Category Archives: Blog

Posted on by

Is Management For You?

10 Reasons Why You May Not Really Want to Be the Boss

Think you want that top management job?  Before you leap have a look at this article and make sure you’ve thought through what it really means to be a manager.  Here are 10 of the toughest parts about being the boss.  If you’re not ready to take on each and every one of these downsides, then I’m sorry, but management jobs aren’t for you.

1.         You’ll have to make decisions that other people won’t like: 

Whether it’s ending a favourite promotion, not hiring an employee’s friend, or scheduling people to work over a bank holiday weekend (Or worse a hurling match weekend in Kilkenny), you’ll have to make decisions that may not be popular with your team.

2.         You’ll need to tell people they’re not performing well:

Sometimes these will be people you like and who are trying hard.  Either way, it’s going to be a hard conversation that rarely gets easier, and you won’t be able to shy away from it because addressing problems head-on is a key part of a manager’s job.

3.         You’ll need to fire or lay off people: 

Can you picture yourself telling someone that today will be her last day of work?  If not, think twice before becoming a manager.  I’ve had to do it in the past and it never gets easier.  In fact, if you find it is easy, you’re probably not fit to be a manager.

4.         You’ll need to tell people no:

You’re going to the person who has to say no sometimes—to a request for a raise, or for time off, or for a promotion, or a plea for a new computer. (Of course, you also get to say yes too, which is one of the upsides.)

5.         When things go wrong, you’ll be the person blamed:

When things go right, you’ll give your team the credit. But when they go wrong, you’re the one who shoulders the blame. Even if the problem was due to an employee’s mistake, you’re ultimately the person accountable.  Even worse when you consider point 3 and see that when things go wrong, it may result in lay-offs and that my friend, is happening on your watch.

6.         Your decisions are high stakes:

If you hire the wrong person, release the wrong product / promotion, or make the wrong budget trade-offs, your decisions could cause the company’s ruin.  Even an offhanded comment could land you in court.  Every decision you make, even the smallest ones, could have unforeseen price tags.

7.         You may have to enforce rules you don’t agree with:

Disagree with your employer’s policy on promotions? Well, mention that to your employees and you’ve just undermined your own boss. If your company has a policy you don’t agree with, hard luck but it’s still going to be your job to enforce it.

8.         Friendships with lots of people in your office will be off-limits:

As the boss, you need to have professional boundaries between you and the people you manage. You can’t have the same types of office friendships that you might have had before you became a manager.

9.         You’ll be scrutinised:

Everything the boss says or does carries more weight. If you express particular enthusiasm for one person’s idea, people will assume that’s the idea they should back. If you’re out sick on the day everyone else is stocktaking or performing some other mind numbing task, people will talk about it for weeks.  If you’re in a grumpy mood, people will spend days wondering what they did wrong and parsing their relationship with you.  Also, they’ll think it’s okay to come to work in a bad mood because if it’s good enough for you….

10.     Some people won’t like you: 

If you’re a good manager, you’re going to make decisions that anger and upset some people.  You are going to tell some people their work isn’t good enough.  You are going to hold accountable people who may not want to be held accountable.  You are going to institute and enforce policies that may exist for a good reason but still irritate the bejesus out of some people.  You are going to have to fire people at some point.  You’ll need to make peace with the fact that there will be people complaining about that horrible person they worked for, and that horrible person will be you. So if you’re deeply invested in trying to be liked by everyone, don’t go into management.

These are some of the reasons to stop and think, but you know what?  If you are the type of person who looks at how something is done and thinks “I know a better way” or “Management have it easy” I direct your thoughts to an expression often used (Mostly in jest) “You are not entering the manager’s office, it’s hell, with fluorescent lighting.”

Posted on by

Internet Marketing: 11 things to think about when redesigning your website

In the course of my work as an internet marketing consultant I often get asked for my advice on how best to approach a web redesign project. It is really important to protect the performance of a successful website that just requires a new look!

