As a company, Google focuses on three key areas: Search, Ads and Apps. Search is our core technology; ads are our central business proposition; and apps are the umbrella over our web-based software that you can access anywhere, any time. While each of these has a lot of technology under the hood, the basic tenets for Search, Ads and Apps are very simple. We’ve created some short videos explaining the principles behind our core services. For more information or to share your thoughts, visit ourHelp Forum.

How Search Works

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNHR6IQJGZs&feature=player_embedded#!

Source: http://www.google.com/howgoogleworks/

Search Engine Optimization Singapore is the process of improving a website such that it best follows the Search Engine’s algorithm, and eventually gets the website highly ranked on the natural results, and thus more traffic.

Google has a complex set of 200 algorithms!

If you like to know how you could get yourself on the first page of Google’s natural results, look for a good Singapore SEO agency to advise you. Contact us at +65 9450-0295 or info@advantageseo.net

Related posts:

1. What is SEO?
2. Google: a new signal in search ranking algorithms!
3. Top 10 rank for Singapore SEO!

Top 10 for Singapore SEO!

Although only on the number 10 ranking for “Singapore SEO“, it was not by any means an easy task.  Comparing the nine other sites on the same results (SERP), in terms of Domain Age, we are the youngest site (slightly over 6 months).

Google ranks sites base on their “trust’ value of that site derived from over 200 algorithms. A few basic algorithm are : Domain Age, Site content and backlinks. The longer a site had been around, i.e. older domain age, its ”trust” value with Google increases and thus its ranking improves. Been a younger site, we need to prove lots more by writing good and relevant content and build quality backlinks, so as to win the “trust” value of Google.

While most of our time had been spent on helping our clients, I am personally thankful for the dedication and hard work of our team.

Well although we had not relied on this result for our growth, this result does helps to boost our spirits!

Thank you Team!

Adrian Ang, Business Director

P.S. > If you are keen to know how we can help your website achieve top rankings, contact us today at +65 94500295 or email http://www.advantageseo.sg/contact-us

Related posts:

1. PPC vs SEO
2. Google: a new signal in search ranking algorithms!
3. How Google Works

Landing pages, which tended to be mass-generated, near identical pages pointing to one money page, became a target for the search engine spam filters.

However, the type of landing page we should take a closer look at is the type of landing page used in PPC – a page carefully crafted to lead a visitor to desired action. SEOs can benefit from applying the same techniques used for creating effective PPC landing pages to their organic pages. After all, we all want visitors to arrive at our pages, and take a desired action.

All Search Is About Connecting With People

Our pages may rank well, but if the visitor doesn’t do something that ultimately leads to more money in our pockets, our sites won’t last long.

In the past, ranking well has led to a pre-occupation with factors like keyword density i.e. repeating keyword phrases often.

However, the search engine algorithm’s are no longer quite so stupid. The need to slavishly repeat keyword phrases in order to rank pales in comparison to other factors. It’s no longer necessary to forsake good copy writing in order to please machine algorithms.

To make our rankings work for us, we must connect with people. This means our pages must talk their language and focus on solving their problems.

A fail in SEO is not missing out on the #1 ranking. A fail in SEO is a visitor clicking back. Do everything to avoid the back click.

Talking People’s Language

People couldn’t care less about you or your company.

People care about themselves.

Take a look at your pages. Do they talk about you, or do they talk about your audience? For a page to work well, it must connect with your audience, and the easiest way to do this is to talk about their wants and desires. If a page doesn’t grab a visitors attention, they won’t persevere, they will click back. What’s a #1 ranking worth if visitors click back?

Here are a few guidelines on how to grab a visitors attention:

Title Tag Text Should Match Your First Headline Or if not matching the phrase exactly, it should be close to it in terms of topic. This reassures to the searcher they are in the right place.

A Search Is Invariably A Question Keyword terms often aren’t phrased as questions, but they are all questions. When people type “buy DVD online”, they’re really saying “where can I buy a DVD online”. Try to determine searcher intent. Decide what the visitors question is, repeat it, then answer it.

Create A Clear Call To Action – what is it you want the searcher to do next? Sign-up? Buy something? Click on Adsense? Make that action clear and obvious.

People Scan – Use big headings. Often. If you’re vague about visitor intent, you can use a number of different headlines, or images, that grab people’s attention in case your lead hook fails.

Use The Word “You” A Lot – it’s all about them. Their problems, their sense of self, their language, their wants and needs. Relegate all the stuff about you, unless they specifically ask for it, or you’re using testimonials.

Every Page On Your Site Is A Landing Page

Every page on your site has potential to pull in visitors.

Even if a page only receives one visit a month, it’s still a landing page. Given that SEO strategy involves building a lot of content, it’s easy to think of “junk” pages low down in your domain structure as unimportant.

However, if people land on those pages, then that’s half the battle won. Those pages will be winners if they lead people to the pages you want them to see. Therefore, every page on your site should contain a clear call to action – leading visitors to the one thing you want people to do.

The Difference Between SEO Landing Pages & PPC Landing Pages

In PPC, the page must be tightly controlled, stay on message and lead a visitor to desired action. Failure to do so means blowing through money.

With SEO, we have more leeway. We can include a variety of text content on pages, as it increases the likelihood of catching long tail phrases. This casts a wider net, and at negligible cost. However, we still need to structure the page well enough so people a) won’t click back and b) will take the desired action.

It’s a good idea to structure a page so – rather obviously – the most important stuff comes first. Make the call to action, wherever it is placed, clear. Relegate superfluous text, which targets long tail variations, below the fold and/or into side links.

Most likely, a few pages on your domain will be doing the gruntwork. Most of your visitors will come in on your home page, or a small collection of well linked pages on your site. Pay careful attention to these pages. They should be as crafted as tightly as a PPC landing page in terms of language and call to action.

Test these pages. Are they converting? What is the abandonment rate? Whilst it can take a while to test and alter SEO pages, it’s worth doing, as incremental gains on a few pages can lead to huge changes when rolled out over an entire site.

What happens if you make a heading bigger? Paragraphs shorter? Reposition page elements? Change the language and pitch? You can also test these variables using a short PPC campaign, of course, and then roll your findings into your SEO strategy. Once you’ve got a winning formula, you can roll it out to every page (landing) page you create.

Related posts:

1. Three Pages from the Same Domain in Google SERPs?
2. Adwords Bans: Poor Landing Page Quality Scores
3. Borrowing From PPC

But thanks for turning up here

The sheer avalanche of SEO information can be overwhelming, for beginners and experts alike. Who do you know who to listen to? What information do you need to know, and what information is filler?

Why should you even listen to SEOBook?

