Let me tell you a story…

Imagine a place: Middle East

You see ocher landscapes in the distance, few palm trees around an oasis and a hill with a castle on top of it.

Idyllic, isn’t it? No, it is not idyllic. Why?

Give to that images a context: the Crusades.

During Middle Age human beings were not really like in the Arthurian tales (to tell the truth, neither Lancelot was a real gentleman). Violence was much more present than it is today in every day life, and Faith was ruling everything.

Faith was spread with imaginaries (think to the gargoyles) and stories.

And stories were always real for the listeners.

Let’s now return to that castle.

A group of men is in a big room, standing up in front of a man, the commander of the Assassins sect. They are scared, because terrifying things have been told about the cruelty of the Assassins, the most feared Muslim sect of that time.

“Don’t be scared, men“, said the old commander, “Smoke and feel fine and with hope, because you have been selected between hundreds for beginning a new better life”.

And here it comes the hashish, from where the Assassins name.

The men smoked hashish and fell into a deep sleep without dreams.

While sleeping, they were transported to a splendid place, a villa with fountains, food and women. The men woke up, found themselves in Paradise and spent the entire day enjoying what they would never think to live.

When the night came, they were moved back to the castle, in the same room they fall asleep in the morning. They woke up and everything they experienced seems as it was just a dream.

“No, it was not a dream”, said the commander of the Assassins, “You were really living in the Paradise. I know it, because I lived the same experience too. Now you know that you don’t have to fear anything, and death is just a passage to a better life. Become Assassins, and fight in the name of God. Do that and obey with the faith knowledge gives you. You’ll return to Paradise one day”.

Few day after the Christian troops arrived close to the castle. The King and the Assassin commander met at the hill’s feet and talked.

“My troops are the strongest of the world, Muslim! We have won tens of battles and we have the best weapons since Caesar… and we are thousands”, said the King.

“I have only a couple of hundreds of Assassins, Christian. But they obey to every order I may give”, said the commander of the Assassins. After he snapped his fingers.

At that sound an Assassins jumped from the highest tower without a shout and died.

The Christian King watched that and then looked into the eye of Assassin, and understood he would not have ever win against those men.

Because those men experienced the Paradise and Paradise was real, because there was a deep identification between the story told created by the Assassins sect (the Brand) and the most hidden desires of those men (the Audience). That identification brought to Loyalty and Evangelism of the Assassins values.

If you think to it, that was Marketing. And that should be Internet Marketing now.

Marketing now is all about telling stories to an Audience. And isn’t this what even Google says all the time, from its guidelines to its videos?

We must be really dumb not understanding it.

It is not a question of White vs. Black Hat SEO, it is a question of not doing Dumb Hat Marketing, which leads to do something like this:

• Massive duplication for not original content
• Followed affiliate links
• Exasperated Widget Bait

and asking why site’s traffic can drop like this:

Oh… I hear you saying, “I’m fine, I do Content Marketing, I do guest blogging”.

Is this your guest blogging?

Mmm… what about you? Are you sure your infographics are really listed between the best ones?

Ah!… don’t smile you. I know you believe your provider “created” a great link profile for your site. Are you really sure?

Guest blogging is not Internet Marketing. Neither infographics nor “building links” are Internet Marketing. They are just tactics.

Internet Marketing is the conversation between the Brand and its Audience.

ATTENTION!! I AM GOING TO SHARE A SECRET WITH YOU!!

Instead of paying for interrupting our Audience (or for links), we should create content our Audience will agree to pay for, and offer it for free.

Only doing this we will create a continuous conversation with our Audience.

ATTENTION!! I AM GOING TO SHARE A SECRET WITH YOU (2)!!

The best brands out there are doing that already, and if you are not doing it already, you are dangerously out of the game.

Do you know why Brands now are becoming Publishers? Because offering our Audience what it wants contextually to its Internet Experience, making of our Brand a trusted reference in our niche, is the right thing to do now, and it always was so, since the Crusades and before them.

Making of us and of our brand the thoughtful leader in our niche is a win-win strategy, because “a thought leader is an individual or a firm that significantly profits from recognized as such”, as defined in this article on Forbes.

But we cannot become thought leaders without a strategy, can we?

Step 1: Audience Targeting

The Personas composing our Audience

Right now the most effective way to target an Audience is through Social Analysis.

I have described how I use Followerwonk for accomplish this, so I suggest you to dig into it later reading my post on State of Search.

But apart from using Followerwonk, and whenever it will be universally available (hopefully also not just for English speaking users), you should consider also Facebook Graph Search as an audience-targeting tool, because it can really offer the opportunity to segment and see the real faces of our targeted personas.

if you want to dig more into targeting personas, check this deck from Mike King.

Audience Language Analysis

Once Eugene Schwarz said: “There is your audience. There is the language. There are the words that they use.”

This aspect is crucial in every Internet Marketing strategy, because a Brand should ideally speak the same language of its audience in order to be accepted and trusted: its psychology 101.

The language analysis is a facet of the personas targeting, hence we should create the audience thesaurus, which we will use when creating content and doing the keywords search and forecast, with the same tools we are using for depicting our targeted personas:

• Social Mention;
• Topsy;
• Facebook (analyzing the language of the Pages our Audience likes);
• Using existing “slang” dictionaries as Urban Dictionary and All Slang;
• Digging into the amazing forums of Word Reference.

Step 2: Defining a Content Strategy

Once we have perfectly defined our Audience, we can start defining a Content Strategy for our Brand based over that Audience.

First of all we must understand what the Audience likes – this is something we should have started discovering already during the Audience Targeting – and how it searches those topics, possibly using Google Suggest.

Then we should do a competitive content analysis, which may give us insights about what content channels are really working, what are not used yet or are used under their potentialities.

A good way of doing a competitive content analysis is collecting all the sites, from which our targeted Audience have shared and linked content, in an Excel files and analyze those sites with SEO Tools for Excel and the SEOGadget Links API extension for Excel.

Then we will do a rhetoric analysis of the formats, which obtained the best results socially and or on a link side.

The Content Strategy step should be able to tell us:

• What are the topics, the iconography, the “myths” and “roles models” around which turns the culture of our audience;
• What kind of content our audience prefers the most;
• What sites our audience considers as its preferred sources of knowledge and inspiration.

Once we have that knowledge base, we can allow ourself to celebrate for a moment.

Step 3 – Combining Strategy and Reality

At this point we are still at the level of hypothesis. Assumptions that have strong evidence in real data, but still must be translated into concrete actions.

It is in this moment that we must forget once and for all the Kali syndrome, which still is so extended in many companies, agencies or even single freelance consultants.

No, we cannot do everything: content, SEO, Social, and Analytics.

The Fantastic Four

Instead, we should always aspire to have a team of four strategists, supported by their respective specialists:

• Content Strategist;
• SEO Strategist;
• Social Media Strategist;
• IA Strategist

Content Strategist

First of all, we need to not confuse Content Strategist with Copywriter.

The Content Strategist is the one who must determine the mental and operational framework, within which developing and producing the contents of a brand, and he has the responsibility to define and implement these actions:

• Brand Assessment
• Content Inventory
• Content Audit
• Editorial Content
• Templates Creation
• Setting of Standards
• Content Management Design

Curious to know more about the role of the Content Strategist? A great place from where to start is this deck by Jonathon Colman.

SEO Strategist

The SEO Strategist is the one in charge of the SEO efficiency of the site. It is his responsibility to oversee that the programming of the site is technically search engine friendly, while its front end is both optimized for the correct keyword targeting but for the best user experience too.

