SEO Pricing & Costs - What Should You Charge / How Much Should You Pay?

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1. SEO Pricing & Costs - What Should You Charge / How Much Should You Pay? - 2007-06-02 06:29:54-04
   

   Posted by randfish

   As someone who gets to spend a lot of time comparing notes with owners of search marketing firms, as well as referring a lot of people seeking SEO services, I have a somewhat strong grasp on the pricing & cost structures of the SEO business. That said, it's a very big world out there in search, and while my knowledge comes from a few dozen companies and a couple hundred referrals, there's no scientific or survey data contained in this post - it's all experience and intuission.

   
   I'm trying to save you from situations like this one

   I wanted to explore the world of SEO pricing models from both sides of the issue, so let's dive right in. First off, we'll take a look at how SEO companies commonly price their services, then look at how businesses and organizations should expect to pay for SEO.

   The 7 Most Popular SEO Pricing Models

   • Hourly Consulting
     The simplest way to price a project is to charge by the hour. Rates in SEO vary with the lowest, entry level folks around $40-50, mid-tier consultants around $100-$200 and high-demand firms & people from $3-500. SEOmoz is obviously actively trying to limit our clients by going way outside the norm and charging $1000 / hour.
   • Project-Based Consulting
     Many SEOs will use the business model common to web development agencies and charge a flat fee (often in several chunks over the course of a project). The total price is based on an estimate of time, effort and personell involved in the project. At SEOmoz we often charge in this fashion for a site review + keyword research + consulting time or for an on-site SEO training series.
   • Contract Services
     Plenty of SEOs offer dozens of individual services, such as Debra Mastaler's directory submission service, Eric Ward's link building & publicity campaigns or Jessie Strichiola's SEO assessment services. These offerings present a single price for a set amount of work, though I have little doubt that many of them are customized and have modified pricing based on the factors discussed in the next section.
   • Standard Profit Sharing
     Some limited number of SEO providers offer profit sharing based compensation. These frequently include a relatively small down payment to begin work and then a percentage of revenues (usually before non-essential expenses) from sales through the website. This can be a good option for SEOs who have great confidence in their abilities and are ready to assume a significant share of risk. We at SEOmoz have tried this in the past with mixed results - one big problem is that you'll need to ensure that the business operations, outside of the website, are running on all cylinders, which really doesn't fit well with the job of SEO.
   • Modified Profit Sharing
     As above, but modified profit sharing typically includes a clause that gives the SEO firm a cut prior to any expenses and may even set minimums of payment. Both SEOs and those seeking their services should be wary of any kind of profit-sharing deal. It's akin to a real business partnership in many ways and shouldn't be treated with any less weight.
   • Pay for Rankings
     This is one of the more interesting strategies that SEOs employ. The idea being that you pay one price for reaching, say, page 2 of a particular result, another price for position 10, 9, 8 and so on, usually with particular bonuses for #1-3 rankings. It really only makes sense for companies seeking to rank for a particular set of terms/phrases that they know converts quite highly. I suspect that searches like DUI Attorney Orange County might fit well into this system.
   • Pay for Traffic
     As with pay-per-ranking, a traffic payment system treats SEO very much like PPC. I like this model in some respects, because it does measure the SEO's work, but it can get messy as the quality of traffic isn't measured here (of course, this usually only counts search engine traffic, but still...).

   With those covered, let's dive into the prices themselves. If you're in the market for SEO services, there's a lot of factors that can affect what you should expect to pay, not to mention the great number of formats an SEO contract might take (as noted above). The following can all affect the price you might pay for organic optimization consulting or hands-on services:

   • Size & Complexity of Website
   • Size of Brand/Organization
   • Difficulty of Project / Competitiveness of Rankings
   • Personality Issues (if you're a very controlling personality, expect a generally higher price)
   • Reputation, Notability & Demand for the SEO Firm

   The prices themselves are all across the board, but here's my take on the general ranges:

   Service	Low End	Mid Range	High End
   Site Review + Consulting	$500	$2,500	$10,000
   Hands-On Editing of Pages/Code	$2,000	$10,000	$50,000
   Manual Link Building Campaign	$500	$5,000	$20,000
   1-Day SEO Training Seminar	$750	$4,000	$12,000
   Keyword Research Package	$100	$500	$2,000
   Viral Content Development + Mktg	$1,000	$7,500	$20,000
   Web Design, Development + Mktg	$5,000	$25,000	$100K+

   You might see the incredibly wide discrepency of prices above and think, if you're a potential client, that the prices on the high end are evil, greedy SEOs gouging customers foolish enough to fall for their machinations. Likewise, if you're an SEO, you might look and think that some of the folks on the low end or mid range are insane to offer such valuable, time-consuming services for so little.

   And thus, balance is achieved.

   Are there prices way outside these norms? Absolutely. There's ludicrous claims like this one (found on a paid search ad for SEO software):

   

   And more reasonable claims from services like Aaron Wall's SEO Book (which costs $79):

   

   Generally speaking, however, if it sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is (as folks like Internet Advancement continue to prove). SEO is a challenging practice that requires both technical proficiency and a great understanding of marketing on the Internet. The fact that very smart people at very big brands make decisions to pay $500-$1,000 an hour to spend time talking to the best and brightest (and, yes, most notable) from the field of search marketing is one of many great pieces of evidence of the value of SEO.

   If you'd like more, let me suggest that you start here :)

   Please do add your thoughts below on pricing - in fact, I'd love to hear this same topic taken on by some other folks in the industry, and though I rarely "ping," I'd be very appreciative if folks like Andrew Goodman,   Lisa Barone (not entirely sure if this is something she can cover) Andy Beal, Rae Hoffman, Eric Enge,  Greg Boser, Jill Whalen (yes, Jill, I'm pinging you even though you have yet to write something in 2007) and Donna Fontenot (along with every other SEO with a blog and an opinion) think about how to price, how to charge and where the boundaries lie.

   
   

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2. Action Items for the Engines from the SMX Conference - 2007-06-08 10:41:11-04
   

   Posted by randfish

   It feels cruel to give the search engineers at Yahoo!, Google, MSN & Ask more work, but I know that sometimes they might not have the best project tracking or distribution software, so I figured I'd be kind and make a list of items that need attention here in the blog, and they can refer to my post when they're wondering what to do with all their free time.

   The following are requests made to engineers during SMX Seattle a couple weeks back that I personally felt were excellent suggestions.

