Those of you who’ve been marketing on the Internet since the 1990’s will remember the hazy far off days when “meta descriptions” where SEO magic, the biggest news on the news sites was somebody called Monica and a mysterious Presidential stain on her dress, and Linux was going to take over the desktop within 12 to 18 months.

In 2010 things are different, right?  Meta descriptions are out, nobody remembers Monica – or her dress,  and Linux has taken over the desktop.

Actually, that last line is complete bollocks.  It should read nobody cares about Monica, her dress or that President and Linux-ists are still predicting the takeover of the desktop in – just another couple of years (they are lovable idiots).

A preamble on SEO Black/Grey/Blue/White.  If you read this, or any other site with similar content, looking for clues on how to game the system AND STUFF THINGS UP FOR ALL OF US then I am hoping the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits and your chooks (chickens) turn into Emus and peck your dunny (toilet) down.

But Meta Descriptions?

They’re back, in a sense.  So are meta keywords too. Not in the same way we used them in the 1990’s, but more subtle and much, much more powerful for ISV websites.

Meta Descriptions are those snippets of text you see in search results beneath a site link.  Some time back Google said they didn’t use them as a ranking factor and nobody seemed to bother anymore – except me, well, almost.  Meta Keywords are tags embedded in HTML and designed to give a search engine an anchor on which to determine what a site is about.

Search engines evolved, Google in particular, and their methods of parsing text for relevancy evolved right along with them.  It was only natural that as the SEO spammers abused Meta Descriptions and more often Meta Keywords that they’d be relegated to the scrapheap along with pure HTML websites and the “Dancing Baby”.

However a couple of things have changed of late.  Google has started Personalized Search, basically using cookies to show you content you searched and clicked last time, and CMS software such as Joomla and in particular WordPress (there are other platforms of course, but for brevity we’ll call them all CMS).

These two factors turn the table on both of these meta tools.

First – search engine results.  A page that returns a relevant, logical synopsis – genuine sizzle and not fake stuffing – via it’s Meta Description is more likely to be clicked on than those sites who don’t bother or shove a bunch of keywords in there -which mean nothing logical to humans.

Second – CMS software uses the concept of tags and categories.  Both of these, due to “pretty” or “SEO friendly” page naming are rich follows for the search engine IF the content they contain is relevant.  Robots love content and rich links.  Be nice to them, don’t abuse them and they can and do look after you in turn.

Frequently CMS software allows these pages to easily have Meta Descriptions based on their content either auto inserted from the content (best) or entered by the site owner (don’t be tempted to scam here – you’ll loose).

Tags, using plug-ins in a CMS package can be turned into Meta Keywords.  Two years of experimenting with this has paid off.  The formula is simple:

• The Page Link accurately describes the page content.

• The Meta Description accurately describes or summarizes the page content.
• The Meta Tags provide links to other relevant pages and perform a minor role as Meta Tags (requires automation for best results).  The reason here, as far as I can tell, is purely reinforcement.  On their own the Meta Tags are useless – almost.  But combined they seem to have an effect.  Valuable if inserted automaticaly from content.

You’ll notice from the above the word “relevant” is used in each bullet point.  That’s because, at the end of the day, relevancy, hard work and honesty increasingly count more in SEO – though they have always counted for something – than ever before.

In fact, these items probably make up most of the value of content rich websites to the engines.  All of my tags and meta keywords on my sites, and of course meta descriptions, are inserted automatically.  The tags, unless I specify otherwise, are checked via automation with Yahoo and scored on what people are searching for.  Often some odd ball tags/meta keywords are inserted.  But you’d be surprised at the combinations people use when searching.

Keep in mind – at all times though – that irrelevant traffic is irrelevant.  Try and constrain yourself to the people you are trying to market to.  Nobody needs bandwidth soaks from streams of disinterested clicks.

Scott Kane

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Q. What do you call an xhtml document with a spade in it’s head?
A. <head>a spade</head>

1. Google Local Search

If you sell local specifically this is critical.  Not going to be helpful for those targeting internationally though.

2 Webpage Load Time

There have been some hints from Google’s Matt Cutts that how fast a website takes to load may affect its ranking.  In other words the faster a site loads the better the chance of getting a decent rank for your niche keywords.  Some things about Google really get my goat.  For small companies server load time can be extremely hard to manage.  Mostly because the majority of small ISV’s are on either VPS’ on overloaded networks, shared hosting or a little dedicated box hidden in the water closet of a datacenter somewhere in downtown Dallas.

However them’s the breaks.  Looks like this could get important with the theory being concocted that fast loading websites are delivered by a “reputable web host and fast internet connection.”  Which says quite a bit about the hosting industry. 

3. Social Media

As the world grapples with the social and moral implications of “social media” you don’t need to be Nostrildamus <misspelling intentional> to see it’s the new shiny thing for 2010, as it was in 2009.  In theory social media has become an essential tool to reach out, communicate, build trust and build relationships with consumers.  It’s also a phenomenal time sink waiting to suck in the unwary into futile exchanges.  Use it carefully – but use it.  Facebook and Twitter in particular are proving so far to be worthwhile sources for secondary results in the engines.  Buzz words emerging = “Micro Targeting” and “Personalization”.

4. Mobile Users

Mobile communications is a still growing market that’s already significant.  Despite Apple’s marketing destroying the definition of the industries abbreviation “App” for application – I’m already meeting consumers correcting me in conversations for saying I’m writing an “app” – “For the iPhone!!”, they shout enthused.  When  I answer “no , for the PC”  they declare “…if it’s not  for an iPhone it’s not an “app”".  Grrrrrrr!

You are going to have to make sure your site loads cleanly at 800×600.  Just as 22” widescreen becomes almost entry level some ning nong shrinks our real estate again.  Some folks seem to be opting for a compromise here and getting and using a sub domain like mobile.xyz.com and sticking something friendly in there.  If you’re running an RSS driven site this is easy – but be careful of duplicate data lest the Google Police get on your case.

5 Analytically

I’m not a fan of Google Analytics as such – mostly because I cringe at the idea of Google having my data and the EULA they wrote to accompany it.  But Google isn’t the only player in town and if you’re like me and hate external data collection of your logs then you can take a look at PIWIK   – Click Here to investigate – It’s free, open source and it runs on your own server.  Adds a load to your MySQL databases and CPU but if you’ve got the resources available it’s quite a good tool (I run it in conjunction with standard Apache logs and some WordPress stats programs).

The idea of analytic tools is to answer the “how” as opposed to the “why”.  What that means is you can see how many and who visited a page on your site but it won’t necessarily tell you why they didn’t actually buy anything.  Don’t hold your breath while waiting for the latter tool. 

