Purple Widget – An SEO Experiment

I know the first thing you’re thinking – “he’s not dead”

No, I am not dead I’m just really bad at posting to my blog.  I think I covered that in some of my early posts – you must stay committed to your blog and post regularly for it to have any value.  Do as I say, not as I do.

Now on to the title of this long overdue post.  What is SEO?
And I don’t really mean what is SEO – I mean it more like how do you explain to people what you do when they have that strange look on their face following the question “what do you do for a living” and you answer “SEO”.  Many people are just polite enough to smile and nod like they have any idea what I just said.  And in reality I rarely answer with just “SEO”, I usually answer something more like “I’m in search marketing”, or “digital marketing”.  Unfortunately that gets the same bewildered look most of the time so I’m not sure my clever plan of spinning my job to make it easily understandable is not working.  Or I’m just not that clever – this is the likely answer I admit.

Often the attempted follow up explanation of “I work for one of the largest advertising agencies in the world and I manage the team that helps our clients websites show up when you do a Google search” makes things better.  Or at least makes them stop talking about and we can both get on with our lives.

So I have a new strategy when the guys I get randomly paired with on the golf course ask “what do you do” – I’m going to start this video and hand them my phone.

It’s not the best thing I’ve ever seen or anything, but in three and a half minutes it does a decent job of simplifying SEO.

Or maybe I just tell them I’m in sales.  Because sometimes the only thing tougher than explaining what SEO is to some guy I just met who doesn’t really care is explaining it to a client who doesn’t really care.

PS – Just keeping with the theme of why this blog started, we still rank #1 for the search term “purple widget” – in fact we are in the first 4 spots these days.  Of course this doesn’t really help my case that you must blog regularly (for the slow people: because this blog still ranks #1 for purple widget despite no activity for months at a time) but does add a lot of value to the whole idea of this blog…..you can rank #1 all you want but if it’s for a term that nobody searches for it simply doesn’t matter.  Google is proving this for me by having this inactive, slightly below average quality blog still rank high for this term that nobody else cares about.

Google is well known for annual their April Fool’s Jokes – usually more than one and usually pretty funny.  Learn more as Wikipedia has chronicled Google Hoax’s over the years.

In 2011 one of a series of videos, and of course a website, was chromercise – workout your fingers to better use the Google browser Chrome.  As a big fan of Chrome this exercise regimen was a must for me.  So although it seemed that it was nothing more than part of the joke when Google offered a sign up for free finger sweatbands at Chromercise.com I signed up.   I had completely forgotten about it, but yesterday in the mail look what I got:

Google Chromercise Finger Sweatbands

Did you get your Google Chromercise Finger Sweatbands?  Are you ready to get your workout on?

What time does the Super Bowl start?

What time is the SuperBowl?

What time does Super Bowl XLV start?

Super Bowl Kickoff Time

When does the Super Bowl start?

What times does the Super Bowl start in 2011?

Why is this a question being asked on an SEO blog – simple, it’s asked many ways and MANY TIMES on search engines in the days leading up to the big game.

For the past few years, and I’d expect another one this year, Search Engine Land has had an article identifying the huge spike in this term each year.  More importantly the fact that nobody was capitalizing on the potential to attract a lot of traffic.  That was before Google caught on last year and started showing the answer above the search results.  It remains to be seen if Google repeats this practice in 2011.

Now I don’t know about you but for as long as I can remember the game has started at the same time.  Certainly it hasn’t always started at 6:20pm ET but in recent memory, it has.  But I’m a football fan.  A lot of non-football fans watch the Super Bowl so the question is asked a lot – what time does the Super Bowl actually start?

The answer itself is also inconsistent – thanks to TV.  The TV stations want you to believe the game starts at 6:00pm ET so you’ll tune in then, when in reality kickoff is 20 minutes later.  Never mind the hours of pre-game show leading up to the official broadcast time of the game itself.  So when you do a search for Super Bowl start time you’ll find conflicting answers – when the TV people win, it’s 6pm ET, when it truly answers the question about kick off you’ll commonly see the correct answer of 6:20pm ET.  Now – that’s not set in stone, sometimes all the pomp and circumstance takes more than 20 minutes and the actual kickoff may not happen until 6:27pm ET.

So it’s a question that is asked a lot and answered multiple ways.

My answer to what time does the Super Bowl start in 2011?

Main TV coverage at 6pm ET, 5pm CT, 4pm MT, 3pm PT

Kickoff approximately (should be no later than 10 minutes after, it used to be quoted at 6:27pm ET) 6:20pm ET, 5:20pm CT, 4:20pm MT, 3:20pm PT

So there you go, a complicated answer to a simple question about Super Bowl start time.