   • Parameter-Decapitator Instructions
     _
     I'm not sure that's the technical name, but this is certainly one of the items that the entire webmaster community direly needs. The concept is simple - provide a method in robots.txt to clarify that specific, parameter-type additions to a URL will be ignored by the engines. Thus, if Yahoo! was crawling along and saw the following URLs:
     _
      - seomoz.org/blog/entry-1
      - seomoz.org/blog/entry-1?referrer=marketingpilgrim.com
      - seomoz.org/blog/entry-1?referrer=marketingpilgrim.com&ID=44556
     _
     The engines could look at a robots.txt line indicating something like "ignoreparam = ID+referrer" and realize that the content at all four of the above URLs should be treated as the singular URL " seomoz.org/blog/entry-1" - they wouldn't index multiple versions and wouldn't encounter duplicate content problems from that indexing. It's really the best idea since sitemaps, and it's a long time coming.
     _
   • Commercial API for Organic Data Requests
     _
     This one's desperately needed by anyone who runs tools that request data from the engines (ahem). Yahoo! Search Marketing has a commercial API, so do many of the services at Google and Amazon's Alexa data. However, Yahoo! Site Explorer, Microsoft Live.com, Ask.com & Google web search all need to add this feature. It should mean a few million more in revenue for each over the next couple years, and it gives legitimate marketers a way to grab data that's accurate and accounted for, without skewing number of searches or ad impressions, etc.
     _
   • Webmaster Central for Yahoo!, MSN & Ask
     _
     Vanessa set the bar really, really high, so this is a tall order to fill, but I guarantee it's had positive returns for Google, not just in branding, but in financials, too. Personally, I'd nominate Laura Lippay to run the one at Yahoo!, and Rahul Lahiri would make a great webmaster interface head over at Ask. For Microsoft... Maybe Ken Headrick (granted, he's in Canada, but one stereotype that definitely sticks is the friendliness).
     _
   • Hyperlink Next to "Results" to Explain the Estimates
     _
     In my interview with Matt, I went off a bit on all the reporters who use Google's search count numbers as research in a story. We came to the conclusion that one good solution might be to place a "?" next to the results where visitors could hover and see a little box explaining the "roughness" of the measurement.
     _
   • Make it Easy to Sign Out of Google Personalized Results (without logging out)
     _
     You can use Joost's tool, but honestly, shouldn't it be more obvious that you're in personalized when they show them and easier to remove that feature without appending stuff to the URL? No one outside the search world is going to even know how to start with that.
     _
   • MSN - Bring Back the Link Command
     
     It's been gone a while, and using the suggestion for a commercial API, you could actually make money off of it. The data's useful, it's available to you, go for it! Oh yeah - Eytan... You owe me a little sometin' sometin' :)

   That's it for now. If you've got other requests, big or small, feel free to add them below.

   FYI - This week finds me in Washington DC, helping the good folks at NPR with their SEO. Wish me luck! I've got 20+ hours of meetings and training over the next 3 days and around 400 slides to show (talk about death by PowerPoint). Hence, email (and posting, unless it's at 2:00am) will be very, very slow.

   
   

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3. New SEO Tool: Rank Checker - 2007-06-12 11:37:56-04
   

   Posted by Oatmeal

   I've just put the finishing touches on something new that I think is a killer addition to our current arsenal of SEO tools.  It's basically a tricked-out version of the "Where's it Rank?" PHP script that I offered up for free ( source code) several months back.  The tool is pretty straightforward: you enter a URL, keyword, and what search engine you'd like to search and it will automatically check your rankings and report back. 
   Rank Checker
   
   
   
   
   
   
   In addition to the features the original script had, I added the following bells and whistles:
   
   • Supports Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask
   • Allows you to check rankings on all the foreign TLDs on the major SEs (google.co.uk, de.yahoo.com, etc)
   • You can either be forwarded to the actual SERPs or simply have the tool report back the rankings it found
   • Rankings can be added to your rankings archives
   • Ranking archives can be viewed, sorted, and downloaded as a CSV file
   • When rankings are found it reports whether they have increased or dropped (when compared to previous rankings) and this change is stored in your archives
     
   

    
   I also created a browser button that allows you to conveniently check the rankings for the page you're currently viewing.
   
   The tool is free but requires you to be logged into your SEOmoz account.  Also, because it's is a bit resource intensive basic members are limited to 5 keywords a day, premium members can run an unlimited amount.
   
   I've just got to add that for a tool that took a little over a day to build (oh, how I love my rapid development framework ) I'm really pleased with the results -  what it lacks in complexity it more than makes up for in replay value.  I'm hoping it becomes one of the resources that keeps people coming back day after day, much like the PS tool or IP2Loc.
   
   Edit:  I changed the name to "Rank Checker." 
   

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4. The New Direction of SES & An Interview with Kevin Ryan - 2007-06-13 16:56:29-04
   

   Posted by randfish

   Last week, I received some very friendly correspondence from the Search Engine Strategies and Incisive Media organizations about my irresponsible post on speaker exclusivity. I knew that I had done wrong, and to make amends, I asked if Kevin Ryan, who was announced last week as the new head of the SES organization would agree to an interview. Luckily, Kevin agreed and I sent him a list of questions over email. In addition, during the Toronto SES conference, we shared coffee over an hour of discussions about SES & Kevin's new position.

   
   Kevin & Rand on the Exhibit Hall Floor During SES Toronto

   I'll start by sharing our email interview, and then wrap up by posting my thoughts on our meeting (and some interesting, previously unreleased news about SES).

   RAND: Let's talk first about your new position - what exactly will you be doing? Are you chairing the SES conferences? All of them? Some of them? Will you be creating the programming (the session ideas and formats)? Selecting the speakers? Choosing the cities and dates? Feel free to give us as much detail as you can, as I know lots of folks are very curious about this.

   I'll be working with the conference chairs around the world to help develop and direct content. "Chair" maybe isn't the appropriate term for my role, but I will be involved in all of the above (selecting speakers, sessions, et al.)

   RAND: Your background has taken you through quite a few different positions over the last few years - can you tell us the companies you've been with and your roles with those firms (a brief few sentences or bullet points would be terrific)? I understand you've also got some associations and formal/informal positions with various groups - could you talk about those that are public?

   As you know, the industry is very dynamic and I have had a few interesting experiences. I've spent most of my career on the agency side of the business from small start up to giant holding company. Each had their own benefits.

   I have made an effort to give back to the industry as much as time would permit. I have worked with the IAB, AAAA's and SEMPO serving on various committees and action groups. In a young industry, guidance is extremely important in the early stages of development. Probably my favorite role was Search Editor at iMedia Communications and serving on the Ad:Tech advisory board. My experience in those two roles definitely influenced my decision to work with Incisive.

   RAND: What do you see as the biggest internal (i.e. non-competition-based) threat to the SES conference series? What are areas where improvement is either needed now or may be needed in the near future?

   The most important aspect of any conference or event is the audience. Maintaining fresh topical content is the highest priority. Fortunately for me, Incisive has a very solid team in place to help maintain and expand our position in the marketplace. I don't devote much energy to edging out the competition. That is to say, looking over your shoulder is no way to run a business. I'll be working with the Incisive team to make changes where appropriate and listening to our audience.

   RAND: As far as a strategy for the SES series - do you already have some ideas in place? Will we see the conference change substantively and how? Will it grow to more cities? Take on bigger formats? Will we ever see a 10,000 person show? Do you want to grow vertically to have more specific, niche conferences?

    Yes. (note: I've written a bit more about this below)

   RAND: Do you expect the speaker lineup to change dramatically? Will you be asking more speakers who haven't previously been a part of SES to come on board? Could we see speakers who haven't scored well with audiences in the past disappear from the circuit?

