Search Engine Humanization

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2 Search Engine Humanization The Art of Turning Ordinary Words into Extraordinary Clients By Marc Ensign Page 1

3 Copyright Marc Ensign Version 1.2 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a license issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd. Legal Disclaimer The Publisher and the Authors make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty maybe created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. Neither the publishers nor the authors shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or website it may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. Printed in the United States of America First Printing, 2013 For more information, please visit loudmouse.com Page 2

4 Dedication This book is dedicated to my wife Aimee for enthusiastically listening to me read these pages to her over and over again for months. And for being able to tolerate me coming home on weekends smelling like Starbucks. And for not being jealous of my Twitter friends. Is that everything? Oh yeah, and for bearing my children. Page 3

5 Connect I can imagine the moment Breaking out through the silence All the things that we both might say And the heart it will not be denied Till we're both on the same damn side All the barriers blown away I said please talk to me Won't you please come talk to me Just like it used to be Come on, come talk to me ~Peter Gabriel It all starts with a question. A comment. A like. A Tweet. One hand stretching out to another. This book is my attempt to reach out to you in search of a connection. Please don t leave me hanging Twitter: Facebook: Website and Blog: Page 4

6 Table of Contents Introduction... 7 How Search Engines Really Work (the Non-Geek Version) The Part You Should Actually Care About Relevance and the Tale of Sushi and Donuts Authority and the Importance of Being Important So, Which One is More Important? Traditional SEO and the Reason You Need This Book The Truth Behind Traditional SEO What if Everything You Were Taught About Traffic Was Wrong? Search Engine Humanization Attracting Anyone Who is Hungry Do You Know Who You Are Talking To? Here s a Crappy Example Less Keyword Research + More People Research = Happy Visitors How to Speak to Your Audience Crawling Inside Your Visitors Heads Three Ways Visitors Learn (or Don t Learn) From You Here s Where it Gets Tricky Being a Non-Experts Expert Start Being an Expert By Not Calling Yourself an Expert How to Know Everything Without Knowing Everything Blog Your Ass Off Nobody Cares About You The Secrets to a Blog That Doesn t Suck The Formula for Writing Extraordinary Content Link Building the Way Nature Intended What Does All of This Have to Do with SEH The Forgotten Step in the Sales Process Stop Selling People that Are Not Ready to Buy What Do They Want To Know? Now All You Need is the Right Answer The Quest that Never Ends About Marc Ensign Page 5

7 If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Page 6

8 Introduction I know what you re thinking. Does the world really need one more book on Search Engine Optimization? Another list of to-dos you don t understand and don t have the time to do even if you did understand? Another blogger-turned-author masquerading around as an SEO Guru spewing off more selfaggrandizing nonsense about the complexities of search engine optimization in an effort to make themselves feel more important than they are while making you feel more overwhelmed than you should? Absolu wait, did you just say no? Well, this is awkward. I had planned an entire introduction based on the assumption that you were going to say yes. As far as introductions go, this one was going to be epic! Life changing. Destined to go down in the annals 1 of history as one of the greatest literary masterpieces of our time. You pretty much just ruined it for everyone. I hope you re happy. Not like it matters now, but my plan was to weave through a long-winded diatribe about how this book was going to be different. Different from all of those other SEO books you have tried to muscle through over the years. Different from the advice that you have been given and the promises that you have been made that always ends up being too good to be true. And 1 If there were ever proof of why you need a copy editor, this would be it. I originally spelled this word with one n which gives this sentence a whole new meaning. Page 7

9 different from the latest flavor-of-the-month link building technique that will have stopped working by the time you finish reading this sentence. With much less fanfare, let me simply state that this book is not another quick fix solution promising to put you out of your search engine optimized misery. What you are holding in your hands is a new way to look at an old problem. A problem you know intimately well as no one is visiting my website. The same problem that has cost you and your business more time and money than you care to admit to and has left you frustrated and in some cases void of all faith in humankind. 2 But it is a problem that can be solved. And you can be the one who solves it. Without a smarty-pants Ph.D. in computer science. And without a Geekto-English dictionary. Yes. You can do this. And you can do this with the knowledge you already have within you. You don t need to know what Meta tags are. You don t need to be able to calculate your keyword density. And you don t need to understand the complexities of link building. None of that really matters. In fact, there is really only one thing that does matter. Human beings. In the grand quest to get your site ranked on page one of Google, the most important piece of the search engine optimization puzzle has been 2 I reached a little bit too far with that one didn t I? Page 8

10 forgotten. There is a human being on the other end of every search. And if we could just alter the way we see them. Connect with them. And serve them. We can win. Not just win the traffic, but also turn that stranger into a customer, client, member, prospect, fan or friend. So if you are ready, throw away everything you think you know about search engine optimization for just a little while. Long enough to get through this book with an open mind. Have faith in what I am about to share with you. Be willing to try anything. Quiet the voice in your head that suggests going back to the old way of doing things. In other words, don t just dip your toe in the water. Jump in. If you have been looking for a better mousetrap, you just found it. Page 9

11 Our mission is to organize the world s information and make it universally accessible and useful. ~Google Page 10

12 How Search Engines Really Work (the Non-Geek Version) I know you came here looking for answers, but before I can give them to you, you need to first understand the question. Most of us think of Google as a giant convoluted mess of secret algorithms created by people with glasses who ride around on Segways all day. How it actually works is a mystery to the vast majority of us. We assume it s a big ugly technical problem. And a big ugly technical problem requires a big ugly technical solution. Don t worry. I m not going to spend the next few days chewing your ear off in an effort to explain what goes on behind the scenes of that search you just did for how to remove a pencil eraser from your nose. Not today anyway. Not because I don t want to. But because I don t know. Like most people, I really don t care about all of the technical who-ha that has to happen in order for things to work. I m more interested in the results. And in order to get the results I want, I really don t need to know every intricate detail of how it works. It s unnecessary. A basic understanding is more than enough to get the result I need. For example, I couldn t explain to you the inner-workings of a combustion engine, yet I know that if I get in my car, turn the key, put it in drive and Page 11

13 step on the gas I will head off into the sunset. 3 Knowing more than that offers very little benefit towards my ability as a safe driver. The same holds true for Google. Approximately 99% of how it works will leave you looking at me like a dog looks at a ceiling fan and no better off because of it. But that 1%? That s the a-ha moment where all of this starts to make sense. The Part You Should Actually Care About With a little creativity we can break down this multi-billion dollar behemoth into a very basic theory. One that will pull back the curtain just far enough to give you a glimpse of how it all works without causing your head to explode. 4 It goes something like this. When you perform a search online, what you are essentially doing is asking Google a question. It doesn t matter if it is research for a paper, a tip on how to fix something or even help in finding someone or something to fill a need. Whatever it is, there is a question behind it. And rather than just asking any old schmo out there, you chose to ask Google. Your smartest friend. The one who has all of the answers without acting like an arrogant little jackass about it. At this point, it is Google s job not just to respond with an answer, but to respond with the very best answer it can possibly find. 3 Unless of course I am parked in my driveway, in which case I would likely crash through the garage first before heading off into the sunset. Not recommended. 4 Spontaneous cranium detonation is not covered in any of the guarantees associated with this book. Read at your own risk. -Marc s Attorney Page 12

14 For example, when someone does a search for New York City Wedding Band they are essentially asking Google Who is the best wedding band in New York City? If you don t have a good enough answer to that question, it is unlikely Google is going to choose your website as one of the ten best answers. The wedding band that serves up the best answer to that question will likely win the war. And maybe even the client. It doesn t mean they are a better band, it just means they have a better answer. When we look at search engine optimization from such a simple perspective of questions and answers, we have no choice but to alter the way we approach it. Rather than asking ourselves how can I get ranked on page one for <insert keyword phrase here>? we must ask how can Google see me as the best answer to <insert the question that your keyword phrase is really asking here>? Do you see the difference? One approach suggests that you trick Google into thinking you are more important than you are. While the other approach suggests that you work with Google in order to become more important than you are. With that as our guide, we can significantly improve our ranking with just two simple words: relevance and authority. Relevance and the Tale of Sushi and Donuts Page 13

