I was reading an article in this Saturdays The Times with the headline “Google Power ‘less than thought’ as eBay start boycott’.

The article starts of with “There was encouraging news for the growing army of Google haters yesterday when a leading internet advertising researcher suggested that the search engine stranglehold on online promotions was looser than he had expected”

It goes on to explain how eBay sales did not have any significant drop in traffic after drastically removal of sponsored listings ads by eBay, and that 25% of eBay users comes through after searching for eBay and clicking through from Organic listing. Then they go onto concluding that “The data suggest that Google may be less powerful than people thought…” Eh? Are they on crack? I mean they don’t even seem to understand the basics of the search engines, before publishing such a GRAND conclusion. What a load of bullocks!

It doesn’t suggest Google isn’t powerful, it just means that Google have done a very clever move by getting rid of a stupid amount of ridiculous eBay PPC ads, that if anything lowers the searchers user experience by bidding for any old word from the dictionary. Like “Buy Lisa Ditlefsen on eBay”, errm what are they pimps now? Ok maybe not that bad, but I’m sure you know where I’m coming from.

eBay cutting down on Google PPC advertising certainly doesn’t make Google any less powerful, it might have lost them some money, but it certainly doesn’t mean they have lost their place as the biggest and most used search engine.

Later the article gets lost in numbers comparing Google and eBay in terms of revenue, helelooo!! I just don’t get the point? eBay is not a search engine, comparing them just seems a bit irrelevant.

What the article does do is make me realise how little the offline media knows about search, I would even go as far as to say how little they understand of the online world. The whole article is so anti Google and so pro eBay in could pass as eBay propaganda.

Rant over. Now if you have any insight into this so called “boycott” of Google by eBay, please leave a comment. We would love to hear your view on the matter.

We have a lot of really good Southern sayings here in North Carolina but my favorite has always been “well the field’s too wet to plow and I can’t dance.” My second favorite is “I’m finer than a frog’s hair split four ways” just in the extremely rare chance that you’re thinking “wow this is really interesting and I’d like to know more!”

In case you don’t get it, my “the field’s too wet to plow and I can’t dance” quote actually IS meaningful to SEO. Basically it’s saying that there is nothing that can be done right now due to various circumstances. While this is certainly true in many cases, it’s never true in SEO. If you think you’re done and that there is nothing you can do to improve your success, you’re bonkers.

Yes there are cases in SEO when you’re going to be limited by a client’s constraints. For example, I once had a PPC client who was converting at close to 100% on their brand so we thought we’d crank up the budget and get even more sales. However, we’d reached the saturation point with paid ads (they didn’t want to spend money trying out product keywords for some reason) and we ended up spending more money without the resulting increase in conversions, and, most importantly, the client would not take my site usability recommendations into account so I never got the chance to see if that would have made a difference. There are tons of variations on this theme where you’ll have a client who simply won’t follow your recommendations. However, you can’t just sit back and do NOTHING if this happens. In my case, I concentrated on building more quality inbound links and tried to do everything I could to boost their organic traffic but since they wouldn’t let me touch their site, I didn’t have as many options as I would have liked. The point is that I had to still keep doing SOMETHING, or risk losing what I’d worked so hard to build.

This is somewhat off topic but still…Obviously it’s nice when site owners take your recommendations into account and actually follow them to the letter. They may not though, so you need to be prepared to explore other options. I know of several occasions when clients have been told something they MUST do or else x plan won’t work. While this may be the case, most clients aren’t going to want to hear it. If they’re paying you to improve the visibility of their site, you need to be prepared with a variety of methods and worst-case scenario plans. Otherwise you may lose them if you present too rigid a plan.