   There are seemingly innumerable experts in the field of search and I am very thankful to the speakers who have devoted time, energy and resources to making SES a success over the years. As the industry changes, there will be new personalities that emerge and I expect to see them represented at SES along with the newsmakers and movers that have made SES what it is today.

   RAND: One of the big industry talking points is that SES Chicago and Pubcon are scheduled at the same time this year for the first time - is that of concern to you? Do those conferences have a lot of overlap or do you think there's plenty of room for both? Will you be re-focusing the Chicago show to help differentiate it ( i.e. possibly having a greater ad/media focus rather than organic/techy focus)?

   Chicago is a great market and I always enjoy my time there. We plan to design a conference that will be most relevant for the audience there and of course meet the unique demands they have stipulated.

   RAND: Can you tell us who else was considered for the position? Do you know?

   I am sure it was a long and well considered search.

   RAND: I promise this is the only time I'll mention Danny. :) One of my favorite things about Danny (and I think a lot of other people's, too) was his willingness to put speakers on the stage who had never spent a dollar of advertising with the SES or SEW organization, even over those who had, based on the content of their work in blogs, forums, discussions, etc. If someone sent in an amazing pitch, Danny might never have heard of them before, and yet they'd be there at the next conference, presenting their material. Obviously, this wasn't always successful, some speakers were great, other only mediocre, but it made the environment dynamic and the playing field very level. If you will be programming the shows, is this something you intend to keep? Or, should we expect to see that many of the big spenders with SES & SEW will have a greater presence on the stages (which is common in many other industries)?

   I will be programming the shows with the assistance of the Incisive content team. Stewart Quealy and Marilyn Crafts and other members of the Incisive team have been working hard with our group around the world and I think we'd all agree that it's important to hear from market leaders.  Quite a few folks want to know what the big providers and agencies are up to yet I have always contented that many of the smart minds in our space don't have multi-million dollar budgets.

   I would encourage anyone with a story to tell to reach out to me and our team will do our best make the time to listen (Kevin.Ryan at IncisiveMedia.com). Sure, not every idea or content pitch is a winner, but everyone deserves a chance. If that were not the case, Sergey and Larry's dream might never have left the dorm. 

   Content and sales live in separate worlds. Period. End of story.

   RAND: Obviously, to get this position, you must be someone who's attended a lot of search conferences. Would you share with us a few of your very favorite sessions and speakers from the past?

   Rand Fishkin rules! I've been to quite a few SES shows in the past, along with iMedia Summits, Ad:Tech conferences and a some regional shows. Singling out one speaker over another would be impossible. Usually, sessions with controversial topics are my favorites, anytime there is a lot of passion in the room entertaining and informative content will ensue.

   RAND: OK - Last question. Any chance we'll see an upgrade in the quality of breakfast and lunch at SES events under Kevin Ryan? Eliminate the growly tummy at 5:00pm problem?

   I'd say the chance of snack time improvement is 100%. What would you like? Drop me a line. Then again, it seems many people enjoy a liquid snack around 5pm.

   RAND: Thanks a ton for this, Kevin. Your willingness to participate means a lot to myself and the community at SEOmoz.

   ---

   As you've probably noticed, many of Kevin's answers over email are short and sweet - hard to blame a guy who's just gotten a new job with a thousand responsibilities, eh? (See - my time in Canada is already influencing my lexicon). Luckily, Kevin freed up an hour on Tuesday afternoon to speak with me about his history, his new role and his plans for SES. I'll do my best to share that experience without misquoting him (in fact, I'm planning not to quote him at all).

   Kevin and I started by discussing his background - his history with Zunch, with Kinetic Results (now Dexterity Media) with iMedia (Kevin shares his parting words here) and sitting on the board at the  AD:Tech conference series (a position which he'll be giving up due to an inherent conflict of interest). Kevin described himself as someone who's very experienced with the advertising and PPC side of the search world and familiar with, though less involved with the organic side of search. He presented himself, first and foremost to me as a journalist and editor who has a great overview of the search world in general.

   We got to talking about his new position and where he wanted to go - definitely a tough topic for someone who's only been at the job 6 days. However, he did discuss some level of strategy. Kevin doesn't plan to expand the number of shows or the cities in which they're held (at this point). His concern is primarily around getting a sense for the market and the conferences, building a great team to assist with the programming and decision making (more on that later) and growing the existing events in both quality and quantity (of attendees & participants). Kevin noted that the only expansion geographically may be the smaller, vertically focused shows, which he feels can continue to have success in regional markets. He also believes that the pre-conference training seminars are an excellent addition and plans to grow these at conferences where it makes sense.

   Finally, we touched on some specifics of the SES shows and even, possibly, the origin of the rumors for my post on exclusivity. Kevin said that he strongly feels that fresh content is critical to the continued success of SES, and as such, he plans to carefully observe speakers and moderators to gauge quality and enforce rules about content - during one specific dialogue we took, Kevin told me that a speaker who makes the same presentation one week at AD:Tech or Pubcon or SMX, then brings that same presentation to SES the next week (or two weeks later) is not truly providing value to the conference series. I'm going to editorialize here and say that it's hard to disagree - poor Neil Patel gave the same presentation with me at SMX Seattle and at SES in Toronto earlier today, and even disclosed this to the audience, some of whom had been in attendance at his previous presentation (to his credit, Kevin, who was observing our session from the back of the room, didn't bat an eyelash, but I suspect he'll probably ask Neil to come up with something new for SES Miami & San Jose). I'm feeling very thankful that I put together a whole new, 58 slide, deck for Toronto (you can download the 5MB PPT - "Get Dugg" here).

   The new announcement, which Tim Walsh, Matthew McGowan and Kevin Ryan all cleared for me to release is that Kevin will be putting together a board of ~12 individuals with specialties in the field of search and search marketing to help provide input on the direction of the SES conference. Kevin noted to me that he feels that search is bigger than one person and that to effectively grow SES and make the industry the best it can be, many heads will be better than one. Kevin also indicated that somewhere between 6-10 of those positions have already been either filled or offered, so the announcement of the full board shouldn't be far away.

   Now - for news of a different nature... I'm a terrible bowler. I know, I know; it's a shame. However, my unremarkable bowling has put me in Incisive's debt. How you ask? Through a gentleman's agreeement (aka "bet") I made with Mr. McGowan last week at the SEOmoz bowling/pool/shuffleboard party. If I lost, I told Matt, I would do work for SES, while if he failed to knock down the pins, his punishment would be toiling for the SMX conference. Naturally, due to my phenomenally terrible game (I believe I scored an 81), I am now reconciled to owing Matt's organization. Hopefully, my performance moderating and speaking at Toronto has paid that off, but it's up to Matt & Tim to decide.