  • Keep Your Current URL Structure

Where possible keep your current URL structure.  This means that if the contact us page of the website current exists at www.mysite.com/contact-us don’t change it to www.mysite.com/contact.

If your widgets are currently to be found at mysite.com/catalogue/widgets don’t move them to mysite.com/widgets

Make a list of all your current website pages to make sure this doesn’t happen. A Sitemap generator such as http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ is a useful free tool for getting this information. You should not need to change URL’s at all if your website only needs a ‘Facelift’ in terms of graphic design and you are not adding or removing products or services.

  • Map old pages to a relevant section of the redesigned website using a permanent 301 redirect.

If you are getting rid of old services or downgrading their importance and absolutely need to move or remove the URL, decide where you want to send visitors and search engines that are looking for the old page.  Prepare a document  of all your old/defunct URLs and specify what the new URL will be or where you want to re-direct people who have book-marked the old page or search engine spider that are trying to crawl it.

  • Make sure each page has a purpose

This is fundamental to a successful website and to the implementation of an effective internet marketing strategy. If you are adding new pages to the website make sure they have a purpose. What content will you be adding to the page and what is the purpose of that content? Will visitors find it useful?  Unless it is a form of some type the content on a page should exceed 75 words. If you don’t have more than that to say you possibly don’t need the page.

  • Prepare a Tender Document for your Web designer

Prepare a document for your website designer that includes all of the expectations and requirements that you have in relation to the website, such as the points above and how you need the website to perform for you – i.e. that the goal of the website is.

  • Copyright

Include in the tender document that once the website is paid for that it becomes your property. Make sure the domain name is also registered in the name of the company and not the developer. This is hardly ever an issue anymore but better safe than sorry.

  • Google Analytics Tracking

Don’t forget to include your current Google Analytics code in the new website. Don’t create a new one –you don’t want to start from scratch. Make sure the company owns and has access to the Google Analytics account. I had a client who told me they had previously lost 5 years’ worth of analytics data when the google account was closed by a disgruntled employee of the website developer.

  • Check for broken links

You should do this regularly anyway but specially after going through a redesign.  Use W3 Schools link checker. http://validator.w3.org/checklink

  • Don’t move server

This one is fairly self-explanatory. Don’t move server at the same time as making other major changes to your website.

  • Link Canonicalization

Ensure correct link canonicalization is in place. E.g. www.mywebsite.ie & http://mywebsite.ie

  • Mobile First Design

Most people now access the internet on mobile devices and tablets. Make sure that your website design is built mobile first. You should test/review the site on mobile as well. Find out more in this blog article on responsive website design.

  • XML Sitemap

Create and submit a new XML Sitemap to tell search engine crawlers what pages are contained in your website. Use the link above to create it. Find out how you can submit it to Google here

Posted on by

Sales strategy – Improve Your Selling Skills at Trade Events

Getting Value for Your Money

Participation at trade events and exhibitions in these challenging economic times can be very expensive – travel, accommodation and related expenses, stand rental, display material, perhaps floral features, audio-visual, signage, hospitality etc. In other words,  a costly mix of investment outlay that can make serious inroads into the sales and marketing budget of any business, so it’s important to have the right sales strategy.

There are some simple guidelines that can make the difference between success and disappointment when taking part at consumer and trade markets.  It’s really all about good preparation. And then the manner of delivery. Obvious but essential points of emphasis.

It’s important therefore to be very focused on what you have to sell, how you present your propositions, and what you expect to achieve.

And then, there’s the all-important matter of follow-up.

Research your Potential Market in Advance

Find out beforehand what companies will be attending. Study closely the scope of their business activities. Prepare a short list of your Most Preferred Contacts. Do some background research on their buyers, their sales representatives.

Ideally and if you can, let them know in advance that you will be attending and would like to meet them. So make definite appointments if at all possible.

Then get ready to maximise your time by preparing a daily timetable or diary. Remember that time is one of your most valuable commodities when interfacing with potential customers. You must invest it wisely. To quote that well-worn cliché and with no offence implied: make sure you’re not a busy fool!

