Gmail to Get More Protection From Snoops - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Noting that many power users have already turned on HTTPS protection, Google now says that is considering going further. “Ideally we’d like this to be on by default for all connections, and we’re investigating the trade-offs, since there are some downsides to HTTPS — in some cases it makes certain actions slower,” Ms. Whitten wrote. “We’re planning a trial in which we’ll move small samples of different types of Gmail users to HTTPS to see what their experience is, and whether it affects the performance of their email. Does it load fast enough? Is it responsive enough? Are there particular regions, or networks, or computer setups that do particularly poorly on HTTPS?”

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Online Marketing projected to increase

eMarketer projects that the online share of ad dollars will continue to grow, rising from nearly 10% this year to slightly more than 15% in 2013.

“The spending shifts predate the recession,” says David Hallerman, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, US Advertising Spending: The New Reality. “But the current economy is reinforcing the new advertising models—and making them more permanent.”

These projections by eMarketer mirror many other studies and statements around the world. Facing the oncoming recession, an increasing number of print newspapers are turning to online to survice, in fact.

SEO/SEM in Australia is a special issue for so many reasons. Join me was we explore. It will be a fascinating and informative journey.

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And people wonder why I suggest Paypal?

Credit card processing online can be a scary business. For most of my web development and SEO/SEM clients, I suggest a simple solution: Use Paypal. The initial reaction is Why? Hasn't Paypal been getting some bad press lately?

"Well, yeah," I usually say. "eBay was criticized for switching to Paypal as its only credit card and payment platform. That was criticism about eBay, rather than Paypal; and eBay made this move because there were too many who found ways to avoid the eBay commissions. - They loved the eBay service, and didn't want to have to pay for it."
" --All that shows about Paypal is it is a valuable business resource."

And further, "One of the most significant reasons is good for your online business too. "
"If you use Paypal, you don't have to keep credit card information. It's kept on Paypal. If someone hacks your leased hosting, they won't be able to steal from your customers."

Don't keep the information
One long term client argues that he has to get the credit card information from his clients because they don't know how, or simply don't want to learn how, to use Paypal or any other payment gateway.
He just tells them to give him the credit card data, and he'll fix them right up. "Leave it with me," he'll say. -- Every time I hear it, I want to cringe.

"If someone hacks your server (where he has only so much control over the security on leased server space), gets a hold of your address book (where he it all down); or even finds one of your scrawled-on-the-back-of-an-envelope notes," I tend to look at his eyes about here." --you could be criminally liable for the results."
He just looks at me and repeats how he usually does it.
His clients and customers aren't computer literate. They don't want to be. And he likes the idea that they trust him.

It's not just a small business problem
Small business has a simple, effective solution to an issue that has yet to be resolved around the globe. A lot of large companies are learning this lesson the hard way.

In light of recent data breaches that have compromised consumer information, such as the potentially massive 2008 Heartland Payment Systems breach, some congressmen are questioning whether the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards, created and regulated by credit card companies, are sufficiently protecting information.
...
"I have no doubt that compliance to PCI standards are the best line of defense," said Robert Russo, director of the PCI Data Security Standards Council. "We have never found a breached entity to be in full compliance at the time of breach."(CNET)

This has become a very active debate across the Net in the United States.

"I'm concerned that as long as the payment card industry is writing the standards, we'll never see a more secure system," Thompson said. "We in Congress must consider whether we can continue to rely on industry-created standards, particularly if they're inadequate to address the ongoing threat." (comment on Forbes)

NRF Calls PCI Standards ‘Elaborate Patch,’ Tells Congress Retailers Should Not Be Required to Keep Credit Card Numbers (AOL Money)

“All of us – merchants, banks, credit card companies and our customers – want to eliminate credit card fraud,” NRF (National Retail Federation in the US) Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer David Hogan said. “But if the goal is to make credit card data less vulnerable, the ultimate solution is to stop requiring merchants to store card data in the first place. The bottom line is that it makes more sense for credit card companies to protect their data from thieves by keeping it in a relatively few secure locations than to expect millions of merchants scattered across the nation to lock up their data for them.”(ibid)

There is no National Retail Federation in Australia, unfortunately. Retailers instead rely on the government to provide information, and that is commonly inadequate.

More bad news in the world of data security: Companies aren't just losing more of their customers' private information than ever before. Customers are also losing patience with those increasingly common breaches. (Forbes)

In Pictures: The Year's Biggest Data Breaches(Forbes)

In Pictures: 23 Tech Security Terms You Should Know(Forbes)

You've got to do your part, too

As an online retailer, you can protect your customers on your own site.
First make sure your payment gateway doesn't require any information to be passed in plain text. If your payment gateway doesn't allow your customers to log into their site to make payments, -- as Paypal does--, then don't use that gateway. It's really that simple. There's no reason to expose your customers information to the store-and-forward series of servers across the Net.

