credit: Mareen Fischinger

No, PPC competitions is not the same as SEO competition.

Let’s use my name, Carlos del Rio, as example.

Organic Search Competition

Organic content is a relatively slow moving target. As time passes there is increasing competition, and even stale content continues to compete for placement. The mass of accumulated links can keep out-of-date information high in search queries.

Assessing your organic competition involves looking at the natural results for your phrase and assessing the strength of your competitors:

1.) How many results are there?

Google reports about 2,320,000 results for Carlos del Rio.

2.) What major sites are involved?

• Amazon
• Flikr
• Linked In
• Facebook
• Emory University
• Center for Disease Control
• Travel Sites
• CNN

3.) Identifiable competition

• Me
• An AIDS researcher
• A doctor in Massachusetts
• A real estate agent in Colorado
• A painter
• An author
• A photographer
• A mission in northern California

4.) What visible links do they have?

Sites range from 700 to 79,000,000 individual pages range from 0 to 482 visible links.

5.) How optimized are the titles?

Most of the titles in the broad search are clearly different. Many of the URLs contain only part of the phrase, or none of it.

6.) How much is anchor text affecting the results?

An inanchor: search finds only 73 results. This combined with the low visible links to pages means that links are not a major factor in this search.

Results are largely driven by content, and not links, means that entering the space is fairly easy. However, there are many directly competing entities and large amount of competing content — so your results will likely be volatile at first.

PPC Competion

1.) How many competitors show up in a manual search?

As of today there are 5 regular competitors for Carlos del Rio: Travel, Medical, Painting, Shoes, People Search. None of the results are show location; so they are probably not geo targeted.

2.) What competition does the advertising portal show?

Google rates Carlos del Rio as a very low competition phrase; this means there probably are not a large number of regonalized/geo-targeted competitors.

3.) What search volume is there?

Google reports an average of 1600 searches per month and an average cost of $1.42 for first place.

Entering a paid space with 6 competitors and only 53 searches per day is rather bleak. In general only 1 in 5 clicks are on a paid listing that means you have a total of 7 ads competing for 10 clicks a day.

A Different Phrase

Compare that to the search space for Stephen Fry:

There are 2 million results for Stephen Fry; 1.5 million of them show up of inanchor: searches. Stephen is an author, a comedian, and an actor. Content about him holds every spot in the top 20 of Google, every result has the full query in it. Site links range from 114,000 to 400,000,000+ visible links and individual pages range from 1,100 to 114,000 visible links. In spite of a lower amount of results the competition to appear in this particular search result is significantly higher than ranking for my own name.

Now for PPC. Manual search finds only one advertiser. Google reports high competition, 33,100 searches per day and an average cost of $0.40 for first place. In spite of AdWords claim your real competition for clicks is extremely low (considering more than 1000 searches per day and no visible competition) for this phrase and your cost per click is relatively low.

Hopefully this gives you a sense of what you are looking at and what it means when you are assessing your competion

Last week I saw an influx of Advanced SEO posts. I think that they are all off the mark in one sense or another. To me they all seem like this guy:

What Shimon Sandler thinks is Advance SEO:

An Excerpt:

“A silo is a vertical page linking design. You have your landing page, or your main page, at the top of the silo and underneath this page you have pages which support your main landing page theme.”

Siloing is a very powerful method to get ranked on Google. There are a lot of things to do that by themselves have little weighting, and all those little things add up for a powerful punch. But, siloing is a power punch all by itself. It’s an advanced SEO technique that is a heavyweight amongst SEO techniques.

I really don’t think that siloing is that advanced. It is probably the first thought in many peoples minds when they first learn that your internal structure can effect your link profile. I spent the entire post thinking “yes and…” in the end there are some good links to other sites that tackle siloing, but the technique by itself is not advanced. There are variations on the concept that are more complicated, and subtle, that compensate for the loss of functionality, but those are less talked about for a reason. You have to understand how people are using your site before you can implement anything that is actually advance. Techniques are not inherently advanced.

