Charles Sipe is an SEO Specialist/SEO Analyst based in Seattle Washington. I am co-founder of Sparkplug Digital, a Seattle online marketing agency. We help clients primarily with optimizing their sites to attract more qualified visitors and utilizing social media to build lasting relationships with customers.
If you would like to meet for coffee or have questions about anything I can be reached at csipe84(at)gmail.com. Follow me on Twitter at @charlessipe [Learn More About Me]
While there are many reasons that your search rankings can fall, some common reasons are that the website has not been updated recently, there are few links to the page, or the page has been penalized for manipulative tactics.
Part of Google’s algorithm is QDF or query deserves freshness. Sometimes a newly published article will get a boost because it is very timely. News is one example of this. However news from a year ago often becomes less useful and relevant for users so they can fall in the rankings. Additionally, if there are long time gaps between additions of content to your site, Google will not send their bots to crawl your site as often, which often results in fewer of your pages showing up in the Google index or a decline in the rankings of individual pages.
Another major reason is that the page lacks links. Having a strong domain can help boost individual pages of your site, but if an individual page has no links, it will probably rank lower than a competing page that has a couple more links (all other things being equal). Additionally if another page has higher quality links they can outrank you as well.
Thirdly your site or page may have received a penalty for manipulative tactics that are against Google’s terms of service. Using “black hat tactics” such as link buying can have this effect and it can be a lengthy and difficult process to have the penalty removed.
Here is an interesting take on whether your home is still a good investment from Gary Shilling.
-Housing has never been a good investment
-A home is a place to live not an investment
-Housing has gone nowhere for a century based on inflation and home size
-It has always been cheaper to rent than to buy unless you expect huge appreciation
-Younger people are waiting until they really need a bigger house, retirees don’t want to mow the lawn
-People aren’t forming families until they decide to move into a house
Finally figured out how to use an FTP client to upload files to a hosted server. Good to know.Sat Jul 31 01:28:52 2010via txt
In a world of over abundant content creation, value will flow to the curator. -Jeff Jarvis on Peter Day’s Business WorldFri Jul 30 11:04:03 2010via web
Wikipedia calculated that just edits equal hundreds of millions dollars of value per year. -Jeff Jarvis on Peter Day’s Business WorldFri Jul 30 11:01:12 2010via web
“Did you consider ROI before you decided to be courteous to customers?” -Ian Lurie in Age of Conversation 3Thu Jul 29 16:37:21 2010via web
Begin (social media measurement) by defining the business outcome metric -sales, brand awareness, preference, etc. -AgeofConversation3Thu Jul 29 15:09:06 2010via web
Just ordered a copy of The Art of SEO from Amazon. I’ve heard it’s excellent.Wed Jul 28 15:01:31 2010via txt
Just started reading The 24 Hour Customer which argues that time is one of your company’s biggest competitors for customers.Wed Jul 28 12:40:54 2010via txt
There is a battle brewing between the social media “purists” and the social media realists as to how important measurement of social media ROI is.
This was brought up at the recent Social Media Club Seattle event when social media legend Jason Falls took the stage to argue for social media pragmatism. He made a lot of good points like how at the end of the day business success depends on whether you sell more stuff (or services). He quoted an apartment building owner who says that if a social media tactic is not resulting in new customers then he stops doing it. Falls argues that there is nothing wrong with putting call to actions in your social media, like a big call to action banner on your blog that says “Now Accepting New Clients” or a Twitter link to your product page or landing page.
But is this short-sighted thinking when it comes to a marketing medium that revolves around relationships and being social?
On the other side of the fence are thought-leaders like David Meerman Scott who argues that no one ever asks what the ROI is of a front desk receptionist or the people who do lawn maintenance in front of your office.
Ian Lurie, from Seattle-based Portent Interactive writes the following in the book Age of Conversation 3: “Did you consider ROI before you decided to be courteous to customers?…Ponder the ROI of answering the phone?…You did it because you just knew it made sense.”