15 A few years ago I was in Boston and passed a storefront for a Dunkin Donuts that also sold Sushi. Now, I know what you re thinking. Why did it take so long to combine these two forces of deliciousness into one meal? Or maybe not. If you really wanted a donut, would you buy it from a place that also sold raw fish? And if you really wanted sushi, would you buy it from a place that also sold donuts? Of course not. 5 It doesn t connect on either level. Is it a good choice for dinner? Not really. How about dessert? Not really. In other words it s not at all relevant for either. Search works much in the same way. Relevance is what keeps Google from returning results about divorce attorneys when you are searching for a car mechanic. It s the part of the search process that answers the question the person searching is asking. But here s the thing. Not any old answer is going to be the best answer to the question. You need an extraordinary answer. Google has a goal of rewarding the best answers with a page one ranking. A $5 article written by someone who has a poor grasp of the English language and little knowledge of your industry is not going to be the answer you need. It s not going to be the answer your visitors are searching for. And it s not going to be the answer that impresses Google. 5 Other acceptable answers include hells no or even the slightly more annoying hell to the no! Page 14

16 By consistently creating content that is thorough, informative and adds a ton of value, you are able to answer more questions making your website more relevant within your industry. The more relevant content you have, the more opportunities you have to show up when someone searches. But just being relevant is not enough. There is one more factor we must consider. Authority and the Importance of Being Important While relevance is the quality of your answer, your authority is how important that answer is. It s Google s version of an online popularity contest. It gauges how credible your website is and how much online equity it has compared to every other website on the Internet. Think of it this way. Suppose we had a scale of zero to ten. A newly registered domain would have an authority of zero because it has no history and has yet to offer any value to the marketplace. It s not important. It has not proven itself. And so it holds no authority whatsoever. On the other hand, a site like Amazon.com has a high authority. Because it has proven itself for well over a decade and offers an enormous amount of value with a very rich history, Amazon.com is going to have an authority of ten. Even with a ton of relevant content on your website, without any authority getting ranked on page one will be a difficult process. Just to give you an idea of how important the authority of your website is, suppose you just graduated from medical school and opened a new practice as a local Page 15

17 proctologist. 6 Because your website has no history, it has no authority. This makes it extremely difficult for you to rank well which means people who need a well, you know are going to have a hard time finding you. In the end, you will likely be lost somewhere 100 pages deep 7 and it will take months of effort for you to move up in the ranking. On the other hand, what if Amazon.com saw this as a big potential profit center and decided to break into the proctology market. 8 Because Amazon.com has such a high authority online, they would likely be found on page one within hours, even though those same keywords might take you months. Not because the contents of that box is better than your eight years of education. Not because their answer is more relevant. Or because they did more keyword research and built more links to that page. But because Google thinks they are more important. You both may be equally as relevant but Amazon.com has a higher authority, so they win. Don t blame Google. They are only mimicking the way we as humans think. Suppose you were looking for a specific product and found two possible solutions, both of which were of the same price and quality. One was being sold through a major retail chain while some guy in a parking lot was selling the other. Most of us would be more likely to purchase it through the big retailer because they have earned our trust. We ve heard 6 Don t look at me that way you chose this profession, not me. 7 This is the where I m supposed to make a joke because I said in the end and 100 pages deep in the same sentence while talking about proctologists. But I m not going to. Not today. I m better than that. You should be ashamed of yourself for even thinking it. 8 A do-it-yourself proctology exam, which I suppose would be nothing more than a box with a rubber glove in it. But the infomercial would be brilliant! Page 16

18 of them. We ve used them. Our friends have used them. We ve seen their commercials. We have a history with them. They have more credibility or authority with us than the guy in the parking lot. Now, I know it seems a little unfair to compare your site with a 500-pound gorilla like Amazon.com, but this is what competition looks like nowadays. Before the Internet, you were only competing with the other guy in town who did what you did. If you were nicer or cheaper, you most likely won. But not anymore. Now you are competing for something much more than business. You are competing for attention. So, when you start thinking it s unfair for you to have to compare the authority of your website with a behemoth like Facebook, understand it s not only fair, it s reality. The difficult part about authority is our lack of control. While we have full control over how relevant our site is through the content we write, we can t control our authority. You can t give yourself authority. You can t buy authority. You can t outsource authority. You can only earn authority. It comes from other people and places (websites) that point to us as being important. So, Which One is More Important? Neither. Relevance and authority work hand in hand. Think of them like your kids. When asked which one is your favorite, do you answer? Or do you smile and say that you love them equally? Maybe you shouldn t answer that. Page 17

19 You won t rank well just by focusing only on one or the other. You need both. Because of that, it is important for you to maintain a well-rounded approach towards your relevance and authority online. It s an impossible combination to compete against. Page 18

20 It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory. ~W. Edwards Deming Page 19

21 Traditional SEO and the Reason You Need This Book With a basic understanding of how search engines work, it s easy to see why people do what they do. They are trying to trick Google into thinking they are more relevant than they are and have more authority than they do. They do their keyword research in order to set aside only those phrases that get a lot of traffic while still maintaining a reasonable amount of competition. They write content throughout their site using those keywords every chance they get, thinking the more they use the term on the page the more relevant that page will appear for that term. And then they start a link building campaign that generates links from various forums, blogs and link farms in an effort to point to their site and hope that will make Google see them as a valuable resource and increase their authority. But does all of that work? The Truth Behind Traditional SEO As much as I would like to stand here and point a disapproving finger suggesting traditional search engine optimization doesn t work, I can t. It does work. Kind of. And I think that s the biggest problem with it. Page 20

22 When something kind of works, we rarely search for a better solution. Instead, we hold onto the hope that what has gotten decent results for some in the past will eventually get decent results for the rest of us in the future. But don t you want better than decent? Besides, even if you were successful, what is the measure of success? Traffic. The goal of traditional search engine optimization is to increase your traffic. The idea is that the more traffic you have the more business you will get. This is known as the spaghetti theory. 9 If you throw enough spaghetti at the wall, something is bound to stick. In other words, get as many people to your site as possible and chances are someone will buy something. It s all in the numbers. The same thought process used car salesmen subscribe to, and we all know how warm and fuzzy they make us feel. It doesn t work. All it does is leave you with a false sense of security that your next sale is right around the corner if you just had a little more traffic. And while more traffic is a necessity for growing your business online, it is a small piece of the puzzle. Yet most people gauge the success of their website on these numbers. 9 Not to be confused with The Spaghetti Incident? An album recorded by 1980 s metal band Guns N Roses which has received such rave reviews as unforgivable and I just threw up in my mouth. Page 21

23 Here s how it usually goes. You spend months focused on traditional SEO in an effort to increase your traffic. Eventually you see a slight bump. But what happens when that bump does not come from quality visitors? Nothing. You end up with a few extra tick marks on a chart that does not translate into the tangible results you hoped and dreamed about. That s two months of time, effort and money wasted. So you head off in another direction chasing after the next big thing that guarantees to double your traffic. You blindly follow the false promise of every SEO prophet that comes your way via book, program, seminar and blog and assures you that results are right around the corner. 10 And when that one fails to bring in the amount of new business you expect, you search for the next one. This pattern repeats itself over and over again until you finally become frustrated and jaded by the process. You accuse SEO companies of being charlatans and snake oil salesmen and inevitably accept the fact that your website is never going to have the impact you once dreamed it would. This cross your fingers and hope for the best mentality isn t going to cut it moving into the future. Your visitors are getting smarter and Google is becoming more and more human with each update. It s getting more difficult every day to trick everyone into thinking that you are good enough to be camped out on page one. 10 I recognize the irony in this statement as you read this book. Page 22

