP.COM so that I could post it properly, and then sent out a recommendation and a short review for this particular product.

Turns out a few people actually did purchase this product. I was pleasantly surprised when I logged into my account to see completed sales. I checked a few weeks later and the commission column read $0.00.

Apparently if you distribute an affiliate link with a URL shortener on Twitter, you will not get paid any commission.

Now, lets address the type of communication that took place there. I used a product that I found to be of great value and influence in my own personal life, and I wanted to share that with my friends and followers. So I used social media to recommend this product.

If we break that down, ignoring the medium and technology that was used, I recommended a product to a group of people who have an interest in what I have to say.

I followed the next logical step after realizing Amazon was not going to pay me a commission on the referrals of the product and submitted a support request. In all honesty, I could not have cared less about the actual commission, as I would imagine it was less than ten dollars in total, but it surprised me that they denied me the commission.

As I expected, their response, slow as it was, was a simple link to their T&C. I had to giggle a little bit because I knew they were going to resort to the T&C, especially after the amount of money I am sure they paid fancy lawyers to draft up a series of documents that could allow them to make judgments at will and be justified to do so.

So of course I explained the circumstance of my usage of the referral link and asked for justification as to why that particular usage would violate their T&C. I can see why it violates their T&C straight off, because they use the terminology “your site” all over the T&C. Well, I used Twitter. Well, technically I used the URL shortener 9MP.COM, because that is the referrer that they would see. So I thought, that would mean that “your site” would actually be 9MP.COM in this case. So I thought to myself, does that mean if I use a URL shortener I cannot be paid on any commissions? This does not just effect Twitter, this effects blogs, Facebook, or any other case where you would use a URL shortener.

It appears as if they take the “your site” to the bank, their bank, not your bank.

If you really think about it, what is the difference between posting a link on my blog, which is read by subscribers who are interested in what I have to say, as compared to the followers who are following me because they are interested in what I have to say? Seems to me a simple matter of semantics. Oh, and that whole character limit thing.

Is it possible to define “your site” as also my Twitter and Facebook pages? In a perfect world I suppose.

As you can imagine, multiple requests later, I have not had a single response from their affiliate department.

I have had my fair share of large corporate dealings, working at Best Buy years ago, being an early user of Adsense, Commission Junction, and many more. But I have never witnessed such a lack of interest in helping affiliates understand their affiliate program, or making an effort to adjust their affiliate program for new technology.

Suffice to say that I don’t think anyone, especially anyone on SEJ, will disagree that Amazon was in the wrong to not pay out the commission on this particular situation, unless you are a Kantian, but if we don’t do something about it, thousands of others will lose out on a much larger scale.

There is absolutely no logical reason Amazon should not pay their affiliate on an earnest recommendation of a product they sell using social media.

For reference: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/agreement

Joshua Odmark is a technology consultant at Simply Ideas LLC and also blogs for Performance Marketing Blog. Follow him on Twitter or connect with him on LinkedIn.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

No Precedence For Social Media – Amazon Hangs Us Out To Dry

Users are the most important “elements” (forgive me the “impersonalization“) of any websites (especially social media ones of course): that’s them who build content and promote it by spreading the word. Quite naturally, getting the users to join and participate is the first and more important step in launching a (social media) site.

One of the easiest and most effective ways to engage the users is by rewarding them with cash – let’s see how existing social networks reward their users to get them to participate.

1. Reward users by simply paying them

The simplest and the most straightforward (if this word can have the superlative form) model. There are a couple of networks trying this method – sadly (or quite understandably) none of them got popular enough:

Yuwie.com is one of the examples: users are paid by the number of monthly page views you generate. In addition, you can increase your commission by getting your friends to join and participate.

MyLot is a similar site with a more intricate rewarding system. Users are paid for being “useful” – the “usefulness” of each member is estimated based on DRS (Discussion Rating System) – which is generally the overall rating score given by other users and evaluating users’ comments, topics and responses.

Drawbacks?

