Did you notice?

Ok..for those who regularly read EricOnSearch…and thankfully that list is getting longer and longer, I have a question.

In the last two months I have changed TWO (count ‘em!-grin) separate and distinct pieces of this blog in order to test or get data on some common search engine optimization concepts. (or misconcepts?) I PURPOSELY did not announce what I was doing and I now can see the results!

SO, time to see who noticed! If you think you know what I tested and have an idea what the results were…fire a comment down below! If you are the first to name one of them, you get a free one hour consulation with me. If you are the first to name both, you get THREE free hours of my time!

Are you stumped? Here’s a hint! One of them is PLAINLY visible on the front page of EricOnSearch..to notice the other, you need to look at the other pages as well to see what I did!

Have a happy new year and a great 2009!

Eric

SEO Malpractice: Things an SEO firm should NEVER do.

Have you ever noticed what we offer here at EricOnSearch? What I want you to notice today is what we DON’T OFFER. Even what we counsel you to avoid. Some of these things seem to be gaining popularity with some other firms and it is time to let folks who hire them know how damaging it can be. One such case seems to be the trend towards having people (on your behalf) drop spammy comments on blogs with YOUR name on them. Here’s a great post on the subject by Dave Smith, who is a friend and fellow blogger. (For the record…dropping spammy comment

In the comments, another friend, Jay Thompson points out that he is seeing this as well. He approaches buying blog comments as a waste of money. My assessment is based on the damage it does to your reputation WITHIN your industry.

Have you noticed that we are a Search Engine Marketing COACHING company? Will I build you a blog? SURE. Will I consult with you on best practices? SURE. Will I assist you in developing an effective campaign for building your presence online.YEP. Will I coach you on how to build relationships online and thus grow in authority and as a result, links? DARN RIGHT. BUT….

What I will not do is do ANYTHING under your name. Maybe you don’t care about your online reputation, but it is FAR more likely that you are not aware of the consequences of spamming blogs and all of the negative consequences. Your reputation online is the SAME as offline. You may not be aware of it yet…but one day those two reputations will meet…and it won’t be pretty.

In the case of REALTORS:

Maybe you are talking to an agent at a conference and they recognize you as the author of TONS of spam.

Maybe you get a REAL email from a friend from elsewhere in the country, asking “Why did you do this to my blog?”

Maybe Google will penalize your site for something “you” did…and you will say “but I didn’t” and they will say ‘Hmm…here’s your name.”

The bottomline: Your reputation is YOURS to MAKE or BREAK. So is MINE. It should never be for rent to any firm just to get you to the top of the search engines. Managing your online reputation is a job for you alone, in my opinion.

I will be posting some more SEO malpractice posts here as a public service to those who may be misled…

Rancho Carlsbad

Rancho Carlsbad

Any San Diego REALTORS who serve the Rancho Carlsbad community:

I know we have more than a few REALTORS who read this blog. I have a friend who is looking to move to Rancho Carlsbad. I don’t know much about this area. I live in Indiana, but if you serve the Rancho Carlsbad area in Southern California, I have a free lead for you…compliments of EricOnSearch.

From what my friend tells me, Rancho Carlsbad is a great area to live in, but he is unsure about prices in California and wants to make sure that he can get the best deal possible in today’s market. If you are up to this, please give me a call and I will hook you up. It’s the least I can do.

How to build a web presence…

The secret to building a hugely profitable web presence is actually quite simple. Still mulling over what Glenn Kelman posted on the cost of a large real estate industry web presence, my thoughts turn to what I think is the BEST analogy that I can find.

Find the SMALLEST profitable online niche that will net you a sale with the LEAST investment. For many service industries these days, that will be a blog (FREE-except for effort) and Social Media Marketing (FREE-except for your effort). As sales come in, RE-INVEST. Pay yourself the referral fee that you would have paid to others. If you paid yourself that 25% of your commission and put it back into your marketing, you’d be set. (NOTE: This is the hardest step. DO IT!)

If you are in real estate, the next step is adding a way to put inventory onto your blog / site. for others, that may be adding the “bait” (items of value that keep people coming back to your website). Then you might want to add some Paid Search or basic level SEO. Most of the easy stuff to do SEO-wise is freely available out there…you just need to DO IT.

OK, this is where it gets fun (and addictive-seriously). Then you use the revenue from the commissions (or sales) from your site to build an increasingly BETTER and more effective mousetrap. The problem that most folks have is that they want to skip to this step before starting small. Actually, an even bigger problem is that they want to create a visual masterpiece of a website before getting a free site together that will buy you the next round of profitable online bricks and mortar.

My philosphy for online marketing presence is simple:

Buy the SMALLEST possible number of online bricks in your industry that will generate enough revenue to get you to the next level. (Lather).

Use that presence to generate revenue (no matter how many people make fun of what it looks like). Just focus on making those bricks profitable. (Rinse).

