Author Archive for Allen Taylor

How Do You Determine Selling Price?

I sometimes like to read Aaron Wall’s blog. And sometimes I don’t. He’s a guy whose insights range from brilliant to ridiculous. At times he whines (as in when he takes on Google for some supposed injustice) and borders on pedantic immaturity. Then there are times when I actually learn something and enjoy reading every sentence right down to the last line. This post on fake website buyers is one of those posts that I thought was near genius.

Last year I put up a blog for sale and had the privilege of selling it fairly quickly. I was actually hoping that I’d find a local buyer since it was a local geotargeted website. But a buyer is a buyer.

The offer came in from an investor in Europe. He looks for websites with value and turns them into passive income machines. That’s cool with me. Everyone has their own method of making money. A few years ago when I was into real estate investing I knew other investors who were flippers, others who were landlords and some who were into other types of investing. As long as it’s legal, cool.

I know I priced my blog low. I know it for two reasons. First, it sold quickly. And secondly, the buyer didn’t balk at the price. No quibbles, no questions, he just said “I’ll take it; your price is fair.” That, to me, means I priced it low. I probably could have got twice as much for it as I did.

My buyer wasn’t shady. He didn’t ask me for any analytics data and I don’t think I’d have given it to him if he had. My goal was to sell the site and I knew I had it priced fairly (What I didn’t know was that I’d priced it so low). So my question to you is, What criteria do you use to price your websites when you sell them? What do you base your asking price on? Is it traffic value or do you evaluate your web properties on search engine rankings or income it has produced? Maybe it’s a combination of these. Let’s discuss.

Have You Been Phished By The FBI?

Wired Magazine reports that online fraud has doubled in the last year, primarily because phishers posing as the Federal Bureau of Investigation are targeting consumers via e-mail. I can honestly say I have not seen any phishing e-mails purportedly to be from the FBI. Have you?

Still, this is likely something that will get worse before it gets better. And now that the bad guys are posing as the FBI, the government could use that as justification for providing oversight or regulation over e-mail marketing. Is that something you would welcome? Tell us what you think.

UPDATE: Wouldn’t you know it, about the time I say I’ve never seen a phishing e-mail from the FBI I get one. Just five minutes ago. And, no, I didn’t click any links.

Related articles by Zemanta

• FBI Hoaxes Boost Online Fraud (wired.com)
• Twitter Launches Anti-Phishing Service (appscout.com)
• Phishers widen their net to snare more firms (v3.co.uk)
• Record high for phishing in January (v3.co.uk)
• Cyber Crime Complaints Soar (cbsnews.com)
• Most Popular Internet Scam In 2009: Impersonating The FBI (huffingtonpost.com)

Who Is Google’s Competition?

One of the things that SEOs and Internet marketers like to talk about quite a bit is the Google dominance over the Web. Some SEOs even go so far as to call Google a monopoly because there are no search engines who truly compete with the search giant for the share of the search market. But I think this is misplaced envy.

I’m not going to defend any Google policies because I think we all know that Google isn’t perfect. That’s not the point. This is simply a discussion about the nature of online competition.

Defining ‘Competition’

The first step to determining who constitutes a competitor for any company is to define, first, what constitutes competition and to do that you have to first define the nature of the business in question. So let’s do that.

What does Google do? And who do they do it for?

Obviously, Google provides information for people searching for it. But are the searchers looking for information from Google’s databases its true customers? No. They don’t pay for those services. They get them for free. Google’s true customers are another subset of its audience.

Some light can be shed on Google’s relationship to its audiences by taking a look at the news business. Newspapers provide news for readers, but they aren’t the true customers for the newspaper. The true customers are the advertisers that pay for space so that the newspaper can stay in business. Without advertisers there is no news. The same can be said of television and radio. The programming sponsors (advertisers) are the true customers.

Likewise, Google’s true customers are its advertisers. Without advertisers Google could not spend money to improve its technology to provide the services that it provides searchers.

Let’s dig a little deeper. What service does Google provide? All of Google’s services can be summed up in one word. Whether we are talking about PPC, organic search, Google Reader, Google Buzz, or one of the several other products that Google offers, it all boils down to one thing – traffic. Google is in the website traffic business.

Google Analytics allows webmasters the tools necessary to analyze their traffic. Webmaster Central gives webmasters more tools for analyzing traffic and building their web business. Google Docs is a tool for webmasters. Google Scholar, Google Books, Google Video, et. al are all traffic building products for Google users. We could go on, but I think you get the picture.