Shimon does offer a moment that could surpass rehashing Lisa Barone here:

There are several ways to create silos:
1) Tagging
2) Categories
3) Directories
4) Related pages plugin
5) ONLY link to landing pages using your Target keyword.
6) Create a mini-sitemap on each page within your silo.

But, he chose not to elaborate on these pieces so I will to give you a better leg up if you are following his advice.

Tagging, Categories & Directories

These all create pagination issues. If you want to take full advantage of these you have to create technical or architectural controls to limit the necessity of cross-categorization and tag groups. You have to balance between content control and structure to avoid driving your visitors to more accessible sites. People are accustom to hierarchy, but if they have to remember how your particular site categorizes then you are loosing value.

Related Pages Plugin

This works great if you are blogging, but it is essentially the opposite of siloing. For siloing you should amend this to related categories, or tags.

ONLY Link with Target Phrase

No, don’t do that. If you only ever link with one phrase you are putting all of your eggs in a single basket. The exception is if you have an EXCEPTIONAL piece of content that is getting lots of external links — and thus anchor text from somewhere else.

Create a Mini Sitemap

This is a good tip for maintaining link equity across your categories, parlaying strong pages into link value distribution areas. It also side-steps a major flaw in siloing — the loss of navigability.

Lisa Barone thinks Advanced SEO is:

photo credit: gussifer

That’s right, Advanced is White. Um, well, it’s a cute picture; but no White Hat is not Advanced SEO. White Hat SEO is part of the advanced tool set. Techniques are not advanced, tools are not advanced, she says get back to basics. I agree, get good at the basics, then start thinking about what those basics mean. Just because Web 2.0 is the buzzword du jour doesn’t mean that it is worthless, it just isn’t worth the hype.

Go read the comments for some interesting insights into the search community’s mindset.

What SMX thinks Advanced SEO is:

photo credit: fabiogis50

Ok, that is tongue-in-cheek. Black Hat is most definitely not Advanced SEO, because it is just tools and tricks. It is also quick, glamorous and the kind of thing people don’t talk about. The perfect thing to “Give Up” because it is going to give out soon even if you don’t get good karma for outing yourself.

Lisa Ditlefsen:

I think the stamp “black hat seo” should be based on INTENT not necessarily technique. Still with me? Basically if you are doing SEO for a (new) site that is in a highly competitive market, it is NOT going to be possible to rank and gain traffic on a well constructed and content optimised site alone. That’s just a fact. Buying a few links and investing in a proper link building campaign is something you have to do to get into the really competitive market. Unless you are not planning on ranking before 2048!!!

I don’t agree that intent has anything to do with Black Hat. You are either working with in guidelines or not. I do agree that a very important SEO skill is properly assessing what techniques are necessary

What Micheal Martinez thinks is Advance SEO:

photo credit: drwhimsy

His Hardcore SEO Tips are that fun tip of the iceberg tips that can help you eek out the most from your campaigns. But are those last bits what qualifies as advanced?

20 Hard Core SEO Tips – The List

1. Redesign your Web site once or twice a year.
2. Add 5 pages of content to your site every week.
3. Change the titles on your least successful pages twice a year.
4. Stop using keywords in your URLs.
5. Stop using keywords in your titles.

And the list goes on. But, while the exercises he suggest will help you hone your skills you are not going to come out the other side as an Advanced Search Marketer.

What Carlos Del Rio thinks is Advanced SEO

photo credit: EricGjerde

Advanced SEO is not what techniques you use.

So what are your choices and when do they fail?

• White Hat – fails when everyone is well optimized.
• Black Hat – fails soon after it is discovered, especially when you get caught.
• Paid Search – fails when you can’t support the upfront investment.
• Usability – fails when no one sees you.
• Social Media – fails when you are an ass about it. Don’t be that person!
• Design – fails when you are too lazy to build it correctly.
• Analytics – fails when you don’t know what to do with them.