The SEO Strategist, then, is also the one who must design the site and its other online properties so they can take full advantage from all the opportunities offered by organic search, like:

• Knowledge graph;
• Structured Data;
• Vertical Searches;
• Authorrank;
• Local Search;
• Google+ and SEOcial

Finally, it’s his duty, in coordination with the Content Strategist and thanks to the data collected via Analytics and with the help of Social, to design the offsite promotion for the most effective results in terms of organic traffic generation and brand visibility (links are a consequence, not a reason).

A good resource for understanding better the functions of an SEO Strategist can be found in this post on SEOBook.

Social Media Strategist

The SM Strategist will design the Voice of the Brand not only in the Social Networks, but also internally to the site.

He is the Spokeperson of the Brand, the one setting the rules of engagement with the Audience, so transform it from simple Users to active Community members.

He will, then, specify how to deliver the Content we have created accordingly to the rhetorical rules of every single Social Network the Brand will engage its audience.

Jen Lopez from SEOmoz can teach you a lot about Social Media Strategy, starting from this deck.

IA Strategist

The Information Architecture Strategist is the person, who will define how technically the site will be developed, so to be the most agile, performing and scalable.

His duty is to design the best system that can translate the needs emerged from the initial strategic phase in terms of content in a technological system that does not limit but, on the contrary, enhances the content itself.

All these figures, as it is easy to understand, work side by side, the one influencing the other:

• SEO and Content for the keyword optimization of the site;
• SEO, Content and Social for the promotion of the site
• SEO and Social for the Relationship Marketing and SEOcial;
• SEO and IA for the optimal crawlability of the site, structured data and authorship
• Content and IA for the design of the CMS
• And so on…

This old deck is still incredibly actual in defining the characteristics of the IA Strategist

Step 4: Scaling and Improving

Strategy, as everything in Internet Marketing, is not a one-time event.

Strategy, instead, should always be present and guiding the tactics. And it should be able to revise, question and correct itself.

The most effective way for scaling and improving our strategy is using Agile Marketing.

We have created our strategy starting from the Audience, and it is analyzing the Audience reactions and feedbacks that we can polish it, correct the bugs and uncover new opportunities.

Do you want to see a real life example of successful Internet Marketing based on Audience targeting? Watch this video by AirBNB

I Love SEO

First of all click play on the video here below, because after a year of Panda, Penguins, Venice, Top Heavies, EMD and whatsoever Google did, we are still alive and kicking. So, what better than enjoying the unofficial hymn of SEO industry (IMHO)?

And now the list of the best of 2012 in our industry. You will find posts, tools reviews, videos, decks from Slideshare and even one audio recording.

Obviously the list is totally not objective, and it is the expression of my tastes and what you will read and see here represents very well I think Web Marketing.

I’ve tried to organize the list in order to not make it seems also the exact picture of my sometimes “confused” mind.

I hope you will find it useful as it is for me.

Analytics

Pimping out Google Analytics for eCommerce websites by Cutroni and published on his personal blog.

Mobiel Marketing customer data acquisition behavior targeting by Avinash Kaushik and published on kuashik.net.

Content analytics. Measuring your Content Marketing results against your goals by Kristi Hines on SEOGadget.

Content Marketing

CocaCola Content 2020 – Part 1 and 2

“Content is not King”: Key takeaways from Amit Singhal by Adam Audette on Rimm Kaufman blog.

What The New Yorker Magazine Can Teach You About Content Marketing that Works by Demian Farnworth on Copyblogger.

Social Content: Creating the Right Content for Your Social Media Channels by Kristi Hines on SEOgadget.

A Smart 8-Point Content Marketing Strategy From a Failed Television Writer by Kelton Reid on Copyblogger.

The Ultimate Guide to Content Planning by Simon Penson on SEOmoz.

33 Things to Ask Before Hitting Publish on Blueglass.

Step by Step Content Marketing by Hiten Shah for the Blueglass LA Conference

I Love SEO

Update

Matt Cutts had the kindness of clarifying the story here below on Hacker News. Here his answer:

The explanation for this is actually quite straightforward. Google fights spam in 40 different languages and we absolutely take reconsideration requests in many different languages, including Italian, French, German, etc. We’ve also improved our reconsideration requests in the last few months to tell webmasters whether the requests have been granted or whether the website still has issues in our opinion.

People have told us that they’d like to have additional feedback though–not just a “yes/no” type of answer. So we’ve been experimenting with giving more in-depth answers. I discussed the experiment in this video we published a couple weeks ago:  (watch from 1:36 to 1:56 or so).

Now you know enough to understand what happened in this case. This person, after violating our quality guidelines, had done multiple reconsideration requests. His English-language reconsideration request was selected to get a more personalized response, but then when the Googler started to investigate the site, the actual site was in Italian. That’s what triggered the “this language is not supported” message because the person handling the case was expecting an English-language site based on the English-language reconsideration request.

What you need to know: – we absolutely do handle reconsideration requests in lots of different languages, including Italian. – we’ve also been experimenting with giving more in-depth answers to webmasters. The mismatch between the language of the reconsideration request and the language of the website caused this message to get sent, but – we’ll still send this site more in-depth advice. Based on the website’s spammy linkbuilding techniques mentioned in the blog post, it sounds like they could use the extra guidance anyway.

My reply to his kind, precise and fast answer can be read here.

—–

Guido is a friend of mine who owns quite many old sites in the classic casual games in flash niche.

They are normal sites, not revolutionary, not astonishing, but neither they are awful or crappy. And they satisfy their purpose: to offer to bored white collars something to spend time with at the end of the working day, or to help fathers who desperately need to have their kids occupied at least 5 minutes.

My friend, another Italian living in Spain, is not a professional SEO, but knows the basic. He knows that his sites needs to be corrected in many ways, for instance in the game pages, so to avoid any Panda risk.

He is not a professional SEO, but he is attent to everything new in the Search Industry, and he is very proactive. For instance, Guido knows how UGC may be of help in his sites, that Schema review markup is something he had to use and that he should try to care more of the social life of the sites.

And, as every self-made part time SEOs, Guido did the link building that everybody was doing. Nothing deeply black, but yes he went against some Google guidelines rules as, for instance, creating a web ring with all his sites (somehow very candidly, as it was a very evident web ring).

Or he did very “cheap” and very old school link building: directories, footer links, sidebars, link exchange and a lot of exact matching anchor texts.

A classic example of a very normal webmaster, who knows what he wants, know how to create it, but for whom SEOs is not his life, hence does many mistakes.

Luckily Guido is smart enough to recognize and understand his mistakes (he would not be my friend if not), and from time to time we talk and see what kind of corrections he should commit to his sites. He also understood the importance of content marketing and he is trying to go along that strategy.

Why so caring? Simple, those sites are paying his bills thanks to Adsense and the affiliation ads he publishes there.

But then, one day, he received a message from Google in his webmaster tools panel. Ouch! It was the infamous message telling him that his site Giochiapalla.com was infringing several guidelines points: excessive link exchange and participation in link schemes.

The site after few weeks started shrinking in the SERPs

Personally, if it were I receiving that message, I would not have sent a reconsideration request, especially because I consider that the message Guido received was an automatic alert for a next to come algorithmic penalization.

