1. Open your browser.

2. Type in www.[yourdomain].com. After it loads, does the web address stay on www.[yourdomain].com?

3. Then, type in [yourdomain].com. After it loads, does the web address “resolve” to the same address as it did when you completed step 2?

If not, your site technically has two versions of itself, therefore leaving search engines to believe that your entire site consists of duplicate content. This problem is actually very common, but fixing it is the one thing you should do right now to help your SEO.

In the example above, the domains www.adclubno.org AND adclubno.org both exist, meaning there are two copies of every page on the site, which could be detrimental to rankings in search engines. Luckily, there is a pretty easy fix for this problem. But first, let’s discuss why duplicate content is bad for Search Engine Optimization.

What is Duplicate Content?

Image courtesy of SEOMoz.com.

1. Search engines don’t know which version(s) to include/exclude from their indices
2. Search engines don’t know whether to direct the link metrics (trust, authority, anchor text, link juice, etc.) to one page, or keep it separated between multiple versions
3. Search engines don’t know which version(s) to rank for query results

What this means is that search engines want to show the most relevant content to their searchers, but if you have duplicate content existing across URLs, the search engines get confused. Link metrics and page authority get split between the URLs, diminishing the value of all of your SEO efforts.

Ways to Check for Duplicate Content

Besides typing your domain in your browser, Virante has a duplicate content tool that checks whether your domain has duplicate content. Just submit your domain, and the tool will do a WWW/NonWWW Header Check, Google Cache Check, Similarity Check, Default Page Check, 404 Check, and a PageRank Dispersion Check. As in the previous example, www.adclubno.org failed the WWW/NonWWW Header Check, and because of this main problem, they also failed the Google Cache Check, Similarity Check, and Default Page Check.

How to Fix These Issues

So now that you’ve realized that you have a problem, how do you fix if? For starters, you can log in to your Google webmaster tools account and designate your preferred domain. This lets Google know which version of your site to provide in the search engine results. Next, you (or in my case, someone else with actual programming knowledge) should set up a permanent 301 redirect in the .htaccess file to let other search engines know which domain is the preferred one.

Once this problem is resolved, you will want to make sure that you are consistently using the preferred domain for all of your link building endeavors.

Do you know if your domain has duplicate content? Find out now!

John Cheese talks SEO

Cracked columnist and longtime internet comedy writer John Cheese put out a call for interviews recently, and I jumped at the chance to talk to him. Out of all the writers on Cracked, a site I have been fairly addicted to since about 2007, John Cheese has probably spent the most time eloquently weaving his own life experiences into his always funny and often moving columns.

John ended up really driving home a rather simple yet all-encompassing idea that we have adopted as a mantra at Search Influence: fresh content is king. It really doesn’t matter whether you are advertising a novel, a list-based comedy site, or a small business anywhere in the world – if you can produce quality content that people find interesting on a regular basis, everything else will fall into place. It doesn’t hurt if you are as insightful, funny, and talented as John is either.

Take a look at the results of my email interview with John Cheese:

As an Internet based writer, how important are good SEO practices to you?

Working for Cracked, I’m in a position where I don’t have to worry about optimization.  I’m in a comfortable place that many writers dream about:  I write my article, and the rest of the staff takes care of everything else.  But even back in the day where I was running my own website, I still didn’t worry much about it.  My fame and David Wong‘s fame were gained through 100% word of mouth.  Someone would read something they found funny and pass that to their friends, and the next thing you know, we’d have a massive influx of traffic.

Back then, Google wasn’t as much of a concern as writing high quality articles and letting the traffic filter in through sheer internet buzz.

How closely do you follow the ever-evolving world of SEO?

I don’t at all, actually.  Since Cracked takes care of all that on the back end, I just have to worry about content and fresh ideas.  Now, that’s not to say that I don’t think it’s important.  Quite the opposite, actually.  Good, useful SEO brings new users to the site — but without the quality content to set the hook, your site could be ranked #1 in every conceivable search term in every language, and it wouldn’t much matter.  That content trumps everything.

Do you think about how search engines will view your work as you are writing it?

Not with Cracked, but I did “aim” my writing when I was running my own sites.  When Britney Spears was first getting big, I used to do occasional fake interviews with her.  They were obviously satire and parody, but not to a search engine.  They saw “Britney Spears Interview,” and the rest of the content just didn’t matter.  That funneled in massive viewers back in my early days of writing…not all of them desirable.

As a writer and a website owner, this is where I had to be careful.  I had a site full of sexual and violent jokes.  My characters were doing drugs and talking about beating their wives… and those Britney Spears articles were bringing in 13 year old girls.