Albert Einstein makes a good point when he said “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
If Zappos based all decisions on ROI, they might not offer free return shipping, or surprise overnight shipping, or superior 24/7 customer service. These are all expensive activities that are extremely difficult to measure in their direct relationship to sales. However, Zappos has a long term approach and CEO Tony Hsieh knew that having the very best service and wowing your customers was a competitive advantage. An advantage that led to their company surpassing $1 billion in sales.
I think that it makes good sense that talking to your customers, listening to their feedback, and other benefits of social media will help your business in the long run. However, if you need to support your marketing activities with data, there are definitely ways to do this like measuring sales from a call to action like Jason Falls recommends.
Here is Jason Falls’ great presentation at SMC Seattle:
In Delivering Happiness, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh describes his journey in building Link Exchange which sold for about $200 million and Zappos which was recently acquired by Amazon for about $1 billion. The book is written like an autobiography and is very honest and open. You learn some interesting things about him like how he quit his first job at Oracle basically because he was bored and walked away from 20% of his $40 million share of Link Exchange because he didn’t want to stay at the company for another year. He also shares the lessons he learned and insights into his successful approach. Here are some of the marketing lessons I took away from reading Delivering Happiness:
Focus on existing customers Early in Zappos history, the company struggled to survive and did not have money for a marketing budget. So out of necessity they focused on existing customers. This strategy worked very well as the company grew to over a billion dollars on sales, mostly from repeat purchases. According to the book Flip the Funnel by Joseph Jaffe, 75% of Zappos’ sales comes from repeat customers.
Get PR by continuously wowing your customer
Zappos gets a tremendous amount of good PR, but Hsieh says that they did not actively try to push their messages into the news. Often someone would report on something that Zappos had been doing for years and it would spread like wildfire. By doing remarkable things for their customers, employees and even vendors they received a ton of attention, even though some members of board sometimes referred to Zappos’ unique approaches as “Tony’s social experiments”.
Surprise your customer by overdelivering
One way that Zappos provides exceptional service is by providing customers with surprise overnight shipping. Some customers’ orders are delivered to their doorstep the very next morning which provides a remarkable experience worth sharing.
Create a great customer experience
Early on, Zappos made most of its profits from drop shipping products to customers, however this could result is dissatisfaction if an item on the website was not available from the manufacturer at a given time. So Zappos made the decision to halt its profitable drop shipping segment and only sell items that are held in their warehouse.
Create a great culture
Working at a call center is not typically a glamorous job and as a result many companies have disengaged employees who are directly interacting with customers. Zappos created a great culture that focuses on the people of the company, which has helped create highly engaged customer service agents that provide superior service to customers. Employees are encouraged to take company sponsored courses so that they can grow and get promoted, and Zappos consistently demonstrates that they care about their employees by paying for a funeral reception or giving every employee a Kindle when they sold to Amazon.
Ultimately people want to be happy
Tony is interested in the science of happiness and integrates findings from the field of positive psychology into his business. By providing employees with a greater purpose and opportunities for growth rather than focus on monetary rewards, Zappos employees are highly motivated. He also understands that experiences contribute to happiness more than material possession, thus the focus on customer experience. Towards the end of the book he asks the simple but often overlooked question “what is your goal in life?”. If you follow up that question with a lot of “whys”, you will eventually get to the answer that is essentially “because I want to be happy”. This revelation has lead to the latest iteration of Zappos’ brand promise, “delivering happiness”.
I am currently reading Delivering Happiness which discusses how Tony Hsieh applied principles of happiness to build a billion dollar company, so I wanted to revisit some of the recent happiness research that is really fascinating. Here are my favorite presentations on happiness research.