You can look at tips all day long in all of these categories and still not have anything that qualifies as advanced knowledge. Advanced SEO is not tips and tricks, it is wise application of common sense and tools. You are entering into advanced when you can identify what tool to use where. Darren Slatten wrote a YouMoz post titled “Advanced White Hat SEO is All About Deception” that has a small kernel of truth in a big pile of fluff meant to bait controversy. The truth is: “Advanced white hat SEO doesn’t require an understanding of the Webmaster Guidelines–it requires an understanding of human psychology…” (understanding the guidelines is important for basic SEO, so don’t skip it)

Figuring out how your competitors and visitors play the game is an important skill in developing the subtlety that it takes to implement advance campaigns. Learn when to use which skills, and when to change tactics. If you can’t effectively change focus you will be beaten by competitors that make all of their search marketing work in unison.

If you want to be advanced you need to learn at least 3 skills from the list above — and make friends with someone who understands the others.

The number one hands down most Advanced SEO Technique you can learn is this:

Stop looking for tips and start working on your site.

A couple of months ago I had a wonderful day — I was the undisputed 2nd Sexiest Man in SEO. Not only that I was the first result for Sexiest Man in Search, which is more of an accomplishment considering that there are 29 times the number of results and the search for the sexiest man in the world to compete with.

But last week Nick Berliner challenged me for the title. Fine, let’s give all the contenders there due.

Carlos del Rio: Putting the sexy sizzle in SEO

Sexy Points: Great tan, big smile, sense of humor, geek chic glasses, and obviously humble about the huge amount of sexy he brings to the SEO world.

Man Points: Has a beard, has had surgery because of a wresting injury, has a back tattoo of a monster truck punching a bear with a mustache.

Nick Berliner: The vocal challenger

Sexy Points: Geek chic glasses, has had surgery because of a football injury, and piercing eyes.

Man Points: He is tall.

Peter Newsome: The foreigner.

Sexy Points: Faux-hawk, geek chic glasses (I see a trend), and a big smile.

Man Point: He is Australian.

Danny Sullivan (in a girls tank top): The Veteran (in a girls tank top)

Sexy Points: Amazing fashion sense, industry leader, and a sense of humor.

Man Points: He is a dad.

You be the judge.

Wow! The men of SEO are pretty geeky. Oh well, at least we are surrounded by beautiful intelligent women. By my count I win with 5 sexy points and 3 man points — but you be the judge.

An excerpt from comments at Cornwall SEO March 7 – 11, 2008:

Carlos Del Rio:
The major weight of links and references are to things that are accessible, not exceptional. Pages that amass large amounts of links are often remarkable (comment worthy) content that is not on the high end of the value spectrum.

Lyndoman:
Carlos if something is remarkable then it’s on the high end of the value spectrum, you seem to be arguing with yourself…

Carlos del Rio:
…Few people get excited about amazing. They are more likely to tell everyone “the iPod has a cute new color,” because everyone can enjoy being the first to talk about something that everyone already knows about.

Lyndoman:
@Carlos, I am more interested in content than products. Comparing one product company with another is not the same as comparing content.

If you can tell me where all the people who get excited about mediocrity live, I have a picture of paint drying to show them, if you are right, they will love it.

Carlos del Rio:
It isn’t a group of people, it is a class of behavior. The things that we talk about or link are more likely to be unnecessary interesting information than complicated things.

For example if you read two news stories one about fish rain in Singapore and another about a heart valve made of Gore-tex you are more likely to share the fish story. Both are remarkable occurrences, but only one is highly transportable.

Exceptional usually loses to accessible.

Lyndoman:
@Carlos, well you raise an interesting point, and it’s a factor that if you study communication deep enough you have to address.

“Dog bitten by Man Man bitten by dog [edited]” does not make an interesting story, but a human being has been injured. “Man bites dog”, far more newsworthy and yet a dog is less important.

What I think you are digging into are cultural factors which effect communication and should be taken into account when creating communication. However, most of us do it unconsciously, some of us make better communicators than others.

Some of of us can get more people to listen to us whilst others cannot. Low rent tabloid newspapers can hardly be called quality and yet they get a large readership. This is because in the tabloid world the stories are of high quality. “Bus found on Moon”, is a high quality tabloid story, although stick it in an encyclopedia and its quality soon drains away.

