I Saw My Competitors' Websites...Now I'm Depressed

[Engage]

I can share some of what I do. I don’t want to sound too much like a commercial or for anyone to think I am trying to use someone else’s forum to solicit business.

As I see it, you are answering a direct question from me, which I asked here because I knew your reply would be interesting and informative for all readers, which turned out to be true. Thanks for all the time you put in to addressing my question Mike.

One quick question, which will probably only be useful to me. I don't have or want the Windows OS. Do any of the programs you reference run on the Web or Mac?

I'm going to skip over any philosophical type questions here, to avoid distractions. We can discuss issues like "unethical" and 'black hat" in another thread if anyone wishes to.

On to business...

My general impression is that most blogs use nofollow links in their comment sections these days. Is this your experience, and if yes, how does this factor in your calculations?

Ignoring all the wanna be search engines makes sense to me. I have high rankings for some keywords related to Google Adsense on Yahoo, which is fun to see, but the traffic is minimal.

I do not believe you will get slapped by Google for building links too fast.

I have no firm opinion here, and claim no special knowledge, but when launching some of my sites I've added thousands of links all at once from my own sites, and a friends site, and nothing bad seems to happen.

I always do everything behind proxies. No footprints.

I know what a proxie is, and why they are useful, but not which of the seemingly thousands of proxies are user friendly etc. Advice?

I build a lot of linkwheels with Web2.0 properties (Wordpress, Blogger, Vox, LiveJournal, Webs, YouTube, Vimeo, etc.).

Let's clarify this a bit. You create blogs on the free services you've listed above, and send most of your automated links to these blogs. And then you link from these throw away blogs to your real site. Did I explain that correctly?

You don’t care about the conversation on their blog.

Honestly, I wish this were true for me. One of my main problems is that I care about the conversations too much, and waste a lot of time in them, building other people's sites instead of my own. Like I'm, um, doing right now.

I create many different feeds that then get submitted and pinged with RSSBot (one of the best paid tools you will ever find).

Hmm, I need a little RSS 101 class. RSS is a weak area for me. A feed is a document a news reader can read? Where do you submit these? How does it help you? Anything you can share will be an education here.

However, backlinks, backlinks, backlinks is what it has been about for years. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

That makes sense to me, and I would say from my own stupid experience, and reading webmaster forums for years, that not giving links adequate attention is perhaps the leading webmaster mistake.

On the flip side, the engines are going to have to address the challenge sophisticated automated link building systems present somehow.

This is a very well established pattern which goes back to the very beginnings of the SEO industry.

Clever results manipulating techniques work while they are new. Then the technique is popularized by tools and experts that make it easy for the masses. Then the engines have to respond, the technique is defeated, and the cycle begins again.

The SEO expert industry drives and thrives on this cycle, because it means that their customers have to come back to them again and again, to get the latest inside tools and tricks etc.

Trying to say, automated link building tools devalue the "voting system" that Google hopes to use to measure site quality, and so we can predict that eventually this link based voting system will have to be abandoned. I have no clue what it might be replaced with.

Before we get all moralistic about this, we should recall that Google is the biggest content scraper on the net. They don't ask our permission, they just scrape our sites with automated tools, and use our content to sell their ads. Sometimes Google provides value in return (web results) and sometimes they really don't (image searches).

In any case, they do whatever they want to do. As example, they are trying to scan every book ever printed in to their databases, and it's up to the publishers of these books to negotiate with Google about it. Google started scanning, before they started negotiating.

So, the philosophical situation is rather complicated.

Mike, if you don't know him already, I'd suggest you meet Charles Heflin. http://www.charlesheflin.com/
He has a membership site built around a highly automated social networking system, right up your alley. I was a member for awhile, and Charles seems like a good guy. He asked me to code his system, but I'm glad I didn't, as he wants to explore far beyond my abilities.

If nothing else, I think you would likely benefit from a one month subscription to see if what he has to offer is useful to you. I don't understand these issues well enough to know, but you would.

[MikeF421]

Mike,
Any posts with links are usually held for moderation so that's what happened. I just approved all your posts, thanks for your patience. We have to set the forum up like this because it would be a big spammy mess (trust me!).