1. Most Information Published On SEO Is Filler

You can learn 80% of what you need to know about SEO pretty quickly. You don’t need the additional 20% in order to achieve, unless you’re a masochist – otherwise known as an SEO professional

Most of the information you’ll come across on the topic of SEO is written by, and for, a professional/enthusiast crowd. There is a massive echo chamber of opinion, constantly replenished, produced using publishing tools based on the notion of communicating something, often.

It can result in a lot of noise, and not much in the way of signal, especially when you’re learning. If you’re starting out, and want to focus on learning SEO, it’s a good idea to tune the industry chatter out. It’s more likely to confuse than help in the early stages.

2. Understand The Business Of Search

Search engines aren’t your friend. At best, they tolerate SEO, but only when it aligns with company goals.

The search engines have a business to run, and their goals aren’t the same as yours. Whilst search engine reps often come across as helpful and friendly, because they typically are helpful and friendly people, keep in mind that what they are saying serves their company first and foremost. Any advice they give you is, quite rightly, designed to further company goals.

That’s their job.

Chances are, your goals and the search engines goals will be aligned in many areas, but take their advice with a grain of salt. They don’t care if your site succeeds or not, as there are plenty of other sites to index.

3. Define Goals

Before you undertake SEO, define your website goals. Do you want to make more money? Get more attention? Get more leads?

The purpose of SEO is to get your site seen in the search engines. Your aim is to attract the visitors that help you achieve your goals. A high ranking for a certain keyword won’t necessarily help you achieve your goals unless your site matches visitor intent.

Think about the web from a visitors point of view. What do they want to find? What content will they engage with? What will they spend their money on?

There’s little point ranking well if the content you provide doesn’t make you money and/or gain audience. It’s getting increasingly difficult to rank pages that aren’t closely aligned with the searchers intent. So, the more you understand your audience, and the more content that matches their intent, the more you’ll get out of SEO.

4. Get A Credible, Well Organized Course

Like SEOBook’s course for example

This isn’t a sales pitch. There are a number of great courses out there. Choose one or two that suit your budget and objectives, and dive in. Chances are, you will need to shell out some money, but the cost of a decent, well structured course is nothing compared to the wasted effort spent heading in the wrong direction.

In a nutshell, SEO is about about publishing content people want to engage with, and linking. You need to create content that matches visitor intent, you need to be crawlable, and you need to have inbound links. Good SEO courses will have this message at their core.

Did I mention links enough?

5. Connect With People

It’s natural to want the secret sauce – those secret dark techniques that result in number one rankings.

Whilst this was characteristic of SEO years ago, it’s less true now. These days, SEO is more a holistic, strategic process aimed at connecting with people, as opposed to a dark, technical art aimed at tricking machines.

Focus on making connections with people. That means understanding what people want. You can do this by undertaking basic market research, using the search engines themselves!

6. Test

Don’t listen to me. Well, maybe just a bit. Don’t listen to the repeaters in forums.

Test and measure for yourself. It’s one of the best SEO courses you can do. It’s ongoing, and it’s free.

Start with a simple, focused well constructed site. What is a well constructed site in terms of SEO?

With every change you make, every new SEO strategy you adopt, test the results. Did the change help you achieve your website goals? Did you get more traffic? Better quality traffic? If your rankings improved, did this result in more/better traffic? It can be difficult to isolate variables at the best of times, but there is no chance of doing so if you try too many techniques all at once.

Make changes one step at a time. Test and measure repeat. Become at expert at measuring SEO against your goals.

Build up your own private knowledge base of SEO in your niche. Your niche may require different strategies to other niches, which is why well-meaning advice in forums and on blogs can hinder you. You’ll also become a better judge of who is offering you good advice, and who is just repeating something they heard.

Related posts:

1. Crafting SEO Landing Pages
2. Top 10 rank for Singapore SEO!
3. What is SEO?

Not in a bad way, of course

Here are some ideas on how to construct winning proposals.

Size Isn’t Everything, But It Does Count

Large proposals take a long time to do. On the upside, large proposals can look impressive, simply by virtue of their size. Clients often like to see large proposals, but they don’t tend to read them.

Proposals can be a tricky balance to get right. No matter how brilliant your solution, most clients will think twice about you if you present it on a single sheet, especially if they have no prior connection with you, or aren’t meeting you face-to-face. A proposal of a certain size can appear more authoritative.

What is the ideal size?

One good way of presenting a proposal is to break it into three parts. The first part is a summary, including your client-specific solution and costs. Length can vary of course, but keep it succinct. No fat.

The second part is a case study or two. Again, keep them succinct. It’s highly likely that the client won’t actually read beyond this point.

Finally, add background information about you, your company, your history and the SEO business, all of which should be aimed at supporting the summary page and case studies. This final part can be generic and doesn’t need to be re-written for each client. Clients may only flip through this section, but tend to find it reassuring that it exists.

Contrast this approach with a proposal that is threadbare. It may be irrational, but thin proposals can feel incomplete.

Give Something Of Value Away

In your summary pages, share real information.

Share the type of information that is valuable and the sort of you’d usually charge for providing. Clients are likely to assume that if the SEO is giving a few morsels of valuable information away in the proposal, then even more valuable information will be forthcoming if they sign you. Demonstrate your mastery. If all you do is provide generic information at this point, then your proposal is less likely to stand out.

Some potential clients, of course, may pick your brain and then implement your solutions themselves. Whilst this can happen, it’s unlikely. The client already knows they want SEO by the time they’re at the proposal stage, and if they could have done this work themselves, they probably would have done so already.

Secondly, you can outline solutions that involve time cost to achieve. Imply that this work must be undertaken by someone who knows what they are doing. Outline the risks of not doing this work properly. The more real work, and risk, there is invlolved in implementation, the less likely a client will be willing to go the do-it-yourself route.

As we all know, there is a lot of real work involved in SEO. Make sure the client is left in no doubt on that aspect.

It’s Not About You

Focus on the clients needs.

Nothing loses a potential client faster than an SEO who talks entirely about themselves and their industry. Clients don’t care. Clients care about their problems and their industry. In the summary pages, restate the clients problem and propose your specific solutions. Outline time frame and costs.

This exercise is useful for a number of reasons, the main one being that you, or the client, may not know what the actual problem is!

What a client says may not be what they mean. For example, the client may say they want SEO because they’re heard that’s a great way to get traffic quickly. They may not say it in these words, of course. They may say they want SEO, and they want it asap.

However, if the SEO has asked enough questions, aimed at identifying the problem, the SEO may unearth unstated problems. In this case, a client wants to increase traffic quickly. A solution to such a problem might be a combination of SEO and PCC. The PPC delivers immediate traffic while the SEO strategy might take some time.

Formulate questions aimed at identifying the clients actual, as opposed to stated, problem. They may be quite different. The result is that your solution will be a good fit, which will lead to less frustration, on both sides, further down the line.