Dissecting your data is however, jokes aside, a powerful way of understanding visitor reactions to websites and pages.  Things such as trends, stickiness of a site and geo-location to name but a few can go a long way towards helping us understand our customers.  From this we can improve and test – or rinse and repeat if you like – and improve the visitors experience and with diligence increase sales.

6  www vs. http

Here’s an odd one from the people who brought you “WordPress”.  WordPress MU doesn’t support “www”.  It will redirect you to “http” without the “www” every time.  Sure you can hack the PHP but next update it’ll change back again as your hacks are overwritten.  This doesn’t seem to have surfaced in the single site/blog edition of standard WordPress yet – but as the code is now merged it’s probably only a matter of time.

Why?  Security?  Big Internet wide bug?  Nope.  Because “www” is unnecessary according the FOS Unix-head developers at Automatic.  I love WordPress, don’t get me wrong and have a lot of respect for the team who produce it – but come on!  Why redefine a web convention for the hell of it.  Because it’s “unnecessary” is not a reason.  It’s dunderheaded and bubble headed and an instance of the worst kind of geeky arrogance.

The point of raising this is that if it becomes mainstream in CMS’ such as WordPress it’s going to mess your Google XML sitemaps up as Google gets narky about addresses that redirect.  That means telling Google for every site you run that the site “name” has changed.  For one site it’s not a big deal if you generate your XML sitemap automatically.  It’s a bloody nightmare if you do them by hand or run many sites.

7. Organic Search

Some folks are tipping organic search will become less important as some of the item points above – which only scratch the surface of “emerging” things to watch and do.  Personally I disagree.  Given there are indications of Google, Bing and Yahoo using bits of meta tags in pages again – not like the 90’s, but not ignoring them either, as they told us they were not that long ago – and the proclivity for consumers to gradually become inured to advertising due to seeing Google ads at every other site they visit, it’d be nutty to ignore organic search, in fact, it might just be an edge for some folks.

8. Download Sites

If you’re still trying to use these to “optimize” the engines for your product and, as most do, slack off on the SEO and social networking then you’re going to be overtaken in many instances by those who don’t bother with the download sites and have moved on.  Get over it – the engines recognize these sites for what they are – it’s time we all did too.

Scott Kane

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“A man was running late for  the office one day, so he was exceeding the speed limit along the freeway.

The next thing he knows his wife rings up & says that she’s just seen on the TV that there’s a maniac speeding down the wrong side of the freeway.

The man replies:

“It’s not just one, it’s all of them!!”

————————-

Rather we’re talking about the logo to the left of this article.

Andy writes:

“Am I the only one being totally bombarded with ‘Give your application the green light’ and related emails from Microsoft and its minions? I must have had at least 30 so far. I took a few minutes to list my product in the Windows 7 compatibility guide (beware, cheesy audio). But that is all I intend to do.“

First I can answer Andy directly.  Yes, I started receiving marcom (marketing communications) from Microsoft well before the Windows 7 launch and long before the RTM was released to MSDN subscribers.

However…

I have made use of the logo, but more importantly I’ve made use of the press release too, for a couple of reasons that I view as important.  Your mileage may vary.

1. The logo is a massive improvement over Microsoft’s previous logos.  It’s not to bad at all.
2. The press release that is a requirement to show the logo contains lots of juicy keywords.  Perfect material for blogs – and all of my product sites have blogs thirsty for keyword rich material.  At no time did I or do I expect the press to snap to attention on the reciept of one of these press releases and say “By George!  MixAction Software And Audio Pty Ltd products are fully Windows 7 compatible – STOP THE PRESSES!”  
3. I’m weary of writing two sets of code for multimedia support between XP and Vista/Windows 7.  If only a handfull of people viewing my sites get the twitch to upgrade to Windows 7 it’ll make my life a hell of a lot easier.  For that reason I’m content to assist Microsoft in their marketing.

So each of our products have a Windows 7 Compatible logo and accompanying press release.  After release of the press release I saw – and still see – poeple searching and coming into the sites with keywords related to the products but specifying “Windows 7″.  That was my intent.  It’s worked.  It’s not a huge number mind – but it’s probably more than my competitors are getting because they aren’t talking about Windows 7 at all!

At the end of the day – as Micro ISV’s – even a handfull of visitors for the ten minutes it took to rework Microsoft’s press release template are worth coaxing.

Will post soon on new product releases and a restructure of our company.

Scott Kane

When I released PerforMixer I included a EULA (End User License Agreement) that specifically prohibits distribution by download sites unless I specify in – writing -permission.

Such permission was given to Download.com and therefore their subsidiaries.

It was not given to any other site(s).

That didn’t stop the Internet trash – download sites – from slapping it up on their sleazy sites though – did it?  Regular, polite, entreaties to take down the product listing were ignored by most.  Forcing me to submit a PAD file to them that was not what one would call “valid”.

At that point most dropped the listing – either that or their visitor goes into an endless browser window loop when downloading and playing hell with their add income in theory.  Some however simply delinked to the PAD file.

Scum.

But this doesn’t come close to SoftSea – apparently the crème  of the crud.

SoftSea decided they’d be “original” and rather than copy the Download.com text for the listing, like the other unimaginative excuses for homo sapiens, SoftSea instead ripped the content off my home page.  Proving to me that the site is run by human garbage of the worst kind – Intellectual Property thieves.

Familiar Territory

This may sound familiar?  Brandon Staggs posted about exactly this on his blog last year – you can read about it by Clicking Here

In that instance it was SoftPedia doing it – in this instance for my own product it’s SoftSea – apparently the two S’s are an acronyms for Scum and Scum.

But this didn’t satisfy these pieces of internet H1N1 Nope.  They then took the screenshot of the program and stamped their watermark over the top of it indicating ownership!

The shot above is their site. The add for a competing multimedia company to the left (for whom I have no issue with at all, it’s not their fault) inserted compliments of the download sites reason for existence – Google – is bad enough.  But to stamp their bloody name on it is a disgrace!

But it’s the text that’s really go me.   See the screenshots below this one and compare for yourself.  You can click the images to zoom in and compare…

Word for word.  Now – this is blatant theft.  They are literally taking without permission a page that clearly denotes it’s copyright at the bottom of every page in the footer – not that it’s a legal requirement mind, copyright is in force at the moment of creation, but for clarity it’s there – and thrown it on their garbage site and them placed a bloody copyright message on it pertaining to them.

That’s two violations of the Berne Convention on Copyright.   Taking IP without permission and claiming ownership of it via a copyright notice is a separate offence.

Not to mention watermarking the bloody screenshot.