But Guido decided to fill a reconsideration request: the ticket [#1140476335]:

Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 03:42:30 +0000

Hi,

After another evaluation of the website Giochiapalla.com I understand that I have violated Google’s quality guidelines. In particular these matters:

*Excessive link exchanging (“Link to me and I’ll link to you”)

To comply with this Google’s quality guideline I have removed all the external links that were present in the Homepage and in the game’s page such our links to:

• http://www.***.it
• http://www.***.it
• http://www.***.org
• http://www.***.net
• http://www.***.com
• http://www.***.it
• http://www.***.it
• http://www.***.it
• http://www.***.com
• http://www.***.net
• http://www.***

*Participating in link schemes

To comply with this Google’s quality guideline I have removed links from sites of my network pointing to www.giochiapalla.com in particular from these websites:

• www.***.com
• www.***.it
• www.***.com
• www.***.com
• www.***.com
• www.***.com
• www.***.com
• www.***.com
• www.***.com
• www.***.com

I therefore ask you to evaluate again the website www.giochiapalla.com taking in consideration these corrective actions that have been taken.

Regards,

Guido Pedrelli

Maybe not a perfect reconsideration request, but – hey – absolutely not that bad from a not SEO! He said he was aware of the violations, that he was his intention to not violate the Google guidelines anymore and he listed those actions he realized in order to solve this issue.

At this point of the story, you may think that Google never answered to Guido, or that he didn’t correct everything, which should have needed to be corrected (and that’s possibly true, but he is working on it).

Nope, No, Nein! Google replied to my friend’s reconsideration request. But its answer was seriously astonishing.

Don’t you believe me?

Ok: read it:

From: The Google Search Quality Team <webmaster-central-help@google.com>

Date: 2012/11/7

Subject: Re: [#1140476335] Reconsideration Request for http://www.giochiapalla.com/

To: guidopedrelli@*****

Hello,

Thank you for your request.

We’ve found that the majority of your site’s content is in a language we do not currently support. Right now, we’re only able to offer language support for English.

While we look forward to supporting your language, we don’t yet have a date as to when it will be available for you. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Sincerely,

The Google Search Quality Team

GOOGLE WTF!

What does It mean: “… the majority of your site’s content is in a language we do not currently support…”?!?

That does it mean that a not English written site can be penalized and banned by Google, but no reconsideration request can be sent because an Italian site (in this case) is not supported?

That does mean that every penalization is algorithmic and that a recover will be just algorithmic?

That does it means that are not existing Italian quality raters? This is something that sounds science fiction to me… I wonder what are doing all the Italians I know are working in your offices in Milan or Dublin. Are all selling Adwords? Nah!

Dear Google, I think you can imagine the incredulous expression of my friend when he received that reply from you.

What does he have to do now? It is quite depressing to see Google answering to an email were you are explaining what you did to correct and solve a penalization with a: “sorry, your site is in Italian, and we don’t support Italian, even if we punish Italian sites too”?

Right now Guido is working on cleaning his link building past, while wondering how other sites in its niche are ranking having the same or if not a worst link building history (and present).

No, dear Google, things like that reply are what drives us SEOs and webmasters like Guido crazy. We can understand “not provided”, that organic SERPs that with every Google’s layout update are more hidden below the fold, and your desire to cope every vertical with your own products… but, at least, contract someone able to understand Italian or any other “not supported” language… I think you have the bucks to do it, haven’t you?

Or do you need I suggest you someone?

I Love SEO

Once upon a time things were easier to understand and define.

An SEO was someone with a strong technical knowledge and with the ability to understand how people were searching things on the web, how Search Engines were able to translate those behaviors into an algorithm, and his focus was mainly Google.

There was a time when it was quite common being a Jake of all Trades. Give me your site and it will rank.

Things have changed, though.

The facets of the SEO profession now are such that, especially if you are a freelance consultant, you must choose and focus all yourself into one of the many specializations of our growing industry:

• Technical SEO
• Link Building
• SeoCial
• Local Search
• International SEO
• Verticals’ SEO
• SEO Copywriting
• SEO Analyst

And surely the list could be longer.

This explosion of specialist figures in the SEO industry is clearly represented by the multiplication of titles (or specifications) of in-agency SEOs.

We have also have seen how SEO as an all is not anymore something that can be done in a silo or – to offer a more poetic metaphor – sitting in a confortable Ivory Tower, feeding the wrong belief that SEO is the same as saying Web Marketing.

And it is not simply because Social and/or Content Marketing are the “new cuddled puppies” of CMOs. The evolution of Search itself has caused the borders between SEO, Content and Social are blurred every day more.

But it is not really my intention to talk – again – about the evolution of SEO as an industry.

No, I am here sitting on the train going home to Valencia after a day of work interviews in Madrid and, while the landscape escapes at 282 km/hour, I am asking that old recurring question: what is an SEO?

Yes it is all those things I’ve listed above. But it must be something more.

If it was just someone optimizing the code, wasn’t he just a specialized developer?

If it was just someone translating sites caring the keyword optimization of the texts, he would not be an International SEO, but simply an interpreter specialized in translating websites.

If it was just someone deciphering analytic data, he could be simply an analyst.

There must be something more.

It is that schizophrenic mix between tech geekery, the same which make us talk about Python, APIs and what is the sexier way to format an Excel table, and marketing.

Because we are that: search marketers…

What we have as a distinctive characteristic is how we are able to see a schema in the things we do, and how we are to paint a marketing action within that schema.

The best between us compose marketing symphonies with the notes SEO offers.

The worst between us just try to imitate the voice of the Marketing Gods using the same notes, but fall into the flames of the hell of Indifference.

An SEO, that real SEO who knows the science behind his art and take advantage from getting dirt with other disciplines, is the Inception master. He’s like those specialists who decide what color will be fashionable in a couple of years, just being able to understand the incoming trends (why people loves white cars now? Wasn’t it a cheap color?).

Every SEO, independently by his specialization, should aim to be that SEO figure I described. If not, he will be just a worker and his actions won’t really have an impact able to stand the pass of times.

And me? Am I an SEO?

Me, who I resist myself from being closed inside the crystal walls of a specialized field?

Yes, I am still an SEO. And maybe I am that SEO that will be even more needed in the future, the one able to direct the work of the specialists, to set a strategy and to translate into every SEO channel and the power to interact in synergy with all the other web marketing disciplines.

The strategic consultant, that is the SEO I am… because I need to feel myself like watching the sky of Midwest when I dream my marketing plans.

I Love SEO

(and why these lists suck)

Blogging

1. Open a blog and write a post daily;

2. Every post must have one of these adjectives in its title:

• Astonishing;
• Amazing;
• Definitive;
• Astounding;
• Bombastic;
• … Any other synonym of the adjective cited above.

3. Write for demented who don’t read, because people is demented;

4. As for point 4 above, write only lists.

5. The list must not be of 10, 20 or any other x10 number. No. It must be composed of 10*X +1 or 10*X -1 (you, like 0.99 cents);

6. The post must have at least one photo, better if it is the photo of a cat doing strange things.

7. If you don’t find a photo of a cat, which is not used already by other gazillions bloggers, you can use any other pet. Better if it’s a puppy.