Price is a terrible way to compete. Someone is always willing to go out of business faster than you. -paraphrasing John JantschMon Jun 28 15:18:40 2010via txt
Facebook is successful partly because they are willing to push the envelope and take risks. -paraphrasing @Charleneli interviewSun Jun 27 13:07:53 2010via txt
‘Keyword density is, without question, NOT a part of modern web search engine ranking algorithms’ -SEOMoz Beginners Guide to SEOThu Jun 24 12:40:38 2010via web
25% of searches on Google each month have never been searched for in the history of Google. -Udi ManberTue Jun 22 13:28:42 2010via web
Add buttons for social networking sharing in your email campaigns to increase referrals and traffic. -Adam Ostrow in MashableTue Jun 22 12:45:48 2010via txt
Attended a talk by Rom Brafman who wrote a book on why some people click w/ others. One tip is to be more vulnerable. #smartbizTue Jun 15 15:46:46 2010via web
If you’re not doing something worthwhile, it’s hard to find worthwhile people. -Reality CheckSat Jun 12 12:22:20 2010via txt
I’m giving away a new copy of Charlene Li’s book Open Leadership to 1st to donate $20 to Seattle Children’s csipe84@gmail.comFri Jun 11 17:53:38 2010via txt
Yes, only one I know of. RT @zbussey: Am I the only person who’s never read a Harry Potter book or seen a movie?Sun Jun 6 19:50:46 2010via txt
RT @Isaiah_Thomas2:Ray Allen ain’t on the court right now that’s Jesus Shuttlesworth…. “Basketball is like poetry in motion” (Jesus Voice)Sun Jun 6 18:32:34 2010via txt
Last week, the Seattle Chamber held the Smart + Simple Strategies for Small Business conference which featured author and psychologist Rom Brafman. Brafman co-wrote the book Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior and just released a new book, Click: The Magic of Instant Connections.
If you are a small business in Seattle, I highly recommend that you check out what the Seattle Chamber has to offer. They have a ton of great events where you can learn and meet fellow small business owners.
The presentation by Rom Brafman focused on his research on what factors contribute to people forming strong connections with people in the workplace. This is pretty interesting research because we know that individuals with good people skills often excel in the business world. What is not entirely clear is what makes someone a good people person.
High Self Monitors
According to Brafman’s research an important factor is what is known in academia as high self monitoring. High self monitors tend to adjust how they are based on their surroundings. They are almost like social chamelons, and one study found that when a high self monitor is in a room with an experimenter who is tapping their foot, the high self monitor will tend to also tap their foot. Research has also found that high-self monitors tend to get promoted far faster. According to a BusinessWeek article about the book it “took an average of just 18 months for high self-monitors to infiltrate the nucleus of their workplace network. For low self0minitors it took a staggering 13 years”.
Importance of Proximity for Connections
Brafman’s research found that location had a huge impact in how connections are formed. When your desk is located in the center of an office you more likely to form more connections with others than if you are isolated in a corner. This also has implications in the trend for remote work. Brafman explained in his talk that the most meaningful part of a meeting as it relates to relationship building is before the meeting starts. When you are having a teleconference or working from home you may not develop personal ties through small talk.
Vulnerability can Improve Connections
Another interesting finding is that when people are more open and vulnerable, this can help others more easily connect with an individual. For instance when someone asks you how you are doing and you open up, this can improve the likelihood of a stronger connection.
An interesting fact that Brafman closed with is that in 1986 when people were asked how many confidants they had that they felt they could open up to, the number was 3. The same survey was taken in 2004 and the number was zero (I think zero was the most common answer).
One of the key indicators that an SEO campaign is moving the needle for your business is the return on investment. According to Investopedia ROI is calculated by the formula:
(Gain from investment)-(Cost of investment)/(Cost of investment)
While it can be difficult to measure the exact amount of value that is generated from a specific SEO campaign, there are several ways to get an approximate measure of the value generated, which can help determine if an SEO campaign is worth the cost.
1. Return= Annual Traffic Increase X (estimated value of a visit)
If you estimate the value of a visit at worth 10 cents, you can multiply this by the annual increase in traffic. Say that you increase traffic by 1,000 additional visitors per month (12,000 additional visitors per year). The value could be equated to $1,200 per year. It is important to note that the effects of an SEO campaign can last years. If you assume that this traffic growth remains for the next 5 years, then the return over 5 years is $6,000. If the campaign costs $3,000 the ROI would equal 100%.