I can appreciate that. I ran a few forums myself in the past. Every morning I would have to go through and delete the 50 or so porn links that were mass dropped overnight.

[MikeF421]

Engage,
To answer your questions...

NoFollow, DoFollow... I don't care. I'll take any and all links. I have never had a link that lowered my rankings. Also, if you only put comments on DoFollow blogs, couldn't that be construed as weird and unusual to the search engines?

I like a site called YourPrivateProxy for proxies. I used to use public proxies. Then about a year ago I bit the bullet and bought some private ones. Haven't looked back since. They are 100 times faster and much more relieable.

And yes, you've got the linkwheel idea down. Now I have modified mine though. Some people believe Google has caught on to the pattern. I have seen no concrete proof of that, but I changed up my methods anyhow. My linkwheels are connected in a completely random pattern. I'll share a little secret here too... I throw in all kinds of other links in between the traditional Web2.0 sites. I may throw in a couple of profile links in between instead of just linking Web2.0 site directly to Web2.0 site. Some I create don't even link to anything other then my main site. Basically, there is no discernable pattern. I even confuse myself sometimes trying to keep them straight.

RSS feeds get submitted to RSS aggregators. I think of them like article directories for RSS feeds.

As for the challenge facing search engines with automated tools being used by internet marketers.... I don't know that they will address it anytime soon. The internet has become so huge these days. There are billions of web pages out there. How many are being created by internet marketers using these tools? My guess it is a small, almost insignificant fraction.

And the other thing to look at is these tools are just doing the same thing I would be doing by hand otherwise. I would still be doing the same activities. I probably would just have to hire a team of 8-10 people to do it instead of just doing it myself. That or I would take on far fewer clients and charge a lot more for my time.

Also, just to clarify, some of the techniques I outlined I only do for myself or anyone who is into internet marketing. Most of the people I work with are businesses in the local area. Getting someone to #1 in Google for "Pizza in York, PA" or similar local searches is not nearly as difficult and does not take nearly the effort. A lot of times it takes less than 100 backlinks to get them a top listing for local searches. Then it's on to the next keyword.

[Engage]

Thanks for your ongoing comments Mike, educational.

It looks like all these programs run on Windows, so for me, not a great plan. Just don't have the patience to get involved with Windows. Most people won't have this problem of course.

I don't want to abuse your time. If you'd like to use me as a hypothetical example case to illustrate how you would go about doing SEO work for a client, I will submit my questions for your public review. Or not, that's ok too.

And now the more academic part of the thread.

We aren't really talking about the entire net, billions of pages and millions of sites, but just the first few pages of search results. Google is focused on the first few pages of results for the same reason marketers are, that's where all the traffic is. That's Google's business, the first few pages of results.

When the "links voting system" Google uses to estimate quality is undermined by growing use of ever easier and cheaper automated link building systems, the links voting system will no longer be a guide to quality at the top of the SERPs, and thus of no use to Google, and thus links will be discarded in their algo.

Links will die, and game will then move to some new arena.

This isn't a theory, but part of a well established historical pattern that goes back to the very earliest days of search engines. All the smart folks want to game the rankings system, therefore the rankings system has to continually change to survive.

I don't claim to know where this battle will end, or if it will end. It's Google vs. the SEO industry, and both are worthy opponents.

Seeing this historical pattern, one response could be to make good use of whatever SEO advantage one has today, and use it to drive traffic to mailing lists, thus charting a course out of the SEO rat race.

The ideal SEO strategy would of course be to have enough in house traffic that one doesn't need to worry about what Google may do down the road. I hear Mathew waving from somewhere on the forum.

If you'd like to use this space to help us understand how you'd help someone like me generate lots of SEO traffic to a subscribe form, I'm available to play the role of clueless hypothetical client.

[MikeF421]

Most of the programs I use are Windows based. To be honest, I've never looked into if there was a Mac equivalent or which ones are Mac compatible.

I believe Market Samurai is because it is an online tool rather than a desktop tool. BookMarking Demon might be Mac compatible too, but don't quote me on that.

I haven't made the leap to Mac yet, but I have been tempted at times.

