Archive for the 'SEO FAQ’s' Category

I thought I’d try something new here and open my blog up to questions from readers.

I’ll collect your questions here and then start answering them in follow up posts.

• Want a public site review? (I’ll do it for free if you don’t mind me doing it in public here)
• Want to ask about the crazy people I’ve shared drinks with?
• Want to know about some crazy journeys I’ve taken?
• Want to know what I think about link buying, link trading, or getting links under the radar?
• Want to know if I own a pair of "I’m Feeling Lucky Google Underwear"?
• Want to know what it’s like having a 22 month old son, with another on the way in less than 3 months?
• Want to ask about being a CEO of a SEO company?
• Want to know about the successes or the failures?

I’m pretty much open to most "reasonable" questions…either dealing with "personal" or "Internet Marketing topics".

Got a question? Ask away!

ah….but there’s one topic I’m going to stay away from ….don’t ask about buying old sites

Popularity: 6% [?]

Jim Westergren published a very good link building guide today. (Well worth the read!)

I love most of Jim’s suggestions (he’s a very smart guy)…..but  I wonder about things like Link Vault and the Digitalpoint Co-op….I haven’t tried them…I often hear how wonderful they are (esp the Digitalpoint co-op)…..and sometimes feel like I’m missing out on something….but fear of google one day being able to map these out or finding footprints keeps me from going that route.

What’s your take on DP’s Co-op??

Popularity: 2% [?]

Questions I hate getting:

Today I got an email with this question:

“for the investment, what kind of return can we expect?”

my answer: “I have no idea”

Here’s some other questions I hate getting:

What Pagerank should I expect?

A common answer: I don’t know….it doesn’t matter anyways. What’s the PR of the top 10 sites for the phrases you’re targeting? I’d hope you’d be somewhere in that range.

How many links each month will you get for me?

A common answer: As many as we can get for the time you’re paying us for. This is done by hand, there is no button pushing. It’s not a numbers game anyways, it’s a qualty game. If you’re focused on numbers, we’re not the company for you.

Can I spend a smaller amount now, and when I start making a lot of money I’ll raise my budget?

A common answer “If you start low you might never get anywhere….and then you’ll never have the money to pay us more”.

How about instead of paying you, I give you a percentage of my business?

A common answer: I have to pay employees and I have a wife and child to feed.  Credit is not an option.  If you make millions you won’t have to share any percentage with me, just keep paying my monthly bill.

How long will it take to be in the top 10?

I don’t know. Have you looked at this tool yet?  How old is your site compared to the top 10 sites? How many backlinks do you have compared to them? How is their quality of backlinks compared to yours? What the history of people linking to you (what words have people been using to link to your site?) How good of a resource is your site? Can you site attract natural backlinks or are you 100% relying on your SEO for backlinks? How much unique content do you have? Do we have to pay everyone to link to you, or do you have a “natural” reason why people might link to you? Keep looking at that tool with the phrases you’re targeting, and keep asking yourself these questions. An SEO is only part of your solution – how much are you helping?

How would you respond to these questions? What questions do you hate getting?
PS…I’m a bit tired and maybe a bit cranky….so maybe my responses at this moment are a bit more “bitter” than they normally are. I’m usually a bit “nicer” with how I respond.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Just copying a lead (edited) here for your viewing. Nothing too special, just how I sometimes respond. Sometime I respond "very professional", and sometime I’m more slack depending on my mood.  I was also suprised that he asked all his questions without divulging his URL. I think it might be one of those Magic SEO Bullet people…maybe.

Hi Jim,
 
I contacted XXX XXX regarding his SEO services and he referred me to you.
 
My web site is in the business of allowing people to create xxx xxxx, xxxxx,xxxxx, etc. online.  It is similar in concept to xxxxx.com…
 
The goal is to get on page 1 of search results with those guys for ‘xxxx xxxx’, ‘create xxxx xxxx…’ etc., and as far up the page as possible.
 
While I understand that there are no guarantees, what type of results do you estimate you could achieve and at roughly what price?
 
Would you be able to do the entire thing without resorting to ‘black hat’ techniques so that my business would not be involved in anything offensive to Google or other search engines that could put the site in jeopardy?
 
How long do you estimate such a campaign would take to achieve results?
 
Thanks much and I look forward to hearing from you,
 
Mxxxxx

My Response:

Mxxxxx,
FYI, you’re questions are great, but know that I’d never be able to answer them with any certainty.
I need to start by looking at your site (how old is it, how many links do you have currently linking to your site, what link neighborhood is your site located in, how linkable is your content (is it a resource), what your competitors have in comparison). Then I’d be guessing at timeframe to get you from where you’re currently at to where the top people for some phrases are currently at.

