PC4Media

Fighting Paid Links is Like Fighting Terrorism

Google supposedly *punished* certain websites by reducing certain websites' pagerank this week. (Pagerank's correlation to search rank is not completely understood outside of Google.) Matt Cutts, Google's Scoble, supposedly emailed Search Engine Journal, to tell them that the reason was because these websites charged people to link to their websites. The industry term is that they hosted "paid links" on their site. It's been assumed that Google didn't like this practice as they use "links" from site A to site B to rank site B in their search results. If Site B can pay site A, C, D, E.... and Z to put a link on them, then it isn't necessarily the "best" search result - editorially speaking atleast.

So, I understand why Google doesn't like paid links.

But, I don't see how they are ever going to figure out what's a paid link and what isn't a paid link. For example, I frequently link to my client's websites as I am telling stories about them. People pay people to host relevant valuable content on other websites. Business partners pay to belong to organizations that have links to their members' sites. 

The web isn't completely editorially driven. It shouldn't be.

Moreover, how they heck are they going to police paid links effectively? It'll be a PR nightmare if they start penalizing webmasters en masse. And how would they even effectively determine who is selling links and who isn't?

Will they hire several hundred Winston Smith's?... "Anyone who talks or writes about selling links will be removed from our index, as if you never existed."

Will they target people that use text link ads?  (Can anyone say anti-competitive?)

This is a tough issue for Google. I don't think they can win.

Fighting paid links will be about as effective as fighting terrorism. Futile.

I think they have two options: 1) Tell the world that they are deprecating pagerank and then do it and release no information about how their algorithm works ever again or 2) be completely transparent about how their algorithm works, so that they encourage good link building/content creation behavior. 

The Killer Local App

There's a lot of blogversations going on about how "Local is Hard" since the news broke that Judy's Book is shutting down. Here, here and here are good reads. Read the comments. <Update 10/30/07 8AM>There's also a lot of conversation about how big the opportunity of "local" is:

Once of the themes often discussed in local is its fragmentation. That's partly a function of all the competitors and would-be competitors, the numerous local markets, and all the small businesses that represent the bulk of local advertisers. Unlike national search, no dominant local player has yet emerged – or perhaps it's more accurate to say no fully "trusted" local site has emerged.</End Update>

Here's my short list of qualities that the killer local app will have.

• It'll be bootstrapped. There's too many "Ideas" for local that every company that raises money tries too many things. As a result, every site out there is a really cluttered and complicated "what the hell is this site for" site. Bootstrapping will force the founders to focus on what's important. Helping people find the best local stuff and helping people share what the best is.
• It'll have a traffic acquisition strategy that involves buying traffic cheap and recovering the spend based on contextually targeted advertising (adsense) served on the site. Not just launching the site and hoping people will use it.
• It will provide immediate personal impact. Using the application will deliver immediate value to the user. Joshua Porter calls this the Delicious Lesson.
• The application will be as simple as craigslist is to use. Information can be discovered quickly. Information can be contributed quickly. It's be as unstylish as sites like Craigslist and PlentyOfFish too.
• It will be designed for online viral growth like hotmail, evite, facebook, Kazaa, myspace, icq, aim and skype. In other words, the simple act of using the application will inform other people of its existence and it's compelling value.
• The network effect will kick in quickly and geographically dense pockets of users will radius outward. This means the app actually has to have a network effect. And the network effect must be obvious for non technical users. In other words, there has to be a very selfish reason to tell your closest friends about it. Very selfish. (And a very selfish reason for them to start using it. See the Del.icio.us lesson above.) But, at some critical inflection point, a critical mass of "people who know each other will use it" that the reason for a new person to start using it will be so obvious.
  
• It will move from predominant use by internet marketing experts to small business owners/sales professionals within several months. It'll reach a critical mass of small business owners very quickly. Think what Constant Contact achieved but with no cost for use and no barrier to trial.
• It'll then catch the long tail of search traffic for local searches. As the aforementioned groups use it, they will create a huge long tail of local content that will be indexed by the major search engines. For example, when you want to find a biopharmaceutical automation controls engineer in Boston MA,  you'll search at google and be sent to a page on this 'KIller Local App' that will answer your question. Like the YellowPages is now for searches for common professions, this will cover everything else. There's actually a Vietnamese Pizza Place around the corner from me.
• At this point, it'll jump the chasm and regular "consumers" will begin to use it to both find local services and products, as well as contribute back suggestions to the community. It'll become a defacto standard for finding out what your real live 'people that live close to you' friends suggest: People will actually go there instead of google.  An even bigger accomplishment, it'll replace email for getting recommendations from friends for that next restaurant, doctor, mechanic, payroll provider, accountant, new hire, new job, etc, etc. When you want to know the best a new town has to offer, you'll visit the "best of worcester" page instead of being relegated to a newspaper's once a year poll.
  
• Within a few short months, it will have more user generated information about local businesses than any other website, kind of like wikipedia has for encyclopedia entries. Google will reward it with lots of traffic, like it does wikipedia. One of the large local media companies (YP, Newspaper) or major search engine/internet companies will buy a piece of the business.
  