8. If you don’t want cats, dogs, frogs, horses, tyrannosaurus rex in your post, then you should at least add a photo of Matt Cutts;

9. If you choose a photo of Matt Cutts, better if it is of him hugging a bear or a penguin. Aren’t existing photos of Matt Cutts with a Penguin? Photoshop it;

10. If you are having a writer’s block, make a list about how to solve writer’s block;

11. Don’t get crazy founding topics, just write something about blogging;

12. As an alternative create an infographic. Even if it is just a Venn Diagram call it infographic and underline it in the title of your post (i.e.: The incredibly yet undiscovered relations between the ants, the humans and E.T.);

13. If you still don’t know what to write, scrape some others’ blogs and call it curation if someone tells you have stolen content;

14. Write great content, links will come;

15. Write astonishingly bad content, links will come;

16. Do guest blogging. Aren’t existing blogs in your niche where doing guest blogging or bloggers want to be paid to guest you? Create a blog and guest yourself in;

17. When contacting a blogger for guest posting, say he is the best writer you have read in ages. Remember to change and put the correct name of the blogger in your email template;

18. When you write a post and cite some influencer, make him noticed you cited. Remember to not notify him via email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or even WhatsApp at the same time;

19. Did you launch you post and neither your best friend left a comment? Don’t worry: create fake users and let them commenting the post;

20. Ah… did I suggest you to write great content?

On Site Optimization and CRO

21. Fill your site of content of any kind as it was a Thanksgiving Turkey;

22. Write content your users will find useful;

23. Use a narrative (don’t know what narrative does it mean? Check Wikipedia);

24. If your site is multilingual or multi country, present the correct version of your site to your users via geo-localization redirection;

25. Don’t worry about 404 error messages;

26. Remember to put your targeted keyword so it represents around the 2% of the words of the page;

27. Point 26 is not Keyword Density, but Percentage Context Relevancy of the Keyword (sounds cooler);

28. Remember to optimize your meta tags;

29. Don’t worry about pagination, Google said it is quite good dealing with it;

30. If you want a blog, put it in a subdomain, because Google told it is treating them as part of the domain name in GWT;

31. Base the categorization of your eCommerce, Portal or whatsoever over database searches;

32. Think and help your users: the more filters options the better;

33. An orange button offers better conversion rate than a blue button. If you don’t believe me go read my “101 incredible reasons why choosing an orange button increased my flat-dead Conversion Rate of an spectacular 13425%”;

34. Act like a Brand;

35. When creating a page you should write between 250 and 800 words to make it unique. Remember point 26 above;

36. Joomla is the most perfect CMS;

37. External duplicated content is not a Pandarank factor;

38. Use mega css menu;

39. Think mobile! Create a mobile site!

40. Site speed is a very minor factor.

Link Building

41. Link graph is dead;

42. Social is the new link building;

43. Don’t worry if you have only nofollowed backlinks. A recent study by SEOjediagainstblackhat.cc shows how nofollowed links have the same power of followed ones;

44. Think out of the box;

45. Do article marketing;

46. Directories still have a sense;

47. In order to avoid a Penguin penalization, you must have the 67,48531% of your backlinks branded;

48. Put a link to your site in the footer of your clients;

49. Great content will attract links even if you don’t rank;

50. Link building is cheap;

51. Xrumer may be used in a White Hat way;

52. Use every guest blogging opportunity;

53. Use private blogs networks. Even if those “private” blogs networks are known by all the industry;

54. If a site has less than 3 PR or 30 PA/DA, don’t accept a link. Its link juice is bad;

55. Get links from wherever you want. If you are caught you can use a link removal tool;

56. It is not you being a spammer, it is Google being biased against web marketers;

57. Don’t sign your comments as “Pre-owned luxury cars”. But “So cool pre-owned luxury car is perfect”;

58. When doing outreach, always tell the site owner you are contacting how beautiful is his site. Remember to change the name of the site’s owner in your mail template;

59. Fake to be a woman. If the webmaster ask you to fix the details in a phone call, talk like Tootsie or ask your sister/mother/friend to talk in your name;

60. Did I tell you that link building is dead?

Social Media

61. Social Media is the new Link Building;

62. Social Media directly influences rankings;

63. Facebook will be the new Google;

64. Social Media ROI does not exists;

65. Be present in every social;

66. If you put “PLS RT” in your tweets, the response will be higher;

67. When using Twitter, follow every influencer in your niche and retweet everything they tweet, also if they are simply saying they are going to see a movie;

68. Retweet even if you haven’t actually read what the hell are your retweeting;

69. In Facebook tag every image with the name of the ones you want to call the attention of;

70. In Facebook you should publish 1 video, 3 photos and 2 status updates per day;

71. Use Pinterest! And Instagram! Oh, your site is about methacrylate? Use Pinterest! And Instagram!

72. Klout Score matters;

73. If you have used Yahoo! Chat in the past, you can be a Community Manager;

74. Now that you can, endorse every influencer. Endorse them also for “Fast Pizza Eating”, if that helps you being noticed;

75. Google Plus is a desert;

76. Google Plus is not a Social Network;

77. Google Plus is Facebook + Twitter + Pinterest + Skype + (add any other Social you want);

78. Google Plus will fail;

79. Your Facebook page is more important than your site;

80. Move the entire SEO budget to Social Media. We all know SEO is dead.

Content Marketing

81. Content is King;

82. Write great content (I think I told it already, but better to reinforce the idea);

83. Write only what your users want to read;

84. Write only what you want to read;

85. Content Marketing is cheap;

86. Coding is not Content;

87. If your Content is great, it doesn’t need to be promoted. People will be attracted to it like iron stuff into Magneto hands;

88. You can’t do Content Marketing in boring niche;

89. Content Marketing is SEO

Inbound Marketing (general)

90. Inbound Marketing is SEO;

91. Inbound Marketing is cheap;

92. SEO is not an Inbound Marketing discipline;

93. If you do Inbound Marketing you will have success;

94. Inbound Marketing is a revolutionary idea;

95. Inbound Marketing sucks;

96. Inbound Marketing denies Outbound disciplines;

97. Inbound Marketing is synonym of White Hat;

98. Inbound Marketing is all about Content;

99. Email Marketing is dead;

100. If you have a blog you are doing Inbound Marketing.

Bonus

101. Google is brand biased.

These are 101 tips I have read in posts, comments, Q&A, forum thread or even heard at conferences (actually not by the speakers, but in the networking moments).

Some of them are clearly wrong, some are simply obvious.

I am not against lists, but I am against bad ones and against the over use of this tactic just because someone once told it works.

Remember, everything that works and give results, if over exploited won’t work anymore and can become even dangerous.

Think about guest blogging: we are screwing it.

Think about infographics: we are screwing them.

We screwed up EMDs, 301 redirections for link building, directories, article marketing, widgets/gadget link building and we are quite able to screw up Facebook, Twitter and any other social…

Be moderate in your Web Marketing practice, or everything will turn Black from White.

And if you write a 101 list… be relevant, unique, don’t re-chew something told already by 1000 others bloggers.

And.Don’t.Use.Astonishing.In.Your.Posts’.Titles

I Love SEO

Just feeding you with very nice, interesting and worth reading/watching things that were share on Google+ in these last few day.

Ah… if this is what is shared in desert, I want to live in that desert (at least for a while).

I Love SEO

I usually don’t like to write about Google updates just after they are released. I don’t like it because I try to be objective, to see the dust falling on the ground before analyzing their effects. Something I find ever truer when Google wants to have fun an roll out two major updates as EMD and Panda 20 one day after the other.

If you want to know what I think about the EMD Update, you can read here below my comment to the post my friend Martin MacDonald wrote few days ago.

But here and now I don’t want to talk about the update itself, but about the reactions to it I have seen in the SEOs community so far.

One thing is sure: the SEO community never stops amazing me.

I mean… years and years complaining about the exaggerated power EMD had in the SERPs, and now that Google finally rolls out an update, which purpose is to solve that injustice, the same SEOs complain for the opposite reason? #WTF!

I don’t deny that Google should have tried to refine better this new algorithmic update, having somehow replicated the same “black or white” mistake done with Penguin, but its purpose is surely laudable and the real complaint should be why the hell Google waited so long before rolling it, if it is true, as Bill Slawski with many reasons suspects, it was something that was patented almost 10 years ago.