Second, use a secure page for your ordering. You never know what a customer will put in the Notes section of an order.
If you don't have the $2500-$5500 to purchase a certificate from a company like Thawte, use the free SSL certificate provided on any reputable hosting.
A free, unregistered security certificate can be obtained on from most servers. It's nearly as secure as a registered certificate since you'll still be using the same encryption routines.
In some cases, hosting companies will lease you access to a shared certificate. It's a small price to pay for offering your customers a lot of security.

My clients can't be bothered
That's the final word on using secure ordering on a website and a secure payment gateway in Australia: "My clients can't be bothered."
I've got to admit it's a hard one to argue. Australians came late to the Internet and computing. The Howard administration sought persistently to dissuade Australians from using the Internet for personal and business. There's a lot to overcome in this country.

One thing I did note though, the guy never sends his credit card information via email.

SEO/SEM in Australia is a special issue for so many reasons. Join me was we explore. It will be a fascinating and informative journey.

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Internet advertising wanes in 08

“The economy has had a significant impact on the short-term growth of the Internet advertising market,” David Silverman, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, which contributed to the report, said in a conference call.

Internet advertising in the United States grew to $23.4 billion in 2008, an increase of 10.6 percent from 2007, according to the Internet Advertising Revenue Report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a trade group representing online advertisers, as well as PricewaterhouseCoopers.

That was the only category of advertising spending that grew in 2008 other than cable television, which rose 7.8 percent, according to Nielsen figures supplied for the report.

Australia has yet to have an eCommerce boom. For most of the last decade, the infrastructure and installed base just wasn't there. Internet advertising in Australia has largely been limited to imitating conventional marketing.

The former administration was Internet-phobic, releasing constant articles to the press that were intended to scare Australians away from using the Internet and implementing policies that retarded the growth of Internet use for both individuals and small business.
Large business, institutes of higher education, and government were encouraged onto the Net, producing a digital divide that inhibited the development of small business in a more subversive way.

In the last two years as more businesses come to understand the power of the Internet can be applied to their business goals, the influence of the Howard administration has waned.

SEO/SEM in Australia is a special issue for so many reasons. Join me was we explor
e. It will be a fascinating and informative journey.

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HP gets into vanity publishing

With a new Web service called MagCloud, Hewlett-Packard hopes to make it easier and cheaper to crank out a magazine than running photocopies at the local copy shop.

Charging 20 cents a page, paid only when a customer orders a copy, H.P. dreams of turning MagCloud into vanity publishing’s equivalent of YouTube. The company, a leading maker of computers and printers, envisions people using their PCs to develop quick magazines commemorating their daughter’s volleyball season or chronicling the intricacies of the Arizona cactus business.

“There are so many of the nichey, maybe weird-at-first communities, that can use this,” said Andrew Bolwell, head of the MagCloud effort at Hewlett-Packard. ..

Yes, sometimes it pays to read foreign newspapers like the NY Times, even in Australia.

For companies looking to establish credibility in niche markets, offering a subscription or free copy of the company magazine is an incredible sales tool. Potential customers will admire the quality, and keep the magazine for its uniqueness and appearance.
Vanity publishing has been an effective, but little-known element in search engine marketing since the advent of lulu.com in Jan 2000.

Many other sites offer variations. Lulu still offers the widest range of services, although the services have become increasingly expensive. A fact that limits some of the feasibility for small businesses somewhat.
Having customers roaming the world with your company name and logo on a tshirt is still very effective. Just look at how many department stores and tech shops require their employees to wear a tshirt -usually with some witty saying- when working and on breaks.

HP's MagCloud will be less expensive than publishing through any of the vanity publishers now in service.

SEO/SEM in Australia is a special issue for so many reasons. Join me was we explore. It will be a fascinating and informative journey. Sphere: Related Content

Virtual Worlds and Famine

Image via Wikipedia

(reproduced here with permission from the 101 Computer Consultants' blog)

In the years before WWII, Hitler repeatedly told the world he intended to have a war in the East for Lebensraum. There were quiet rumblings that didn't always make the headlines: the renouncement of the Treaty of Versailles, the build up of German forces, and the bold new attitude of Germany at the Olympics. (Did anyone notice that is where the torch relay began?)

Far more interesting were the many new technologies that emerged: the Zeppellin, radio broadcasts around the world. The world was exhausted from the Great Depression. Everyone looked to new ideas for hope.
And the "funny little man from Germany" sounded a lot like a few other fascist dicators, Mussolini and Franco. Who would take him seriously? He was just beating his chest to give his countrymen courage.

I've always looked at the news was more like a conversation between writers than separate factoids.

Famines and Civil War
From the back pages of the Herald Sun today:

UN food agency chief Jacques Diouf (of Haiti) yesterday warned of civil war in some countries because of global food shortages and called for a revamp of the international food system. ...

"Unfortunately, we always wait until there is a catastrophe in this world before we react," he said.

The price of rice, a staple for every country, has more than doubled in the last year. Some rice producing countries have banned exports to preserve the food supply for their own people.

Turn the Page
Turning a page, virtual worlds are seen as invaluable elearning tools. IBM has set up a website to manage its stake in the virtual world, and to protect its virtual property rights. A high level executive manager has been hired to oversee virtual operations.