You also might discover at this point that the clients expectations are ridiculous, and you’d be better off looking for a more reasonable client. For example, I was once pitching to a large advertising company. Their clients had been asking for SEO, so all they knew is they “needed some SEO”.

Great.

Problem was, as I discovered in the meeting, was that they knew nothing about the need to alter sites or web publishing approach. They had told clients they could deliver SEO as a bolt-on-service, a wave of the magic wand that miraculously delivered rankings and free traffic for life to brochure sites.

I didn’t go any further with them.

Offer Guarantees (Assurance)

Guarantees are a contentious issue in SEO circles.

Many SEOs – quite rightly – point out that no one can guarantee a ranking position, which is true, but such technical nuances may unsettle a client.

Clients tend to like assurance, and a guarantee can help provide this. So rather than dismissing guarantees, look at aspects you can guarantee.

A fiend of mine, in a different industry, offers a guarantee that goes along the lines of “if you don’t feel satisfied after our strategy meetings with you, even after you sign the contract, you can walk away, no questions asked, and no charge.”.

That sounds like something substantial, but actually he is just restating consumer law in the country where he lives. The law is that a service must be fit for the purpose the client intended, and if it isn’t, the client has a case against the provider for non-suitability of service.

My friend realized he could never afford to contest such cases, and would likely lose, as the consumer law favored the buyer. All an aggrieved client really had to do to win such a case was say the service wasn’t fit for their purposes.

He was dealing with firms with deep pockets, and legal action defending against such firms would come at high cost, even if he was in the right, so he decided to restate a consumer right the client actually already had, combined with an economic reality – his inability to engage in costly legal battles – into a form of a reassuring guarantee for sales purposes.

Case Studies Are Powerful

There is no sales tool quite so powerful as a good case study. A case study is a story. People love stories. A case study is also proof of your ability.

Outline the problem. Tell your audience what the problem looked like before you started – very useful if this problem is similar to the problem the prospective client also faces – what you did to solve the problem, and the positive results of your solution.

Stories are very powerful sales tools, and a case study is a great opportunity to tell a few.

Package It Up

Consider printing and binding your proposal, and delivering it.

We receive so many emails these days that they don’t make us feel very special. It doesn’t feel like there is much effort gone into them. A binded proposal, on the other hand, feels substantial.

In the interests of speed, you can still send an email copy, but try doing both and seeing if you land more deals.

Charging

Don’t undercharge. You’ll regret it

Related posts:

1. How Press Releases Can Be Great For Search
2. PPC vs SEO
3. Local SEO – A Case Study

Last week, while in London, I received an email from Paul Graham, whom I’ve long admired, possibly even idolized a bit. He asked if I was available to come speak at a YCombinator SEO event in Mountain View. Tonight, I presented at that evented and thought I’d share my experiences, recommendations and yes, my presentation. Not everything that was discussed is public, in fact, much of it is “classified” at YC’s request. However, there’s so much good material that it would be criminal not to share.

First up, my presentation from the YCombinator SEO for Startups event (naturally, hosted on YC company and prior SEOmoz consulting client, Scribd):

SEO for Startups: YCombinator February 2010

Next, since it’s hard to do any slide deck justice with just the slides, a list of top advice and recommendations, not just from the slide deck, but from many years of interactions, consulting and Q+A help for startups:

1. SEO as a Strategy, not a Tactic
   Yelp uses SEO as a strategy. When their community finds something new in the neighborhood, content is created. They are limited in scale only by the physical world’s local businesses. Plus, it’s only natural that local businesses with good rankings will want to share those via a badge and a link; it’s only natural that their top contributors will want to share the reviews they’ve given. SEO is a strategy – it’s part of what makes them the business they are. If you’re just thinking in terms of keywords in the title and submitting to some directories, you’re going to get lapped by someone who understands how to make content, links, sharing & search demand an integral part of how users interact with their website.
2. Start SEO in the Concept Phase, Not After the Site is Built
   It’s hard to do, particularly when you spend your first two years as a founder thinking SEO is a cross between black magic and BS, but SEO works best when it’s architected alongside a businesses marketing plan. I’ve mentioned in the past that I think VCs and angel investors should be asking about SEO in the first meeting – startups should be three steps ahead of that.
3. Build Accessibility First & Foremost
   I come back time and time again to the SEO Pyramid. It all starts with unique content that engines can find and users find valuable. I’m now the proud owner of a Y Combinator t-shirt bearing the tagline “Make Something People Want.” All I’m asking is that you also make something Google (and Bing) can find, too. And, in concert with this advice, check out Perfecting Keyword Targeting & On-Page Optimization to help solve that puzzle.
4. SEO is NOT a One Time Event
   Fire and forget works with smartbombs (or maybe not – scroll to section 5), but it doesn’t work with SEO. This is a constantly evolving field, and not so much because Google’s algorithm is changing all the time, but more so because 300 (or 30,000) competitors are constantly trying to produce better content and market it more effectively while the engines are constantly experimenting with new kinds of results and information. No product is good enough to survive without marketing – even Google itself just ran a Super Bowl ad. SEO is marketing, and as such demands the same attention. Ignore it, and you will fall by the wayside.
5. Analytics are a Religion
   An ad salesman comes to you and tells you that 20% of your exact target market is reading a particular magazine. By putting in a full-page ad every month for the next year, you can ensure that they’ll all know your name and many will buy from you. But wait… How many saw it? How many took the desired action? How many heard about it from a friend or read a loaner copy on a flight? You’ll never know. With SEO, it’s the complete opposite – every action has a trackable reaction. If you ignore the data, use last-touch attribution or neglect to build serious models that track the value of your campaigns, you may as well blow the money on a giant billboard on the 101. Who knows? Maybe the right investor will drive by and decide to invest… Just don’t count on it.
6. Clever Tricks Aren’t that Clever (or New)
   I promise that no hairbrained scheme to manipulate the search rankings by registering thousands of sites or scraping the web for open places to link or contacting 6,000 “friends” for a link exchange are either A) new or B) going to work. Apply your creativity in white hat ways and make sure it passes the Google web spam litmus test. And no, that doesn’t just mean it passes Google’s Quality Guidelines, it means you would happily show it to any engineer on the webspam team content in the knowledge that they’d actually WANT it to help your site rank better.
7. Don’t Let Search Dominate Your Traffic Sources
   If Google sends 90% of your traffic, your business has real danger associated with it. Why aren’t people coming directly to your site, being passed links in email, getting Tweets and Facebook mentions that send traffic? Why is no one blogging about you, writing about you in the press, commenting in forums with links to your content? These “natural” signs tell a story of a real business providing real value. The 90-95% Google trafficked site says something strange is going on, and Google themselves are likely to figure that out sooner or later.