The value of a visit could be much higher if you are in a competitive field. Say that the cost per visit for a Google Adwords campaign is 75 cents. Since organic traffic tends to convert at a higher rate, you could estimate the cost of a visit as $1.00. This would increase the ROI to equal 1000%. If you are in an ultra-competitive field like college loans, a targeted visit could be worth $25 or more.
2. Return= Annual Leads Generated X (estimated value of a lead)
A visitor who comes to your site through Google search should be encouraged to fill out a form to provide their contact information. You can offer incentives like a free whitepaper, a free webinar, a free email newsletter, a free trial, etc to convert a visitor to a lead. You can estimate the value of a lead by determining the lifetime value of a new customer divided by the conversion rate of a lead to a new customer.
Say the lifetime value of an average new customer is $1,000 and you convert 10% of your leads into new customers. Then the estimated value of a lead might be $100. If you can track that an additional 100 leads were generated in one year by visitors coming from search, the value would be $10,000. If you assume that the rate of new leads is maintained for five years, the value would be $50,000. If the campaign cost $10,000, the ROI would be 400%.
It is important to note that any single metric like ROI can be problematic. According to Dr. Pete:
We just have to remember to never get so enamored with one metric that we neglect the big picture. Every web metric that has ever existed or ever will exist is missing some critical piece of information for some set of situations and has the potential to lead us astray.
This post has been republished from Sparkplug Digital, a Seattle SEO and online marketing firm.
@skydiver This season of 24 was one of the best. I didn’t know it was the last episode of the series. Looking forward to the movie.12:27 AM May 27thvia txt
Bloomberg basically ruined BusinessWeek magazine. They’re trying to make it into The Wall Street Journal.1:00 PM May 26thvia txt
On the latest Twit podcast, @Leolaporte said that podcasting has plateaued by @Jason says it is just getting started.1:58 PM May 18thvia web
RT @sparkplugonline It doesn’t matter if you get a lot of traffic to your site if you are not converting that traffic to customers.1:20 PM May 18thvia web
@teachstreet Thanks for responding to my concerns. Most companies aren’t listening or don’t take the time to respond.12:54 AM May 17thvia web
Age of Conversation 3 is now available on Amazon! A collaboration of 200+ mktg and biz leaders for charity http://amzn.to/cLExF92:31 PM May 16thvia web
“Good design may get customers in your door, but great content keeps them from walking right back out again” http://bit.ly/9ieQ9r10:15 PM May 13thvia web
No more free listings at Teachstreet. Maybe they should take some notes from Craigslist.1:52 PM May 13thvia web
Did you know…Apple takes a 30% cut of iPhone App sales. -Fortune1:47 PM May 13thvia web
I was also going to give a graduation speech in Arizona…but with my accent I was afraid they would try to deport me. -Schwarzenegger1:21 AM May 13thvia web
Just received an advanced copy of Open Leadership by @charleneli. I really enjoyed Groundswell so am looking forward to reading it.3:20 PM May 6thvia web
You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want. -Zig Ziglar2:31 PM May 6thvia web
@Teachstreet now charging for their listings. Not sure if I will still use their service. I think they also take a cut of the class fee.1:08 AM May 6thvia web
Fit your entire message in the email subject line RT @Kenji_O: Do you have any general internet communication tips or best practices?6:19 PM May 4thvia txt
RT @JeffDye: May 7th comedy central presents jeff dye!!! 11:30!! Watch it or you’ll have 10 years bad luck!!11:30 PM May 3rdvia txt
Anyone know a good virtual assistant? RT @uschles: I need a Virtual Assistant. But I don’t have time to search for one.10:43 PM May 3rdvia txt
As much as you physically can, respond and be thankful to everyone who has taken the time to mention you -Six Pixels of Separation3:24 PM May 3rdvia txt
Indecision is the greatest thief of opportunity. -Dan Miller6:17 PM May 2ndvia txt
Focus on building community, not traffic. -Six Pixels of Separation3:17 PM May 2ndvia txt
I should get a badge. Read over 1000 tweets on my phone today.1:00 AM May 1stvia txt
Rework is a great book from the founders of the successful web company 37 signals. I really like the contrarian ideas from the book like “how drug dealers get it right” because it is great to get a fresh perspective on business. I also like how Jason and David get straight to the point and don’t waste a lot of pages with fluff like most business books. There are a ton of great ideas in this book and some ideas that you will probably disagree with, but it will definitely get you thinking and possibly lead you to question some of the widely accepted ideas in business and marketing.
