There’s a great post at zephoria.org which asks the question "Who clicks on ads?". Whether you’re writing pay-per-click ads, using banner ads, or building landing pages; you must keep in mind who clicks on ads and and who ignores them like the plague. For instance, did you know that ad-clickers are predominately female and Midwestern? Click here to read the full article.

Curious what server technologies your shared or dedicated host is using? Maybe you just want to know whether your top competitor uses Apache or IIS. There have always been ways to find out such details including installable programs like SamSpade, but few tools bring so much information together as web site BuiltWith.com. BuiltWith.com is a web application that lets you find interesting tidbits about a site such as what analytics and tracking software a site is using, what technology framework the site runs on (PHP, ASP, etc…), HTML elements the site uses (CSS, Javascript, etc…), server software (Apache, IIS), server OS, server security, and server host. Beyond the raw data, BuiltWith also shows you how many of the top 5000 sites are using the same technology and gives an overall rating based on technology utilization. So if you don’t know what your own site runs or if you want to know what the other guy is using, check out BuiltWith.com.

Without knowing exactly how Google views websites hosted on a shared IP, in the beginning of my own affiliate efforts I took the risk that many SEO gurus warn against and used shared hosting plans. I did so for one simple reason - I didn’t have any money starting out and dedicated or virtual hosting was not an option. During that time I always had a nagging worry that, as several experts cautioned, Google could inadvertently penalize one of my sites if another site on my shared IP was given a Google smackdown. Luckily, Mark Berghausen, a Google Webmaster Central rep, addressed the controversy in a Google Groups thread and allayed any fears that Google penalizes websites on shared IPs or favors dedicated IPs. Via seoroundtable.com, Berghausen said:

Lots of sites are hosted on shared IPs. If this had a negative effect on ranking, it would harm most of the sites on the web–and that’s not good for small webmasters or for our users. So, understandably, sharing an IP should not have an effect your ability to rank.

My advice: don’t worry about it. Host your site however you think is best, and instead spend your time focusing on the content–making sure your pages are easy to navigate for users regardless of their browser or hardware, and ensuring that the content you provide is informative and unique.

So follow Berghausen’s advice and stop worrying. Spend that time building links instead.

If you use multiple email accounts in your SEO efforts, especially free accounts, you know how annoying it can be to check those accounts on a regular basis. A new web service called Fuser is now available which lets you add multiple email accounts, both web and POP based, to a single web-based login at fuser.com. The service is currently in beta and is still very buggy, but once the kinks are worked out Fuser should be a real time saver for SEOers like me who have to manage dozens of email accounts. Check out Fuser here.

There’s a new resource for finding domain names thats an invaluable time saver for those of who buy a lot of keyword domains. The site, bustaname.com, is one of the new breed of ‘Web 2.0’ sites with an interactive interface. The home page gives you two easy options for finding good domains. The first option lets you enter one or more keywords in a search box that will return a list of available domains that contain the entered keywords. Further, you can edit the list to by selectively deleting keywords or finding similar keywords. The second feature allows you to type in a domain name and see instantly whether the domain is available or not – as you type in real time. No more entering a domain name, waiting, going back and searching for another. A great feature that sites like godaddy.com should emulate.

Want to save your Google searches to a bookmark so you can quickly check your website rankings for particular keywords? Via lifehacker.com, blog doubleparity.net has an article that describes a way to save Google advanced searches to a firefox bookmark. Of course there are ton’s of SEO websites and tools that show you where your site ranks for different keywords, but this method might be quicker for those daily rankings you want to check as part of your daily routine. Visit doubleparity.net for the instructions here.

Ok, my article may not make you a millionaire, but writing effective headlines, whether its to start a link baiting campaign or convincing a visitor to buy, is a skill that does have a measurable impact on traffic and conversions. Don’t fool yourself into thinking all headlines are created equal. Writing good headlines is a skill, and its skill you can teach yourself. For this post I searched my archive of SEO tips to find the best links on writing headlines and to my surprise nearly every single one was from copyblogger.com – and that leads to my first tip:

1. Read Copyblogger.com

If you don’t already subscribe to the copyblogger RSS feed you’re really missing out on a tremendous resource for writing persuasive headlines and copy. With a stable of authors churning out new tips daily, copyblogger continually publishes articles that WILL change the headlines and text you write for your websites and blogs. Copyblogger recently had and entire series that covered how to structure powerful headlines. Here a few links to copyblogger posts that will improve your headline I.Q.:

– 10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work

– 7 More Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work

– The Cheater’s Guide to Writing Great Headlines

– Do These Headlines Work For You?

– Why Your Best Headline Could be Too Powerful

– Writing Headlines for Regular Readers, Search Engines, and Social Media

– Why Magnetic Headlines Attract More Readers

2. Advertising and Marketing Books

Though you can end up spending a lot, there are many books available that cover writing headlines and marketing copy. Ask 10 SEO/SEM experts which are they’re favorites and you’ll get 10 different answers. I can only personally vouch for four, but do your research and browser the selection of your local bookstore and you’ll find many more.

– Words That Sell by Richard Bayan

– More Words That Sell by Richard Bayan

– Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich by David Garfinkel

– The Adweek Copywriting Handbook by Joseph Sugarman

3. Imitation

Finally, the easiest way to write great headlines is to pay attention. Which headlines made you click a link or order a product? Jot them down or copy them to a text file. Use the basic template to formulate your own headlines. By using what works, you won’t wonder if the headline you wrote will succeed – it already has.