At the Event

Dress appropriately to do your business. A casual look might be interpreted by some as a casual approach. Make sure your name badge can be easily read and preferably, that it’s positioned on the right hand side of your body– that will make it simpler for all to see.

Stock up with sufficient supplies of your business card. Keep printed material to the necessary minimum. Nobody wants to have to carry bagfuls of sales literature around an exhibition venue all day long.

Don’t expect  your guests to stand around to talk business. For this, you need comfortable lounge seating.  Good quality drinking water is probably the most suitable hospitality drink. Don’t over-do the freebies or the gimmicks. It’s really not necessary and it’s almost always expensive to do this well.

Be sensitive and sensible in the matter of mobile phone usage.  Don’t ever interrupt a sales pitch by taking or making a call. It’s always best to deal with your daily business by text messaging and to leave your mobile conversations to the end of the day. For all of that, your potential customers may well have a different set of priorities – or rules – so do respect them if and when they get diverted.

If you are using hi-tech aids, be conscious that not everyone is fully conversant with the complex language of today’s IT world.  Keep it simple and don’t over-elaborate to show your expertise. Establish a connection at the appropriate level and stay there. You don’t want a client nodding animatedly in agreement unless they fully understand what you’re telling them, and most likely trying to sell them too.

If you quickly establish that the contact is unlikely to be productive,  don’t hesitate to move things on. ‘You probably have a very busy schedule, so I won’t hold you up’ is a good finishing line. Likewise, if things are going well, you might suggest having ‘five minutes more’ or better still, make an appointment for a follow-up personal call.

After-Sales Service

As soon as the event is over, you should grade your contacts by order of priority for follow-up purposes. It’s a good idea to write them all, even the ones who don’t make your Top Ten. You never know when a door might later open.

Your ideal objective is a personal appointment with some real business potential.  There’s nothing to equal a one-to-one sales session in the privacy of a secure environment. And then comes the real test of your selling and negotiating skills. But that’s another day’s work altogether!

In Conclusion

One final observation. If you are participating at an event that is open to the public at large, don’t have your sales material contribute to the mass of merchandise that frequently ends up in the venue’s refuse bins.

It’s still OK to give out balloons to the kids though!

For more information on sales strategy and other top business tips – contact us.

Posted on by

What is Google Ads Remarketing?

Increase online conversions for your business using Google Ads Remarketing

Google Ads Remarketing is sophisticated, measurable and will unlock the potential of your online presence by increasing sales and generating quality leads for your business.

Remarketing in itself is not a new concept. Savvy marketers know the value of repeat business and qualified leads. Targeting existing and potential customers who meet certain criteria can deliver excellent ROI.

What is Google Ads Remarketing?

Remarketing with Google Ads allows businesses to target people who have already visited their website with online adverts as they browse the web.  Think about the potential of that for a second. These people have already visited that business’s website, they are aware of the brand and some need they are looking to fulfil has already brought them to the site. Thanks to the sophisticated targeting options available via Google Ads Remarketing, business owners and marketers can now unlock the potential of that visit.

How does Google Ads Remarketing Work?

Google Analytics is a free tool many businesses use to analyse website traffic. Analytics works using a tracking cookie; when a visitor lands on a web page the tracking cookie is triggered and stays on the visitor’s computer for a period of time. Google Ads Remarketing works by recognising that cookie and displaying ads as the visitor continues to browse the web.

Google remarketing requires a slight change to the Google Analytics tracking code and that Analytics and Ads are connected. It should be noted that Google Remarketing can be used for both display and search advertising campaigns.

What are the capabilities of Google Ads Remarketing?

I have already mentioned that Google Remarketing is a sophisticated tool, with wide-reaching capabilities. Like any good database, segmenting potential customers based on various key attributes is vital. Google Remarketing comes with several pre-defined marketing lists, and multiple remarketing lists can exist on one website. Users can customise the parameters of their own remarketing lists in AdWords using the Rule Builder, which is mainly URL based. Because Google Remarketing leverages the best of Ads and Analytics businesses can also create remarketing lists in Analytics based on Custom Segments and then use those lists to retarget visitors via Ads.

