Yep, just because I’m feeling a bit controversial today (yes that IS one hormonal privilege extended almost exclusively to us - the fairer sex), I’ve decided to pose a discussion question.

Actually, my other reason is because the initial answer to the question is by none other than Mr Godin… so you see I just couldn’t resist.






The Question:

“Social Networking sites are incredibly popular - what are the benefits of this new medium, and is it set to continue to rise in popularity?”

The Answer:

“Social Networks - if you try to glue a brand on top of a social network, you get a meatball sundae. Once again, the networks make it easiest for those who actually have something to say.”

My View:

I’ve come around to respect social networking sites as a good marketing tool - although not very targeted. Steph has had a lot to do with that - thank you :o) I can totally see it as a tool in my marketing toolbox. But I, as I think most of you, believe that it can’t work in isolation - hence Seth’s response. I also don’t believe that any single technique in marketing should exist in isolation.

Your View:

Well, this is the bit where I’d like to hear your views on the question above - just a little bit of healthy discussion…

The response and question are taken from an interesting interview with Seth Godin that I got from Wordracker’s site. The interview precedes a very exciting moment in my life… ok, I’m not THAT sad… but I’m excited… The release of Seth’s new book “Meatball Sundae“. Will get me it ASAP.

Anyway, here’s the article, and please let me know what your thoughts are.

Figuring Out The Words - The Seth Godin Interview >>

P.S. Not sure about Seth in a chef’s hat…?

P.P.S. A good quote that’ll get some heads nodding:

“SEO is not a black art. It’s often clients who want shortcuts rather than hard work that are the problem. The best SEO is great content and if you don’t create that you won’t get search engine traffic.”

I am a dedicated online marketer, but I am originally from a traditional - offline marketing background. I suspect there are a lot of other people like me that have fallen head-over-heels in love with the flexibility and instant gratification ‘online’ provides…

That said - I will never stop giving credit to offline marketing techniques and the wisdom traditional marketing has to offer. Frankly - if you want to be anything in marketing - the building blocks are what you should focus on before you choose your ‘forte’.

So, it will come as no surprise when I draw yet another online to offline correlation with this post :o)

There is a very effective and not so well known technique in marketing - where you would make up your typical target audience members - Eben Pagan calls it Avatar building - yes just like in games…

I have to admit I only heard about this technique about a year ago (blush), but have not stopped using it since and it is one of the BEST tools in my marketing toolkit (yes I do like a little bit of DIY).

I will describe how it works in a very short few words, and then I’d like you to go and listen to an excellent 22 min video of Rand Fishkin and Ian Lurie that describes exactly how to go on about creating those.

Basically, if you are running a marketing campaign of any kind, you need to be very clear about who you’re marketing to. Gone are the days when you could just ‘patch-up’ a sales letter and make money without having a real clue about your target audience.

By actually taking the time to build a profile of the one to three audience types that would be your potential customers, you are forcing yourself to take them seriously and to understand their motivations and their circumstances.

Having built a virtual character, you can now tailor your campaign or campaigns to specifically appeal to your customer… And yes - you guessed right - all that so that your conversion rates improve.

The special twist in the tail for us - internet marketers - is that you can test and tweak your virtual avatars to perfection - pushing your campaigns to conversion rates you’ve never known before.

Well, I can go on forever about this as I am a great fan. All I can say is that it might seem time-consuming. You might think it’s not THAT important and it’s a bit fluffy around the edges… But you should try it at least once! You’ll never start your campaigns otherwise.

I realise this post ain’t so much of an original content, but the video is soo good - I don’t see the need for me to try and say it better. I’m just the messenger… For those of you who have already seen this (post is a few days old ;o) - why didn’t you share?

Here’s the link again: Creating Personas 101, with Rand and Ian Lurie

Oh, you may want to take notes… Enjoy!

… uhmm I mean mind?

No, I haven’t hit my head on a sharp object and lost all speaking sense - on the contrary - I feel I have discovered something, so I thought I’d share :o)

I am a chronic thinker by nature. I think while cooking (stop sniggering-I DO cook). I think while browsing the net. I think while in the shower, bath tub, while exercising, working…..aaaaggghhh! I even think while I’m thinking.

I know I’m not alone in this - most people do it. And what’s worse, most people don’t realise that they do! All the time. Some think this is the way it’s supposed to be, and if your mind is not busy conceptualising some new idea, or business model, you’ve become complacent.