Context is everything.

So your examples of the heart valve and the fish rain can both be considered interesting high quality stories, but only to specific audiences who view it within the expected context.

Rupert Murdoch has become very wealthy on peddling trash, but it’s quality trash. And if you are a blogger, you are a writer, you are a publisher and the same rules apply.

Which brings us round to my original point, people are only interested in linking to quality.

It has been a couple of weeks, and I have let that interaction bubble in the back of my head. Is context everything? I can accept that, yes, context is everything. Does it change quality or value? No, context does not change anything but my expectations. Tabloids are still trash, I just expect less.

There is a band of quality that I expect in each area of life. I expect more from newspapers than I do from magazines. I think that USA Today is trash and I like Maxim, because they are held to different standards. But really, the value of their content to my life is not vastly different.

So I want to ask, honestly, what does context mean on the Internet?

Does innovation mean quality? Being funny and new gets lots of links right? It did for Stuff White People Like, right?

Well, yes and no. Stuff White People Like is an interesting look at context, it has been around for 3 month and has 90,000+ links and a book coming out in August. But compare that to Black People Love Us. Same game, making fun of stereotypes, since 2002. But BPLU only gets 13,000 links. Why?

Is there really that great of a difference in the quality of the two as satire? I don’t think so. Both sites are essentially the same shtick, but one is far more popular.

One of them is just much easier to talk about.

I want to give you a visual representation of how people build websites. There are some trends that you see when you start playing with people’s sites, they resemble a dog in some fashion. Here are some of  the dogs out there and how to improve them.

Corgis – Plenty of content, spotty design.

Photo by: Carlos del Rio

Corgi’s are fun to play with they have a lot of content, they just don’t have legs. This particular little lump is named Edgar. He is a working breed dog, he works great as a doorstop.

As websites go he is a proponent of “Content is King” — he will accept any content he can get. He just can’t move that content very quickly, he shuffles you through. These are sites that are best helped by improvements to architecture, helping the user move through the content, or giving the content legs.

So what do you do with this hairy sausage? Take him for a walk. He has everything he needs to get attention he just need to be shown around. Build links to his interior content and start rearranging internally to move more of him up out of the dirt.

Greyhounds – Well built, not much content.

Photo by: Tc7

These move content fast, because they are lean. Well linked, well built sites that just need to fatten up. It is important to build up these sites intelligently, if you just pack on some extra content without a plan you will end up with a very strange looking and unweildy creature.

Building content in a uniform method is a good means of expanding a site that is link rich and content light. If you just start putting on content without a plan you may discover that you do not get good visibility because you have created an extra leg that is not taking advantage of the initial structure of the site.

So what do you do with a lean site? Make a long range plan for content development — grow out one or two sections at a time and seed links to the new deeper content.

Yorkies – Attractive, can’t support much growth.

Photo by: Swing…kn

Brochure sites are like Yorkies, they are small, fluffy, expensive, and no one takes them seriously. Many people see the web as a place where you throw up a site because everyone does it. As if magically the site’s existence will make you part of the web frontier. This is, of course, not true. One of the worst things about Yorkie type sites is that most people have overpaid for them. So the owner is both attached and reluctant to spend money buying something that is more functional.

So what do you do with a small vanity site? You replicate it. If the structure is solid you have a nice looking, hopefully unique, template to build branded mini sites. If you are in a vertical that is dependent on advertising it can be a legitimate strategy. Ten Yorkies may not be able to tow a car but they are better than nothing.

Labradors – Functional and can sustain growth.

Photo by Buz Carter

Everyone knows a Labrador, they are often big brands. Sometimes they’re fat, sometimes they are small, sometimes smart, sometimes dumb, and always recognizable. These come in many states because they have so many similar sites to emulate and a natural ability to grow and accumulate fans. They are going to be well used even if they are mediocre.

What do you do with a stable website? You can start whereever you want the important thing to focus on is being smart. Your job on these sites is not so much changing the way that things are done, but making sure that it has plenty of tricks to call on as the need arises. Because there is not a huge amount of need focus on building value so you stay strong as times change.

