Get ready for a rant. (And comment if you think I’m wrong. Or right.)

A good client asked me to write some web copy to promote his SEO service. Fine. No problems. I’ve done that many times.

So I asked for some details:

ME:

“I need more information about your SEO service. At the moment, I have nothing other than your claims that you can do it. To be truly compelling, we need to be able to offer some information that illustrates your credibility and capability in this field. As there are no secrets in SEO, I’d suggest discussing your methods openly. This shows you HAVE methods (which is always a good start), and helps readers to feel comfortable that you’re not doing something underhanded. That you’re a serious provider. I can’t just make stuff up here, ‘cos I don’t actually know what your methods are.”

Turns out my client has no idea what methods he uses, because he actually outsources the whole SEO service to a sub-contractor. He told me he’d ask the question and get back to me. A day or two later, he forwards this from his SEO…

HIM:

“First we will create you some content, a lot of content, and once this is written, we will then place this on various sites as blog posts, blog comments, articles, videos, forum posts, trackbacks and much more. And within these snippets of content will be a link back to your site, containing the keyword terms mentioned earlier, it is these backlinks that really get things moving. We use as many diverse sites as we can and we do this nice and slowly, as this is mimmicking natural growth within a Search Engine – the more people hear about your site, the more they will link to it.”

Now let me draw your attention to one key phrase, here: “mimmicking natural growth.” Hmmmm… That raised some red flags for me. My reply…

ME:

I’m not sure whether it’s a good idea to discuss those tactics. To know for sure, I’d need to see some of the offsite content he’s referring to when he says he’s “mimmicking natural growth.”

I need to establish whether this content is high quality and useful, or if it’s just spammy, low value content. If it’s low value content, I’d probably gloss over it. No-one wants to know that their ranking is based on spam. I’m not saying these tactics don’t work, I’m saying people won’t view them favorably.

Also, as a side-note to you, this raises red flags to me. These tactics may work now, and may continue to work for some time. But I think you need to be aware of the risk inherent in them. IF (and it’s still an “if”) his content is low value (I suspect it is), the risk is that it will become increasingly less effective, the smarter Google gets.

Why do I suspect it’s low value? Because he’s “mimmicking natural growth within a Search Engine”. If it were high value content, he wouldn’t be mimicking anything. He would simply be fostering organic discussion of, and linking to, high value content.

So. The upshot is that I don’t yet know enough to write about your tactics with any detail. It’s your call: do you want me to gloss over it, or wait for more detail?”

Still with me? Good. Now here’s his SEO’s response…

HIM:

“The content is not spam, it is 100% written by 2 Brits, and then it is spun by hand, by 2 Brits. If the conent were to be 100% unique then we’d be charging $5000 and not $300, so I think you need to gloss over that as don’t want you to be giving misleading info.

Plus our content is always around 70% unique, which is 40% higher than Googles terms of Service.

Lastly – ALL SEO is gaming the system, and the mimmicking of “fostering organic discussion of, and linking to, high value content” – as you are making Google believe a site is more popular than it actually is, so in effect any linking to a site that is not natural could be deemed as a red flag…”

Now we’re down to the good stuff. Let me highlight and discuss a few choice quotes from the above…

“spun by hand” — original & spun for $300

Do you know what spinning is? It’s where someone takes an article and ‘rewrites’ it, so that it says exactly the same thing in different words. Same structure, same point, same meaning, just slightly different wording.

Let’s consider that for a second. Good junior SEO copywriters charge upwards of $60/hr. I charge $150/hr. Could a junior SEO copywriter write a helpful, meaningful article, then rewrite it half a dozen times (or more), in just 5 hours? Unlikely. Could I do it in 2 hours? Definitely not. If I were really familiar with the subject matter, I might be able to write a passable original article in 2 hours, but you could forget the rewriting! (This post alone took me 1.5 hours to write, and it’s something I know a lot about, something I’m passionate about. And half of it is quotes from an email thread!)

And even if we could do it for that money, how does re-writing the article in different words help readers? Even if done well?

I asked for links to some of these articles to assess whether they were any good, but surprisingly, haven’t received any… ;-)

“our content is always around 70% unique, which is 40% higher than Googles terms of Service”

Take a look at Google’s Terms of Service. No mention of any ratio there… ;-) Pure bullshit.

ALL SEO is gaming the system… you are making Google believe a site is more popular than it actually is

More bullshit. Content based link building isn’t about gaming the system. Ask Garrett French! It’s about working hard to write something truly link-worthy, then letting people know about it, so they can choose to link to it if they like it. It’s not about making Google believe your site is more popular than it actually is, it’s about actually making your site more popular.

My final reply, if you’re interested…

ME:

“Thanks for that. Have to be honest, more red flags for me, mate.

