Because not everyone can throw thousands of dollars at the ‘How do we market ourselves online?’ question…
Recent ArticlesBy Matt McGee on Jan 5, 2009 in Miscellaneous | 0 Comments
I don’t do many “Hey! Read This!” posts like this these days, but some rules are made to be broken. And Tamar’s list of the best marketing articles/blog posts from 2008 deserves to be the exception:
Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2008
I’m honored to have a couple links in there. And I also have a lot of new reading to do. I suspect you will, too.
By Matt McGee on Jan 5, 2009 in Site News | 0 Comments
I’m not 100% positive, but I believe the RSS feed for this blog is now fixed. The feed’s URL now shows content, not a 404 error message. Hopefully that ugly “0 readers” in the widget at left will be back to normal by tomorrow.
Thanks to all who emailed and Twittered me about the problem. If you were trying to subscribe to the feed, please let me know if you’re able to do it today. Thanks!
By Matt McGee on Jan 5, 2009 in Miscellaneous | 3 Comments
This is a collection of 2008 year-in-review lists, articles, and blog posts that are at least somewhat related to online marketing, doing business online, running a small business, and the like. You all responded so favorably to last year’s Big List of 2007 Recap Posts, that I wouldn’t dare think of not doing such a list again this year. 
If I missed any, please do leave a note in the comments - thanks!
By Matt McGee on Jan 3, 2009 in Site News | 0 Comments
Thanks to those of you who’ve emailed and/or Twittered me about the feed for this blog being down/broken. I’ve been trying to dig into the problem for the past 24 hours, but weekend/family plans are also keeping me busy. Turns out the timing is terrible: it’s a holiday, the official Feedburner Help Group is being shut down and moved to another platform, and it seems there’s just not much help out there.
I think I’ve discovered the problem is that my feed has surpassed Feedburner’s 512k limit, so I need to keep this post brief and push out an older, longer post. Also doing some things behind the scenes to change the feed itself. Hope to have the feed back up and running soon. Don’t be alarmed if you see additional short posts on the blog.
By Matt McGee on Jan 2, 2009 in Site News | 6 Comments
What a crazy, challenging, and ultimately wonderful year 2008 was on a personal level. I held two corporate jobs; was laid off from one and resigned from the other; ultimately decided to be a solo consultant and will add a third client this month; and also took on a role as Assignment Editor for Search Engine Land. (That’s just the career stuff; nevermind that I published a book, continued to manage an uber-popular U2 site, and started Hyperlocal Blogger, too.)
But this post is just about this blog, Small Business Search Marketing. And I’ll start with a confession: This post is as much for me as it is for you; this is the post where I talk out loud to myself about successes and failures of the past year, look at what worked and what didn’t, and lay the foundation for what I hope will be continued growth of this blog in 2009. But first, I think you have to start by looking back.
Visits & Pageviews
That’s a screenshot from Google Analytics showing numbers for the full 2008 calendar year. At the start of 2008, this blog was averaging about 240 visits and 696 pageviews per day. So, visits went up by about 80% when measuring the daily average, and pageviews went up about 5%. I should continue to think about only showing extracts of posts on the home page, which is something I’ve given thought to from an SEO perspective, and would certainly help increase pageviews, too — a key metric for advertisers.
But I think the pageview thing is more about a change in the way I blog here: Since the blog began in 2006, I’ve averaged 27 posts per month and 350 words per post. Towards the end of 2008, though, I’ve been averaging below 20 posts per month, but about 450 words per post. My blogging has changed to less frequent, but lengthier, more in-depth posts. I’m trying to avoid echo chamber posts as much as possible. I hope that’s a good thing.
(All the stats and charts won’t show what I think is the smartest thing I did all year: In May, I dropped the registration wall and opened up comments to anyone who supplies a name and email address. The impact was immediate and dramatic, and I’ve met a lot of great people from the comments they’ve shared and the conversations we’ve had.)
Traffic Sources
I’m thrilled that search engine traffic only makes up about a third of my overall traffic. It’s not good to rely too heavily on a single traffic source; diversity is key for any web site. At the same time, you want to have an SEO-friendly web site, too, and on that count, I think this blog is doing well: That 37.59% for 2008 is up from only 28.8% in 2007, so things have certainly improved. The top keywords bringing me search traffic remain the same as in 2007: “merchant circle,” “google local search,” “msn local,” “how to seo,” and “local search marketing” are all among the top 10 of referring keywords.
As far as referring sites go, the top of the list is pretty much the same as a year ago. Where it gets interesting to me is at Nos. 9 and 10. My friend David Mihm has become a primary referrer to this blog. 84% of those 1,100+ visits are from his excellent Local Search Ranking Factors. (Thx for inviting me to take part, DM.) And then at No. 10 is Twitter, which I resisted joining for a long time, saw no value in it, then joined … and now can’t imagine not using it.
Among search referrals, Google sent 83% of my search traffic, down from 91% in 2007. Yahoo sent 10%, up from 2% a year ago. And MSN was at 2%, just below 2007.