Australian telecommunications incumbent Telstra last year launched what was said to be the country’s first major corporate presence in the online virtual world. Dubbed “the Pond”, Telstra’s Second Life islands aim to encourage customer interaction while creating new sales and marketing opportunities.

Clever Zebra has developed ready-made corporate complexes that it has made available under the Open Source GPL license. Telstra spent $20,000 to customize a corporate complex on Second Life.
In Melbourne, train conductors use tweetscan to announce late arrivals and canceled schedules. Dell uses the same service to keep its ear to the ground about product approval and marketing opportunities.
Even more startling, Calvin Klein has produced the world's first virtual perfume. -- And you thought scented business cards were a bit much? (Yes, there is a company in Sydney that makes scented business cards!)
Teachers in virtual classrooms use twitter and twitterscan to listen to their students' comments, and react to questions.

Technology
In my online resume, I state flatly that I believe technology can save the world. I believe deeply in the power of communication across national boundaries to prevent catastrophes and bring people together.
There must have been a few like me in 1936 or so, too. Radio was the big thing then. Communication with anywhere in the world at the speed of light. In the light of history though, the record doesn't look so good.

The Flat World is facing its first crises.
None of this stuff was unpredictable.
Overpopulation and food shortages have been discussed for decades. I remember long conversations in the 1970s about it. Food shortages and social changes were the subject of movies. The paintings were gut wrenching. Those paintings and movies are now called "vintage", and rarely available anywhere.
Food shortages cause civil wars and wars between nations. Governments are overturned violently by desperate crowds. How many times has this happened in a lifetime?
Global warming has been predicted by scientists since the middle of the last century. Researchers in the early 1970s found lead levels in the Greenland ice packs were toxic. The levels had been deposited in the ice since the turn of the century, when automobiles started using ethyl gasoline to power cars.

Have we turned to virtual worlds to avoid dealing with the realities of the problems facing us all?
That would be a cruel choice.
One researcher put it plainly: "We have the capacity to feed the world. We have the tools to deliver that food to everyone who needs it." No kidding. The central valley in California is fertile enough to feed the north American continent, with billions of tons of food left over to export. There are other fertile areas around the world which only need to be put into production. The nations of the world have more than enough transport available. The US can deliver rice from the Sacramento delta to anywhere in the world.
The facts are there. International leaders like Jaques Diouf are pointing out the need. What's stopping us?

I live and work in the virtual world. The Internet has been a passion for me since before its inception. Groups of programmers gathered to dream about it, and speak quietly about our experience with its military predecessors, for years before anyone heard of the "Internet."
We knew it could be done.
The virtual world has eclipsed television as an entertainment source in Australia.
The virtual world has proven its value as a business resource, an information resource, and in entertainment. The power of the Internet has opened up the world to all who access it.
It's time the Internet showed how it can help those who desperately need help. Those millions who are not looking for entertainment or money, but for the daily needs of living.
I know this is just one post in a massive blogosphere. I hope a few people see it. More than that, I hope many people act on the ideas I've put forth here. I will place a similar post on all my blogs.
It's time to show the real power of a dream.SEO/SEM in Australia is a special issue for so many reasons. Join me was we explore. It will be a fascinating and informative journey.

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Contact details

Image by BR0WSER via FlickrIs this an issue for SEO, or web design?

Recent surveys of online buyers indicate they will spend less than 3 minutes searching for a way to communicate with the company.

Even business owners new to the Net know. I don't know how many times I've heard an SEO client tell me to make the logo bigger (because it has the contact phone number) or to put the phone and email both at the top and bottom of the page. The look is intrusive, yes. It is also good business.

MaCorr Research, working with web hosting firms offering web design, reports that "77% of respondents will switch to a competitor if the business does not provide a phone number, e-mail address or live chat."
Consumer expectations drive the need for businesses to provide a means of communication.

• 85% of the 1,025 respondents cite the ability to contact a business as the most important aspect of using a company’s web site.
  
• 78% are irritated when unable to find a way to communicate on a business’s web site;
  
• 48% have felt angry to the degree they tell someone about the failure. 91% are most irritated when unable to find a contact phone number,
  
• and 82% when unable to find a contact e-mail address.

After successfully contacting a business:

• 97% of survey respondents say they would visit the web site again and use the business in the future;
  
• 93% say they would use the business more frequently,
  
• 92% would recommend the business to others
  
• and 85% would bookmark the site, the survey finds.

I have to say that I distrust those numbers, frankly. They're just too high. Or there is no commitment indicated. I'd have to question the participants of the survey, and how it was worded.

