Archive for the 'Internet Marketing Tips' Category

Kurt Krejny of Fathom SEO is causing a bit of a ruckus on Sphinn with his piece about Domain Name Gaming. Basically, he’s irritated with keyword-rich domain names being bought up and filled with useless content that ranks well. I have to agree. What’s the controversy?

First, johnandrews commented that Kurt’s argument is "naive and uninformed." I made a comment about human reviewers to which SpostareDuro replied, "Terrific resolve… in theory."

I’d like to expand upon my argument.

We all know what these keyword-happy domains look like. I’m sure a good number of people reading this have created some. (In the name of experimentation, of course.) And we all know that, while the keywords rock the AdSense and bring in loads of cash, the people who visit these sites are not quite happy with the content they find. That’s why they click on the ads, of course, which is why they’re created so poorly in the first place.

But if we look at these sites with our user hats on instead of our SEO hats, it’s not a pretty picture. They fail at meeting user intent. Hard. And while they may rank well for a while, human reviewers could flatten them in no time.

Kurt encouraged his readers to submit a Spam Report to Google whenever they come across these sucky keyword sites. (Most likely because we want to compete with them, of course.) Commenter berto pointed out that these sites don’t fit the strict definition of spam as set out by the search engines.

Submitting a spam report could still help, even if the search engines don’t kick the sites to the curb for spamming. Why? Because human eyeballs still need to evaluate the spam report, and human reviewers would likely end up demoting sites that aren’t kicked out of the index.

Not convinced? Let’s take Google for example. Google utilizes human reviewers. Now I don’t know how different sites end up getting reviewed, but it would make sense that spam reports would kick up various URLs for them to look at. So if you submit a spam report, and the reviewer determines that the site doesn’t meet the Google definition of spam, that’s not the only thing they’re going to look at.

No, the human reviewer is going to look at the site that you already know is useless, and they are going to recognize that it isn’t "useful." It may have some relevance, if it’s able to dodge the spam label, but being bumped off the "useful" peg should leave room for good results to rank.

And that’s where you come in, with your site that is ready to rank competitively for the keyword that the sucky site formerly dominated. With useful information that meets user intent instead of copying and pasting important keywords into a generic template that uses many words to say nothing. Pay someone to write that useful content.  You paid for the domain; this is just another part of the investment, or else you’re throwing your money away.

That’s one reason I have my job: to create content that both helps boost SERP rank and provides value to the user. So my advice may seem a bit self-serving…

But it also helps you. Because your sucky keyword site may be raking in traffic and ad revenue now, but it’s only a matter of time before one of your competitors hits the spam report button and outranks you with actual content. I will begrudgingly admit that sucky content can serve as a placeholder while quality content is generated, but using it that way is a gamble and a race against time – can you replace the crap with something of substance before your site makes it to human review?

Holes in my argument: Maybe the spam report doesn’t automatically kick a site into the queue for human review. Maybe the human reviewer(s) will disagree with you on the value of the site. Maybe the human reviewer(s) will agree with you, but their evaluation has no real effect on the rankings. Maybe you can fly under the radar and not get caught. BUT… are those risks you’re willing to take?

Popularity: unranked [?]

* Jim’s note: Feel free to Sphinn this.

Tough love. It’s something I’m going to have to start getting used to as the office consultant on user intent.

It’s hard to tell someone – like your boss, or a client – that their keyword targeting campaign is due to fail miserably because it doesn’t match up with user intent. You know, it fails the Your Mom Test.

I’m learning a lot about SEO. Before Jim hired me, the extent of my SEO knowledge was served up to me by a leading web content portal for which I was an author. There are different sets of rules for SEO writers and SEO gurus. I’m trying to absorb as much of the guru side as I can, but SEO is not primarily my job. Content is my job.

But once in a while, I’m called in to take a look at a web site and look at it from a user prospective.

"Pretend you typed in this phrase," Jim says, "and this was the site you clicked on. Tell me your thoughts."

It only takes me a second or two to establish what I would want to see for any given keyword phrase. (So far, at least, nothing has been overly technical.)