So there are two aspects to Google’s business – traffic and the revenue it needs to generate to provide the traffic benefit that it provides through its free services for its user base.

So Who Else Is In The Traffic Business?

Google is in the traffic business. Everything it does is for the benefit of webmasters who want to receive traffic to their websites. Some of those services – pay per click advertising, for instance – are a “pay as you go” traffic generation service. Others are paid for by the advertisers (Google Knol, organic search, Google Reader, etc.).

When I was in college I was given an assignment to write an essay about whether or not my local newspaper would be considered a monopoly. I was living in Dallas, Texas at the time. Long-time residents of Dallas will know that at one time there were two daily newspapers that served the Metroplex (Dallas Morning News and Dallas Times Herald.) Now, there is only one. The Times Herald went out of business in the early 1990s. This was in the late 1990s. So that would make the Morning News a monopoly then, right?

Wrong. While the daily newspaper served up news on a daily basis its real business was advertising, which means that anyone in the city that sold advertising was a competitor. Businesses have only so much money to spend on advertising. They will either spend it on the local newspaper or somewhere else. Therefore, the local daily newspaper was not a monopoly because it competed with advertisers in other media.

However, in another sense, the newspaper was a monopoly. After all, it was the only daily newspaper in town so if readers wanted an alternative, there was none (although I argued in my essay that even then the lone daily had creeping competitors such as the WSJ and Houston Chronicle, both of which sold heavily in that market).

Just the same, Google can be said to be a near monopoly in a certain sense, but in other senses, it has lots of competitors. Since there are other search engines where searchers can go for information (even if that information is not as high a quality as that which Google provides) it isn’t fair to say that Google has a monopoly on information online. But it does enjoy a position of dominance in the search sector.

However, its true business is traffic. Therefore, any website online that provides traffic to webmasters is a Google competitor. In that regard, Google is far from a monopoly. It does, in fact, have some strict competition. Facebook is the obvious competitor, but there are other websites that compete on a smaller scale, though some of them are growing quite fast.

It’s Time For A Paradigm Shift In Thinking

Internet marketers have got to stop thinking of Google as the evil empire. It isn’t perfect. But it does do a good job of providing webmasters with traffic. For most of us, it is our No. 1 traffic source. But there are a few websites that can say other websites are their primary source of traffic (either Twitter, Facebook or something else).

Some day, Google may not be the No. 1 traffic source online. The cyber world is constantly changing. Focus on the traffic and it all falls into perspective.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Your Business, Google and Social Media ROI (lazerpromotions.com)
• Google Plans TV Search Service (taragana.com)
• My Basic 3 Pronged Approach To Website Analytics (shoemoney.com)
• Search Marketing Success Stories (mt-soft.com.ar)
• Are You Afraid Of Google? A Video Explanation Of Why Some Fear The Giant (thenextweb.com)
• Google Monopoly (tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com)
• Tell Google Where to Stuff It (momblognetwork.com)

How Important Is Owning Your Personal Name As A Domain Name?

More and more I’m seeing people buy up their name as an URL (ie. JohnSmith.com, MarthaBartha.net, etc.). Is this just for the sake of vanity or is there a real purpose to it?

By way of full disclosure, I have an URL that represents my name. I went for AllenTaylor.com, but it was already taken. Therefore, I settled for the more specific AllenLeeTaylor.com, using my middle name. I’ve seen some people take their name with a .me extension.

I do think there is a good reason for doing this. For me, it’s a matter of reputation management, but that’s not all. I also believe it’s a good branding tool, particularly for creative people.

In terms of reputation management, you’ll have a better chance at ranking for your name as a keyword if you use your name as a domain name. Google now will only rank a couple of pages per domain for any keyword search term. If the search term is your name then what will searchers find? Your company site should be at the top of the list and you’ll likely have a few social networks on the list as well. A personal domain name should be on that list too.

If you have three social networks, your company website, a blog and your own personal domain name then that’s a potential 12 top spots on Google. Since there are only 10 page 1 listings this increases your chances of being at the top pretty considerably. That’s effective reputation management.

But how about personal branding? I’m a writer. I write SEO content, ghostwrite blogs and write fiction and poetry. I have also worked as a journalist. A personal domain name with a CV and portfolio is a good marketing tool. While I still have to develop my domain name, I am looking forward to the day that it is actually drawing in some new business and fans. That day should not be far off.

