Micro ISV Book Review – How To Generate Traffic For Your Website

Some months ago I purchase an eBook from Steph, who runs the excellent ISV blog FollowSteph.  The eBook “How To Generate Traffic For Your Website” is something I’ve promised to review here several times and somehow didn’t actually get done.

So here it is.  A review.  Now I’ve read some reviews, such as Andy Brice’s on his blog have tended, while stating the book has value, to evaluate it on the experience of an experienced SEO perspective, which Andy certainly has.

However… For the average micro ISV the whole SE and SEO subject is largely a mystery and sadly grossly misunderstood.  The voodoo and misinformation floated around for the benefit of micro ISV’s tends to out weigh the good stuff.

I’m going to state at the outset of this review that this book has the good stuff!

Now.  There are links in this review to Steph’s blog and to his book.  Those links do not contain any affiliate links and I’m not earning a cent for reviewing it, I just believe that credit should go where credit is deserved and I believe this book is a must have for every micro ISV and indeed many who consider themselves ISV’s.

Steph covers a fair bit of ground in the 138 pages of his book.  I’m not going to mention them all here, rather recommend you actually purchase a copy.  What I’m going to highlight here are some of the things that stood out as they strongly reinforce some of the things I’ve been discussing here in relation to content.

Steph starts the book with the following bullet points of topics covered:

• Time Based Traffic Generation Techniques
• Search Engine Optimizations (SEO)
• Content (creating valuable content)
• Freebies
• Blogging
• Socializing
• Social Networking
• Web Directories
• Miscellaneous
• Money Based Traffic Generation Techniques
• Google AdWords
• Press Releases
• Domain Acquisition

Each of these topics is worthy of an article in themselves, but I’m only going to review a few of them here.

The first chapter that struck a chord for me was the discrepancies in server log statistics.  Server logs are what we measure a fair bit of our SEO campaigns on.  Steph rightly points out that they are also incredibly wrong to an alarming degree. Take this blog.  The server stat’s between packages on my server (I have three such packages) and those available elsewhere on the web for this domain differ by thousands of visitors per month.  I also use WordPress based stat’s from time to time and they to differ by incredible amounts. Presently this blog is allegedly in the top 1.23% at Technorati (last check I performed). But you would never know it from some of the results reported by some statistics.   Logs are good, but we have to measure using a variety of methods and Steph covers a few in his book that are well worth pursuing.

SEO, The ISV, Thinking About Keywords

The developer of the rather nice ToDoMo GTD program contacted me recently regarding some SEO charts I published in an article.  Steph illustrates the point I’m going to make here in his book.

What I would search for on a given topic is not what you would search for necessarily.  Richard searched for a different keyword to try and figure out who the competition were for MixAction.  Guess what?  Richard found a competitor, right here in Australia mind, that I’d literally forgotten about.  Said competitor uses different keywords to me.  He even ranks well for them, though he’s managed to do so by sheer luck and the fact that his website has been up several years.  Something I need to, and will, address in relation to that keyword combination.

To drive this point home take a look at the Keyword Game – Click This Link – and have a look at how different people search using different words and terms based on the same thing.  It’s quite an eye opener if you don’t already know this.

Steph points out that to many keywords dilute a sites effectiveness for keywords.  He’s quite right here, it’s easy to get carried away.  To my mind this is where articles take over.  You concentrate on the main keywords for your site, through experimentation over time, and enhance those with relevant articles that allow you to pick up additional traffic.

Steph recommends several tools for working up your keywords and analysis.  I actually use a tool called Web CEO.  It’s not to bad, I’ve used it for many years and it’s been quite effective.  There are two versions, a free one which is a good starting point and several advanced editions.

Google Trends

Steph says in his book “Avoid downward trending keywords as much as possible.”

He’s right in many respects, but I would argue here that we also need to consider that some trends going down may indicate public education on how to search for the item they are really searching for.  It’s a matter of common sense here.  As a technology matures, for example, people will become more familiar with it and tend to search more specifically with keywords that are a better match than more generic ones.

Learn How To Research Your Competitors

Some nice tips in the book on how to research your competitors, some thing a large number of micro ISV’s fail abysmally at.

Steph also dedicates a chapter to my favorite topic.  Content. 

While I advocate the power of content highly it’s important not to over do it. Content should not be all about one set of keywords or keyword, content should flow to those keywords when relevant. people want and look for information, they’re not all looking to “buy”. by giving them what they want we have a better change of leading them in to a sale later or just making them aware we exist for later. So unrelated articles in respect of primary keywords are healthy.

A site with lots of content is spidered more, gives you the chance to actually discover keywords you’d not considered and the chance to optimize for a keyword not actually part of main strategy without damaging your primary keyword effectiveness in the engines.

A good deal of this is covered in the chapter on Content.

Steph mentions using typo mistake keywords – very important and overlooked point by others.

In my case “amatuer” as opposed to the correct amateur is a case in point. It’s worked well for me to have both. but watch out for some keyword and keyword combinations. “Amateur theater” has gotten me banned by one engine completely simply because that engine considers the word “amateur” or “amatuer” to be a primary indicator of a porn site. In fact I received an email message from them exactly to that effect.

Steph states LandLordMax took two years to get his primary keyword onto Google. in terms of keyword or words for a major (popular) search term. Clearly this is going to be the case for many of us.  Or is it?

Content once again can and will assist with this – providing that content is not just so much spam. Tips, hints, a blog, news etc. these are all valid, relevant and sought after resources that can be used effectively.

Reciprocal links – Steph says the old days of using these as a scam are over and I can only say bravo!

The “free for all links” were a blight on the net and did enormous damage to the quality of results in the engines. However, as he points out, relevant links from other sites are valid and to be encourages within reason, this blog for example bucks the trend in the comments section (and throughout the site) and does not have a no follow tags. So links I post in content or links you post in a reply (the option to add your URL is in the comment section below your name and email address – though email addresses are not published of course) are spidered by the engines. seems only fair to me.

The Long Tail of Content

To my mind Steph’s chapter on this is worth every cent of the eBook alone.  This is something I’m always harping on about here and something most ISV’s and micro ISV’s fail epically at.

It works, it’s worked for me, it’s worked for Steph and it’s working for many others and they may well be working for your competitor right now.

If you want to take a shot at this then Steph’s book is the ticket for justification on why you should and what to consider.  If you doubt the value, think you can’t do it, or are a bit of an ostrich with your head in the download site link paradigm then buy the book.

Don’t just take my word for it.

The book covers a heck of a lot more too.  I’ve been working with websites since 1995, yet I still found gems in this book.

I also found things I knew but had forgotten and some things I wasn’t in agreement with – but was able to take away and give more thought to.

Don’t assume you know the SEO game and are able to skip this, even if it only makes you take a fresh look at what you’re doing it’s certainly worth every cent of the $14.95.

Frankly I can’t wait to read his next book, coming out in November, on blogging.

I’ve really only scraped the surface on what’s inside Steph’s book.  So in conclusion, yes I recommend it, highly.  Read it, use it and improve yourself and your business of software.

Scott Kane

Quote of the day:
Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe. – Jackie Mason

Bookmark To:

Feel Recursive? Tweet it!