Even if a site is number one for all top keywords in all major engines, has insanely high conversion rates in PPC, becomes a makeshift tent in the forest, etc, there is still work to be done. If you sit around and do nothing when you’re doing well, you’re going to be seriously unprepared for those major algorithm shifts that take you out of the rankings (I’m sure many of you remember Florida.) You can always build quality inbound links, research sites of your competitors, try out a few new keywords, and READ about what’s going on in the industry. As fast as things change in SEO, you really can’t afford to be complacent. SEO is not like coding a site where you get it to work properly and test out what will happen when some bumbling user types a percent sign 100 times in a row. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re ever truly done.

Having no manners is worse than having no money. And EvilGreenMonkey doesn’t need to point out that I lack both…anyway, we’ve done some posting on linking and blogging etiquette recently but I wanted to touch on another critical etiquette issue that might help you out in this industry. Before I forget, if you’re in need of any email etiquette (and I’m sure many of you are because I’ve seen your emails) check out my friend Gene’s excellent piece on the issue.

This is very important stuff! Before I left my old job I seriously questioned the bar tab that we had to pay whenever my husband left town for an SEO show. However, after I attended my first conference and realized that you learn quite a lot when the show ends for the day, I changed my tune. This is not to say that you should get drunk and have to be carried out of a bar by your boss, because that is completely wrong and unacceptable (note to self: don’t do this again), but go where the people are. At SEO shows, that’s usually a bar. Apologies to those of you who leave the sessions and immediately head out to your hotel room to read marketing manuals, drink Sprite, and cry yourselves to sleep.

Whether you’re between sessions, walking around an expo hall, or at a networking event, go up and TALK TO PEOPLE for god’s sake. Yes there are people who will come up and talk to you and save you the trouble, especially if you’re wearing an SEO Chicks t-shirt, but if you’re new to the industry and you don’t really know anyone, please just find someone who looks friendly and introduce yourself. You’ll need a good friend in the industry one day for whatever reason, so here’s your chance to get started. You’ll learn a ton from these people if you start talking to them. And while I certainly agree that the big names in the field are usually big names for a reason, I can assure you that there are quite a few people that don’t have their popularity but are just as intelligent and interesting, so don’t just follow the crowd.

When I went to SMX Seattle I was sitting in the session on SMO shaking my head, and in the end I couldn’t take it anymore, I had to stand up and comment =)

Mostly I agree with the whole concept of Social Media Optimisation and I think it’s a great opportunity to increase traffic and also search engine visibility. BUT what I do disagree with is the terminology SMO for some of the examples that were given at conference. The problem I find with Social Media Optimisation is that more often than not people use it to target an audience that is IRRELEVANT to the website they are optimising for.

In the dictionary the word “optimising” is defined as = to make as effective, perfect, or useful as possible. So shouldn’t social media optimising your clients website (or your company’s site) be for conversion purposes. Let me give you an example: digg!! I really don’t think SMO for one of my B2B websites targeting digg users has any relevance; I’m talking relevant traffic here!

I know loads of people that disagree with me on this one, but the restrictions, brand guidelines and the core of b2b clients does not really relate to the early twenties Californian digg users!! Getting to the homepage of digg takes a very special angel, usually a stupid/curious/or bizarre story or article, like “My rabbit morphed into a monkey”…Ok I seem a bit anti digg now, and I’m not really, digg is fun , I just don’t agree with the relevance in targeting digg for a b2b market.

On the other hand Social Media Optimisation as a link baiting technique is genius, and very possible for any audience (even b2b..) But that’s what it is link building… A great example of a very successful viral campaign targeting the Social Media Networks is what MyHeritage Celebrity Look-alikes campaign, what they did was upload (on their domain) a program where people upload a picture of themselves and get a montage of what celebrities they look like (face recognition apparently), then at the end you can choose to post the montage straight to your facebook, MySpace or Beebo homepage. Although I question the accuracy of this so called face recognition, as I apparently look like Hilary Clinton lol

The idea is perfect for the Social Media Network. It hit facebook in a few weeks, and the result?? They now have 140,000 links going to their domain! Sweet!