I’ve written to them three times and asked for removal, pointed out the violation and have been polite on each occasion.  They’ve ignored these contacts.  To add another insult to injury they outranked me on Google for my own product name last week – even though my site name is the product name PerforMixer is PerforMixer.com simply because Google was reshuffling ranking based on IP.  Moving my hosting to the USA had an immediate effect on that – 24 hours in fact – but they are now at position two. I’m working on that as I write this.  Another set of screenshots.  The first taken last week on Friday.  The second taken today.

The “People” Who Run SoftSea Are Clearly Garbage

This, folks, has been my contention on this blog since I began it in March 2008.  These sites will damage you – they exist to damage you.  They are run by pure filth!

With Google messing about with Geo Location of DNS IP addresses, and listing accordingly, this will have a massive impact on a hell of a lot of Micro ISV’s and their rankings.  Particularly so if you’re hosting outside of the USA.

I cordially – no I enthusiastically invite SoftShite AKA SoftSea to go after me on this name calling.  Instead of being secret scumbags hiding behind email addresses that probably go into black holes – get on over here and test this in a court of law, grow a pair.  I welcome the opportunity!

But you won’t – will you?  Nope,  trash never do.  That’s why they steal.

That’s OK.  There are other options.

Even though I’m not the only person who’s woken up to this – I mourn that 98% of Micro ISV’s continue to support scum like this through submissions.  That a whole industry exits to assist in this submission.

That “experts” still advise people to submit to these HTML sewers.

That Micro ISV’s actually go as far as to defend these shysters.

I mourn because by doing that they are acting bloody stupid – and they aren’t stupid, just blind.

Sorry, the writing has been on the wall for a long time now.  There are plenty of warnings out there – not just me.  But evidence of your own eyes tells you more than I or anybody else can.

Now, if you ignore what you see for yourself – then I guess we deserve to submit to the crud that are download sites. That sites like SoftSea will continue to do as they please.

We become Sheeple, following along and led by sites like SoftSea who abuse us.

Can you imagine what they think of you?

If you think I’m being hard here – believe me my estimation on this is mild compared to the utter contempt the download sites have for our industry.

Scott Kane

Quote of the day:

“Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.”    Chesterton, Gilbert K.

Robbie Burns wrote:

“The best-laid plans o’ mice an’ men Gang aft a-gley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain
For promised joy.”

Which means, if he was Australian and not Scottish: “Struth!  The bloody pub burned down, mate! Now what are we gonna do?”

I’ve been happy enough to talk on this blog, in a number of articles, about how writing content for my own websites propels them rather nicely into at least page one, if not in the first few results of page one, on Google painlessly and consistently.   So it’s only fair that I also talk about the converse – the opposite – when it happens. I’m referring to the sickening lurch that’s began just over a few months ago on Google.  Hard to spot because at first it’s not across the board.  It’s been slow, gathering momentum since April, into May and then the BOOM! in June.  What am I waffling on about?

Geo Location – Why Your DNS IP Address Suddenly Became A Liability

All of a sudden it was across the board – and getting worse from my perspective.  Keywords, even product named URL’s, became second class citizens in the US directory in particular.  Given that most of the worlds population of Internet buying persons are located in the USA this is a disaster.

It wasn’t just my sites either, so it’s not Google punishing me and others for some other reason – nope the slap down is because we’re “foreign” in respect of the US Google TLD.

Google clicks into my sites have dropped by over 80% from the USA, the UK and elsewhere.  But here in Australia they are massively up – which doesn’t help an ISV at all.  From what I can tell Google is ranking thus in the US Google TLD:

1. USA DNS
2. UK DNS
3. EU DNS
4. AU DNS (Australia and S.E. Asia and Pacific)
5. All the rest.

Now Google has used the geo location of the DNS IP for  a long time.  But all of a sudden this seems to have become the first consideration, then relevance as opposed to the previous relevance then geo location.

Google shares zero information on any of their changes, we all know that.  Instead we are left to run around like blind mice and it’s really made me lose my patience, for what it’s worth, with Google.

Due to the fact the Australia dollar had dropped 40% against the Greenback in January this year and because the economy was looking fouler than a chicken with no head I took the decision to move my websites to an Australian hosting company.  After my appalling experience with MoneyTemple MediaTemple late last year I decided to forgo my aspirations of hosting on a VPS till later as Linux guru I am not!

I’ve been delighted with my webhost CrucialParadigm in Sydney.  They are helpful, friendly and offer a good solid service.  For the first time I even have hosted clients on the server, which brings in another problem as those clients actually benefit from Google’s geo location dyslexia in that they target the Australian internet market directly.  But for my software sites, and even this blog, it’s not so good at all.

This week I made the painful decision to move my software site hosting back to the USA.  Happily CrucialParadigm have a US data centre.  Given it’s another server move I bit the bullet and ordered a Linux VPS.  While SliceHost is very appealing my afore mentioned Linux ignorance meant I needed a GUI to get things rolling.  So I’ve paid the extra for WHM and CPanel.  It was still tricky, Apache scripts for me are akin to black magic – especially when they mysteriously fail to apply and retain their edits.  But, the server is up and running, configured with some domains I don’t use in order to test and the painful process of moving everything across has begun.

Today is Saturday July 4th in Australia – we don’t celebrate independence day here, but Happy Independence Day to USA readers!!  So if you’re reading this just after it’s posted this blog is still on the Australian server.  However by Tuesday I’m hopeful it will be back in the USA.

Because of my Australian clients I have to keep the Australian server open, lest I create a whole new problem for them.  Given I only have a few clients this is an expensive proposition.  Gee – thanks bloody Google!

On the positive side I’ve learned a lot about configuring Linux servers, VPS’, WHM, CPanel, CNames and NS’ in the space of only a few days.  Which means, as interesting as that is, that again I’m not coding and it’s really getting my goat!  Thanks again Google, I hope this geo location makes you some money, as it’s certainly cost me enough by having to compensate for it.

Across on her blog, Sue Pichotta has a nice article on a fix for a bug in Firefox for sites that don’t always show the scrollbar in the browser.  It’s a simple fix too – Check it Out By Clicking Here.

Scott Kane

Quote of the day:
Life… is like a grapefruit. It’s orange and squishy, and has a few pips in it, and some folks have half a one for breakfast. – Douglas Adams

PPC KEYWORD DEVELOPMENT

I think people sometimes try to over-think keywords for their PPC campaigns. The truth is that the Google AdWords Keyword Tool is a great starting point for keyword discovery. Since a majority of searchers use Google and its partner network, the idea is to ‘go to the source’ for kw lists based on actual user search queries. Simply input seed kw’s and Google will spit out additional relevant kw ideas. Access the Google Keyword Tool at the top of the kw list in any ad group.

