Inspired by forthcoming home of shit online marketing articles, shitbound.org,  I’ve been having some fun searching Google for what might politely be called SEO standards. You know, “What licking my own elbow taught me about SEO” or “How SEO is Like Making Scrambled Eggs on Toast”. You are welcome to both of those ideas.

“What [insert random topic] taught me about SEO”

I’ve not necessarily read all of these articles, some of them might actually be good. They all have somewhat entertaining titles though.

What Whitney Houston Taught me about SEO

Whitney, they say her biggest hit was her last one. So what did the troubled singer teach the writer of that article about SEO? Basically, nothing. I’ve had the displeasure of reading this article and all I think is why does it hurt so bad?

What Drycleaning taught me about SEO

This article is in 3 (three) parts. I bet you are intrigued…

What Selling Knives Taught Me About SEO

That there’s more money in SEO?

What Bruce Springsteen Taught Me About SEO

That it’s easy to be The Boss? gedditt??

What Part-Time Jobs Taught Me About SEO

What Steve Jobs Taught Me About SEO

These two come as a set, I think.

What Being an Indie Rapper Taught Me About Being an SEO

I’m almost tempted to look at these slides.

What Waterless Urinals Taught Me about SEO

I have a sneaking suspicion that I might be missing out by not reading this. You’d have to be confident of your content to give such an off-putting title, right?

So that’s “What [fill the blank] taught me about SEO” covered in all its glory. What next?

How about,

“How SEO is like [add term which is nothing like SEO]“?

How SEO Is Like Construction

Yes, how indeed, you may ask? Plan it, build it, maintain it, basically. But wait, from the writer who brought you “How SEO is Like Construction”, here’s…

How SEO is Like Running a Marathon

How? Training (learning SEO), thinking long term and keeping going. Inspiring stuff.

Taking his own advice, the same writer noticed how…

SEO is like Dieting

Keep it natural and monitor your results apparently.

How SEO is like a 401k Portfolio

401K is American for pension. I think this one is saying diversify your investments/links.

How SEO is like Real Estate

I couldn’t bear to actually read it. Sorry, I’m a bad blogger.

How SEO is like NASCAR

It isn’t really.

How SEO is like buying a new house

Really?

How SEO is like the Hunger Games

Come on, this is getting silly now.

How SEO is like Ikea

Full of flatpack furniture and meatballs? Probably not.

Incredibly, it gets worse…

How SEO is like the Nile

Just no.

Why SEO is like using Shampoo

Words fail me.

Why SEO is like farming but not the genetically modified kind

Mooo!

Why SEO is like roller derby

Roller derby is butch girls pretending they’re in the movie Rollerball

Why SEO is like your high school child

But I didn’t have a child at high school, honest!

Why SEO is like making love to a beautiful woman

Actually, I just made that one up.

Well if you got this far, I’m sorry but that’s a few minutes of your life you’ll never get back. Thanks for sticking with it.

If you bothered to read the ones that I obviously didn’t and found them useful or especially if you found anything even funnier in the actual article, please comment below.

Jobby

404 v 410 Test

Google has threatened to block French media sites from its search results, should the French government start to charge it to refer traffic to other sites which is what is being considered.

The French have always been a bit eccentric. A colleague of mine described this search tax as being “…like the guy who invented the abacus seeking damages from IBM.”

However, should the French really want to get upset with Google, here’s something for them (and every other country in the world) to think about:

Imagine a French media site decides it wants to allow users in France to see its content but wants to block users in the US. That’s fine, there’s nothing stopping them from doing that. However, if they want to also appear in Google search results, that becomes a problem.

Why so?

This is because Google generally crawls from the US. Block users with a US IP address and you’ve effectively blocked Googlebot from crawling your content.

But can’t I just make an exception for Googlebot? Maybe whitelist its IP addresses or detect its user-agent?

Nope. Google’s guidelines state that you should always show Googlebot the same as you would show a user from the same area. In this case, and indeed practically all cases, this means allowing US users to view your content.

Q: Can I block individual countries from accessing my content? 

A: Yes, however you must treat Googlebot the same as a normal user from that region. If you are blocking users in the country where Googlebot is crawling from, you must block Googlebot as well; treating Googlebot differently would be considered cloaking, a violation of our Webmaster Guidelines.

This is one reason you don’t see BBC iPlayer videos in Google’s search results. iPlayer doesn’t have a single video recognised by Google but Google shows plenty of its own YouTube videos in results for BBC show queries.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Abbc.co.uk%2Fiplayer%2F&num=100

This is not only a problem for disadvantaged media companies outside the US but for Google who claim to only want to provide the best, most relevant results for users. Ignoring local sites as large and relevant as BBC iPlayer for terms such as as “top gear videos” on Google UK, leaves Google’s commitment to the best quality results open to question.

Google is still in antitrust talks with the European Commission and whilst I suspect this sort of thing isn’t part of any deal being brokered, I think it really should be. Perhaps the French should bring it up…

Online marketing can be a frustrating business.  It’s difficult for big companies to be passionate enough about their product to actually sell it well.  When you find a site that really does and you know it’s got a big future.

I was talking trainers the other day and was recommended Crooked Tongues. I’ve spent a bit of time (not to mention cash) on the site now and although there are some pretty basic SEO problems that haven’t been taken care of  it doesn’t really matter. This site is built around the product – trainers.  Selling them almost feels like a necessary afterthought but undoubtedly they must be selling tonnes.

So, where are they getting it right?

So many places but it basically boils down to giving a shit about the stuff they sell.  They are talking trainers on the site, not just making conversions.  Take a look at the top level navigation.  It’s not category pages; mens, womens, kids etc. Instead the top priority is given to news, editorial, on show, forum etc. with a single link to the ecommerce store.  This goes against the grain of what almost every other site is doing.

Crooked Tongues is exactly the sort of site that Matt Cutts has said should do well in search results and it appears to be doing just that.  Their budget must be small compared to the big online sports retailers but they do pretty well in the few searches I made.  It has plenty of good content and is very engaging, it’s not just another e-commerce site.

Granted, it’s selling a product that people really care about but the lessons here can be passed on to any site.  The passion and understanding that you have about your product is transmitted in so many ways. For example, writing a quality blog and linking to it prominently on your site is a great way to send the message that you care about your product.   Interacting properly with your users (they are users who buy things, not just customers) via forums and social media is huge.

Sales in social media is a secondary effect.  Interaction should happen because you care about the user and the product you are selling.  It’s very obvious to users when a blog/tweet or facebook page is an afterthought.  There may be some benefit to it but the real benefit only comes when you actively engage because you care.  In this case the prominence of the blog, forums etc.on the site is really important.  I would go so far as to say that the day it changes, you’ll know they’ve sold out.

Imagine if you did the SEO and other online marketing equally well? Maybe they are, I’ve not looked too hard into it but I like to think that’s how I would run my online store.

I’ll retract all of this if my trainers don’t arrive tomorrow