The most common problem I’ve had to point out so far is when a landing page – generally the index page for the site – contains only a passing blurb on the keyword subject.

As I’m going to be heading out soon to enjoy a concert at SPAC, let’s use [Maroon 5] as our keyword phrase. They happen to be one of my favorite bands, so I’m fairly comfortable talking about them.

So my hypothetical landing page that I’m looking at is musicrelatedtermhere.com. The index page is what I’m examining. The homepage blurb explains that the purpose of the site is to provide "you" – as a rock music fan – with all of the latest information on your favorite rock bands, including Maroon 5. The blurb includes one of the band’s latest single releases, "Wak eUp Call," but that is the extent of the band’s homepage coverage.

Oh, and the top link in the site’s navigation is "Maroon 5." Site navigation is a prominent left sidebar. The "Maroon 5" link is the first link visible on the page, right below the homepage logo banner. There’s no doubt about the link’s visibility and accessibility. Users landing on this page couldn’t miss the "Maroon 5" link.

So I click on the "Maroon 5" link. There are rotating band pics, with thumbnails linking to the rest of the band photo gallery. The band’s discography and upcoming tour dates are featured. The Maroon 5 page also has links to a fan forum, some Maroon 5 Myspace graphics, and some downloadable Maroon 5 ringtones. This page is amazing! I love it! This page passes and surpasses any user intent standards I could throw at it.

But it’s not the landing page I’m supposed to be looking at. I press the back button. Oh yeah, that’s right. I have a little blurb mentioning one of the band’s singles. And there’s a link to the amazing page.

Color me disappointed.

But how to explain this to my boss, or my boss’s client?

The easiest way is to describe how amazing the second page is. It’s virtually everything a user could want when typing in [Maroon 5]. THAT is the page I would want to see at the top of my Google results. (Or Yahoo, or Ask.com results. But I’ll be honest – I love my Google Toolbar.)

The homepage? Not so much. Why should I bother with the site homepage when I can go right to the Maroon 5 page? The homepage offers me no real value. A link is of little value. I clicked on a link to get there – the link from the SERP. Why click the homepage link instead of the Maroon 5 page link? As a user, my attention span is short, as is my patience. Sure, the link to the good page is prominent, but why waste my time with an intermediate page?

So what happens to the site owner who is targeting their homepage for [Maroon 5]? A great SEO campaign could very well get the homepage quite high in the rankings. Top 10 for [Maroon 5]? Top 5? Even 1 or 2?

Yeah. Until the search engine does a little investigating. Algorithms may have gotten the site to the top, but some search engines *coughgoogleandmsncough* use human reviewers, right? If newly acquired rank draws human eyeballs to the homepage, those human eyeballs could lead to a manual demotion if that particular human agrees with me about unmet user intent.

So what now? If the keyword campaign has been going for a while, and you get smacked by the HUMAN REVIEW hammer, that’s a lot of time and money down the drain. You have two options: add value to the homepage so that it meets [Maroon 5] user intent, or ditch that keyword for homepage and focus on what you actually offer there.

Chances are, the first option isn’t going to be very feasible when Maroon 5 is only one of hundreds or thousands of bands featured on the site, even if it happens to be one of the most popular ones. If the site runs on a smaller scale, and features only 5 or 6 rock bands, it could work.

But more than likely, it makes a lot more sense to focus your [Maroon 5] campaign on the Maroon 5 page, and target something more appropriately generic link [rock bands] on the homepage.

Take home message: A navigation link, no matter how prominent, does not equate value. Consider your keywords carefully. Make sure you target your keywords on a page level basis, or you could get smacked with the Human Review Hammer.

 * Jim’s note: Feel free to Sphinn this.

Popularity: unranked [?]

The last SEO Class in April was a blast. Everyone received training from: Chris Winfield (10e20), Michael Gray (Graywolf), Kim Krause Berg (Cre8pc), Ted Ulle (Tedster), Barry Schwartz (Rustybrick), Greg Niland (GoodROI), and me (Jim Boykin (We Build Pages)).