24 What if Everything You Were Taught About Traffic Was Wrong? If an increase in traffic really was the answer, then the solution would be as simple as hiring a bunch of interns to go to your website and hit refresh over and over again until they had carpal tunnel syndrome and left you with a pretty impressive traffic report. That s not what you had in mind? Well, I hate to say this, but traditional SEO isn t that much different. You create search engine friendly content, 11 write blog posts with little or no substance, build hundreds or even thousands of poor quality links from low ranking websites and whatever other flavor-of-the-month backdoor technique is discovered after the publishing of this book. All to trick someone into landing on your website which does nothing but attempt to sell them your goods or services without trying to figure out what they need first. There is some good news though. Your traffic went up! Rejoice! I m here to tell you that this is what is stopping you from succeeding. Not Google. It s this goal of increasing your traffic that is keeping you from accomplishing your goal of increasing your traffic. When all you care about is traffic, the actions you will take are focused solely on increasing the number of hits to your website. Would you rather have 1,000 people visiting your website each day with absolutely no interest in what you have to offer? Or would you be willing to trade that in for just one visitor a day who is madly in love with you, your 11 Which is really just a polite way of saying keyword stuffed sales text. Page 23

25 product or your service? Someone that wants to buy your product. Someone who will rave about your service. Someone who will share your website with their friends. Someone who will review his or her great experience online. The answer is simple. Yet instead of focusing on the real solution, we find ourselves distracted by the numbers. Look at how many hits I got! Look at how many unique visitors I got! Look at the pretty chart with the squiggly line! All of that stuff is great, but if you are not attracting quality visitors who can convert into customers, clients, members, prospects, fans and friends, what good does it do you? You can t pay your mortgage with traffic, nor is it going to put food on the table. Yet, we monitor it as if it were the lifeblood of our business. It s not. Relationships are. Welcome to Search Engine Humanization. Seeking out and building quality relationships through search. Offering so much value to the marketplace that your visitors see you as a valuable resource. Someone they can trust. Someone they connect with. Someone they can have a relationship with. Search Engine Humanization (SEH) What I am suggesting here is that we get our priorities straight and change our focus. Look at this problem from a different perspective. Not as a Google problem but as a human being problem. After all, that s who we Page 24

26 really want to attract to our site, isn t it? Human beings. Google is just the vehicle to get them there. Somewhere along the line human beings went from being valued as visitors, prospects and clients to being just another number. A mere tick mark on an analytics report. Another factor of a mathematical equation. In this case, numbers are the problem, not the solution. Math is black and white. But human beings are every possible shade in between. You can t factor feelings and emotions into a math equation. 12 Numbers don t take into consideration the person you want to attract and they don t help you build a quality relationship. What if you were to strip away all of the technical crap that inherently comes with search engine optimization and really got to know who your ideal visitors were? I m talking about understanding the ins and outs of their personality traits. Who they are and what they wanted. As if you were a fly on the wall of their therapist s office. Not in a sleazy way. But with complete integrity. Because you know that your product or service can help them. Think of the connection you could build. The trust you could form. You would better understand how they search. What they are looking for. What they expect to see once they get there. What is most important to them. What language they speak. And so many other facets of their 12 What s 65 + Happy? The best answer wins another free copy of this book! Page 25

27 decision making process. All of which are vitally important to the success of your SEO campaign. And all it takes is to stop seeing your visitors as a number and start seeing them for what they are. Human beings. This needs to be our new goal. Our new gauge of success. Building relationships. Isn t it fair to say that you would likely find yourself on page one if you were successfully building relationships with visitors by giving away more valuable content than anyone else in your industry? Enough so they were sharing your content? Building links legitimately? Pointing at you as an important resource? Perhaps the best answer to the question they are searching? You would be increasing your relevance and authority more quickly than if you were to continue to try and game the system. And it would result in an increase in traffic as well. Only in this case it would be an increase in quality traffic because you earned it. Not because you tricked Google into thinking you earned it. Page 26

28 Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. ~William Bruce Cameron Page 27

29 Attracting Anyone Who is Hungry I recently had a meeting with a client of mine who owns a small catering company. We were sitting at a diner 13 talking about search engine optimization and the traffic currently hitting his website. He was getting a decent number of visitors everyday but few were converting into actual opportunities. I asked him who his ideal client was and he responded anyone who is hungry! Jackpot!!! We were in a diner and I was starving. In fact, the entire room was filled with hungry people! There were potential clients all around us! So I suggested he stand up on his chair and pitch the room. Instead he just sat there and stared at me as if I had French fries sticking out of my nose. 14 He didn t do it. I didn t think he would. It wouldn t have mattered if he did. He wasn t going to leave with a single prospect either way. Not because he s some nut job standing on a chair at a diner. Not because of the quality of his product or service. Not because of his personality or what he was wearing. But because he was talking to the wrong audience. People sitting at a diner were not ideal clients for him just because they were hungry. He was trying to cast out too big of a net. And when you cast out a big net, you are likely to catch a lot of tires, soda cans and shopping carts. 13 Standard business meeting protocol in New Jersey. 14 They were onion rings. Page 28

30 Do You Know Who You Are Talking To? We re all guilty of this anyone who is hungry mentality when approaching traditional search engine optimization. Just look at how you currently do your keyword research. The main criteria are keywords that have a lot of traffic. No thought is given to the people doing the actual searching. That s the only thing that really matters! Much of your success offline requires you to be in the right place at the right time talking to the right people. For example, I don t care how charismatic you are, you aren t going to sell many jockstraps at a women's entrepreneurial networking event. 15 Your strategy online is no different. Your website needs to be in the right place at the right time attracting the right people otherwise you are not going to sell a whole lot of jockstraps! This requires that you clearly define whom you are talking to, otherwise: You don t know what language to speak You don t know what problems they need solved You don t know how to meet their expectations You don t know how to connect with them You don t know what words they are searching To make matters even more complicated, you likely have several types of potential clients. Each one of them is different. They speak differently. They search differently. They learn differently. They value things differently. And they think differently. You need to somehow connect with each of these visitors on their terms. 15 Although it might be fun to see you try. Page 29

31 Here s a Crappy Example Let s suppose you had three people who were looking for a plumber. One of them was interested in remodeling their bathroom, another came home to three feet of water in the basement due to a broken hot water heater and the third is a contractor who builds new homes. Isn t it fair to assume that each one of these visitors would approach the solution to their problem completely differently? Of course! They would search different terms. They would have different expectations once getting to the site. And they would even speak different languages. The first visitor who is interested in remodeling their bathroom isn t going to just search the word plumber. They are going to alter their search based on quality. And when they land on a website, they are looking for something that shows off the quality of work. Perhaps a gallery of before and after pictures. Maybe some testimonials. And the language they are going to connect with is very calming and reassuring. Someone who can paint a picture of what is possible for their new bathroom. But the visitor with the flooded basement doesn t care about any of that. They need action. Someone who can solve their problem immediately. They re not interested in pictures. They re not interested in your company history. And they re not interested in what previous clients have to say. Their focus is on emergency service. In fact, they would be perfectly fine if 80% of your website was your phone number in a giant red 300 point font size. As for the language, calming is not going to get it done. There is nothing worse than being in a panic and talking to someone who is cool as Page 30

