The Mayday update is causing quite a stir, even in this blog which is mainly why I’ve stopped writing as much as I used to here on my personal blog. This blog used to get around 1500 hits per day but I confess I have not used any of my fancy and strategic SEO strategies on this blog for my own gain.

Thinking about it now though, I probably should be… But here’s what Google’s latest algorithm update means to me AND what I’m doing and you should be doing about it to keep your online efforts profitable.

First off… The new update means that fresh and new websites won’t rank for long tail phrases. Google calls it a quality win and while I understand Matt’s point and I somewhat agree with it, it also sucks because it was a great loophole for us online marketers when your first getting a website going and don’t yet have any domain authority.

This update has effectively made me decide not to offer SEO services anymore, at least not as my main focus with a new online marketing account. That’s not to say that good optimization doesn’t have it’s merrits… because they do… on an established website though. A non-established website (new site) should be doing other things first BEFORE trying to be the most optimized site out there.

Like what?

Before I give some general strategies you can rest your hat on, think about it this way.. This thought will give you more ideas than my ideas than I write down here if you let it. Question: What would you do if search engines didn’t exist? What would you do to bolster your brand, get visibility and start getting visitors to your website?

Why… you’d probably go out and press release first right? Get the media talking about you! Try and find something that shines or stands out about your business… what makes you different, cheaper, quicker, better than the rest and get the media to talk about that.

(Side note: the “media” in 2010 means something entirely different than it meant in 1985… The media now encompasses ANYONE who has an existing audience. That could be a radio station or radio show, could be a blogger or podcaster, could be a TV station, could be  a tiny website or a giant media mogul…but someone currently holds a captive audience in your industry. Contact them!)

Perhaps you’d start chatting in the related industry forums… At first simply helping others, then maybe the odd time offering help by pointing a link to your site, all the while having your brand or website mentioned in your signatures so folks could identify you with your brand and website…

Perhaps another option would be general advertising… Pay per click, sponsorships, text ads, graphic ads.. let your brain open up and think about it.. How are you going to get “The media” (as described above) to want to talk about you and NOT view you as a threat?

Don’t make your goal sales…

In 2010, what’s going to burn all businesses on Facebook, on Twitter and on any web property will be the goal of sales first and foremost. It’s like walking into a bar, going up to the first girl that you see and asking her back to your place… SLAP! Why not start with hello?
EXACTLY!

Social media and EVEN press, advertising and all the other customer generating strategies out there won’t work by putting a product under people’s noses straight away.. collect email addresses… send free stuff, send tips, send friendly banter and conversation… Invite people to join the conversation… Get a following going….. Start building your own audience…. Of friends, followers, opt-ins, fans, commenters and website visitors… Before you know it… you’ll have carved out your own audience and will enter into being your own “Media” and people will start to contact you!

What’s this got to do with Google rankings?

Part of becoming an authority is getting authoritive websites to link to you… This will happen automatically if your running your business the way you should be, and building up your brand online the conversation way… People will talk about you without you having to solicit them to do so.

Yes, it takes longer… Yes it takes blood, sweat, tears… You’ll loose some sleep at night at first wondering whether what your doing is working or not, but in the long run (6 months+) Building an authority website will actually build steam and rank.

Thanks for listening to my rant. Join the opt-in list, I rarely send stuff out and I don’t spam.
All the best in 2010, to you and your profits!
Daniel J Deyette

One of my mentors and heroes in life, Corey Rudl used to say “Test everything, assume nothing”. Few really truly understand that the way he did. I mean he really did test EVERYTHING.. Things you’d never guess.

However, I wanted to mention an experience that came to mind the other day when reading an article in Website Magazine (which by the way is most of the time a pretty good read – although sometimes ameteurish)… Pricing strategy.

Once, while manning the technical support phones at The Internet Marketing Center, I was on the line with a customer who needed some maintenance on his Mailloop account. No problem. I logged into the customer service software and proceeded to add another install to his account so he could re-load the software on a new PC. One thing I noticed that made my eyeballs jump out… He had paid $999 for the software! Now, I had only worked there about 3 months at that moment – and as I understood it, this product was a $379 product. This was way back in 2004.

Test EVERYTHING.