Are you looking long term? I hope so. Rankings is something you work towards, and keep striving a perfecting and working on (esp in getting backlinks).
 
Start by giving my your url.
If you want to see the first thing I’m going to look at, use this tool:
http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/cool-seo-tool/
compare results….do you think you have a shot? If so, contact me back.
 
I’m Feeling Lucky,
Jim Boykin
CEO, We Build Pages

Popularity: 34% [?]

The following article reminded me of the slogan "Think Local, Act Global"

I just found this while digging through my computer for writing resources. 

"How Local Retail And Service Business Owners
Can Use The Internet To Get More Local Business
To Their Establishments And Increase Sales!"

Amoung the information in the 2 page article are these gems:

When preparing for the creation of your website, you should concentrate on the following critical areas:

Commonly asked questions. For one week write down every question people ask when they call your shop or enter your office. These questions and your responses to each will be the foundation of a commonly asked questions section of your website. Be as complete in your answers as you can be. The more complete you are, the less people will call you to ask these questions.
Remember, your goal is to reduce the number of people asking routine questions so you can concentrate of actually providing the service or selling the desired item.

Frequently asked questions about each product or service you provide. Again, for one week write down all of the questions and concerns people have about the products and services you offer.

Details about each product or service you provide. Give details such as available sizes, colors, styles, etc. Talk about the limitations of each product and the best way to use them. If you offer a service, do the same for each service.

and here’s another:

The main goal of your website should be to EDUCATE your website visitors about what you sell and how you sell it so well, that when they do call you or come into your shop or office – they are ready to buy!

There’s pleanty more gems in there (I didn’t want to copy too much), It’s worth a full read, and a handout.

Long ago when I worked for another company I used to hand this out to all the clients….maybe I should have never stopped giving that to clients.

The Author is Christopher Sewell – I wonder what he’s doing today - His article was written in Feb 2001.  

Woa, in a quick search for Christoper, I didn’t find him, but I did find this resource http://www.bharatbhasha.com/copywriting.php - Wow, eye candy to our writers!

Throwing in a plug for WBP:
Did you know that We Build Content Pages? We can offer 10 resource pages written for your site for topics for $1500 ($150 per article). You tell us your URL, we’ll come up with resource topics and write the content for those topics. Contact us.

What are your thoughts on Content Writing?

Popularity: 32% [?]

Linkbait, Linkbait, Linkbait…..it’s all I’ve been hearing this past week.

In case your reading these words, and you don’t know what linkbait is, do a search in Google (one word or two words) for Link Bait, There’s pleanty of fresh papers on it.

In simple terms Link Bait is the act of doing something that causes others to link to you voluntarily. In many instances, it’s easier to get 100 links by causing some type of sensation rather than asking thousands of people by hand to link to get to get those 100 backlinks.

When we created our Free SEO Tools, that was linkbait….the word linkbait just hadn’t been invented yet. Almost everything I write is linkbait…well kinda…maybe my papers on "How to Become a DMOZ Editor", or my "screw the sandbox, buy an old domain" are more linkbaitish type articles. I’m a link hound by nature….so yea, I’m always looking at things from the angle of "will this get me links?".

I almost fear now that anything you or I do from here on out will be categorized as "Linkbait"….and people will forget that what ever idea it was that got some links…well, it just might have been a good idea….link bait or no linkbait.

A few days ago Marc had an original idea of putting big name SEO’s head to head for voting….in a sense, it was perfect link bait for the SEO community….now if someone would do the same with big name bloggers (pitting them head to head), you’d get even more link (since bloggers just love to link) … opps, did I just give away an idea to Andy who’s offering up to $1000 for link bait ideas?

hum…what if I said that Andy was a cheap Bas*&^% for only offering $1000 and that I’d offer $3000 for anyone would could bring webuildpages.com an ideas that could generate 100+ backlinks…well just this news could bring us both lots of links….but I’m not calling Andy any names (I respect Andy….I was just kidding above), and I’m not offering $3000 (at least not today)…but you get this link bait idea thingy….(one way is to cause controversy).

I had a client who created a National Holiday for his product…he had people dancing in the streets of New York City with his product, and he got on the homepage of AOL, MSNBC, and got mentioned in 1000′s of newspapers….now that was linkbait, before linkbait was coined, and it might not have even been done with the idea of getting links…but it sure did bring in links.

The million dollar homepage idea of making money has sprung to everyone seeking the million dollar link bait idea.

What do you think?

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Technorati Tags: links, link building, search engine optimization, SEO, SEM, internet marketing

Popularity: 29% [?]

I’m not sure if I’m breaking blog etiquette by doing this or not…

but anyways…there’s a good discussion going on over in the comments of the post about
Software vs. Manual Link Building and Management.

Popularity: 25% [?]