Most of us, when we are lucky enough to experience a ‘blank’ moment, we panic. Poop! I must have gone stupid - I have no thoughts!!

But it is a well known fact that a cluttered or tired mind produces rotten fruit. OK, enough of the analogies - but in today’s over worked, fast-paced business environment its easy to become too thoughtful.

OK, I realise most of you have never thought of this, and I am using really big words all at once, but take a second and think about what I just said…

DO YOU EVER ‘SWITCH OFF’?

Is your mind in charge of you, or are in charge of your mind?

The other day I finished another book - the main concept of it is to practice mind control and to learn to have a few ‘mind-free’ moments a few times a day. Just like house keeping.

If you clean your mind from clutter and give it a break a few times a day, you will experience an even better, and by that I mean more productive, thinking time.

Pure creativity comes out of moments when your mind is not in charge - a ‘moment of clarity’ we usually call it!

You should test this:

Find a quite place - the toilet usually works wonders for that - LOL. Close your eyes, and try and think about ‘nothing’. If you focus on your breathing, and perhaps the temperature around you this should bring you to focus on your stillness.

Now stop thinking!!!

At first it’s very hard, as you’ll see - you even slip into thinking about not thinking… but after a few attempts you should be able to experience at least a few seconds of ‘mind-free’ time.

“What’s the point? I like my obsessive thinking - it keeps me company.” I hear you say.

It helps clear the slate of the mind. It gives you a few moments of peace, when you can almost take a step back and see different angles of your everyday life.

At the end of the day - I can’t force you to do it. And for some of you this will sound completely mad - and that’s ok. But for some of you this will make a lot of sense. You know who you are ;o)

And once you try it and see the extreme clarity and peace of mind it brings, you’ll want to do it 2, 3 times a day.

So try it - you have nothing to lose…

OK, so it’s another one of those days, when you get to read my post about marketing… hey - it don’t happen often so I guess you could handle it.

Anyway, as I was leafing (virtually) through my feeds today, I came across another very short, and very subtle, but as usual, very profound post by marketing know-all Seth. It is an unusually long post for him, although in my books, he hasn’t even done an intro…

Mr Godin makes a brilliant point - that consumers are so focused on seeing how and where businesses fail (due to their raised awareness and expectations), that they would not spot a ‘perfect’ service or a business if it walked up to them and politely asked for their coat. And if they do spot one, the expectations rocket even further, so almost no word-of-mouth happens, and no recommendations.

Unfair - but very true. I won’t regurgitate the original blog post (you can read it here if you wish), but this is an important point to ponder on if you have your own business.

So many people hold off a launch of new product/business or service because it’s not perfect yet. And some of them never get to the start line at all.

There’s something about ‘perfection’… It’s hard to achieve in the first place and it’s so subjective that it might not even be possible to achieve in some markets. The worst part I think, is the fact that you have to maintain the level of perfection once you’ve set the mark so high - and there are just too many external factors playing at your reputation, holding their foot out…

But, there’s nothing wrong with striving for perfection in your business, marketing, customer service and so on. Just be aware and don’t get despondent when the occasional hick-up occurs.

So what’s the solution?

Well, Seth has a suggestion. It may be that it is more important in today’s business and marketing climate to be ‘interesting’ rather than ‘perfect’.

Phew! Sighs of relief all round…

So if you make sure that you have character (as a business), if you have something unique and interesting to say, show and do with people, then they will be more likely to talk about your business - more word-of-mouth. I guess it’s not such a new concept - it goes back to the need for a ‘purple cow’.

The bottom line is, that it will probably be better for your business and marketing efforts if you strive to deliver something interesting and unique, rather than something perfect, but standard…

And one last thought… Perfection in service is not so common yet - so could you choose ‘perfection’ for your ‘purple cow’?

Perfect blog post? Hahaha…

Another day, another stupidly funny blog post title. So I like to think…

“Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.” Logan Pearsall Smith

Since we’ve recently welcomed the highly talented Stephanie Weingart to our blog, I thought I’d tackle an issue that arose when she baited me, quite successfully, into an interview. It’s that horrible example of one of the Seven Deadly Sins…vanity. Well, vanity is the example of Pride, which is a…damn nation, you know what I mean here. This is a piece about vanity and I don’t mean the girl that Prince hung out with either. Oh, and it’s about SEO of course.