Apparently, prior to launching Mailloop, Corey had the team test every price point, from $99 to $999 and see which one converted best. When you have 880,000 email addresses, doing a few tests of 10,000 doesn’t hurt your numbers! Surprisingly, you may not believe me if I tell you this, but INCREASING your price can increase conversion rate.

WHAT?!?!

Yes! Sometimes, if your price is TOO low, folks will perceive that it can’t be THAT good and not buy it as often as they WILL buy it at a higher price. Sometimes without any changes at all to the copy to justify the new price! Oddly, they found that the BEST conversion rate was at $379… It continued to sell at that price for over 4 years that I was there. You gotta think, those folks who read the EXACT same salesletter and didn’t buy Mailloop for $99?!?

Ever thought about increasing your price? Think about it…. An old partner and amazing salesman I used to work with said that he “value sold”. That was an amazing lesson to me. He didn’t sell for what something cost and then mark it up… he sold it for what he felt it’s true value was…

Meaning if it cost him $399 but would save a customer a million dollars this year, he’d have no trouble selling it for $10,000 where most companies might sell a $399 product for a reasonable markup of $699.

Odd that people are happier to pay a higher price with the value explained.

Daniel J Deyette

I’m sure that’s a big question on people’s minds right now. How does social and viral media, particularly the top two biggest dawgs in the industry Facebook & Twitter fit into your business model?

Are they helping you generate revenue beyond your wildest expectations? Or are they something you haven’t really considered yet? Chances are, if your like most folks out there, you’re still lost as to how to use them to generate a profit… Understandable!

The old world business model (that many are still using today) looked like this:

Someone would see an ad in a Newspaper, TV, Radio, Billboard or some other form of old media… That’s where the awareness of the brand and products usually starts. Then they might talk to friends & family.

If they like what they see and hear, they would buy it by placing an order on the phone (like Sears or some major department store) or just simply walk to the nearest store of that type and do more investigation there… From there they’d likely buy it.

The challenge with this old way of marketing is that there’s no conversation and you can’t really filter who sees and who doesn’t see your ad. Yes, mass exposure to just about any product *IS* a good thing, however you still have to pay for that exposure. You can’t ONLY pay for folks interested in X, Y or Z… There’s also no way to measure the popularity and the conversations being had by friends by phone and in person as they discuss these various companies and products. It’s behind closed doors. I bet for some businesses that helped things but in the new world, that likely hurts…

Today’s modern model is changing dramatically… The landscape has shifted…

Did you know that fewer and fewer people turn to the yellow pages than ever before? Why would they? First, you pretty much have to guess WHERE in the book they may have put a given company, THEN the company themselves may not have listed the information your looking for (Hours of operation, product names, prices etc..) so even if you DO rely on the Yellow pages, it’s incredibly limited in comparison to the web. With the web, you can visit their website and get all this information and much more.

Even the way people discuss products has changed. Why ask your local friends & family about a company or product when you COULD.. Google them, search twitter for them, search Facebook for them.. discover the dirt on them, read reviews about them and find out whether they’re worth getting something from or not.. Find out how fast they ship, whether they stick to their promises, if the product works as well as described, or whether it lasts as long as they claimed it does.

The new social marketing business model:

Today, folks are more likely to turn to a search engine, whether it be on their home or office computer, or on a cell phone like an iPhone to seek the answer to their questions. That question might be “langley dry cleaners” or it could be “how to get soap out of a towel” or it could be specific like 2009 Kia Rio5 Reviews… Regardless, the search engine of 2010 finds the answers to the consumers questions much faster and more efficiently than Yellow Pages can.

Interestingly, Facebook now has 500 million users and at first it was a great tool to find out who was dating who, or what someone did last weekend… Now that extends to what someone bought last weekend but an even more facinating thing to marketers is happening online. A couple months ago, my wife posted on her Facebook status, “does anyone know where in Abbotsford I can find the best price on chicken?”, and to my surprise her small gathering of moms started naming off the best deals in town and where each were located and the pricing…

In this online conversation, brand loyalties came out, price gouging came out and quality were discussed… How are advertisers to jump into this conversation or even monitor it? Fact is, that same conversation is happening on Twitter in a smaller format locally and internationally about even more expensive purchases than a bag of chicken breasts!

When people DO decide to buy, they don’t need to phone and talk to a sales rep who may be able to convince them to buy something more substantial or influence their decision, instead they can buy online with their credit card and have it shipped to their door! Or… They could drive (which means neighbouring cities can compete for loca business… unlike that of a walking consumer) and that changes more dynamics in marketing.

