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

“Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain
Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies,
Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers,
That grow so incredibly high.
Newspaper taxis appear on the shore,
Waiting to take you away.
Climb in the back with your head in the clouds,
And you’re gone.”

Copyright Lennon and McCartney.

While it’s a pretty song, the lyrics are, to say the least nonsensical.  I find many Micro ISV comments on search engine optimization in the same vein.  Big on laying it down with a big stick, big on supporting the wisdom of the SEO ancients, but low on actual, personal enquiry, evidence, testing and data.

Now of course, they’ll ask you for data to support any claims you make, but if you ask for the same they’ll either ignore the question or, from the safety of an anonymous user account, decry you for heresy.

BOLLOCKS!

OK, the reason for this conniption here relates to that hoary old subject of SEO and back links.  The blind faith so many, and in this case Micro ISV’s, have in relation to the belief- “you’ll fail to get ranking in Google if you don’t have high PR” – an assumption that’s based on….  What exactly?

Ah – “General Knowledge!!!!!”

It was once general knowledge that the world was flat.  A cleric in a middle Eastern Country can be found on YouTube still espousing this clap-trap, a few young Earth proponents of the extreme variety here in Australia and America’s bible belt – but most of us accept it as a fact in 2009 that the world is not flat, mostly because it is demonstrably a sphere.

You can certainly A/B test this for yourself (PR not the world is flat, that’s somewhat more involved   ), and I encourage you to do it, but my contention based on my own tests, that can be verified by where my sites rank – even in the more highly competitive keyword pages, is this:

The notion of page rank (PR)  doesn’t mean a bloody thing in concrete terms. It’s merely and indicator of the popularity of the site as a place people link to and that Google has gotten around to measuring.    PR is a metric that is frequently months behind reality, is measured using metrics not even Google seem entirely sure about and it only measures open links.  It doesn’t measure, for example, RSS.  Hell, even most website server logs fail to measure RSS feed reads properly.  It does not measure your rank in the engine.  Not at all.  It doesn’t even quantify in any real, measurable way.  One of my websites out ranks on a major keyword for it’s sector out in front of huge companies with PR of 6 and 7, it’s only a 2.  They’ve been there for years, that website has been there less than twelve months.

There was indeed a time when PR was valuable.  Say around the turn of this century.  But nowhere near as important as it was made out to be.

It’s Content

Yes, it’s time to pull out that old stick again.  It’s content that makes a real difference to your physcal page rank, content and relevance, not the PR value.  So simple to prove even the lamest, thumb stuck in mouth Micro ISV can do it.  Relevant content based on your domain knowledge that was responsible for creating your application in the first place.  No domain knowledge, insist on adhering to trashy, spammy download sites to do your job badly for you?  Please refer to this article by Clicking Here

Because that’s what this whole “rely on the download sites and content is crap” ethos is in essence.  Spaghetti SEO.  By doing it your PR rank goes up – no question.  But it does nothing for your site rank – your physical location rank in Google’s results.

Congratulations – you’ve just successfully spammed page one of Google with a whole bunch of links who will, even if you are number one, cheerfully direct people to somewhere else, irrelevant to you.  Now, please go and place a  hard hat on, because your next step is to hit yourself over the head with a brick.  Because it hurts like hell, but it feels oh so cool when you stop!

I’d Rather My Competitor Was Ranking Next To Me

Because it offers comparison.  You should be confident your product delivers superior value to your customers to the point most customers are going to choose you.  If you are not confident of this then I – and you should – question why in heck your selling and actively developing it.

People are shopping comparatively.  Like it or lump it.  They are increasingly looking for reasons to buy – and not reasons you give in your website copy.  They want reviews, from people like them.  They don’t trust manufacturer blurb, we have been so over exposed to marketing hype we know we can’t believe even half of it.

Nope.  People want to read the experiences of others.  The good, the bad, the ugly.  Jamming thousands of BS download websites with your PAD spew onto page one doesn’t prove that you’re the best, it proves you’re a disinterested prick who couldn’t give a flying frack about the quality of your product website or your customers experience.

Epic Jerk!

It also proves you don’t have a clue where you’re heading and have a proclivity towards being a “sheeple” because your following along with the advice of some person who’s not done the hard yards of testing.  “Baaaa!”