Firstly, I’ve been in SEO a long time, done a lot of research, and talked to a lot of other SEOs. I’ve NEVER heard anything about a specific percentage change required to be considered unique. Of course, there’s always the possibility I’ve just missed it. So I did some digging. I can’t find anything about it in Google’s terms of service. And when you think about it, it’s not a terms of service issue. Terms of service relate to YOUR use of Google, not GOOGLE’S use of you.

I also asked a few SEO gurus, including David Harry and CJ Jenkins, and they knew nothing about it either.

Nor could I find anything about it in the Google Webmaster Guidelines.

Interestingly, though, there IS something in the webmaster guidelines that relates to the mimicking issue:

“Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”"

Knowing what you know now about your SEO’s methods, what would your answer to this question be?

On that note, all SEO is NOT gaming the system. Spammers use that defence all the time, and it’s just a smokescreen. I’d advocate an approach whereby you write high quality blog posts that are helpful and informative to your intended audience. Then you simply announce that content to people who care. Those people will then link to your content because IS quality, not because it MIMICS quality.

In your shoes, I’d be asking your SEO:

• for links to examples of a lot of content generated for a single campaign (enough that you can see the similarities and differences — see the quality of the ‘spin’);
• a link to the place where Google specifies a particular percentage change required for content to be considered unique (the percentage thing he mentioned exists in Google’s terms of service).

You need to know what your risks are. There’s no way in the world that spun articles are written for readers. And anything that’s not written for readers is on Google’s hit list. Simple as that. If he thinks he can outsmart some of the smartest brains in the world, and continue to game the system, then that’s great. I wish him the best of luck. I say he’s welcome to that approach, and I fully support his right to take it, and to accept the inherent risk.

But you have to ask yourself if YOU want to take that risk. And if you want to expose YOUR CLIENTS to that risk, without their knowledge. If they pay you, in good faith, to get them a ranking, and they lose that ranking because you (yes, they’ll be pointing the finger at you) were doing something that Google told you NOT to do, and you got caught, you could end up in court.

Again, I have absolutely no problem, ethically, with the spinning tactic. I think it makes the web a dirty place, and gives SEOs a bad name as snakeoil salesmen. But I’d still do it myself if I thought it could earn me good money, for long enough. I wouldn’t transfer that risk to my clients, though…

Anyway, that’s my 2 cents. I’d love to see some examples of his content, either way. Just out of curiosity.

I’m sorry I’m taking a bit of a confrontational approach here. It’s not ‘cos I have any interest in proving your guy wrong. I just feel a professional obligation to you. Plus I think you’re a good bloke and a good client, so I wouldn’t want to see you take a hit over this.

Let me know how it goes.”

End rant.

Let me know your thoughts

Do you know of any spun articles that provide value to readers? Is all SEO gaming the system? Please comment…

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Rand’s problem attitude to content

This is the attitude I’m talking about:

“Those brands and sites that have… users invested in promoting their work are likely to be long term winners with little regard for comparative levels of content quality.”

(An ironic attitude, don’t you think, when Rand, himself, invests so much in quality content on his own site…?)

What if your social/viral/SEO budget is small?

Yes, a high ranking is about getting lots of “early-adopting, viral-sharing, people-connecting, idea-distributing users” to promote your site. But if your social/viral/SEO budget is small, how else will you get that to happen — and keep it happening — other than by creating good content?

What if your competitors have the same social/viral/SEO budget?

For that matter, even with a good social/viral/SEO budget, what happens when you’re competing against someone else with a comparable budget? I’d contend that, in the long term, the comparative level of content quality will be the real difference, not the individual clever (but often hit-and-miss) tactics along the way.

Good content, alone, isn’t enough

I’m not suggesting good content alone will (always) get you a high ranking; obviously your site has to be search-friendly, and people have to find out about your content. But without good content, you’ll have to invest more in ‘persuading’ people to link.

But for most businesses, it’s the real difference

No. All things being equal, for most businesses, quality content is a far more sustainable proposition than poor content. (Note that I’m not necessarily talking about outsourced content. And I’m not necessarily talking about the technical quality of your writing. I’m talking about the quality of what you have to say.)

Plus Google’s getting smarter

And let’s not forget, Google is on a never-ending quest to return quality search results. It’s already quite hard to trick it into thinking you have quality content when you don’t. Why continue down that road when it’s only going to become rockier? Google will get better at weeding out the poor quality, and you’ll spend more and more trying to game the system.

Conclusion

Obviously I know why Rand wants you to continue down that road (because he’ll profit when you do), but c’mon! It just doesn’t make sense to chase your tail trying to trick Google into thinking you’ve given it what it wants. Why not actually give it what it wants?

Quality.

