Creativity & Marketing
As usual (and will likely stay usual) everyone is totally missing what Google’s Panda update was all about.
Here’s the deal: Panda was targeting entire sites, not just pages, that have a history of ranking pages that not user friendly, ugly, redundant, or all together useless. Did some good sties suffer? Yes. But mostly it was a great update from a search users standpoint.
For more on this you really need to head over to SEOmoz here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/beat-google-panda
Every millisecond counts. You may not notice, but your visitors do.
MindValleyLabs got a new server that made page load a few milliseconds faster. Revenue was boosted 20%.
Akamai and JupiterResearch find 4 seconds to be slowest your page can load. They found page load times the 2nd most important factor in it’s site ranking next to prices. Wow.
Marrisa Mayer of Google knows how important speed is. Google tested serving more search results that slowed down the page by about half of a second. This dramatically hurt traffic and revenue.
BOTTOM LINE: Be mindful of your page load time. If your site is taking longer thatn 4 seconds to load pause your PPC campaigns. I do it all the time, and it’s worth it.
I am officially entering the debate over SEO. I know this is dangerous. I know my family is worried about me. I might get torn to shreds here. But I feel I have to get in on the action and toss in my two pennies. So here we go…
Most bloggers who slam SEO practices don’t seem to realize that SEO is helping them everyday whether they know/like it or not. Yes, even Jason Calacanis is benefiting from SEO every time he writes a blog post. How? Well, it seems to me that every major blog platform operates with SEO in mind. Typepad, WordPress, Blogsmith, and the various themes and templates available for them have intrinsic SEO qualities that help them rank.
SEO techniques and SEO firms are two different things. Would I hire a pure SEO firm? Probably not. Would I research and use white hat SEO tactics? Yes.
Due diligence will make the difference between buying snake oil and true SEO success. Before even entertaining the idea of an SEO initiative (in house or not) make sure to research the market and get a damn clue. I can tell you right now, if an SEO firm tells you they can get you on the front page for "debt consolidation" or "home loans" or "Viagra" you should run the other direction. If you have taken the time to research the competition, how search engines work, and maybe invested in a keyword research tool you will be able to plainly see where and when SEO can help you.
People still have a bad taste in their mouths from Bubble 1.0. Back before pay per click search advertising, blogging, and social media, Internet marketing was a totally different landscape. Two techniques dominated Internet marketing budgets and both have a bad rep to this day: Email and SEO. If you have been burned by an SEO firm before there is probably no chance you will use one ever again. But don’t let the sleazy salesman of 1.0 steer you away from good SEO practices here in 2point0land.
You might surprised what some basic SEO tweaks can do for your paid search campaigns. I once ran an AdWords campaign for a HIGHLY competitive keyword set and decided I was going to try and get an edge over the rest of the flock. I changed the landing page to pure CSS, I used some simple SEO guidelines for keyword placement in headlines and copy, and revamped the site map. I changed NOTHING within AdWords (same ad copy, same bids, same keywords). Not only did the pages convert better, not only did our ad position skyrocket, buy our cost per click went DOWN. That’s all I need say about that.
SEO is not something you just decide to do, it’s an ongoing practice that you commit to. Stop talking to SEO firms, stop reading blogs about the debate (except mine, I’m smarter and my blog looks cooler), and for the love of Pete don’t let Jason Calacanis run your web dev and marketing departments from his blog. Just go learn about SEO, grab some free SEO checklists off the net, talk to some peers who have used SEO, subscribe to some SEO good blogs, and get your web dev staff to do it too. Just make sure you have SEO in mind and commit to testing the techniques and monitoring the results. You’ll be fine.
Only about 5 minutes, but still, I have to share. This taped in New Orleans 2007.