As for the hypothetical workup, I can play along. Do you have a website in particular you want to use? Do you want to use an imaginary site in a real niche? Do you want to create a new site together in some niche as an experiment? You do the content, I do the SEO work? How would you like to do it?

I did find an interesting niche just this past weekend that I was thinking of setting up a site or two around. I'm not sure I would want to reveal it publicly because I don't necessarily want to invite competition to this one. Also I need to do a little more research in it to make sure it looks as worthwhile as I think. A little bit of the info from Market Samurai is not totally adding up.

[Engage]

To be honest, I've never looked into if there was a Mac equivalent or which ones are Mac compatible.

Sure, why would you? Generally, I'm very happy with Macs (not so happy with Apple) but this issue of Net business apps does come up sometimes, and it's probably the primary downside to my limited Mac only office.

I haven't made the leap to Mac yet, but I have been tempted at times.

Seems like you're doing pretty good where you are.

I can understand a reluctance to deal with a 2nd operating system, because that's exactly why I refuse to get involved with Windows. Too many things to keep track of as it is.

As for the hypothetical workup, I can play along. Do you have a website in particular you want to use? Do you want to use an imaginary site in a real niche? Do you want to create a new site together in some niche as an experiment? You do the content, I do the SEO work? How would you like to do it?

Ok, thanks, this is fun. I do appreciate the education you are offering here, and hope other readers will tune in and reap the rewards.

If you're willing, let's use a real project as your example demonstration case?

What I'm working on right now is setting up my site (nature-talk.com) to automatically dump all my new content each week in to a weekly newsletter, which is automatically sent to subscribers each weekend. This gives me a weekly deadline, forcing me to keep the new content coming.

So, if you agree, the hypothetical job would be to drive search engine traffic to a subscribe form page(s). One benefit of such a project would be the results could be measured in one number, new subscribers.

So, what information would you request of me the clueless client? I've arrived at your office with a befuddled look on my face, many irrelevant questions, and big dreams of newsletter glory etc. (Trying to get in to character here. :-) )

Now what?

[MikeF421]

Okay...

I am completely changing my response. Having had more time to think about it, I don't think SEO is the way to go to promote your site. At least not in the typical sense that Internet Marketers think about it. I don't think their is a viable search engine market for the type of site you have. That is not to say that you won't have search engine traffic, but internet marketers are usually looking for those keywords that they can rank for in just a few months and that can bring them a few thousand visitors a month. I haven't done any research yet, but I'm not sure those kind of keywords exist for your type of site. We'll come back to that though.

I would also have some questions for you.

Who is your target market?

What do you think your target market is searching for on Google? Give me some ideas what you think people might search for to find your site. (The answer to this would typically be the starting basis for any keyword research I would do.)

What is your objective with the site? For example, do you want to make a sale, educate the public, drive traffic to something else, etc.

You did mention driving people to subscribe to a newsletter. Is that the only objective?

Also, if you want signups, the site needs some changes. The "subscribe" button and text is just to small. It is not jumping out at anyone. It needs to catch the eye of someone immediately. Also, why should I sign up? What's in it for me? A lot of people like to give away something for free in exchange for someone signing up. Maybe that is an option. You need to entice me though. I'm not feeling like there is anything special I am going to get for signing up for your newsletter that I couldn't get by just coming back to your site at another time.

My philosophy is pretend that a website visitor who finds your site will never find it again. You need to collect their email address on that first visit or they are never coming back.

Another thing I would look at is I like to use the Google Heatmap when designing a site. You can find an example if you Google it and look at the Google images. Basically, what it is showing is where a person's eyes are drawn when they visit a website. For the most part, people view a website similarly to the way they would read a page out of a book. Their eyes are drawn to the top left initially. That is where you need to put some kind of "call to action" for your visitors to entice them then to signup to your newsletter.

Ok, now back to the SEO topic... Your site reminds me of a similar situation I am having with a prospect right now. The last 3 clients I have brought on were an accountant, a pizza shop, and a guy involved in a MLM that he wants to promote. Pretty simple straight forward stuff.

Just recently though, someone reached out to me that I've known for a few years. She has a foundation setup. With this foundation she raises money from our community and takes 1-2 trips a year with about 15-20 people over to Ghana. They build wells, churches, schools, etc. Basically, improving the infrastructure of Ghana.