On personal domain names, you can count me in favor. I’m sold.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Why should I trademark my domains? What are risks if I DO NOT trademark my domain names? (startups.com)
• Can someone trademark my domain name simply as a means of extorting it away from me? (startups.com)
• WHOIS Domain Name Search | Webmaster Blog (domainmacher.com)
• How to Choose a SEO friendly Domain Name? – BlogSouls (domainmacher.com)

Can Introverts Interact On Social Networks?

Social networking is getting bigger all the time. Facebook is now the second most visited website on the Internet, right behind Google. Not too long ago Yahoo! was the most visited site on the Internet. Google passed them in 2008.

It’s amazing that another social network, YouTube, is also in the top 5. And if you were to look at the top 100 most visited sites online, a good number of them are social networks. My guess is that a lot of those social network users are introverts and it wouldn’t surprise me to find more introverts on the social networks than extroverts.

I say this because extroverts get their energy from interacting with others whilst introverts get their energy from activities and pursuits done alone. While it may seem that social networking is “interacting” with others and, therefore, a source of energy for extroverts, that really is not the case. What you are interacting with when you engage on a social network is a digital replication of an individual and not the individual him or herself.

Social networks allow people to engage with others through a veil. That is not something that a true extrovert would gain energy from. On the other hand, an introvert can be completely alone and interacting on a social network for an extended period of time. The extrovert is likely to disengage and go out for a cup of coffee just to make eye contact with someone.

I believe both extroverts and introverts can gain from interacting with others on social networks. For me, a bit of both an extrovert and introvert (though leaning toward introversion), I cannot sit for too long staring at a collection of avatars. But I could sit all day and do research for content that I am writing.

Social networking has become a big part of doing business online. That’s both a good thing and a nuisance. It is what it is.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Rise of the Web Introvert (gigaom.com)
• Action Streams: A New Idea for Social Networks (readwriteweb.com)
• Why You’re Social Networking is Not Working (slideshare.net)
• The Forgotten World of the Web Introvert (onemanandhisblog.com)

Is SEO Dead, Dying, Half Dead Or On Its Last Leg?

Are you tired of people asking if SEO is dead or dying or on its last leg? I see these blog posts all the time and it seems to be increasing. You’d think the last horse of the Apocalypse just rode into town and caught a glimpse of the great dragon with 7 scrolls in its hands. In that case, I guess we’re all as good as dead.

But, as the saying goes, SEO will never die. It’s not dead. It’s not close to dead. It’s not crippled or falling down all over itself drunk. As long as there are search engines there will be SEO. We may be performing it a little differently in 50 years, but if search engines still exist then (and I think they will) then we’ll still be performing SEO.

Of course, we could all just be members of one big giant borg then too and the last horse of the Acopalypse will have to ride into our brains on a dancing neutrino.

What’s your take on the death of SEO, or the last horse of the Apocalypse?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Effective Blog Writing for Search Engine Optimization: Webinar recording (kevin.lexblog.com)
• What can I do to be found on the search engines? (insights-group.com)
• Writing for humans and robots (marketing.fm)
• Search Engine Optimization (pilatesandreikiinparadise.com)
• Themed reading lists: Reading about the apocalypse and immortality (shannonturlington.com)

What Complications Does Social Media Marketing Give To SEOs?

If you are a working SEO I’m sure you’ve noticed the rise of social media marketing. I’m curious if this has given you any complications in your business. What challenges, if any, does social media marketing give you in your business?

Obviously, there are benefits to marketing through social media, even for SEOs. But is there a downside? Have you lost business from your SEO clients who went seeking a social media alternative? Or have you noticed that social media results from your competition have edged in on your organic search listings in some niches? Have you tried to use social media for your own marketing only to find it a waste of time?

I use social media and I’ve used it successfully. But I’m interested in knowing what challenges you’ve had with it and how you overcame those. Discuss.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Why Marketers Fail at “Social” (socialmediatoday.com)
• Organic Search Engine Optimization is Critical to Success (ronmedlin.com)
• Is Social Media Ruining Your Sales? (thecustomercollective.com)

Why I’m Not All aTwitter Over Google Buzz

Google Buzz is getting a lot of attention lately, but I don’t care. I’m not even going to test drive it.

I see Google as a search engine. Nothing more. It’s not a barometer of my social connections. It isn’t a metric for my social graph. And I don’t care how many people are excited about Buzzworthy content. Quite frankly, I think the name Google Buzz is rather ridiculous. Yahoo! has used the name Buzz for its social bookmarking service for years so Google is a little bit late to the party here.