   I'll send an email asking Tim, Matt & Kevin to try to make their way to this blog post to answer questions sometime in the next few days, so feel free to leave any  you might have. A big thanks to everyone at Incisive for not only their kind forgiveness, but their support and participation. And to anyone who says there's speaker exclusivity looming - get ready to fight these guys:

   
   Rand Fishkin, Jeffery Rohrs & Tim Walsh Poised for a Rumble

   p.s. Rebecca flew home to Seattle today, but I'm staying on the east coast (NJ & DC) for client meetings and won't return until next Thursday, so email & posting will continue to be slow - my apologies.

   Technorati Tags

   ses, kevin ryan, incisive, incisive media, search engine strategies, ses toronto
   

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5. Vanessa Fox - The Person to Whom Webmasters Owe the Greatest Debt of Gratitude - 2007-06-14 05:46:32-04
   

   Posted by randfish

   Vanessa Fox, Webmaster Central's long time head of operations, announced her departure from the company today. There's more specific news about that on her personal blog, so I won't dwell on it here. What I do want to do in this blog post, and hopefully in the comments below, is to express our thanks to Vanessa. I don't believe that anyone, outside of a few of Vanessa's close friends, realize how much she's done to help Google's public image, their bottom line and their relations with webmasters, nor do most of us know how much Vanessa's done to fight for webmasters internally at Google. I'd like to explore some of those issues briefly.

   Webmaster Central was not only Vanessa's department, it was her baby, her idea (right from inception), her show. If not for Vanessa, we might never have had the dedicated team of webmaster relations specialists (people like Jonathan, Amanda, Trevor, Susan & Maile). We might never have been able to send sitemaps to Google, see data about our sites (particularly the link data, for which Vanessa was always a fantastic advocate), verify ownership, select a preferred domain display or do any of the hundreds of other things that Webmaster Central enables.

   It's not just Vanessa's work, though, that deserves our praise - it's her empathy, heart and constant attention. If you've ever talked to Vanessa, you know that she reads blogs, forums and posts voraciously - and unlike many who might have held her position, she never brushed any of it away. When she was criticized on her presentations, she'd get upset about it and work to make them better. When Webmaster Central took flak for an issue, she was right there trying to make things better. Vanessa pointed out blogs to me that I'd never read, criticizing small issues that I was never aware of, and taking those concerns right back to Google. I don't know that we'll ever again see that level of dedication or true empathy for the plight of webmasters.

   Now's also a good time to thank Matt Cutts, whom Vanessa partially worked under during her stint at Google. Matt has done a tremendous amount to push the progress of webmaster relations and his support, too, has always been appreciated by our community. However, I would say that interacting with both of them, Matt, while more able to share specifics, certainly also has the tougher shell (possibly from the years of taking flack from crafty black hats). Vanessa, on the other hand, cared so much, so incredibly deeply about issues at Google, that you almost felt bad showing her problems or concerns. After getting to know Vanessa a bit more, I continually had the fear that she'd be up until all hours of the morning slaving over something that had affected the SERPs or reporting inside the tools.

   Quite honestly, I'm very happy for Vanessa. I wasn't the only one who noticed the incredible load of work and stress that she was burdened with during her last few months at Google, and I believe that Zillow will give her something of a reprieve (if you don't, I'm coming for you, Barton). I'm also thrilled to hear that she plans to remain active in the search world - it would truly be a tragedy to lose her insight, experience and personality for good.

   
   Vanessa Texts on 1 of Her 2 Phones

   
   Gorgeous, Green-Eyed, Mystery Girl Steals Vanessa's Name Tag, 2007

   
   Vanessa Fox Talks to the Crowd at the BlogHer Conference

   
   Vanessa Gets Interviewed by Rand fro WebProNews

   
   Vanessa Laughs Alongside Susan, Danny, Lisa & Matt

   And now, I have a favor to ask of everyone who reads this post. Please, please, leave a comment either here on her blog sharing your experiences either personally with Vanessa or with Webmaster Central. I think Vanessa deserves to know how much her work has meant to all of us, both personally and professionally (and often financially). Let's not her forget how much she did to change our perspectives and our interaction with one of the most important companies of the era.

   Technorati Tags

   google, google webmaster central, vanessa fox
   

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6. Whiteboard Friday - If You Build It, Links Will Come - 2007-06-14 16:25:24-04
   

   Posted by great scott!

   Okay, okay, we had some fun last week with the SMX Party Video, but now it's back to business...well, as much as a Whiteboard Friday featuring Iron Maiden's The Wicker Man as the soundtrack can be considered business.
   
   Rock n' Roll aside, Matt's back in SEOmoz Whiteboard Studios this week to give you the lowdown on some quick n' dirty link building and marketing tactics. While these tactics are effective for established sites, they're especially valuable for new sites trying to get those first hundred links or so.
   
   Enjoy!
   
    
   Also available on YouTube.
   
   EDIT from Rand: Amazon's Mechanical Turk is here, and we wrote a post - Long List of Link Searches - a while back that's highly relevant to Matt's video :)

   Technorati Tags

   SEOmoz, Matt Inman, Whiteboard Friday
   

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7. Search Google Without Personalization Even While Logged In - 2007-06-15 05:22:46-04
   

   Posted by great scott!

   Raise your hand if you've spent more than your fair share of time complaining about your inability to disable Google's Personalized Search without logging out of your Google services or accounts.
   
   Fortunately, for all those of us who practically dislocated our shoulders from shooting our hands up so quickly, Joost de Valk has delivered an answer to our prayers by way of his Google de-Personalized Search plug-in that allows you to search Google from your Firefox or IE 7 toolbar and get de-Personalized results even while logged-in.  Here's a screenshot of how the plug-in integrates into Firefox:
   
   
   
   
   This thing works like a charm, folks. Get it, use it, love it.  And a huge thanks to Joost for taking the time to make this tool, I'm sure I'm not alone in my gratitude.
   

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8. An Alternate Perspective on How User Data Impacts Google's Rankings - 2007-06-15 08:07:25-04
   

   Posted by Hamlet Batista

   As my previous posts and articles have tended to be too technical, going forward I will simply try to provide the pieces that are relevant for the discussion, and point to the sources for learning more.

   After carefully reflecting on the article that proves Google is using behavioral data in the search rankings, I did some digging and came up with some slightly different conclusions.

   First, let me state that I do think they use all the data they collect (or will collect) from search query logs, Google Analytics, Google Adsense, Google Toolbar, browser extensions, Doubleclick, FeedBurner, etc. to improve both their ranking algorithms and ads targeting technology. That is the reason, in my opinion, they offer all of these tools for free.  The data they collect is far more valuable.  It is so valuable that Ask is even considering selling this data.

   WebGeek correctly quotes Google's official blog:

   (Let me give you a little background. A few days earlier, Visio posted his reaction to something he read in Google's Official Blog proving that they use behavioral data in rankings:)

   "Similarly, with logs, we can improve our search results: if we know that people are clicking on the #1 result we're doing something right, and if they're hitting next page or reformulating their query, we're doing something wrong. The ability of a search company to continue to improve its services is essential, and represents a normal and expected use of such data."