SEO/SEM in Australia is a special issue for so many reasons. Join me was we explore. It will be a fascinating and informative journey. Sphere: Related Content

Chat with your Customers

Image via WikipediaI've got to admit to a bias towards small business. I want to see small business be as effective at using the Net as "the Big Boys."
A few days ago, one of my clients said, "Can you put online chat on my site? I've heard it's the best way to make a sale."
I'd talked to this guy about a number of options for his site: animated FAQs, online chat, and messaging. Like most small business owners, when he found out it would cost him a monthly fee, he suddenly was looking for the door and his watch. So I asked, "How many sales do you think you'll make if I do?"
It wasn't really fair. He had no idea how many sales he'd make from online chat. Recognizing I had to get him out of a corner, I said, "How much do you make on a sale?"
That same expression. Now this one he should have known: I'd given him a spreadsheet with a complete breakdown of pricing and profits. Obviously, he hadn't looked it over or just didn't think of it in terms of average profit.
Fortunately, I had. But I was interested to see what his number would be. After all, I don't know the sales he's made. I just get a fee for my work.

Like anything else, the online chat facility has to be considered in terms of ROI - How much is it gonna pay to play?
When you're just starting out, you gotta try stuff to see if it works for you. You need to think realistically though. It's not just a monthly fee, or a per-minute use fee, there's also your own time involved.

Online chat costs
If someone is asking about something, it's time to go find out about it. Soo...
I had always looked at online chat as a means of making a site more 'sticky' - meaning it would keep potential Customers around longer. Turns out that was a pretty naive perspective,
Let's look at the upside first.
From the Internet Retailer:

Orvis, a multi-channel outdoor gear and apparel retailer, invites customers to chat only when they are on certain pages, such as customer service. “We have a lot of stuff on the customer service page,” says Brad Wolansky, vice president of e-commerce. “If 15 seconds go by and you’re still on that page, you’re probably looking for something and haven’t found it.”
Orvis also offers chat to customers lingering on the checkout page. But the retailer does not offer chat on product pages, where visitors may linger reading reviews, examining photos, watching videos and comparing products. “Sitting there for a long time is not an indication you have a problem,” Wolansky says. “I don’t want to bother you.” Wolansky says customers who chat convert 15% to 20% of the time, roughly triple the rate of e-mail.

Mr Wolansky is getting sales from 20% of his Customers he chats with. Considering that 68% of visitors will abandon the shopping cart before checking out, he's saving a lot of sales, too. He's effectively reduced the number of abandoned shopping carts by 15% or so - based on the averages.
It's interesting when and why Orvis will offer to chat. Picking up on lingering customers on the checkout page is a great idea. And Orvis will offer to help a (potential) Customer understand his customer service page too, which adds a lot to Orvis' credibility and reputation for integrity.
That's long tail advertising. It just goes on and on.
Kevin Kohn at LivePerson Inc. claimed that 15% of site visitors accept invitations to chat.
One thing about averages and ranges: They are just averages and ranges. Your business may do much better. (It could do worse, of course, but why expect the negative?)

• 20% of web chats result in a completed purchase
• Web chatters spend approximately 35% more per order
• 30%-40% of Web site traffic includes self-service shoppers (consumers who make purchase decisions without vendor assistance)

Online chat services range in price from $39.99 to $159.99 per month for single seat or 1-5 seats.
If we can estimate the average sale online is about $25.00 with a conservative markup of 50%, or about $8.00 and change, it would take at least 5 new sales each month to break even - on just the cost of the software.
There may also be setup fees, costs for employees to attend, training costs and other niggling costs.

SEO/SEM in Australia is a special issue for so many reasons. Join me was we explore. It will be a fascinating and informative journey.

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Back to the basics

SEO is about maximising your search engine positioning. You can Do It Yourself (DIY) or engage a search engine consultant to do the work for you. To save time, another option is to do it yourself with a little assistance from a consultant.

One of the truisms on the Web is that over half of all webpages are not indexed. There are no links to the pages, or the website. If you have a online business, the website is useless if it does not attract visitors.
The key feature and importance of SEO is to make it easy for search engines to understand your site, page by page. That's SEO in a nutshell.
You SEO the site, page by page, to support the next step: SEM.
SEM is the process of making the website and pages visible to search engines and potential customers.
SEO and SEM are part of website optimization, a part of the overall development of a website for business or community information purposes.

Some companies don't need SEM
Some people think so, anyway.
Companies with very well known brand names don't need to market their site to get visitors. Everyone in Australia will type in 'telstra.com' to find the Telstra website. For almost all of the rest of us, we get to squabble with the search engines to be seen.
Some companies will short the queue, expensively, by buying a place on a list called 'Sponsored Links' using PPC advertising. PPC advertising is popular. These links will be in direct competition with the largest companies in their industries for spots on those lists.
And when the PPC campaign stops, the link -and the visitors- stop.
You see, the largest companies know they do need SEM.

There are three important steps for search engine success.
First, the search engine must know of your site.
Second, because most people using the search engines only look at the first or second SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Using the default settings for Google, that means the first 20 listings. Ever notice how many results you get from a search? It's often in the millions.
Third, if you get a page in the top 20 listing, the person has to see what they're looking for.
Actually, you can break down the numbers a little more.

• 40% of searchers will not look past the top 4 listings; another 20% will look to the rest of the first page. That means over half - 60% - won't even look to the second page;
• another 20% or so will look at the second page. It's about the same breakdown there too. Of this 20% of searchers, only 1 in 5 will look past the middle of the page, or 6 listings, on the second page.
• By the end of that second page, only about 1 searcher in 10 is going to see you.
  