And just a few other details that most people already know:

Super Bowl XLV (that’s 45) is played in Dallas, TX at the new Cowboys Stadium and it’s the Green Bay Packers vs the Pittsburgh Steelers

Enjoy the game – and enjoy the commercials (which for my 2 cents just haven’t been very good in recent years, but that’s another blog post all together).

Last but not least, this is an SEO blog after all, will this post ever show up as a search result for the question?  I doubt it – it won’t likely have any links – only a tweet or two, and maybe a Facebook post.  But, we’ll see.

A googlegasm is unusual excitement and joy from anything Google.

I think I invented this word.  I may not have, but I’m pretty sure I never heard it before I started using it.  Urban Dictionary disagrees with me.

A few examples:

T-Mobile G1
The first so called “Google Phone” that ran Android – I pre-order site unseen and loved that phone!  Googlegasm.

Nexus One
This true “Google Phone” blew away the N1 that I loved.  I loved my Nexus One.  Googlegasm.

Google Voice
I bought a local number on eBay months before Google released numbers to the public.  Googlegasm.  Google Voice kicks ass!

Google Maps
Think back 15 years ago to your options for a map.  Now thank Google.  Googlegasm.

Google Street View
Are you serious.   Googlegasm.

Google Earth
How cool is Google Earth!  Googlegasm.

Google Analytics
I don’t care what my good friends and respected professional web analysts colleagues  say, Google Analytics is awesome for a FREE tool!  Googlegasm.

Google Goggles
I’m not sure it’s entirely practical for many people but it sure is neat.  Googlegasm.

Picasa
A free image management tool that automatically finds your images, organizes your images and has some decent editing capabilities.  And free online storage.  Okay, okay it’s capped at 1 GB but 1 GB is a lot and extra storage is stunningly inexpensive.  Googlegasm.

Android.  Googlegasm.

I’m missing many I’m sure.

And there is a list just as long of failures.  But at least recognizes their failures and moves on from them to come up with the next best thing.  Like robot cars!

So, keeping with this being an SEO experiment - how long until this page ranks for ‘googlegasm’ – it’s 2:30pm CT on 10/22/10.

This question was recently posed to me:

If I were to ask you the question “What drives SEO success”, not specific to any client, and I was a CEO, how would you answer me?

Here’s my response:

If you steal it, at least give me some credit

SEO success is driven by several factors that evolve over time, most of which are well guarded secrets by the search engines.  Through years of experience, testing and research search marketers have identified key areas that lead to improved organic search engine visibility.  It’s nearly impossible to simplify a very complex puzzle but the corner pieces to the pentagon shaped puzzle are quality keyword research; optimized page titles, meta data, and site navigation; fully optimized images, videos and social media strategies; a well built (search friendly) site with high quality, focused, fresh content – all helping to attract inbound links to a variety of pages throughout the site.

I’ve said it before – heck, I say it often.  Fresh content is needed to help drive SEO success.  But how true is it?

I haven’t updated this site in over 4 months, and before that there was a rather long content drought as well.  Yet, as of today this site remains in the #1 and #2 spots on Google for the targeted term of “purple widget”!

I think all of this simply goes back to my original point in creating this site, at least one of my points.  The term “purple widget” has low competition and very little search volume so a site dedicated so extensively to ranking for that term can continue to do so, even without daily, weekly or even monthly new content.  It was relatively easy (please note – I am a professional, do not try this at home) to get ranked to begin with and is relatively easy to stay ranked – for this insignificant term.

But if your site is competing for a term with any competition and that has any potential value to your business or traffic then to answer the question of this post – yes fresh content matters.  Don’t go 4 months between posts.

This is not likely the last (maybe not the first) off the wall post.  Afterall, without a sense of humor life can kind of suck sometimes.

There is a lot of talk about links (aka “inbound links”) and link building in the world of search marketing and when talking SEO.  I’ll skip the commentary and common reasons/need for inbound links to your website and just leave it at – you need them.

But not all links are created equal.  And if you can remember back to high school – neither are prom dates.

So let’s take a quick look at some common types of links.

Bad directory links – There are a lot of lousy directories out – A LOT!  Google knows it and you should know it.  This is the girl that doesn’t really want to go to prom but her Mom is making here and since your Mom is making you go this is who you go with.

Good directory links – Okay, so you have to go to prom. This is the slightly cuter girl who doesn’t really want to go but knows she may regret it someday if she doesn’t so like you, she has to go.