Then, ultimately they can decide to buy the product. What has the web done for us in 2010 that it didn’t do when introduced in the 1990’s? It allows this conversation to take place on a global scale and even a local scale. A scale never before had… Product flaws are out in the open with the first few purchases, product benefits are out there too at the same speed.

Are you lost yet? Good!

It’s not surprising that social media business models can confuse folks. How do you jump into a conversation nolonger controlled by Journalists, media owners, print shops and big business? You can’t buy this type of conversation! But, it gets better. Fact is you can influence these conversations… Just as folks influenced the buying decisions of their consumers years ago with positioning, the new thing is awareness.

Dan Zarella has a basic overview of the concept in this graphic here… But i’d like to expand on this concept a little… I think of it abit more like this:

• Exposure (folks see you)
• Awareness (They know you)
• Club Joiners (they become a fan of yours)
• Action! (They buy, purchase, subscribe)

My next post will be a bit about some ways you can capitalize on Social and Viral media almost overnight. It’s the hidden key I hunted for ages ago, hidden under the door mat, welcoming you into the house of the social party going on online. It’ll tell you some simple and quick strategies to gaining tons of friends on facebook, and followers on Twitter. Nothing for sale here folks, just free info. Stay tuned.

Daniel J Deyette

I should hope they are!

In fact – I hope the folks that read my content are true parasites, although I’m sure you know I don’t really mean like Mosquitos and fleas, but more like “The Mistletoe Bird”. This bird feeds on the seeds of the Mistletoe plant, and interestingly enough, when doing so releases the seeds. The plant needs this bird to ensure it’s survival, and likewise the bird needs the plant…

What’s that got to do with website visitors? Well… I imagine a perfect website needs visitors to be worth existing, to pay bills and pretty much exist. It wouldn’t exist long without an audience…. Vice-versa, if the material isn’t any good, folks aren’t going to keep visiting it, and thus… If it’s REALLY good material, maybe they couldn’t live without it at all…

Feed into staples of life.

Here’s some interesting facts sure to stir up some controversy and interest!

FACT: Humans can’t survive more than 3 hrs exposed to extremely low temperatures.
FACT: Humans can’t survive for longer than 3 days without water
FACT: Human’s can’t live more than 3 weeks without food.

When you write material for your website, consider the basic survival needs of your target audience. A blackberry or cell phone website might write about getting maximum signal strength, myths and misconceptions – Like a cell user could live without that!

Feed into addictions.

Does your target audience drink beer? What about gambling, sports or some other incredibly addictive activity. There’s folks who’ve made millions by writing books on farmville, the Facebook addicting game that has folks building fake farms on global online communities. I find it humorous that you could make more money collecting pop bottles on a desolate road in India than by playing unlimited hours of Farmville & Mafia wars on Facebook. But perhaps this is a good topic to write on for traffic?

The REAL goal behind this post…

I wanted to use some extremely engaging writing and wording to pop your eyes out of your skull and get some creative juices flowing. Truth of the matter is there’s a ton of ways to think outside the box and dive deep into the subconcious layers. Into the internal workings of the human mind and start actively poking and prodding for new ways to gain their attention.

That’s what advertising and marketing are really all about, gaining attention — and keeping it as long as you can! Once you have someone on your email list, you can actively correspond with them and get as much eyeball time as possible, provided your interesting, engaging and entertaining… and can find ways to help fulfill their lives in someway while ensuring the survival of your website, business and online ventures.

All the best,

Daniel J Deyette

This guy actually used Google to get TV spots on late nite TV for less than $100 each!

Not for some demographics, but if your product works well to the average couch potato, it might be worth looking at!

If your product DOES cater to a WIDE Audience…

Then many traffic channels that would be unprofitable for other people would be strongly profitable for you. A classic example of a wide audience product might be like soap or toothpaste.

Would this benefit your SEO? Yup!

Strong indications from all over the web indicate that brand exposure and high levels of brand search are known to increase your rankings and also increase links to your site thus increasing SEO (search engine) exposure.

Careful with those URLS

Fact is if your website addresses aren’t super simple to remember (With no dashes!!) and nothing hard to spell for the average 8th grader… Your TV ads aren’t going to turn into web traffic… And an easily rememberable 1800 number could help too.. If you even have that feature.