If the searcher doesn't see what they're looking for, they'll launch another search.

What if they do find it?
Finding accurate statistics on the behavior of Australians is tough (or expensive.) However, we can get some idea from US statistics (from Coremetrics March 2007)

Samples of Coremetrics’ U.S. benchmark data for March include:

22.41% of visitors left retail sites after viewing one page, while 51.65% got as far as a product page.

Average page views per session was 13.76 and product page views per session 3.78.

The average order included 6.12 items totaling $140.10. The shopping cart abandonment rate was 68.42%.

14.84% of consumers used site search during their visits, resulting in a 5.60% conversion rate and an average order of $151.92.

47.89% of traffic and 67.35% of sales came from visitors who typed in the retailer’s URL or clicked on a bookmark. The typical conversion rate on such “direct load” visits was 3.29%.

Natural search results accounted for 13.35% of visits and 7.83% of sales, producing a conversion rate of 1.66%. Referrals from sites such as affiliate networks and comparison shopping engines accounted for 5.71% of traffic and 1.97% of sales, producing a conversion rate of 1.36%.

What is this stuff telling us?

1. If a visitor (not a searcher any more, hopefully) finds a retail site, one in five will leave. More than half will look at at least one product page.
2. On average, the visitor will look at about 4 times as many product and company information pages than product pages.
3. Once the visitor has figured out what they want, they'll buy 6 items. However, almost 70% of visitors will abandon the shopping cart before completing the purchase.
4. Visitors that are looking for something in particular (using the site search) will buy more often than those just browsing the website, and spend more money.
5. Half of those who came to the site, and 2/3rds (67%) of sales, came from people who typed in the site name.
6. Over twice as many visitors came from natural search results (not PPC) as from affiliate or comparison shopping sites. Nearly 6 times as many visitors who found the site from natural search results bought something compared to affiliate links or comparison shopping sites.

Yeah, I know. I love to play with the numbers. The numbers are the reality of this stuff. They make it manageable.
Take another look.
What those numbers means is people do want to know about the company and the products. They'll go to great lengths to find out, even running the shopping cart and abandoning it to see everything they can.
Those numbers seem to tell us that twice as many people will buy if they find a site in the natural search results as if they type in the name of the site. But that's not the whole story. Three times as many sales and visits came from visitors who typed in the name of the site. That means they've been there before. They know the name of the site.
These are either repeat customers or people who've checked out the company and products.
The time worn adage on the Web is a visitor converts to a customer after 3-5 visits to a website. Guess what? The adage holds pretty well based on those numbers.

The numbers also tell us that about half the visitors won't look past the first page. That starts the old sales numbers game running. To get sales, you have to get visitors.
That note about using site search reminds us to make it easy for the customer to do their job: to buy from you.
And we are back to web design, SEO, and SEM again.

SEO/SEM in Australia is a special issue for so many reasons. Join me was we explore. It will be a fascinating and informative journey. Sphere: Related Content

Crawling through HTML forms and Flash

Google is constantly trying new ideas to improve our coverage of the web.
In the US and UK markets, Google now scans JavaScript and Flash to discover links. That's an improvement that hasn't been implemented in Australia yet, but is expected soon.
Just to emphasize, that doesn't mean Google can retrieve content from Javascript and Flash, only the links.

Google's latest foray is with forms. The Googlebot will try a small number of queries using the form. The whole story is available on the title link. I was pleasantly surprised to see this news, and wanted to make a note to myself...

SEO/SEM in Australia is a special issue for so many reasons. Join me was we explore. It will be a fascinating and informative journey.

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Black and White

Image via WikipediaChannel 7's Sunrise program presented a segment on "Why Dads should be banned from the delivery room." Sometimes you can't help thinking you can make an argument for anything. And someone will, sooner or later.

Black and White
I can make the argument that black is the same as white, for example.

"Black and white" is used to describe an attitude, perspective, or understanding of a topic. In this commonly used context, it doesn't matter which is "black" or "white".
"Black" by itself has a negative connotation emotionally and racially. Other than to describe the color, the word is rarely used. The same can be said for "white." The racial connotation is socially unacceptable, even implying racism. The word is used more commonly than "black" to describe color only because of the broad use of the term "white goods."
The only other common use of the terms "black" and "white" is to "put it down in black and white" which means to clearly state something or write it down. In the modern world, it really doesn't matter what color the text is however. It could just as often be white text, or blue, or green, or any other color.
Therefore realistically, the terms "black" and "white" other than the often misused abstract colors, the terms "black" and "white" are equivalent in use, which is the only meaningful definition after all.

What do you think? Is it semantics - the use of words - the only thing that's important? or is it a dictionary definition which only marginally describes the meaning of the words in the real world?

The arguments presented above are intentionally provocative. Often, I think the same is true for many of the ideas presented in the media, too. Anything that sounds different or contradicts accepted perceptions is attractive to the media -like the topic of the report to ban dads from the delivery room.
The whole point is to grab attention. At some point, you have to think for yourself and be practical.