Paid Links – Do I really need to explain what paying for a date means?  Hey, prostitution is a huge industry in the world and although many wish it would go away – it’s not.  Why?  Where there is demand there is supply.  And if nobody gets caught and nobody gets hurt – where’s the harm?

Reciprocal link exchanges – This one might be the worst of them all. This is taking your sister to the prom.  Okay – maybe some are like taking your cousin at least and a few get upgraded to your hot cousin from out of town and if you’re really lucky nobody knows and nobody ever finds out you brought a relative to prom.  But still – you’ll always know.

One-way links with just your URL – Beggars can’t be choosers.  This is your kind of cute friend.  If you take her you’ll probably have a good time but you know there’s no love connection – she’s your friend and that’s all – in the back of your mind you think you could have done better.

One-way links with good anchor text – Your really cute friend that you’d like to more than friends with – does she feel the same way?

Home page links – She’s hot, she actually said yes and seems to be having fun!  This comparison alone (like many others) could have several variations based on the content of the page, the popularity of the page and the type of link but this isn’t a white paper, it’s a silly blog post about chicks and SEO.

Home page link on CNN – Head cheerleader, and you’re losing your virginity after the party!

There are of course many other types of inbound links but the attempt at humor with the analogy to a prom date only goes so far.

I’ve excluded some real bottom of the barrel type of links (auto generated link spam, link farms, etc…) because nobody wants the image of those girls.  We know who they were (or are) and they might be fine for a quick bit of joy but afterwards you feel dirty and don’t ever want to go there again.

Another slight detour from widgets – purple ones, green widgets and SEO.  But not completely off track this time.  A bit about personalized marketing and e-mails.

Every morningwhen I wake up one of the first things I do is pick up my smartphone (currently a T-Mobile G1, previously a Blackberry Curve, before that a Palm Treo) and take a quick look at my e-mail.  My wife used to think this very odd.  Until several months ago I got her a Blackberry Curve – now she does the same thing.  E-mail on this phone, at least the e-mail I’m looking at is personal e-mail plus some of my many part-time business effort e-mails – none stunningly successful (or they wouldn’t be part-time) so not a ton of e-mail.  So in other words, not work e-mail.  Not e-mail from my real job (the one that pays the bills).  I’m not sure why I make this distinction it’s really not important.

Most mornings I have about 17-21 e-mails.  No big deal, about 1/2 are to be deleted, about 1/4 to be read later (maybe) and a few that I actually needed to look at first thing in the morning.  But this morning I had 48 e-mails waiting in my inbox.  This isn’t entirely unusual, it’s happened before – in fact in happened last year on this same day.  I just didn’t blog about it.  Usually when this happens I hope I had an explosion of sales on one of my websites thus a ton of payment confirmation e-mails, or something went viral and I have a bunch of new newsletter signups.   Neither has been the case yet.  I have had a few mornings with 12-18 new twitter followers for FantasyDraftEdge.com so that’s not a bad thing but most commonly the reason for an unusually high number of e-mails is a Woot Off since I get new Woot notifications via e-mail. 

But this morning I was bombarded with happy birthday e-mails from a variety of companies and forums.  
 An interesting concept in personalized marketing.  A pretty simple one too.  They know my birthday because I signed up and entered my DOB.  I ahd about 5 from forums (many of which I haven’t visited in a long while) that were plain text – one line, happy birthday from my forum, yada yada.  I did have a few with some decent value – at least perceived value.

Disney Movie Rewards gave me 25 points to my account just for having a birthday.  Not bad.  A feature length movie costs $15 – $18 on Amazon.com and gets you 100 points so this was about a $4 value.

EA Store offerred me 25% Off any purchase.  Pretty good on video games that go for around $50 and I do enjoy playing sports video games (I had just pre-ordered Tiger Woods 2010 for XBox 360) and my son loves Wii games (okay, so do I) so there is potetntial I will use this even if their shipping prices are kind of high and they ship slow.  Plus with 2 kids now I don’t play video games nearly as often.

AMCEntertainment gave me a free large soda.  Now the list value of this is huge – what are drinks at movies these days, $8?  Okay, not that much but still a nice gesture.  But, see above – 2 kids – I don’t go to the movies much anymore.  They aren’t quite old enough to enjoy (or be bearable) for movies so this one may not get used.

My Points gave me 5 free points plus 500 points just for spending $5 at a select merchant.  Pretty good deal.  Even though the merchant selection for this offer was not great I did buy a $5 gift card from Old Navy.  It won’t go to waste (my wife will see to it) and I get the points.  I should say that I did take a screen shot of the notice that said explicity “Gift Cards purchases eligible for Points” since I am suspicious and wonder if it was supposed to say not eligible.  Hopefully I get my bonus points and never need to bring this up since I’ll probably lose the argument if they don’t give me points.