“We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don’t care for.” Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

While I could indeed spend quite a lot of time relaying anecdotes of insane vanity in the SEO community, my purpose here is to talk about how to use it against others. That sounds a lot more sinister than I am intending BUT it’s still what I mean to say. And let’s please not have a semantic argument about vanity/pride/egotism/narcissism. When I say “vanity” I mean what you’re exhibiting when you become upset that someone may potentially think poorly of you in any way because you want the world to love you at all times, for all reasons. If you don’t have this trait, you’re not human.

“There are no grades of vanity, there are only grades of ability in concealing it.” Mark Twain

When Stephanie made her utterly brilliant move of intentional misinterpretation of my chimps post, she was completely outsmarting me. It’s kind of horrible that I was so easily led down that path but I’ll chalk that up to her amazing competence and not my overload of character flaws brought on by a beauty queen mother and having pink hair in a tiny Southern town full of rednecks. What Stephanie realized, at a much younger age and with much less experience than many of the SEOs that I know, is that the best way to get someone’s attention is to say something about the person that isn’t correct but IS correctable. No one can resist this. I certainly couldn’t.

“One of the troubles about vanity is that it grows with what it feeds on. The more you are talked about, the more you will wish to be talked about.” Bertrand Russell

Just the very idea that someone was possibly not getting my point made me really upset. Did I write the post poorly? Was this simply yet another instance in which no one thought I was funny when I was doubled-over with sobs and cackles while everyone looked on in abject horror? Was I a bad writer? A terrible person who runs down old ladies when they try to cross the street and I have to get to Target to buy some lip balm? I remember that day…I was visiting a friend in the hospital yet was consumed with wondering “where did I go wrong?” while his chest had been cracked open and his lunch wasn’t there at 2pm. OK that’s somewhat of a joke really…but it did get to me, and it definitely got my attention, and I had to get to the bottom of it. And now look. She’s a damn SEO Chick. Well done, I’d say. Quite well done.

“The only cure for vanity is laughter, and the only fault that is laughable is vanity.” Henri Bergson

I am definitely not suggesting that you spend tons of time trying to insult people whom you’d like to talk to, of course, unless the insults are really funny ones. I just think that vanity is an overlooked aspect of social marketing, and it’s a very clever way of getting through to someone. It’s this kind of thing that makes me truly love marketing…what’s next? Will someone get to me by capitalizaing on my gluttony? Maybe sending me an offer for a cheese dip of the month club in order to get me to talk about something? I damn well hope so. Let me know so I can give you my address.

Well, since we’ve covered Vegas in almost every imaginable light already, I thought that I have to do it justice from a pure marketing point of view too.

Yes, it is a great place to network, and an even better place to party. But what most people wouldn’t notice about Vegas (or at least wouldn’t think twice about), is the remarkable customer service.

OK, I feel I have to slip in a little disclaimer here as my post will be a little biased towards the good rather than the bad experiences. Please humor me and refrain from remembering any painful customer service experiences in an off the strip hotel bar and so on…

So, if like me, you enjoy experiencing a ‘job well done’ in being served, you would love the Wynn.
* I have to focus on one of the many places as an example just so I can do it justice.

These people are a prime example of how surveying your existing customers and acting on the findings will not only improve your business, but will make you stand out from the rest. So they do their research and take the customer very seriously. As a result they have produced one of the most well oiled machines I have ever had the pleasure to be served by - and trust me I have been around (stop your snigerring).

From the moment you appear at the door of the Terrace Pointe Cafe, you are taken by the hostess, then the drinks lady, then the main waiter and so on…

I think what makes the experience even more notable, is the fact that, in any of our encounters with the different pieces of the ‘well oiled machine’ you are made to feel very special. Now, I’m not stupid, I know the smiles and attention are part of the show, but at least they seem genuine and don’t make you feel uncomfortable. It is evident from their every move, that the Wynn understands the core concept of marketing - the customer is very important to their well being.

As a contrast to all this I was cringing last night while watching Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares program. Noting how the waitresses in the showcased restaurant had no clue (not through their own fault) in serving a customer with a smile… totally different planet…

OK, you’ve guessed by now that I can go on and on about the vast Case Study canvas that Las Vegas is for customer service perfection and imperfection. I am also sensing that some people think I am sad to be even noticing things like that, when I should be drinking, and gambling…

So let’s get to the point…

My point is that when you work in a dynamically changing environment you need to pay attention to everything around you and draw lessons from every experience - seemingly relevant or not. Your environment is your best learning facility. Text books won’t do it - they’re too slow and by the time something’s printed or spoken of in the conference sessions, it is no longer on the cutting edge.