And last, but not least, I’d like to recognize some of the brilliant people and companies represented. It was humbling to receive such kind praise and attentitive ears from companies like:

• Apartment Rentals Site – AirBnB (whose founders were kind enough to give me a ride back to my hotel at SFO!)
• Dead Simple Publishing Site – Posterous (I learned the official way to pronounce it – “pastarus”)
• Concerts & Tour Dates Startup – Songkick
• Time Management Software Provider – RescueTime ( a local Seattle startup, and host of the Feb. 25 event)
• Gift Card Exchange Marketplace – Cardpool
• Real Time Search Startup – Scoopler
• Live Video & Chat Hub – Justin.tv

Tragically, the following brief set of photos from the event were taken on my new Android camera phone (yes, I’m such a Hacker News/Paul Graham geek that I had to pull it out):

YCombinator Founders Eating Dinner (noticeably absent in the photo was the single female founder – but they do have one!)

Luckily, there was plenty of Coke to help keep me hydrated (and caffeinated) during the event

The rush for pizza (apparently, The Flash is one of the founders they funded!)

Paul and Rand in the Anybots lab – thanks again, Paul; it was a fantastic experience

There were more than 40 companies in attendance, so there’s no way to name them all here, but the above represent some of the most active on the SEO panel and during the lengthy, but phenomenal Q+A. Later this week, SEOmoz’s own Danny Dover will be attending the Y Combinator meetup in Seattle, and he’d love to say hi and chat with folks there, and hopefully help to bring a good name to SEO.

p.s. At the end of the presentation, Paul noted that the startups owed me a debt for sharing information about SEO. I disagree, but who am I to pass up such a wonderful opportunity. My only request to the attendees was that, if they should see SEO being badmouthed on Hacker News to kindly step in and help others realize the power and legitimacy of this marketing channel.

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There are very few tactics which can guarantee success in linkbuilding. Executed correctly, giving something away is one that gets close to fulfilling that promise.

This post covers competitions and giveaways; I’ll share techniques and tactics you can use, and will include links to some interesting competitions seen online recently, and some that we’ve run for clients.

Running giveaways online typically offers a few different opportunities; of most immediate use to SEOs is that competitions can attract links from authoritative sites and a variety of domains. They can also be great for data collection – it’s fine to ask the entrants for their email address and whether they’d be happy for you to send them emails again in the future.

Furthermore, there’s a potential for increasing brand awareness amongst people who’ve not heard of you before.

Running a Giveaway

In the simplest competition users visit the website to fill out their details, possibly answer a simple question, and then a winner is picked out of the hat.

Competition Prizes

If you have high margin products, these can make attractive prizes without harming your bottom line too much (e.g.: giving away tickets for your theatre doesn’t cost anything if the show isn’t sold out.) You should also consider ‘money can’t buy’ prizes: a trip to watch a rugby match is cool, but spending the day working for a national team and getting a signed jersey is priceless.

Look out for partnerships: when Distilled recently ran a whisky giveaway (to create buzz around the brand prior to the launch of our US office) we were sent messages by Jura whisky and Master of Malt (neither of whom we knew beforehand) offering some quite exceptional additional prizes.

There’s potential to improve any competition by approaching suitable partners first, to offer some co-publicity and links. (I once emailed some contacts to ask for contributions to a competition, and ended up with £300 worth of books, £120 of CDs and DVDs, £50 of gift vouchers, two magazine subscriptions, a £120 digital camera, a wild animal adoption, a bottle of port and a towel that folded up into a beachbag.)

Of course, the flip side of this is that you could simply look out for people in industries related to you that are running competitions, and offer an additional prize for their promotion, in return for links, etc. You can use Google to find such opportunities: search for terms like ‘win’ and ‘competition’ alongside phrases used in relevant niches (eg: ‘win album’ for music prizes) and then filter down to results from the last week / month. For example: this Google search.

Get Listed

The ‘comping‘ community is a great place to seed your competitions to begin. Certainly in the UK, a listing on a few active sites will often send the first 2 – 5,000 entrants – and I’m sure it’s not just us limeys that love a freebie. Search around for sites to submit your competition to, but regional sites you could consider include:

• Loquax.co.uk (UK)
• ThePrizeFinder.com (UK)
• Compaholics (UK)
• CompetitionWinner.com.au (AU)

Each site may have specific restrictions, and can have a delay between a few days and few weeks before submissions are published, so submit your competition as early as possible.

Seeding

Send competition details directly to twitter users & bloggers who you either know well, or think would be interested in covering it. Remember that people can be less inclined to share a competition if it’s good enough (to give themselves better chances of winning.) There are various creative solutions to this issue, but you can just keep it simple and appeal to the blogger’s love of sharing cool stuff with their readers.

Furthermore, look for opportunities to find partners who have email lists. Let’s take two companies with email marketing lists: BigHotel (a large, fictional hotel chain) whoc is running a competition, and GreenTour (a successful, fictional eco-tourism site) which is launching a new feature. They have similar audiences, but there’s no overlap between their products; BigHotel can mention the feature launch in their next newsletter and EcoTour can promote the competition to their subscribers. This just required finding a partner and making a gentleman’s agreement; as Bonytoad is fond of saying: “Win-Win, For Teh Win.”

Use Your Affiliates

Make sure that your affiliates can add their tracking codes to the entry URL, and they’ll help to spread awareness of the competition pretty quickly and to places you might not be able to reach to otherwise.

Create a video primer

The Irish rugby competition mentioned above was launched with a 60 second video promoting the prize.

Videos are particularly shareable: embed codes can be copied from the Youtube page, and lots of social sites (including Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit) allow for easy importing of videos. Given that people might be watching the video anywhere, make sure to prominently display the URL for the entry page in the video, either on-screen or using video annotations.

Get Press

Lots of magazines and newspapers are happy to mention competitions and link to them from their websites. Find publications that target the geographic area or niche targetted by the competition. Pick up the phone and give them a call – ask to speak to someone who deals with promotions, or in the editorial department. A few minutes later you might have a decent link and some coverage that will be read by a very targeted group of people.

Maintain Momentum

When people have entered, it’s a waste to just show them a ‘thanks for entering’ message. Use this opportunity to give a call to action – typically to share the competition with other people. Consider having a secondary prize that encourages people to share the competition. For example:

Upsell the Competition

Have a successful competition, and want to take advantage of this get more entries? Take the email addresses of everyone who entered so far, and send them a message during the week before the competition finishes.

I’ve not done this, but I think it could work really well to add an extra 10% to your number of entries. To be honest, I’m considering not mentioning it here, and saving it for myself for a while, but I want to see what CTR & results anyone who tries it gets. Let me know if you have a chance.

Other Competition Structures

Outside of the basic ‘name-out-of-a-hat’ competitions, there’s potential for all sorts of interesting competition structures.