Use the Search Query report to further expand and refine your kw lists. This report has been much improved, and now displays more granular data. Users of the new AdWords web interface will have noticed that Google now shows search queries within the management interface. For better efficiency, however, I still recommend pulling the data all at once from the reports section. Focus on search queries that have received conversions, rather than just impressions or clicks. Filter for queries with match type showing as ‘broad’ or ‘phrase’ and then add these as keywords into appropriate ad groups. Bid according to search query CPA and average CPCs.

Additionally, mine Google Analytics, Omniture, or other web analytics reporting systems for kw ideas. Just as with using Search Query reports, focus on (organic) kw’s that have resulted not only in clicks, but in conversions, goals, and measurable value. In Google Analytics, select Traffic Sources, then Keywords, then click on non-paid, and lastly select the Goal Conversion tab.

Lastly, use all 3 kw match types: broad, phrase, and exact. Using all 3 match types gives the advertiser greater visibility and control into campaigns. Add phrase and exact match versions for kw’s that show a high volume of impressions, clicks, cost or conversions – or for kw’s that are core to the products that you sell.

PPC AD CREATION & TESTING

Test Keyword Insertion (KWI) in your text ads. KWI automatically inserts the user’s search query into the text of the ad. KWI can be used in headlines or in lines 1-2. Test KWI cautiously, and only in ad groups that exclude high-volume, broad match keywords. Example headline: {KeyWord:Morphing Software}.

An often-overlooked detail is to set ad-serving to rotate. Ads must be rotated evenly in order to be tested properly against each other. AdWords defaults to serve higher-CTR ads more often than lower-CTR ads; this makes more money for Google at the expense of the advertiser. This option is found in Campaign Settings.

Lastly, remember ad text basics: highlight the advertiser value proposition; incorporate relevant ad group kw’s within ad text; use a compelling offer (e.g. Free 30-day Trial) and include a call-to-action or implied call-to-action (e.g. Learn how to improve your PPC campaigns – Free white paper).

PPC CAMPAIGN STRUCTURE

A simple PPC account structure benefits day-to-day navigation, management and bid optimization. Consider separate campaigns for breaking out geo-targets, differentiating between different target metrics, or for reporting purposes. Always run Content campaigns separately. This is acknowledged best practices, since Content is an altogether different medium vs. Search.

ADWORDS EDITOR

Download and use AdWords Editor (AE) for: bid optimization; ad creation and optimization; creating new campaigns; adding kw’s in bulk to multiple campaigns and ad groups; modifying destination URLs for conversion tracking, and much more. Download AdWords Editor here.

GENERAL APPROACH FOR EFFECTIVE PPC MANAGEMENT

Start simple and small, and go where the data takes you. PPC is an iterative activity. The data determines next steps. If you started with one campaign composed of five ad groups, expand the ad groups that show click and conversion activity and leave the others for later. Over time, advance to complex and large. Expand kw’s, ad groups and campaigns based on what has worked. In terms of time and effort, feed the winners and starve the losers. This approach will help you best focus your time and make you (or your client) more money!

—Terry Whalen from CPC Search, a paid search agency

About Terry:

Terry is a partner at CPCsearch, a full-service PPC Management firm that optimizes PPC campaigns on behalf of its clients. CPC Search is a Google AdWords Qualified Company. Prior to running CPC Search, Terry led marketing initiatives at Citrix’s GoToMyPC.

The 43 Points And What’s Right Or Wrong With Them.

1. “Your PageRank. It’s irrelevant.”

I’ve stated here on this blog many times that PR rank is irrelevant to ranking, but your page rank I do not believe is irrelevant. Sadly the geeky days of deep research on the Net where people clicked beyond page one of the search engine results are over. If you’re not on page one you might as well be invisible and most businesses are indeed invisible – sadly those businesses include most micro ISV’s.

Being visible is relevant. What I see as I observe people using, say Google, is they tend to pay attention to the first three results on page one (yes, I’ve been known to peer over peoples shoulders in offices, libraries etc). The lower down page one you are, if they are engaged in this practice, the fewer clicks you are likey to get depending on your target group.

People who researched at school (late secondary and tertiary) *seem* (this is anecdotal not empirical) are more inclined to research deeper. Joe and Jill SixPack are not. These are the instant gratification sector of the community and therefore a majority on the net these days. If you are aiming at these folks then lower than the first few results on page one is going to have some effect on clicks. However… It’s relative. Being on page one – somewhere – is certainly better than being on page two or three or three thousand and fifty six. Not all my websites pages rank on page one for all the search terms. But for major ones most of them do. With many ranking in the first three. It’s not irrelevant. I’d be inclined to rephrase the first item here as “Don’t drive yourself to distraction about PageRank but you can’t afford to treat it as irrelevant either.” Like it or not any industry involved in marketing (all really) follows the tenets of the Real Estate industry of Location, Location, Location.

2. “How many sales, clicks or conversions you’re getting.”

Profitability crushes all these metrics. I can’t fault this. The only real value to this data is for comparative reasons such as A/B testing, or if you’re a consultant marketer who needs stat’s to impress their clients in order to sell the effectiveness of their services.   For micro ISV”s I tend to see, and it’s not a new trend, it stretches back to the 1990′s, a focus on how many downloads you get and the ratio of downloads to purchases.  This I would argue is irrelevant to most of us. It’s sales as a whole that are important.  Whether the business is profitable, expanding as and where you want it to, and of course how big your target market is to begin with.  Small vertical markets often generate higher download to sales ratios, which renders the often quoted “industry standard” of approximately 1.3% meaningless.  In some markets, for example one I was in at one point, the ratio was greater than 3%.  But that 3% wasn’t necessarily profitable.

3. “The latest marketing gimmick. Fundamentals > everything else.”

This is a classic example of black, white and gray. Some marketing “gimmicks” are only “gimmicks” because they are new – the latest – and ultimately a select few settle down to become stock standards. As in all things in life it’s a judgement call. Judgement calls are best tempered with testing, experience and an open mind.  RSS was widely viewed as a gimmick.  Web 2.0 was largely viewed as a gimmick.  Pet Rocks were largely viewed as a gimmick. All of these “gimmicks” have made a lot of people a lot of money.

4. “Achieving meaningless monetary milestones. Money is worthless unless it has a purpose.”

OK. This, as a philosophy is actually quite sound. As a philosophy.

As a guiding principle for living your life I like it, I subscribe to it. But make no mistake – if you don’t have milestones, yet want to achieve, then money or anything else you value is meaningful providing it takes you to where you want or need to go.

I shudder at the “Business Secrets” pyramid peddling, get rich schemers and their “Steps to…” <insert favourite scheme>  too. But we can’t dismiss common sense because an idiot with a penchant for over simplification (the pyramid sellers) with another simplification. Moderation, focus and balance are meaningful and like it or lump it, unless you’re aiming to be a shirtless pauper you’re going to have a time of it in this world if you want to move forward in business, unless you have set goals and an idea of where you want to be and how to get there. Perhaps that’s indeed what he means by “meaningless”?

