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Wednesday, February 9, 2011

5 SEO metrics I gotta have


I'm on #seochat tonight. I'm super-excited about it, so I've been scribbling notes for anticipated questions.


The topic, which I've actually talked about before, is SEO analytics. For me, there are five crucial SEO metrics. If you don't have these, hang it up:

Key phrase diversity. The number of unique phrases driving traffic to your site. Greater diversity means you're probably doing better in the long tail, and that you're less vulnerable to algorithm changes.Visitors from organic search. It's nice to know my overall traffic from organic search, too. Hopefully this one's a 'duh' for you.Visitors from non-branded organic search. This one's subtly different from #2. Non-branded organic search are all visits from organic search, minus any brand names associated with you. So, if you're Ford, you'd filter out 'Ford', 'Mustang', 'Pinto', etc..Visit quality. The data used for this metric could be average pageviews per visit from organic search, average time on site for visits from organic search, or even better, conversion rate from organic search. You could also use something like bounce rate for visitors from organic search. The idea? Figure out if you're getting the right people to your site. If organic visit quality is really poor compared to your other channels, you need to rethink your strategy.Crawl quality indicators. This one's a lot harder, but necessary. You need to find any pages on your site that aren't getting crawled at all. You can do that by using GREP on your log files (my favorite method). You can also look for pages that get zero visits from organic search and try to use that as an indicator. If you have a log-based web analytics tool, then you can also check the 'bots' or 'spiders' report and see if any pages are left out.

Notice that I left out rankings and PageRank. Please don't make me explain why here. If you need to know, post a comment and I'll do that in another post.


Some of these ain't easy to find, I know, but you have to try. Your boss/client/whatever will challenge SEO the same way Tea Partiers challenge global warming, so you'd better have data ready when they do.


If you want to learn more about these metrics, c'mon in to SEO chat tonight. You can follow along by using the #seochat hashtag on Twitter, or by going to the SEOChat Tweetchat room.

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The best way to launch a web site


is to:

Choose a dictator. Committees design camels and K-cars, not success.Meet. Talk about features. Sketch out the plan, in rough terms.Stop talking and start coding.Build what's necessary, and no more.Design what's necessary, and no more.Code for speed, simplicity, and graceful degradation or progressive enhancement.Write great stuff. A beautiful design won't save you. If you sound like a moron, a great head of hair won't get you far.Put that stuff on the site (see #2).Slap anyone who says a feature has to be on the site because "it's part of the brand".Look at every graphic, page and feature and ask "What is this for?" If you can't answer in 15 seconds or less, remove it.Keep. The. Team. Together. For the whole project. Please. Otherwise, just shoot me in the groin and be done with it.Stop coding.Test it. If it works, launch it.Look and listen: See what your visitors think of your site by watching analytics, and by asking them.Go back to #1. Repeat.comments (4) | trackbacks (0) | permalink

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9 step SEO checkup using Google Webmaster Tools - SEL Column


My latest Search Engine Land column is up: 9 Step SEO Checkup Using Google Webmaster Tools.


SEO is about actually doing stuff that helps. It's not about talking about all the stuff you could do. Hopefully, this column will help you find simple, doable stuff you can tweak to improve your search profile.


Read: 9 Step SEO Checkup Using Google Webmaster Tools

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The Marketing Uncertainty Principle


"Anyone who says that they understand Quantum Mechanics does not understand Quantum Mechanics"- Richard Feynman


Yes, I am about to draw a comparison between marketing and quantum physics. (I'll wait a moment for those of you who believe you came to the wrong classroom to head for the door.)


Quantum physics (the study of the very, very small) is, at its heart, about probabilities. This characteristic led Albert Einstein, who felt that the theory was incomplete, to remark, "God does not play dice with the universe."


Here's the kind of thing that bugged him: Take at close look at a group of 100 atoms of uranium 235 (take your time, you're gonna need it). Every once in a while, you'll see a thing called an alpha particle buzz off and in doing so, change the atom from where it came from uranium into lead. Wait around about 704 million years (I warned you), and half of the atoms will have changed identity.


Here's the rub: During that entire time, no matter how hard you tried, you'd never be able to accurately predict which of those atoms was going to emit the alpha particle. All the evidence we have (and it seems pretty unequivocal) says that this inability to predict isn't our fault, for not knowing enough about some hidden forces bouncing around in the atom, for example. No, this is just how it is. We can, with 100% confidence, know that, after 704 million years, half of the uranium will have turned into lead, but we can never, I repeat, never, know when and which atom will transmute during that time.


People seem to be a lot like uranium.