Back then, I could have used the help with not just raising my search rankings, but focusing the results to reach a specific, target audience.  Not all traffic is good traffic.  There are exceptions.

What advice would you tell someone just starting their first blog today, in terms of getting it found by Google?

The first thing I’d tell them is to not skip over the meta tags in their HTML.  It’s easy to do as a first time net writer.  Aside from that, I’d tell them to focus on their craft first — but if they’re going to get into the world of SEO, they need be true to their work.  Think about the audience they’re after first…think about the volume later.

But I’d also tell them to not just leave it in the hands of the search engines.  Yes, search engines are important.  But that article needs traffic, and the fastest way to gain it is to get people talking about it.  Nothing in the world of entertainment is as powerful as word of mouth.

How much time and energy do you spend crafting your online presence?

Before Cracked took me in, I spent around ten years writing under this name and developing a very specific character and persona.  The funny thing to me is that once I got signed as a weekly columnist for them, I dropped all that and just started being myself.  In fact, the change in tone and style was so dramatically different I considered not using the name John Cheese at all, and writing under my real name of Mack Leighty.

When people search for you online, what do you want to show up?

I want it to show some of my highest traffic articles or my columnist index, which pretty much happens right now.  Cracked has a pretty crazy team of people on the back end who know their shit inside and out.  Which is awesome for me because the less I have to worry about, the more I can just focus on content, content, content.

How has the SEO world changed since you started writing on the Internet?

When I first started, it basically didn’t exist.  Google wasn’t really a thing — I think the big one back then was Lycos.  And searches seemed to operate on reading meta tags and spidering.  I remember when web pages used to put 200 hidden links at the bottom of their pages, containing the top 200 most popular search terms, just blatantly using bullshit manipulation to trick people into clicking their sites.

What is the most effective way that you connect to your audience?

Social networking, without a doubt.  It’s one thing to pull a lot of traffic, and it’s awesome to get fan mail…but the more traffic you pull, the more messages you receive.  You eventually reach a tipping point where there’s not enough time in a day to answer them all individually.

So now, I use Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr because if I can’t connect with everyone on an individual by individual basis, at least I can speak directly to my audience through a non-Cracked format.  And I believe that’s incredibly important.  People need to view me as a human above all because the second they start thinking of me as a soulless figurehead, my articles that touch on humanity become meaningless.

What would happen to your career if Google stopped indexing your work?

I’m sure I’d lose some traffic, but at this point (in my experience) the social networking sites are trumping the search engines.  My Apology to the Occupy Wall Street Generation article busted a million views in the first 24 hours, and it was all word of mouth and Facebook shares.  Now, that’s not saying that Google didn’t play a part in that, and it’s not saying that the search engines aren’t important.  But in my experience, if you’re a good writer, and you come up with a piece that people genuinely want to read, it’ll spread like wildfire.

How do you go about promoting your other projects, like the John Dies at the End novel and upcoming movie based on it? Do you depend mostly on the Internet, or do you turn to more traditional methods?

I run the social networking sites for the book, and I do monthly updates on the book’s main website (www.johndiesattheend.com).  The movie is a completely separate entity, ran by a team not related to Wong or myself.

But we’ve done a couple of different things with the book.  Simply keeping people talking about it on Facebook and Twitter is huge.  Giving actual updates — funny and interesting articles, rather than just occasional ads for the book –  on the main site is a big way to do that.  We also ran an alternate reality game a while back, and are planning another sometime this year.

The key is getting people involved and not making them feel insulted by claiming that we have a new update, only to give them an ad when they click the link.

But yes, it’s all Internet based.

What’s it like writing for Cracked?

It’s the most time-consuming job I’ve ever worked — and I wouldn’t change one millisecond of it.  Not just because I get a paycheck for writing comedy, but because I’ve gotten literally thousands of emails and private messages from people, telling me that something I wrote changed their lives for the better.  You can’t put a price on that.  I owe Cracked a lot for giving me that opportunity.  They really are an incredible bunch of people.

Special thanks to John Cheese for participating in this interview. Go read him on Cracked, like him on Facebook, and follow him on Twitter. 

