Yahoo! Site Explorer Gone – Eh well now its back

Just incase everyone thinks I’ve gone mad – Yahoo Site Explorer is back – it was missing but now its back again. Oh well that news only worked for a couple of hours

Yahoo! Site Explorer Gone

Colin, of www.boydofayrshire.com fame, has just informed me that Yahoo! Site Explorer has gone.

I was on it this morning so I know it was there, no longer I’m afraid.

IF you got to http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com you are redirected to http://search.yahoo.com/search/options.

You can still get the results in XML format from the website using the advanced operator and query forms such as http://search.yahooapis.com/SiteExplorerService/V1/inlinkData?appid=YahooDemo&query=http://www.google.co.uk&results=100

more information on this can be found at http://developer.yahoo.com/search/siteexplorer/ 

Guess thats the days of examining link patterns gone here aswell. With MSN having gone and Google delivering a link list that is hit or miss maybe the days of effective link research are dying!

Yahoo! – Its all the Buzz

Yahoo! Buzz

Yahoo! is often overlooked as a search engine to target in the UK (for very good reason). It drives little traffic when compared to Google is the core reason. However if you stop thinking of Yahoo! as a search engine and think of it more as a portal you can find that there are great information sources within its huge website.

One thing I’ve found it good for is buzz. You may have seen the posts on John Smeaton Traffic that I’ve made

1. John Smeaton and Viral Marketing Post
2. John SmeatonPost

These are really about surfing the wave of hot topics as a way to drive traffic to the site.

One great way of getting onto Buzz is through Yahoo! Buzz

Every day this free little blog gives me insight into hot topics and related searches. OK so knowing that people are searching often for a pop stars boyfriend may not be of use today. However for my clients in the Sports industry its a great way to get new traffic to a site. I’ve found terms and insights into user behaviour to discover new terms I didnt even think of. Generally by the time the traffic from the hot topic has deserted the search engines your keyword tool will be late in reporting it.

So get ready to surf the wave of hot topics as they happen all with a little side project from Yahoo!

Internet Marketing Companies in Scotland – Monthly Awards

Ok so I am a bit parochial. I live in Scotland, work in Scotland and Love Scotland. Well maybe not when our cricket team get battered once again but hey you cant have it all. For this reason I’ve been having a wee look at devising a monthly awards system to determine greatness in the Scottish Internet Marketing community.

So here are the Rules:

1. We analyse Google.co.uk Web Results (No MSN or Yahoo! as it would waste my time and no one looks there much in the UK anyway) and we will analyse the first 15 results to give maximum exposure to the movers and shakers for the month.
2. We analyse the following search terms (chosen using the Overture Keyword Tool)
   1. SEO Scotland
   2. Search Engine Optimisation Scotland
   3. Search Engine Optimization Scotland
   4. Search Engine Marketing Scotland
   5. Internet Marketing Scotland
   6. Search Engine Promotion Scotland (purely for some semantic weight)
3. The biggest movers (upwards and downwards – only included from the second month of the awards)
4. Award for our favourite SEO site for the month (The JustMarketing Site of the month)
5. Award for our favourite Scottish Internet Marketing, and related, blog of the Month
6. Award for our favourite Blog post of the Month.
7. Award for our favourite example of spam (all links to this will be embedded in Javascript so you get no benefit from it )

If you have any ideas for additional words to use for our test, additional awards or want to enter yourself for blog or post of the month just use the comments below.

Oh and awards start for the month of August – so get going!

Set up, set upon and sent out into the world of Affiliate Marketing

Everyone who’s ever set an affiliate program live will know that the most difficult part of the process is not the endless to-ing and fro-ing about the terms and conditions, PPC bid rights (who can bid on what and where), etc. Intead most time is spent developing tagging and testing of affiliate links. This theoretically can take a couple days, but alas I have never had that joyous experience of a quick set up and testing period. Rather, they have gone on for at minimum a week – something will always go wrong, shockingly an implementation error – which in all honesty you’d expect more from a web agency (always far worse when you have two agencies working on a camapign if you have your web development agency also running your affiliate things go far better) who should understand how all this jazz works. Nevertheless, this is a problem and it does drag on and on until it’s right – endless testing and re-testing trying to figure out why it doesn’t work. In my experience, it’s the non-session test sales that don’t seem to work and usually the website people don’t get why this is an issue – can you hear me grinding my teeth? You can lead a developer to water…

So, understandably if it comes to pass that for one reason or another the decision has to be made as to whether or not we should close a program down on one network and re-launch on another, I become a bit hesitant and in all honesty begin to cringe a bit – ok a lot. I’ve had some bad experiences with tracking problems (known to a few of us as shhhhhhhh problems), and the thought of moving a perfectly functioning and performing program from one network to another fills me with dread. What’s the big deal, you ask? Well, besides the obvious tracking problems that can arise and fill my days with much hair pulling, there are other factors as well.

Factor number one: taking a perfectly functioning program in mid-run is kind of like suddenly stopping mid-marathon – you lose momentum, rhythm, you feel rather sickly, and it takes a long time to get back into the swing of things. Affiliates will have to be informed, and more importantly convinced to switch their links over to the new network and continue promoting the program. There are two problems that may arise here – the affiliates involved may lose confidence in the program and more importantly in the agency or merchant managing the program. A second problem is that there may be a number of affiliates who bring in one or a few sales a month which on their own isn’t fantastically amazing, but collectively are important and make a big difference to the performance of the program. These affiliates may not see the point in taking the time and effort to switch their links over to the new network and could drop the program altogether.