5. “That feeling of guilt if you work less than other people. Only feel guilty for working too much. “

As a rule for workaholics this is quite sound. As a rule for the slacker masses – its’ an Epic Fail!

Horses for courses. You have to decide where you fit on this one.

6. “The keywords in your meta tags. Again, irrelevant.”

OK. This is completely wrong. Simple A/B testing for those who like evidence will quickly reveal why. Meta Tags are still important in SEO if they match natural content.

Now natural content means naturally written and not stuffed full of meta keywords in order to reinforce the tags – the old black hat SEO technique. Rather it’s the Meta Tags that should compliment the content because the content is about that topic. It does work, works even better on our sites if those Meta Tags are reinforced to more information on the topic on the site related to those tags via links that contain those keywords.

It’s very easy to simplify these things and make sweeping statements one way or another. But even in software development there is a finite limit to simplification. So it goes with these idea of meta tags. The search engines do use them, they are important but they’re not the end all and be all they were in the 1990’s and we’ve got the scammers, pyramid sellers and search engine spammers to thank for that.

The test? If you were a blogger you’d be able to test it daily… 

7. “What could happen. Care about what is happening.”

OK. This is where my inner soothe comes out.

I can guarantee that I can predict what will happen if you don’t care about what is happening.

Epic Fail!

But there is nothing unhealthy or bad about looking to the future and learning from experience the likelihood of a given outcome. We have names for such things and for good reason. “Budgets” are, whether personal, business or government, an exercise in “what could happen”. They are a fiscal forecast. It’s similar with product. If you can’t predict possible trends, or don’t try, into the future, based on past experience and current trends you’re not proactively running your business. As humans we shape our destiny. When we are young the future is indeed all rosy generally. It’s shiny and new. It’s “all out there”. As we grow older we have these pesky darn things called “experiences” and urgent, painful encounters with “reality” and “disappointment”.

After several decades of these one learns that to avoid a good many of them, never all as we are only human and “sh%$ happens” – we do this by “What if Analysis”, or “What could happen”. It is one of the main reasons why political figures and business leaders are generally, with a few very good and esteemed exceptions, leaning to the gray and wrinkly side of “older”.

8. “Search engine optimization in general. Seriously: set up a blog, install some plug-ins – boom! You’re done.”

I don’t want to rain on anybody’s parade here – but er – no.According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled.

Now. To put that into some kind of context. Most blogs are buried, plug-ins or not, way down deep in the pages of obscurity – pick any search results of any engine. To get out of that electron pile of trash one has to post consistently and with purpose.

Google, as an engine, in particular, is not stupid – not so sure about the Microsoft engines – and if you’re not producing content crafted to the topic, aren’t using specific tags as keywords consistently and not planning for your results you simply won’t get there. Any idea how many “starting a micro isv blog” blogs are out there in the Google results? 13,900 on Google. Yet only a tiny fraction are read. The most notable are on page one – generally – not sure at all how this blog got there Like anything, point being, it takes work, maintenance and planning. Initially, particularly at the start of a trend, you’ll luck out.

But if you think by setting up a blog, tossing in some plug-ins and “boom!” you’re done is based on any kind of reality in the known universe – then I have this amazing bridge with view of a unique opera house and harbour I’d love to sell you.

9. “Perfection. Nothing’s perfect.”

Probably very true, but don’t tell my wife I said that.

10. “Launching something flawlessly. Good chance you’ll fail to do so if you try.”

There’s an awful lot of sense in this. But in trying, if you keep the premise in mind, you can realistically aim to launch doing the best you can. Being half hearted or “whatever” is as much a recipe for “failure” as trying to not have one. It’s about moderation and it’s also about accepting that so called “failures” are a learning opportunity. Treating each as an opportunity for self or business improvement is essential, which in a sense renders failures as successes.

11. “How fast your get listed in Google. Spend a couple of weeks blogging and your posts will start getting indexed within a couple of hours. It’s not that special nor should it concern you”.

OK. Yes and no, again. I know people who say it takes 3 months to rank or even get listed in Google. Others are more generous and say three weeks. I don’t like the number three. For this reason I make damn sure it takes approximately seven days to get listed and rank for something. Often, with care and planning, on page one and in some instances number one. It need not concern you if you follow the fundamentals:

Register domains months in advance of launching.

Prepare your content in advance of launching.

Have an XML sitemap ready and submitted to Google and other engines.

Have a nice starters pack of content related pages – articles in my opinion produce better results for ranking than sales and features or benefits pages (but you need them too).

Track and tweak your results.

This stuff, like many things in business, is like playing chess. You need to be aggressive, within healthy parameters, you need to plan several moves in advance and you need to know what your pieces (tools) do and how to best use them.

12. “Submitting to general directories. If there are some niche directories you can submit to then consider submitting to them, but those deals where you get 200+ submissions for $5 are a waste of money (and I’ve tested quite a few services).”

No argument from me on this one.

13. “Making sites based on fads. Arcade sites, proxies, MySpace resource sites. If you can start a side that creates a fad then you can get some quick cash, but being the follower will yield lesser returns (better to just focus on a sustainable business).”

Nor this one. The last in isn’t the brightest because the first in are invariably the brightest. But as always – there are exceptions.

14. Retirement. Care about doing something you’d want to do for the rest of your life. The idea of just getting to a certain age and saying “I’m done” terrifies me.”

He’s young. He’ll get over his terror.

15. “Blackhat techniques. Spamming, scamming and unethical practices are not sustainable and karma will come back to haunt those people involved in those practices. Build something you’re proud of.”

Absolutely agree. If it was left to me there wouldn’t be any Blackhat SEO idiots (or not so idiots) in the world. It’s not up to me (which is arguably a good thing) but don’t do it. It’s a race to nowhere.

16. “Recessions. Businesses that make smart decisions don’t go bust. Some businesses have some bad luck, and there will always be some risk but if you’re profitable, are good with finances and you’re respected then you’re not going anywhere.”

OK. The guy who wrote this across on MellowBusiness is experiencing his first recession. I’ve lived through three. Oh but it was so simple!

The reality is that each recession is different in as many ways as it’s the same as those preceding. It’s the differences that kick you in the guts.

It’s not bad luck.

You can be a wizard with finances, profitable and respected and still suffer an Epic Recession Based Fail! Ask any of the bodies jumping out windows on Wall Street in 1929.