Now, I’m not telling you to take my word for it.  That’d be like a hammer calling a mallet a blunt instrument.  Test it.  Write content, do the work, measure, test, repeat.  Try it.  Not only will you quickly find you get results, which are far more valuable than anything I might jump up and down about, but you’ll control the results to a far greater extent.  Grasp that download sites offer zero return for effort – no matter how little effort you consider them to be.  That download site submission software sells merely because thousands of people, perhaps like you, who are Micro ISV’s believe without testing, anything they are told.  Handing over hard earned dollars year in and year out – for nothing!

If you write the content, it needn’t ever be mega essays, encourage bloggers to talk about your product – bloggers who are the type of people to be your customer, get reputable sites like CNet’s Download.com because the reviews really do mean something – to review you and prove it for yourself.

Note – blogs etc reviewing your product or site won’t increase your PR rating either.  Get over it.  But they will appear in search results, they will send traffic from those locations.  They will make you money – depending on the blog – the financial return from download sites for most Micro ISV”s on the other hand is zero.  If fact it’s less than zero because those sites don’t want people to download your product – they want people to click their Google Spew AdSense.

Then again – you could continue being a “sheeple”, follow the crowd and let those who do the hard yards beat you effortlessly.  Frankly in many instances that would suit many of us just fine. 

Scott Kane

Quote of the day:
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. Teach a man to create an artificial shortage of fish and he will eat steak. – Jay Leno

Last year, around December, Steph published his first paperback book called “Blog Blazers”.  He was kind enough to send me a review copy at that time, which I’ve been reading.  Normally I go through a book in a few days, like most developers seem to do.  However this time it’s been different.  I’ve been slack mostly because I’ve been flat out with learning .Net after switching from 13 years with Delphi, building three websites of my own, maintaining this blog and working up another site for an Australian political party. Not forgetting family and coding three software projects – and losing nearly all of February and part of March due to the impact of bushfires, a shoulder wound and, well, you get the picture!

OK.  I thought it best to establish the above first off the bat – that I did receive the book as a review copy.  Only fair I point that out, the links here like all the links on this blog however are not loaded with any affiliate mumbo jumbo so if you click them you can rest assured that if you purchase something I’m not making a cent if that makes you feel better. 

Basically Blog Blazers is a series of insightful and a frequently illuminating glimpses into the minds, practices and methods of some of the Internets savviest bloggers.  I gained quite a bit from the book for myself, in some cases affirmation of some of the things I do and as always a few things I’m not so sure of, with a plethora of things I’m now trying out. 

Some bloggers in there truly are exemplar in terms of how to go about blogging.  In fact the chapters for each interview are literally the who’s who of the blog world in many respects, in itself a major achievement for Steph.

It’s an easy read and it paces well.  I enjoy reading books where I feel I’m part of the conversation while learning new things.  Steph captured this beautifully.  The questions are specific enough to illicit the relevant answers while retaining enough scope to pull in some extra juicy bits.

If you’ve never done an interview you might not appreciate how difficult that is to achieve.  So I was impressed with this.

Rather than go step by step through each chapter or review the details of the book in depth, as there really are some great reviews already written both on the Blog Blazers website and on Amazon (search for it there it’s available), I’m going to offer a slightly different take. It’s this. 

Blogging may not be for you as a Micro ISV, which most folks who read this blog are.  While I think you’re making a mistake not having a blog – and missing out on a lot of fun and satisfaction, not to mention free search engine traffic  I can understand many of the reasons that some Micro ISV’s are uncomfortable with having one.  Understand mind, but I can not condone. 

Having said that.

I’m a huge proponent of content based websites for driving search engine traffic.  I’ve blogged about it here time and time again.  Frankly if you’re not serving content, articles, from your site you really aren’t serious about doing business.  I mean that.

A brochure and nothing but the brochure style website of so many Micro ISV’s is like having a billboard on the road to nowhere.

This is not 1995.  The Internet is now full of people – read your customers –who are decidedly non tech savvy folks that don’t know an NNTP based Usenet group from NCC-1701. 

In other words unless you create it, maintain it and publish it yourself you’re business might as well be made of electricity, as it’s a virtual blackout from an SEO perspective!

Don’t hand me that forlorn excuse of “I can’t write” either.  It doesn’t cut the mustard unless you’re illiterate which is highly unlikely as you’re reading this blog and developing software.  If you know your market then you have something to say that people (potential customers) want to hear.  If you don’t know your market then I suggest gently that you’re in the wrong game.