A few tips for putting Pinterest to work for your brand:

• Add the “Pin It” button to your product pages or blog posts. It’s easy to do and you can add the button along with your other social media sharing buttons.
• Create a Pinterest account for the brand itself and reach out to “visual influencers” on Pinterest for help getting your images re-pinned. Pinterest allows any user to follow any other user without requiring a follow-back. You may also tag other users in your pins, comment on pins and re-pin (the Pinterest version of a retweet) others’ content.
• Create boards beyond your own products and brand, but relevant to your location and industry.
• Utilize the description fields when creating Pins by adding keywords and geo-modifiers. Not only is this SEO 101, but Pinterest addicts often use the search feature to find relevant pins.
• Keep pinning!  The search results and Pin feeds change up-to-the-minute, much like the Twitter feed and Facebook Ticker. Maintain a steady flow of Pins to ensure your products are staying top-of-mind.

For SEO linkbuilding purposes, the benefits of Pinterest are pretty self-evident. Some basic info on Pinterest links:

• Each and every Pin links back to the original source site or the file location (depending on where it was originally pinned from). Unless you’re purposely optimizing for image seach, a product page or site link is probably better.
  

  Standard pins provide links to the source site in two locations.

• A Pin provides do-follow links in multiple places. The image itself acts as a link in addition to the “From:” link in the top right-hand-corner.
• A pin comes with embed code for syndication to other sites like Facebook and Twitter, helping to develop backlinks to the Pin itself.
• Pins are editable! You can edit your own Pins with updated URLs or reach out to Pinners who may have pinned your images from an unfavorable source site. Pins are easy to edit and the new URL you provide does not need to host the image, though I don’t recommend you use a link without the original image.
• Because of the visual nature of Pinterest, it is a great way to promote infographics. Make sure they are Pinned to appropriate boards and contain relevant descriptions to ensure they are shared.
• You can even add a Pin It button to your company’s blog pages by using the WordPress plug-in.

Thanks to the intuitive nature of Pinterest’s interface, I think the best way to get going is to request an invite and just dive in. Remember, sign-up is currently via invitation-only, so ask a friend to invite you or request one from the site (it doesn’t take long). Let me know what you think about these tips in the comments, and if my screenshots piqued your interest, follow me on Pinterest!

With a little SEO sauce, your website can go from air-guitar...

If you’re involved in any kind of creative endeavor, chances are you’re waiting to be discovered. The duty of the artist is not just to make art, but to share it with others; this goes doubly for musicians, whose opportunities for media expansion have exploded in the last several years.

Getting discovered by an agent who happens to be at your show is so 90′s. With sites like Myspace, BandCamp, Twitter, Last.fm, Facebook, Soundcloud and others, bands now have a wealth of tools to choose from to stay in touch with their audience, as well as personal sites and blogs where they have full control over the message. While maintaining all of these entities can be an overwhelming amount of work, practicing basic SEO and maintaining a strong, cohesive media profile throughout a few selected ones can be just as or more effective than spreading yourself thin.

It’s important to remember that people aren’t just searching text these days; make sure that your music samples, videos and other media knick-knacks are available for your audience. Allowing for streaming makes your music accessible for the casual web-surfer, while putting up a selection of singles for download can increase loyalty and brand retention among those who enjoy your sound enough to hang on to it. And please — if you’re making tracks available for download, make sure your ID3 tag ducks are in a row. You don’t want your listeners to download a track, listen to it once and delete it a few days down the line because they have no idea where it came from. Everything should be consistently titled and formatted for maximum ease of consumption.

On-page SEO is a must, particularly if you’re a hometown outfit. This doesn’t have to be an involved, link-intensive campaign, but covering your touring area is necessary if you want to be seen by the casual Googler. Basic keyword research from AdWords can help with this. Additionally, backlinking from community sites such as Digg, Reddit and various music forums (both local and non-), while not particularly weighty as far as pagerank, can contribute to visibility and drum up community interest — your music connecting with the real ears it needs to find. Similarly, maintaining an active profile on Youtube is a must. Even if you don’t have a full-on music video, the ‘tube is another place to put up tracks and offers more opportunity for keyword insertion.

On the more tech end of things, hreviews are a new and trendy kind of metadata that’s easy-to-implement and offers more bang for your buck than the traditional flavor. Avoid Flash whenever possible, as Google doesn’t index it (and everyone hates unnecessary Flash interfaces anyway), and consider making your site mobile-friendly with HTML5. Making the switch is less difficult than it sounds, particularly for less complex sites, and it allows for the possibility of listeners checking out your product anywhere — on the street, at the gym, and on the way home from the (hopefully) impressive gig you’ve just played. If you’re a smaller band, chances are you’re friendly with other acts in your immediate hometown and greater touring area. Find out whose links are worth more and offer to swap — this will both boost your pagerank and draw in new views from areas you may not have made a significant impression on yet.