Thanks, David Neale @ Web-scape.com

Adobe’s going to launch the CS5 package, seems lately like all they’re doing is churning out more and more versions of their package suite…  AND they’re getting more bloated! The last one was awful close to 8GB in size. Took 4 DVDs to install… Crazy! But has anyone else noticed that they’re coming more regularly too? It used to be a version of photoshop would be the top knotch (with many updates) for a few years or more.

Now, updates come in the form of new versions..

But, this version does come with some pretty sweet features… One such feature was announced yesterday and has created a HUGE webmaster buzz on Youtube. If you haven’t seen the “content aware sneak peak” – even if your not a web developer or Photoshoper type person, you should STILL watch it. They’re about to give some amazing juice to the uneducated photoshoper…

But, that’s not what compelled me to write this post, although that in itself is pretty killer news… What impressed me the most was their launch website. It’s incredible! It’s a perfect (yes – a word I usually can’t use) example of how a launch should be done. Twitter integration and live communication, YES! Count down clock making everyone dying for it to finally be the day.. YES! BRILLIANT!

I know I’m getting asked this by clients, I’m having friends and co-workers ask me this… It’s not an easy answer and it’s not something someone can easily just say… It’s one simple strategy…. Do this and you will be successful…

Fact is everything’s going Pink… (No-Follow), and everything’s getting censored and all the old white-hats and blackhat’s aren’t working the way they used to… To re-cap here’s a few strategies that won’t work well for you in 2010…

• Article Marketing (unless you plan to become the guru of the topic)
• Social Bookmarking (a few sites help, but unless your content is fantastic… this is dead)
• Paid Links (Google has ways of figuring these out even if it’s not ever published…)
• Blog Comments (yes, even the do follows don’t do much)
• Wikipedia Links (For SEO? Nope.. But for click traffic it’s still good)
• Social Profiles (for link building no, for ranking for niche phrases.. maybe..)
• Parasite hosting (not very ethical… and they do get deleted, then what?)
• Directory Submissions (the main directories and niche topic ones.. will help, but the smaller ones wont.)
• Hub page creation (for niche phrases, short term strategy perhaps but not long term as competitors creep in)
• Guestbook Signing (hello 2003, I was finding this effective for a bit, but now they’re so heavily monitored…)
• Online classifieds (45 days worth of link juice… if it doesn’t get deleted…)

So what do you have to do to get rankings and long term traffic?

Fact is that one of my favorite things to say for the last 6 years has been this… If it makes good business sense to get advertising from a certain site or join partners with a certain site, then it makes good SEO sense too. The best strategy that existed before modern SEO strategy is to get people talking. Write about topics people want to hear about… I think this will be the age of Real time search, where believe it or not… Tools like the Google keyword tool, Wordtracker and those others will be completely obsolete…

Your new keyword research tools are:

• Twitter (search “I want to know…” – “I can’t find..”)
• Yahoo Answers
• Google Answers
• Forums around niche topics

By the time 30 days rolls around and the search volume data is available to Wordtracker and Google, it’s 30 days old. It’s ancient news. It may not even *BE* In demand anymore. Oh yes, you’re going to see that real time answers are the next big thing. If you’re not on top of your game, your niche. If your finger isn’t on the pulse of your customer’s wants, needs and desires, you’re dead in 2010.

Am I being unfair? Nope.

Update from Wordtracker:

“The only point I’d like to raise is that Wordtracker’s data isn’t just 30 days old. While the US dataset goes back 365 days, new data is added every day, and this new data is between 16 and 30 hours old when it hits the servers.”

#1. SEO will change in 2010

Old blogs seldom updated and seldom kept up will suffer and cry mercy to blogs that are updated every day – even if only updated by lesser knowledgeable people. This seems to be the iPhone Generation’s thirst for information at rapid speed. It’s unfortunate though because it does seem that older, quality information will be sacrificed at the face of “Real Time Search”.

#2. Cloud computing will really take off

Google’s new algorithm has been reported by several people to be dramatically impacted by speed. Which is one reason they’re putting out all kinds of tools to help webmasters speed up their sites. Now, no matter what you do, on a shared host your going to have slowdowns. Not having a nearby server in your area, is going to cause slowdowns… The only answer for total speed, is… The cloud.