32 a cucumber. 16 When we are in a state of emergency, we need others to be in that same state with us otherwise it makes us feel as though they don t understand the importance of the moment. Our third visitor is a contractor looking for a new vendor. Someone to do all of the plumbing work in a house they are constructing. They want to see the gallery of before and after pictures just like the first visitor. They also want to know they have a good emergency response time just like the second visitor. But what they are most interested in is price and ability to meet deadlines. As an added bonus, from the first moment they search until they are well within the confines of your website they will be looking for and using industry jargon because that is how they speak and they assume you speak the same language. Without intimately knowing each of these different types of visitors you are less likely to target the words they search, talk to them in a language they speak or answer the questions they have. That means they will either not find you when searching or not connect with you if they do find you. Neither is an option. Less Keyword Research + More People Research = Happy Visitors While keyword research is the act of finding keywords to target on your page, people research is the act of finding people to target on your page. These are your ideal clients. Those whom you want to do business with most. And because you want to do business with people and not words, 16 Personally, I don t find cucumbers very cool. Avocados are pretty cool though. Page 31

33 doesn t it make sense that we should be researching people? Let s start by creating a list of our ideal clients. There could be several factors that might make someone an ideal client such as: They are very profitable They are easy to work with They need the type of work you like doing most They give a lot of referrals They are big players in their industry They share their experiences on social media They offer a lot of repeat business Here are some ways to help you start spelling out each of the different visitor personas you might want to attract: Existing Clients: Have you already been in business for a little while? Then search through your existing client base and write down the names of your best clients. Not just the ones who make you the most money, but the ones who are easy to work with. The ones who come back to purchase often. The ones who give you a lot of referrals. The ones who make you think if I only had more of these Competitor s Clients: Take a long hard look at the website of one of your more successful competitors and jot down the names of some of their clients. Chances are if they are posting them on their site, it is a client they are proud of. Meaning it is likely one of their ideal clients. We re not out to steal from them but that doesn t mean that we can t learn from them! Page 32

34 Use Your Imagination: Grab a pen and paper and get away from the computer for a few minutes. Don t worry, Facebook will still be there when you get back. Now, close your eyes 17 and let your mind wander off thinking about your ideal workday. What is your favorite thing to do within the business? If you are a graphic designer is it logo design? Website design? Catalogs? Think through the things you love to do and then start to paint a picture of the person who needs this. Describe each in detail by writing them down. Once you have a list of ideal clients, it s time to get to know them a little better. Answer these questions for each of them: 1) What is their age range? 2) What gender are they? Does it matter? 3) What is their education level? 4) Where are they located? (city, state and/or country) 5) Do they have a specific occupation or position within a company? If so, what is it? 6) What types of questions or challenges do they have? 7) What is important to them? (e.g.. price, quality, timeframe, etc.) Do this for each type of client that you want to do business with. Not just that you can do business with. Once this is filled out, and I know this is going to sound insane, create a name and bio for each one of them. Give them a story. Personalize them. Make them human. For example: 17 If you are driving, pull over first. Page 33

35 Meet Pete Peterson. He s a small business owner located in northern New Jersey. He has a small budget but respects and understands the value of a good website. Because of that he is not interested in a do-it-yourself or template solution, nor does he want to go with a large agency that is going to charge him five figures. He has a basic understanding of how things work but is looking for a vendor whom he can trust to grab the ball and run with it. He has too much on his plate already to have to hold someone else s hand. He is an avid researcher, which makes him an educated client. He is a nice guy who appreciates small talk and not just all business. Once Pete finds the right vendor, he will be with him or her forever. This bio tells us a lot about Pete. We have a good idea of his budget (he s not looking for the cheapest solution, nor the most expensive). We know quality is important (he s not interested in a template or a do-it-yourself solution). We know what he is looking for when he gets to your website (he s an avid researcher, so he likely found his way to your website while looking for answers and would like to see more). We know he is looking for a relationship, not just a vendor (he appreciates small talk and will stay with the same company forever). And much more. Knowing all this information about Pete will no doubt affect the language you use throughout the pages of your site. It will affect what you write about, the questions you answer and most importantly, the words you use the same words Pete searches. It will help you attract more clients like Pete, from the minute they begin their search until they hire you. Page 34

36 And because Pete is an ideal client, having more just like him is exactly what your business needs. That is what Search Engine Humanization is all about. Page 35

37 If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. ~Nelson Mandela Page 36

38 How to Speak to Your Audience I m assuming by now you have figured out that when we say someone speaks a different language we are not talking about French, Spanish or Chinese. We are talking about those little intricacies in the way someone speaks, thinks and most importantly in this case, searches. For example, you may be looking for a nutritionist while I am looking for a dietician and yet we are both looking for the same person. The question isn t a matter of which term gets more traffic. The question is which term does your ideal client use. The traffic itself is useless if you are speaking to the wrong person. Let s use our pal Pete Peterson from the previous chapter as an example. Suppose you were doing your traditional keyword research when you stumbled upon the term Website Design Firm which appears to get a significant amount of traffic without being too competitive. You in turn write several pages of content relevant to that term with the thought of ranking well for it. The problem is Pete. If you remember, he was on a pretty tight budget. Enough so that we specified that he was not looking for a big agency. Because of that, we can determine it s fairly unlikely that he will search terms like Website Design Firm or Website Design Agency because the words firm and agency tend to cater to larger organizations. He is much more likely to search Website Design Company or even get local and search New Jersey Website Design Company knowing a local shop is more in line with what he is looking for. Page 37

39 If your goal was to attract Pete as a new client, traditional keyword research would not have gotten it done. It required extensive people research and having a clear vision of your visitor personas to have attracted Pete and other visitors like him. Crawling Inside Your Visitor s Heads Not everyone thinks exactly like you. 18 That means that optimizing your site for words you would search isn t always the best strategy. You need to find out what words they are likely to search. That means you need to somehow get in the head of these visitor personas that you created in order to figure out what language they speak and what words they use. Here are a few ways to get you started: Shut Up and Listen: This is the easiest way to go about it. Stop talking and just listen. Listen to your existing clients. Listen to the people you work with. Listen to colleagues at networking events. Listen to your friends on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Just listen. The answer is out there. All you need to do is to stop talking for a second and be receptive to it. Ask: You don t have to just listen, you can also ask. Start with the contact form on your website and make sure there is a field that asks prospects what term they searched to find you. Ask your ideal clients what they might search if they were looking for you. Send out a questionnaire through Survey Monkey 19 that asks specific questions not directly related 18 Shocker! 19 Page 38

40 to keywords and notice the language they use. You could even read through old s from your existing clients in order to have a better understanding of the words they use. Thesaurus: Try looking up some of the more obvious words in a thesaurus to see if something triggers an idea. Find yourself digging deeper into the obvious terms in order to find new words you would not have otherwise thought of. Industry Speak: Sometimes we get so caught up in how we say or do something that we often forget other people might say it differently. For example, like most website designers, I always spell website as one word. But there is an enormous population of people out there who are looking to hire a web site designer that should not be ignored just because it s different than the industry norm. Statistics: Look at your Google Analytics report. Run a report that shows all of the search terms that have been used over the past year or more. Highlight anything you find that jumps out at you as something one of your visitor personas might search. By the time you are done, you should already have a good understanding of who you are trying to attract. You know who they are, you have a complete bio and visitor persona written out for each one, and now you know what language they speak. The only thing you are missing now is knowing how to get through to them Page 39