Recessions are the financial equivalent of volcanos, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and bushfires. We know what causes them, but lack the tools (some would say will) to fix them. You can mitigate for a recession but you can’t prevent the kind of things that occur outside of your direct business or life control. Sadly those things are indeed the things that take out some businesses in a recession. In a depression they take out many or even most. It’s unfortunate but it has nothing to do with good or bad luck. In fact – my argument to point 7 above applies here too.

17 “How much money other people are making. You are not other people. Hearing about success can be inspirational but if you need other peoples success to reaffirm the direction you’re taking then you’re not following your own desires.”

How much money other people are making is indeed irrelevant largely except in the context of self measurement for improvement. So on this we tend to agree.

We feel happy when people approve of us.

But I do not agree that other people reaffirming you is a bad thing or that you should not seek it. You are a human being. Humans are gregarious tribal critters who thrive and indeed prosper on the affirmations of others.

Don’t hang by the thumbs for approval, but also, you have a right to be happy and being reaffirmed can indeed make you feel happy. Feeling happy = good. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it!

Easy rule of thumb. Reaffirm others as you would have others reaffirm you.

18. “Quick bucks. Spending $8, building a quick site and selling it for $30 may seem like an easy $22. But then again, you probably spend at least 3-4 hours building and selling it. May as well work at McDonalds. It can be fun to mess around with this stuff, but don’t expect to build a business out of it.” No argument here.

19. “Pleasing everyone. You won’t be suited for everyone. Be yourself, do things your way and similar people will find you.”

Tell that to the hopefuls on FaceBook.

20. “Your search engine rankings fluctuating. Your rankings move around and will always move around. 99% of the time when there has been a significant drop in rankings my sites have recovered a couple of days later.”

Extremely true -but then all of us know only to well of the those Google Horror stories where a site simply disappears for no easily discernable reason.

Be proactive.  Don’t stress unnecessarily, but being cavalier won’t help much if Google decides you’re damaged property.

21. “The latest information product launch. Every now and then an info product with good info will launch. Don’t get sucked into the hype machine every few weeks though. Anything that provides real value will be re-launched.”

Absolutely!  Totally agree.

21. “Making everything business-y. I strictly use Facebook for personal use. No business at all. Don’t feel pressured to use every web app/tool for business. Sometimes its nice to just browse Facebook idly to see what my friends have been doing. The internet is more than just a source of income. It can be mighty fun to just be a user of it.”

I use Facebook and Twitter for both.  No reason why you can’t do the same.  There are no absolutes here.

22. “High paying Adsense keywords. Ugh, I forgot that this is still around. You will not make money just because you put the keywords student loans on a page with Adsense. ”

Yup.  That’s common sense.

23. “Sucking the profit dry. Most sites can earn more money than they’re currently making BUT that doesn’t mean they should. Google could sell front page ads for millions of dollars a year, but it’d hurt the user experience and people would hate them for it. Think about the experience the user has.”

Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t either.  When I was young I had lofty ideals too.  That was before mortgages, children, medical expenses that invariably grow as you get older and a plethora of other life cost factors.

Use common sense, always, but if you’ve got it “flaunt it!’

24. “Buying inbound links. Make content that is worth linking too. It’s a bit harder but it’s free and is not a waste of time.”

Depends on your definition of “buy”.  A free copy of a product to a blogger?  If you think you can justify the return – the blogger has the reads of the right target audience – for example then I’d say yeah, buy.

25. “Making generic “make money online” blogs. Ugh, please, just don’t do it. So…much…crap. If you have some unique insight or “angle” then go ahead and create the site, but I’ll stab the next person who writes another post about “7 ways to make $1 per day from Twitter!”

He’s right on the money here.  Get rich quick schemes are always pyramids.  No matter how many times they declare in their sales text they are not (me thinks you protest to much applies with these kind of scammers marketers)

27. “Badmouthing other people. Takes so much energy. If someone is legitimately scamming or doing something illegal then post about it. But most of the time people badmouth others for personal reasons. “

Except when you’re bad mouthing “Get Rich Quick” pyramid schemes on the net. 

28. “What everyone says. Find a few people you ‘connect’ with who are doing what you want to do and then just follow their advice. There are lots of paths you can take but if you don’t choose one you won’t take one. ”

Also referred to “eating everything you see.”  The internet is a wonderful tool of human ingenuity.  Like all such tools of human ingenuity it’s infested with more nonsense than the stars in the galaxy of Andromeda.  Pinch of salt.

29. “Knowing everything. There are people with 200+ RSS feeds in their RSS reader. No one should need to know that much current information. Subscribe to the key players in the industry and that’s it. I subscribe to 2 video shows, 2 podcasts, 4 business blogs, 1 tech blog and 1 gaming blog. You should be excited when a new item is in your RSS reader.”

Moderation is a powerful discipline.  No argument here from me.

30. “Being everything. You can’t do everything really well, so just outsource what you suck at.”

But ensure you are honest in determining what you suck at.  Some folks have zero self confidence, others have to bloody much!  If in doubt – ask some friends on colleagues that can be trusted to be honest.  No, your Mum, your wife, your girlfriend or anybody else who thinks the sun shines out of some orifice you possess is not a good resource for this.

31. “Being bigger than you are. I’d rather deal with a home business than a faceless corporation. Most people are like that. Stop worrying about being a small business – embrace it. ”

True enough – so would I.  But you’d be amazed how many people would not.  Particularly in business to business sales.  Your judgement.  Don’t lie, but there’s no need to sell people on the virtues of your “micro” ISV if they’re not actually asking either. 

32. Glitz and glamour. You don’t need HD video camera or the top editing software to create online videos. Look at some of the popular stuff on YouTube. Find the true core of everything and focus on that.”

Nope.  There’s a reason why badly made videos work on YouTube.  The popular bad ones are funny and/or are not selling product.  If you are selling a product you’d better be reasonably competent.  People have been educated by the media to demand nothing less.  YouTube in this instance is not a good example to follow in terms of “content quality”.

33. “Internet marketing”. Internet marketing is just the offspring of regular marketing which has been around for many, many years. Learn about some real, fundamental marketing for a better understanding of why things work. ”

Nope.  Not entirely.  Internet marketing in general is extremely different to offline marketing.  Something the media companies have discovered and failed to act on and it’s been at their immanent peril.  Yes, by all means read about fundamental marketing.  But the internet is about NOW.  Offline marketing is more often about “shortly”.

34.  “Tool X. Stop caring about the tools (blogs, Twitter, forums etc) and start focusing on building a business that provides continual value, has assets, is profitable, gets repeat customers/visitors etc.”