When creating a remarketing list in Analytics, business owners can use any of four predefined segments:

  • All users to your site
  • Users to a specific page or area of your site
  • Users who completed a specific conversion or goal (These must be enabled, set up and triggering conversions)
  • Smart Lists  – Users that Google determines, via machine learning, to be viable candidates

There is also a fifth option. Users who match the criteria of a segment you configure based on Analytics Dimensions and Metrics. Segmenting by Analytics Dimensions and Metrics is a powerful tool. Here are some examples of Analytics Dimensions and Metrics.

Dimensions Metrics
E-commerce Transactions – the number of transactions the user has completed. Per user, per session,  <, >, = etc.
Gender Male, female
Device category Desktop, Tablet, or Mobile.
Location – where visitors are from Country, Region, City
Medium – the mediums which referred traffic. Organic, Direct(none), AdWords

When creating a remarketing list in Analytics it is necessary to specify the Ads account in which that list is available. That list then functions the same way as any remarketing list created within Ads.

How do I apply Remarketing to my business?

Here are some examples of how business owners could apply Google Remarketing to their online advertising campaigns with the goal of increased sales and leads.

Example One – Abandoned Shopping Cart

Online retailers can retarget abandoned shopping carts in multiple ways, via both search and display campaigns. Remarketing lists can handle multiple parameters. By creating a custom combination list that includes all visitors who put something in their cart but excludes customers who completed a purchase; businesses can retarget these customers. A remarketing list like this can be easily created using the URL Rule Builder in Ads.

This can be further fine-tuned based on the product category of the item the person added to the cart. This requires the implementation of custom parameters to build more advanced remarketing lists in Ads, but is highly recommended for online retailers.

Example Two – Hotel Wishing to Generate More Wedding Enquiries

Create a remarketing list that includes visitors to the wedding pages of the hotel website. A good strategy for the hotel to implement when creating this remarketing list would be to add a parameter that excludes visitors below a minimum time on the page. This may be a good way to segment out less qualified leads.

Follow up by creating a remarking campaign in Google Ads to retarget these potential customers with creative visuals and strong calls to action.

Example Three – Target customers who have previously converted and who have recently visited your website.

Targeting high value, repeat customers seems like a good strategy to me!  This is an example of a Google Analytics Segment that includes UK or Irish customers who have previously bought on the site, and have visited the site in the past 14 days. It can be used to create a Remarketing list.

Once you have selected the Ads account to associate the remarketing list with, this custom remarketing list will appear in that Ads account almost instantly and can then be targeted with ads.

Where to Start?

The capabilities of Google Ads Remarketing are significant and sometimes it can be difficult to know where to start. I believe that Remarketing has the potential to drive sales and leads for any business with one caveat; Remarketing is dependent on the quality and volume of traffic to the website.  My advice?  Give it a try, start with a test campaign for one product or service and build your remarketing campaign from there.

Sue Palmer, Partner at EzSales, is an internet marketing consultant based in Galway. She has been running Ads campaigns for over 18 years. Sue loves sports, particularly basketball and golf and sitting by the fire with a nice glass of red wine. Find out more about how EzSales can help your business with online advertising.

 

Posted on by

Lead or Follow – Which Requires Most Courage

I enjoy working as a hospitality consultant with business owners who take a role in their business on a daily basis.  They tend to be businesses where traditions [Perhaps down through generations] are plain to see.  There’s a connection, a closeness between the business and the local community.  The owner generally has a real feel for how their customers like to be treated.

That said, although those long-standing traditions are being observed, there is also a potential failure to move with the times.  Perhaps right now, that’s okay because your regular trade will continue to come in and thus the business ticks along.  What happens if that regular trade comes under threat – a new rival, a shift in the marketplace.  What happens if your regular clients just get tired of the same thing every time they come and are looking for new experiences?