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The question

“I’ve built up a load of articles written for my clients on the topic of wellbeing, a few magazine articles I’ve written on the same topic, and a smattering of assorted articles on a whole bunch of topics. I would like to submit these to article submission sites such as Ezine Articles.

I’m unsure how much editing I should do on them to avoid search engine black-listing and in relation to acknowledging my clients (most of who are quoted in the articles).

Have you ever submitted an article that you’ve written on behalf of a client and, if so, how you’ve discussed it with the client? Do you think it would be wise to ask their permission and leave in their quotes? Do you foresee any problem/s with this?”

The answer

Ask the client’s permission?

Yeah, I’d definitely ask the client’s permission. Although, technically, in Australia, copyright remains the property of the creator unless otherwise agreed (sometimes agreement can be implicit), most clients are unaware of this. They think they own the article ‘cos they paid for it. So if you don’t request permission, you could find yourself in trouble… if not legal, then at least client-relationship-wise. By requesting permission, on the other hand, you’re showing respect and courtesy, and clients will like that. Most often, you’ll find your clients will be happy for you to include the article as is, so long as you link to their site as well as your own in the article. After all, they’re featured in the article, and it will ultimately help their SEO too.

A few of my earlier articles fell into this category:

• http://www.divinewrite.com/agentfees.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/architect.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/fengshui.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/negativegearing.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/propertymanager.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/customerservice.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/surf.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/livelife.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/adhd.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/fraser.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/fingerfone.htm

Note, however, that in most of the above articles, I DIDN’T include the client’s details (all the real estate and lifestyle articles). I spoke with the client, though, and I remember he was very dismissive of the whole thing. “Yeah, yeah, that’s fine. Whatever…” Didn’t care at all. Most clients won’t be like this.

Getting best SEO value out of your articles

As to where and how to post the articles in order to get best SEO value out of them… If they’re on topic (i.e. closely related to the subject matter of your site), I’d be inclined to post them on your blog first, then a few days later, distribute them to the article directories. This way, you get the social media benefit of the articles (the subsequent editorial links if the articles are good — these links are worth more than the author bio links you get from article PR), as well as the SEO benefit of the article PR. Know what I mean?

Note also that when you post them on your blog, you should also announce them to your social media following(s), etc etc. so that people are actually aware of them.

And do all of the above one at a time, though, not all at once. Drip-feed style. Otherwise you’ll use up all your blog content in one fell swoop.

About duplicate content

Re duplicate content: Firstly, be aware that there’s no such thing as a ‘duplicate content penalty’. There’s only a ‘duplicate content filter’. This is a Google filter that seeks to ensure that Google’s search results aren’t dominated by the same content over and over again. When Google identifies two identical articles, for example, it applies some intelligence to decide which one to display in the search results. E.g. It might choose to display the version that was published first, or the version that’s hosted on the site with the highest ranking, or the version on the site that’s most closely related to the subject matter of the article.

In other words, your article may not actually be returned in the search results, and unless you change the article pretty significantly, there’s not a lot you can do about that. Google decides. Especially if the article has already been published elsewhere.

That’s not a huge problem, though. You still get the full value of the backlinks to your site. So the articles still help your site’s ranking. If I were in your shoes (and I have been), I’d leave the articles as they are, cop it on the chin if Google displays another version of the article, and just be happy about the link juice you’re getting.

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If you didn’t make it to SMX Sydney 2009, I’m afraid I have some bad news. It was awesome! Great speakers, quality content, and some genuine people floating around.

This post is little more than a brain-dump. I’m just gonna mention some of the great people I met and list some of my takeaways (bear in mind, I didn’t take comprehensive notes at each session, so my notes probably say more about my needs as an SEO copywriter, than anything else!).

Standout Speakers

IMHO, the standout speakers of SMX Sydney 2009 were:

• Cindy Krum – Cindy spoke on mobile SEO and international SEO. Some good meaty content, and a lot of thought-provoking stuff.
• Darren Rowse – Darren spoke on using Twitter for business. He managed to make his presentation accessible to newbies, but still useful for experienced Twitterers. No surprises that he was good.
• Lucas Ng – Lucas spoke on writing ‘killer’ headlines for PPC ads. Some great fundamentals with a handy list of psychological triggers.
• Jason West – Jason spoke on video optimisation.
• Monte Huebsch – Monte spoke on Local SEO.

Standout People

I met (and caught up with) a heap of great people. Grabbed business cards from most. Think I’ve mentioned most here.