There is the reason why this model hasn’t become too popular yet: it just doesn’t feel natural. It may be effective as long as you pay – but it will be difficult to ever switch to the free participation model: so you may be forced to pay your users for the project lifetime.

2. Reward users by letting them compete for the prize

Running regular (or ongoing) contests is another way to engage your users.

A contest is a very effective “viral” tool in itself – and additionally it can be a great way to encourage them to get active.

Buxr is a great example of how a contest can grow a high-quality user-generated site: it pays-out daily for the best online deal shared and lets users track each other’s progress via the public contest page, blogs and forums.

Drawbacks?

This model is less dangerous than the previous one – as users consider the reward to be a gift rather than the obligation. The only trick here is to feel the community well enough to be able to set up engaging contest and promote it effectively.

3. Rewarding the users by sharing the revenue

A well-known, highly effective model which is more often used in eCommerce social networks (e.g. Amazon) but can also be leveraged in community-based user-generated sites.

The new generation of article directories has one trick to get the users not only submit articles but also drive lots of traffic to each: they share Adsense revenue with them.

Drawbacks?

Paying users for promoting the content has one huge risk: your users may use dangerous tactics for promoting it. All active social media users know what “Bukisa spam” means. Social media spam like that (or search engine spam) may get your domain banned from popular social media sites or search engines – and it will take ages to recover.

Additional reading:

• Intangible rewards: building communities with user points (pdf);
• Motivating with Reward: Getting Online Users to Participate.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Cash Motivation: Getting the Users to Participate

FriendFeed is a pretty nifty service that allows you to both find and talk about cool things you and your friends find on the web, and it’s in real-time. Beginning last Thursday, FriendFeed also incorporated real-time search.

As you enter a search query you’ll now see new results instantly stream in at the top of your screen in real-time, eliminating the need to hit “refresh” repeatedly. You can search across just your friends, or across the entire FriendFeed network, which includes imported services like Twitter accounts and blogs. It’s a pretty cool way to see what people are saying about any given topic at any given time.

In addition to your basic search being in real-time, saved searched and those using advanced search options are also real-time. And as an added bonus, you can also embed a real-time search in your blog or website.

As someone who likes to stay on top of the latest buzz, I find this to be a really nice feature!

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

FriendFeed Now Offers Real-Time Search

Always when you introduce your company it is fact the use of your business card. You want the primary feeling that is left with your client to convey the image and personality of your business to be a positive one.

Organized by category here are 20+ extremely creative business card
designs. Some of these are old, some new, but all are still amazing
examples of out-of-the-box thinking in business card design.

Read more…

Nothing can be more useful than handy tools you can use “on the fly” in your design process. Whether you’d like diagramming application, create vector images, format or optimize CSS code, generate patterns- you can use dozens of tools to make your life easier.

Today, we are listing 15+ Free And Helpful Web Based Tools That Every Designer May Want To Know! We tried to make this list most useful and interesting for every designer. Most of them are not very well known, but they are really amazing in respect to their features. Just take a look at them and share your thought’s here.

1. Vector Magic

Convert bitmap images to vector images with a few simple clicks. Just upload your image and Vector Magic will vectorize it for you.

Read more…

jQuery is becoming present in more Web 2.0 sites. jQuery slideshows or galleries take a grouping of images and turn it into an flash-like image/photo gallery. There are a lot of different methods to create them and today we are going to look into different jQuery plugins that can be used to create a better photo

1. Create a Beautiful jQuery Slider Tutorial

This tutorial shows you how to develop a beautiful jQuery slider with added image description and name. The final result is a very smooth and visually pleasing slideshow which could be easily integrated into any site.

Read more…

Want to just take a look at beautiful sites and blogs that are powered by WordPress? This time we wanted to show you the beautiful showcase websites, which collects WordPress based blogs and delivers long run inspiration, so you can subscribe and check what’s new happening all the time!

1. MixCSS

Also one more beautiful website showcase site, not completely dedicated
to blog websites, but has inspiring section there. One friend of mine
told me this site is really previous year treasure mine, must know this
one.

Read more…