One of the most successful (if not THE MOST successful) marketers of all time - Jay Abraham, has made his fame and fortune through observing his environment and applying the lessons learned to seemingly unrelated industries and situations. Take a leaf out his book, and learn to observe. See the relevant in the irrelevant and adapt one industry’s old marketing methods to a new industry to get an ace campaign…

And where better to go to to top up on good marketing examples than Vegas… Baby!!!

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but copying your competitors entire site isn’t.  It may seem like they have what you need to rank well but rankings aren’t just about on page content anymore.

Spying on the competition is easy with a plethora of free tools at our disposal.  While this will not help page rankings directly, it could help conversions when the best landing pages are selected for imitation.  The purpose in examining the competition is not to copy them exactly but to use the varied approaches they use as a launching point from where you can build your own site’s identity.  Imitating as well as innovating and building on that imitation to create something unique is key.  Copying any page exactly for conversions won’t improve yours and may diminish them.  Copying the competition could also diminish your site’s perceived value as you become seen as a possible fraud copying another site to steal business.  The customer is savvy – they know when you’re copying and when you’ve created something personal.  You’ll aslo lose out to duplicate content penalties.

Ranking for your desired terms can seem an occult practice.  Obfuscation has made it more difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff and create a personal strategy.  Small to medium sized companies may not have the budget or the trust to hire in outside help and so implementing basic changes inhouse can make huge differences.  Look at the competition, understand what they have done, imitate their positive wins and build on them.  There is more to it than just on page changes but that is the best place to begin.

Site design needs to be distinct and compliment your company’s existing schemes.  Over the years I have worked on businesses in very niche areas.  I have seen sites attempting to exactly replicate their best competitor and yet subtly change the page to steal loyal customers and traffic but escape lawsuits.  This will not improve rankings and may well lose you rankings overall due to duplicate content.  Additionally it is ‘bad karma’ as they say and the lawyers fees just aren’t worth it.  Be unique when you use your competition for inspiration.

I’m currently working with someone tackling the problem of duplicate content.  They lost rankings and have seen some scraper sites ranking better than they are for their own unique content.  They are tackling the duplicate content problem head on by removing all articles already duplicated and changing the code of new ones.  The scraper sites will soon carry links back to the originating site as well as scraping content with adverts in it, making the original site even more money.  The scraper sites are unlikely to notice until their traffic dips and possibly not even then.

Copying exactly another site leaves an inflexibility in place that can be difficult to break.  If you don’t seek to understand what you’ve copied, when rankings are lost you will find it difficult to recover.  If you rely on copied content when it changes or loses rank juice you are back to square one.  Pure copying can be so restrictive as to be impossible to work with.

Imitating the competition is fine and is, in fact, anticipated.  Copying them like a phishing site isn’t cool and customers quickly catch on and your site may lose perceived authority.  Use the competition as inspiration and create something new – don’t just copy them.  And for those of you scraping the content of sites I work on, all your revenue is belong to us

Recently SEOmoz has had the pleasure of being caught in several bloggers’ scopes because of the controversy behind Rand’s Google Payola post. While much of the criticism was largely professional and constructive, some of it has been more personal and not constructive. Regardless of the type of criticism, it’s essential to react to it appropriately, especially when the Internet is essentially your workplace.

Before I delve further, let me be the first one to admit that I am a stubborn person (thanks, Kelley genes), and I’ve had my feathers ruffled a few times online. It can be difficult to respond to professionally to criticism, whether it’s constructive or a personal attack. In light of recent events, however, I’ve thought a lot about how to “temper your hubris,” as Rand often puts it, and handle the occasional negative or disagreeing remark thrown your way.

Let’s face it, a huge appeal of the Internet is its seductive anonymity (Rand had a recent Whiteboard Friday about a similar topic). You can say things to someone you wouldn’t dream of uttering in person because you’re hiding behind the warm, soft glow of your monitor. Keep this in mind when you get your feelings hurt and are furiously typing a scathing response—would you say what you’re about to type to that person face-to-face? If so, more power to ya because you’ve got quite the pair on you. If not, it might be a good idea to tone it down a bit and write a response you’d actually give in person. Lots of people avoid unnecessary conflict in person because it’s uncomfortable—keep that in mind when you’re addressing it online. Don’t exacerbate the matter or add fuel the fire if it’s unwarranted.