#3.  Frequently updating old content matters more

According to a report by Mashable (known more for their social media news than their SEO news), even those slight updates like an old article with no change other than updating the death toll number on an earthquake report can quickly shoot up higher than other articles.

#4. Opt-in list matters more now than ever

As social media climaxes in 2010 being the ultimate interruption to workforces and to personal lives, email remains our old dear friend. A way to stay in touch with those with less computer skills, internet savvy skills and online Bravado. It’s also an excellent marketing tool and unshaken by Google movements and algo updates and unmoved by PPC costs.. The ultimate in online insurance. According to Pew Internet, email remains the top activity online to this day.

#5. Viral marketing campaigns

You’d better still be creating purple cows in 2010… But you should avoid the mistakes you made with the purple cows in 2009… Like not making it DEADLY easy to pass your purple cows along to friends via Facebook, Twitter and Email a friend buttons on your pages/site. Like telling the right people in the industry with popular sites, twitter accounts and facebook fan pages ABOUT your purple cow with the right language…

I could predict more – but lets leave it there for now – very interesting…

If you don’t understand something that I’ve written but desperately need assistance in some area, drop me a line. dano@answerswanted.com – I might not be available over the holidays tho.

Problogger launched a recent note on their blog combined with feedback from Twitter Users, that truly was worth repeating in every sense of the word.

It instantly made me realize what I was missing and challenged with… and what causes my day to go poorly. Yes, I’m a stats junkie and these numbers and challenges are reflected by that… So without hopefully too much frustration from Problogger, here’s the piece of his post that I’m going to re-print with the idea of “For internet marketers” instead of just “for bloggers..”

• Turn off Twitter – 6 minutes an hour
• Turn off Facebook – 3 minutes an hour
• Stop checking your Traffic Stats – 2 minutes an hour
• Stop checking your AdSense Earnings – 2 minutes an hour
• Stop Tweaking your blog design – 3 minutes an hour
• Stop checking your Google Page Rank – 1 minute an hour
• Turn off Email – 5 minutes an hour
• Log out of your RSS Feed Reader – 2 minutes an hour
• Stop checking to see if someone Dugg your latest post – 1 minute an hour
• Stop checking affiliate earnings/e-book sales earnings – 2 minutes an hour
• Turn off any other Social Media Sites (LinkedIn/StumbleUpon/Plurk/Reddit etc) – 3 minutes an hour
• Turn of Skype, Gtalk and all other IM services – 4 minutes
• Stop Reading Blog Tips and Start Blogging – 3 minutes an hour

His concept was how to gain 37 minutes an hour… but if anyone’s like me this is like 4 hours back from the average day… Well maybe 2 hours but still, very true and very useful!

Daniel J Deyette

Sometimes, I think quite a few people get so wrapped up in sales that they forget the value of Branding. We’re often so focused on a well performing PPC campaign, and a well oiled and lubed SEO campaign that we forget that some efforts that do not produce instant sales and subscribers can have extreme value.

Igniting the conversation online…

Since the 1940’s, Coca-Cola and other big businesses knew the value of getting their logo and a graphic of their product on every wall, flyer and poster out there. They understood visibility = recognition & eventually sales. The more people know about something, the more it becomes socially acceptable and people become aware it exists.

How do you do that online? Especially, with a low budget?

Fact is… It’s going to take man hours, labor.. But it can be done quite affordably beyond the time it takes to do it. First thing is to consider where your target audience hangs out, what sites they visit, what questions they ask themselves each day… And what sites appear when they ask Google those questions in searches…

These sites your target audience hangs out on have comment forms (where you can make your brand, your name or your product name show up in regular conversation – NOT SPAM).

These sites have forums where you can bring up your brand/name/product in a conversation or leave it in your signature.

These communities are often wanting something they can sink their teeth into… Like wallpapers for their computers you can submit to tons of directories.. You don’t get a link, but you sure do get brand visibility.

Sites are always looking for fresh content to post on their blogs and pages. Short article snippets about relevant topics they wanna hear about.  Giving them re-usable content and letting them state who the author was and what the author is known for (IE: Product, Brand) etc…

But those aren’t the only strategies… There’s TONS of ways to get under the skin of that community and start making your presence known. What are you waiting for?

By getting your brand/name/product out there, you invite conversation.. The more conversation about you the more links build toward you automatically and without request. Thus in the end your SEO does benefit.

Dan