   I am really glad to start seeing efforts such as Visio's. I hope there will be a lot more to come. We should all encourage other SEOs to perform experiments, do research, and publish their findings for peers to review. These are great examples of what we can learn from the scientific community. That's why they have all the credibility they have.

   Although I haven't been an active participant in the SEO community, I've been reading several blogs for years and I feel great respect for all of the experts. One thing I've always wanted to see, is more attempts to provide more facts (research papers, patents, etc.) and experiments to back up all of the claims. Search engines are black boxes, and giving advice based on opinions is inevitable and necessary. However, one of the most difficult things for people trying to learn SEO is all of the contradictory information they find online about the same topic. One suggestion I would like to propose is the creation of a site where we try to put together all of the SEO insights, but backed with sources (papers, patents, experiments, etc.). We can use an open source license for the content. The idea is to use this as a reference where we can link to and prove our points.

   Now, let me explain my different conclusion about Visio's findings.

   I think Google and other search engines use behavioral data for relevance feedback .What is relevance feedback? From Wikipedia:

   Relevance feedback is a feature of some information retrieval systems. The idea behind relevance feedback is to take the results that are initially returned from a given query and to use information about whether or not those results are relevant to perform a new query. We can usefully distinguish between three types of feedback: explicit feedback, implicit feedback, and blind or "pseudo" feedback.

   Relevance feedback is simply considering the input of the actual searchers to determine if the ranking formulas are producing the best results. There are different ways to collect this information, and based on this can be: explicit, implicit, and blind. These lecture notes provide a nice explanation of the process. Please read them for a more detailed look at the topic. It is very interesting.

   Please note that relevance feedback is used to tweak the parameters of the ranking formulas, not as an additional factor in the equations.

   Does Google use it?

   From the paper describing Google's original search engine Future Work section:

   ...However, other features are just starting to be explored such as relevance feedback and clustering...

   Google's well known use of quality raters for improving their search results is a clear confirmation that Google already uses relevance feedback on their systems. This type of relevance feedback is explicit feedback. Trusted searchers are presented with a different set of search results for the same query and they select those, that based on their judgment, include the most relevant results. It usually takes several iterations to get the results right.

   Now, to the really interesting part. The implicit feedback attempts to infer user search intent by observing user behavior. This is carefully documented in the lecture notes.This is an excellent use for Google Analytics (and other properties) intelligence data.

   Think about this. They have so much information on us and on our sites that they can get pretty close to what we are thinking.

   Bounce rates, repeat visits, retention, etc. are the best indication of whether a search result was good or not.

   Now, what is the difference between my conclusions and Visio's:

   1. I don't think the implicit feedback information is being used as a factor in the ranking formula. I think they use aggregate information to tweak the equation variables. When too many queries are not giving the best results, then they may alter the ranking formula.

   2. I don't think directly clicking on results will have a direct effect on the ranking formula for the non-personalized Google ranker. This would be very risky for them to do, because it will leave the door open for manipulation.

   3. I don't think a few websites' behavior information will have a drastic impact on the rankings. Changes to the ranking formula affect many, many sites.

   Mr. Singhal often doesn't rush to fix everything he hears about, because each change can affect the rankings of many sites. "You can't just react on the first complaint," he says. "You let things simmer."

   I've been blogging for close to three weeks and I have to admit that I am really enjoying it. I did not expect this to be so addictive. I want to thank Rand and the SEOmoz team for giving me the great opportunity of sharing my thoughts via the comments and the Youmoz posts, the SEO community for referencing my posts, and for the excellent feedback I've been receiving. You guys rock!

   
   

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9. SES Toronto and the Canadian Search Landscape - 2007-06-15 08:20:41-04
   

   Posted by rebecca

   After SMX, training Frenchies, SES Toronto, and getting sick, I'm back in the office attempting to tackle a mountain of tasks (I've never empathized with Rand more than I do right now). Jane and I will soon publish the so-late-it's-just-ridiculous coverage of SMX Advanced, but for now I want to talk about SES Toronto and the Canadian Search Landscape session.
   
   This session was pretty rife with Canadian search statistics (but in an interesting way). According to Ken Headrick from MSN Canada, Canadians made 12 billion search queries in 2006 and 1.4 billion queries in April 2007. Searching is the #2 activity that Canadians do (I'm assuming that the #1 activity is either wrestling moose or harvesting maple syrup). Ken also mentioned that, in Canada, searcher loyalty is declining. In February 2007 10.4 million searchers were uncommitted to a specific search engine, and the number jumped to 13.1 million in April 2007.
   
   Jeff Lancaster from 24/7 Real Media talked about a variety of up and coming search engines, such as Kanoodle and Miva, and regional engines like La Toile du Quebec and Networld Media. He said that local search in Canada is still in the developmental stage, meaning that if it's an underutilized opportunity in the United States, it's a veritable goldmine up north. Jeff concluded that successful search marketers in Canada use a well-balanced approach to search, and that it's important to know your customer and know what works.
   
   Guillaume Bouchard, friend of SEOmoz, talked about French Canadian search. Only 38% of French Canadians make online purchases because 80% of Frenchies purchase using debit, which often isn't supported online. The Quebec search landscape is more experienced than France, and Guillaume shared some search strings with the audience to show that a higher percentage of French Canadians perform long tail searches than French searchers. Montreal is a bilingual city, with 50% speaking English and 50% speaking French (if you go outside of Montreal it skews more towards 90% French). Guillaume then shared some interesting strengths and weaknesses of various search engines.
   
   
   
   
   Guillaume presenting
   
   
   Martin Byrne from YSM Canada said that Canadian searchers are more "conservative" than U.S. searchers. They are cautious consumers who will look at, on average, 2.5 brands prior to making a purchase--they are knowledge seekers and like variety, choice, and exploring the alternative. Searching also often leads Canadian consumers to new brands--the top ranking positions in search often convey perceptions of leadership, and ultimately drive traffic. Martin also noted that Canadians spend a "dismal" amount on search marketing, with 47% saying that it's too expensive, 27% saying they don't know enough about it or how to get started, and 20% saying they don't have enough resources to manage it.
   
   Eric Morris from Google Canada also mentioned that Canada has a less competitive ad market. He added that, according to Google's Traffic Estimator, French Canadian terms are less competitive and are more heavily discounted vs. English Canadian terms, which makes for a great ad opportunity. However, there are some subtleties in the French market, such as a more rigid grammar, more synonyms ( e.g. auto, autos, char, chars, voiture), and longer words.
   
   I found this session to be very interesting in that I didn't know much about how the Canadian search landscape compares to the U.S.'s. Paid search is really an underutilized platform in Canada, and the French Canadian landscape is even more so overlooked. Overall, I found SES Toronto to be a nice little conference, though I would have liked to see even more of a Canadian emphasis.
   
