Fionn Downhill – Digital Shenanigans

On Friday the 22nd of February I had the pleasure of presenting two sessions at the American Express/Score Small Business coaching day. The event was held at the Phoenix Hyatt and represented the best that American Express and Score has to offer with multiple sessions all day. Both organizations have played a pivotal role in helping me grow my business.  The coaching and support that I have received from my Counselor Chet Ross provided me with business knowledge that I as a small business could never have afforded.

I was humbled by the warm response I received from the participants and the wonderful feedback I was given about the value of those two short presentations. Since then I have thought about this in depth.  What I learned from this experience is how little knowledge most small businesses have about online marketing and the opportunity it presents to them. Many small businesses are overwhelmed by the very thought of internet marketing and see it as out of their reach.

One of the issues I tried to emphasize to this group is that Internet marketing is not special its marketing. By using another medium (and a very poweful one at that) the small business owner can tap into one of the most effective forms of marketing available. Small business owners are usually very good at marketing themselves. They work hard at it and attend many networkinig events and lead generating groups. Small business owners can leverage the web and there is still a huge opportunity to gain traction while the 100 pound gorilla’s are still only spending 6% of their add dollars online.

One of the issues facing the small business is trying to find relevant information relating to them. And the first step is to build a search enigne friendly web site that is set up for users and targetted towards conversions.  On Friday almost every web site we looked at had not been designed this way.

When it comes to SEO the problem gets even worse and small business are easy prey in an industry not known for its ethics. I wrote the first series of articles on this subject in 2005, and guess what – 3 years later the debate is still raging. I plan on writing an in depth article on this subject after the SMX West conference next week.

So how does a small business get started with Internet marketing?. When I finish collating the questions and feedback from the SCORE event I will publish the best list of resources and send the feedback directly to SCORE to market back to the participants. Watch this space!!…

This is a really fun video and the informatiton is pretty accurate too. 

Click here to see the full PPC Rap Video

This has got me thinking maybe I should pen an Irish ballad about organic SEO in time for St. Patrick’s Day.  Many Irish ballads are quite sad so I should wait for the next Google update to put me in the mood.

Linking is an essential part of any SEO campaign – internal linking, content publicity, external linking, etc etc. Eric Ward talks about this in his article linking experts going underground. Eric Ward is one of my favorite speakers and I have learned a lot from him over the years. Linking has been used by many in the industry to make a lot of money. Eric is one of the good guys and has always promoted natural linking which builds brand as well as traffic.

The ‘linking experts’ I am concerned about are those that are only in it for the money. They have helped to make what has always been an essential part of SEO so difficult for those of us who promote sites online.

Any good organic SEO company who gets results has been doing linking for their clients and they have adapted when the algorithm’s have changed. The difference between them and the ‘linking experts’ is that they did not build a business around it and consider it part of SEO – not a separate service. Good linking is an important part of an overall SEO campaign with under performing terms being targeted using online publicity and other linking strategies on a regular basis.

I am not sorry to see the ‘linking experts’ having a hard time right now. Some of them have filled their pockets with money and moved on. What many of them were doing was wrong – and they knew this long before Google ever changed their webmaster guidelines. However, the gullible public did not and the link sellers were laughing all the way to the bank. Selling links for page rank and rankings has always been frowned upon by Google ever since I have been involved in SEO (and I have been around longer than most!)

Linking is not SEO when it is sold as a separate service using tactics that at best are questionable and at worst worthless. Paid text links are a perfect example of this. Call linking what it really is (a part of an SEO strategy) and let’s stop pretending that they are two separate services.

The real results comes when you work with an expert who knows how to combine the two. I do not have an issue working with a ‘linking expert’ as long as the whole linking strategy is in line with the overall big picture.

In this excellent article Computer Weekly explores the subject of Online Reputation Management and asks the question “is it ethical?” As a company that has handled a number of different Online Reputation Management campaigns I have often asked myself the same question.

I believe that you decide whether or not to handle an online reputation management project much in the same way as you decide on which other clients you work with. I have been asked to handle multiple reputation management projects and have walked away from many.

Many SEO’s are probably wondering whether they should they offer this service and to whom. When we are approached by a potential reputation management client we look at the facts. What is being said, how often its been said and by whom. If there is a common theme which is being repeated in many different places then that is a red flag.

In the past we have handled a reputation management project where the negative comments were extreme. However, when we did our research they were all coming from the same IP and could be traced back to one of their competitors. Although on the face of it they seemed to deserve their negative reputation when we analyzed the situation they did not. My advice is to follow your gut, do your homework, and apply the same ethics that you apply to the rest of your business.

The bottom line is that Online Reputation Management is good solid organic SEO incorporating web publicity. Along the same principal that I have of not doing SEO for porn sites – I won’t do reputation management for a company I believe deserves their reputation.

I was excited last week when I heard about the potential merger between Yahoo and Microsoft. From a strictly search point of view it seemed that the merger could potentially offer a real alternative to Google. Now it seems that Yahoo’s advisers are telling them to go back to AOL. Search Engine Watch has a good update on the topic.

I think Google is a great search engine and we have some very successful clients thanks to Google paid and organic traffic. However, I do not believe that it is a good thing for consumers to only have one credible option. The strength of Microsoft’s Adcenter and Yahoo’s organic would have created a real alternative to Google. Sadly, its not about the consumers but the Wall Street bankers and price of stocks. Let’s hope Yahoo does something before they go out of business and we only end up with one player. Who uses AOL for search?

I will be attending a SEMPO meeting in Dallas tomorrow.  The Phoenix airport is expecting 4 hour delays because of all the people returning from the Superbowl.  I hope I make it!!