Once your flagship .com site is up and running, utilize the wealth of free tools at your disposal to figure out where your traffic is coming from. Google Analytics and Urchin are invaluable to help figure out what you’re doing wrong, what you’re doing right and where to concentrate your efforts. Sonicbids will allow you to connect with the right promoters for your sound, as well as develop an EPK — electronic press kit — which will lend you a great deal of professional appearance and credibility.

Lastly, blog blog blog your little heart out. Besides being an excellent way to stay in touch with fans and a good creative outlet in general (stimulating the old writing muscles can only help your lyrics!), blogging is a fantastic way to continually update your site with fresh information — which, as we all know, Google loves. Let your home base languish with nary an update or new media for eight months and you’ll surely see a drop in both ranking and pageview.

The scary and exciting thing about contemporary music marketing is the immense egalitarianism that presents itself in the face of all these tools. A fledgling band should first and foremost know its audience; the younger and more tech-savvy your ideal crowd is, the more you should invest in your Internet presence. While a good marketing campaign won’t win you mass fan adoration or an instant record deal, it gets your product out there in the public eye (or ear!) to be reviewed, discussed and enjoyed.

Why hasn't Matthew Lesko written a get rich with SEO book yet?

I’m a search marketing guy, have been since my first job out of college (if we are not counting that liquor store on Ponce I worked out for 2 weeks in the summer of ’06. You can’t beat a 30% discount…). Most people can’t grasp what I do or even understand why the company I work for exist (my mother thinks I’m everything from a telemarketer to an Internet panhandler) but it is what I do and love. Recently I have become increasingly more serious about being able to do my job better and become a more rounded internet guy (I mostly just hang out on the fringe of the internet with the /b/tards and tweeps heckling e-celebs for my own amusement). Now I feel I have to pour myself into learning new search marketing strategies in order to keep with the constant changes and competition.

Finding good information is not always easy for search marketers.

There are no continued learning programs for SEO backlinking strategies or creating compelling keyword rich content. So I decided to put together a list of my favorite internet marketing bloggers and explain why you should be reading them if you are serious about SEO.

#1) Matt Cutts is Better Than You

http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleWebmasterHelp

If you don’t know who Matt Cutts is and you are in Search Marketing, ctrl+alt+delete your resume. Best known as being the smilin’ enforcer of Google Webmaster Guidelines, Cutts provides guidance to search marketers through his Youtube videos and blog posts.

Why You Should Care: Matt Cutts is Google’s Prometheus.  He presents SEO guidance in several different formats (videos, blog posts, guest speaking, etc). Having so many different formats make the information he provides easier to digest. If you are like me, hitting the play button is a lot easier to do than reading three paragraphs of insights.

What Should You Stalk: While you can always follow his blog, I find his information most useful from the Youtube Channel – Google Webmaster Central Channel

#2) The eWhisper

@bgtheory on Twitter

bgTheory’s Brad Geddes is a world-class PPC Geek and Adwords affacionato. Besides being the Official Adwords seminar leader, he is also the author of Advanced Google Adwords.

Why You Should Care: If you want to know what you should be doing with your Adwords account, Geddes is the man to follow. He is a well of information and ideas about how you be better use your Adwords campaign for generating and sustaining ROI.

What Should You Stalk: His Twitter account – http://twitter.com/#!/bgtheory

#3) David and the Paid Goliath

@Szetela on Twitter

David Szetela – the occasional snarky owner of Clix Marketing, David Szetela is one of my go-to sources for PPC news and updates.

Why You Should Care: His knowledge of cross-platform paid search is extensive and an quick follow on Twitter will have your timeline full of information on tweets on paid search strategies and general SEO information.

What Should You Stalk: Like with Brad, David is most active on Twitter – http://twitter.com/#!/szetela

#4) Moz-el tov

http://www.seomoz.org/blog

SEOmoz  has some of the most informative blog post on SEO benefits, keyword mining, and PPC tips.

Why You Should Care: I’ve been faithfully reading SEOmoz’s blog for up-to-date information on SEO, PPC, and SMM from some of the best and brightest. If you are not following this blog, you are missing out.

What You Should Stalk: I highly suggest daily readings of the blog – http://www.seomoz.org/blog

#5) Mike Maps It All Out

http://blumenthals.com/blog/

A student of life, political economy & local search, Mike Blumenthal is a Google Maps and local search guru. He frequently authors articles at Search Engine Land and his blog Understanding Google Maps and Local Search.

Why You Should Care: Local search, local search, and local search. Oh and maps.