My Dog – At least 1/3 Llama

Photo by: Carlos del Rio

My dog, like most of my sites, is more legs than body. She is a fat Greyhound, fast moving and getting bigger every day. I like sites to start this way. Incrementally growing a well structured site ensures that you are functional by the time you are big. When you are dealing with existing sites I find it far easier to flesh out a solid structure than to redesign a content rich site mainly because there are many things that can go wrong when you try to reassemble it, missing part will make both you and the site very sad.

Read more about internal link structure, search metrics, and landing pages to help get your dog ready for show.

Checking my links today I discovered two strange looking links. Apparently someone republished my review of Zappos (note: I they actually took the internal linking post) as theirs, which was subsequently scraped and attributed to the first person.

This left me confused and a bit derailed from my original blog idea, I forget what I was going to blog today. So I have decided to share with you an imagined interview with Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report.

Stephen should have me on for real. I haven’t written a book yet, but I’m sure that he would enjoy me. Plus he needs more brown friends, even if he is color blind.

Stephen COLBERT: Speaking of thinking alike, you were a member, or are a member of the Sexiest Men In Search, correct?

CARLOS del Rio: I am.

COLBERT: Were or am?

CARLOS: Were and am.

COLBERT: How’s that Sexy coming?

CARLOS: Well I could probably go to the gym more often.

COLBERT: How’s the new business going? Looks good to me, right?

CARLOS: I think it is going well.

COLBERT: Really?

CARLOS: Yeah, we are working on some interesting new things that should be coming out in March through June.

COLBERT: Come on, that’s terrific, right?

CARLOS: Well, I think we’re doing ok.

COLBERT: You, Rummy, Wolfowitz, Cheney, all you guys, right?

CARLOS: Well, Casey Hall, Gabriella Cook, me and another person that hasn’t officially joined. But I guess I could talk to Wolfowitz’s daughter, Sara.

COLBERT: You know Sara Wolfowitz?

CARLOS: We both went to Reed College.

COLBERT: Exactly.

COLBERT: A lot of people are bailing on this whole SEO Standards idea. But you’re not, right?

CARLOS: Correct.

COLBERT: You’re still onboard?

CARLOS: I am onboard.

COLBERT: The grand experiment?

CARLOS: No, it’s not a grand experiment.

COLBERT: It’s not? It’s a little experiment?

CARLOS: No, it’s an unfortunate necessity that you cannot allow fraudster to kill your reputation and you cannot allow spammers to threaten the Internet.

COLBERT: Which spammer do we take down next?

CARLOS: I think that we should probably focus on building better sites first.

COLBERT: Wait a second, we cannot allow fraudsters to kill your reputation. That’s a very simple statement sir, which I support wholeheartedly. Back it up!

CARLOS: I’m with you.

COLBERT: Who do we go after next? Iran? Come on!

CARLOS: Um… I guess if Iran is spamming. But I think that this is probably more a US issue.

COLBERT: Let’s get some boots on the ground, sir!

CARLOS: Do you really think violence is the answer?

COLBERT: Is the military option on the table in Iran?

CARLOS: It’s not really fair to answer a question with a question. Plus I don’t think that Iran has anything to do with this.

COLBERT: Ok. How about the nuclear option in Iran?

CARLOS: I think the Internet would be more susceptible to a big magnetic pulse.

COLBERT: Come on!

CARLOS: Maybe we could get rid of the porn. That would take a lot of the money out of the Internet.

COLBERT: I don’t like that idea

CARLOS: Somehow I knew you wouldn’t.

COLBERT: I’m a neo-neocon. Girls don’t really like me.

CARLOS: Maybe you should wear a sweater-vest.

After my vacation in Puerto Vallarta I have been finding few things really comment worthy until today. Frankly I have been busy dealing with tax preparation, switching to 100% self employment, and holiday chaos.

As I thought to myself today, I really should post some blogs I saw thatYahoo! wants me to join them in an unholy link scheme. [maniacal purple laughter] . Yahoo! has put out a plugin for WordPress that auto scans and links to Yahoo! Search results, including images (from Flickr) and maps. As evidenced by that very specific Yahoo! Map you get by mousing over locations.