This is really the first case I have run into where in my mind, there isn't a viable search engine market for this. I could be totally wrong, but I don't think people are searching for "Ghana charities" or "How can I give money to improve the country of Ghana". Now people might be searching for things like "charitable foundations", but those kind of phrases would take a TON of work to rank for and wouldn't necessarily be people that have any interest in improving Ghana.

I think you have a similar case here. People may be searching for things like "nature hikes" that you could target, but those kind of phrases probably have a ridiculous amount of competition. You could very well rank highly for them, but it might take a year or longer.

What we are proposing to this potential client is the same thing I would propose in your case. Social Media Marketing. We are advising she goes with Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to get the word out about her foundation. She already is involved in things like Rotary and the local Chamber of Commerce. She has plenty of contacts personally. She has been getting the word out about her foundation. Now we want her to point them to a website that will have either a monthly or quarterly newsletter to keep people engaged and coming back. In her case, we're looking at the old phrase, "Birds of a feather flock together." I think Facebook in particular will be a great resource for her. Chances are if someone "likes" her fan page, they will have friends and family of similar interests that will do the same. It will grow from there.

One interesting fact about Facebook, I forget the number of users on there right now (I think it is over 600 million now), but over 50% of the users of Facebook log on everyday.

This is what I would look at for you too. The great thing about having a Facebook page linked to your main site is it gives you a second" chance". If they don't sign up for your newsletter, maybe they will see the Facebook page and become a fan. Through Facebook, you can promote the newsletter signup.

Especially initially, I think you'll find far more traffic through social media than SEO. Maybe you can convince me otherwise.

[Engage]

Wow, that's a great initial consultation Mike. And I almost missed it as I didn't receive the thread update notice. Phew, close one!

Ok, balancing act here. I want to respond to all your questions, and of course I love to talk about my own projects. But let's also try to keep a focus on you, what you can do for clients, and what we can learn from you.

I don't think their is a viable search engine market for the type of site you have. That is not to say that you won't have search engine traffic...

Around 650 unique visitors a day now, mostly from Google of course.

...but internet marketers are usually looking for those keywords that they can rank for in just a few months and that can bring them a few thousand visitors a month.

Hmm... Brainstorming. Does this help? Say I optimized a squeeze page for a keyword, got links to that page, got on first page of results. And then repeated the process, again and again, creating more optimized squeeze pages. An SEO plan?

I haven't done any research yet, but I'm not sure those kind of keywords exist for your type of site.

Ok, just to be clear, I'm not requesting you do a bunch of free work for me, but that we use the thread to give all of us an insight in to how we can learn from you, here, or as clients.

Who is your target market?

Nature lovers.

What do you think your target market is searching for on Google?

I have Statcounter and Analytics installed, and so can see all the keywords being used. At this point, the site is primarily about nature locations and wildlife, so the searches reflect that.

Give me some ideas what you think people might search for to find your site.

Here go, some recent searches.

raising and rescue of squirrels in north carolina
wildcat campground point reyes
Baby Squirrels
horsetail falls oregon
oneonta falls
new nature videos download
caladesi island
Oconaluftee Visitor Center (Milepost 469) picture
boat in camping at tomales bay
little talbot island state park photos
letchworth state park map of park
map of peaks of otter
blue spring state park
big shoals state park
oceans
are killer whales found in the gulf of mexico
oleno state park in florida
Peregrine Falcon
anjana tigers
hubble telescope extraterrestrial life
squirrel youtube videos
cedar key tides
driving directions to alafia state park
killer whales eating sharks
EARTHQUAKE TRAIL
nature talks
all about squirrels
download videos of nature
Planets
blue fawn beagle
uttarakhand nature video download
whale eating kayak
buy a squirrel
blackwater river state park pictures
map of rainbow spring
baby fox squirrel
soundtrack of waves at seashore
how do i add weather to my website
raising and rescue of orphaned squirrels in north carolina
fox squirrel
nature video download
cedar key tide fl
armadillo dinner
gardens
orcas hunting rays and sharks
evolution of species images
little shoals state park florida
video killer whale teach baby seal ice waves
science
maclay gardens map of ravine trail
nature videos
fernandina garden phil
video loop nature download
Oleno State Park campsite photos
killer whales getting iceburgh seals
mexican wildlife
orcas teaching young to hunt video
oconaluftee visitors center
john yeon state park pictures
midget forecast
blackwater state park florida
tomales bay camping
clam digging portland maine
memaloose state park map
universe
peregrine falcon pictures
oleno state park florida map
homosexuality in animals
fox squirrel facts
killer whale attacks on humans in the san juan islands
orcas in gulf of mexico
black hole galaxy
downloan nature videos
chandra sombrero filterui:imagesize-large
outer banks frisbee golf
letchworth state park map
cedar key nwr shell mound
cute polar bear attack email
human evolution
orcas eating on iceberg
Linville Falls roanoke va
cumberland knob milepost
wittenberg trail condition
cayo costa florida nude beach
solar sun pics
future space shuttle
watkins glenn harbour hotel pier camera
First Man On The Moon
waterrock knob visitor center

