For those of you that do not follow such nerd-dom, it is worth restating that  in mid September Google changed the way the Adwords Keyword Tool compiled data. Simply put, the end result of your PPC campaigns did not change, but the estimate of the data from the Keyword Tool will now be significantly reduced. This is because the search volume estimate is  now coming from google.com results only, not the included partners like ask.com and aol.com.

This is significant because certain people use certain search engines. I have noticed for  years that Yahoo is used by older generations and depending on your keywords, and ad copy, your click through rate will show that.

It is always important to get a second opinion with other tools like wordtracker and using your own analytics. At the least, update your projections based on the new data.

But many people are suggesting the treasure trove of social networks as a source of links. This comes with a major caveat, NOT ALL SOCIAL NETWORKS CREATE LINKS EQUALLY.

Twitter has been pressured (probably by Google) to attach ‘nofollow’ tags to outgoing links on tweets. What does this mean? It means you can post nonillion (yes, that’s a real number) links from as many Twitter accounts as you can marshall and it won’t count as a back link. Sorry.

The 'nofollow' tag, the link killer

Facebook does the same. In fact, Facebook has a function called UntrustedLink, which essentially is an anti-spamming tool. It adds the ‘nofollow’ tag so that search engines do not follow the link. This means no link credit.

What it can help you with is getting traffic through those tweets and hopefully those will get indexed by the search engines. So once again, build links by doing something remarkable. Then links will come to you, and of course you can always supplement that with traditional link building. But remember, if it’s too easy, you’ll get penalized, or no credit at the least.

Digg and Delicious are still search engine and link friendly, but it appears that Reddit is not. Any other updates on link friendliness? Comment below!

Converting Excel lists, to comma lists can be time consuming without such a simple trick

1. Take your long list, and copy it into a blank Notepad document.
2. Select All and copy it again into a Word document.
3. Use Find and Replace to find “^p” without the quotes, and replace with “, ” without the quotes. I suggest putting a space after the comma to separate the values.
4. Hit Replace All.

Now you have the Excel list, converted to a more user friendly view that is more helpful for meta keywords and backing up long lists. Want to convert back? Just switch the two values in Find and Replace.

You know how politicians often break out the “tax ax“?
I think I’m going to coin the “buzzword bazooka“

If ‘pride goes before the fall’, then buzzwords go before pride.

If you work with search engines, you should probably know a few languages including HTML (I know it’s only markup!), PHP and Javascript. You don’t need to be fluent in PHP or Javascript, but you should at least know how to order dinner and find the toilet.

The fact is that search engine theory is just that, theory. Only a very few number of people know exactly how Google, MSNbot and Yahoo (soon to be Bing/MSNbot) crawlers work in a scientific sense. They’re not going to tell us anytime soon, just like Coca-Cola isn’t going to be tweeting their famous recipe any time soon. You have a whole industry based on theory, and rarely is it scientific enough to pass any muster. Buzzwords and phrases thrive in such areas. So let’s break down some fallacies.

1. Content is king: Flat out wrong. The conversion is king. How you define conversion is your own choice, such as a sale, a newsletter sign up, or a lead. What ever it is, if you have millions of visitors, and the site hasn’t generated anything for you but server load, you can talk about content all day and it won’t matter. The fact is that your website has a goal, perhaps monetary or just collecting data. Content is a part of getting conversions, and helps bring that data in, but if you have a store full of browsers and no buyers, you really can’t show that to an investor.  New buzz phrase that won’t catch on, but should: Content is a high ranking military strategist.
2. It’s all about links: Frustrating. This is like having 1,000 acquaintances and no real friends. For every link that you make a visitor/customer jump through you have a loss of about 9%. Considering all your customer has to do is literally lift a finger, that’s quite alarming.
   Yes, link building is important. Content more so, but if you have a background in marketing, you probably know how to make content compelling, and conversion friendly already. In a world of exponential social media growth, why link to your twitter account when you can integrate live streams getting the content AND the link search engine credit? Why link, when you can INTEGRATE?
   New buzz phrase that won’t catch on, but should: Linking is the poor man’s integrating.
3. We don’t have time for Social Media. Oh really? I suppose you don’t have a customer service phone either then. Customer service doesn’t generate much revenue, it prevents lost revenue. Business has made it so hard to get something fixed in the name of cost cutting that The Oatmeal sums it up best. If I have a product that doesn’t work as it is supposed to, I have a 50% chance that I will ebay it, just so I don’t have to deal with a non-tech savvy dotard reading from a HTML wizard.
   Social media, when used socially and not a one way sales push pipe, can transform your target audience’s perception of you. Imagine actually being able to create a quick custom check list of things to check for on their own time for each person because you have a record of their issue and statements. Who would call then?
   I know what you’re thinking. Ben we don’t have the resources for that. If I learned anything as a teenager, it was that I can have 5 simultaneous conversations online as opposed to 1 on the phone. By that measure, for every 5 of your phone reps I need one social rep. Sounds like a money saver down the road considering more than half the world population is under 30. Plus it is SEO friendly provided the link shorteners are 301 redirects.
   New buzz phrase that won’t catch on, but should: Social is the new survey/customer service hybrid.

Yes these are all parts of the search engine system, but take a step back and realise that it is a dance. You can’t dance with one leg, and you can’t get to the top of the page rank with just links. Spending too much time on SEO and not on being better for your customer is only the marginal gain you could have from actually just being better than your competitor.

So, what other buzzwords and theories need a bazooka reality check?

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