Plus I had gotten 2 e-mails previously from birthday clubs.  One was Houlihan’s restaurant, a free entree.  So that’s an $8 – $15 value for lunch, maybe twice that for dinner.  Of course they know I’ll spend at least that much with my guests plus I’ll pay $1.69 for 30 cents worth of lemonade. 

Also earlier in the week The Melting Pot sent me a free chocolate desert with the purchase on entree.  The Metling Pot is AMAZING, but expensive so I won’t probably use this one as we go about once a year for our anniversary or Christmas gift to ourselves.

Lastly, Dave and Busters sent me an email coupon for $10 in free tokens – just for showing up.  Not bad at all since I actually won’t drink if I go (which I’m sure they expect me to to make some money on the offer) or buy dinner (the food is over priced and under good).

Plus I got 2 e-cards and a few other direct personalized e-mails from friends with birthday wishes a few have wished me happy birthday via Facebook.

Ironically, one of my extra full inbox e-mails this morning was an offer for free travel when I join AARP.  It’s funnier when you know I haven’t hit 40….YET.   It was just spam, not bad marketing.

During the day I’ve gotten a few other similar marketing e-mails wishing me a happy day.

So my point is this – did these e-mails work?  Was this good marketing?  In some instances it was very cheap and easy.  No offer, clearly automated and no work on any graphics or anything (plain text e-mail).  Others have some value, some more than others, but none are exceptionally pricey.  No better than a deal I’d get anyway for some other reason perhaps – or a coupon in the paper.  But still, it was a gesture and even cynical old (now a year older, but not an AARP member yet) me thought it was nice – even if I did delete most of them pretty quickly.  I did just write a blog post and gave them all a link (well, the best ones)!

The bottom line is this – why not do this for your clients if you have the ability through your CMS or database.  Although as I said some were better than others and some intruigued me more than others not once did I get mad and think – I’m never going to that website or business again!  Curse them for wishing me a happy birthday!  It was a cheap and easy way to reach out to a customer in an effort build loyalty.  Good plan in my opinion.

Although Purple Widget still ranks #1 on Google for the search term “purple widget” and #19 for “SEO Experiment” as well as #16 (with no extra SEO effort for that page specifically yet) for “green widget” I admit I’ve been a bit lax on keeping fresh new content on this site.  As I’ve pointed out before, that’s a no-no.  But PurpleWidget.com remains a back burner project and time simply doesn’t always permit the effort needed to produce great (or at least marginally good) content.

So today I take a quick detour.  There is a 1983 movie, Malice, that has a great – although lengthy – quote in it that I’ve liked.  Here is my SEO version of that quote:

“I am a Google expert, I am Yahoo certified in pay-per-click and search marketing, I have been awarded citations from seven different search marketing organizations, and I am never, ever sick at sea. So I ask you; when someone goes into that chapel and they fall on their knees and they pray to God that their website will be ranked # 1 on Google or that their keywords are the best or that they maximize conversions with a high ROI, who do you think they’re praying to? Now, go ahead and read your SEO 101 books, client, and you go to your church, and, with any luck, you might win the annual raffle, but if you’re looking for God, he was doing keyword analysis at his desk on November 17, and he doesn’t like to be second guessed. You ask me if I have a God complex. Let me tell you something: I am God.”

What happens when your SEO finally starts to work?
You’ve been creating great content and fresh content for several months now.  You’ve been building links and all your page titles are keyword research driven and page focused.  And maybe you’ve seen some small increases in traffic and better rankings.  But are you ready when your SEO efforts really kick in?

SEO is an ongoing process with several pieces coming together to work over time.  And it can certainly take time to really start working – but when it does you can see some very quick growth.  The  more exposure your site gets, the more new exposure your site will likely get.  So when SEO starts snowballing new traffic and new conversions to your site – are you ready?

Can your servers handle the traffic?  All that work can lose its value if your site performance goes down quickly or the site crashes.

Can you handle the orders? Can you fill the orders?  When orders start increasing – can you keep up?  Do you have the stock on hand or at least the ability to ramp up quickly?  Do you have a plan?

And can you do all this while maintaining the high quality service that is easier for a new business that is still small with more time to focus on individual clients.  This high level of service likely helped you grow – don’t lose it when you get big.

With SEO it takes a long time to go up in rankings…but you can go down much quicker!  
So have you answered the very simply question:  Are you ready for your SEO to work?