Competitions to Encourage Engagement

Ooh.com run a competition with two $100 prizes each week. The winners are picked from the new ‘OOHs’ which have been uploaded, and encourages people to not only add their content, but to make sure it is as ‘rich’ as possible.

Sites with user generated content (such as a forum, social networking or social media site) could use similar techniques to reward particular contributions.

Twitter Competitions

A competition where the only entry requirement is to tweet a message including a link to a site / account / hashtag has very low barriers to entry for Twitter users. Once up and running, such competitions excel at keeping momentum – the more people hear about the competition, the more people enter – and help to improve brand awareness for companies and products.

The tactic’s been used by a variety of organisations; the most famous execution was probably the competitions run by Moonfruit. This did well, but the concept already feels a little bit passé – plus you have to have an awesome product and spring for $10,000 of prizes to have the same impact that Moonfruit enjoyed.

Consider modifying this viral ’self-fullfilling prophecy’ competition for other formats or networks; Umbro had people upload photos on Facebook – the Facebook ‘News Feed’ then showed entrants’ friends that they’d submitted an entry. If you’re looking to find similar success for your sites, Google Buzz is still new & cool… I’m just saying…

Procedural Points

A couple of miscellaneous points about operating a competition:

Conversion Rate Optimisation

If you’ve attracted people to the competition entry page, you should hope to see a very good conversion rate to completed entries. Try using some CRO techniques on the entry page, to maximise the number of entries received and the amount of useful data collected.

Avoid Cheats

Log the IP address along with each entry – you can then investigate any IP addresses which submit a lot of entries to identify people who are trying to cheat the system.

OK; I hope that this has been useful, or at least inspired you to go through the back of the cupboards, and see if you have anything interesting to give away. Using tactics like this can be an iterative process – it doesn’t need to go exactly right first time, and people will never get bored if you run a few competitions to improve your process. Good luck!

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Do you still need a website to be successful online? Share your thoughts.

First off, let me be perfectly clear in that I’m not advising anybody not to have a website. That said, there are a lot of ways to have a web presence without actually having a site, and let’s face it – maintaining a site (let alone a successful one) takes time, money, and resources.

According to data from Compete, Facebook has become a bigger traffic source than Google for some sites, and for many others, it is right up there with Google as a major traffic source. If it can drive the traffic, then that means the people are already at Facebook. You can be on Facebook without having your own website. Businesses can build a Facebook Page, complete with analytics provided by Facebook itself, and they can spend time making that page a good one. Here are some tips on how to do that. Facebook pages are perfectly capable of being found in search engines. In fact, they are often right on the first results page.

You know what else is often right on the first page? A set of local search results from Google Maps, courtesy of Google’s Universal Search integration. Within those results (which are very often right at the top of the SERP) are links to individual businesses’ “Place Pages”. From here, users can find coupons, reviews, store hours, etc. There is a very good chance users will find this before they find your site anyway.

Google is actually going to great lengths to get people using these Place Pages. They are even sending out stickers with barcodes for stores to hang on their windows. When a user scans this barcode with their mobile phone, they will be taken to the business’ Place Page. Social media profiles can also appear on these pages (although so can website links of course).

I probably don’t have to tell you that the web is rapidly becoming more mobile. Smartphone usage and mobile broadband subscriptions continue to accelerate, and people are using a variety of devices, operating systems, browsers, and apps. Making sure you have a site that looks right across all of these is no easy task. This is not so much of a worry when it comes to Facebook pages, Google Place Pages, and other third-party entities.

In many cases, it seems that small business sites are becoming harder to find through organic search. If you look you can find them, but users want convenience, and they are probably not going to look too hard if they can find what they are looking for on the first search results page (or right within Facebook where they’re already spending their time).

Social profiles show in up in search, and often early. The very nature of social media is viral. If one Facebook user becomes a fan of your Facebook page, that user’s friends are going to see it. Then, maybe a couple of them also become fans. Then maybe a couple of their friends become fans, and that trend can continue on and on. The more people who become fans, and the more exposure that page gets, the more chance that page has of acquiring links, which of course can lead to better search engine rankings, not to mention a larger presence on Facebook itself, where a large percentage of Internet users are already spending a great deal of their time. Your reputation and following within the social networks themselves may do your profile well in the eyes of Google too.

If you sell things online, there are obviously many different options out there without having to sell from your own site. In fact, even Facebook and e-commerce are on the road to becoming more and more closely attached. People can buy/sell physical goods through Facebook.

A great deal of focus has been placed on Facebook in this article for the simple fact that it is the world’s most popular social network. That could all change in time. But that doesn’t mean the points would not sill apply to other services. Google is going to be placing a lot of emphasis on Google Buzz this year, and it’s going to become integrated with more and more Google products. Currently, Google profiles are kind of the central place for a Buzz presence. Users can include any links they wish right into that profile (Facebook page, Twitter account, blog, eBay/Amazon listings, etc.)There’s no telling how big Buzz can be, and there’s always the possibility that something else will come along and take the world by storm. And that is one of the reasons…

Why it Still Pays to Have a Site

Can you be successful without a site? I think so. However, having a site gives you a more stable foundation, and still creates more opportunities than if you didn’t have one. When you have a site, you have control. You don’t have to adhere to the policy guidelines of any third-party platform. If Facebook decides to shut its Pages down (as Yahoo did with GeoCities, for example), you still have your own site that they can’t touch. For that matter, having your own site certainly lends credibility to your brand.

Still, social networks continue to work on making data more freely able to flow among one another via a number of open standards like Activity Streams, AtomPub, OAuth, PubSubHubbub, Salmon and WebFinger. “The idea is that someday, any host on the web should be able to implement these open protocols and send messages back and forth in real time with users from any network, without any one company in the middle,” says Google software engineer DeWitt Clinton. “The web contains the social graph, the protocols are standard web protocols, the messages can contain whatever crazy stuff people think to put in them. Google Buzz will be just another node (a very good node, I hope) among many peers. Users of any two systems should be able to send updates back and forth, federate comments, share photos, send @replies, etc., without needing Google in the middle and without using a Google-specific protocol or format.”

Google itself, even has its own site dedicated to making user data for its various products exportable. That’s just Google, but the web in general appears to be moving more in this direction.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have a site, or even that you don’t need one, but I think it’s an interesting discussion. For now, I’m going to say having your own site is still in your best interest, but has a more social Internet with more portable data made a standalone site less critical? Is having a website going to be less important in the future? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the subject. Comment here.

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Zeta Interactive’s Hugo Guzman is one of the the folks in the SEO industry who has a broad experience set which perhaps eclipses my own, as he has done virtually everything. And so I recently interviewed him…

You run some of your own sites, have done some private SEO consulting, I believe you may have done some in house SEO for a while, and are now deep into the bowels of the SEO agency world. What are the best and worst parts of each role?

Great question! Here’s my take based on personal experience in each role.