It’s this unjustified delay what is causing that also respectable and not spammy EMD sites are now dropping like flies.

Few days ago Dr. Pete wrote an excellent “instant post”, describing and commenting what the Mozcast’s metrics are saying in relation to EMDs and the update. If you have not read it yet, I really suggest you to do it.

And read also the comments, a sort of anthology of everything can be said against Google and Matt Cutts. Somehow it was like reading Webmaster forum into SEOmoz.

The most common reaction was something like this:

Hey Google, my EMD was totally fine. It had gazillions pages of content with gazillion words. It was all White Hat and legit and useful and You – tricky b*ast*rd – You screw it!

Surely it is an understandable reaction. I’d react the same way if I were seeing my site falling from the first page into the Index Limbo.

But, let’s try to analyze what that kind of reaction actually tells us.

My EMD was totally fine

Sure it was. And it was an anomaly Google waited for too long to correct.

• To have such an un-proportional SEO benefit just because our site had an EMD was absurd.
• To see EMDs ranking in the top 5 without having a decent link profile (if not any at all) was absurd.
• To see the long tail (but also the middle tail) dominated by EMDs (even dashed) was absurd most of the times.
• And absurd was Google not doing nothing about it.

As absurd was that laziness that the EMDs success caused in so many SEOs. We all knew that EMDs was going to be the next objective, there were signs of their slow decreasing power… and those SEOs did nothing about it? Ok, Matt Cutts is not sexy like Rihanna, but nobody saw this video?

It had gazillions pages of content with gazillion words.

This is a very common justification some SEOs use to affirm their site is a quality one.

Sorry to tell you, but gazillions pages with gazillions words are not synonym of quality… if it was so Allison Copperfield, Lilian Genton, Linda Call and all the novelists specialized in romantic “read and throw” pocket books should be considered better writers than Ernest Hemingway, Kurt Vonnegut or Ray Bradbury.

First of all is not quantity that determines quality. Secondly, it is not length a direct causation of quality either.

Simply they are consequences of two “best practices”:

1) A blog should have regularity in the publication of its post. Not necessarily every day, but neither once in while. Especially the rhythm of their publication must be constant.

If they are SEO compliant, then, those posts will help you ranking for long tail keywords.

But do you think that it is the long tail domination the main purpose of a blog? No, it is branding, voice promotion, social media and link building. A blog is a quality one if it is a recognized source of information and the expression of a thoughtful voice, which could be considered as belonging to a thoughtful leader in its niche;

2) Lengthy posts, maybe enriched by videos and/or images and/or charts, have a better chance to obtain a positive reaction from the readers (check this post by John Doherty on SEOmoz to dig more into this subject). That reaction usually translates itself in the form of social shares and, eventually, links.

But it is not always so… just think to writers like Seth Godin or Chris Dixon, whose posts usually are very short, without images or videos: they are considered useful, shared and linked also when they are one paragraph long. And now, try to reflect about what is the reason of that: thoughtful leadership.

So, no… thousand of unique lengthy content is not necessarily the same as saying quality content.

What  that so common declaration also demonstrates is a still common myopic idea of content many SEOs have: that content is written content.

I tend to justify that belief with the fact that for many years SEOs were working with keywords and words as tools. But now, in 2012 almost 2013?

a) Content is every expression of a message regardless of the medium used. Therefore, words are content, but also images, videos, audio and code itself can be considered content.

b) Quality content is that one which unanimously is considered useful by its receivers.

c) Useful is something that answers and fulfills someone needs, which – in turn and using a terminology we all know – may be informational, transactional and – probably the most important one nowadays – emotional.

And how Google can translate this definition of quality into an algorithm? It does it using signals and translating the daily job of its quality raters’ tests into algorithmic formulas (was not this what they did for creating Panda?).

Until last Friday EMD was considered a signal, now it is not if it’s not strongly followed by all the others: quality link profile, readability, social signals, relevance of its writers in case of blogs and, probably, user metrics, like bounce rate and time on page.

This explains why EMDs like Booking.com or Diapers.com are still ranking wonderfully, while others no, for instance Travel.com, which doesn’t appear anywhere for “travel”, also due to a demential use of subdomains.

Certainly, an algorithmic translation of the concept of quality is not perfect, and maybe it will never be no matter how many efforts are done. For that reason there will be always someone, who will not agree with the algorithm results.

It was all White Hat

Compliments, because you did not surrendered to the Dark Side of the Force.

But being White Hat is not synonym of quality or a passport for the 1st page.

Even if you are whiter than Rand Fishkin, if your site has problems like content duplication, extremely diluted link equity, thin content issues and bad information architecture, if the EMD factor disappear, also your 1st page is going to peril (again, investigate the case of Travel.com and you will understand mine assumption).

Ah… I was forgetting another typical complaint:

I am very active in Social Media!

Again a phrase that hides another great misunderstanding many SEOs still have: that being active in Social Media means gaining rankings.

Unfortunately it is not so. Social signals are correlated to higher ranking not their cause, and the correlation is true only if the activity we have in Social Media causes a production of backlinks, being these one still those determining in a great measure how a site ranks or not.

So, if you had an EMD and were active in Social Media, but that activity was poor in terms of links’ generation, then you have probably gained a new and valuable inbound source of traffic, but not obtained better rankings because of it.

But there’s another fact that I believe many SEOs still have not understood, even though it is something that is working in the Google algo since many years: the concept of Entities.

As it usually happens, Bill Slawski have written the most insightful posts about this topic, so I am not going to repeat them, but I give you directly the links:

• Providing related links to documents;
• Boosting brands and other entities. How a Search Engine might assume a query implies a site search;
• Not Brands but Entities. The influence of named entities on Google and Yahoo search results;
• Search Engines and Entities.

The signals that algorithmically Google use to identify entities, then, are quite common to be found in what we generically call “Brands”. But don’t fall in the mistake to identify the two concepts, because the concept of Entity is bigger than the Brand one.

But, being brands a classic example of Entity, Rand Fishkin, there in 2010, designed a very understandable checklist describing what may help the algo defining if a site is a Brand site or not.

If you see the “don’ts”, you can easily identify how them are typically common in EMDs, especially in affiliates’ sites.

So, in my opinion, if an EMD does not own these “entity signals”, then Google could probably consider it less relevant and useful, also because people usually interacts with brands and looks for brands in their searches.

Somehow the fact that some sites, technically to be considered EMDs, were not affected by the EMD update because owning those “Entity signals” (booking.com and diapers.com, cited before) seems confirming my idea.

To conclude, before starting complaining let’s all try to understand if we really deserved to be penalized. We would understand – as it was in the case of many penalizations by Penguin – that from a Google point of view probably we were to be penalized.

Just after that analysis, then, we will be able to work on our site, correct what’s wrong and recover.

And please… change that domain name and start doing RCS!

I Love SEO

One of the classic things a father hears is: Don’t worry if your kid takes longer in learning this. By the way, we all know that girls learn faster than boys.

I think that girls learn faster and are smarter than boys at every age.

I see it constantly and I have the pleasure to know a good number of “female geeks” in our industry confirming me daily this assumption.

One of them is Joanna Lord.

Let me try to describe her: generous, empathetic, nervous, classy, doubtful as only the perfectionists can be, but firm in her decisions.

Joanna, who I have the fortune to call friend, is one of those who make their work a kind of game, where the opponent is really not a competitor, but themselves, and where the prize is a constant improvement of its own knowledge and skills.

