Hot At Sphinn: Summer Book Recommendations, Remarketing Campaign Tips & More

Jul 18, 2011 at 1:45pm ET by Matt McGee

With summer now in full gear, we asked readers of our sister site, Sphinn, to help create a summer reading list last week.

That was the topic of our “Discussion of the Week,” which asked for Recommended SEO/PPC/Social Media/Internet Marketing Books. There were a variety of suggested books covering SEO, web analytics, Google AdWords and more — but we’re going to refrain from picking out a favorite comment this week because we don’t want to look like we’re showing favoritism toward any one book. If you’re looking for some reading recommendations — or have some of your own — check out the discussion today.

That book discussion was also the most popular story last week among Twitter users, with a record 236 tweets. Meanwhile, a story offering tips on getting demographic data from remarketing campaign was the next most popular article on Twitter.

Here’s a look at all of last week’s Sphinn activity.

Content Based Outreach for Link Building – In-depth link prospecting and acquisition processes from Justin Briggs of Distilled.We Live In The Age Of Conversation Overload – Tom Foremski posits that it's not information overload but conversation overload that will drag us into the abyss.8 Lessons from Pickup Artists for Link Builders – I've always likened link building to sales (or picking up artristry) so this post spoke to me. Some actionable tips too, so it's definitely worth a read.Using Subdomains to Defeat the Google Panda Algorithm? – Google has maintained that there were no exceptions to Panda & they couldn't provide personalized advice on it, but it turns out that if you can publically position their "algorithm" as an abuse of power by a monopoly  you will soon find 1:1 support coming to you.7 Email Case Studies: Publishers Who Forget About the Fold – The preview pane is the juicy snippet that people see when they click on your email, before the “fold”. Depending on how their email client is set up, they might see the top inch or two of your email, or if you’re lucky, they have the preview pane set up on the left or right, enabling them to a good chunk of the beginning of your email. Most email clients don’t have that last feature as an option (and your users may or may not be informed enough to change it), so don’t go for the gold on that one.How To Use Google AdWords To Reach The People Who Didn’t Click On Your Ad – Cool post about re-marketing and (eventually) converting those people who've seen your ads a few times but haven't yet clicked.Why Google+ will fail: social networks grow like trees, not on them – Henry Copeland, CEO of Blogads, explains why he feels Google jumped the shark with Google+.  Social networks grow from the ground up, like trees, and are not simply built, like venues in amusement parks.A Beginner's Guide to Google Analytics 5 – Version 5 of Analytics has just rolled out to many users, and there have been some fairly significant user interface changes. We’ve compiled everything you need to know to get started with Analytics in general, and specifically with Version 5.From Here On Out, Do What You Love – A personal success story in the search marketing industry.The Responsibilities of SEO Have Been Upgraded – Randfish shows how SEO job duties and required skills have changed over the years.How To Make Awesome Landing Pages for Local PPC – How to easily customize your PPC landing pages for a local audience.What Will Google Plus Google Places Equal? – Andrew Shotland offers up some great theoretical perspective on what Google + will mean for local search and small business marketing in general.Robert Scoble Apologizes to the SEO Industry – Sometimes he just gets it wrong.Microsoft Webmaster Tools to support Yahoo! Site Explorer Community – Yahoo! plans to shut down Yahoo! Site Explorer later this year. Microsoft’s Webmaster Tools will be the source for Bing and Yahoo! webmaster site and analytics data moving forward.User Testing in the Wild: Joe’s First Computer Encounter – A unique and interesting internet usability test performed by Joe, a 60-year-old hospital cafeteria employee who has never used a computer!

This is the latest in a weekly look at the stories that were “hot” on Sphinn in the past week. We’ll post these recaps every week.

Related Topics: Features: General | Sphinn

About The Author: Matt McGee is Search Engine Land's Executive News Editor, responsible for overseeing our daily news coverage. His news career includes time spent in TV, radio, and print journalism. His web career continues to include a small number of SEO and social media consulting clients, as well as regular speaking engagements at marketing events around the U.S. He blogs at Small Business Search Marketing and can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee. See more articles by Matt McGee

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How to Put a Price on an SEO Campaign?