• @problogger – Darren Rowse, ProBlogger
• @lucasng – Lucas Ng, Fairfax Digital
• @dbgtechnologies – Luke Jamieson, Director, DBG Technologies
• @philipshaw – Philip Shaw, Director, Clever Clicks
• @iammrwong – Ken Wong, Senior Information Architect, Fairfax Digital
• @Suzzicks – Cindy Krum, Founder & CEO of Rank-Mobile.com
• @anthonymilner – Anthony Milner, Product Manager, Elcom
• @neerav – Neerav Bhatt.com, Blogger
• @reseo – Chris Thomas, Reseo
• Karl Brown, Project Manager, Catch.com.au
• Sandra Tanner, Director, EatOut.co.nz
• Shane Tomlinson, Sales Director, Advantate
• Michelle Lawler, Innerv8

Session Notes

Day 1 Keynote – Rand Fishkin (SEOmoz)

• 8/10 searchers are dissuaded by the Description/snippet
• Great stats on click-thru of top 10 results
• Trustworthiness of a website – Good ‘degree of separation’ diagram: To Google, a site that’s one link away from a trusted seed (such as Amazon or an edu) is 0.4% likely to be spam, two links away is 1%, three links is 14%. This is why links from seed sites are so important.
• Rand’s breakdown of SEO signals:
  • Trust/authority of domain = 35%
  • On page & keyword = 30%
  • Page level link metrics = 25%
  • Usage data = 10%
• Great SEO pyramid diagram
• SEO has to be a culture built into the business
• Emerging trends:
  • More interest in SEM since US financial crash
  • More awareness = more competition
  • More crackdowns on spam, particularly individual, more immediate action.
  • More tools and metrics
  • Search engines have more data sources, not just content & links. Starting to pay attention to how users use the Internet.
  • Social media is merging with SEO
• QDF – Query Deserves Freshness. Some queries need fresh results. If Google sees a lot of new content in news and lots of new searches for a particular subject, it assumes that something new has happened, and that people searching for that content/news will benefit from seeing the latest results. It then adapts its algos to display newer results (pages that people are newly linking to). These pages often outrank more popular, authoritative, older pages on the subject. This is why blogs are effective for SEO, as are news sites. If you stay up to date with news, you can get the jump and rank ahead of more popular, authoritative sites. Rand did this for the canonical tag.

Video SEO – Jason West, Websalad

• Video search on YouTube = ¼ of all US google searches (Comscore)
• 13 hrs of video uploaded to YouTube every minute
• 80mil watched every day
• 200k new vids uploaded every day
• Only 1-2 video results on p.1 of Google for any search
• Although Jason didn’t have any eye-tracking results, he speculates that video results in SERPs has changed the way people view results, because they draw the eye.
• Important to remember that the video content itself is not indexed. Only the meta data (Title, transcripts) and on page content are.
• Duplicate content is an issue for videos too, i.e. If you syndicate for to try to make something go viral (rather than hosting the video on your own site), Google will only display what it thinks is the most relevant version of your video, which may be the syndicated version.
• Use a combination of self-hosted and syndicated video. E.g. Put a short (promo) version of your video on YouTube to leverage YouTube’s search presence & traffic. Include a call to action at end of the promo video, like, “Visit www.mysite.com for the full HD version of this video.”
• Syndication – Leverage established seo strength – How do you direct traffic/benefit back to your site?
• You can also syndicate your video on target niche directories (where there are communities).
• Content ideas: features on projects, promos, instructions, thank you, testimonials
• Better to host on YouTube or self-host? YouTube is piggybacking. Self-hosting, you’re getting the SEO benefit. Perhaps a combination is the best. With short on YouTube pulling ppl back to the full version on your site. Plus relative to how many push mechanisms you have in place (and search presence), you might want to use YouTube.
• Syndicating on YouTube:
  • By using YouTube, you can dominate the SERPs (i.e. One of the results will be your own web page, and one will be your vid on YouTube)
  • YouTube is obviously no follow, but still drive lots of traffic (both thru YouTube direct and YouTube results in Google SERPs)
  • Optimum length for a YouTube vid is < 3 minutes (avg 2.5 min)
  • Once you’ve added your vid to YouTube, publicise it through social media
  • YouTube Title & Desc optimisation is similar to regular web page. Put backlink URL first in description
  • Use keywords in YouTube tags
  • Aim to get your video to appear on YouTube’s popular page
  • Link back to YouTube from your own site to increase the vid’s popularity (+ email, promotions, etc.)
  • Embedded views no longer contribute to YouTube popularity
  • Use keyword rich anchor text in links to your YouTube vid
• Podcasting
  • Doesn’t have to be as short
  • Radio National ABC 2008 – ~21 million downloads
  • Set up RSS, link up subscribers, submit to iTunes
  • Be prepared for bandwidth demands if your podcast becomes popular
  • Distribute to podcast directories & search engines
  • Transcripts for SEO – include a snippet on the page, keyword rich, possibly enhanced (optimized), then link to the full transcript, also optimised. Titles, etc. same as regular SEO
• Future: Google can hear your video (GAUDI – Google’s audio indexing system) – can pick up the keywords