Well now, hold on a tick.  A tool is a tool.  Use a tool wisely and be moderate in how you choose to use it.  A tool that takes up more time than it produces results clearly isn’t working for you.  But that doesn’t mean drop the tool.  Twitter isn’t a great tool, for me, for blogging, but it works very well for things like politics – believe it or not.  I can see the next Australian election campaigns at the Federal and Victorian state level being conducted heavily on Twitter.  It will work well for those who get a handle on how it should be done – and lousy for those who use their “minders” to do the Tweeting. 

35. “Being who you “should” be. Never fall into the trap of being who you should be. If you’re yourself then your instantly unique in your marketplace, don’t have to pretend (which makes things a lot easier) and you will attract people who are like you. It’s really a no-lose situation. ”

As a general yardstick I think this makes good sense.  However – if you’re a sloppy, bad mouthed SOB and that’s how you act on the net in respect of your business it’s a pretty fair bet you need to make some adjustments there.

36. “Negative people. Don’t waste your time with peoples whose glass if half empty. I believe most people choose to be unhappy just because its easier to relate to most people with complaints. You don’t want to know those people.“

Yes, you do want to know them.  Not everything they say is complete negative nonsense.  Balance, as in all things, is required.  Glass half full types can at times be so optimistic they fail to see the smoke for the fire – and as a consequence all to easily get burned.

37. “Anything that doesn’t fit with your life plans. If you want to be a real estate agent but don’t want to do any cold calling find a solution to that problem, don’t compromise on your life (by the way, the book How To Get More Referrals Now! covers information about that). “

Oh yeah!!  This is so true it should be twitted, tweeted, FaceBooked, Googled, YouTubed and RSS fed as mandatory to all micro ISV’s.

Face it.  The number of micro ISV’s who conduct zero marketing, scoff at the need for marketing, cling to outmoded, outdated and often fictional theories on marketing – or worse – base their beliefs on marketing on how they, technical people, respond to marketing is positively overwhelming.  They are their own worst enemies.  Which is, of course, wonderful for the rest who strive to learn more and don’t rely on happy accidents, invariably causing them to erupt in peels of laughter – all the way to the bank.

Actually – scratch what I said about telling people. 

.

38. “Word count. Don’t dilute the quality of content with the quantity of words. “

Can’t disagree.  Though as one of those people who accidently ranks as one of the wordiest people around (read waffle) I find it hard to imagine anybody concentrating on this to begin with.

39. “Control. Don’t let your controlling nature get in the way of growing your business. Delegate work to others and let them make decisions. Let go. ”

Hard lesson for tech types, but none the less very true and very important.

40. “Time suckers. If people are unfairly sucking your time, cut em loose. Give people a chance, but there are those who will take advantage of your attention – don’t let them.”

Sadly so.  The same goes for organizations and groups of people.  I learned this the hard way.

41. “Internet marketing newsletters. Occasionally their might be good content in these but I find most of the time they’re just promoting products. If a product is that amazing/important you’ll hear about it at some point.”

Again this is sad but true.  I receive only two these days.  One of those is set to go.

42. “What you hear in forums. Misinformed forum user X and misinformed forum user Y are not good business advisors. Forums can house good discussion but remain (a) sceptic.”

I didn’t realize the original writer of these 43 points had spent anytime on the Business of Software forums. 

43. “Convincing people. If you provide quality content people will want to give you money. Convincing people is becoming a thing of a past.”

Yes, that’s right.  Please do not convince people of anything in relation to selling your products online.  It is a thing of the past.  Please stand back while myself and others concentrate on convincing them instead… 

I can’t agree with this.  Convincing people is not a thing of the past.  There is certainly a Gen Y trend that does not tolerate the traditional marketing pushed at Gen Baby Boomer and Gen X.  But that’s not the same thing at all.  Persuasion has anthropological and bio-cultural roots.  If it didn’t Gen Y’s theories on advertising wouldn’t have any currency amongst Gen Y.  FaceBook would be empty, Google would be unsearched, blogs would be unread and the sale of mobile (cell) phones would plummet overnight.

I’d like to also compliment the original author on what I felt to be an excellent and well thought out article.  Kudos to him!

Scott Kane

Quote of the day:

There’s no present. There’s only the immediate future and the recent past. – George Carlin

1. Launched CDROO.com Royalty Free Music, aimed at the theater sound cue industry for our product MixAction, but also for podcasters, bloggers, video creators and handy for ISV’s.
2. I posted about content writing for websites being hard work and fun.
3. Posted here I intended to, in a sense, replicate what was done June 2008 here in an effort to bring MixAction to market – goal July 29th as a beta at the minimum.

So how’s all that been going then?

1. and 2. CDROO And Content

Pleased to say my contention in respect of content really paid dividends with CDROO.  The site went live on Sunday 7th of June 2009, previously it was offline, pointing to a “Currently Offline” page with no content, all database driven so therefore invisible to the search engines and no sitemap.xml file to cheat with.  As of yesterday (just on a week later) CDROO has made it to page one in Google for what are, for that site, important keywords.  Money where my mouth is time, so:

You can click the image to the right to zoom in.

Basically the site has begun to appear on page one in Google for a number of competitive keywords and in the example to the left extremely competitive keywords of “Royalty Free Music”.  Not all Google engines in all TLD’s reflect this yet, which is quite common with Google, there’s a bit of catch-up that goes on with the TLD’s.  But it’s a pleasing result and it’s basically down to rich content.

Now, the thing is here that while CDROO has nothing to do with software sites, it’s music, the keywords being targeted are more competitive than most Micro ISV’s software products.  There are domains on page one of that result who’ve been there since the turn of the century.  Some of these players are huge with very large websites.  There are no download sites to help them get there, CDROO has a Google PR value of only 3 (it’s been offline for almost 8 months or more and most of that PR exists due to this blog).  It’s down to the content there, there are no Adwords campaigns for it running now or previously.  I’ve made a point of posting this, not as a pat on the back or even to refute the nonentity who posted a comment last week decrying the article I wrote on content – and to be fair there’s a comment in the same post from an ISV supporting the claims I made on content so it wasn’t all negative.  Rather to illustrate this process is not magic, it’s not about silly coloured SEO hats or anything else.  It’s actually about rolling up your sleeves, being creative with content and putting in the hard yards.

Did WordPress, the engine the site uses for delivery of all content, play a role?  Absolutely.  No question.  The right plug-ins, using it’s rich features such as categories and tags certainly played a role, Google and the other engines are eating it up.  Sales are small, no question, but visits are increasing and as sound and music is to a degree subjective it will take time to turn the SEO result into sales as the collection of available music and sound on the site grows.