   Anyway, I'll end this post with some photos and some thank yous: Thanks to Ken Jurina and Matt Glass for arranging travel and a dinner venue, and thanks to Epiar, Acquisio, NVI Solutions, and holy crap I forgot the fourth company, for splitting the bill with us. Dinner was fun, drinks in Joe Morin's suite was crazy, and a 3:30 am run to Tim Hortons was scary. Thanks also to my weird cab driver for talking about various fruits non-stop from the airport to the hotel, and for insisting that I take a handful of jack fruit with me (I'm not kidding, he gave me four). Lastly, it was great to meet some of the NVI crew--Eric, Francis, and Matt, you guys rock and are welcome to visit Seattle any time (I really have to schedule a trip to Montreal to hang out with all of my new Frenchy friends).
   
   
   
   
   Rand, Mona, and Ken at dinner
   
   
   Settling the big bill
   
   

   
   Guillaume, me, Matt, Francis, and Eric (and Rand's head in the corner)
   
   

   Rand has more photos of SES Toronto that we'll probably share soon, including, I hope, one of the Link Bait panel that I participated on. Speaking of that panel, I thought I did much better than my first presentation at SEMpdx (I even had a cheering section!), so thanks to all of the folks who attended that session and gave me kudos. :)
   
   

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10. Web 2.0 Still Unheard of to Some Industries - 2007-06-17 21:23:01-04
    

    Posted by rebecca

    To those of us in the SEO and tech sphere, the term "web 2.0" is something we live and breathe every day. We pour ourselves into web communities, social media sites, and user-generated content and collaboration. We even make fun of Web 2.0, creating sites like the Web 2.0 Validator, bullshitr, and sporkk. However, it's easy to forget the fact that the industry we encompass is actually a small one, and that many other businesses on the web are stuck in 1997 Web 1.0 Purgatory.     
    
    For example, let's look at the fishing industry. According to FLW Outdoors , over 44 million Americans ages 7 and older fish. It ranks as the 5th most popular participation sport in the country (behind walking, camping, swimming, and exercising with equipment). 33% of anglers reported that they fish to relax, while 25% fish to spend time with friends and family.
    
    The fishing industry is quite lucrative--anglers spend upwards of $35 billion a year on the sport for trips, equipment, licenses, dues, magazines, and tournaments. Thus, it's not surprising that there are millions of fishing sites on the web that sell equipment and offer information about fishing and fishing tournaments. However, you'd be hard-pressed to find among these results a site that approaches fishing in a Web 2.0, user-generated fashion.
    
    Of the ten sites that hold the highest percentage of the fishing market share (based on U.S. visits, according to May 2007 Hitwise data), four sites have virtually identical layouts (Cabela's, Bass Pro Shops, Lake-Link, and Orvis--all of the retail sites in the top 10), while the other six ( wildlifelicense.com, michigan-sportsman.com, Outdoor Minnesota, Walleye Central, landbigfish.com, and the unfortunately titled Fish Sniffer Online) are inundated with flashing animated gifs, a late '90s color scheme, frames, and outdated copyrights.
    
    
    
    Hard to believe, but this site is ranked 5th in monthly fishing market share (2.44%)
    
    
    
    Even fishing.com, which appropriately ranks #2 in Google for the term "fishing" (behind Wikipedia, of course), looks as it if has been caught in an Internet Time Warp:
    
    
    
    
    

     
    Now, I'm not saying that fishing retail sites need to adopt a Threadless or an Etsy look, nor do the fishing information sites all need to incorporate a lime green color palette, over-sized bubbly-looking icons, and star bursts (see this web 2.0 style guide for examples of what I'm talking about)--after all, fishing is a rugged outdoorsy activity, so these sites shouldn't alienate their audience just to win a design award. The point is that it's simply quite obvious that these sites (and others in various other industries) have an opportunity to catch up to the new, user-centric Internet and reap the rewards.
    
    Think about it: how beneficial would it be for your site if you plotted user-submitted fishing spots on a Google map? Or if you allowed your users to rate various fishing equipment? Or if there were real-time updates of various fishing tournament standings? Web 2.0 is not just about design but user inclusion, and I don't see why non-tech industries shouldn't be able to dive into the pool and provide their existing users and customer base with an improved, quality experience while at the same time attracting new visitors with great features and clean, contemporary design.
    
    I'll close by saying that not all is lost for the fishing industry. Bounty Fishing, an online fishing tournament and community site, is attempting to bring Web 2.0 to the online fishing sphere, and so far it's looking pretty good. The site sports a slick design, an innovative fishing tournament structure, a members section that allows you to upload and share photos, write posts, and befriend others, and an interactive "Bounty Map" that displays prize winners and trophy catches. It's too early to tell at this point whether Bounty Fishing will be a success, but I'm impressed with the effort that was taken to try and catch up to the whole Web 2.0/user-generated era of the Internet. I only hope that other industries will take notice and follow suit, both for the benefit of their users and to de-uglify the web. ;)
    

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11. Google Local PPC Ads: Box Out Your "OneBox" Competitors - 2007-06-19 06:49:09-04
    

    Posted by davidmihm

    I came across a rather interesting discovery while doing some research for one of my small business clients today: it seems to take only one Local advertiser (different from a standard Web Search advertiser) to trigger an entirely new set of PPC results in Google Local.

    The easiest explanation is probably by example -- consider the difference between the following searches:

    dog sitters walnut creek ca vs. dog sitters san jose ca  

    When one types in a search term with a geographic qualifier to Google web search (like 'Dog Sitters Walnut Creek CA'), Local results often appear above the organic listings, as has been documented in recent months by Bill Slawski, Matt McGee, and  Blumenthals. The PPC ads shown on the top and right-hand sides of the pages are your basic run-of-the-mill Adwords text ads. 

    "Web Search" Results for 'Dog Sitters Walnut Creek CA': 

    

     

    For this particular query, Local search (found by clicking on the Maps tab in the Google Utility bar or the bold link that says "Local Business Results for...") looks largely similar.  The same advertisers that were on the OneBox results page show up in the same positions on the Local page.

     

    "Local" Results for 'Dog Sitters Walnut Creek CA':

    

     

    Not too fascinating, I know.  But look what happens when we try a similar search in a larger metro area (San Jose), with a slightly more web-savvy set of small businesses.

     

    "Web Search" Results for 'Dog Sitters San Jose CA':

    

     

    Now look at the Local Results page for the same query--only ONE advertiser! 

     

    "Local" Results for 'Dog Sitters San Jose CA': 

    

      

    What seems to be happening is this: Google's Adwords algorithm is set up to show 'Web Search' ads on 'Local' search results pages by default.  But if there's even ONE advertiser who has made the effort to create a 'Local' ad, ONLY the 'Local' advertiser inventory is shown, without filling in the rest of the space with the default 'Web Search' ads. 

    Google Local is obviously in relative infancy, and it's doubtful that Google will pass up the opportunity to show a hybrid set of ads in the future.  We'll surely be seeing more and more Local advertisers going forward as well.  But as Local results gain more prominence in OneBox results, and users become more comfortable with them, this far less competitive environment seems like a great opportunity for small business clients who don't have the budget to spend a ton of money on normal PPC.