What You Should Stalk: : Mike’s blog is a warehouse of data points and Google Maps techniques – http://blumenthals.com/blog/

Great Apps to Customize Your Facebook Fan Page

Facebook recently hit a new milestone: 500 million users! With this high volume it is a perfect platform for marketing, and people are already taking advantage of this opportunity. Here is a list of great apps that allow you to customize your fan page to its fullest potential.

35 of the Best Facebook Fan Pages

To go along with the above link, here is a fantastic list of fan pages that have taken full advantage of Facebook’s customizable applications. Some examples include pages from the likes of Skittles, Red Bull, and Harley Davidson.

Forrester to Advertisers: Hold Off on Foursquare

Forrester Research recently came out with a study that revealed 84% of people polled are not familiar with location-based applications, a la foursquare. This is useful information, but they conclude that businesses should hold off on using these FREE services because of it. This article explains why their conclusion should not follow their results.

Foursquare Means Businesses: Have you checked-in yet?

We’ve never been shy in our support for foursquare, and this link is a perfect follow-up to the previous one. The article just lists some more of the many advantages to utilizing this and other location-based applications.

10 Sources For Better Conversion

Getting people to your site is only half the battle. Once they’re there, you need to get them do whatever it is you want them to do. In the SEO world, this is known as conversion. This is a list of 10 resources that explain how to get better conversions on your site.

Local Citation Finder: Must-Have SEO Tool

From the article: “The tool looks at the businesses ranking for your keyphrase, grabs their phone numbers, and then does a Google.com search (or .ca or .co.uk) for those numbers, collecting and collating all of the mentions/citations that it finds.” In other words, you can get a list of citation sources your competitors use, and mimic them. Nice and easy!

10 Great Local Search Tools That Don’t Exist Yet

It’s pretty clear what this article is about, so I won’t bore you with an explanation. I will say that these tools would be incredibly easy to make, and some of these developers need to get on the stick!

On-Site SEO: How to Optimize Your Blog Posts

A blog is a great tool for SEO, but simply posting one every week or so won’t be that great of a help. This is a great guide on how to optimize your blog to maximize your exposure on the web.

Using Bing’s New Webmaster Tools For SEO

Bing recently released a new version of their Webmaster Tools. Upon being asked by Bing to give feedback on how to improve it, Chris Smith decided to provide this advice via blog post for the world to see.

Google’s New Local UI Proving Conspiracy Theorists Right

In our last installment of Top 10 for the Weekend, we discussed some changes Google made to their SERPs and Places listings. It looks like the conspiracy theorists were right. This article explains why.

Google Testing New, More Integrated Local Search SERPs

Looks like Google is busy experimenting with some new layouts to their main SERPs. Blumenthal’s shares the findings of Linda Buquet of Catalyst eMarketing, including such changes as making the Places listings bigger and more like organic results (the only difference being the inclusion of a Map pin) and having the map scroll down the page as you do. Not sure if this will be a permanent change, but what I am sure of is that this will no doubt lower traffic results to individual websites while increasing them to review sites. Not cool, Google.

Google Takes More Real Estate For Business Name Search

Ah, Google. Why are they doing this to us? Not only did they potentially make some pretty lame changes to their SERPs, they also started linking to the business’s Places page for these searches as opposed to the actual website. The article lists a few possible reasons they may be making this change, none of which are very appealing.

Google brings a Facebook rival

We’ve posted about Google’s latest social networking platform endeavor in the past, but the news was sparse. Here we get another hint at the tactics Google may be using to bring down the Goliath that is Facebook. Recently, they’ve been meeting with big name game developers for Google Me. What this means is anybody’s guess, but I hope it means less lame Farmville updates and decent games for a change!

Is Google Watching You? New Plugin Will Let You Know!

Boy, this Top 10 is a little Google heavy this week, eh? Don’t worry, there’s more! Here’s an article about an awesome new browser plugin that lets you see when your personal information is being sent to Google’s servers. Not only that, but it alerts you using a vuvuzela-like alarm.  How great is that?

Why You Need to Monitor and Measure Your Brand on Social Media

If you read these lists of ours often, you’d know we’re no strangers to the social media game. Once you make the leap, it’s imperative to keep your presence known. This article gives a couple of great tips to monitoring and measuring your brand to make sure you can use these great utilities to their utmost advantage.

How to Get Top Search Engine Optimization and Placement Results with Google Caffeine

In our last edition of Top 10 for the Weekend, we posted an article outlining the differences between Google’s Mayday and Caffeine. Well, here is a handy article on how to make Caffeine work for you to achieve results at the top of the ranks.

