Guerilla SEO, Advertising and Conversion Methodologies

About The Author:

Alan Rabinowitz is the CEO and Lead Strategist of SEO Image, Inc. A New York based marketing firm specializing in SEO services. Alan has over 10 years of SEO, marketing, advertising and design experience. Alan’s skill set has allowed him to beta test for Macromedia’s Dreamweaver and work for clients including: Hasbro, Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc., Harper-Collins Publishing, Black Star, Marvel Comics and many other top tier firms.

Many businesses are unaware of methods used for SEO since before the era of Google domination. In fact, in the late 90’s traffic strategies were geared to get traffic from related sites through links. Therefore, traffic passed from related sites about as much as it did from Search Engines. There is still much to be said about getting traffic from related sites - whether from advertising or because a bunch of friends link to each other’s blogs, traffic can be passed, and you want that traffic.

The web has evolved into everyone wanting rankings, traffic and PageRank, the green indicator and social aspect of Google Search. Interestingly enough the methods of SEO have not changed dramatically since the 90’s and even though certain aspects of web design and SEO have changed, many of the basic principles we have used since then have not. The types of links we set up in the 90’s for traffic pass PageRank in today’s world.

New factors have entered the game including social media, link building, link baiting, paid search and blog networking. We now see more spam in new sectors: Friend Spam (not really spoken of – but an example of this would be a few popular bloggers that link out to their friends -- hence you have “Friend Spam” or as Google terms it “link schemes”), Ad Spam buying links (unfortunately some Search Engines get hypocritical here and may in fact be looking for a way to manually control results and/or the ad market). Competitor Spam – very common now to get your competitors penalized – also helps if you can hack a blog and link it to badware as punishment by some Search Engines can last several months.

Guerilla SEO

So what do I mean when I say “Guerilla”?  Well frankly I hate the term, but it does imply that we are using fast methods for results and that is simply the goal of this article. Guerilla, as I refer to it, means move the site forward and promote it. Be smart, be aggressive, and read between the lines.

Well Alan, how do we do that? Glad you asked. You simply need to understand several things about websites and user interactions, a few basic principles of SEO, and some strategic advertising. Know the fine line between spam and SEO and make as much of an attempt to build a truly quality site. Advertise everywhere - this can help get your site on high trafficked portals. Advertise anyway you can, that itself can get you business even without a single ranking in the search engines (See Guerilla Advertising below).

Simplified on-page SEO with good writing and a lot of content (Search Engines are suckers for content, even if its worthless spam, if it is well written, then you’re golden) are the basics of what every website truly needs. If you have time, I recommend that you write strategically and with the goals of your site in mind. Think about talking to your visitors and NOT the search engines. This is where I will say “Usability over SEO” as conversions can follow.

Network, make friends get them to link to you. Most search results today are powered up blogs whose friends or network partners power up their site with backlinks. Blogging is NOT a necessity but can help add influential links to your site from high-powered domains like My Blog Log, digg, reddit and technorati. Now Twitter also helps networking as you can stay in touch. These types of sites offer great networking opportunities and SEO is also about networking. I have on numerous occasions given SEO advice and services for links to my clients.

Guerilla Advertising

Popularity means a lot in many of the current search engine algorithms and some may say even more so then relevance with select Search Engines. Certain Search Engines are considered “Hollywood Search Engines” meaning they focus on who has more links rather than who has better and more related content. To them it’s a popularity game. This causes the unfortunate result of sites getting lost, or blog review ranking where product sites should be. The statements from some marketers that “Content is King” and that if you write good content you will “eventually” rank better, is what I would call “foolish”. You absolutely need to market and promote your Brand and your website or no one will every find it to get the ball rolling. So get links into the site, advertise, syndicate, promote and that can help build links and get people buzzing about your site.

Advertising methods include articles, press releases, banner ads, paid search text links and text links. All offer benefits. Just be wary because some search engines frown on paid banner and text advertising, there are ways to set up ads that can make it acceptable and you need to research that or you may wind up like many others and that is penalized into obscurity.

As I stated above BUY Advertising any way you can, it does not have to be on a Search Engine to pass traffic and many higher converting ads are often found on top industry portals. Direct Search can certainly pass traffic from paid and natural areas of the results, and these are places to consider depending on your budget.

You need to advertise smart and track traffic. For instance, a text ad on a site which claims to get 1,000,000 page views per month, yet shows in your stats with only three referrals average per month to your site is a waste. Take an ad on a site that passed 50 visitors per month plus a few callers (or form filler-outers); this ad is worth considering as a potential keeper.

Avoid ads on sites that link to unrelated sites, so an ad on a site about finance that links to Viagra and Gambling sites should NOT be taken as it links out poorly and may cause some negative link relationships as well as be considered a spam text link. Those can devalue the power of the site they are on or even your own site. Many web searchers are also used to seeing ad spam and simply ignore it now.

While there is a fine line between text link ads and Search Engine spam, if the site in question has a tremendous amount of related industry traffic I recommend you take it for Branding and Traffic. Obsessing whether or not you can be penalized from advertising your site is UNFORTUNATE but something you now must recognize. You are in a world where advertising is controlled and you need to be cautious with your methodologies. This is really where ethics come into play, but that is for another article. If it looks good, gets good traffic, does not have a flood of paid advertisers, then it’s usually a good ad for your business and/or brand.

Guerilla Conversions

At last you have traffic, you have some natural traffic and some paid traffic. Now you need to analyze and convert traffic. You need good analytical tools to determine traffic flow patterns on the site, how to understand them, and what to do about the data.

Knowing what is actually happening on your site is extremely important and many people do not think about this. That is a major mistake. You cannot expect that your traffic will understand your site and your goals the way you do - period. Determine how to direct traffic to your goals and using known conversion methodologies such as:

1.    Market traffic with action items.
2.    Make phone numbers easy to find.
3.    Make contact items easily recognized.
4.    Make buy buttons large and where expected.
5.    Make content that speaks to the visitors rather than bores them.
6.    Encourage visitors to “Stay in Touch” with newsletters.

Trust Items Like:

1.    BBB
2.    TrustE (Privacy Policy)
3.    Hacker Safe
4.    Validated Site (like the BBB + TrustE)
5.    Control Scan Suite (like the BBB + TrustE)
6.    Industry Organizations & Associations
7.    Awards from respected third parties

Keep in mind, there is no exact science for conversions. Conversion work usually requires quite a bit of testing, comparison and traffic to get real life definitive answers. Using common techniques can help the site convert better from the get-go. So think about the above and add them if you feel they suit your goals now or in the near future.

Alan Rabinowitz is the CEO and Lead Strategist of SEO Image, Inc. A New York based marketing firm specializing in SEO services. Alan has over 10 years of SEO, marketing, advertising and design experience. Alan’s skill set has allowed him to beta test for Macromedia’s Dreamweaver and work for clients including: Hasbro, Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc., Harper-Collins Publishing, Black Star, Marvel Comics and many other top tier firms.