So what is your opinion on Social Media Optimisation?, how do YOU define it, and do you have any success or horror stories you would like to share?

We have now finally managed to get the European version of the spreadshirt shop up and running. The choice of t-shirts are slightly different to the US.

The options:

SEO Chick T-Shirt - £14.90

SEO Chick hoodie - £26.90

I digg SEO Chicks Mens t-shirt - £19.90

TO BUY a SEO Chick t-shirt go to our EUROPEAN Spreadshirt Shop

I know (or hope to god) that everyone knows what a nofollow is…if you don’t, you just slap a little rel=”nofollow” into your code and a search engine should not influence the link target’s ranking. You can do this if you’re unsure whether you want to give your stamp of approval to a site you link to, for example. I am not going to waste anyone’s time discussing this really but I do want to touch on a point that a fellow SEO brought up recently.

It’s good practice to check to make sure that someone who has given you a link has not also given you a nofollow, unless you asked for it for some religious reason. Apparently there have been some issues with sites putting in the nice link WITHOUT a nofollow, then once you’ve checked the code and decided to go surf porn or watch Britcom reruns, the developer/evil bastard who controls the link/hill person decides to put the nofollow in. This can happen days or weeks in so just take precautions and keep a check on critical inbound links every now and then. Also, if you notice anyone doing this to you please let me know and I will visit the person in the small hours of the night and put a bat up his/her nightdress.

It’s also worth pointing out that you should check to see that the page where they’ve put your link is crawlable so check the robots.txt file too. And just in general, don’t transport Dracula at night. It’s ill advised.

Well, yesterday I mentioned to Julie, that it was incredibly endearing that since SEO-Chicks was launched we’ve received great amount of support from the male contingent of the SEM camp. And really, the majority of SEO-Blokes are genuinely proud to have more women on board. May I suggest that, that’s for some obvious reasons, but also because they see the value of having the opinion and contribution from the ‘fairer sex’.

So - we wanted to say a big thank you for all the support guys!

And it’s just in time, because as you may have noticed a few lines ago I managed to ’slip in’ a mention of the blokes new blog :o) - haha!

So SEO-Blokes.com is born!

We’re not known for saying ‘no’ to a little friendly competition - so good one guys… but a tip to the evilgreen one - maybe 4am posting stints are not such a good idea. Try a lot of alcohol the next time rather (wink wink)…

Well, after Julie’s post on Linking Etiquette, I really had the ‘bee in my bonnet’ and went out looking for more…
And I found a somewhat old post, but with relevant content, on blogging etiquette rules.

I think it pretty much covers all of the angles, and it adds to the list Julie had earlier :o)

So without further ado - I give you The Golden Rules of Blog Etiquette

UPDATE
Huuuugee apologies for forgetting to also give you the password: begood

It’s typical - I got sidetracked from when I found the link and then I just forgot… But isn’t it good for building the suspence…

We have had loads of requests for the SEO-Chick T-shirts that me and Julie wore at SMX in Seattle. So we have set up Spreadshirt shop where YOU can buy one!

Unfortunately the T-shirts we wore in Seattle was from Spreadshirt Europe and can only be delivered within Europe, BUT we have got a very cool alternative below! Or if your “fella” (that’s dude) fancies supporting the SEO Chicks we have “made” a cool “I digg SEO Chicks” T-shirts for the gentlemen of SEO =)

SEO Chick T-Shirt - $24.90

“I digg SEO Chicks” shirt for the dudes - $23.90

To BUY a T-shirt go to the US SEO Chicks Spreadshirt Shop!

A big welcome to Rebecca Kelley, the very cool dudette from SEOmoz.

I’m very pleased that Rebecca decided to join the SEO Chicks crew, I’ve been a big fan of SEOmoz and Rebecca for donkeys years. First time I met Rebecca was last year when she went to the UK to train with Fresh Egg. She has a great sense of humour (boarderline English humour) and knows her SEO. Sweet!