Let me start by apologizing, (kinda), for the sensationalistic
headline. I’ve said several times my purpose with this blog is to alter the
perception of what SEO is and what it takes to
use it to generate money online within my own small circle of influence. But
before I can preach I gotta put butts in the pews. That headline is a better
pew filler than “How to Brand a Site”.
Let’s read on.
For over a decade now, there has been a strange love/hate
kind of thing among serp jockeys regarding the practice of securing multiple
placements for one keyword on the first page of a search engine.
On the one hand it has always been categorized as spam and
the perp, (if known), chided for such a vulgar display of their algorithmic wizardry,
while at the same time impressing the hell out of the wannabes for obviously
having such a firm grip on the dark arts as to command free traffic at will. A
kind of upside down feather-in-the-cap of the person who could now appear to be
allowing search engines to survive only out of the goodness of their spammers
heart.
It’s that basic premise of thinking it’s unfair but boy, we
sure wish we had it, that allowed me to
justify taking the editorial license to use that headline to describe how
effective branding your site can be.
I discussed the power of being #1 going way back to one of my earliest posts
from last week. There is little that can shake the searchers perception that if
it’s #1 it MUST be relevant, so how powerful is that perception if you are #1
-2 -3-4 and 5? Makes me salivate like a 4 pound dog looking at a 10 pound roast,
how about you?
I must not be the only one so desirous because the Guru received
this email from a crazed fan just the other day.
*********************
I just learned about your website and a little about who you
are. I was wondering if you could address a question for me, whether it be by
email, or through your posts that I have been dying to know. If you search on
Google for “SEO Book”, you will notice that the first result, www.seobook.com
ranks #1 with a whole bunch of sublinks under him. How was he able to do that?
Any thoughts or tips would be appreciated!
Jeremy Morris
Miracle Money Matters
www.miraclemoneymatters.com
**********************************
Google is not spamming their own results and Aaron Wall didn’t
do anything to “make” Google do anything. Google WANTs to put those multiple
listings there and they would want to do it for your site too and I’ll explain
why.
In my opinion, Aaron Wall and the SEO book saga should be the
classic case study of online branding. I believe any university that offers any
kind of marketing studies and does not address SEO Book is doing their students
a disservice. He stayed on message,
worked hard, played it smart and thus has built a virtual death grip on the SEO
informational market. The SEO Book is the prerequisite SEO tutorial above all
others. Good job !!
He had a couple of breaks with the traffic power fiasco http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050830-152234
which gave Aaron the chance to look like the defender of truth and justice in
the face of evil. What a break!
Then there was another
minor scuffle with a guy named Daniel Brandt
http://www.google-watch.org/gaming.html
and
http://www.seobook.com/archives/000415.shtml
Daniel Brandt had his 15 minutes in SEO circles by almost
convincing us he was pretty smart with his whole Google is dying because of the
y2k+3 theory. http://www.google-watch.org/broken.html
But once the theory failed to produce fruit, we all pretty much realized that
being smart doesn‘t mean you can’t be a little crazy too. I mean serial killers
are pretty smart but you probably don’t want to link to them. So again, it was
Aaron who was able to come off looking like the smart one. He played it well. And
I always admired him for that.
But I digress. The point is that he
got a couple of breaks that gave him the opportunity to display very brandable
qualities which helped solidify him in the market, but I believe there is no
such thing as luck when it comes to branding. He was able to capitalize on
those opportunities because he had worked hard and smart to make himself ready
to capitalize on those types of opportunities.
So now let’s talk about why Google would give a rat’s
patooty about that.
Google’s driving purpose with it’s search engine is to
deliver the perception of relevancy to every searcher to secure their position
in the market. In other words, if they don’t give you what you are looking for,
you are going to be looking at someone else’s results, (and ads). So even though
Google may be one of the smartest companies to ever exist in the history of
human endeavor, they can’t read minds. Yet.
So, when someone searches for something that is a broad term
that could have several correct answers they have no way of knowing which
answer is best for that person at that time other than having access to a
lot of historical data that could be used to indicate a likelihood that one of
the limited number of results they return would be the one YOU thought was most
relevant.
Let’s look at another example of branding. However this one
has spent millions and millions to be able to have the same thing Aaron got for
just --- well --- a LOT less.
Victoria’s
Secret has a huge brand, huge catalog and a huge website. When someone searches
for that term, Google has no idea of whether you want their catalog, their
swimwear or their sexy undies.
{I can’t provide you with the link easily because I’m in
India and Goole
re-directs me to
google.co.in and while the results in this particular case are very close they
are not the same. Sorry, you have to do the search instead of just clicking the
link}
So, Google wants to do two things. Show they have the power to
find just what you are looking for AND provide a better user experience than their
competitors by sending you directly to the appropriate page instead of sending
you to the index page and making you dig for what you wanted. SMART! Very
smart.
Now back to SEO book for a moment. The same EXACT principle
applies to Victoria’s
Secret and to SEO Book. Both have huge brands, huge sites and a lot of relevant
options that relate to the broad BRANDED term.
Do a search for books about SEO. Now there are no longer 5
results for SEO Book because that query is not the same BRANDED thing. In fact,
seobook.com is not even #1. BUT when you search for SEOBOOK, Google knows that
others have searched for the tools from seobook.com and they have searched for videos
etc.
{pack your bags kids,
we’re going on a sidetrip}.
Now for a little conjecture. For the SEO Book search, notice
the two references to the same basic thing at different urls. Buy the book at
order and buy the #1 rated book at buy now. This indicates to me, (the Guru
loves arguing about SEO theories so feel free to chime in), that it is not them
knowing what has been searched for as much as they are tracking clicks from
links on the site. If I’m right about that, this is huge in terms of knowing
how to structure your interior pages to build authority status. They wouldn’t
have the data for the clicks on the page without the toolbar installed, (which
I doubt Aaron has), but they would have referrer data either way and I believe
that could do it. It could also be contextual I suppose but I doubt it. Searches
or clicks would be much more reliable especially when there could be dozens of
pages about videos or tools on seobook.com the same as there could be a LOT of
pages for panties at Victoria’s
Secret. The Guru wouldn’t know about that. He’s just guessing. : )
So, there it is. He has multiple #1’s on the first page
because Google doesn’t know EXACTLY what you want from a search for a branded term
but they know the options to offer that are most likely to keep you coming back
to Google for your next search. Very
smart for Google and a very good reason to build your brand.
This is a perfect illustration of what I’ve been trying to
get across in the last post I made about focusing on the people and the engines
will follow. Aaron could have had no idea that by building his brand Google
would decide to list his site 5 times giving him a huge advantage as a barrier
to entry if nothing else. He built it for the people he could convert.
Build for the people and the engines will follow.