SEO/SEM in Australia is a special issue for so many reasons. Join me was we explore. It will be a fascinating and informative journey.

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Selling SEO

Image via WikipediaWhen I want to sell SEO to someone, I tend to do it very simply.

I ask them what keywords they think describe their business. Most people intuitively know what a keyword is, and they know what categories in the Yellow Pages apply to their business.
Let's say the answer is: "Tools. I sell mechanics' tools. Garden tools."
I launch a browser, and type "tools" into the Google search box. 1,070,000,000 results. Let's cut that down a bit just for the sake of sanity and reality.
Select 'pages from Australia', and launch the search again.

1. Much better: 345,000.
2. Now 'mechanics tools': 317,000.
3. And 'garden tools': 216,000.

Big numbers, yes. But not as incomprehensible as a billion and change.
Those sites did good SEO. They're listed number 1 through 4 out of 300,000 or so.

Look again at the sites on the screen. There are maybe 5 or so above the fold.
Now, see these guys over here under 'Sponsored Links'? They're paying $4-$6 a click to be on the same page. (A little preparation goes a long ways here..)
Do you remember how much you paid for those test ads we ran about keywords? (A few days can easily cost $100-$200.) That means the Sponsored Links are paying a couple of thousand dollars a month to be on the same page as the sites that did SEO.

You might spend a couple of thousand to get your pages into the top of the natural search results. But they'll stay there for a while. It depends on what you do with the pages. But if they're at the top for a few months, it's gonna take a lot to get them out of position.

And remember, 40% of Australians won't buy from Sponsored Links on principle? That means your SEO dollars are that much more valuable. 60/40 is 1.5. So if you spend $2000, it's worth $3000 - 1.5 times $2000. -thanks to the peculiarities of the Aussie market.
Those guys over there probably know that (pointing to the Sponsored Links), but they're bidding against each other over what's left.
Now if we're really successful, we'll get your site into those positions for particular brands or even popular tools.

It isn't hard numbers, no. But the point usually gets across. The approach is demonstrable and understandable. The customer doesn't have to be a math wiz to figure it out. It also sets some achievable targets for the future.

Spin, Duck, and Dodge
Some of the strategies and tactics out there are pure manipulation.

DON’T DO THIS: Get lost in the details.
Do you think the CEO (or small business owner) wants to hear about meta tags, site architecture, content and link popularity?
Probably not. He or she just wants to hear one thing: How will SEO benefit me? Which brings us to…

DON’T DO THIS: Dodge direct questions.
While “talking points” are a powerful way to stay on
message, make sure you know when to answer a direct question.

I realize this is 'good sales technique', but I'd prefer to give a direct answer to a direct question. If someone has taken the time to learn enough to ask questions, they deserve an answer. I may warn them the answer may have a lot of detail, but if they're willing to hear the full answer, they'll get it.
As much as possible, I'll focus on the benefits. I don't want to wade through the vagaries of site structure and different search engines either. But try explaining the benefits of a heading tag without mentioning the rest of the page structure.
If you want to end up in a situation analogous to spaghetti code, wait til someone has told your prospective customer: "I don't even bother with the keyword or description tags. The search engines ignore it anyway." And then have to explain.

DON’T DO THIS: Focus on to many benefits .
Remember the power of threes: When information comes in three bits, it usually sticks.
Too little and it sounds half-baked, too much and it sounds too good to be true—or your audience will forget your additional points.
Stick with three, high-level and pertinent benefits.

I have to agree with this one. Somehow, I want to know what the person really wants from an SEO campaign. Not only do I want to know, but I want to put those goals down in writing (or email) . Setting goals in writing makes me accountable. Having the goals in writing also avoids my having to hit moving targets, and the horror of all technical projects: scope creep.

Is the goal of the site to sell products? - or a service? -or is it to generate leads?

• If the goal is to sell a service, the site structure is different than if to sell products. For example, the most accessible pages will focus on the service. There will be more pages supporting the sale of the service.
• If the goal is to sell products, then the products should be front and center on the homepage. Services will only be another option amongst the products.
• Generating leads is analogous to branding. If the company name is associated with a service or product (i.e., branded) then the search terms will lead directly to the site. Otherwise, the site should focus on the benefits, and let the benefits to the consumer get the lead.

It's possible to have a site do all three things, of course. One focus will support the others. There may be a lot of pages though.
If the stated goal is to sell a service, and somewhere in the process it changes to selling products, then back to selling the service - the site will just be an unsuccessful mess because it's much harder to hit a moving target.
That's a form of scope creep. If you don't write things down, scope creep can slosh back and forth, increasing then decreasing, to create nothing but dissatisfaction and confusion.

DO THIS: Talk the talk.
Now you have your three key SEO benefits.
The next step is to transform them into “talking points.” Political junkies out there will be very familiar with talking points, and to see them in action is a thing of beauty. No matter what question is thrown at them, they somehow manage to weave back to one of the talking points.