That's my prediction.

I think it's right around the corner, btw.

Networking Isn't About Favors

Here's an excerpt from a short article I was asked to contribute to - about how I create demand for my services:

"When I am talking to small business owners, I focus on figuring out what their biggest business challenges are. I try to then connect them with people who can help solve whatever challenges they have. As a result of this process, I gain people's trust and respect and they usually ask me how they can help me in return. I simply position myself as someone who can help small businesses generate leads cost effectively [or event planners increase attendance] and that I am willing to speak with anyone who is struggling to grow their business [or events] as fast as they'd like.

As a result of this behavior, I can avoid "selling" or "pitching". Most of my prospects ask me "how they can hire me". Meaning: they are already sold. It's just a matter of fitting the right solution to solve their lead generation problems. In order to do this, I interview them about their business, discover their goals and budget, and then make a budget and goal appropriate recommendation. Then they say "yes" or "no". Most of the ones that get that far, say "yes". I usually rule most of the "no's" out before we get to a recommendation. As a result, I don't waste my time or my prospect's time if there isn't a good fit. And I help a lot of people along the way, creating a lot of good will - that always results in more opportunities for me and my clients."

Rick Roberge introduced me to Michael Kreppein at the Expo. They blogged about each other already. And that's how I found a post about referrals on Mike's blog. Mike is launching a new networking website which sounds interesting. In person I asked him how it was different from Jigsaw and Linkedin. He said it was about making "meetings" happen. Here's a little more explanation from his blog:

Inquisix is all about sales reps getting a referral to a prospective customer in return for giving a referral to their customer. It’s really a win-win-win-win scenario as each customer has agreed they’re interested in learning about a new solution and each rep gets a warm referral to a new prospect.

But are sales reps willing to do favors? Do they make an introduction to one of their customers on behalf of another sales rep? Of course they do - it may be a “you owe me one for next time” type of favor but that’s how it works - just make sure you give as many favors as you get!

See the difference about the way I network and the way Mike's system may work? I would never "tit for tat" referrals. It's not about reciprocity. Getting and giving referrals isn't like trading baseball cards. It's about connecting a seller with a buyer who needs their help and has expressed interest in getting help from someone. There's no scorecard or leaderboard. No points. It's a lot closer to the Golden Rule: Treat others as you'd like to be treated.

Of course, if the success of jigsaw is any indication, there are  many salespeople who are willing to do what's in their immediate short term self interest. Hopefully, they have the best interest of their clients as a priority. And if the fact that LinkedIn hasn't really taken off [as a useful tool on a daily basis] among small business owners is any indication, there's room for a more direct approach like Inquisix's. But, I'd favor a system that focusses on letting "good networkers" connect people with a need with the people with the best solution. Looking forward to the launch of Inquisix, Mike. Hopeful it helps move networking further online.

Freelance Designer

I recently hired Marcus Ohanesian to start doing graphic design work for our clients' projects. He is quick, responsive and affordable. And he does solid work. He launched a website to help himself find more freelance work or a job. If you do hire him, he's promised to still do my freelance work. Right Marcus?

Help Find Katie Corcoran - Lincoln, RI

It is amazing what women endure during birth and afterwards.  Having a 1 month old (as of yesterday), I am now witnessing the physical stress a woman handles. I can only imagine how that can manifest into emotional pain.

I received this by way of a friend. I don't know Katie or Rob, although their names sound familiar.

If you've seen her, please contact Rob.

Here's a website they've constructed to Help Find Katie where you can find his information.

Here's her photo:

I know Nothing About Harsha Raghavan. These Are Just My Opinions

I found this in my feedreader today.

I think Harsha has a bug in my office or something. Some of the stuff he's saying are certainly things we talk about internally.

He's actually the first person ever to really back up the fact that our ability to promote an event is more important than all the bells and whistles we've built into the service. I've made this point all along. Of course, some of our PR ability ties back to our technology. But, it's interesting to see an observer pick up on it. Pretty astute, Harsha.

He asks some very good good questions and makes semy very accurate, albeit a bit harsh, statements:

What is the value-innovation being offered? None. Obviously some people have signed up for the service but is it sustainable and will it grow large enough, in stable yet quick way? These are some Qs I'm trying to answer myself and am drawing a blank. Of course, if a sell-out is the exit strategy then I'm just babbling here.

Harsh is good though, Harsha. (Pun intended.)

Harsha concludes that we should offer to help event producers in the execution of events:

2. Catering (food and drink) and venue decoration services
3. Venue set up and management
4. Cleanup services (assuming the venue does not offer this service)
5. During-event attendee management

I disagree wholeheartedly. Those are messy cost intensive businesses. I certainly see value in trying to connect event producers with venues, caterers, etc like TheMenu does. We do this manually and locally. And a lot of technology could be applied to onsite event attendee management like nTag does. We've helped with on site stuff manually. But, providing real world services just slows down the growth of the company. (Yes. I've catered an event before. And I line up venues all the time. But, I do it to help. Not as a strategic move or to help sell our services.)