Local SEO – Monte Huebsch, AussieWeb

• List your site on local business directories (e.g. Google, HotFrog, AussieWeb – all free)
• 40% of searches are for local content
• 62% of people search online then buy in-store
• Where does Google’s data come from re local search? Some through commercial relationships with directories, some scraped, some reviews.
• If you haven’t claimed your Google local listing, Google will pull your info from Yellow Pages. If you claim in Google, it overwrites the Yellow data.
• Claim your Google local listing by mobile phone ‘cos you can verify instantly. If you choose to verify by mail, it takes bout month.
• Can your Google local directory listing be detrimental to your rank for searches, say, from another country (e.g. I’m an SEO copywriter servicing clients worldwide. If I list in Google’s local directory for my address in Bateau Bay, NSW, Australia, will my ranking on US SERPs suffer?) According to Monte it doesn’t.
• Microsoft require you to list in local directory to appear in local search
• Ranking factors for local search:
  • Proximity to address queried
  • Number and quality of reviews
  • Keyword relevance
  • SEO characteristics of your website
  • Link to local listing
  • Videos
• Contact Us page is dead. You should have your contact details on every page. Better for user experience, better for local SEO.
• One location, multiple areas – you can tick a box in Google local directory, but you’ll probably still rank lower than sites with a single specific address
• You can enter region, instead of street address
• Multiple locations, one website – all covered by Google listing

Mobile SEO – Cindy Krum, Rank-Mobile

• Mobile SERPs have simplified rendering; you need to rank higher to be seen above the fold (the bottom of the mobile display area)
• Mobile searchers usually have an immediate intent. They’re not usually browsing. They want to do something immediately and can’t wait to get back to their computer to do it. And it usually involves spending.
• Mobile phones are personal and integrated into everyday life
• The quality of your site’s rendering on a mobile phone will affect your Google rank
• Don’t use .mobi
• You might choose to create a mobile-only version of your pages (e.g. www.m.ysite.com (subdomain) or www.mysite.com/m (subdirectory)) or use a mobile/traditional hybrid stylesheet. The hybrid stylesheet avoids dup content as you can simply apply style sheet to single content, based on the browsing device.
• You can choose to let the visitor’s browser detect & redirect automatically, or you can force the visitor to nominate whether they’re viewing from a computer or mobile.
• As per traditional pages, use robots.txt tell the mobile bots what to index and what not to.
• When rendering, mobile simply stacks your content. So if your mobile content starts with a complex nav menu, you might have to scroll down several times to get to the content. And if you click on the nav, a new page may display, but you may not be able to tell, as the nav on the new page will be the same as on the previous page, and there’ll be no visual cue to tell the visitor they’re on the new page. Or if you have sliced images, they may be pulled apart and stacked.
• Start pages with jump links at top (e.g. click here for nav, click here for content), not usual nav.
• See her presentation for rendering test sites.
• Traffic is an important signal in mobile search algo
• Include phone number in Title/Desc ‘cos many users won’t want to visit your site, they’ll just be after contact details and will take them direct from the SERPs if they can.
• Mobile browsers are “stoopider”!
• Submit your site to mobile search engines & directories
• Browsers are heading in the direction of one web (i.e. no need for variations of your site, just stylesheets)
• Mobile searchers tend to use more keywords in their query.
• Mobile-specific keyword research tools are in development (someone in the audience said Google already offers one)

Internal Linking tactics – Jane Copland, Ayima Search Marketing

• Breadcrumb links are more useful for ppl than SEs.

Unravelling URLs & demystifying domains – Greg Grothaus, Google

• Canonical tag is a hint to the search engines. They may choose to ignore the suggestion.
• Good FAQs section in downloads

Copywriting for search – Chris Thomas, Reseo

• Fire your big guns first. Solve the visitor’s problems quickly. Don’t lead with “Welcome to…”

Writing killer ad copy – Lucas Ng, Fairfax Digital

• For ppc ads, “get thin” outperforms “get fit”
• Great list of psych triggers
• Lucas has posted his presentation on his blog.

Bot Herding – Priyank Garg, Yahoo!