Someone (I forgot who, so if it was you then let me know and I can credit you) pointed me to this great writeup about how to handle criticism on the web. I recommend giving it a read. One sentence in particular stuck out to me: “The more viewers your work has, the more likely you’ll be to encounter a completely unreasonable opinion.” Indeed, the longer I’ve worked at SEOmoz, the more criticism and backlash I’ve seen directed at both me and the company. When we were the underdog we got a lot more polite encouragement. As SEOmoz became more visible and a rising authority in the industry, more and more people began to scrutinize and criticize our business decisions and blog posts. From a personal standpoint, it is pretty surprising to go from reading comments about how I’m a great addition to SEOmoz to hearing people scoff that I “don’t know anything about SEO.” But, I understand that the more visible you become, the more attention (both good and bad) you get (here is a nifty graph for you visual learners). What matters is how you react to the attention.

The important thing to remember is to not take criticism personally. Remember that constructive criticism, though it may hurt, is meant to help you, whether to be a better person, run a better business, implement a better business strategy, etc. Personal attacks are juvenile and are meant to hurt you, so don’t give those people the satisfaction of knowing they got to you and upset you. Don’t dismiss criticism, however—ignoring constructive criticism ensures you’ll make the same mistakes over and over again and run the risk of alienating those who are trying to help you, while you can take negative criticism and decide to avoid or not to do business with the offenders.

In my opinion, if you have any sort of visibility online and are sensitive to everything negative you read about you, you won’t last long in that role. Though it may sting, if you’re looking to have a positive brand and be successful on the Internet, it’s a good idea to remember when to swallow your pride and thicken up your skin.

Last night I attended the B2B Marketing Awards in London, and it was an awesome night. All dressed up like cindafuckinrella =) The agency I work for, Base One, was nominated in quite a few categories and won “B2B Agency of the Year”. And as Julie mentioned I was nominated and WON “B2B Newcomer of the Year“. I was going to be all modest and not blow my own trumpet, but heck sod it, I’m estatic, and also possibly a little drunk still

The awards were amazing and took place in The Brewery in London (yeah I know, how English, an award cermony in a brewery), but it was a truly amazing venue. It felt like the Oscars. Round tables, stage and the whole shhhbang.

I thought I would share some photos with you all (mostly of me looking very excited):

The Base One bunch huddling in for a photo after getting “B2B Agency of the Year”

Me, nearly crying when they called out my name (and they pronounced my name right!!)

Accepting the Award - Looking absolutely terrified (and slightly drunk)

Newcomer of the Year or Crack head of the year? Very happy though!

Bring on the champagne!

Champagne + Awards = Happy faces!

From left: Sarah Simpson, Myself, Jennifer Handbury, John Williams and Base One MD Richard Bush.

Now this might be a little cheesy, but I would really like to thank some people (and didn’t get to do it on the night). I would really like to thank one of my clients, Paul Lees (from Powwownow) for getting me really “in to” SEO when I first started. He kept on asking questions I couldn’t answer lol, and managed to inspire me to learn more. Might sounds weird but that’s how this crazy obsession with my job all started I would also like to thank my excellent MD, Richard Bush, who always believes in me and listens to all my crazy ideas and lets me talk “AT” him for hours. Richard, you are a true inspiration and an excellent motivater!

I would also like to thank the fantastic people I work with at Base One (in particularly John Bottom who wrote my wicked entry for the nomination). And lastly, but by no means least, I would like to thank all the SEO-Chicks, our readers and all the wonderful people in the SEO industry!!

SEO ROCKS!

Um, not really…but close!

Since everyone’s favorite Norwegian is very modest, I thought I’d quickly write something to let you all know that Lisa won the B2B Marketing Newcomer of the Year Award last night. Since I could go on and on and on about why she deserves it and why I love her so much, I will take this time to be concise and just say how proud the SEO Chicks are of our fearless leader.

And don’t worry…I’ve told her that she owes us a post about it so hopefully we’ll all hear more soon.

So Lisa, serious congratulations to you. We all knew you’d win!