Actually, Harsha had it correct in the beginning. The differentiating factor to our business is not the technology. It's the ability to put more butts in seats doing online PR, marketing, promotion and advertising.

But, we're still asking the question:

Obviously some people have signed up for the service but is it sustainable and will it grow large enough, in stable yet quick way?

Thanks for the discussion, Harsha.

More Events than Ever Before

Over the last month, with the birth of Peter V,  I thought I'd have a dip in productivity. Actually, I am cranking out more than ever before.

Right now, we have more upcoming events than we've ever had. Some very cool stuff too.

Here's the list.

Social Advertising is Not a Business

Battelle put me over the top and inspired me to write this.

Today, he writes "PS: I Think There is  A *Huge* Business in Social Advertising"

Sometimes web people are so isolated, it's a bit ridiculous.
Update: That wasn't very nice. Or accurate. These are very sharp guys...

John Battelle (or Scott Rafer w/ Lookery or Seth Goldstein w/ Social Media) trying to predict how small business advertising will be affected by social networking is like 3 rocket scientists debating how to bake a cake.

These guys are so far removed from the practicality of running small local service based businesses. When's the last time any of you talked to a contractor, a restaurateur (in a small town) or a massage therapist about how they get new business?

Guess what?

Here's how:

Role of referrals: Nearly 60% of respondents said that more than half their business comes from customer referrals and “word-of-mouth,” while 30% said that “more than 75%” of their business is from referrals.

Do you really think happy customers of small businesses are going to start using facebook to make recommendations? Ahem. No.

This process might move online. But, there's no money in it. People will recommend the people they got great service and products from; the people they trust; the people that have proven they can deliver.

It might happen over a platform. It might happen on facebook. But, the transaction isn't going to be monetized.

Never before has an organization had such a lock on our attention like Google has. It'll never happen again either. Our attention is and always will be given to the people we trust. Ant it's not that monetizable. There will be no middleman.

That's why "Social advertising" is not and will not be a big business. Of course, automated behaviorially targeted advertising will be a big business. But, it's only an incrementally better solution than current ppc networks. And google, yahoo, msn will own that game. The barrier to entry is too high for an upstart ad network to beat them, even with a few nice targeting tricks.

Yes. Sponsored Content or "Conversational Marketing" will be a growth area too. But, not everyone is going to start a blog so that they can host sponsored conversations.  And conversational is just that: it benefits the advertisers that join the conversation. Not the ones that pay the most $. It won't be brokered. It doesn't scale like an ad network does.

Most people will just send an email or talk to their friends when they need a recommendation. Maybe there'll be a site that can help them do it a little more efficiently. But, it's not going to be a billion dollar business.

Social media is free. Social Marketing will be close to free. Social advertising won't be a revolutionary new big business.

How to Move "Word of Mouth" About Your Business Online

That is a working title for an eBook I am thinking about writing.

Here's why:

• Most successful methods: Identifying their “most successful” marketing methods, respondents named their websites, email marketing, print newspapers, coupons/direct mail, search engine marketing and print yellow pages, respectively
• Role of referrals: Nearly 60% of respondents said that more than half their business comes from customer referrals and “word-of-mouth,” while 30% said that “more than 75%” of their business is from referrals

The secret to driving more traffic to your website is "engaging your clients, referal partners and prospects" in a dialog online, hosted [or atleast initiated] by you. It's like inviting your prospects into a room full of happy clients. Your clients will convert your prospects into clients for you. You just have to buy the virtual beer.

The problem is that most small businesses have no clue how to do this.

MA Auctioneer, Stephen Paulin

Stephen Pauin is a client. Catie Foertsch is a member (and shining star) of Next Level Executives. (Nov 14th, 28th, December 12th)

Catie has turned Free Publicity Day into a permanent networking tool. She recently interviewed Stephen and wrote up a nice review of what he does.

Everyone knows how phenomenally successful Ebay is, but what you may not know is that auctions are alive and well in the real world, not just the virtual world, and a real live auction with a real live auctioneer is one of the best ways to convert your assets to cash, quickly and with a minimum of effort. 

If you have assets you need to sell, like business property, a house that won’t move, or belongings you no longer need, talk to Stephen Paulin, owner of Strategic Auctions Inc.  He’s a friendly guy and like most successful business people, he’s passionate about what he does. He’s got more than 30 years of experience, yet he still gets excited when he talks about solving your problems by taking your assets and turning them back into cash. 

Stephen loves all the angles, from marketing to attract the right buyers, to running the auction online if a world full of bidders is a good match for your property, to surprising you with how much cash he can get for your assets. Ask him about the recent online auction he ran to sell all the tools from a local high school’s auto and wood shops. Or the house that wouldn’t move after six months on the market that he sold in less than eight days.

And, talk to Stephen if you have an asset and you’d rather have cash.

Stephen's business is rockin and rollin. You can see all the recent auctions he's succesfully conducted on his newsletter.