Should I renew my yellow pages ad?

Here is our most recent blog about whether or not remaining to advertise with Yellow Pages is beneficial to your site from an SEO standpoint. Want to know the answer? Read to find out!

The Google Sewage Factory, In Action: The Chocomize Story

A great article on how sites pollute Google’s news section by taking advantage of some specific editorial criteria, and their lack to police these actions. A very interesting read about Google contributing to the pollutants that make the internet a “cesspool,” according to one of their CEOs.

Google Places Police

We’re no strangers to the confusing and oft arbitrary guidelines Google seems to enforce on their Places accounts, and we’re not the only ones! This is a fantastic article highlighting the hair-pulling experience that Google can induce for businesses and SEO companies alike.

8 New Link Types That Exist On The Web

A hilarious article outlining some of the insane practices that SEO companies and many others use for link building. Check them out and see if you are guilty of any of them. I know I am!

Yes, the yellow pages industry is dying, some would argue it’s dead.

Unused and unwanted.

But a part of me hesitates at completely dropping out of the book.

What I would love to say is “keep your ad or an ad because the yellow pages gives you a free backlink in their online product with any paid ad,” but this is not the case.  It is my personal experience in my local market and my observation in other markets that the yellow pages sales people are not offering a free backlink in the online product with the purchase of an ad in print book. One must pay to be in the print book and pay to be included in the online directory too.

And even if you pay for it, how valuable is that backlink from deep within the yellow pages online directory?  Apparently, not very.  I checked a few different tools for the online directory page where my client would appear if she paid to be included in the online directory, and the page has a 0 (zero) value.

Also, the backlinks are nofollowed. Wow.  Talk about about a waste of advertisers money and about a wasted opportunity by the teleco.

So my suggestion to the client was half-hearted … decrease your big expensive display ad for a smaller in-column ad so you’re not totally out of the book just for the few people who are still using the print product.  She looked at some internal data, and came back with feedback saying she has gotten no patients from a yellow pages referral so she was dropping her yellow ages ad.  I have no data to advise her otherwise, and really, it’s probably a sound move.

In LA too they throw the printed phonebook right away to the trash

Yellow pages sales people have always offered call tracking, but on a limited basis – only to those clients who were waffling on renewing that giant display ad.  What they could be doing is dropping a call tracking number in the every ad over some benchmark value (say $1,500.00 because that would include some of the more elaborate in-column ads) and adding a tracking website URL into the ad.  Together, these tracking mechanisms would give some real data for advertisers to make this renewal decision.  But I know that the real data is probably more hurtful to the renewal rate than having no data.

In comparison, at Search Influence (where a few of us grew up in yellow pages a few years ago),  we understand the need for tracking, for constant proof of our value.  We track form data.  We track phone calls from organic traffic and from paid traffic.  We track all kinds of stuff so we can give real ROIs.  We do this all of the time, and at least every month.  Proving our value every month, month after month, definitely keeps us on our toes, and we share the successes with our clients because of that accountability.

Thanks to Sabrina Tang and lejoe for the great pictures!

Orlando Plastic Surgery Yellow Pages Ads

I worked in the yellow pages industry for just short of 10 years at a CMR, Certified Marketing Representative, where all of my clients were national clients in multiple markets.  So I’ve spent a full decade of my life working in the yellow pages industry, which is not a glamorous media, but at one time it was incredibly profitable for clients based on their return on investment (ROI).  That ROI in yellow pages is now dropping dramatically with every year because of the overwhelming competition from internet for media dollars.

It is in the yellow pages industry where a lot of tracking techniques were started.  I can’t tell you how many tracking phone numbers I have set up and used in a yellow pages ad.  And given a client’s number, had to track a very real ROI each month based on the calls made.

I have organized split run comparisons where we run 1 ad in half of the distribution area of a phone book and another ad in the other half of the distribution area, and then sit back and watch the tracking phone numbers data.

And now in search engine marketing for 2+ years, I find I am doing many of the same things.

When Will first asked me to work with his company, Search Influence, I hesitated – I mean what did I know about search engine optimization?!?

It turns out, it’s a lot of the same stuff. Getting our clients in the right directories, listed under the right categories, tracking incoming calls, proving value …

It is this last, “proving value,” that is the most telling.  Knowing what a large display ad costs in the yellow pages which a lot of our clients would have been doing 10 years ago, and comparing it to what Search Influence charges for SEM and SEO, I realize that the value is definitely in the internet.