Running your own site(s)

Best Thing: That feeling of unbridled entrepreneurism. I’ve always felt that website building is sort of like the new real estate development, only anybody can do it and it costs less than $100 to get started (if you know what you’re doing). The other great thing about running your own site(s) is the ability to cut out on time wasting and bureaucracy. There’s no need for filling out corporate approval paperwork or sitting through useless meetings or conference calls, so you can focus in on building content, building links, building databases, and building relationships.

Worst Thing: The cold hard reality of monetization. There used to be a day when paid links could easily bankroll early development until you got other revenue streams to a point of sustainability, but that well has dried up to a certain extent. Affiliate revenue and Adsense are both viable but take time to develop, especially if SEO is the main source of traffic, so like you, I believe that the best option is to cut out the middle man and develop a product/service of your own that fills a specific niche need at a fair price. I think that the emergence of FourSquare and Twitter localization suggests a strong opportunity for hyper-niche, location-based website development. You don’t have to be the best in the world at a specific thing in order to be successful. Just be the best in your locale or region.

SEO consulting

Best Thing: Being able to do SEO “The Right Way” (or at least “your own way”). It feels good to execute an SEO program that way you see fit, especially when it works! It makes for a very rewarding experience. It’s fun to build out the list of deliverables, the timeline for implementation, and the success metrics and KPIs that will be the foundation of your client programs.

Worst Thing: Dealing with the sales grind, chasing after clients that don’t pay on time (or at all) not getting the hourly bill rate you know you deserve, etc…basically all the business stuff that has little or nothing to do with pure SEO. Unfortunately, many of the SEOs that go this route get caught up in the grind by failing or refusing to fire bad clients, so that they can focus on building revenue by offering more granular or expanded services for their good clients.

In-house SEO

Best Thing: Being embedded in so many different aspects of a business and learning about marketing and biz dev elements outside the pure SEO realm. I spent several years working with CBS Interactive and I learned a ton about so many things and worked with some really intelligent people.

For example, I learned how C-level executives frame marketing channels like SEO. The main success metric that I was measured on was percentage of overall referring traffic (well under 10% when I first started). Even though I was able to exponentially grow natural search referrals, especially for key niches like fantasy football and March Madness – both of which are huge moneymakers for CBS – the cumulative effect on overall traffic was minimal (never reached 20%). The reason was simple; CBS owns their major television network as well as a myriad of local television affiliates, radio stations, billboards, email addresses, etc, which literally drove millions and millions of unique referrals.

This introduction to mass media metrics helped me gain perspective on the role SEO plays within the larger scheme of things (brand building and management, push/interruption marketing, email marketing, etc). And it was this perspective that would help me connect with marketing executives when I made the move to agency SEO, because I finally understood that while SEO is arguably the most cost-effective marketing channel, it was only one piece of a much larger puzzle.

Worst Thing: It’s hard to move up the corporate ladder and earn big dollars. Because SEO is typically straddled between marketing and IT, it’s tough to move up into upper-management positions. Some companies (like the Tribune Company) are starting to wake up, but for the most part, it’s still tough to move on up.

SEO Agency

Best Thing: It’s sort of like the Peace Corps in that it’s the hardest job you’ll ever love. Granted, you’re not really helping the world be a better place (just helping companies become more profitable) but getting to work with so many different verticals, marketing philosophies, business executives, and web environments is incredibly rewarding. Agency SEO (if you work at a good agency) will undoubtedly make you a better SEO, and a better business person in general.

Interestingly enough, it’s the seemingly unconquerable workload that proves to be the catalyst for professional growth. Dealing with multiple clients, each of which has impossible deadlines and unrealistic ROI expectations, forces you to prioritize your efforts and focus on the strategies and tactics that will deliver the most bang for their marketing buck. SEO’s that fail to grasp this are quickly burned out and leave the agency life (and usually return after a year or two after realizing that they can’t make much money in-house). SEO’s that “get it” quickly make an impact for clients – and the agency’s bottom line – catapulting them into management and executive roles.

Worst Thing: It’s sort of like the Post Office. The work just keeps coming and coming. It’s extremely stressful, demanding, and demoralizing at times. But hey, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger right?

From which of the 4 roles do you see the greatest profit potential?

That’s a tough one. In-house probably has the least profit potential, followed by agency work. Although it’s worth pointing out that some of the better agencies out there take extraordinary steps to keep talented individuals happy and give them a true stake in the company’s success. My agency definitely falls in that category.

Consulting has very solid profit potential but building your own site(s) is definitely king in my book because if you pick the right niche and truly devote yourself on all levels the potential is limitless.

You (Aaron Wall) write about this topic quite a bit, but it’s important to re-emphasize. If an enterprising SEO is looking to start their own site(s) the first thing to take into consideration is the level of passion they have for the topic/theme that the site(s) will encompass, because if the passion isn’t there, it’s unlikely that said SEO will have the motivation to work through the inevitable plateaus that await his/her new business. Also, as most of us know, building the right kind of content is what often leads to the inbound links that will serve as the foundation of a solid search presence, and that’s much easier to do when you truly love the topic/theme you’re dealing with.

When you guys take on new clients are you knee deep in the SEO projects? Or do you focus more on training your team?

Truthfully, I’m no longer involved in day-to-day management of SEO projects. I do touch almost every single account, but usually it’s as an advisor to the SEO specialist that’s assigned to the account or because the client needs to tap into my historical knowledge of the account (I’ve been working with some of our clients for several years now and know more about their history than some of their employees). Basically, I keep tabs on each account and come in to deal with really tough and/or complex scenarios that junior team members have never encountered. That said, I do spend a considerable amount of time testing specific hypotheses, either on client sites or on test sites that are owned and managed by my agency.

One of the most memorable tests we performed was for a major insurance and financial services brand (one of the biggest in the world) that was having a ton of trouble getting their agent profile pages indexed (they had thousands of them). They were convinced that simply adding these pages to their XML sitemap would do the trick, despite the fact that Google explicitly states that submitting an XML sitemap does not replace override their normal indexing and ranking methodology. In order to convince them to take an alternate route (focusing on internal linkage that helped eliminate orphaned agent pages) we simply tested their hypothesis by taking a baseline measurement on the number of indexed agent pages, then adding all of the agent pages to their XML sitemap en masse and then measuring the impact on indexing for those pages (the impact was nil). We then convinced them to implement our recommendations and subsequently measured their impact on indexing of agent pages (over 80% of those pages were subsequently indexed). The result? An interesting conclusion that helps guide our recommendations for other clients as well as an incredibly happy Insurance brand that has now been with us for going on three years!

As for the rest of my time, it is spent training our team of specialists (and the sales folks and the account management folks) supporting sales across the US, leading sales efforts in the Southeastern United States, and working with our product development team to build tools that help facilitate SEO. Oh and I try to help promote the agency when I find some spare time ; )

It wasn’t always like that by the way. I started my agency life as a specialist and have gradually moved up the ladder.