This is the thrust of why, I believe, as a Micro ISV, you need to read this book.  Here it from the horses mouth as it were.  The folks in this book know their onions, they consistently achieve results and the psychology used by them for their blog is no different than the psychology you need – must – apply to generating content for your site.  I’d go further in fact and say: Whether you have a blog or not.

It’s an easy read, it really is, providing your local area doesn’t get hit by 47 degrees Centigrade heat-waves and 5,000 sq kilometre fire-storms you’ll finish it in a few days.

You’ll come to understand why content truly is king, in case you’re one of those mISV’s who’s still resisting this reality,  and some of the ways you can carve out a piece of that kingdom for your own Micro, or not so Micro, ISV.

Then again – you could not read the book and keep wondering lamely or posting ineffectually on forums asking why you’re business never seems to grow.

Your choice.  Hint – I’m not recommending the last course of action above.  Buy the book already!

http://www.blogblazers.com/

Scott Kane

Quote of the day:
Cats are smarter than dogs. You can’t get eight cats to pull a sled through snow. – Jeff Valdez

“OK, I add content but what about my competition adding content?”

The simple truth is, and this is probably more applicable to smaller niche markets (vertical) than to broader horizontal markets, is that most of your competition will never do it.

By and large most of us compete with people who are either 100% programmers or 100% hobbyists.  Generally speaking neither is terribly good at writing content, neither is terribly interested in trying and neither bothers to consider why they should.

It’s about what motivates their/our thought processes.  Most dev’s and hobbyists have the perspective that  “if I build it they will come.”

That they won’t and don’t never seems to enter their heads.  As you’re reading this I’m assuming it’s entered your head.  The fact that you read blogs, whether you agree with me or not, or anybody else you read, sets you apart from the rest and it’s probable – apart from your own competition.

Newsflash: The idea of content on the net for marketing purposes is not new.

It’s been with us since the mid/late nineties at least.  But very few developers have actually done anything about it.  That’s because most look for automated solutions.  They firmly believe the “easiest way” is always the best way – it’s a developer thing.  It’s what makes us tick.  We automate to solve others problems and look for automation to solve our own.

While I personally advocate giving the download sites in general a miss, with the exceptions of CNet, Tucows and a handful of others, I don’t for a moment expect wide spread agreement with me on this particular blasphemy amongst developers… 

But – even if you do decide download sites and submission software is important to you, and I acknowledge there are arguments in favor of this – I just dispute them – your job is far from over.

Your competition is going to be using PAD files, download sites and possibly automated submission.  There is no silver bullet here.  Your use of these tools is not unique, it does not set you apart and it does not do much more than scrape the surface for the possible combinations of search terms people are going to type into a search engine.

You’re goal is to gain as many clicks from as many of those search terms as you can – at least for the important ones.  Your product name and the solution it addresses may not always be the important one a potential customer is looking for.

Google Adwords gets a lot of text written about it.  From genuine marketing gurus to the insidious wanker’s looking to scam by producing “Secrets of Google Adwords Revealed” type claptrap.

It’s a great tool, Adwords, I’m not about to argue otherwise.  The statistics are against trying to claim anything other than use Adwords as far as you can afford to do so.

But – the very keywords ISV’s pain over for their products – and it has to be said – at times pay through the nose for – in many instances can be obtained free just by using content for the search engines.  Google, and to a lesser extent some of the other engines, seem to place a site as authorative based on content.

If your site details and provides content related to the keywords you need, logically, you’re going to be more authorative.

According to Google presently, at least from the engine here in Oz, this blog is the most authorative in relation to the keywords “Starting an mISV” and sixth most authorative for “Starting an ISV”.  Some guys called Eric Sink, Joel and Ian are in front of me on the latter- whoever they are… 

Google Have Improved Search And It Works In Our Favor…

I personally admire the way Google works.  Despite the many criticisms of Google they have improved the quality of search.  Going back to the days of 90′s search engine spamtopia is evidence of that.

We can use this to our advantage, legitimately, properly and cleanly.  You will not read anything here – ever - suggesting you try to game the search engines.  I view such tactics along the same lines as I view download sites.  Bottom feeding parasites intent on offering no value to others but value to themselves using any scam way possible.

Don’t try to scam or game the engines.  Instead be a contributor of value, not a purveyor of SEO perversity – and hold your head high.