The big purple is making an interesting play for traffic, I like the image inclusion function through Flickr. I do no, however like the restrictions that it is placing on what can be used as a shortcuts.

• Matt Cutts
• Carlos del Rio
• Stephen Colbert
• Thomas Jefferson

Places:

• Seattle
• Fargo
• Paris, France

[note: for some reason Y! is undecided if "Paris, France" is linked. It changed 13 or 14 times as I wrote this post]
Websites:

• Twitter
• KingSquid
• MaoStudios

Unfortunately the Flicker drawn image (the squid) does not play nicely with my lists. Oh well, I’ll just hack a bit to make it pretty later. Congratulations Yahoo! for taking advantage of blogger lazyness and your image resources. Also the searches seem to contain an error that forces me to get rid of a warning box before accessing the results. I will try this out for a bit an see if it makes my life easier or more difficult.

Because of my interest in the lovely and talented Vanessa Fox, and her blog Vanessa Fox Nude I have become entwined in the reputation of both Vanessa del Rio, to whom I am not related, and Vanessa Hudgens, who I have never met. All from a comment “The beautiful and talented Vanessa Fox, who I would gladly drinkbait” I made in an earlier post about seo visibility.

That post was published on September 12th, ever since then I have had a growing number of visitors that I assume are dissatisfied. They come primarily from two searches Vanessa del Rio, who I have met, and Vanessa Hundred. So I have decided to investigate.

Vanessa del Rio – A 55 year old porn star who has made over 200 films and is famous for numerous things that I am not interested in having my blog rank for — needless to say she is well know for being naked. She lives in Brooklyn, New York and seems to own a French Bulldog. In the late-80′s my father and I met her in a mall in Las Vegas; ever since then Dad and I have, at times, claimed relation to her for a laugh. Usually the result is awkward silence. In reality Vanessa and I are not related. As of today I am result 130 on Google.

Vanessa Hundred – This one took a hot minute to figure out. I searched for a bit and figured it must be a pop culture reference. Turns out that Vanessa Hundred is a mispronunciation of Vanessa Hudgens. I am result 7 on Google.

Vanessa Hudgens – An 18 year old singer/actress from several Disney properties including High School Musical — currently dating Zac Efron. Okay… that seems reasonable a bunch of kids (I hope) are searching Vanessa Hundred because they want to find out about Vanessa Hudgens. A little more searching uncovered the truth. A bunch of kids (I hope) are searching for nude pictures of Vanessa Hudgens that were leaked on to the Internet on September 6th. Not in the Top 100 on Google.

Some interesting coincidences:

• Vanessa Hudgens’ middle name is Anne, Vanessa del Rio’s real name is Ana.
• Vanessa Fox is the only one of the Vanessas that doesn’t have nude photos on the Internet.
• I have met both Vanessa Fox and Vanessa del Rio. But not Vanessa Hudgens.
• I am not related to any of the Vanessas

 

So to put it all together what does this have to do with Internet marketing?

One this is a fun and strange exhibition of the long tail. The concept of long tail SEO is that you can capture a high volume of visitors by adding up all of the low volume searches that happen in a month. With the exception of September 2007 the search volume on Vanessa Hudgens, Venessa Del Rio, and Vanessa Hundred total approximately 42000 times per month. I had about 360 visits in the past 30 days. Almost 1.2% of the total searches have resulted in a visit for me, hundred dollar SEO. Which I guess means there are some very tenacious people out there looking for “Vanessa,” or there is a large quantity of searchers that are so unsatisfied with Google’s results that they make it all the way to me.

Two if you are not a famous person, or prone to homophones, you may be well obscured by chance interactions of intentional and unintentional content. I get as much traffic from people looking form nude Vanessas as I get from my own name because there are more ways to pair Nude, Vanessa, Hundred , del, and Rio than there are to reassemble Carlos del Rio.

My apologies to Vanessa Fox if I clutter your results — I’ll buy you a drink to make up for it.