• Dynamic URL redirecting in Yahoo Site Explorer. You don’t need to do it, but it does obviate the need for Yahoo to crawl your site for 301s and canonical tags.
• Crawl errors coming soon for Australian pages (in Yahoo Site Explorer).
• There is an AU Site Explorer @ http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/au/ Page & Link numbers sometimes diff between US & AU versions
• Authenticate your site with Yahoo

International SEO – Cindy Krum, Rank-Mobile

• Hosting location is still a more important signal than telling Google Webmaster Tools where your site is.
• SEO issues of multi-national brands:
  • Multiple languages
  • Diff search engines in diff countries
  • Inconsistent competition between countries
• What language your links are in, and where they come from
• You can manage international SEO with one site, multiple sites, or a blended approach:
  • One site:
    • Use location detection software to determine where the user is coming from, then serve the correct version of the content. (NOT talking about auto translation. She means having different versions of your content and serving a translated version when required.)
    • This is the best user experience.
    • However, inbound links in diff languages can confuse the search engines, as they take links as cues to the site’s language.
    • When using one site, you can use sub-domains/directories for each language. This is a good way to include the main keyword in the URL. You can use the translation of the keyword in each sub-domain/directory.
    • If you use a sub-domain, you can host it separately from the main domain (i.e. host in the country you’re targeting).
    • But sub-domains/directories can cause duplicate content issues if you have one for each country (as opposed to one for each language), because you’ll have, e.g., multiple English versions on the same site.
    • If using language as part of subdomain/directory, use proper language name (e.g. Espanol, not Spanish)
  • Multiple sites:
    • One for each language or country
    • Better chance of ranking well in diff countries
    • Rank faster generally
    • Link benefits because links will tend to be in the same language as the site, and from the same top level domain TLD (eg. .com.de)
    • However, it splits traffic and links and can make it harder to rank in .com search engines.
    • Specify the country for each site in Webmaster tools
    • Much better click thru with country-specific site because ppl like to click on their own country’s TLD domain (e.g. Australians prefer to click on .com.au results).
    • But raises issues of domain authority (unless you register and populate all of your domains at the same time.)
    • Duplicate content doesn’t really exist across different TLDs. E.g. You could have an American version on your .com domain and an Australian version on the .com.au domain, and not suffer an duplicate content issues. Yahoo and Google reps were both in the room and ALMOST fully endorsed this. With conditions…
  • Blended approach:
    • Use one or two country specific if they’re important markets or high traffic (e.g. .com & .co.uk) but sub-domain/directories for lower priority countries. Or sub-domain/directory if you can’t get the TLD (either ‘cos it’s unavailable or difficult legally to obtain).
    • Put languages with similar aesthetics on the same language site.

Meet the Search Engines

Yahoo – Priyank Garg

• Google Search revenue to surpass MS Windows revenue in 2009.
• Yahoo Boss looks great for startups/entrepreneurs in digital – developer.yahoo.com/boss
• SearchMonkey – add deep links, content and images to Yahoo SERPs, but searchers have to opt into SearchMonkey to see those additions – developer.yahoo.com/searchmonkey

Google – Greg Grothaus

• “definitely maybe in the future” we’ll be using searchwiki data as a signal for natural search

Site clinic

• A single link from authoritative site (even without anchor text) is better than multiple, keyword rich links from unimportant sites. Greg Bose.

Downside of SMX Sydney 2009

The only downside of SMX Sydney 2009 was that it could have done with some more advanced subject matter. Even the ‘Intermediate’ and ‘Expert’ streams were a little too basic, if you ask me.

I mean, we did, after all, pay to have a heap of hard-core SEOs and search engine employees out here. It seemed such a shame to let them go to waste. I would have loved to see some hard-core SEO sessions from all of them!

I know that the organisers have to cater to a very broad audience (and yes, I spoke to Barry about this), but I think the number of people in the more advanced sessions is a good indication that the industry is ready for something a bit more meaty.

Please comment

Please comment if I’ve missed anything important from the above sessions, or if you have a summary of one of the sessions I missed.

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But I’m not giving it away out of the goodness of my heart (although I like to think I’m a good guy!). I’m actually after more affiliates, to help me sell the book. I’ve found my affiliates are making quite a few sales for me, so I’m looking to sign up a whole heap more.

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What’s interesting is that I was really only seeing part of the picture. I’ve since learned that it’s not just money that sustains this dominance. It’s something much more powerful: nature.

Specifically, I’m talking about the nature of networks. Let me explain. Scientists have recently discovered that the World Wide Web evolves according to some pretty set-in-stone laws that are common to all networks. One is called the Matthew Effect or the Law of Preferential Attachment. It says that in any network, well connected nodes are “more likely to attract new links, while poorly connected nodes are disproportionately likely to remain poor”. (Quoted from Mike Grehan’s great article, Filthy Linking Rich.)

From a WWW perspective: “new links on the web are more likely to go to sites that already have many links” – i.e. the hubs. As a result, so too are the high rankings. In other words, Google’s dependence on link popularity is “inherently biased against new and unknown pages”, and that, as a result, “[q]uality and relevance are sometimes at odds with each other”. (Again, from Filthy Linking Rich.)

