Don’t fall for any „basic tips of how-to“

I usually try not to write negative about things, because unless it’s constructive criticism for the creator of the content, nobody gains much. But since there is no possibility to comment on things at marketingvox, I will do it here.

I am referring to the post with the title „How-to: 9 Basic SEO Tips„. It caught my attention, because just the other day, I had a discussion with colleagues at the agency about how creative agencies rarely know how to properly search engine optimize the websites they build.

However, with the 9 basic tips, we won’t get very far either. Let me quote some of them:

Find out how well you rank online. […] It may be helpful to download the Google Toolbar, which gives you the „PageRank“ score for websites. Pages are scored on a scale of 1 to 10. The goal will be to make this number higher on your website.

Ok – and how? (It doesn’t say). Another great tip:

Submit your site to search engines. Do it personally; avoid „submission services“ or software. You only need to do it once.

I won’t continue with other tips like „place relevant keywords in the title tag“ or „use alt tags on images“ that they also featured.

Was any of this new to anyone? Please ? If so, just leave this blog immediately. In fact – please leave the internet and switch off your computer completely.

Gheez – we’re in 2008 by now, it’s not 1998 any more!

Not sure about the target audience of marketingvox, but for this article, it sure isn’t your average webmarketer!

AdAge digital issue

Adage published a „digital issue“, which seems to be completely accessible online. (Why wouldn’t it, anyway?) I haven’t read through the entire set of articles just yet, however there seem to be some interesting thoughts. Things like the 70/20/10 rule for marketing budgets, a short article about what the h*** are widgets, and a little crystal ball 2.0 outlook (still need to finish that one).

Do you really think people are paying attention to your ads?

So you really think that people pay attention? Try this test to find out how good your „attention“ skills are.

test.jpg

Amazing, isn’t it? Now imagine people are looking for something specific online on your webiste. Will they notice the ads? I guess, they will. BUT: only if they are relevant or related to what they are looking for. Another reason why(contextual, behavioural, etc.) targetting is crucial when attention is scarce. And scarce it is pretty much all the time these days.

Christvertising – praying for your brand.

In a similar fashion as the famous „make my logo bigger cream“ website now comes a new idea: Christvertising. Pray for your brand.

christvertising.jpg

Not quite as funny as the logo cream idea, in my opinion, but worth watching nevertheless. The holder of the domain is protected by the „contactprivacy“ service (which sounds like a good idea for the US – but as a website publisher, you would never get away with this kind of anonymity service in Germany).

(found at Martin’s blog)