Many of the bigger agency-styled companies sell watered down services of limited value. For example keyword ranking / websourced / marketsmart interactive went from the largest SEO company to closed almost overnight. How do you scale SEO within an agency while preventing the watering down effect that is common at most?

This is an extremely tough problem to overcome, but one of the things that we’ve focused on is product development that helps automate certain facets of the SEO process, so that our specialists can spend their time being truly strategic.

For example, back in 2008, I figured out that our specialists (including myself) were spending an inordinate amount of time formatting and filling out the Excel templates that are used to deliver page-level code recommendations to clients (more or less a staple of agency life). This included copying and pasting the existing code side-by-side with our recommended code, so that the client’s IT/dev folks could use it as a point of reference when implementing. This was essentially data entry work that was extremely tedious and took up a tremendous amount of time.

Working with our tremendous product development and digital services team based in Hyderabad, India, we were able to develop a web application that automatically scraped the designated code for a particular client web page and populated in the correct fields within our Excel template. Now, all our specialists have to do is fill in the recommendations in the appropriate fields, cutting delivery time in half. It’s tremendous productivity booster and also a tremendous morale booster for our specialists.

If you’re on the client side and are interviewing perspective SEO providers, make sure that they have some sort of technology platform in place that will help automate or at least facilitate some of the non-strategic facets. Otherwise, you’re going to spend a ton of money on what essentially amounts to data entry.

From a consumer perspective, a lot of the agencies are long on sales but short on results. What are some of the key signals consumers should pick up on when determining if an agency is the real deal or one that is selling watered down water?

That’s easy.

Ask them if they can help with direct implementation via CMS and/or hard coding. Ask them to go into excruciating detail in terms of how they handle link building (most agencies claim they do link-building, but it usually just boils down to directory submissions and paid links). Ask them to explain how content influences link-building and social media efforts. Ask them to go into excruciating detail in terms of how social media and SEO dovetail. Ask them to go into excruciating detail in terms of how they leverage analytics as it pertains to SEO. Ask them if they’re accustomed to working with senior (even C-level) executives to facilitate approval and implementation of recommendations.

If they’re worth their weight, they’ll jump at the chance to give deep answers to each and every one of these questions.

As an ad agency you guys are also involved in other marketing elements from companies. Does search ever become a key consideration when it comes to product naming, product positioning, and other advertising formats? If yes, could you share some examples?

My agency was arguably the first to truly embrace the cross-channel interactive agency model, so we definitely work with clients across a variety of marketing channels, and as a matter of fact, we offer a variety of services beyond search (we just made the Forrester Wave for email service providers).

I can’t get into specific clients and URLs due to confidentiality agreements, but I would say that well over 50% of the clients we work with take search into consideration when naming products, positioning products, and even picking vanity domains. I would say that about 25% of our clients make search their top priority when considering these types of things. Those are our favorites, because they really “get it” and work SEO into everything they do.

One example that I can give you (without revealing specific client names) is the purchasing of vanity domains to drive SEO for specific product/service offerings. I’ve seen companies drop anywhere from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands in order to secure domains that have large, authoritative link profiles and already rank for high volume keywords. In fact, I recently did some consulting on behalf of one of the largest VC firms in the world, helping one of their clients (we’ll call them “Company A”) essentially put a price tag on a the value of a domain that was owned by a smaller firm that “Company A” was looking to acquire. I actually think that this type of work could become a nice hyper niche for me in the future (until Google and others finally accomplish their goal of eliminating domains from the search equation…but that’s a story for another day).

What strategies do you use to help clients provide adequate resources for a large or complex SEO assignment when the results might take many months to materialize?

We’ve gone as far as to help clients screen potential hires or contractors in order to help them staff up for large initiatives. In addition, we’ve embedded our employees at a client’s office for large stretches of time in what you could call a “dedicated resource” type of arrangement. Lastly, we’ve helped coordinate cross-division committees and/or multi-agency collaboration in order to help get large initiatives off the ground.

Basically, I’ve always preached to the team that they have to do anything and everything to make things happen. Often times, it’s this extra effort that ends up become the primary measure of success in the client’s eyes, especially if there are some solid metrics to go along with it.

What success metrics are used along the way to help clients appreciate the returns on the SEO efforts?

I find that year-over-year trending is extremely valuable because it takes seasonality into account, and we’ll deliver that type of trending both at the aggregate level and focused on specific “big money” keywords. Incidentally, our agency doesn’t shy away from extremely competitive keywords. We go after everything that fits the client’s vertical but just make sure to set expectations early on. Clients deserve to rank for the biggest money terms, but they also need to understand that in certain cases it could take years to achieve above-the-fold placement.

Also, I believe that it’s critical to drill down and measure non-branded keywords as opposed to just looking at raw aggregate referral data, especially when you’re working with big brands that drive mammoth amounts of brand queries. If you don’t strip out the branded search referrals, then you’re not really measuring SEO (99% of the time, branded keywords have and always will rank No. 1 so the traffic they drive are a function of brand awareness, not search engine optimization).

Google is known for letting bigger brands get away with being a bit spammy. Do you ever suggest to clients that they have the opportunity to push the window?

The short answer is “Yes”.

We conform to “White Hat” SEO (whatever that means) but we also believe that it’s our job to educate clients on techniques that may or may be deemed as “spammy” by search engines like Google. They deserve to understand the entire SEO landscape, not just the vision created by Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

Also, for clients that are already relatively SEO savvy and were already dabbling in techniques deemed unsavory by Google, we will gladly provide a third-party opinion and consulting on those activities. We believe that they deserve that level of service for the premium they’re paying.

Within a company internal politics often end up kicking SEO into the back seat. When doing agency work, who are the key individuals from within the companies you service that you consider it a must to loop in on the project?

Start with the CEO (seriously). And by the way, this also applies to social media initiatives.

The goal is to find a way to move the needle for a client, even if we are faced with a tough situation in terms of marketing approval, legal approval, or IT implementation (this is more or less par for the course in verticals like Pharma and Financial Services). If we can move that needle, then we’ll immediately push to get in front of upper-level executives, so that we can help them understand what we’re trying to accomplish in the long term (and that we won’t accomplish it at the expense of their brand affinity or legal standing).

If you’re not getting face time with a senior director, VP, or C-level executive, then you’re probably not doing a very good job.

Hugo Guzman is the Vice President of SEO & Social Media at Zeta Interactive. He can be reached via email at hguzman@zetainteractive.com or via Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/hugoguzman.

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So let’s take a look at strategies for those starting out, be it in SEO, web design, or other small, web-based businesses. Those of you who have established web businesses, it would be great if you could share your experiences and strategies in the comments

Making The Start

How do you make the start? You’ve got a computer, an internet connection, and a few ideas. How do you get from that point to a thriving business, when you have no customer base, no money and no experience?