In this case it is okay for the business owner to take a step back and to trust that following good people around them could lead to amazing positive results for their business.  Taking a restuarant as an example, how often do you change your menus – is it too often?  Where do you capture really positive meal experiences that your team have had when dining elsewhere and have you considered if those experiences would sit well in context with the style of restaurant you operate?

A common misconception is that leaders are the ones who dictate the strategy and systems and that they set clear direction based on their own beliefs and in the above case, traditions.  We can all name the examples for those iconic individuals.  Why?  Because they are also unique in their own rights.

As an operator of a family business, we need to be sure that we are taking time to see what’s happening around us and keep pace with the market.  There are countless ways that this can happen but what I always encourage teams I support is to start with a simple exercise that requires just a few things – two flipcharts, two markers, your team and open minds.  On one page, you list all the things that you enjoy as a customer when you go out yourself to a restaurant (If that’s what your business is).  You then ask for all the things that drive you nuts when you go out, because let’s face it, those of us who work in the industry are the ones most likely to pick up on service that could be better.  Then we invite the team to identify if they are doing everything that is great, or if it’s possible that on occasion, the items that drive you nuts exist in their business too.  Try it for yourself and you’ll be surprised by the results.

Having opened up everyone, particularly the business owner, to the concept that the business might not be perfect, a couple of clear actions can be discussed and agreed and let me tell you this; if you involve your team in coming up with the solutions you are bringing them into the loop and they will be invested in helping see through your new actions.

This makes many of my clients uncomfortable.  They feel it is relinquishing control and that their role is to be the leader and their fear is that initiatives like this could make them a follower.  A true leader is a person who can create a sense of collective responsibility, a common cause and something that everybody supports fully.  It’s not easy, and like any process of change management requires careful planning, control while it’s happening and measurement so the successes or shortfalls of expectations are picked up right away allowing real-time change.

When was the last time you stepped back to measure just how great your team are?  After all, you assembled them.  At some point you saw them as the next person who would join your organisation and bring great things in their role.  How proud of them are you now that you have seen them grow and develop in your team?  Will you trust them to help you and “Follow” their ideas to help build your business together?

Posted on by

Focus or Fire Your Staff for a Winning Sales Strategy

Okay, as I said in the last post “Why you need to be all about the PROFITS in 2012?” the section on Focus or Fire Your Staff sounds a bit dramatic and based on the number of emails from people looking for a view on this, I thought I’d expand on my statement a little further.

You’ll note that I begin with the intention of FOCUS rather than fire. There’s a good reason for this, most people fail to do it. They have a valuable (And costly) resource sitting within their business that will never be unlocked because of a lack of direction and motivation. To illustrate, I’ll fall back on my role within hospitality businesses where the logic is easy, but the practice can be slightly more complex.

I go back again to my previous article (Linked above) and remind you that we have to review our costs. You have to decide if there is sufficient staff resourcing to cope with the business volumes and in hotels this is an easy one to understand. You know how many rooms need to be cleaned from last night, how many breakfasts to serve to the people who stayed and how many people are staying with you tonight? They’ll need receptionists to check them in / out and people to take care of their lunch / dinner / rom service. It’s Groundhog Day – but the numbers change slightly daily.

The question shouldn’t be “How many staff do I need to cover the bookings for tonight?” – that’s reactive, not proactive. The real question will be “How many staff do I need to win MORE business today?” If the staff that you employ realise their importance to your sales effort, then the link between business and FOCUS becomes clear.

Set targets so that each person within each department knows exactly what is required from their performance on that day. Your team should know this and be working with you to help ensure that their performance matches your targets for them but it is your responsibility to empower them to do what it takes to deliver that result.