VP of Growth Marketing at SEOmoz, Joanna – especially in her beginnings at Moz – was the “advertisement girl”. Somehow a dangerous position being the SEOmoz community in its 90% composed by Organic Search Marketers, who have a love/hate relationship with everything related to paid marketing.

Gianluca: How were those first days at SEOmoz, Joanna?

Joanna: Those first days were crazypants – in a good way. There were less than 10 Mozzers when I joined and the office was above a Brewery, which meant we all wore many hats and smelled hops all day. It was everything you imagine from a startup story – taking big gambles (bylines were decided in an hour), running super lean (when Rand shot a Whiteboard Friday, no one could go get coffee because he shot it in the kitchen area), and lots of crowdsourcing (new homepages were decided by getting almost everyone at the company in one room to chat through it).

In a word – the first days at SEOmoz were awesome.

Gianluca: There’s always been a relationship based on stereotypes between SEOs and SEMs, somehow that kind of relationship existing also between SEOs and Social Media specialists. Stereotypes, which I consider not only false but also stupid, because there are more advantages than disadvantages in the possible synergies between Organic and Paid Search.

Fortunately, I see SEOs understanding more and more this. Is it just a sensation I have, or are you seeing the same? How much has changed the relationship between SEO and SEMs in these last years?

Joanna: I have definitely felt the friction over the years and I, like you mentioned, have seen the silos break down significantly over the years. I think this is a result of tools that bridge the channels, resources that enlighten us on advantages to connecting more, and an overall industry expectation that we all wear more hats.

If you had told me years ago I would be working at a company that sold inbound marketing software, and preaching that performance marketing just isn’t enough I probably would have laughed at you. But social really helped bridge the two camps. The social engagement and signals became important to both SEOs and PPCers, and over the years our pages and campaigns have started to look more an more alike. This only makes sense to me. After all we are all trying to capture the user’s attention, and their loyalty. These days marketers need to be educated on all the channels to some degree and really understand how they can compound on each other for a better customer experience and more success.

Gianluca: Even though I am open to all that is new and may bring fresher ideas and innovation in how we do marketing, at the same time I try always to remember people and myself to not get blinked by any new shiny object appearing, because that attitude makes us loosing objectivity.

For instance, 2011 was the “Social Signals” year and 2012 Content Marketing is the (not so new) revolutionary innovation. What are the bright shining objects of an Online Marketer like you? Or is that just a typically SEO syndrome?

Joanna: I think marketers have an innate need to be looking ahead, its this need that usually helps us stay ahead of such a fast moving industry. With that said, its good to keep perspective. You’ll find I always preach – nail the basics first. I think a lot of the basics have stayed the same over the years. The medium, platforms, etc. have changed but providing a beautiful, simple, valuable experience is still the champion.

I like “shiny object syndrome” because it keeps me on my toes. Usually something catches fire because brands are executing beautifully on it, or new tools/resources pop up to educate the masses. It’s important as marketing professionals to know what has grown outside our bubble, these are huge wins for all of us.

Gianluca: Since I knew you, one of the things I most liked of you as professional was your data driven mentality. Another facet I like is that you have a past and a present also as an entrepreneur with projects, which were a sort of natural evolution of very personal passions. Can data and logic fuel passion? Or passion needs the coldness of data to become something more long lasting? How to find a balance between these apparently opposite poles?

Joanna: What a great question! I am working on a post that talks about the process of passionate innovation and how that backs out to using the data you have available. I have been thinking through this a lot lately. I very much believe they are more like sisters than they are rivals. To me the most passionate people out there see trends and momentums that the average person ignores. I also think the most data-driven people tend to be the most obsessive given the nature of data to be infinite and enlightening.

I guess what I am saying is, when you use the two together you tend to have an unstoppable machine, rather than a friction-based model. When I get an idea for a campaign here I go straight to the data – can I prove it will be valuable? Can I prove it will be a powerful level in our strategy? Once I have data I can either skip the idea or go full steam ahead. If it’s full steam ahead then its no hold bar. I have the confidence (rooted in the numbers) to get buy in, to sell the idea to multiple teams, to ask for resources, and simply “get after it.”

For me data and passion are so closely tied, I rarely spend time on one if not for the other.

Gianluca: You are in the “pre-production” phase of your new personal project, ISITaYES; an app in the social life niche, which has a very curious purpose: to connect friends in order to take a final decision when buying something.

Personally I consider it a genial idea, being that kind of thing we always desire to have but none actually have created.

What process are you following from the “lighten bulb moment” to – hopefully – the app will be distributed in the apps’ stores? In this case are you following more your “commercial” instinct or are you taking your decision also over a more classical market investigation?

Joanna: ISITaYES has been a slow burn idea for just about a year now. I have been floating it by friends, fellow marketers, and just random shopping lovers for the last year and finally I was like – just do it already. So I did. It’s been a whirlwind since its been up on Indiegogo. I’ve had partnership inquiries, investors ping me, and lots of positive feedback on the idea.

Since this is just a side project for me, its been hard to balance the time needed to get it grooving, but it’s also helped me push my creative limits, which has been awesome. I have a dev that wants to build it, and we anticipate it will be ready to go in the next month or so. We are starting with an iPhone app and will be available for download in the app store.

After its live, I’m hoping to wrap it in some marketing/branding, which is be fun because mobile marketing and apps is a whole new world. I’ll be working to add features, get feedback, and iterate. From there Ill be watching to see how things go, and if there is some adoption that would just be awesome.

The main goal has been to take it from idea to prototype, and that’s about as far as I’ve gotten in my head ☺

Gianluca: Apps and mobile. It is clear that mobile is going to surpass desktop as the main Internet navigation medium, if it has not surpassed it yet.

What are the consequences of this change in your field? Are you seeing meaningful differences in the advertising performances and in the users behavior toward ads?

Joanna: We are talking a lot about mobile here at SEOmoz. We are somewhat torn on the effects/impact of the changes in search behavior. It’s worth nothing that a lot of the basics still apply – your pages need to be beautiful, you need great content, you need be a valuable option.

With that said there are definitely changes in behavior, attention span, availability, and UX that should be noted. I think as an advertiser I’ve spent the majority of the last decade thinking about “user intention.” What are they looking for? Where are they in the buying/decision cycle? What context are they working within? All of that changes significantly when the user is on mobile – the queries will now carry a very different story. I think if we pay attention to that, and keep it in mind we can merge the traditional strategies with new tweaks to really nail what we deliver back.

The story of mobile ads is still evolving. I know the team over at MobileAppTracking, which is a mobile app performance tracking software. They are tracking millions of actions a week at this point. People are clicking ads, they are downloading, they are taking action – as advertisers we can’t ignore this behavior. It would be shortsighted to assume it won’t hit mass appeal. I might not click in app ads—right now—but I spend more time in apps everyday, so who knows down the road. I think marketers need to keep on the mobile trend and try to stay open-minded, because I think this ride is going to get crazy awesome.

Gianluca: At Mozcon you gave one of the most interesting speeches, all centered on what does really mean Conversion Rate Optimization. Not just a respectable but somehow mechanic result of colors, buttons and call to actions, but as the expression of a real identification between Brand and Users.

And we have seen how Google – for instance in its most recent Guidelines for the Quality Raters – in putting the User Experience as an essential factor in order to consider a site being a quality one or not.

Could this mean that CRO is the real missing link between SEO, Content Marketing and the apparently not inbound disciplines of Online Marketing?

Joanna: I absolutely think that is the case. I work on the Growth team here at SEOmoz, and a significant amount of our time is spent on conversion rate optimization. How can we improve not just the funnel but the story, the loyalty, the reaction to our brand? We plan to invest heavily in this “middle of the funnel” activity.