Yeah, it’s hard.

But you’ll literally work through it

Society Is Testing You To See If You’re Serious

Ask anyone in business, sports, music or any other competitive human endeavor how they got recognized in their given field. They’ll most likely tell you it didn’t happen overnight. Whilst talent, luck and having the right connections play a part, the one trait common to those who succeed is persistent hard work.

In Outliers, a book about how people achieve extraordinary things, Malcolm Gladwell found that to achieve mastery in anything – be it golf, webdesign, programming, music, fashion – takes roughly the same amount of time: 10,000 hours.

Thankfully, we don’t need to be masters at running a small business before we start one, else no one would ever do so. But the underlying idea is sound – persistent hard work is the key to success.

Being persistent sends a message to those around you, including potential customers, that you’re serious about what your doing. If they see you often enough, doing the thing you say you do, then you’ll eventually be recognized for it.

So if you feel you need to prove yourself, you’re right. Society actually demands you do.

What Is Worth Getting Serious About?

Many people start businesses because they enjoying doing something. Someone who plays sport may have the desire to be paid a good living wage for playing the game she loves. Someone is good at art, so he wants to be a designer.

Whilst there is nothing wrong with this approach – having a genuine passion for something will help you get through the rough times – I’m sure you can spot the potential problem. There might be a LOT of people who have a passion for the same thing. The more people who want to do something, the more effort you need to put in in order to stand out.

In terms of sport, it’s relatively straighforward. The sprinter with the fastest times gets recognized and progresses. Those sprinters with slower times either get better, or go find something else to do. In business, its a little more complicated, but the principle remains the same.

You need to stand out.

Supply And Demand

Think carefully about supply and demand. Ask yourself: is there sufficient demand for what I want to do?

Let’s say you want to do web design. Is there demand? Why, yes, the demand for web design services is almost infinite. New companies start every minute, and most of them will need a web presence. Established companies who already have a web presence change their design from time to time, thus creating even more demand.

All good.

Now let’s look at the supply side.

How many people want to be web designers. The answer is: quite a few. In fact, it would appear that web design demand is more than met by the supply of web designers. What happens in such situations is there is a downward pressure on prices, because those who create demand have a lot of supply to choose from.

The world is oversupplied with web designers. At least, it’s oversupplied by people who call themselves web designers. There’s a difference, of course, between someone who owns the tools of production and those who use those tools well to solve business problems. Owning a camera does not make someone a commercial photographer. Likewise, those with the most artistic design skills may make lousy web designers if they aren’t focused on business aspects.

Recognizing the reality of the situation might may you reconsider your choice of career, and opt for an area where there is heavy demand and short supply instead.

Another way to face this problem is to differentiate. Can you do something better than other designers? You may be highly skilled in contemporary graphic design, in which case you may choose to place strong emphasis on displaying your portfolio, and target the type of clients who appreciate – and will pay for – this expertise.

You may have, or can acquire, detailed market knowledge in one particular niche – i.e. travel sites, real estate sites, etc. Clients, generally speaking, are a lot more comfortable with providers who understand their area of business. You have an advantage if you can speak their language, rather than just the self-absorbed language of design forums.

Can you focus on a geographic area? i.e. the immediate area where you live. Sometimes, people want to deal with someone local.

What is the thing you can do for which there is a market? If there are too many competitors in that market, then slice that market up until you can find a niche. Aim to be top of that niche. Then put in persistent effort working that niche in order to build reputation.

Chris Pearson gave away a number of popular free Wordpress themes on his site, created designs for popular sites (including Copyblogger & SEO Book), and then created the Thesis theme for web developers, which has since done 7 figures in sales volume. Yes Wordpress themes have become commoditized, but due to his strong marketing and continual increase in product value he was able to differentiate & build a solid business model. In his own words on starting out, Chris wrote:

Before I launched Thesis, I created a few free WordPress themes that became extremely popular. Although these themes defined the early stages of my career, they are really nothing more than visible markers of a learning process that continues today with Thesis.

Establishing Yourself

Once you’ve decided on an angle, you then need to establish yourself. Society wants to see how serious you are.

It is very difficult to market a business without some form of track record. But every business needs to start somewhere, and they don’t start with a track record. So, the most important task for someone starting out – in any occupation – is to get one.

One way to get a track record is to treat your first few jobs as a marketing cost. This is the cost of establishing a reputation, and if you make any money at all from these first few jobs, it’s a bonus. The aim is to get referrals and a portfolio of work.

Approach charities or small local business who need a web presence and offer your services for a deeply discounted rate, or for free. It’s a win-win for both parties, because they may not be able to afford web design, and you need their testimonials and experience.

Be sure to make it clear that the job is being done at a discounted rate, and let them know what your usual rate it. This way, they’ll perceive value, and won’t be in for a shock when you ramp your prices up for any future work. Focus on building a positive relationship with these clients. If they are happy with your work, they may well refer you to others.

Once you have a track record, the risk to a future customer of hiring you is diminished. You become a known quantity, which puts you above the wanna-bes.

Is this working for free? Some might consider it that way, but it could also be seen as just another marketing expense, like advertising. Many businesses, including big, established businesses, give away products and services – in the form of loss leaders – in order to help get their foot in the door. People who train for careers pay to learn, whilst as a freelancer, you can potentially learn on the job for free. Clients can teach you a lot about your own business , especially where your strengths and weaknesses lie.

Pricing

It’s important not to stay cheap or free, however.

Some think the easiest way to get business is to undercut competitors on price. This can be a self defeating strategy, especially for the sole operator, for a number of reasons:

You get cheap clients – people who seek the lowest price probably aren’t placing much value on what you do. These type of clients, ironically, can also be the most demanding. They want the most for the least, and will often push you on the amount of work you deliver.

Someone else can always undercut you. There will always be a competitor who has a cost base lower than you do. From there, you’re locked in a no-win race to the bottom.

If it looks cheap, it is cheap. It’s human nature not to value something that is cheap, and place a lot of value on something that is expensive. In the book How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer, the author describes an experiment conducted with wine. Participants were told one bottle was cheap and one was expensive. The expensive bottle got rave reviews from tasters, and the cheap one – not so good. However, the labels were switched. The expensive wine was actually the cheap wine.

Perception counts for a lot.

So if your angle is cheap, make sure your margins are still high enough to sustain you. Only you know how much you need to survive at any given time.

Alternatively, target ruthlessly, either by offering a superior, needed product, more niche know-how, or find some other angle where there is untapped demand. Be prepared to prove your worth by providing case studies describing how you’ve solved people’s business problems in the past.

Got any other tips for those starting out? It would be great if you can share what you know

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