One of the big mysteries of web development is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and an even bigger mystery is how much does it cost. It has become fairly common knowledge for anybody who owns a website now that SEO is essential when gaining traffic that is directly related to your website's content using targeted keywords or keyphrases.

However, it is not common knowledge knowing how much SEO costs.

The cost of SEO can vary depending on the size and stature of the company you are using. It also depends on the nature of the website being optimised and what keyphrases you want to rank for.

There are many different techniques used in SEO, some of them are good and some of them are bad. Unfortunately not all the SEO Companies practice the right methods and are taking advantage of their clients lack of knowledge. Using the wrong SEO company could have an adverse affect on your websites rankings due to techniques being used that Google and other search engines frown upon. Those techniques may give you short-term results but in the long-term they will negatively effect your rankings and may even get your site totally blacklisted.

So, what price do we put on SEO?

There is no true answer to that due to all the variables that need to be considered. The only way you can truly know how much SEO costs is figure out how much it's worth to you to improve you rankings and what you're willing to spend to get one of the top search engine positions.

The cost of SEO will vary depending on what us search engine optimisers call authority. Every website has a level of authority and this is what the search engines use to rank them. The authority your site depends on many variables which are out of your hands and the optimisers. It's the optimisers job to give your site more authority in the eyes of the search engines which is where it become hard to put a cost on it. Every website is different much like a human beings fingerprints. Unfortunately there is no set SEO procedure that can magically boost your rankings. Each SEO campaign should be tailor made to suit the website, the content, the target market and the user.

What to consider when creating an SEO budget

Below are a number of factors that need to be considered when putting together an SEO budget. If your website has the following elements its likely you can improve your rankings quicker.

The Age of Your Website - The age of a website can effect how a website is ranked. Websites that have been around for many years are perceived by Google and other search engines to have more authority. Older websites are likely to have more inbound backlinks generated over time which again adds to the authority.

The Number of Pages on Your Website - Websites with more pages generally rank higher than smaller sites. The more pages you have the more content there is. The more content there is on a specific subject will gain your site more authority. The search engines will read all the content and scan the pages for keywords and links. All the pages will link to other content on the site which is a big tick in the eyes of Google.

What Keywords you Want to Rank For - This is a very important factor that most people tend to overlook. When determining the cost of SEO you need to look at how competitive the keyword is. The more competitive the keyword is the harder it is to rank for it and the harder the keyword is to rank for the more the SEO campaign will cost. I often use this sample but ill reiterate it again... If I want to rank for "SEO" its going to be very hard as there are so many people out there also trying to rank for it and its a keyword where people know what they are doing when it come to SEO so that will make it even harder. But, if I target a more specific keyword like "Central Coast Organic SEO" there is going to be a lot less competition going for that term and the content is more targeted so it will be a much easier term to rank for.

How Fast do you need to get Results - If you need quick results SEO is probably not the best avenue to pursue. Your online marketing campaign may be better suited to a Pay Per Click Campaign. However, if you need quick results more work will need to be put in initially to insure your website has a solid foundation and your content is being presented to Google as clearly as possible. Getting fast results means undertaking detailed research and creating specific content based on that research. That said, a quick fix SEO campaign is never a good way to go about it and longterm SEO is always more beneficial in securing longterm results.

Conclusion

So all in all, SEO is very hard to put a set price on. There are too many variables that must be considered to have an out-of-the-box solution. Quality SEO needs to be carefully thought out and a customised solution developed based on the unique requirements of the website. For more SEO information and to get in touch with SEO Specialists visit BigClick.com.au and they will be able to come up with a longterm SEO plan.

To read more about web design, web development, SEO and small business, please visit Justin Robert's business website here - Sydney SEO. You can read his personal blog here - Freelance Web Designer SEO.

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The True Cost of an In-House SEO Campaign- Why an SEO Firm Can Increase Your ROI

When a company is considering embarking upon a search engine optimization campaign, the first discussion that normally is had is whether to take care of the campaign in house or to hire an outside SEO firm. Handling an SEO campaign in house is an attractive and popular option for many companies - after all, the staff is already being paid to perform other functions, so the company might as well use its resources. In addition, a company may in fact have technically savvy people on staff that know at least a little bit about SEO, making the choice to take the campaign in house appear to be a no-brainer. But the real issue is how to compare the actual cost of an in-house campaign if you are expecting the same type of results that you would get with an outside SEO firm.