Be wary of Gurus Sprouting Yesterday’s Wisdom…

As I’ve said here before, what used to be true does not always hold.  The “wisdom” of download site submission as the most effective tool for search engine clicks is flawed.  It’s flawed because the download sites increasingly offer little or no value to their visitors and increasingly push them to click on Adsense sprayed all over the “page” dedicated to your product – almost in an overwhelming number of cases burying it.  Frequently removing direct links to you and if the link is there using redirects and no follow tags.

With content you not only provide relevant value but you reach beyond the meager PAD file descriptions that these sites invariably repeat.  A thousand submissions all to often equals a thousand PAD description duplications.  There is no value in this.

But content you write that relates to your product – information people are looking to find out – is unique.  It’s your’s and prepared properly (practice) it lasts and ties in well with your objectives of leading your potential customers to a place where they can more easily access your product.

Altruistically speaking you’re potentially helping them twice.  To my mind that’s a powerful concept.

The cost is your time.  If you can afford not to expend your time on writing your own content and can afford to pay somebody to write it – more power to you.  But don’t shrug it off with the usual old developer BS of “I have better things to do than write stuff like content – I’m a programmer not a bloody writer.” Because if you do you are wrong on both counts…

You are first and foremost a business person.  Programmers work for “other” people.  Writers work generally for “other people” – but business people – ISV’s – work for themselves and do things that provide benefit to their businesses.

Watch the doughnut, not the hole…

Watching the download sites and not the hole seems to be a developer trait we need to shed.  I’ve seen so much text typed over and over again about “what’s the best tool for maximum download sites submission” and “which are the best download sites” and then little sprinkles of reality like “very few of my clicks come from download sites…”

Hang on….  That last one.  “…very few clicks”  ??

What’s going on here?

The prevailing logic is that the links on the download sites (which invariably do not point directly to you or are redirected or have no follow links) feed back into the SEO loop.  The more the better right?

Vitamin C helps us avoid getting colds so I’ll swallow the whole bottle I’ll never get a cold - ever!!

Ya think?

I know I’m belaboring this point.  But honestly, it’s illogical to think that thousands or even hundreds of submissions is going to offer long term assistance.  Google and the others, over time and increasingly as algorithms are tweaked are going to strip this repetitive PAD induced vomit out of their listings leaving you back at square one.  It’s happening now and it’s going to become increasingly common because Google has never made any secret of the fact that they strive to optmize quality search and remove garbage and duplication.

I’m going to put my money where my mouth is though, because I know that no matter how many paragraphs I write here a good many of readers aren’t going to buy into the idea that content is superior to download site submissions as an SEO tool.  I might be arrogant but I’m not that dumb!! 

MixAction, my own product, will be released sometime this year.  Hopefully sooner than later.  Here’s what I’m going to do.  I’m going to run a commentary here on what I’m doing and then map that back to SEO results as they happen.  Real results and not just some guy on a blog poking holes in the air with his fingers…

I’m also going to review a great little book (e-book) that’s very affordable, cuts to the chase and I believe will help set some ISV’s in the right direction.  It’s written by fellow blogger and ISV Steph.  Stay tuned!

Have a great day!

Scott Kane

Quote of the day:
Eat a live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day. – Unknown

Well.  Actually no.  Kind of, but not exactly.  I am but I’m not.  I could be but I’m not really… 

At least in the sense that I have here previously.  Instead what this article attempts to address is a link between “download sites” and “domain knowledge” and how they have utterly nothing to do with each other and why you should care.

Now that I’ve totally confused you – let me follow it up with:

It’s not hard to influence search engine rankings for your business/product with a sprinkling of common sense and some good old fashioned hard work and never use a PAD file or a download site again.

Better than that – that influence is done using your own information, your own controls and your own time and it does not involve any stupid (or clever for that matter) – pick your colour hat -  “SEO’ techniques at all.

It’s simply common sense and most of the search engines (including Google) welcome it.  It’s pretty powerful and people without any experience can apply it providing they follow some basic common sense – and -  are consistent and diligent and use a plan….

Oh.  A Couple of more things:

You’ll need to either have solid domain knowledge about your product or at least know (or at least try to find and learn about) how to access information that will enhance that knowledge.

You’ll need to stop saying you ‘can’t write” and understand and accept that practice will improve what you do over time – as in all things – and hence how and what you write.

There is no “can’t” if you are bootstrapping.  Instead you compromise, learn and adapt.

You need to consider that people reading your content are not going to be critics considering it for the next Pulitzer prize or expect you to provide a thesis.