3. July 29th Goal For MixAction

OK, this is actually the tougher one of the two.  Unlike this time last year I’m now either running or building six websites, including this blog, so there’s less of me to go round.  But yes, yesterday was a productive day coding and a good start to the self push I started yesterday – and I got an article written for MixAction’s own blog – something I now schedule to do two to three times a week.  MixAction’s website still doesn’t rank number one for every keyword, but it’s nearly always in the top two results there and indeed in most instances does rank number one for main keywords and I’m seeing it overtake those it wasn’t number one for over time as I continue to write content.

The people using the tool Keyword spy and WhoIS lookups that “analyse” the site  that I see in my MixAction site logs daily?

You’re doing it wrong! 

Looking towards an update on coding next post.

Scott Kane

Quote of the day:
Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use. – Wendell Johnson

I wax lyrical on this blog about the fact that I firmly believe content is not only powerful but essential to micro ISV’s in order to succeed in their endeavour.  I’ve stated before that submitting to download sites is not marketing.  It’s merely a cop out.  And we all adore a bloody good cop out – eh?

There’s no doubt it’s hard work writing content.  But once you start you’d be amazed at how easy it actually becomes, yet few ISV’s ever get to this point.  It’s about thinking outside the box.  Content is merely information about our product or service presented in an informative or even entertaining way.  We technically already have the content – it’s in our brain as we have domain knowledge – or should – in respect of our product or service.

No domain knowledge?  “Yer doin’ it wrong!”

It is hard work, but it’s not impossible work.  It has amazing results, we see those results everyday and sadly fail to consider what they actually are – results.  For example think about your favourite websites.  Why do you visit them all the time?  It’s probably a fair bet it’s because they have content, frequently updated content most likely and that content is related to your specific interest or interests.

Product Sites Without Content Is Like A Naked Turtle – Skin, Bones, But No Shell

On my product sites I have blogs, operating exactly the same way as this one, though not in all instances called a “Blog”.  CDROO calls it “News Releases” which includes articles on new product as they are released and articles related, in the case of that site, to royalty free music, podcasts and videos.  As you probably know CDROO is a relatively new site so the articles there are limited in number.  But the method used on CDROO is the same as the method used on MixAction and the other sites.  The reason those sites rank so well and so easily for a ever growing list of keywords and phrases is the content.  You can actually watch your visits grow as you post articles – content.

Across on CDROO, for example, today I posted an article titled “Music, A Heartbeat For Your Videos And Podcasts“   You can read it if you’re curious by Clicking Here

It’s not in depth, it’s not the same as the kind of articles I write here on this blog.  It’s purely explanatory and offers some elementary reasons for including music and sound in podcasts, videos and other multi media productions including live theater.

If you’re not publishing articles, content, regularly, you are missing an amount of traffic that would surprise if not render you rather aghast.  I wince when I read or hear mISV’s claim they are not interested in capturing clicks for certain key phrases from Google, related directly to thier product, when I, stupidly, contact them to inform them that I’m getting their traffic here on this blog.

What am I talking about?

From time to time I’ll write a little article here for a product produced by a fellow micro ISV.  Those articles all to frequently outrank their sites on those keywords.  The only exceptions are the handful who write content themselves.

But ranking isn’t important unless that ranking leads to clicks – right?

Sure.  But that’s the point, I wouldn’t know those articles ranked unless I saw those clicks in my logs.  I have no reason to go looking for them until I start seeing them month in month out coming here.  In time those results wane as I’ve only written one article and other savvy marketers in that domain marketplace will write articles consistently related to the subject.  So in time they, with no link to those ISV’s and often competing, end up dominating the result in many instances.  Suggesting, clearly, regular dynamic content is not only powerful, but bloody well essential.

I’m sure it’s an experience other bloggers and readers of this blog who do similar things  are all to familiar with.  People are typing sentences into the engines and those sentences will match sites that have matching phrases and prhase combinations.  If you don’t match them – even if you’re optimized for the keyword it’s more often than not the case that somebody else will out rank you in the results.

Why be number 3 when you can easily be number 1?  Why be on page 2 or 3 of the results (or page 157!!!) when you can be page one in position 1, 2 or 3 and in the case of my own products frequently all three positions because of how my sites are setup to cross feed each other when and where such a cross feed is valuable to my markets and my products - together.

Honest – if you’re not writing content, articles, features – you’re not running on all cylinders as a business.  The carburettor isn’t pumping the right amount of fuel and you’re not getting the horsepower your business is capable of achieving.  When our car is inefficient we get it serviced.  Don’t forget to service your business.  A lube job and oil change refreshes your car, it’s a mechanical spring clean.  Spring clean your websites with some content and measure it yourself.

Scott Kane

Quote of the day:
A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future. – Sidney J. Harris

On Usenet and in email it was generally considered poor form to comment on spelling errors simply because the medium requires fast responses and typos are inevitable.  Everybody was given the benefit of the doubt in respect of being able to spell.  But then in those days most computer users had an average education level of at least Tertiary (US College level and above).  Where as now it’s estimated that 30% of Web users have low literacy.

However.  On our web copy there is no question spelling errors are a blight that should be stamped out with gusto and attention to detail.  But even then – there can be issues, even when your spelling is actually 100%.

Across on the blog for our product MixAction I posted an article detailing with the issues of spelling “Theater” and “Theatre”.  You can read it by Clicking Here.

You see, since I launched the MixAction website I’ve had a number of emails from people correcting me on my use of spelling there for “theater/theatre”.  The problem stems from the way the USA spells it “theater” and the United Kingdom tends towards the original English spelling which is “theatre”.  To make things convoluted as only Australian’s and New Zealanders can, here we spell it both ways. 

It’s not just theater/theatre either.  It’s color vs. colour.  Using a “z” and not an “s” in a variety of words.

For MixAction and it’s website, as I explain in the blog post:

“The official website name reflects this, as does the product name.  It’s “MixAction Theater Sound Software”.  However if this bothers you when writing to us feel free to substitute “theatre” if you wish, we’ll know what you’re talking about and won’t mind a bit!”

It’s tough though, because the word is fundamental as one of the primary search phrases for the product and site.  People are searching for both and because of this you can easily get buried by sites spelling it one way or another.

There are ways around this, the blog article is one of them, the nature of WordPress as an SEO tool is another and of course some content dealing with the “other” method of spelling is another option again.  But it’s something to be wary of and something that is a little harder to tackle than most SEO efforts.  So heads up to ISV’s who need to target keywords that have different English spellings.  As I said on the MixAction blog:

Perhaps the time will come when we all speak a version of English optimized for the International nature of the Internet.  “Netglish” or something equally absurd and spell theater or theatre as “theeter”.

You could probably have a great deal of fun with “color”, “color” and substitute for “culla”, but when it comes to pronunciation there is no way I’m going to stop pronouncing the letter “Z” as “Zed” rather than the accepted American “Zee”! 

Scott Kane

Quote of the day:
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence. – H. L. Mencken