Feed Subscribers
At the start of 2008, this blog had about 1,700 feed subscribers and is now in the 3,400 range most commonly. Every so often that bumps up above 3,500. I’m pleased to have double feed subscribers in the space of a year, but don’t know if that’s a realistic goal for 2009.
The blog’s home page and this old post about Merchant Circle continue to be the two most-visited pages on the blog, but I’ll limit this list to just the content that was published in 2008.
1.) SEO Success Pyramid - Can’t say I’m surprised; this is probably the best thing I’ve ever written/created.
2.) 8 Social Media Sites for Local Networking
3.) Adding A Business to MSN/Live Local Search - I know we talk a lot about Google Maps, but I get so much traffic from small business owners wanting to know how to get listed on MSN Local.
4.) 12 Tips on Creating Content for Social Media
5.) Big List of 2008 Prediction & Resolution Posts
6.) Part Two: Why Use Yahoo! Answers - one piece of a 3-part series
7.) Google Still Loves Yahoo Answers
8.) 5 Google Products a Small Business (Probably) Shouldn’t Use
9.) A Guide to Social Marketing on Yahoo! Answers
10.) Part Three: How To Use Yahoo! Answers
Interesting to me that six of the ten articles listed are about social media in some way. I guess the message is that there’s a lot of interest from people wanting to learn about those marketing opportunities.
That’s all for now … thanks for reading this far, and thanks to all who read this blog on a regular basis. I’m always open to feedback and constructive criticism, so if there’s something I’m doing that you wish I wouldn’t, or something I’m not doing that you wish I would, please use the contact form and tell me about it.
Happy New Year!
By Matt McGee on Jan 1, 2009 in Miscellaneous | 3 Comments
Thanks to a couple generous links from Search Engine Land and Search Engine Roundtable, more than 300 people took the 2008 Search Quiz earlier this week — a huge jump over last year’s version.
All the answers have been tabulated and timed, and the winner is Elmer Cagape, who runs the SEO Hong Kong blog. Elmer was one of only a few people to get all 21 questions correct, and he did it faster than anyone. Hats off to you, Elmer! An email is on its way to get your $50 prize to you.
This year’s quiz was difficult, to say the least. More than half of you missed one of the first two questions. Hehehehe. Only 25 of you were still playing at the halfway point.
Since so few people saw the full quiz, here’s the entire Q&A for your enjoyment and edification.
Which search engine threw in the towel in March to focus instead on becoming a question-and-answer site for married females? (and then later disclaimed all of these changes)
Ask.com
In November, Google began to host 10 million previously unpublished photos from the archives of what media source?
Time-Life Magazine
Which presidential hopeful used the Search Engine Watch job board to find online marketing talent in May?
Barack Obama
What blogger, in a post about attention and fame-seekers in the SEO industry, wrote the now-classic line, “…it’ll be tough to pay the bills with a wallet full of famous”?
Lee Odden
In October, Facebook added web search capabilities from which one of the major search engines?
Live Search
In April, what Google employee said this about the Don’t Be Evil motto: “… [it] wasn’t like an elected, ordained motto. It is good PR but really it’s empty because it’s questionable whether shareholders will care”?
Marissa Mayer
Which search engine dropped its maps product in July?
Ask.com
The three major search engines came together to announce new standards for what at SMX Advanced in June?
Robots Exclusion Protocol
When Google made a special logo for Veterans Day, which branch of the US military did it mistakenly forget to include?
Coast Guard
Yahoo announced its BOSS web services platform this summer. What does BOSS stand for?
Build your Own Search Service
Which Microsoft reward program was launched first: Live Search Cashback or Live Search SearchPerks?
Cashback, in May 2008
In January, Danny Sullivan apologized to the search marketing community and what magazine Web site over a Search Engine Land article that some thought encouraged spamming?
Wired
Microsoft researchers investigated something called “cyberchondria” this year. What does cyberchondria mean?
Making yourself feel worse while searching for health information online
In October, Google changed its logo to celebrate the 50th birthday of Paddington Bear. What other children’s toy was honored on its 50th birthday by being used as the Google logo for a day in January?
Legos
Who won Search Engine Journal’s “Guest Blogging Competition” this summer?
John Carcutt
Lyndon Antcliff wrote and marketed a false story about a Texas boy stealing his dad’s credit card for a night of spending, video games, and hookers. How old was the boy in the story Lyndon created?
13 years old
In March, Google switched its home page to white text on a black background as part of what international event?
Earth Hour
In July, which search engine received a patent for the use of anchor text to determine relevancy to a search term?
Yahoo
In July, Google announced it has found how many unique URLs on the web?
1,000,000,000,000
What were the first three SearchMonkey applications that Yahoo turned on by default for all searchers?
Yahoo Local, Yelp, and LinkedIn
What Sphinn member submitted the first story that went “hot” in 2008?
Andrew Girdwood
So, there you have it. Thanks to everyone who took the quiz this year. Stay tuned to the news in 2009 because we’ll be doing another quiz at the end of the year!