What is your objective with the site? For example, do you want to make a sale, educate the public, drive traffic to something else, etc.

1) Adsense for now.

2) Get enough traffic to launch a network of nature forums on the site, thus largely automating content creation.

3) Get enough traffic to make it worthwhile to get in affiliate marketing, to diversify beyond Adsense.

4) Introduce my hosting services.

5) Have a career that I enjoy enough that I'd do it for free if I won the lottery.

You did mention driving people to subscribe to a newsletter. Is that the only objective?

The newsletter is part of the overall grand scheme.

I mentioned it as one possible way to limit the scope of our work together in this thread. You know, a specific measurable goal for us to focus on.

Also, if you want signups, the site needs some changes. The "subscribe" button and text is just to small. It is not jumping out at anyone.

I agree completely. Actually I get most of my signups currently from the confirm page on my ezine service, where I have a full page multimedia type ad. But yes, the signup form on the site needs work for sure, I hear ya.

My philosophy is pretend that a website visitor who finds your site will never find it again. You need to collect their email address on that first visit or they are never coming back.

Couldn't agree more.

Their eyes are drawn to the top left initially. That is where you need to put some kind of "call to action" for your visitors to entice them then to signup to your newsletter.

Ok, good plan, I like it. I'll have to design a form that will fit at the top of each article. Bring the form out from behind the hidden panel. Agreed, agreed.

This is really the first case I have run into where in my mind, there isn't a viable search engine market for this. I could be totally wrong, but I don't think people are searching for "Ghana charities" or "How can I give money to improve the country of Ghana".

I'm still not sure what you mean by viable, but a site all about Ghana would seem to bring in folks that are at least interested in Ghana. Perhaps a newsletter could be the mechanism to sort further to find the contributor types? Dunno.

I think you have a similar case here. People may be searching for things like "nature hikes" that you could target, but those kind of phrases probably have a ridiculous amount of competition. You could very well rank highly for them, but it might take a year or longer.

Well, this might help. Nature could possibly be the broadest topic there is, as it includes all of reality. :-) This seems very different, perhaps the opposite, of the small very targeted sites you seem to focus on.

I'm thinking in terms of tens of thousands of pages, tens of thousands of links, tens of thousands of visitors. Low profit topic, requiring high traffic.

What we are proposing to this potential client is the same thing I would propose in your case. Social Media Marketing.

Oh dear, you've hit my biggest weak point. I'm still trying, struggling, to remain open to social sites, but honestly, I seem incapable of understanding what is fun about Twitter and Facebook.

I LOVE forums, as we can have real conversations here, rich with real content. The social sites seem to be mostly tidal waves of little blurbs of nothingness. VERY popular obviously, but not so much to me, Professor Blowhard. :-)

Not to rain on the parade, just full disclosure about the scope of the challenge here. I don't get social sites.

One interesting fact about Facebook, I forget the number of users on there right now (I think it is over 600 million now), but over 50% of the users of Facebook log on everyday.

Clearly that's VERY impressive. Numbers like that are why I'm still trying to be open minded.

All that said, with a little guidance and encouragement I could give Facebook another try, IF I could document some real results. I'm still not convinced anybody actually reads Twitter. :-)

Especially initially, I think you'll find far more traffic through social media than SEO. Maybe you can convince me otherwise.