Inbound marketing is only as good as it is beautiful, effective, and valuable. All your content, community engagement, and social activity can be great but if you drop them at a strange place, or say the wrong message, or leave them hanging without connecting with them…it’s a waste. CRO can help you put your best foot forward as a brand. I think marketers need to see past small, isolated tests, and start thinking about more philosophical and site-wide tests that could help them elevate performance across all their channels.

Gianluca: SEOs can find a lot of information about how to gain new visitors and leads, also because for years that was their main objective.

But now that web marketing is becoming a more mature set of disciplines, the “science” of nurturing users and retaining them is becoming everyday more important. Somehow that is an unknown field for SEOs.

What are the challenges in that particular field and what are the tactics you would like to suggest to SEOs?

Joanna: I would say that gaining visitors and leads weren’t just an SEO’s goal but also a performance marketers –of yesteryear. There was more churn and burn philosophy happening back then. These days with quality of interaction being more important as well as social trust signals like sharing, reviewing, etc. take a front seat—marketers need to think bigger.

Lifecycle marketing has been around forever, but often it was rooted in database marketing and analysis. With today’s tools and our knowledge around personas/demographics, marketers have no excuse. We should be thinking about all of our channels as a piece of the lifecycle pie. The marketing halo is more important now than it’s ever been.

For SEO’s today I would throw out these common, but often overlooked, suggestions—think past visitors (is your content and your pages creating a fan of your brand), how are your visitors converting and then how are those conversions doing (what’s the LTV of your efforts? What peripheral value is felt from your efforts), and lastly how can you work with the other teams to create a community or audience that lasts longer than a visit (can you build a retargeting audience, can you create a community of email subscribers, can you get them to support you on social on their way out?).

Often it comes down to getting in a room with the other marketers and saying, “so how can we help each other?” Merge your tools, educate each other on your goals, and start highfiving your way to a better customer experience that is deeply rooted in valuable visits and loyal customers/community members.

Gianluca: SEOs usually complains that Google is too much brand biased. But maybe SEOs don’t understand that it is not Google, its people who is biased toward brands.

Maybe if we, search marketers, understand this, then we will be able to see how Branding is now an essential element of our discipline, not just in relation to Search Engines tout court, but also to all those media that have an increasing search element, as the same Social Networks. I am thinking specially about Google+, Pinterest, Instagram…

Isn’t that the real new frontier of SEO?

Joanna: I’m probably not the most qualified to speak to the real new frontier of SEO (I’d suggest my much smarter counterpart Ruth Burr, SEOmoz’s lead SEO for that).

I will say that Google has never been biased to brands in my opinion, but like you suggest, users bias brands which affects their behavior which affects Google. My background in PPC has taught me a very valuable lesson – Google is a for-profit company friends. Clicks = money. Money = more money. Google likes the moneyzzz.

I believe that brands who heavily invest in creating communities and helping their customers sell their product/service for them will win moving forward. We are a social web and that is becoming more evident with every update, every “next big platform” and every time we purchase. When was the last time you did anything without asking for feedback first?

As a brand you better invest in the consumer’s obsession with sharing/suggestion/feedback – on your site, in your interactions, etc. It will literally make or break companies moving forward.

The Proust questionnaire

What is your favorite word? Ambition.

What is your least favorite word? Lazy.

What turns you on? My boyfriend’s dimples (he is a Texan ☺). Shoes. Data. Coffee.

What turns you off? Mean people. Selfish people. Jealousy. Whining.

What sound do you love? When my nephews are laughing. It’s like happiness on crack.

What sound do you hate? People who chew loud, I have a nutty problem with it.

What is your favorite curse word? Fuck.

What profession other than yours would you like to attempt? Maybe a CEO when I find “the idea” and “the team.” I cringe when I admit it to myself, but I think it’s likely I throw myself down that road some day.

What profession would you not like to do? Anything that involves bad Wi-Fi and outdated computer software. Yuck.

If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates? I like to think my mom will be there waiting with him and she will say “well look at you, getting all sorts of good things done down there, give me a hug.”

I Love SEO

Ian loves his job.

He loves marketing so much he gets mad when something or someone misrepresents or corrupts its nature and meaning. Oh yes, Ian can be harsh and sarcastic and – sometimes – keen cooking sophisticated revenges (memorable how he “punishes” those ones scraping his posts without attribution).

But even though his “ranting” attitude is at first what may impress you, do not fall into the error of believing that Ian is just an amazing SOB, because he is not at all. Ian Lurie simply loves (maybe) too much his profession. So much that, apart offering his services with Portent Inc., his internet marketing agency based in Seattle, since 1995, he is always one of the first proposing himself for helping marketers in distress with suggestions, posts, presentations and (e)books.

And talking about books, he – in collaboration with Elisabeth Marsten – has recently published “Web Marketing All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies”.

Gianluca: Ian, how much the web space would be a better place if there weren’t so many bad students out there? And how much really businesses, especially small ones, have still to learn and understand the value of web marketing… which is something that cannot be defined as “new” anymore.

Ian: The biggest problem now is one of expectations. Half of businesses are completely distrusting of all things internet. The other half believes a web site entitles them to overnight success. It’s not really about ‘bad students’ so much as folks figuring out there’s nothing magical about the internet. It’s marketing: Money and creativity goes in. If you do it right, more money and loyalty comes out.

Gianluca: Certainly what can baffle businesses about Web Marketing is the speed with which it changes, evolves, new actors enter the scene and old rules apparently solid are abandoned or disavowed. But I think that is something inherent in the nature of the Web, and that is perhaps why it is in Marketing, on its most basic rules, where you have to build up any strategy to promote something online, then translating it to the various disciplines and tactics: SEO, PPC, Social… I think you agree with me, but I’d like to have a confirmation and still know your opinion.

Ian: Definitely!!! Not one change in the last ten years has affected the way web marketing really works. Nor has the internet changed the way marketing works. Read David Ogilvy or John Caples’ stuff and you’ll see that they talked about the same kinds of challenges: Creative vs. the need for sales; testing ad copy; measuring performance. The tactics – SEO, PPC, etc. – are just new ways to deliver it. They’re easier, cheaper and more measurable, but they work the same way. They’re not different. They’re not riskier. But they’re available to everyone. And that means everyone can try them, fail at them, lose money on them, or succeed with them. That creates the impression that internet marketing is suddenly more dangerous, when really it’s just more accessible.

Gianluca: You are present in the industry since 1995. What do you remember of those days, when Google was not yet even imagined? And what do you think is still valid nowadays of the Web Marketing practices of those early years?

Ian: I remember a lot of skepticism. My clients didn’t believe their customers were online. The consumer companies said “Oh, our customers buy in our stores”. The B2B companies said “Oh, our customers buy from our sales force.” Sound familiar?

Gianluca: 2003. Google releases the Florida update and hundreds of sites disappear from the SERPs. Flash forward: 2012. Google releases the Penguin update, and other hundreds of sites disappear. After Florida the web did not implode, and SEOs survived improving and maturing in their profession. So SEOs will probably survive also to Penguin, but how? What do they must do in order to improve and be stronger than the flightless bird?

Ian: Focus on the stuff that has always worked: Onsite visibility; indexation; great infrastructure; great messaging and content; and smart outreach. I’m sure I’ll be writing this in five years when there’s another gigantic rankings shake-up.

Ian Lurie at SEOmoz Mozcon 2012

Gianluca: Content Marketing. Aren’t we living in a Content Marketing bubble? Personally I am quite scared (and a little bit pissed off) of all those ones saying that great content can be done from nothing without spending a dime or that it is easy like snapping fingers.