Blogs, for example, are best served raw.  Warts and all – and people actually seem to prefer it, even if they disagree with your contention – because it’s coming from the heart. Your heart.

The psychology for this, as far as I can tell, lies somewhere with the popularity of TV soap operas and reality shows.  If they can relate to you then you have a leg up on the competition and for them to relate you’re better off sounding like an average person writing than, say, a professional journalist.

If you can write like a journo then more power to you – but it’s not essential.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll know that I pretty much equate download sites on the level of somewhere between slugs crawling around in the dirt – or gentiles feasting on exposed flesh.

I don’t think they do us any favors.

I don’t think we need them.

I’d love to see them shrivel up and kick the bucket.

There are exceptions like the CNet sites, Tucows and a handful of others – but the rest are total Google spam.

Yet ISV’s and more particularly mISV’s cling to them in desperation and honestly believe they’ll help them in their quest for, well, whatever your personal quest is for your product and business…

Most mISV’s and a good many ISV’s are very much like the kittenpreneur above.  They think this is the key to the kingdom.  Total Google domination that will out click their competitors.  They tend to forget their competitors are probably using PAD files with similar descriptions listed on the same download sites.  From page 1 to page infinity of just about every search engine.

I firmly believe there is a better way.  But as a statement that’s not going to cut it, right?

OK.  An act of faith to a limited extent is needed here.

I’m going to use this blog as a limited example.  It’s early days for this blog.  I’m not Bob Walsh or Seth or Joel.  I don’t get anywhere near their level of traffic – though it’s growing.  So I’m not going to actually state what keywords I’ve used to work my way up onto page one (and higher) for certain ISV and mISV related terms that older more established blogs dominate.

But I will explain the reason – the real reason – for why I started the blog and what it proved to me.  Something I will be taking away to use on my business product website’s.  Having said that – the blog has grown beyond the experiment and it has many more purposes now, including the fact I like to write, people seem to get some value out if it, even if it’s just disagreement, and it’s a hell of a lot of fun! 

I started this blog – and admit I came late to this game – as an experiment only a few months ago in March 2008, to see if content really could influence the search engine results we see.  The blog uses no Adwords, it doesn’t do anything else except consistently discuss issues related to my own mISV business in the making and general ISV issues or subjects of interest.

It uses various tools to enhance those keywords, the very ones we’ve been using for years like meta tags etc.  Because it’s possible to automate this in tools such as WordPress the task is made a lot easier to be sure.

But…  It’s the content that is critical.  The content is relevant to the keywords and it’s paying off in terms of results when it comes to the subject of starting an ISV or mISV.

If you look at the articles I post here they pretty much all have something in common.  The most obvious might not actually be obvious to all.  The subject line for each post.

In most instances they have been chosen for the purpose of testing their impact on search engine results.  You might be surprised to learn that I get around 50 – 100 hits in the logs for “cracks, hacks, keygen’s and torrents” each month due to one article alone.  That I get currently twenty hits a day for “secret herbs and spices” even though this blog has nothing to do with chicken… 

This would be utterly stupid for a product site where you want relevant eyes on relevant content.  But in the nature of an experiment anything goes – OK?  

OK – the point is that the subject plays a critical part and it’s so easy to do.  That the subject is also a meta tag in WordPress by default certainly assists in this.

But  to really make a difference you have to have posts that relate to the subject, my “secret herbs and spices” hits will ultimately wither and die, I have no interest in maintaining those keywords.  I just wanted to see if I could. 

The other, for this blog, more important keywords however are used in blog posts time and time again.  In the subject, in the articles, in the meta tags, in the blog tags, in the categories and so on.  They are more durable, though do require maintenance – frequent posts with content.

I see, in various forums, at times folks asking how often Google spiders a site.  They don’t believe me when I tell them that Google comes into this blog several times a day (other blogger’s will understand this and why it is so), and articles go up within hours and often right to the top of Google (and Yahoo and Microsoft’s various search engine flavors like Live).

The trick is the XML sitemap and  the fact that you can set Google (via a free account from Google) to come at a certain frequency.  That and a WordPress plugin that notifies Google of a new post when it’s posted… 

But without frequent posts Google has nothing new to get (same goes for the other engines).  So clearly if you want to play this game, and I believe firmly you should, you’re going to need information that updates frequently.

There are several ways you could handle this.