    I would encourage small business marketers to take the time to create 'Local' ads in addition to (or even instead of) traditional 'Web Search' text ads -- not only do you get to upload a cool little custom icon for your business, but there's a decent chance your site will completely dominate the right-hand side of Local results.

    
    

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12. YouTube + Email Marketing = You've Got Our Attention - 2007-06-19 07:15:17-04
    

    Posted by rebecca

    While Rand was out of town he received an email from a man named Darren Barefoot. Since Rand was up to his ears in meetings, presentations, and consultancies, he forwarded the email to me and asked me to take a look at it. The email subject was "Can You Spare 88 Seconds?" My first thought was, "Probably." (Really, 88 seconds is not much time to sacrifice.) The body of the email asked us to spare 88 seconds to watch a video message that Darren recorded for us. Intrigued I was--I mean, it's not every day that SEOmoz receives video messages directed specifically to target us.
    
    So, what did I do? I watched the video:
    
    
    • Personally address your target. Everyone hates those "Dear webmaster" emails (In fact, today Scott received an email that said "Dear webmaster, my name is webmaster." Um, okay.)--they reek of laziness and spammy link efforts. Not only did Darren email Rand personally and address us personally in the video, but he made a reference to Seattle, demonstrating that he did a little bit of homework and injected a little sumthin' sumthin' to get us to go "Hey, we do live in Seattle! This guy must know us!"
    • Engage your target. Darren made quite an effort here. He recorded a personalized video and edited some clips from the Elastic Path videos into it. This marketing campaign was definitely something different than the slew of generic, vanilla emails we receive every day asking us to check out a new feature/site/monkey's paw/whatever.
    • Keep it brief! The short email and the 88 second video really made me think "Okay, it looks like this guy is going to get to the point quickly, and I like that." And Darren didn't disappoint. You need to capture your audience's attention quickly. Most of us don't have time to read long, drawn-out emails detailing every minute feature about your product. Get to the meaty stuff quickly or you'll lose your audience.
    Well done, Darren--you prompted Rand to make me blog about something he thought was interesting, and that's no easy feat (usually I just ignore him). Keep up the good work, and as for the rest of us, well, I'd say that this is an interesting study about how email marketing isn't dead after all--it's just requiring a bit of creativity.
    

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13. Overheard at SMX and SES Toronto: Superset Edition - 2007-06-19 10:45:14-04
    

    Posted by rebecca

    Yeah, yeah, I'm late in posting this (don't even get started on the comics--perceptive readers will notice that we haven't even published an SMX recap yet, let alone a collection of images and goofy speech bubbles). Please remember that Rand doesn't pay me solely to author kooky, off-topic stuff for our blog. (Shh, don't tell anyone. I don't want people to know I actually work.) For now I'll leave you with a superset collection of quotes from SMX and SES Toronto that I was miraculously able to remember.
    
    Quotes from SMX Advanced:
    
    1.  (when comparing the ability to find parking in Seattle compared to other major cities)
    "Yes, in New York you can't park wit-in several feet of tee red fountains. It is very annoying."-- Guillaume Bouchard
    (...the table is confused)
    "Red fountains?"--me
    "Yes, tee red fountains."--Guillaume
    "...do you mean...fire hydrants?"--Neil Patel
    "Yes, tee red hydrants!"--Guillaume (language barriers are so adorable)
    
    2.  "I hate squishing spiders! Cameron only uses one tissue when he smooshes them. That's not cool--you have to use like ten or eleven!"--a very manly Neil Patel talking about proper spider removal etiquette
    
    3.  "I'm playing with Matt Cutts? I better not tell him who I work for!"--Rich Devine, who, until recently, worked for Microsoft, after he found out that he and Matt would be pool partners against me and Cameron Olthuis
    
    4.  "I thought the Space Needle was going to be this huge building downtown, but it's a teeny little bitch!"--a disappointed Chris Hooley
    
    5.  "Tell Matt I'm mad at him! He said that strip clubs in Seattle close at 4:00 am, and they really close at 2:30!"--Neil Patel
    
    6.  "Hi Tim, I'm Rebecca. I don't think we've officially met."--me introducing myself to Tim Mayer from Yahoo!
    "Actually, we have."--Tim Mayer
    "Really?"--me
    "Yes...I sat next to you on the bus to the Vintage Tub dinner in New York."--Tim
    "Oh...oops."--me
    
    7.  "I never smile in photos...British teeth."-- an apologetic Ciarán Norris after I pointed out that he's not smiling in any of the photos I took of him (for the record, he has a nice smile)
    
    8.  "Can you take a photo of me? The thing is, I have a camera but I accidentally left it and I want to get a picture of me and everyone here and...I'm really drunk."-- Patrick Sexton
    
    9.  "Did you see Burt Reynolds over there?"--several SEOs pointing out Cameron Olthuis's new 'stache.
    
    
    Quotes from SES Toronto:
    
    1.  "American porn is so bad! There's no plot!"--Agustín Vazquez-Levi
    "I know, it's like 'Hey, niiiiice shoes!'"--Eric Amzallag
    "Yes, it is like 'I do not have money to pay for this...'"--Francis Vallieres (there are little things funnier than listening to two French Canadians and an Argentinian complain about American porn)
    
    2.  "Ugh, you're making me walk soooo far."--Neil Patel, after I dragged him to the CN Tower with me.
    "Neil, it's right behind the conference center!"--me
    
    3.  "Excellent job, Rebecca...and thank you for the muffins."--Andrew Goodman, after I mentioned in my presentation that a sports forum was surprised how a girl (me) wrote something funny, and I said that when I'm not popping out kids and baking muffins, I am actually capable of being witty.
    
    4.  "Squeeze in, everybody! It's roomy!"--Ken Jurina, urging about 40 SEOs to squeeze into two SUV limos. (It wasn't roomy, but it was still fun.)
    
    5.  "You think Agustín is chatty?! I have to share an office with him! He never shuts up!"--an exasperated Naoise Osborne
    
    6.  I get into a cab to ride from the airport to the hotel, and I notice a funky smell. As if on cue:
    "Do you like the smell?"--my cab driver
    "Um...it's...interesting. What is it?"--me
    "It's jackfruit! Do you like fruit?"--cabbie
    "...yes?"--me
    "Good! Not many Americans like fruit!"--cabbie (I'm not sure where he's pulling this data). "Fruit is very good for you! It has vitamin D, which is good for your skin, and it prevents breast cancer in women and testral cancer in men!" (yes, he said "testral" cancer)
    "...yeah..."--me
    
    After I get to the hotel:
    "Here, take some fruit!"--cabbie
    "Oh, no, I can't."--me
    "No, no! Take it! Take it! Eat it!"--cabbie (He hands me four rambutan, which look like intergalactic testicles. By the way, my coworkers and I looked up the fruit online later and found out that the seed in the middle is poisonous. Thanks for telling me, cabbie!)
    "Um, thanks..."--me, awkwardly trying to palm a handful of fruit, pay him, and grab my suitcase at the same time
    
    
    Those are the gems I can remember. As always, share your favorites in the comments below--just don't badger me about the SMX article (we're working on it!) or about the comics (grrrrrrr)...
    