You MUST give them the necessary training and the benefit of your experience and guidance, but you have to trust them to come up with ways that they believe they can achieve better results. If they are not focussed on the Target, they will simply walk through the steps of their role – do simply what is required on a task basis, clock-out and go home. A focussed team work towards a target and know that their performance will influence whether or not the overall team will be successful – preferably for THAT DAY.

Setting targets as part of an overall sales strategy is a skill and I want to stay on point in this post – there are a number of givens now to be considered:
1. Your team are trained
2. They have the tools required to be successful in their role
3. Their performance has had a measure applied to it
4. Their performance has been linked to the overall business targets
5. The elements of points 3 & 4 above have been communicated clearly to your team

In this context, your team now have the skills and targets. You have to motivate them and each manager will have his / her own style for doing so. Now you can objectively assess individual performance to see if your team are giving you 100% effort. So it’s not completely down to the members of your team – you have your part to play in setting the stage for them and then you have to monitor their performance and communicate with them effectively.

If you have invested this effort into your team and still you have an employee who consistently underperforms, then you implement your own disciplinary procedures and either manage the employee back into effective performance or regrettably, you manage them out the door.

Keep in mind my original point on this. An employee who gives you 8 out of ten for effort is STEALING 20% of the productivity you require from their role. If we thought about lazy attitudes towards work in this context it would have a dramatic change in the way we approach it with our staff surely. If you pay a bar tender €90.00 for six hours work and he stole €20.00 from the till, you would fire him / her. If they take an extra 30 minute break or don’t bother going to greet guests who are stood at the door reading your food menu, why should this be treated differently. These things happen just as much because of a lack of FOCUS on YOUR part as they do when your staff are not focussed on the results that your business needs for success.

Keep your comments coming, I’d love to hear the feedback now that you understand a little bit more about my thoughts on this subject.

Posted on by

Are you driving your business, or are you a passenger?

Since the start of this year I’ve heard a lot of the usual chatter.  In 2012 we seem to have turned up the dial on negativity about the volatile or shrinking markets in which we do business.  Let me give you one piece of advice – STOP THAT NOW.  It might make you feel better for a few minutes but it drags everyone around you down.

If you look ahead and see doom and gloom, then that’s what you’ll focus on.  It comes back to something that Henry Ford once said “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t – you’re right”.

The way 2012 pans out for your business is far more likely to be influenced by things that you CAN control than things you cannot.  Think about the service you deliver each day to your customers – currency exchange rates won’t dictate the level of connection you make with them, unless of course you open dialogue with them by whining about currency exchange rates!  Don’t bring people down, cheer them up!

When economies slump, as has been the cycle for the last hundred years, it clears out the deadwood.  Those businesses too slow to adapt, too worried to take risks and those that were built on sandy foundations to begin with, crumble and fall.

If your business is going to survive, thrive and grow you’ve got to stop worrying about the things you cannot change and start to look closely at what happens between your ears and inside your business.

If you break things down it comes back to the basic building blocks of getting your product and service to be outstanding no matter what your business is.  Remember the days of “Customer is King” – when exactly did that change?  In my opinion, it never has but it has never been so important to earn the loyalty of the people who are putting money in your pocket.  Get your staff focussed on that same simple lesson and you’re already on the road to securing the future for your business.

All of this creates a positive approach, a clear focus and direction and it sets you apart as a market leader.  Now isn’t that much nicer than being down in the dumps?  Do something with your business this year to be proud of.  Get focussed, stay positive.

That’s why I think we all should simply focus on P.R.O.F.I.T.S.  Let me explain a little more about that in my next post – WATCH THIS SPACE 🙂

 

Posted on by

How do I identify the Colours Used on my Website?

Matching colours can be tricky. There are at least four different ways of identifying a colour:

RGB is based on the projection of light.  It is a colour model in which red, green, and blue light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colours.

A hex colour is a six-digit hexadecimal number used in website coding and other computing applications to identify a colour. The bytes represent the red, green and blue components of the colour.

Therefore hex colours and RGB are methods of identifying on-screen colours. There are different methods for identifying colours for print.