41 Three Ways Visitors Learn (or Don t Learn) From You Search engine humanization doesn t just end the moment the person searching lands on your website like it does with traditional SEO. You now have to keep them there. It s not just what you say, but how you say it. Do you know how your visitors learn from you? Do you know how they form their opinions? Do you know what keeps them from bouncing off your page? Each person visiting your website is different. But they all have one thing in common. They digest your content using one of three learning and communication styles. Though each of us learns using all three, we favor one over the other two. That is the one we rely on. The one we see most things through. Visual The first type is the visual learner. This is someone who is going to connect with you based on the way things look. To a degree, we all judge a book by its cover, 20 but for your visitors who learn visually, they take it to a whole new level. Visual learners expect to see a nice professional design with plenty of pictures that coincide with the message of that page. They won t read your text at first. Instead, they are more likely to scan it. Because of that, it s going to be extremely important that you lay out your text using subheaders, bullet points, links, bold text, etc. Anything that can turn your text into something more visual. 20 Except you. You re perfect. Page 40

42 Using lorem ipsum, here is an example of the difference between using straight text and text that is laid out more visually (see Figure 1a and Figure 1b). Without reading a word you can see how much easier it would be to get the point of the story visually this way. This is not just to appease your visual learners. Google also loves content that is formatted and broken up in this way as well Figure 1a Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris accumsan mollis tincidunt. Sed ac malesuada lorem. Pellentesque at libero metus. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Integer quis sem enim. Pellentesque nibh arcu, vestibulum eu semper ut, tristique ac libero. Aliquam non elit purus, sed dictum sem. Pellentesque ornare enim vel elit adipiscing non vestibulum tortor sollicitudin. Suspendisse sapien nulla, scelerisque id eleifend sed, rhoncus a nibh. Sed sed ante at ante consequat congue bibendum in tortor. Phasellus elementum velit eget orci eleifend rhoncus. Donec quis nisi tortor. Proin vel magna non nibh tempus dapibus sed nec mi. Cras mattis neque vel massa faucibus non porttitor tellus lacinia. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. In et urna a quam accumsan lacinia. Nulla facilisi. Nam dolor est, volutpat vel congue ac, pellentesque id sem. Maecenas pulvinar urna ac mauris pretium cursus. Page 41

43 Figure 1b Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris accumsan mollis tincidunt. Sed ac malesuada lorem. Pellentesque at libero metus. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Integer quis sem enim. Pellentesque nibh arcu, vestibulum eu semper ut. Aliquam non elit purus, sed dictum sem. Pellentesque ornare enim vel elit adipiscing non. Suspendisse sapien nulla, scelerisque id eleifend sed Sed sed ante at ante consequat congue bibendum in tortor. Phasellus elementum velit eget orci eleifend rhoncus. Donec quis nisi tortor. Proin vel magna non nibh tempus dapibus sed nec mi. Cras mattis neque vel massa faucibus non porttitor tellus lacinia. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. In et urna a quam accumsan lacinia. Nulla facilisi. Nam dolor est, volutpat vel congue ac, pellentesque id sem. Maecenas pulvinar urna ac mauris pretium cursus. Page 42

44 Auditory The second type of learner is auditory. Someone who connects through either written or spoken words. Auditory learners will read through every word on your site. This is why you will lose visitors when you follow the advice of that spammy SEO company which utilizes content crammed full of keywords in an attempt to appease Google. You lose credibility instantly when someone who has an auditory strength reads something like this: Grass Munchers is a professional landscaping company in New Jersey that focuses on professional landscaping in New Jersey. So if you are looking for a professional landscaping company in New Jersey, look no further as we are known as the premier professional landscaping company in New Jersey. I wouldn t hire them, let alone someone who values the written word as much as an auditory learner does. They may be the best, but if what I read makes you sound like an idiot then I am going to assume that you are an idiot and move on. 21 It is better to write well-written content instead and use your keywords less. Not only will your auditory visitors connect better with it, but Google will reward you handsomely for writing higher quality content. Kinesthetic 21 Of course, the company name doesn t help much either. Page 43

45 Kinesthetic is just a fancy word for touchy feely. These are people who learn from clicking around your site without paying to much attention to the design or content at first. If your site only has one or two pages without many links or buttons you are not speaking their language. You aren t giving them enough to touch, in which case the only other button they have at their disposal is the back button on their browser and you just lost a visitor. The key to accommodating your kinesthetic users is to have a very well thought out navigation throughout your website. That means you need to have plenty of pages and sub-pages for these visitors to click through without being spammy. For example, break your services page up into multiple pages, one for each service that you provide. It s better to have three pages with 500 words per page than one page with 1,500 words per page for kinesthetic learners. This also means that if you have a blog, you should have very well thought out categories and tags. Same with your e-commerce site. Make sure all of your products are broken up into several categories. This not only gives our kinesthetic friends more to click on but it also forces you to make sure your website goes much deeper than just a few top level pages. Google loves a deep site with a lot of meat on the bones! Here s Where it Gets Tricky Page 44

46 As you can see, by setting up your site in such a way to accommodate each learning style, you are also giving Google plenty of fuel. It s a win/win/win. Visitors get the answers they need. Google has high quality content to return to the searcher. And you end up with a quality visitor spending time on your site. But you need to be careful. Just like the rest of us humans, you tend to favor one of these learning styles. Maybe you are a visual learner. Or auditory. Or maybe even kinesthetic. You will no doubt find yourself making decisions based on the learning style that is your strength. If you are very visual, you will find yourself focusing most of your efforts on the design and very little on the content or navigation. If you are auditory, you will be focused solely on the content and not so much on the actual design or navigation of the site. If you are kinesthetic, you will end up with a navbar that has 30 buttons on it and will be completely convoluted to everyone who comes to your site except you and your kinesthetic brothers and sisters. None of these are viable options. They leave you with a site that alienates two-thirds of your visitors so a majority of the time you have spent driving traffic to your website is wasted. You need to force yourself to see your site and the content on it through all three sets of these eyes. Regardless of which way you learn. You will not only increase your conversion rate by connecting with more types of users but you will make Google very happy with your well formatted content, well thought out text and well structured navigation. Page 45

47 If you are not growing you are dying ~Tony Robbins (A bunch of other people said this too. I leave you to do your own research on who said it first!) Page 46

48 Being a Non-Experts Expert Let me start by saying that I don t believe any of us are true experts. Including myself. There is just too much out there to learn and too many people out there to learn from to think for a second that we have arrived and know all there is to know about a topic. When you see yourself as an expert, you tend to cut yourself off from learning anything new from anyone or anything. You have reached the pinnacle of knowledge within your field. That is a very dangerous place to live because when you start to believe you know all there is to know, you stop growing. And if you have read the quote that opened this chapter, you know what happens when you stop growing. Put it this way. If Tiger Woods still needs a golf coach because he doesn t know it all, it s safe to assume you don t have all the answers in your field either. But you do have some. Perhaps a lot of them. And there are thousands of people out there searching for those answers and they are looking for someone just like you. A trusted advisor. An expert. And you can be that expert without actually being an expert. Page 47

49 Let me explain. You can position yourself as an expert within your industry without running around calling yourself an expert. 22 It may sound like semantics, but there is a huge difference between calling yourself an expert and people in your community calling you an expert. Start Being an Expert By Not Calling Yourself an Expert The first step in being an expert is not being an expert. A true expert (which there are very few roaming this planet) would never label himself or herself as such. They recognize how much more they really have to learn in the grand scheme of things. It s insulting to the process of growth and innovation for someone to think for a second that he or she knows all there ever is to know about a subject. More importantly, it takes the attention off of the value you bring to your visitors. When you make an otherwise awkward attempt to sell us on this made up superhero-esque persona you created. You have turned your knowledge into marketing when you should be turning your marketing into knowledge. In fact, more often than not, claiming to be an expert, guru, ninja or rock star in your field does little more than shine a bright light on the fact that you aren t any of these things. That you are merely hiding behind them. And because of that, I think it s important that we begin to see the word expert a little differently. Alter our understanding of what an expert is 22 Or guru, ninja, Jedi or rock star... Page 48