Take the Anti-Position
Several companies have been successful by taking an adversarial approach to their competition or the entire industry. Apple vs PC and 7-Up, the Uncola are a few examples of companies who have taken an opposing position. The authors also point out that people tend to like conflict and this can get people to pay attention.
This idea goes way back to Al Ries and Jack Trout’s classic book Positioning. When you separate yourself from the competition is helps consumers form a better idea of how you are different from others in your industry.
Marketing Is Not A Department
Jason and David say that marketing should not be a function of the marketing team but a part of everything the company does from answering the telephone to the quality of the product.
This is not a new idea but an important idea that is not talked about enough. Most companies tend to hand off responsibility of marketing to the marketing team after the product has been developed. This is wrong because if you are not thinking about marketing from the start, building a strong customer base can become infinitely more difficult.
Market Like Drug Dealers
“Make your product so good, so addictive, so “can’t miss” that giving customer a small free taste makes them come back with cash in hand…You should know that people will come back for more. If you’re not confident about that, you haven’t created a strong enough product. ”
I agree. Of course this helps if you have a really addictive product like Twitter, but if you don’t, sampling can be a great way to get people to step into the door and break down the barriers preventing people from trying something new. A mistake that a lot of companies make is that they make sampling too difficult with credit card requirements or forms with too many required fields.
Target Smaller Niche Publications
The authors advise that you shouldn’t try to spam the Wall Street Journal with press releases but rather focus on smaller niche publications.
I agree with this because niche publications typically have followers who are passionately interested in a specific topic or are the right audience for your product or service. Focusing on developing relationships with the top blogs in your industry seems like the best way to get in front of people who will likely use and recommend your product.
Marketing by Teaching
This is a great concept that suggests that by teaching your target customer about your craft or your industry you can build an audience that keeps coming back and are likely to seek you out when they have a need for your product or service. Here is a video of Jason’s presentation on this topic. “Instead of trying to outspend, outsell, or out-sponsor competitors, try to out teach them. Teaching probably isn’t something your competition are even thinking about…As a business owner you should share everything you know too.”
Don’t Listen to Your Customers
The authors argue that you shouldn’t listen to suggestions that just come from a few vocal customers. If you change because of a handful of unhappy customers, you could lose many more customers who were happy with the way things were before. “Your goal is that your product stays right for you. You’re the one who has to believe in it most”. They advise that you shouldn’t record what customers say about your product. If you hear something over and over again, then that’s when you know that is something you should pay attention to.
Just received a copy of Age of Conversation 3: It’s Time to Get Busy. I wrote a page from the last 2 editions of Age of Conversation. This year my chapter is titled “How to Convince Your Boss on the Importance of Blogs”.
Check out Age of Conversation 3 at Amazon. There are about 200 authors and business leaders who contributed including Joseph Jaffe, Drew McLellan, Beth Harte, Becky Carroll (from customersrock.net), Joe Pulizzi, Dan Schawbel, and many more.
This is a great presentation by Simon Sinek about how some organizations are able to achieve so much more than others with seemingly the same amount of resources. Why did no one buy Gateway’s flat screens or Dell’s MP3 players? The following video, which I think marketers should watch over and over, explains why.
The most important Simon makes is that “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”. I love the following quotes:
“If Apple was like everyone else a marketing message might be: We make great computers. They’re user friendly. Want to buy one? …Here’s how Apple actually communicates: everything we do, We believe in challenging the status quo, we believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use, and user friendly. We just happen to make great computers. Want to buy one?”