Factor number two: some affiliates – big and smaller – may not like the new network that’s been chosen for the program. Don’t knock this point – while affiliates like to spend time on profitable programs, they are independent and can chose to take up or drop a program – and if they’ve had bad dealings with a particular network, or have fallen out of love with them, affiliates may chose not to promote a program. This is such an important point, that many merchants tend to have their programs running on a couple networks.
Factor number three: transitioning the program from the current network to the new network seamlessly and with minimal impact on sales and revenue generation. This is a lot easier said than done – first and foremost is setting up the new network’s tags on the merchant’s confirmation page and test to make sure they work. You’ve also got to ensure that the new tags don’t interfere with the existing ones and in essence causing all hell to break loose. This is definitely not an exaggeration – I speak from great and insane experience that this can and will happen. Then you’ve got to try to migrate the affiliates over to the new network – this is no easy feat either. The issues that may arise from this could include a drop in sales and revenue while affiliates spend the time changing their links and testing, and potentially the loss of some affiliates in the transition – whether they’re the big hitters or smaller sales generating affiliates, losing productive affiliates will impact terribly on a program.

And so there ends the counting and listing of all the issues and problems that swirl around my head when I consider what can and will happen when programs switch networks, etc. I’ve only had to shut down a program on a network and open it on a new one in the case of a badly performing network – so I am understandably apprehensive about the above. Whatever the reasons that force you to face a similar situation, at least I’ve hopefully armed you with a list of all the things that could and probably will go wrong. It isn’t all doom and gloom though – it’s dealable and doable, and just requires a little foresight and planning. But it isn’t something that should be taken lightly – consider the impact on your program, on other programs on the fallen network, and most importantly the impact on your client’s business.

This is a guest article written by Miss Kerry Kasim, of Equator Internet Marketing

Ten Ways to ensure that SEO is a great Investment?

Search Engine Optimization

Is your SEO a Business Cost or a Real Investment?

One thing about SEO is that the market is filled with cowboys. I mean bare faced liars who want nothing more than to seperate you from your money. Sometimes seperating you from your cash can be easier than you may think.

SEO is a long term investment. By its very nature it generally is but not always. Content writing, link development, link maturing and fixing of technical problems all take time. But every month you should see something happening – even if its only physical work being delivered. Due to the level of complaints about SEO I hear I’ve made a list of things to help you make the right decision when choosing your SEO comapny.

1. Get testimonials. Easy job. On every good SEO company website you should find a portfolio. Check out the companies listed on it and try to speak to someone there about there experiences with the company.
2. Check the proposal fully. Not everything your site needs done may be ‘in scope‘. This really irks me when I read an SEO proposal that says the ‘web devlopment is out of scope‘!!! If your web content cannot be easily found and indexed within your website you start off at a disadvantage. Make sure everything that needs done is ‘in scope‘
3. Ask for a copy of staff CVs. Every big company within their request for proposal will outline the staff working on the contract and their competencies and experience. Get a copy and read it through – ask questions and make sure they’ve told you the truth.
4. Develop a full written brief. Every company makes mistakes. Everyone’s only human. Minimise the chance of mistakes happening by drafting a full written request for proposal. Put in every piece of information you think they will need and some you think they don’t. Then check your brief against the proposals. A company who answer your questions with thought out answers want to work with you. Those taht send you two sheets of A4 that say gimme 12 grand and I’ll do it all for you.
5. Get a work plan. When you get a company starting work ask them for a schedule and hold them to it. Within your RFP put financial clauses for late delivery of work.
6. Take nothing for granted. Check everything fully. When you get your monthly link update – that you asked for in your RFP. Check the new links that have been built and where they are. Ensure that all content from the workplan for the month has been receieved and is live.
7. Cheapest isn’t best. Cheap contracts are likely to be guff – and most expensive may not be any better. You should find that any SEO work is likely to be charged on an hourly/daily basis. We charge absed around what tyime we think we’re going to spend on your job after all. Check this against your work plan to ensure that no inaccuracies exist between ’scheduled’ days work and ‘paid’ days work. Dont try and get huge discounts. In SEO the price is the price companies can often create a payment system, some even base it on performance, but dont ask for 10% off and expect to get the same results listed in your proposal.
8. Need a Quick Fix – get PPC. SEO is unlikely to make you money fast. If you need sales and you need sales fast SEO is not going to be for you. Go get a PPC campaign going. Then when you can spend time iunvesting in SEO give them your PPC results so they can refine your campaign.
9. Be Honest. If you’ve been spamming, bnuilding millions of rubbish links, buying links, building doorway pages etc. Please, please, please let us know. If we waste time trying to work out why something isn’t going to plan, especially at early stages often checking for your spam mistakes in the past will waste our time – your budget. Your SEO company is likely to base projections on likely times the less you let your SEO company know the more mistakes they are likely to make.
10. Say Thank You. I’ve worked with a lot of clients, a hell of a lot of clients. And the biggest thing that leads me not to renew contracts with clients is the lack of thanks. One guy made and extra £250K from a 14K SEO contract where I used to work. He paid late, was irritable on the phone, impolite and abusive. I dont need his money that much – so we ditched him. I dont care how much money you’re paying civillity and saying please and thank you will always get you better results as your SEO team will work harder for you and will go that extra mile when you need an ‘ad hoc’ report for that special marketing meeting you forgot about. So please be nice to us SEO folk and we’ll be nice to you.

Thats all for today. See you tomorrow with Kerrys thing that I aint read yet but promise to do over lunch and post first thing tomorrow – her spelling is better than mine you’ll be glad to know.