1. A blog.
2. A website that incorporates a blog type engine.
3. A CMS like Joomla or similar.
4. Hand written HTML pages (a major PITA – I used to do it this way in the 90′s and trust me, you don’t want to have to do that when the other tools do it so much better).

You don’t have to have a blog, at least not in the sense we think of them.  You can use blog software simply as an article manager.  The idea is to get people to visit.  Information has more “stickiness” than a product page.  The idea is to become a resource.

Alas Usenet is Dead…

Many years back now the accepted wisdom was to join Usenet groups and offer information to people and become a helpful regular using your signature in each post as a sales tool.  Alas Usenet is Dead.

What’s needed, and has been lacking, is a clear alternative.  People are not subscribing to Usenet.  Heck, most these days don’t know what it is, let alone how to use an NNTP client.

Articles are that alternative.

• People use Google as if it is the Internet.  We need to grasp that average people are typing URL’s into Google instead of the address bar and clicking the Google result to go to a specific site.
• People use Google as an encyclopedia.  Why not be the source of information they are looking for?
• People are hungry for information.  The mISV and ISV can fulfill that hunger and in the process expose these people to their product.  Tactfully of course.  One has to resist the urge to blast them with marketing rhetoric in articles unless the product clearly addresses their quest.  Tact…

There are rules here…

Yep, there are rules.  The objective is not to try or succeed in spamming a search engine.  The objective is to become a valid, readable, content rich place that adds value to the search engines themselves, potential customers and as a neat side effect, your business.  The rules are:

If you write crap you’ll be crapped on.

You have to write information with the intent of contributing something of value.  Your opinion is valid, your perspective is valid, your knowledge is valid.  However a half hearted attempt to scam the search engine with unfulfilled keyword stuffing and rubbish will hurt you, not help you.

This is the virtual world and not the physical world.

The same rules do not apply. You can build up your content over time, and get pretty quick results as you go.

Google, for example, can be inexplicable at times.

This is not a get rich quick scheme.  This is about hard work, planning, rolling up your sleeves, analysis and it must be said – sheer determination.

It’s true the Google-dance, the sandboxes and other weird stuff impact on us all.  But content – valid content – can greatly assist.  None of my sites have been sandboxed, for example, ever and I have numerous domain names.  All of them have been indexed and visible within 3 weeks of registration and putting something up.

The old truisms are no longer true…

At least as far as marketing ISV wise goes.  What I’m talking about here is the old “truisms” that were dead set true yesterday are no longer true.  Download sites were essential to our businesses.  Usenet and forum posting was the only way to get the message out.  But the new mitigating factors such as the emergence of Google, blogs, PHP driven content technology (like WordPress, Joomla and similar tools to name but a few) are more effective, within reach of any ISV and have an incredibly low cost.

I’m no soothsayer and I’m not trying to say a sooth.  Waking up and smelling the coffee brewing is part of evolving our business, products and minds however.  There is no doubt we need to wake up and start inhaling those vapors.  Way past time.

I do know, understand and appreciate that many reading will not feel comfortable with what I’m suggesting here.  It does require, for many, the pain of overcoming comfort zones.  But a decision has to be made – do you control your destiny or are you happy to let it meander along with the likes of download sites and your competition controlling it for you?

Yes, that’s a rhetorical question.  But it needs to be asked because time and time again the same objections come up with ISV’s.

“I can’t write.”

You couldn’t program once either – how did that change?

“It’s OK for you.”

No it isn’t.  That’s presumptuous of you.  We all have nagging doubts about ourselves and we all have the capacity to address them.  You are no different to me or anybody else in this regard.

“You’ve had a lot of practice.”

So have you – you’ve just got to change your perspective on how you consider what you’ve written.

“There’s nothing to be said about my product.”

Respectfully – look at the logic of that statement.  Either you don’t know your subject matter (domain knowledge which you can fix) or you wouldn’t say that – or you’re backing the wrong horse and need a different product that you do know something about.

The bouncing cueball…

Steve Ballmer bounced around the stage and yelled “Developers, developers, developers…” and forever made an impression on programmers.  I still haven’t worked out why this is so.  I simply can’t fathom any sincerity out of Steve’s repetitive bouncing athletics in this case.  However – I do believe there is a more important bouncing chant for ISV’s  and it’s this:

“Content, content, content, content, content…”

If you take anything at all away from this article – or even this blog – I’m hoping it will be that. Content.

Thanks for reading!!

Scott Kane

Quote of the day:
You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. – Mark Twain