“The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have, the goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.”
So start with why instead of what when you are rethinking your marketing strategy, and this flip can change how people think about your company and why they should do business with you.
People do business with companies that believe what they believe because of our strong tendency to want to align our actions with our self perception. This is why people who identify themselves as Republicans or Democrats, will vote against their self-interest. We don’t want to experience what psychologists call cognitive dissonance – “the uncomfortable feeling of holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously” (Wikipedia). Therefore companies that have a strong identity often become very strong brands.
Prolific podcaster, writer, and all around nice guy, Joseph Jaffe recently released his third marketing book entitled Flip the Funnel. This book mainly focuses on the idea of flipping the sales funnel to focus marketing on existing customers. The reasoning for this shift in marketing strategy is sound: existing customers are far less expensive than acquiring new customers and highly satisfied customers can become a powerful sales force that will attract new customers.
My Review of Flip the Funnel
This book provides a solid argument changing your marketing strategy, although I found it somewhat tedious to read because Jaffe would often switch between straight talk to a overly complicated and corporate-like writing style. I personally think this book could have cut out a hundred pages and been equally effective. I would say about half of the case studies have been beaten to death, but there are also some fresh case studies that you probably haven’t heard of like how CEO Bill Marriott’s blog has earned more than $5 million for Marriott from people who clicked through to the reservation page after viewing his blog.
Key Takeaways:
Shift marketing spend from acquiring new customers to wowing existing customers
Jaffe describes the current norm where disproportionate amount of marketing dollars is going toward acquiring new customers, even though existing customers account for about 65 to 75 percent of revenue. For example just 12 percent of shoppers account for 80 percent of Coke sales. Jaffe writes:
“We pull out all the stops to woo a stranger to sample our wares, yet we ignore the very people who essentially fund our acquisition efforts”
Enthusiastic customers often increase new customers through their recommendations, which could be a more effective acquisition strategy than what Jaffe calls “fishing with a wide net that is full of holes”.
Reward customers for generating new customers
Jaffe advocates rewarding customers who provide referrals or spread the word about your business. This can be a monetary reward or a virtual currency like points. Jaffe writes:
“For the most part – the existing investment into customer referrals has until now been essentially zero.”
“You’ll need to figure out ways to formalize structure and ultimately incent people who are inclined to talk about you.”
Customer service should have its priority elevated
Customer service is often neglected and treated as a cost center even though it is one of the best opportunities to have a direct conversation with your customer. Jaffe talks about the remarkable insurance company USAA, where 95 percent of customers plan to be lifelong members. One employee worked 600 hours of overtime in a year and customer service reps have been known to help customers with totally unrelated issues.
Jaffe writes:
“Give them [employees] the freedom and confidence to go beyond the manual or playbook” to describe how companies can improve their customer service.
Full disclosure: I received a review copy
n SEO Specialist/SEO Analyst based in Seattle Washington. I am co-founder of Sparkplug Digital, a Seattle online marketing agency. We help clients primarily with optimizing their sites to attract more qualified visitors and utilizing social media to build lasting relationships with customers.
l media “purists” and the social media realists as to how important measurement of social media ROI is.
, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh describes his journey in building Link Exchange which sold for about $200 million and Zappos which was recently acquired by Amazon for about $1 billion. The book is written like an autobiography and is very honest and open. You learn some interesting things about him like how he quit his first job at Oracle basically because he was bored and walked away from 20% of his $40 million share of Link Exchange because he didn’t want to stay at the company for another year. He also shares the lessons he learned and insights into his successful approach. Here are some of the marketing lessons I took away from reading Delivering Happiness:
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Last week, the Seattle Chamber held the Smart + Simple Strategies for Small Business conference which featured author and psychologist Rom Brafman. Brafman co-wrote the book Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior and just released a new book, Click: The Magic of Instant Connections.
One of the key indicators that an SEO campaign is moving the needle for your business is the return on investment. According to Investopedia ROI is calculated by the formula:
ght work is like discovering your own soul in the world.” –Sir Thomas Moore