In my last post, I related my experience with using past behavior and demographics to predict future buying behavior. Bottom line: It didn't work. I could, with a very high degree of accuracy, determine what percentage of a group would respond to my offer, but I could never seem to predict - above the level of random chance - the behavior of any single individual.


Again, I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I believe most of the world's troubles come from over-simplifying and stereotyping people, manifested in characteristics such as racism, sexism, jingoism and...(insert your least favorite "ism" here).


What's weird is that we all know this. None of us has ever met anyone who is identical to someone else. We're all aware that the future is unpredictable.


And yet many of us continue to visit readers and advisors, astrologers and "psychics." We pay them, all the time recognizing the dissonance: if the psychic could really foresee events, they would buy the right stocks and lottery tickets. They don't, because they can't.


And we, as marketers, keep trying methods to increase the probabilities of predicting buying behavior.


Despite what you might think from what I've written so far, I'm not giving up, because I think the name of this site alludes to something that just may work - a method of marketing that has always seemed to be effective, and has been greatly enabled, thanks to the Internet. It's a form of persuasion that recognizes and capitalizes on the uniqueness of individuals.


It's called Conversation Marketing. I'll have more to say about it next time around.


Disclaimer: The portion of this post describing the transmutation of uranium was lifted from another self-penned article, entitled Oprah's fat again and she doesn't know why.

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LinkedIn Marketing How-To


One of my team, Doug Anktowiak, wrote a fantastic tutorial on using LinkedIn's new features for company pages. Here's a taste:


As the Facebook of the business world, LinkedIn has become the go-to social media scene for career movers and shakers, and now it's more influential than ever. Once known as just a social network for tech-savvy professionals to find a new gig, the leading business-oriented social network recently gave companies the ability to strut their stuff with a new Products and Services tab.


LinkedIn's latest addition isn't just important because it looks hi tech and it's easy to use - it transcends the ability of this social media to service both people and businesses.



You can read the rest on the Portent blog.

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Kicking a bully's ass


Update: Thanks everyone for responding. Talk about too much of a good thing. I've got almost 100 people so far who are helping out. Please be patient if i don't get to you for a bit.


Today I get to rant, and you get to listen. You're going to help me kick a bully's ass.


There's a site out there called Jew Watch. I will not link to it. The author is James Stenzel, an alleged white supremacist. Jimmy - may I call you Jimmy? - refers to the site as "This Scholarly Library of Facts about Domestic & Worldwide Zionist Criminality".


It talks about how all us jews apparently control the government in the US, have fomented revolution around the world and secretly pull the strings in our drive to dominate civilization, or some such.


By the way, Jimmy, if we really did have that kind of control, do you think I'd be flying coach cross-country for Thanksgiving? Well?! Do you!?!!! I THINK NOT.

Right now, this literary achievement ranks #2 for a Google search on 'Jew'. I could wring my hands and complain about Google's failure to remove the site, but truth is, a site's a site. Plus, we don't need Google's help to make JewWatch disappear, do we?


Jimmy is a bully. His web site is where he bullies an entire ethnicity. My ethnicity. So, I want to kick his ass. You can help me do that by ensuring his site never again ranks in the top 10 (or 20) for 'jew'. I've got a strategy - I just need your help.


If you're interested, contact me. You know how: Leave a comment, send me a note on Twitter, an e-mail, or whatever.


If you're not interested, read on anyway. If this guy wasn't so dangerous, his web site would provide late night talk show material for the next 30 years.


Stenzel's site claims:

Jews started the NAACP. I'd be happy about that, but given the history of relations between jewish- and African-americans, it seems pretty unlikely, yes? Or are the occasional riots and Jesse Jackson calling NYC 'Hymietown' just a clever sham?Jews secretly occupy and run the Vatican City. DAMMIT NOW THE SECRET'S OUT.We apparently run Australia, too. Although I have it on good authority that you can't find a decent brisket anywhere on the whole f--king continent.We also run the World Bank AND the Federal Reserve. If so, where the hell is my Annual Member of the Tribe Check?!!!Jews started the National Organization for Women. No. Comment.The Allies lost WW II. Erm.And, the American jewish community is the driving force behind the Museum of Sex. Which makes perfect sense, since the average jewish person is so repressed they can't pick up a carrot without blushing.

Aaaanyway... Even if you don't care about hate speech and bullying, you must care about stupidity. We have a stupidity surplus in America right now. I suggest that we begin spending that surplus by burying Jew Watch so far down in the search engine ranking pages James Stenzel starts writing about Google's part in the worldwide zionist conspiracy.


You with me?

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