In House or Outsourced - Consider Your Resources

There are several basic assumptions that can be made about any company that is interested in SEO in general. First, the company likely wants to see immediate results from the campaign - or, at the very least, results as soon as possible in the organic search engine rankings. Quick results, by necessity, mean that the company has to have immediate skill available on hand.

And immediate skill, it is important to recognize, means something different than having a staff member who has a technical background but who will take several months to learn about SEO and the best way to go about it before starting a campaign from scratch. In this case, there is no way the company will get results for several months - or longer. Meanwhile, an SEO firm that has experience and expertise and that specializes in this very specific discipline can begin the project on day one and bring results far more quickly.

In addition, a company will want to ensure minimal risk to its website. However, in order to make sure that the site is not placed in jeopardy of being penalized by one of the major engines, the person running the campaign must have experience with SEO and must be well versed in the terms of service of those engines. Again, handing off the project to someone with no or little experience in SEO can backfire because he or she may risk introducing dangerous changes onto your site based on outdated information or simply on a lack of understanding.

Analyzing Your Company's Situation - What's Your True ROI?

At this stage, a company that wants to take its SEO campaign in house needs to analyze its situation. Does the company have someone on staff right now with extensive SEO experience, preferably with an SEO firm? Moreover, does that person, assuming he or she exists, have the time to devote in his or her schedule to begin undertaking the SEO campaign immediately? Bear in mind that an SEO campaign is not something that can be worked on as a side project or in someone's spare time, particularly when that person has a primary job function with which to be concerned. SEO takes a great deal of time and management in order to not only achieve results but also to maintain and improve those results over time. You also need to determine whether this person has the clout - or access to those who have the clout - to get the necessary changes to the website made and to get buy in for the entire SEO initiative.

If your company cannot answer a solid yes to all of the above questions, then you need to compare the relative costs. It is likely that your company has a finite budget for this initiative - everyone does. Therefore, the company must determine if it can afford to bring a full-time expert in SEO onto the staff - someone who generally commands a salary of near or above six figures - or to pay an existing staff person to handle the project. On the other hand, an SEO firm with an excellent reputation can cost around $30,000 per year for full optimization of your website.

But this issue goes beyond cost and also encompasses your total return on investment. Even if you have a person on staff with extensive SEO experience and a great deal of time to devote to an SEO project, and even if they have the clout to get changes implemented on the site, they still will only be working on one site (along with any other job functions with which they need to be concerned). On the other hand, an SEO firm will have many sites - possibly hundreds - to work on, which means that it will constantly be staying current with all of the best methodologies and will be able to immediately apply new tactics to these sites to get the best possible results. Plus, the SEO firm will not have other functions to take care of, because SEO is its entire focus.

Conclusion

There are, of course, companies that successfully handle SEO campaigns in house. But when an SEO campaign falls to somebody that already has a separate job function and that is new to SEO, it can take much longer to get things started than it would when working with an SEO firm hired for this specific purpose. In addition, an internal person cannot necessarily guarantee that a site will not get penalized - the terms of service for the major engines are constantly changing, and it's the job of the SEO firm to stay on top of this. What's legal today may be illegal the next day, and an internal staff member may not have the resources to know what has changed.

Finally, it is important, when comparing the cost of outsourcing to an SEO firm vs. handling the campaign in house, to make a real comparison of the actual cost involved in terms of your company's annual spend based on hours, ROI, and the opportunity cost due to the length of the campaign - whether it's handed off to a new, inexperienced person or to someone with an SEO background who has other duties to attend to. And in the end, let's face it - if you're not getting the results you want, it's always much easier to end a contract with an outside SEO firm than it is to fire someone internally.

© Medium Blue 2007

About the Author

Scott Buresh is the CEO of Medium Blue Search Engine Marketing, which was recently named the number one search engine optimization company in the world by PromotionWorld. Scott has contributed content to many publications including Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004), MarketingProfs, ZDNet, WebProNews, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. Medium Blue serves local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, Cirronet, and DS Waters. To sign up for a free month of Medium Blue's SEO program, visit MediumBlue.com.

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