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14. Whiteboard Friday - "You've Got Questions, We've Got Answers" - 2007-06-21 18:14:30-04
    

    Posted by great scott!

    Hey Gang,
    
    In our last Rand-free week of Whiteboard Friday, we've got Matt & Rebecca giving you the lowdown on our new Q&A feature we recently added to Premium Membership.
    
    They'll walk you briefly through just a couple of the 50+ specific questions we've received from our members, the answers to all of which are available in our Q&A Knowledge Base.
    
    
    
    

    
    

    
    

    Also available on YouTube.
    

    
    
    
    
    

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15. The SMX Advanced Recap is Chock Full of Nostalgia - 2007-06-24 17:46:01-04
    

    Posted by rebecca

    Hey, remember SMX Advanced in Seattle? Think back to a couple weeks ago. Danny Sullivan threw a conference in the Emerald City, some SEOs attended, it was a huge success...any of this ringing a bell to you? Well, if two certain slacker SEOs didn't have 8,000 simultaneous tasks to work on and actually published this article right after the conference ended, you'd be more excited about reading it. Oh well...
    
    Anyway, if you're into those "I Love the 80s" shows on VH1 and love to wax nostalgic on all sorts of tidbity information, then please, please check out our long and comprehensive recap of SMX Advanced. It's also listed in the Articles section of our site. Peruse through the article, pick out one obscure sentence, and then drop a comment below saying "Oh, I love how you mentioned such and such! What valuable information!" so Jane and I feel like you guys got some actual value out of this. Thanks.
    

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16. The SEO's Guide to Beginners - 2007-06-24 17:59:05-04
    

    Posted by mystery_guest

    (Prelude from Rand: The following comes from the lovely, talented Mystery Guest, who felt that we in the SEO industry needed, nay, earned a bit of her outsider's perspective. Thanks, kiddo - you rock.)

    A lot of people are under the erroneous impression that I am not only part of the SEO industry, but that I have an extensive understanding of SEO, in general.

    This is woefully untrue. I'm pretty much clueless as to most of what Rand does. I've just never been that technologically savvy. Recently, we were given an iShuffle by a gentleman at a conference. I think I broke the thing. When I logged out of iTunes and tried to eject the player, the CD drive on Rand's computer popped open. Rand laughed hysterically at this. Later, I found that after 2 and a half hours of trying, I succeeded in uploading only one song to my MP3 player ("Float On" by Modest Mouse. And yes, I'm sure if I listen to it enough, it will probably come around again. But that will be after I've gone crazy, and, fittingly, crashed my car into a cop car).

    So naturally, if I can't get one of the (supposedly) easiest mp3 interfaces to work, my hopes of understanding algorithms and search engines are pretty grim. But here's the real rub – even knowing as little as I do about SEO, I'm kind of the resident expert at my company. I know quite a bit more than everyone else, and when questions pop up people often come to me for answers. I'm guessing that a lot of you deal with clients whose knowledge is equal to or less than mine, so I thought I might share with you what I believe a true SEO beginner knows and doesn't know. Keep in mind, I'm simply basing this on my experiences, and consequently, all of this evidence is anecdotal. Also, I want to make it clear that I work with some very smart people, many of whom have experience working for major online retailers (the biggest online retailers there are).

    1. Keep the Language Clean. Some people don't even know what SEO is. Often when discussing what Rand does to outsiders, I just say, "Internet marketing". So please, for the love of Pete, don't launch into SERPs, trackbacks, 301 redirects, or any of those other terms. You might conclude that by talking that way, a potential client will think, "Ah! He clearly knows a good deal about this, even though I don't have any idea what the hell he's saying". But really, I think they'd much rather know what you were doing. Understanding breeds trust. Try slowly explaining things as you go along. A list of glossary terms can't hurt. There's even one in The Beginners' Guide.

    2. DeMystify the Search Engine. I have no idea why the hell Ask.com ads mention an algorithm. I can't imagine anyone outside of the SEO industry knowing what that means (also, the commercials ridicule the guy who doesn't know what the algorithm is. Why? Who wants to use a search engine that mocks them?). Most people barely grasp the idea that search engines are corporations – that they actually make money, and aren't simply an index that comes free with the Internet (like the phone book. Wait, does Yellow Pages make money? They must. Through ads, right? Hmm ... now I can't tell if that example is apt or not). And most people I work with exclusively use Google. Most are not familiar with MSN Search (and we live in Seattle), and I know only a handful that use Yahoo!. So they really, really aren't going to get that there's an algorithm behind all of it. The best approach when dealing with people who have this background is to make it clear what search engines really are and how they arrive at results.

    3. Not All Engines are Created Equal. Now that you've (hopefully) explained how engines work, it's time to differentiate them. Make sure your client understands that different engines return different results. And, true to my beginner status, I don't really get why this is true. I sort of think they should all provide the same info. So you'll probably want to explain that, too. Ooh – and they probably get this (since, hey – they're contacting you after all) but a lot of people don't get that rankings fluctuate, and, like the song goes, that you can be riding high in April, shot down in May.

    4. Nobody Understands Spam. My boss is a smart dude (I say this un-ironically. He's great.). He's had high-ranking positions at some major online retailers. He's also totally clueless about how spam works. A few months ago, we started receiving spam comments on our blog. "How are these guys finding us?" was his first reaction. He didn't understand that the whole process was automated (I had to explain "bots" to him), and completely indiscriminate. Then, as he was looking through the comments (which I think scarred him pretty badly, because they were pretty dark), he told me, "I don't get it – this stuff doesn't even make sense. Who would click on that link?" (Answer: anyone who wants to read about "crazy anal mortgage cheerleader beaver cell phone"). I had to explain the whole purpose of anchor text, and the role it plays in ranking for terms. This was shocking to him. Most people see links as something you click on, and that's it. Which leads me to my next point...

    5. Nobody Understands Links. We see them as something to click on. That's the entirety of their purpose. Few people understand that links actually contribute to rankings, and that anchor text is important (the only reason I know is that Rand made me edit The Beginners' Guide). Given to their own devices, their links will all read "click here" because it makes sense contextually. And most people don't know about paid links or sponsor results. They just assume it's Kosher, even when it's clearly not.

    6. Meta Tags Make the World Go 'Round. Okay, yes, I know they don't actually. But if someone knows only one thing about SEO, it's meta tags. The concept is fairly simple, so people figure it's the explanation behind everything (like String Theory, which is also likely a bunch of crap). So one thing you'll need to do is debunk the myth of meta tags. If you have solid examples of them not working, that would help. Also, and this is just me confessing stuff again, but I don't actually know what meta tags are. I mean, I think they are in brackets in the code of a page, and maybe they're somewhat like title tags. So I'm guessing that even people who think they know what they are, don't.

    7. Meta Tags II: Rise of PageRank. Like meta tags, people latch onto the concept of PageRank, and assume that it is the answer to life's ultimate questions (but, duh, it's 42. Seriously). And I just learned that it's named after Larry ...