50 and how we will define it within the pages of this book. And how we can leverage this new definition. How to Know Everything Without Knowing Everything If you look up the word expert in the dictionary, it is defined as a person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area which I think is pretty spot on. Far be it from me to tell Webster how to define the words in their little book. The problem isn t how the dictionary defines the word expert. The problem is how we define it. The word expert, or the status of being an expert, has a stigma attached to it. Perhaps because so many people claim to be experts online, we have become numb to it. Or maybe even jaded by it. Whatever it is, it seems the word has lost its power. In an effort to restore some of that power, I believe we need to redefine it. So, for the sake of this concept of Search Engine Humanization, I would like to redefine the term expert as a person or company that has a well thought out, educated and intelligent answer to a question and is willing to openly share it with their community. That takes a lot of the pressure off of being an expert. You don t need to know everything in order to position yourself as an expert. All you really need to know is more than your potential visitor and a willingness to do whatever it takes to give people the best answer you can find to their questions. With no strings attached. This fits in perfectly with our understanding of how search engines work. Page 49

51 I call this being a non-expert expert. The ego has been sucked out of it. It s no longer a matter of bragging. It s a matter of making yourself available to help those who have a need. This forces you to do things differently. Would you ever outsource the writing of your blog to someone who knew less than you if others were counting on you as their expert? Would you stuff your pages full of keywords to the point where the text was illegible if you were looked up to by the community as an expert in your industry? Or would you do everything you could to ensure you were giving your visitors the best possible answer to their questions? Which, as luck would have it, happens to be exactly what Google is looking for. Page 50

52 Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. ~Thomas Edison Page 51

53 Blog Your Ass Off In order to position yourself as an expert, you need someplace to flex that expert muscle of yours. Someplace where you can give back to the community by sharing what you know. The best forum for this is a blog. It is the most powerful tool in your arsenal that allows you to talk directly with all of those visitor personas that you created earlier. The problem? Everyone has a blog. And 95% of them suck. 23 They are either poorly written, inconsistent, irrelevant or have been abandoned for years 24. If you are going to blog, an ordinary blog is not going to be enough. You are going to have to start blogging your ass off. There is a difference. Nobody Cares About You The reason most ordinary blogs fail from the perspective of Search Engine Humanization is because they are self-serving drivel used only to sell someone s crappy product or service. They blog about case studies (i.e. how great they are) or they blog about things their product has done (i.e. 23 That s putting it kindly. 24 Abandoned blogs have become an epidemic. In fact, Sally Struthers and I will be holding a telethon in a few months to see if we could find a new home for some of these poor souls. I ll keep you posted. Page 52

54 how great their product is) or about the lives their services have changed (i.e. how great their service is). Nobody cares. Visitors don t care about you and they don t care about your product. Sorry. The only reason they are on your site is because they have a question and are hoping that you have the answer. It s not because they want to learn where you went to school. Think of it this way. Suppose your house was on fire 25 and you called the fire department. The fire truck pulls up, grabs the hose and the fireman makes his way to your front door in all of his gear. Before he turns the water on to put your house out of its misery, he proceeds to tell you all about himself. What a good fireman he is, the awards he won, how the hose works, the fact that the truck is only a few years old and maybe even a story about another fire that he put out a few weeks ago. Do you care? Or do you want him to solve your problem first and then you guys can chitchat all day about how great he is. I m with you. I vote we put out the fire first. Your visitors feel the same way once they get to your site. It is about them, not you. They have a problem and they are looking for a solution. Stop focusing on how awesome you are. 25 I bet you just knocked on wood, didn t you? Page 53

55 If you want to talk about yourself, only do so when asked. Meaning, have a page set aside with your company bio, testimonials, credentials, etc. That kind of stuff is important to build your credibility, but let them find it. You shouldn t be shoving it down their throat and you certainly shouldn t use your blog as an opportunity to talk about yourself. The Secrets to a Blog That Doesn t Suck In order for your blog to actually help you in your quest to position yourself as an expert to your visitors and prove to Google that you are worthy of a spot in the top ten, there are several things that you must do. Give Away More Value Than Anyone Else in Your Industry Those that are going to try and do it themselves weren t planning on buying from you anyway so stop worrying about giving out too many answers. Give it all away! Everything! Even that big trade secret that you ve been keeping to yourself for fear of someone stealing it from you. Give away more value than anyone else in your industry is willing to give and more value than any of your visitors would ever expect you to give. Why is this important? Think back to the chapter on how search engines work. The more quality content that you have on your website, the more relevant your website becomes for that subject. Giving away all of this quality information dramatically increases the number of opportunities you will have to appear at the top of the search. It will introduce your website to thousands of new visitors that are specifically looking for the answers that Page 54

56 you have. Not all of them are going to convert to a new client or customer, but many will! Another benefit is that your website becomes an industry resource. This means that visitors will come back often. They will share your content with their communities through their social channels and even link to your blog posts from their website building links to your site naturally. All of this will help increase the authority of your website. The other key factor in your ranking if you remember. Quality Versus Quantity A lot of people assume that the more content you have the better. Not necessarily true. Google is in search of the best possible answer, not the most possible answers. Sure, having a lot of content on your website is ideal, but given the choice of quality versus quantity, quality wins every time. When writing a blog, regardless of whether you are trying to attract readers, search engines or both, what matters first and foremost is the quality of your content. Not just because readers are rarely going to waste their time reading mediocre content. Not just because search engines are going to ignore or possibly even penalize pages stuffed with keywords. But because readers take action on extraordinary content. They share great posts. They link to great posts. They comment on great posts. And there is nothing Google likes more than really good content that people all over the Internet find important enough to share and talk about. Page 55

57 So, write good stuff. Stuff that matters. Stuff that is thought provoking. Stuff that is educational. Entertaining. Valuable. Controversial. Stuff that makes other people wish they wrote it. The actual number of words you write is completely irrelevant to whether it is a good post or not in terms of search engine humanization. Remember, we don t care about keyword density or anything like that. I ve read some incredibly well written posts that were only 150 words and others that were a disaster that had 2,500 words. Likewise, I have also read posts that kept me on the edge of my seat for all 2,500 words and others that I couldn t finish yet were only 150 words. I don t care. Your visitors don t care. And Google doesn t care. Length doesn t matter. Write until you get your point across and then stop. Be sure to fully answer the question for the reader. Don t pay any attention to word count. The reader will find your post valuable only if in fact your post is valuable. Period. Be Opinionated or Controversial Nothing is worse than a blog that tries to balance right smack on the middle of the fence. Have an opinion. Be controversial. Maybe even alienate people a little bit. You can t answer a math problem with maybe in an effort to remain safe. Same for your blog. Pick a side and position yourself as a valuable resource that offers plenty of evidence that you are right. Page 56

58 Sure, you could argue that you might lose a few visitors but that s OK. If you are being true to yourself in your writing then they likely aren t great clients for you anyway! Remember, you aren t trying to attract everyone who is hungry! For example, I m sure there will be plenty of people that will bash this book because nowhere in it do I teach you how to properly construct Meta tags. My opinion is that they aren t nearly as important as positioning yourself as an expert in order to add value to both readers and Google. Saying something a little different or choosing a specific viewpoint to work from will connect with those that you don t piss off. You won t just be another blogger blending into the sea of content that is currently out there. That means your visitors are more likely to respect you, more likely to share what you have to say and ultimately more likely to hire you. Just don t be a jackass and light something on fire and run away. Be controversial. Challenge people to think differently. Even piss people off a bit. But don t run. Take your medicine and be ready to fight for your opinion publicly. That s why it is so important for you to believe in what you are saying from the very depths of your soul. Be Consistent Not only does Google like to see that you are consistently updating your site like clockwork, but we as your readers do as well. If you are blogging once every other month, it makes it very difficult for us as your readers to commit to your blog. We don t want to fall in love with a blog only to get Page 57