Hmm.... Let's see.

Well, my impression (correct me if I'm wrong) is that your focus and skill is with SEO. So, if we're going to keep this about you more than me, perhaps we should stick with SEO?

Using SEO to drive traffic to one or more squeeze page signup forms?

To me, this might be interesting for readers, as it would illustrate using SEO to plot an escape from the SEO rat race?

I dunno. I'm open to suggestion and direction. My main goal here is share an interesting conversation where we all get to harvest your insights and experience. I'd guess few readers here, me included, know much about the automated type techniques you are involved in.

Over to you, and thanks. Perhaps we can turn this thread in to sort of a sales tool for you? You know, something you can refer prospects to?

[MikeF421]

Perhaps we can turn this thread in to sort of a sales tool for you? You know, something you can refer prospects to?

I have a conference call with my business partner in about 5 minutes, so I'll reply to everything a little later tonight.

First of all, I stand corrected. You're getting plenty of search traffic and I'm guessing this site is something you've had up for quite some time. I'd be curious to see some of the stats of your site though. Are people staying and looking around or bouncing after seeing one page? A visitor's time on a website is something that Google says goes into their search engine algorithm. Also, I need to take a closer look at the search terms bringing in traffic, but I'm curious how many of them are bringing people to your site for what they are really looking for or does your site happen to rank well for some terms that maybe it really is not intended for.

Second, I'll tell you a little secret... I HATE Twitter with a passion. Me and the co-owner of my company talk about it all the time. I think it ranks right up there with the pet rock. Having said that, in my line of work, I can't ignore its popularity. Believe me. I wish I could.

As for your quote above, I appreciate the offer, but I really wouldn't most of my prospects to read this. I learned this the hard way. When we first started out we would give clients a detailed plan of what we do as far as SEO goes. I lost two clients because of it. You see their sister's, brother's, uncle's neighbor's kid "knows a lot about computers". So they figured instead of paying us to do the work they could give the plan to their little computer guru who could implement it at a much cheaper cost. Of course having our plan, was really like just having the ingredients to a really good dish without having the whole recipe. So they tried it, it didn't work, then they told me that we didn't know what we were doing. We never got them back as a client.

Now I tell clients that we don't do anything illegal or unethical. That's all they need to know really. What I also didn't realize when I first started out was that these people really didn't care that much how we did what we did. They just wanted to see results.

I don't ask my mechanic how he replaced the head gasket in my car. I just trusted him that it needed to be replaced and he knew how to do it.

Ok... more to come later.

[Engage]

First of all, I stand corrected. You're getting plenty of search traffic and I'm guessing this site is something you've had up for quite some time.

Couple of years, work on the site has come and gone in waves.

I'd be curious to see some of the stats of your site though. Are people staying and looking around or bouncing after seeing one page? A visitor's time on a website is something that Google says goes into their search engine algorithm.

I understand. This is complicated, and I'm not sure how to respond. I can look at Analytics more closely. My best guess is that the bounce rate would be relatively high because...

1) Lots of image searches. Google loads the page in an frame, but the searcher grabs the image directly from Google's link instead.

2) The site is not a tutorial, where you read a series of pages on a single subject.

Also, I need to take a closer look at the search terms bringing in traffic, but I'm curious how many of them are bringing people to your site for what they are really looking for or does your site happen to rank well for some terms that maybe it really is not intended for.

Not sure how to answer here. Should take a closer look at top landing pages perhaps?

Second, I'll tell you a little secret... I HATE Twitter with a passion.

Seems to be a love it or hate it kinda thing.

Not getting Twitter kinda helps me get those folks who don't understand why some of us pretty much live online.

Having said that, in my line of work, I can't ignore its popularity. Believe me. I wish I could.

I hear you. I'd be willing to do it, if I could see results.

As for your quote above, I appreciate the offer, but I really wouldn't most of my prospects to read this.

Ok, thanks for sharing that. I may be on the wrong track here altogether. Wouldn't be the first time.

Well ok, let's keep going as long as it's interesting to you for some reason or another, and then drop it when it's time.