In yellow pages, a plastic surgeon might buy a full page or a half page ad for a large percentage of their annual advertising budget.  In some larger metro markets, this can easily reach up to $100,000.00, over $8,000.00 each month, with a yellow pages industry average of 5% increase each year.

This gets the surgeon an ad that is in print for a year, and that’s what you get.  Hope that people pick up the fat book shoved in the back of the cabinet, find the heading, (not under “Doctors,” not under “Physicians & Surgeons-Cosmetic Surgery,” but buried under “Physicians & Surgeons-Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery”) and choose your ad to call.

Most people today are already in front of the computer for work.  They just type it in exactly what they want, no digging, “Plastic surgery Houston“.  It’s too easy to use the internet.

The internet is a living, breathing medium.  For the same amount of money or, amazingly, much less in some big metro markets, SEO actively finds the people searching for your product.

Ringing Phone = Profits

Changes can be made daily or hourly for specials and promotions.  Yellow pages ads are in print for 12 months.

Tracking is not limited to phone number tracking – we can find which pages are working and which pages users are most likely to leave the site on, edit some graphics and compare the traffic patterns week to week instead of year to year.

The average yellow pages display ad attracts over 440 calls per year (Source: YPPA Media Impact Study, 2004).  Search Influence has many client sites with thousands of visits each month, with hundreds of contacts each month.

Businesses are moving their marketing dollars to the internet from yellow pages more and more every day because it’s smart money spent.   I mean I don’t want to glorify SEO for more than it is, but dollar for dollar, internet marketing gives so much more impact for money spent by bringing in real customers.

I did a very informal survey which I think sums up America’s use of their phone books.  Here are some responses to “Where is your print phone book?”:

1. “I may have thrown it away, if I have it, it is in the pantry.”
2. “I threw out the new ones.”
3. “I saw it this weekend when I was trying to make room (in the kitchen cabinet)”
4. “I don’t have one.”
5. Another, “I don’t have one.”

Of course, my survey of 5 people may not be fair because I did only ask people who sit in front of a computer all day, and so I ask, do you know where your phone book is?

She sent me an email with a list of questions which were based in large measure on a list at SEOConsultants.com. It was a great list, I’m a guy who likes being challenged and with Natalie’s permission I’m reposting the bulk of that email here:

It’s funny this is the first time I’ve been asked to answer so specific a set of questions but I’m happy to have the opportunity.

Perhaps we should make it the basis of an FAQ page

Please see my answers in line below.

Very best regards,

Will

Natalie wrote:

> Will,

>

> Great speaking with you on Tuesday. Below you will find a lot of questions. Due to our inexperience and knowledge on this subject we tried to compile a list of questions that could help us understand things a bit more. Thanks for your time and patience.

I’m going to say again, you’re pretty darn savvy and this list proves it.

> 1. Have you optimized other cleaning services? If so can you give us an example of feedback/response they have received?

We have not worked with a cleaning service. We work with many different businesses both consumer and business to business. These have included printers, sign brokers, medical professionals, soil testing companies and many more.

The tools we use are appropriate for any business and most particularly effective with locally oriented service businesses like yours.

There is a great quote on our web site in the testimonials section from our soil testing company.

This past Tuesday, Midwest Laboratories had the largest receiving day on record. We received 17,800 soil samples. The previous record was 13,200. That is the equivalent of 790 UPS Boxes – 3 UPS Trucks.

We are now averaging about 85-120 hits per day on the eStore. Thanks again for your help in this process.

Also, we recently published a press release on our success in internet marketing for plastic surgeons with a New Jersey plastic surgeon: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/10/prweb1410684.htm

> 2. Based upon your professional opinion when should we expect results?

It is a constant process, and we see continued improvement in sites we’ve worked with for years. In the worst case you should see something definitive within 6 months. If we are aggressive it should be markedly less, perhaps as little as 60 – 90 days.

> 3. Will you/company be undertaking the seo work yourselves or will you be outsourcing to another country?

We have both US and offshore staff. We do not outsource our core work and aside from 1 or 2 discreet tasks all work is done by our employees, some of whom are offshore.

> 4. What is the payment schedule?

We bill by credit card on the 1st of the month.

> 5. Who owns the rights to the work?

You do

> 6. Please define maintenance after site is up and running. What does maintenance include and why is the start-up and maintenance price the same? Do you have a maintenance program?

The bulk of our ongoing maintenance is link-building and content development. See fuller answer in #7.

> 7. Will you be providing any additional value added services with the setup? Example: blog, ezine, newsletters, PR, etc.