59 left at the alter. If you aren t willing to commit to your own blog then why should we? The thought is that the more frequent you write, the more often people will come back to read and share. This is partly true. They will. But they only will come back often to share extraordinary content. If you are able to describe your content as OK or gets the job done, it s not good enough!! It is MUCH better for you to write one very well thought out and well written post each week than it is to write 3 pretty good posts in that same amount of time. Readers don t share pretty good. It is best to choose one or two days a week to blog at most. Don t blog every day. Not unless you have several writers and a good enough reason. There is nothing worse than another site regurgitating the same crap as everyone else everyday because they ran out of ideas after a month or two. It s always better to write one extraordinary blog post a week than 5 mediocre ones. So, pick one or two days a week to blog. Maybe every Wednesday. Or if you want to blog twice a week maybe Monday and Wednesday. Or Tuesday and Thursday. Whatever it is, decide and commit to it. Once you have decided you are going to have to stick with it. That means no missing days or giving up after a few weeks when you are out of ideas. Page 58

60 Once Google recognizes that you are updating your blog regularly every week on the same day and at the same time, you will notice that your new pages get indexed within hours of being published. And of course the sooner your posts are indexed the sooner they begin to show up in a search. This is all part of raising your authority. Give a Shit This is the most important aspect of blogging. It s what separates those that are wasting their time with those that are making a difference. The big secret to a successful blog is actually caring. Not just blogging for what it could bring to you, but what it could bring to your readers. If your blog has even the slightest stench of keyword research, sales text, Meta tags, link building or any other technique that suggests the purpose of this blog is catch visitors in your net, it is going to fail. You need to be willing and able to help your visitors in any way that you can. No strings attached. The Formula for Writing Extraordinary Content There is actually a formula for writing extraordinary content. You obviously have to be a decent writer to start with, but you don t have to be Shakespeare. It s also important that you carve out a specific amount of time each day to write so you are constantly working at your craft. But the formula? That s pretty simple. In fact, it is so simple that it s actually quite difficult. Here it is: Page 59

61 Step 1: Step 2: Step 3: Step 4: Step 5: Step 6: Write Read what you wrote Ask yourself, What are three things I could change to make it better? Make those changes Go away Repeat these steps until you can t come up with three things to make it better That s it. Follow those instructions and the posts you publish will be your best work each time. Sometimes you will go through the post seven, eight or even nine times. Other posts will be perfect after two or three times. Sure, this takes more effort than if you were to just write something and post it, but it will be well worth the effort. Link Building the Way Nature Intended Aside from flexing your smarty-pants 26 muscles and helping your visitors with their problems, there is another good reason that you should be blogging your ass off. When we were talking about how search engines worked earlier in the book, the concept of your websites authority was introduced. One way to increase the authority of your website is to have other well respected sites link to pages within your site. This is why so many SEO companies do nothing but link building in order to game the system. They build hundreds or even thousands of links each 26 Yes, this is the second time I used the word smarty-pants. One more time and I think it s a record. Somebody call the Guinness Book of World Records! Page 60

62 month on crappy forum sites and link farms thinking that would increase their authority. The problem with this strategy is you gain authority by the quality of sites that point to you, not the quantity. If only the dumbest kids in school point to you as being the smartest in the class, are you really the smartest? Of course not. On the other hand, if all of the smart kids in class and even the teacher point to you as being the smartest, well they just might be onto something. If you build extraordinary content that educates or entertains your visitors and stands out as extremely valuable you are going to attract other bloggers, site owners and companies that will want to link to your post. In the eyes of Google, they are pointing to your site as having something important to say and up goes your authority. You are going to build links the natural way as Google had intended. It sounds easier than it is. Unfortunately there is nothing you can do about it besides write extraordinary content that people want to read and share. You can t ask or buy your way into building authority naturally using link building. What Does All of This Have to Do with SEH? Writing extraordinary content not only affects how often your readers come back or sign up for your newsletter or comment on a post. It affects how often they share it within the social media site of their choice. It affects how often they point to it as an authoritative post on their blog. And that is the best way to build inbound links to your site. Naturally! Page 61

63 It goes something like this. The better your content is, the more often it is shared. The more often it is shared, the more authoritative it becomes. The more authoritative it becomes, the higher it will rank on Google. The higher it ranks on Google, the more people find you. The more people find you, the more often the phone rings. The more often the phone rings, the more successful your business gets. The more successful your business gets, the more often you get to do the happy dance. So it s simple. If you want to spend more time doing the happy dance because more readers and customers found you online, start by blogging your ass off! Page 62

64 You can have everything in life that you want if you just give enough other people what they want. ~Zig Ziglar Page 63

65 The Forgotten Step in the Sales Process Now that you have a blog and you are prepared to blog your ass off, you re going to find you will be out of things to say within about two or three weeks. There is a secret to finding blog content that accomplishes every one of the goals we spoke about in this book. It will help you be more relevant so you rank more often. It will make your site more authoritative so you rank faster and higher. Your visitors will love it and want to share it. And Google will reward you for it. All you have to do solve problems. That s it. If you are in business, then you are in the business of solving problems. It doesn t matter what it is that you do. It doesn t matter what industry you are in. If you are good at solving problems, you will succeed. If you aren t good at solving problems, you will not succeed. It s as simple as that. Where most search engine optimization strategies fail is that they focus on solving the wrong problems your problems. Not the problems of your visitors. A successful SEH campaign is not about you or what you want. At all. None of us care what you want. In fact, you are the only one in the equation that really doesn t matter. Your visitors matter. The search engines matter. You don t. Not initially anyway. Page 64

66 You want to rank for certain keyword phrases that you feel are important to your ideal clients and increase your customer base. So you write really good sales copy that is cleverly littered with your keyword phrases in an attempt to win Google s affection at the expense of your visitors attention. You, you, you. That is no longer going to cut it. And to us visitors, your strategy clearly reflects that me, me, me, I, I, I approach. Questionable link building practices, publishing poorly written blog posts that offer no value, a shove it down your throat social media mentality and bastardized pages stuffed with keywords that read as though you don t have a good grasp of the English language. As Google becomes more and more human with each algorithm change, this strategy is going to become less and less effective. Stop Selling People that Are Not Ready to Buy The problem is that we are too busy trying to sell to figure out what our visitors really need. After all, the majority of business websites are considered sales tools and so their purpose is to sell. So, we hone in on search terms like New Jersey Roofer with the idea that if someone is looking for a roofer in New Jersey, there is a good chance that they will search that term and find our website. It s a decent strategy. But there is a big problem with it. Page 65

67 Selling is actually Step 2 of the sales process. By only focusing on selling people that are ready to buy, you are turning away the majority of your visitors that are not yet ready to buy. When someone begins their search, they are not looking for a vendor. They are looking for answers. They have questions like How do I know if my roof needs to be replaced? or How long does a roof last? or What is the best type of shingle to use on my roof? Before your customers are actual customers they are students. The first step for them does not include having their credit card out waiting for you to sell them something. For them, the first step of the sales process is education. They are searching for answers and they will find them online. It s just a matter of who will give them to them. Here is the reason why you want it to be you. During that education phase, they are building trust. They are learning from you and you are asking nothing in return. So, not only did they find you early on in the process of searching, but you answered a lot of their questions. You have positioned yourself as an expert to them. When they get to a point where they are ready to buy something, who do you think they are going to buy from? Just anybody they find off the street? Or the company that has been helping them throughout the process and has asked for nothing in return? Their expert. There is a funny thing that we have as humans. A nagging feeling that suggests we give back to anyone that gives to us. If you give someone a referral, that person will work ten times harder to return the favor and give Page 66