Also, as crass as it may be, don’t ever forget that sex sells. If you can figure out how to sexify your headline stand back and watch the traffic flow. Good luck and keep learning!

I’m more convinced than ever that as search engine algorithms improve SEO is becoming SEM. As we watch the importance of link baiting and social media tactics increase, how can anyone in SEO believe that sustained success can be achieved without utilizing well thought out marketing strategies. Unfortunately, unless you come from a marketing background and spend a lot of your free time keeping tabs on the current marketing industry, picking up a copy of “Idiots Guide to Advertising” isn’t going to cut it. Using traditional marketing techniques aren’t effective because traditional marketing itself is undergoing radical changes in methodology and theory. The good news for SEOer’s is that the changes going on in advertising are driven by the instant communication and interactive culture the Internet has birthed.  In some ways the playing field is level for both marketers and techs.

Such a situation won’t last for long as successful strategies become specialized and closely guarded secrets. If you’re not staying on top of marketing and advertising trends now, you may lose out in the future. Subscribe to marketing blogs and browse the business section of your local bookstore for interesting reads on innovative marketing techniques. One place to start that I recommend is Seth Godin’s blog. Author and marketing guru, Seth is the founder of Squidoo and Yoyodyne – a direct marketing firm bought out by Yahoo in 1998. Seth’s a true free thinker when it comes to managing and promoting a marketing campaign. Check out Seth’s books and read his blog. He frequently posts on topics that are of great interest to the SEO community.

Ok, my headline might be a little overboard – duplicate content CAN negatively affect you, but I’ve always argued it’s not as great a penalty as many think. I know too many SEOer’s who obsess about duplicate content when they should spend their time on other high-priority factors. Google knows that most duplicate content is unintentional and sometimes unavoidable. If Google took a strict line against duplicate content many large, heavily trafficked sites would find themselves penalized for legitimate, non-spammy content. Where you want to be careful with duplicate content is when you have content on multiple domains and Google doesn’t know which to index and rank first. This is why you should pay attention to pesky site scrapers and take action against the site and their host if it becomes a problem.

Why am I so confident that duplicate content is not as big an issue as many make it out to be? Because Eric Enge of StoneTemple Consulting just published an interview with Google’s search evangelist Adam Lasnik. In the interview Adam states unequivocally that duplicate content is not heavily policed for the reasons stated above. Again, the problem is only when Google can’t differentiate which content is original when it encounters duplicate content on multiple domains.

So if you obsess about duplicate content cool your heals and read Eric’s interview here. I’ve also posted the meat of what Adam has to say about duplicate content below, but many other topics are discussed and I suggest reading the full interview.

“The most important thing to realize about duplicate content is that duplicate content in and of itself is not a horrible thing. We realize that there are many cases in which content is duplicated inadvertently, or for other valid reasons. In the vast majority of cases duplicate content is something that is done innocently. It is actually a rare occurrence that we see people engaging in practices that create duplicate content for the express purpose of manipulating their rankings. The real problem with duplicate content, is that it creates the conundrum “which page do we show in our index”. And, unfortunately sometimes that ends up not being the page that the webmaster wants us to show”

“……. in the context of duplicate content, penalties tend to be relatively rare. In the majority of cases it is innocent and unintentional. But, in cases where it’s very extreme, there can be penalties applied. It comes back to what I mentioned earlier which is whether or not the duplicate content passes the smell test. It’s very much related to issues of quality as well. If the degree of content duplication is such that it impairs the user’s experience, it can indicate a site that is generally of low quality. In that case that site probably isn’t going to do very well in our index.”

When I started in SEO, I worked for an affiliate marketer with over two hundred sites. Most of his sites looked horrible. White background, a couple of centered images and unformatted text at 100% width. I couldn’t believe that anyone would make a purchase decision after finding them selves on one of his sites. If I had clicked on one of his sites I would have felt very wary about ordering from such an unprofessional site. But people were. A lot of people. Naturally, when I went out on my own, I assumed that professional web 2.0 looking sites with engaging graphics and pleasing design would garner tons more sales from folks like me who would normally be turned off by sites like my former bosses. Boy was I wrong. Its the simplicity of those sites which were their asset. I looked at those sites from a web developers viewpoint instead of a marketing viewpoint.

I thought of this hard won lesson while reading an article on NicheGeek.com. Titled Seven Lead Generation Sins, two “sins” stood out for me; number 2, “Content” Websites and number 4, Boring and Hard to Read Copy. These two sins are SEO traps, especially for those of us who come from a technical rather than a marketing background. When building websites consumer psychology is far more important than site design. A visitor who finds your site by performing a search or clicking on an ad has an intention and your job is to focus that intention into a decision to buy. The easiest way to deflate that intention is by offering too many choices or confusing your visitor with dense copy. Funnel your visitor towards one simple objective, such as “call this number to order” or “click here to order now”. Cluttering a visitor’s mind with options - whether it’s product features and packages or ordering methods - creates doubt. Doubt creates time. You do not want a consumer spending a long time on your site. Your goal is to quickly push intention into action. The longer a visitor spends on your site the more likely they are to start having thoughts like “well, am I sure these are the best deals” or “I’m not sure which options to go with, I’ll check some other sites” and before you know it they click the back button and move on.

A recent anecdote from a colleague reinforced this very point. In a conversation about all of his sites and how widely they varied in sales, he mentioned one particular site of his that performs consistently without fail. That site has a very minimalist design and little content. Basically it does nothing more than tell a visitor to call a number to order. And yet this site continues to have regular, steady sales month after month. Don’t make the mistake of trying to offer too much to you customers. Stay simple and watch sales grow.