About the only thing unique about Google Buzz is the fact that it is integrated with Gmail. If you are not a Gmail user then you can’t use Google Buzz. I’m not a Gmail user.

Yes, I have a Gmail account because Google automatically gives you one when you establish a Google account. But I don’t use it. I do use Google AdSense, I use Google Analytics, I use Google AdWords when I feel like spending money. I use Google Webmaster Tools, Google Reader and several other Google services as well. But I don’t use Gmail.

The reason I don’t use Gmail is because I already have several e-mail addresses and I check them all through MS Outlook. I really don’t have an interest in web-based e-mail. I still have my Yahoo! mail account from several years ago, but I only check it once every two or three months. Gmail doesn’t interest me.

Google Buzz incorporates a social network using your Gmail friends, Google Reader friends, Picasa friends and YouTube friends. Personally, I prefer Flickr to Picasa. I have a Picasa account, but I only have two or three photos there. The rest of them are at Flickr. I love YouTube, but I don’t need Google Buzz.

If I want to share a YouTube video then I use Twitter or Facebook. I have deleted a lot of my Google Reader blog subscriptions because many of the bloggers I follow are on Twitter. Therefore, Google Reader is a secondary service for me  now while Twitter is my primary subscription service. Since I don’t use Gmail, I don’t have any Gmail friends; therefore, using Google Buzz would be like swatting a single fly with a 20-pound sledgehammer.

I took Google Wave for a test drive. It’s a great tool. But none of my friends were using it so it was useless. Google Buzz is just like that. If you don’t have any Gmail friends or none of your social friends are using the tool then it’s useless.

One more reason I don’t use Gmail and have no interest in Google Buzz is because I want to maintain at least some level of privacy. If Google is the only service I use then one company will have all the information they want about me and potentially everyone in the world as well. By spreading myself around to various services – YouTube for video sharing, Google for advertising, Yahoo! for photo sharing, Bing for certain types of searches, Twitter for one-to-many communication and Facebook for social networking, I can better manage a level of privacy I hope to enjoy.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not particularly excited about Google Buzz. It just doesn’t get my Twitter wings a-flappin’.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Gmail base of 176 million users from going to Facebook or Twitter (robbiz1978.blogspot.com)
• 4 Google Buzz Hacks for Users, Developers, and Haters (readwriteweb.com)
• Google Buzz (teabreak.pk)
• Google Buzz – What Happened to Google Wave? (boneheadseo.com)
• Why Google should have stayed out of social networking (trueslant.com)
• Google: Buzz off! (accmanpro.com)

Do You Have To Spend Money On SEO Tools?

SEOs like to spend money. Some SEOs will spend $100 or $200 on tools that make them look pretty when there is a free version of the tool that does the same the thing, or a free alternative. Is it really necessary to spend money on keyword research tools, analytics tools and so on when these tools are available for free?

Google has both a free keyword research tool and a free analytics tool. Are they good enough or should you pay for the Cadillac version from Company X?

There are SEOs who will recommend the product from Company X because they’ve joined the affiliate program. That’s nice. You’ll make a commission. But is it really the best thing for your customer? Perhaps saving that $299 will impact the company’s ROI in the positive.

Again, I ask. Do you really have to spend money on SEO tools? Are there any SEO tools that you absolutely must spend money on or can you get them all for free?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Keyword Research-Factors to consider (bruceclay.com.au)
• Google Analytics Tracking Code Basics and Time Saving Plugins (mt-soft.com.ar)
• SEO Training (slideshare.net)

Partnerships Vs. Sole Proprietorships

Can you make more money with a business partner or as a sole proprietor? I’ve done it both ways and I can honestly say that I did better when I had a partner. There are pros and cons to doing it either way, of course.

I work better alone. With my type of personality you would think that I’d prefer to be in business alone, and most of the time I do. But I’ve learned that a partner who has strengths that you don’t have can offset your weaknesses. No business is perfect, but a business that utilizes people’s strengths and positions them in strategic positions to help the company grow can succeed in many ways that a sole proprietor cannot.

Do you agree? Do you prefer to work alone or do think a partner can help you grow more?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Positive Entrepreneurial Attitude = Recipe for Success (lazerpromotions.com)
• True or False? You can make partner at 30 (newswire.ca)
• The only marketing metric that really matters (christopherspenn.com)
• Home-based Business Risk (thomasmbragg.com)