We often use all of the above. Currently for link-building we are very fond of Articles (distributed to ezine sites and press releases. When desired, some of the effort that would go toward off-site content creation can be used for on-site blogs. As an added service we can help with newsletters and email marketing.

For more about link-building in the local space please feel free to have a look at my presentation from SMX Local/Mobile.

http://www.searchinfluence.com/blog/2008/07/local-search-ranking-presentation/

> 8. Is there a limited number of keywords that will be used?

We usually select a basket of 20 search terms to focus on. These are terms which we agree together will drive valuable traffic. In our typical relationships we have a 1 year contract which has a 6-month checkpoint. If at the end of 6 months you’re not on page 1 of Google for 10 of those 20 selected terms we keep working for free until you are for up to another 6 months.

Typically we track many more than 20. The selection of 20 search terms is merely intended to be used as a yardstick by which our clients may hold us accountable.

> 9. What is Google PageRank™ and how does it affect our website(s)? How would you address improving our PageRank™ with Google, and other search engines that calculate the number of quality inbound links to our website?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank

PageRank, in a nutshell is Google’s indication of the relative authority of your site among its peers. All of the search engines do some level of weighted link analysis which helps to sort the sites competing for a given set of searches.

In other words, if you have two sites which say exactly the same things and one of them has 10 inbound links and the other has 100 links, the one with more links should clearly win.

That said, per the algorithm MORE links doesn’t always mean better. The authority of the links matters too. if the site with 10 links has links from Harvard, Emory, NASA, The Pentagon, your local newspaper and the like and the site with 100 links has nothing but free directory links, the 10 trump the 100.

To improve PageRank, it’s important to focus on trusted inbound links (of the type discussed in 6 & 7)

> 10. What is link popularity? What linking strategies would you use to increase link popularity for our website? Is this service part of the proposed price? What types of websites will you target for link exchange?

Link popularity is no longer as widely used given the advent of PageRank and similar systems from the other major engines. Many times Link Popularity was referenced when talking about reciprocal links (you’ll notice this question references “link exchange”) — I’m sure you get the emails offering these exchanges.

Per the PageRank algorithm, the number of links is no longer weighted nearly as strongly as the trust of the sites linking in.

In fact, in the last 2 years Google has specifically come out against link exchanges and there was even and issue a year or so ago where hundreds of realtors disappeared from the listings due to aggressive use of this technique.

> 11. What changes can we expect you to make to our website to improve our positioning in the search engines? Will these changes be visible? Will there be changes in the coding of our website?

We typically change a number of on-page elements including the title and description which are not readily apparent. We also will often make changes to the visible copy to enhance the use of search terms in copy and the use of page elements such as heading tags which are cues to the search engines of the importance of certain text.

We typically don’t change the code which structures your site unless it is inherently blocking search engine spiders.

> 12. What type of reporting will you provide to us? How often will you provide those reports? Will you provide consultation on how to interpret the reports so that we have a basic understanding of the statistics?

We typically offer both position reporting (e.g. you rank # 10 for phrase X) and traffic reporting using Google Analytics. We send monthly reports interpreting these data and are happy to walk you through the reports to explain items which may be unclear. We will also have separate call tracking #s for better visibility on the actual leads.

> 13. What is a PR0 penalty?

Sometimes, when site owners behave very badly their PageRank and ability to rank will be greatly diminished sometimes to zero. Recently Google has been clamping down on paid links. Some have suggested that a PageRank of zero is a warning to clean up one’s act. There are a lot of differing opinions on this point. In short, if a site has been online a year or more has a fair number of inbound links and a PR0 it’s not a good sign.

To really be able to tell what’s going on with your site we’d need to do some analysis and then submit a re-inclusion request to Google and see what happened.

> 14. How many pages will you be optimizing in our website?

All of them.

> 15. What techniques does Google consider spam?

The Google Webmaster Guidelines say it better than I can: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769#3

> 16. Can you assure us that the optimization strategies and methods that you are utilizing fall under the criteria of Best Practices for the SEO/SEM Industry? Can we assume that this means no penalties for our website? Penalties could include, but are not limited to; removal from the search engines or directories index, or a possible Google PageRank™ penalty.

We haven’t lost one yet. We don’t do anything risky. We don’t hide text and we don’t auto-generate 15,000 links overnight. We trade content in the form of articles, PR, blog posts and submission text for links.

As I’m sure you can see from the above, this is a GREAT way to start a relationship. If only all our clients were this rigorous in interviewing an SEO company we’d all be better off.