Pantone is a system for matching colours, used in specifying printing inks, it is generally used to identify corporate or brand colours.

Although a significant proportion of the world’s brands identify their colours using the Pantone system, the majority of the world’s printed material is produced using the CMYK process; this is done by mixing various amounts of 4 colours cyan, magenta, yellow and black.  Most of the Pantone system’s spot colours cannot be replicated using CMYK, the Pantone system uses 13 base pigments plus black and white mixed in specified amounts.

 

All of this underlines the fact that colours on screen and in print do not necessary correspond and exporting one to the other can cause issues. Pantones don’t necessarily work for digital print or for websites, and RGB and hex colours are unreliable ways of identifying a colour for print.

Some pantones do convert to CMYK, so you should ask your graphic designer to ensure to use one of those colours when they are creating your logo and brand identity, you should also ask them who to supply Pantone and CMYK details at the time they are working on your brand identity, so that you can to use them as references when printing, depending on what method of print you are going with.

Free Tool to Identify Colour Used on a Website

So how do I identify the hex colour used on a website?  I use a great free tool to for this. It is a toolbar extension called ColorZilla, it is available for Firefox and Chrome, here is the link to it in the Chrome store will give you the RGB and Hex colour used on any website and much more to boot.

I hope this article was useful, feel free to leave your comments on our Facebook Page if you liked it!

Posted on by

Subdomain or Subdirectory for my New Blog?

Should I host my blog in a subdomain like blog.mysite.com or in a sub directory like mysite.com/blog?

This is Five Minute Friday so I’ll give you the short answer – in a subdirectory. Find out why below:

From an SEO perspective if you are adding a blog to a website the best place to host it is in a subdirectory of the main site assuming the following conditions:

1. The blog is related to the same topic as the main website
2. You will be updating the blog regularly
3. The main site currently performs when it comes to ranking

A subdomain is treated by search engines as a completely new site and will require separate SEO efforts. By choosing a subdomain the blog will remain part of the main site and link juice and domain authority will be passed along.

As with anything in life there are no absolutes. You may be adding a blog to your site as a branding exercise and SEO is not an important factor. In this instance a subdomain may work better. It may also be worth considering a subdomain if your blog does not meet the three conditions assumed above.

Posted on by

Link Building or On-page SEO. Where do I spend my Money?

We get asked all the time whether our clients should be focussing on On-page SEO or Link building. Unfortunately, the answer tends to be both honest and frustrating – “That depends”. No one wants to hear that because they’re back where they started – having no idea what to do next. Here’s four examples to give you an idea of how I’d allocate your budget for each one.

What Is On-page SEO?

“On-page SEO” can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. It could mean keyword research, writing good TITLE tags, internal linking and crawl architecture, even content creation has been dumped into this pile of options. For the purposes of this post, on-page is anything you directly control in the code or content of your site.  Simple, right?  As a rule of thumb, think of the analogy of trying to build a house on sandy foundations, in the rain.  If you don’t have good strategy and site architecture in place with a good base of content and relevant information – forget about driving more links, you’re driving links to a pile of blocks that have fallen down and are crumbling in the sand.

Case #1: The Elephant

70% On-page, 30% Link-building

The Elephant is an established site with a solid, trusted link profile and usually a good base of content. In many cases, it’s a site that’s evolved “organically”, which is a fancy word for “without a plan”. The Elephant could be suffering from any or all of the following:

  • Keyword research is 5 years out of date
  • Keywords are cannibalised across many pages
  • Internal links have grown like weeds
  • Site architecture doesn’t reflect business goals
  • Page TITLEs overlap or are duplicated
  • Old but valuable (i.e. linked-to) content is 404’ing

 

In many cases, no one notices, because The Elephant’s strong link profile and solid content keep it ranking well. The problem is that you’re sitting on a gold mine of untapped potential. Of course, The Elephant should keep building solid links, but a shift in focus (even for a few months) to really planning and focusing on on-page issues, from keyword research on up, could produce huge dividends.  They say elephants never forget and that’s positive but there’s an element of “What have you done for me lately” that cannot be overlooked.