Of course, I knew this back in 2005, even if I attributed it to the power of money, rather than the power of nature. And it’s not this revelation about today’s SEO that prompted me to write this post. What really prompted me were my thoughts on what the Matthew Effect might mean to the FUTURE of search engine optimization (SEO)…

Most SEOs agree that the importance of link popularity is waning. I talk more about this in my SEO ebook, but the essence of the theory is that visitor factors will ultimately play a bigger part in the ranking mix. Things like how many people visit your site, how long they stay, how many pages they visit, how often they come back, and whether they buy (or whatever your conversion metric is).

It’s argued that this changing of the guard will ultimately result in search rankings that more accurately reflect both relevance and quality.

But in light of the Matthew Effect discussed above, I’m not so sure.

The important thing to realize is that even on the Web, the word “connection” doesn’t have to mean “hyperlink”. Loyal visitors and conversions are connections too (in the same way that friendship is a connection in a social network). So, just as a hub site is more likely to attract hyperlinks – thanks to the Matthew Effect – it’s also more likely to attract loyal visitors and conversions.

(Common sense tells us this would happen too, although we might normally be tempted to put it down to brand awareness, authority, credibility and trustworthiness.)

In other words, the changing of the guard from link popularity to visitor factors may be simply a case of ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire’. (How’s that for mixing your metaphors?!) While I agree that a search algo based on visitor factors would be harder to manipulate, and therefore more capable of assessing quality and relevance, it would still favor hub sites, so we’d still be in a place where relevance and quality are sometimes at odds.

We’re simply substituting one reflection of the Matthew Effect for another.

Your thoughts?

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Find out more…

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C’mon! I know blogging is hard work and takes a lot of time, but do you really think the answer is outsourcing to someone cheap? How good do you think the result will be?

Let’s think about the logic for a second: it takes YOU about half a day to write a quality post, right? And you’re the subject matter expert. How long’s it going to take a copywriter? They have to get their head around your offering, your customer, your target reader, the purpose of your blog, the purpose of the post and the fundamental message of the post. Then they have to research and understand the details, plan the post, write numerous headlines and choose the one that’s most engaging, then write the post and optimize it for search. All the while, ensuring their terminology is credible!

At least, that’s what they’ll have to do to write a quality post!

Now I can’t speak for everyone, but it takes me a good day or two to get through all of that. And I’m no slouch. I’ve been writing professionally for 15 years. I’ve run a business for six years. I have a Bachelor of Arts in English Lit and Linguistics. And I have a Master of Arts in International Communication. So I research effectively, I learn fast, I understand business and I write fast. This isn’t a sales pitch, it’s all fundamental to my argument.

So if it takes me a good day or two, let’s be generous and assume it’s going to take most SEO copywriters about the same. Let’s say 1.5 days per post. Now if you’re paying $10 – $25 per post, that equates to around $7 – $16 per day for the writer. That’s only $2,555 – $5,840 per year, assuming they work every day! There’s no way in the world that any decent SEO copywriter will work for that! (Well, there’s a miniscule chance you’ll find a great junior SEO copywriter who’s just starting out and desperately needs the money. But finding an SEO copywriter like that is like finding a needle in a haystack. And they won’t stick around for long. Trust me, I’ve been down that path.)

I know it’s tempting to say, “Send it to India,” but that’s not going to solve the problem, either. A cursory scan of Indian job search site Nakuri reveals that a half-way decent copywriter can earn around 4,00,000 to 8,00,000 Rupees per year. That’s around USD $9,390 to $18,780 per year + benefits. So why would they work for $5,840 (much less $2,555) per year?

No. What you’ll get is a blog post that was written in an hour (two, if you’re lucky). Poorly written, rehashed rubbish with no subject matter expertise, and certainly no relevant opinion or thought leadership.

Be honest. Would you subscribe to, return to, talk about or link to a blog like that? Of course not!

And after all, if you’re blogging for SEO, it’s all about subscriptions, return visitors, buzz and voluntary backlinks. Which means you have to repeatedly offer original, helpful thought provoking blog posts. Blog posts that people consider worth bookmarking and worth sharing with their own visitors and networks. What’s more, if you’re touting that sort of rubbish in places like Twitter and Plurk, you’ll quickly lose all credibility, and stand no chance of developing a following.

That’s why it amazes me when I hear so-called ‘social media experts’ suggesting this tactic. They should know better!

My contention is that if you’re serious about your blog (and not just blog-spamming – which is no better than article spamming), you have only four options:

1. Write your own blog posts;
2. Write your own blog posts and have a good SEO copywriter with social media knowledge edit & optimize them;
3. Have a good SEO copywriter with social media knowledge ghost-write your blog posts (which will cost a lot more than $10 – $25 per post); or
4. Try to attract some good guest-bloggers who’ll do it for free (and who aren’t competitors).

If you’re not up for any of those options, then you can forget about blogging. It’s not for you.