I'm not very big on buzzwords. You know you're getting there when the customer starts picking up the jargon of SEO.
Not just as buzzwords though. - like throwing out "ex dividend" pretending to know all about stocks - but when customers use SEO terms in context to describe what's happening, and why.
It's also a good sign that you're failing to get the point across if your customer hasn't picked up the basic terms, too. You're missing something in the communication. It's time to regroup and rethink how you're presenting your efforts.
When both you and your customer manage to weave any discussion back to the goals, you've got yourself a team effort.

Learning to communicate with customers is a way of showing them respect. You're not there to impress them with your brilliance or superiority. Your job is to help them achieve their goals. You're there to make your customers part of your SEO team. Part of that job is to help them understand their goals, and how you can help achieve those goals.
After all, they are the experts in their business - not matter how large or small the business.

SEO/SEM in Australia is a special issue for so many reasons. Join me was we explore. It will be a fascinating and informative journey.

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Flaming Underpants: the 1956 Olympic Hoax

I know it's not directly pertinent to SEO in Australia, but this is hilarious!



The Museum of Hoaxes story will save me a little typing.

Then someone whispered in the mayor’s ear, “That’s not the torch.” Suddenly the mayor realized what he was holding. Held proudly in his hand was not the majestic Olympic flame. Instead he was gripping a wooden chair leg topped by a plum pudding can inside of which a pair of kerosene-soaked underwear was burning with a greasy flame. The mayor looked around for the runner, but the man had already disappeared, melting away into the surrounding crowd.

There's already a web buzz rippling across the Net. You gotta wonder what kind of internet tsunami this stunt would cause today?

SEO/SEM in Australia is a special issue for so many reasons. Join me was we explore. It will be a fascinating and informative journey.

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The Buzz is all Broadband

Image by Brett L. via FlickrFrom Reuters:

Australia has slower and more expensive Internet access than many other developed countries, and though penetration rates are on a par, officials and experts have warned Australia may fall behind in competitiveness without faster, nationwide coverage.

They're not telling anyone in Australia anything new. Expensive broadband with poor service has come to be expected. Leading the race to the bottom is the company that can most affect service: Telstra.
There is even a term: fraudband, to describe ADSL service sold for too much but slower than dialup.
Some people in the technical field consider all Australian ADSL service fraudband because of the coverage maps. Coverage maps are published online (supposedly) showing where ADSL in different versions is available. There are two problems with the maps:

1. Commonly where coverage is shown, the telephone exchanges are too far away. Although full service is indicated within 4km of an exchange, past 1.3km or so, the quality (read: speed and reliablity) drops off dramatically.
2. The out of date, or just poorly wired, exchanges are full. ADSL may be offered in an area, but you take out a lottery ticket to get service. Some homes almost next door to an exchange have waited over a year.

IHT picked up on the story:

Australia could be a step closer to building a high-speed broadband network after the government canceled a deal for a rural system that would have overlapped with the one planned nationwide. The scrapping of the rural network plan, which was to cost 958 million Australian dollars, or $888 million, came as the government planned to invite bids for a national network as early as next week.

Hate to tellya, folks, but that's been going on for more than 5 years.
The government has commissioned Telstra to provide outdated service to regional (rural) areas, then realized the service would conflict with other plans - wasting years and hundreds of millions of dollars. Regional users are forced from one flaky plan to the next (CDMA to NextG is the latest.) and still have dropouts and poor service.
The government has looked to private enterprise to pick up some of the slack by offering grants and special loans. Satellite service and free service expands too quickly for these small firms to keep up. One abandoned network is cobbled onto the next, creating a nightmare for customers and those companies that took the bait.

Like the old AT&T in the US, Telstra is great at the big projects:

Australian telecommunications company Telstra has begun the arduous task of laying a 9,000 km undersea internet cable from Australia to Hawaii.

Again, that's not the whole story. Telstra is laying that cable, not out of social consciousness or entrepreneurial zeal, but out of monopolistic necessity. Telstra has been buying bandwidth from old rival Optus for years.

If you can't even get email, why bother to open up a business online? An inspiring example is as passion for beauty.
There is no question some companies have braved the madness and succeeded though. Relatively, for a country that needs reliable communications from coast to coast like no other, Australia has made the road to success unnecessarily hard.
There are many words to describe the slosh of media in one direction then the next, with only miniscule real progress: most of them 4-letter words.

SEO/SEM in Australia is a special issue for so many reasons. Join me was we explore. It will be a fascinating and informative journey.

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ROI: The 800 lbs Gorilla in the Corner pt 2

Image via WikipediaA surprising question appeared on a business forum recently: Do I need to get business cards?
The poster said that his business was entirely online. He had no face to face contact with his customers. The only communication was by order and email, with an occassional phone call to clear up immediate problems. He didn't see why he needed business cards - and his arguments were pretty sound.
The question must have astonished most of the forum. No one replied for nearly 3 weeks.
Finally, someone posted that business cards had helped build his business. He included business cards in all packaging along with the invoice, and passed them out whenever he met someone. The business cards helped his customers remember his business, or to find his online store.
The discussion ended there.