Case #2: Perfect Pat

30% On-page, 70% Link-building

Perfect Pat often comes out in new webmasters. They’ve read 500 SEO blogs and are following all the “rules” as best they can, but they’ve become sooo obsessed with building the “perfect” site that they’ve hit the tipping point of effort versus results. Perfect Pat wants to know how to squeeze 0.01% more SEO value out of an already good URL by moving one keyword.  Ouch, it’s going to take hours to achieve that 0.01% and that won’t deliver significant enough a return to justify the effort or expense.  You’re not quitting, it’s a case of doing the things that will make most difference to your sales growth.

It’s time for Perfect Pat to remember the 80/20 rule (Pareto principle) – there comes a point where your on-page is good enough, at least for now. You have to get Google to your site to put that on-page magic to work, and that means building links. It’s important to develop content (which is why I’ve left on-page at 30%), but put almost every other on-page tactic to the side temporarily and spend a solid 6 months developing and implementing a link-building campaign

Case #3: The World of Pain

90% On-page, 10% Link-building

The World of Pain is a Google engineer’s fantasy (or possibly nightmare). She’s broken every single rule of on-page SEO, which worked fine for a while, but then came “May Day” and “Panda”, and now Google is even talking about penalising her for optimising too much. The World of Pain has let something (Likely a lot of things) spin out of control, including:

  • Blocked crawl paths and bad redirects
  • Massive URL-based duplication
  • Excessive internal search, categories, and tags
  • Aggressive advertising-to-content ratio
  • Extremely “thin” content
  • Nonsensical site architecture and internal linking
  • Keyword stuffing that would embarrass 1998

 

In some cases, this could be “over-optimisation” and an attempt to manipulate the search engines (Inadvertent “Black Hat SEO” stuff), but in other cases the World of Pain is just that – a painful mess of garbage that has had every trick in the book fired at it without any strategy or structure whatsoever. Whatever the cause, put down everything and start fixing the problems now. Chasing new links without fixing the mess is like having your carpets cleaned while your house is burning down, or trying to sell the house to the fireman who’s putting out the fire.

Case #4: The Red Card

10% On-page, 90% Link-building

Finally, there’s The Red Card – he’s broken every rule in the Google link-building playbook, and they’ve finally noticed. This could be a large-scale devaluation or a Capital-P Penalty, including:

  • Paid links
  • Link farms, networks and exchanges
  • Excessive low-value links
  • Aggressive anchor-text targeting

 

If you’ve been naughty enough, you could be facing a serious ranking penalty or even de-indexation. At that point, all the on-page tweaks in the world won’t help you (I left 10% just to keep the site up and running). You have to fix the problem and address the problem links. Bare minimum, you have to stop doing what got you into trouble and show a pattern of positive link-building. You may even have to file for reconsideration. The fix can be tricky, and depends a lot on the situation, but until you fix it, The Red Card isn’t going anywhere.

 

But What About Social?

Before I get a tonne of comments, I purposely left social factors out of this post. I think the influence of social is growing and it definitely deserves your attention (and budget), but I don’t want to confuse an already complicated issue. Also, at this point, there are no major social “penalties” (small-p or Capital-P), so it’s hard to have an SEO crisis related to social media. Still, social should certainly be a part of any healthy mix in 2012.

One Size Never Fits All

I’ll try to keep the point short and sweet (Those of you who know me, will understand how difficult that can be for me 🙂 when it comes to the right mix, there is no one-sized-fits-all solution. On-page SEO and link-building are both important, but how important each one is really depends on your current strengths and weaknesses. Long-term, everyone should pursue a mix of solid on-page structure, unique content, an authoritative link profile, and substantive social presence. Diversity is the best way to future-proof your SEO – if the algorithm changes or you hit a snag on one pillar, at least there will still be enough left standing to keep your roof up and your doors OPEN FOR BUSINESS.