Re-Invest a significant piece of your earnings into your web presence. More specifically, re-invest into buying the NEXT profitable amount of revenue generating online bricks you can afford. Don’t overreach. (repeat.)

You build an online presence the same way a bricklayer builds a wall. One profitable brick at a time. The nice thing about the internet is that it is a great equalizer, whether you traffic your site with SEO, pay per click, crossover advertising, or any other form of media…the barriers to entry never have been lower IMO.

How the West was won…lessons on profitability.

As a consultant to people trying to make money online, I often get asked my views on “the web”.  The WWW (world wide web) in many ways is like it’s other WWW counterpart, the wild, wild west, but not in the ways that you might think. Oftentimes I tell them to spend less on building there site and more effort on marketing it. (Often that gets roundly booed and dismissed for shiny bright objects that attract attention.)

Here are a couple of my observations.

When most folks think of the wild, wild west, they think of a lawless area that is devoid of rules and where “frontier justice” is the often the only kind around. I think of the wild wild west as a large space with lots of room to grow and most importantly, with VERY low barriers to entry. Glenn Kelman of Redfin made some interesting points in a recent blog on real estate websites. In his estimation the table stakes for the real estate listing websites may well be rising.  I still think that the smart money is small savvy sites whose only burn rate is the six pack of Diet Mt. Dew that their creators consume. Think I am kidding? Please consider the following:

In the west, a person could homestead a piece of ground and turn it into a producing livelihood. Costs had to be kept low and profiability MATTERED. The only folks that survived were the hardy souls who worked, saved, invested, and saved more. The savvy ones were the ones who kept their powder dry.

These prinicples have not changed. In today’s WWW, there are a lot of flashy dudes with a lot of “whizbang” technology that comes at a high price. That (stuff) is ex-pen-sive. Then there are the small, low barrier to entry guys. They are the clever MacGyver types who can build an internet marketing vehicle out of chewing gum, a paperclip and a roll of duct tape that would stagger you. And guess what: Those site sell too! Open Source has added many tools that allow bootstrappers access to MANY of the cool toys that only the well heeled used to have. In the hands of the creative, those marketing weapons are DEADLY. Want some examples?

Hugh Hewitt, a radio talk show host and incredible web entrepreneur in his own right, launched www.amaze.fm. He wanted a place to find new and interesting bump music for his show, and a way to find some up and coming independant music makers. The traffic results were STAGGERING given the small investment.

Another friend of mine just closed a real estate deal (three more deals in the pipeline) from a blog/site that cost him a whopping $150 plus his time. Here’s the thing: The buyer is JUST as happy with the property and my friend is JUST as thrilled to cash the commission check. He started earnest effort on the blog a scant few months ago (4 to be exact).

This blog (EricOnSearch) itsself was profitable in its second month of existance. Why? Not because it had tapped some huge spring of new found internet revenue with a great VC funded shiny business plan. Nope. Just a well thought out idea by a guy willing to put the elbow grease into it. The main thing that made it profitable was that I did not spend very much at first in putting it together.

Not having a huge bankroll in today’s WWW has much the same benefits that it did back then. Necessity is the mother of invention (and creativity). And invention and creativity are what profitability on the web is derived from.   

IMO, too much of the VC money is spent on hype, promotion, potential and overly large ideas. If you REALLY want to make some sick returns on internet venture capital, you’d get in the business of micro loans to the rabid workaholics that are savvy, run lean, cn bootstrap with the best of them and most of all who have the innate creativity that comes from NEED. I think the opportunities there are truly staggering…the ROI on a six pack of Diet Mt. Dew is truly pretty sweet.

Have an internet bootstrap success story? PLEASE share it with me! I’d be glad to post it here to help inspire others to out hustle the big dogs.

Thoughts?

Even on the web, you sell with senses.

One of the great things about NEW media is that it is new. New audiences shift around as they try to find what they like on the web. It is our job to reach and entice them to the products that we wish to sell.

Just as with any other form of media, senses sell. Seriously! Want some proof? Here’s an example of a successful site that incorporates your senses into the information that they provide.

EXAMPLE 1: Selling Gulf Shores Alabama.

Gulf Shores Condos
Orange Beach Condos
Fort Morgan Condos

Notice what this REALTOR is selling-beach front property. Many people that would buy these condos, would do it as an investment–yet he is using THEIR senses rather than a direct numbers approach to selling. The quality of his pictures and the coloring of the graphics literally TAKE you there. Well done! The sand dollar is an incredibly nice touch!

Doesn’t that TAKE you to the beach? Doesn’t it help you SENSE the pleasure that you will get by buying a condo there? Can’t you SEE your family there? or maybe FEEL the sand between your toes?

It is that kind of design detail that introduces emotion into the equation and gets people to take a look at the property. And while SEO wise, the site is search friendly, design wise, it is awesome IMO. Kudos to the designer on this one.