68 you a referral back. So when we educate someone and help them, not only do they see you as an expert in the industry but they feel a certain obligation to at least give you a chance at doing the work when it comes time to actually hire someone. What Do They Want To Know? The challenge is to figure out what your potential clients are struggling with. Before you are able to solve everyone else s problems you have to discover what they are. What are the things that have them trolling around the Internet looking for a solution to? What are the things that are keeping them up at night? What is the proverbial thorn that you can pull out of their side? You need to know what these questions are. And they need to come from your clients. You see, you tend to think like a business owner. A business owner that stubbornly thinks they know what their clients want. Instead, you need hear these questions right from the horse s mouth. Your potential clients. Not what you think they might ask and how you think they might ask them. But word for word what their questions are. Keep a notebook by the phone and anytime someone calls with a question, write it down. In fact, make sure everyone in your company that interacts with your clients or prospects is keeping an ear open for questions and writing them down. The reason this is important is because chances are they or someone just like them is searching that exact question. Word for word. Page 67

69 If you are just starting out or don t easily have access to your client base, then you can make the questions up yourself. Just make sure to put yourself in your customer s shoes. Think like them. Talk like them. Be them. Make a list of at least 25 questions that you know your visitors are struggling with. For example, if you are a plumber, one of those questions might be: How can I tell when my hot water heater needs to be replaced? or What is the difference between Brand X and Brand Y furnace? Don t stop until you come up with at least 25, 50, 100 or better yet, just don t stop! The more questions you have the more opportunities you will have to help a potential visitor. And the more chances you have at helping a potential visitor, the more chances you have of building a new relationship online. And that s what really leads to a new customer. All You Need is the Right Answer Now all you need to do is construct a comprehensive answer to each of those questions and schedule them as your weekly blog. Just remember. The answers that you come up with need to be EXTRAORDINARY. No exceptions. Start with the Title Page 68

70 Everything starts with your title. It s easy. Just use your question. Or at least some form of your question. You can mix it up a bit if you want by making your title a statement or a list if you want. For example: What is the Difference Between Sod and Seed? The Difference Between Sod and Seed Top 10 Differences Between Using Sod and Seed Just don t try and get too clever or cryptic with your titles. You want to make sure that your title includes the exact language that your client used when asking the question because that is most likely how they are going to search it! Answering the Question Next, answer the question in the body of the post. Your answers need to be thorough. Not one or two word answers. Answer them as if you were teaching a five year old. Often you will be talking to someone that knows little or nothing so don t make any assumptions. Be specific and thorough in your answers! Continue to reuse the same language used in the question throughout your post. For example: There is a big difference between sod and seed. When using sod blah, blah, blah. Write in a very conversational tone. Make it interesting. Funny. Entertaining. Don t just inform, make it a good read. Something that not Page 69

71 only answers the question but makes people want to read more and better yet share your answer. The Quest that Never Ends As I said earlier, you should never consider yourself an expert because you will find that you stop trying to learn. This quest of searching for questions and answering them on your site never ends. And that s a good thing. You will see that over time your quality traffic will increase hand over fist with each post you publish. Your phone will ring more often. And the best part is, you are doing nothing sneaky to try and trick Google so there is no fear of getting burned by the next algorithm change. You have the answers. Share them. Educate. Often. Become invaluable to both your visitors and to search engines. The site with the best content and the best answers is the one that is going to win. It could either be you or your competition. That part is up to you. Page 70

72 Conclusion Again. I know what you re thinking. All of this sounds like an awful lot of work. Isn t it just easier to pick out some heavily trafficked keywords? Stuff them on a page with some moronic sales text? Maybe update a few meta tags and then hire someone on Fiverr to build a bunch of poor quality links to those pages in an effort to trick Google into thinking you re important? Absolu wait can I please finish for once?!? Absolutely not! I was going to say absolutely not. And here s why. All of these quick fix solutions are great in the moment. There was a time when article marketing was the darling of SEO companies everywhere. But then along came the Google Panda update. Then SEO-ers moved onto link building as the silver bullet that was supposed to fix it all. But then along came the Google Penguin update. There have been dozens and dozens of quick fix solutions from exact match domain names to keyword density to meta tags and countless others. Do you know what they all have in common? They are all extinct. They no longer have the impact they once did. And whatever new technique is discovered next is going to die of the same fate. It s just a matter of when and how it affects you when it does. Page 71

73 The one thing that is not going to go extinct? Building relationships and creating valuable content. Good quality content that serves a higher purpose to your visitors and adds value to the Internet. If you are able to do something that adds value to those searching. And that adds value to Google s results. You will continue to survive and even thrive whenever there is an update or a new technology out there that has SEO companies shaking in their boots. I don t know about you, but I like to sleep at night. I d prefer not to spend every day running around trying to figure out where the next hole in the boat is. Especially when it s just a matter of time before Google plugs it up. I think that time is better spent writing quality content and helping my fellow searchers. Being an upstanding citizen in the online community. You will never get penalized for helping someone out. You will never get penalized for writing quality content. And you will never get penalized for thinking of your visitors before you think of yourself. But you will get rewarded. So, keep the faith and keep fighting the good fight. It might not be easy, but I promise it will be worth it! Page 72

74 Acknowledgements Let s face it. This isn t the Oscars so I won t bore you with an overly dramatic speech about how I couldn t have done this without Bubbles, my pet fish. But there are some people I would like to thank because without them, this book would not be possible. First, I would like to thank my wife Aimee Ensign and my two kids Bella and Super Zach. Without their involvement this book would have been done months ago, but wouldn t have been nearly as fun or rewarding to write and release. On a related note, I would also like to thank Bose QuietComfort 15 Acoustic Noise Canceling headphones. Of course, what kind of son would I be if I did not thank my parents Jane Ensign-Calka and Stuart Ensign for tolerating each other long enough to raise me to be the outstanding young citizen you see before you. And then of course there are a bunch of other people like friends, siblings, in-laws and what not that would be ticked off at me for forgetting to include them, so in order to save me the embarrassment of accidentally leaving someone out and save you the trouble of having to read the names of a bunch of people that you don t know or care about, I am leaving a little space for those people to write in their own names: Page 73

75 There are tons of people out there that inspire me every single day. Those that have me out of breath trying to keep up with them. They deserve a little nod here as well. Some of them include Chris Brogan, Jullian Smith, Matt Cutts, Jill Whalen, Lee Odden, Jon Morrow, Brian Gardner, Seth Godin, Jay Baer, Joel Comm, Darren Rowse, Guy Kawasaki, Mitch Joel, Jairek Robbins, Anthony Robbins, David Meerman Scott, Jim Rohn, Chris Guillebeau, Gary Vaynerchuk, Matthew Inman (for the grammar rules), Rand Fishkin, Hal Elrod, Tommy Walker and of course the folks from Copyblogger, Hubspot, Search Engine Land, Social Media Examiner, Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Journal, SEOmoz, Mashable, Social Media Explorer and the thousands of other brilliant writers, bloggers and human beings floating out there. And of course. You. Whoever you are and however you found this book, thanks for reading it and telling everyone you know how great it is (hint, hint). Page 74

76 About Marc Ensign My name is Marc. And my mission is to save the Internet. I know. It sounds like a pretty big undertaking. Perhaps a bit misguided. Or maybe even maniacally delusional that I would even attempt to singlehandedly take on correcting the course of the Internet as it rapidly heads for a catastrophic collision with bad taste and vulgar commercialism. But that's only because you don't know me. Yet. Since 1998, I have been actively involved in the world of digital marketing as a speaker, author and consultant. And I have the fancy schmancy statistics to prove it: I am responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in products and services sold online by my clients I have helped tens of thousands of people around the world live their dream on the Internet I have earned billions of page views for myself, my company and my clients. In other words, I don't just talk about it. I do it. Page 75