The question is valid though: Does a small wholly online company need business cards?
Marketers will say emphatically Yes. Invoices with contact information are good. Most people put them away after they're paid. The only time an invoice gets any attention is at tax time.
People handle business cards differently. They're usually put into a card file on the desktop. Whenever the person thumbs through the cards looking for something, they momentarily see each business card. Even though it's just a fraction of a second, that's enough to remind customers of the business.
For that small moment, the Customer will remember the purchase. They may even return to the website - and buy something else. That's enough. The business card has paid for itself and more.
5oo business cards cost about $100, or about 20 cents a card. If the merchant makes $5.00 on the purchase, that's an ROI of $5.00 (- not counting the original purchase -) for 20 cents.

Let's have a little fun with the numbers.
If that were the only purchase anyone made because of a business card then the guy spent $100 to get $5. That's assuming he got rid of all 500 of the cards. If he did put all 500 cards into potential future Customers' hands, the chances of him getting the one sale is .. 500 to 1.
That's pretty good odds. - Sorta.

How many Customers have to buy something for him to break even on the business cards? $5 per sale. He needs to make $100. That means he has to make 20 sales to cover the cost of the business cards. - What are his chances of that? 20 out of 500, or .. 25 to 1.
The odds are getting closer. But most people would make a bet if they knew there the odds were 25 to 1 in their favor.
What if he only passed out 100 cards? That's 5 to 1.
Or 200 cards? 10 to 1.
The odds are still in his favor. But where does he decide he's willing to make the bet. He's betting his business and income, remember?
The potential ROI on his business cards depends on how many cards he puts into potential customers' hands.

There's a joker in this deck of cards. What he makes depends on how quickly he gets the cards out. Let's say he finds for every 10 cards he passes out, he makes a sale.
If he passed out 100 cards, - That's 10 sales. - or $50. He hasn't paid for the cards.
If he passed out 300 cards, - That's 30 sales. - or or $150. He's paid for the cards, but hasn't really made much.
How long will it take him to pass out 300 cards? A week? A month? A year?

If he made $50 ($100 for the cards. He made $150 from 30 sales.) from 300 cards in a year, that hardly makes the cost reasonable. He could make more money from doing something else to promote his business.
Thinking about ROI means thinking about thinking about how long it will take to recoup the investment.
If his online store made 1000 sales in a year, and only 30 of them resulted from the cards, is that a worthwhile investment?

The answer is .. Yes. -- Why?
After the cost of the cards, he only made $50. Then again, he sent out 700 invoices that didn't have business cards, didn't he?
There are maybe 700 of his Customers that never got a card. And he could have handed out cards in other places.

But none of these numbers are the real reason he should have a business card. The reason he should have a business card is Customers' expectations. A business card with the invoice supports the perception of the business.
If he meets someone, handing out a business card is expected. People question of he's really in business if he doesn't have one.
A business card supports his reputation. There is nothing more valuable to a business -especially a small online business- than their reputation. It reflects upon the perceived integrity of the business.
But how do you put a value on reputation? It's part of his investment in business cards.

There are significant factors in ROI that can't be expressed in hard numbers.
How valuable these factors are to a business depends on the nature of the business.
If the owner assumes that Customers will come to the site one time to either make a purchase or not, then there is much less value to distributing business cards to help establish reputation. There is still some value since one-time Customers may refer others.
If the company expects to sell repeatedly to Customers, then the value of business cards to establish reputation -and to bring Customers back- is much greater.
More depends on the long-term plans of the business:

• Does the business plan to add more products?
• Will the new products be more profitable?

We now have a significant factor that affects many more significant factors. In order to understand the value, how do we quantify these factors?
Incorporating a little fuzzy logic may help. There is an old marketing adage that it costs 6 times as much to keep a Customer as it does to find a new one. That means the $150 he made from the business cards is worth .. $900. He only made $5000 for the year. Suddenly, the value of the business cards is worth nearly 20% of the revenue.
It is using fuzzy logic, but the difference of $650 can be seen as the long term value of the investment in business cards.
On a card by card basis, the $100 spent on each card represents an ROI of $900. The cards that cost 20 cents each have returned $1.80 per card (- really $3.00 because only 300 of 500 cards were distributed.)

There are many other factors. Some can be quantified, and some can't. Determining the quality of these factors depends on the priorities of the business.
Assuming again that the company made $5000 for the year:

• How many visitors came to the site? We know that 1000 people bought products.
• How many times did repeat Customers return to the site?
• How many times did visitors come to the site before buying?
• Why did people return to the site?
  

For web design, software training, community building, and web programming a similar sort of analysis can be made. Hard numbers can be put to some things. Some things are difficult to express in numbers. Overall, the value of these unquantifiable aspects is qualified by the goals and vision of the business.
We'll explore a few of the specifics in another article.

SEO/SEM in Australia is a special issue for so many reasons. Join me was we explore. It will be a fascinating and informative journey.

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