Ian: We’re living in an expediency bubble. Everyone thinks they can succeed online by knowing a trick. Then they’re disappointed/offended when they find out they’re going to have to invest thousands of dollars in a serious marketing effort. The bubble’s a lot bigger than content marketing, and it’s been going on for a long time. This is going a little far afield, but I feel pretty strongly that the economic crash was largely due to the expediency bubble: Everyone thought money was just sitting on the ground for the taking online, in real estate, etc. They all felt (and feel) that they simply deserve it. Content Marketing is just the latest fad to take advantage of that, by saying “Hey, everyone, get rich! You can do it! Just buy a ton of crappy content!”

Gianluca: At the last Mozcon, Tom Critchlow said that SEOs should not try to compete with old classic Media or PR agencies in their own field: content. Instead SEOs should try to take advantage of their own peculiarities, which, as I understood his words, are essentially based on the data driven culture, which is so typical of SEO. That means that we have the know-how and expertise to understand how something can be a link-bait or viral, because we are able to understand the data that must be used in order to plan an efficient web marketing campaign.

How much Analytics influence SEO, in your opinion? On the other hand, a too much relying on analytical data strategy may not “kill” the “creative genius”?

Great marketing connects people to real value

Ian: SEO marketers are doing themselves a huge disservice by over-emphasizing data and under-emphasizing the creative side of marketing. You can’t prove that something will be viral. If you constantly push data as the biggest marketing driver, you’ll start getting questions like, “Well, how much of a difference will it make if I change this title tag? Will we go up 1 spot or 2?” That’s an impossible question. But by becoming so data-driven, we’ve created the impression that we can measure everything. And you can’t. The smart play is to balance them, carefully. Instead of trying to predict with data, use data to measure results. Also use it to expose lousy marketing practices. Then use creativity and common sense to build a great strategy and move forward.

Gianluca: If you were starting Portent now, what part of marketing would you give more importance to? SEO, Social, Content… Or, as it is my firm conviction, would you have tried to create an offer, which sees a harmonic complementation of every discipline?

Ian: I’d do it the way I’m doing it now, I think: Balance them all based on a core philosophy. In my case, that philosophy is that great marketing connects people to real value. Everything you do in marketing should build on that. I’d love to say I was oh-so-brilliant in coming up with that in 1995, but I’ve arrived at it by crashing into one wall after another. So it’s not as clever as it sounds.

Gianluca: What was the last thing that made you mad about our Industry, and what is that thing that makes you still desire to be a web marketer?

Ian: Politics. Political discourse drives me absolutely insane. Political operators and journalists will say they provide half-truths and deceptive sound bites because “I’m delivering what the people want.” That’s bullshit. They’re practicing shortcut, cheap marketing that ultimately hurts their own brands. Karl Rove’s wedge-issue messaging made Republicans beholden to the far right, which has hurt them. The Democrats’ drive to never offend made them impotent.

OK, I’m ranting now. Sorry. Deep breaths…

My point: Politics is a form of marketing communications. You can do it right, by delivering real value and clear messages. Or you can do it easy, by delivering stupid sound bites. The latter does work election-by-election. But it costs larger ideals and long-term vision, and leads to unmarketable brands. Private companies would do well to learn from the example.

What is your favorite curse word? Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck. It’s just so perfect

The Proust questionnaire

What is your favorite word? Avuncular
What is your least favorite word? Guilt
What turns you on? Watching excellence
What turns you off? Watching fakers
What sound do you love? A big chord.
What sound do you hate? Fingernails down a chalkboard, definitely.
What is your favorite curse word? Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck. It’s just so perfect.
What profession other than yours would you like to attempt? Computer security
What profession would you not like to do? Medicine. I can’t imagine the pressure of having people’s lives in your hands.
If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates? Inbox zero.

I Love SEO

A week ago I was in Seattle impatiently waiting for Mozcon to start. Now I am back home and writing while travelling to Barcelona for visiting a client.

There’s something in travelling on a train that always inspires me. Somehow watching those always changing landscapes  inspires me trying to secure the continued flow of information that I receive every day.

And mostly my thoughts are all related to what has been said at Mozcon.

Mozcon has evolved along the year, consistent with what it was the evolution of SEOmoz and, on a more larger scale, of the search marketing industry.

Once it was a pure SEO oriented conference, but this year – and partly last year too – SEO was not anymore the only topic Mozcon is about.

Faithful to his idea of web marketing, Rand Fishkin and his team have designed a conference, whose purpose was to demonstrate the power of Inbound Marketing.

We have had SEO, with description of new tools and tips for using the main tool for SEOs: Excel. We talked about Google and how to “predict” the weather with Mozcast.com. And we talked about link building, in a practical way … but also about what link building must be in a post Penguin.

But there was also talk of social media as a tool with which to create a community of brand ambassadors and, therefore, Branding and protection of the reputation of the Brand

There were presos about design and CRO. And most importantly, a lot had been said about Content Marketing.

But do you know what? What emerged clearly from all the Mozcon speeches was that it’s not Search, Social or Content, but Marketing what matters.

If you don’t have a clear marketing plan, a precise idea of what your business needs, no SEO will save you from failure, no Social will make you own legions of enthusiastic evangelists, and none of your contents will break the wall of Indifference.

• This is the message behind the Ian Lurie seriously exhilarating speech: Content Marketing doesn’t exist, Ian said.
• This is the meaning of Real Company Shit, the new RCS acronym invented by Wil Reynolds.
• This the axiom the pitching technique explained by Mike King is based on.
• This is what Rand Fishkin preaches every time he talks about Inbound Marketing.
• And this, finally, was the challenging and maybe for many revolutionary idea sustaining the impressive monologue of Tom Critchlow.

SEO is not dead, but it is undoubtely mutating into something new. Panda and Penguin (what’s next? Zebra?) practically have put an end to the easy game SEO contest, where with a Xrumer and a spinner you were able to rank from 100 to 0 in few nano-crawls.

SEO has become even harder than before. Or you are a wonderful black hat SEO or you must have understood how to be a marketer and how to do SEO “forgetting” to be an SEO.
Because the best secret of an SEO today is that none think it’s an SEO. And the best SEO campaign is that one that you perceive it in a site’s content and architecture, you feel in it’s social and smell it in it’s offsite campaigns, but you cannot say it’s SEO out loud.

That is why hordes of professionals in our industry feel lost, like the dinosaurs the day the giant asteroid hit Earth.

Content, content, content… The new gig. As if writing gazillion guest posts wasn’t so different from doing article marketing, or as producing infographic just to submit them to any crappy tumblr wasn’t the version 2.0 of the directory submission.

Marketing is what matters now. Marketing means knowing what your users are, for real! and from that knowledge acting creating content which will engage them wherever they are and, as a consequence, earn traction, visibility, social shares and links.
And it’s hard to do that, even if it sounds so easy to read. You cannot invent yourself as a marketing master in one day. And it takes a long time.

What to do, then?
Tom Critchlow was right. An average SEO cannot compete with a classic Agency, because it does marketing driven content since the Mad Men era.
Seos must understand the essence of their job, the real secret of their success and what makes them totally different from any other kind of marketer: the data driven nature of SEO.
We do what we do because we have the data telling us to do it.
There resides the real scientific nature of SEO, not in knowing a bunch of python. And that is what can makes us so freaking necessary to the businesses calling at our door.
If you don’t understand this… remember the dinosaur metaphor above?…

I Love SEO