In blogging, there’s no quick and easy option. Just as there’s no quick, easy way to write your corporate web copy (Home, About Us, Products, Services, etc.). Would you settle for $10 Home page copy? If you’re serious about your blog, then you have to treat it with respect. You have to value it as highly as you value your other promotional material. It may not be selling your product or service, but it’s selling something, nonetheless. Something much more important, in the long run: your brand and your reputation. And if your purpose is SEO, it’s selling to a very jaded audience: social marketers.

Social media is the key to SEO these days. And it will remain the key for a few years to come. Certainly blogging is going to be massively important for years. WHAT we blog about may change, but the ACT of blogging will be critical for a long time. The key is expertise, usefulness, credibility, frequency and accessibility. And you’ll never get that paying $10 – $25 per post.

Pay peanuts, get monkeys! And that’s all I have to say on the matter ;-)

Happy blogging!

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Specifically, she examined the effect of linking to the Home page using keyword rich anchor text. These results are very instructive (thanks Ann!), and they make a lot of sense. Google is right to penalize sites with over-optimized internal links. Here’s why…

When a visitor first arrives at your site, one of the first things they’re gonna try and do is find the Home page. (Jakob Nielsen: Top Ten Guidelines for Homepage Usability) And when they do, they’ll look for a link, menu or button that says “Home” (or they look for a logo at the top left of the page). They won’t look for a link that says, “Computer Spare Parts Home” or “SEO Copywriter Home” or “Red Tennis Shoes Home.”

So by optimizing links to your Home page, you’re certainly not improving usability. Your optimization is purely an SEO tactic with no visitor benefit. (Indeed, if you replace all straight “Home” links with optimized links, you’d be actively undermining usability.)

Why should this affect your ranking? Simple. Google wants quality, helpful sites in its SERPs. If you make your site less usable, that’s not gonna reflect well on Google, so it makes perfect sense that your ranking will drop as a result.

I hate to say it (well… err… no, actually, I don’t ;-)), but Ann’s results reinforce what good SEO copywriters have been saying for years: “never sacrifice readability for searchability.” It’s also what Google’s been saying all along.

And, although Ann’s results relate to Home page links only, the usability message (and maybe even the penalty) applies to all links. Don’t over-optimize them. Here’s just a few reasons why:

1. 79% of users scan; only 16% read word-by-word. (Nielsen: How Users Read on the Web)
2. People look for links when scanning a page. (Nielsen: How Users Read on the Web)
3. Concise copy is 58% more usable, and scannable copy is 47% more usable. (Nielsen: Concise, SCANNABLE, and Objective: How to Write for the Web). Over-optimizing links makes them both less concise and less scannable.
4. Low-literacy visitors don’t scan effectively. They tend to read word-for-word. And if the text gets to dense, they look for the next link, often skipping important info in the process. If that link is also dense, they’re more likely to skip it too, resulting in more info skipped. (Nielsen: Lower-Literacy Users)
5. The first two words of scannable items, like links, are vital, because they’re often all the visitor sees. They should be words that carry the most information. (Nielson: Passive Voice Is Redeemed For Web Headings, Writing Style for Print vs. Web and Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005) And that generally won’t be your keywords. In most cases, the visitor is already on a page related to your keywords. Starting a link with those same keywords really only tells visitors that the destination page is related to the current page. It doesn’t tell them anything notable about the destination page, so they can decide whether they want to read it. Knowing that it’s related to the current page isn’t enough.
6. People love clicking on links; it’s the Internet’s most used feature. (Harald Weinreich, Hartmut Obendorf, Eelco Herder, and Matthias Mayer: Not Quite the Average: An Empirical Study of Web Use) So you want to make it easy for them to do what they like, and to find what they’re looking for when they do it.

Maybe Google is already taking all of these usability issues into account, maybe it’s not. One thing’s certain though: your visitors sure are!

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Bruce made some very interesting points, but ‘cmon, everyone has to recognize that he’s just beating up some buzz!

His claims that sites with ‘engagement objects’ (e.g. videos) will outrank sites without, simply because of those objects, is ridiculous. And he knows it. Video can be crap too, and even the best vidoes aren’t scannable the way text copy is. What’s more, Google’s ability to ‘read’ video is still in its infancy, whereas its ability to read text copy is well advanced. So, even if it’s just playing safe, Google will give quality text the benefit of the doubt for a long time to come.

Also, all this hype about SEOs needing to consider traffic and conversions and analytics, etc. Another beatup. Those things have always been important, and always will be. Some companies increase your rankings, some monitor and address analytics and conversions. Some do both. Those companies that just work on rankings will always be important. No matter how the rankings are determined, someone will always have to work on that aspect.

Don’t let Bruce suck you in!

That said, it’s all good food for thought, and I’m sure it’ll all contribute to some degree to the future of SEO.

What’s more, the comments, alone, were worth the read. So thanks WebProNews!

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