Syzlak’s SEM

8 Things I Learned on the Interweb this Week

Posted on: October 5, 2007 by Syzlak Comments

Hey Reader! Did you know that SEOHack and I are good friends? It’s true, no fooling! In fact, sometimes we have spirited discussions about current events in the world of SEM. By spirited, I mean filled with dirty language; and by discussions, I mean bickering matches. So, for the first 7 things I learned this week, check here. As for the 8th, I learned the following:

1. Picking on Rand gets you a lot of attention. Let’s display this with a chat from earlier

 

SEOHack: You see Sphinn (Ed: pronounced s-fin – don’t drink the Kool-Aid) has yet another story about SEOmoz and Rand?

Syzlak: No shit?!?!

SEOHack: Yeah

Syzlak: Good! I was hoping to read new trite.

SEOHack: Perfect junk for “what I learned.” Skitzzo is a silly dude. No, I take that back; not silly, just a dude.

Syzlak: Wha?!?!? Why is he teh fuck?

SEOHack: Because he’s like mvandemar but with less balls and trying to wrap himself in some sort of “hey man, I’m not being mean, but these SEOmoz people need to be taken to task!”

Syzlak: I think that his post is all one can do to try to attack Rand though. Disagreeing with rand is like disagreeing with Mr. Belvedere – no one thinks it’s possible, and if it is, they feel uncomfortable about it

SEOHack: heheheh. Mr. Belvedere. You think Skitzzo’s post was more of an attack?

Syzlak: No

SEOHack: I agree with him on Rand outing sites

Syzlak: No one attacks as much as mvandemar

SEOHack: True dat

Syzlak: Here’s my point – this guy attacked in the only way that will make people start thinking about SEOmoz’s actions, and he was totally right about the comment posts. Personally, Rand needs to reign in his employees.

SEOHack: Nah. Fuck that.

Syzlak: That was bush league. Might as well have just said “neener neener”

SEOHack: I guess I appreciate Rebecca’s loyalty to her boss man

Syzlak: meh. Fuck that shit

SEOHack: No way

Syzlak: It’s not loyalty necessarily. It’s petty name calling.

SEOHack: It’s like Lovitz, mvandemar is like fucking Andy Dick.

Syzlak: If she were to do it to his face, bitch him out, bring on the shame, pee on him and then claim him as property…then that’s something, but to sarcastically call him out when you know you won’t have to face up to it…no.

SEOHack: That would be awesome

Syzlak: So, we getting a 7 things I learned this week?

SEOHack: But she did though, it’s not like she’s an SEOHack. People know who she is. Most of the shit going on in Sphinn is inside the walls of a high school and no one on the outside reads it or cares…and yes, I’ll be doing a 7 things.

Syzlak: True – but if I were Rand I’d say post, but let’s not get personal, be above it.

SEOHack: If I were Rand, I’d say something how while I appreciate Rebecca’s comments and agree with them, this might not have been the place to air them especially in light of who is in this forum. I apologize for Rebecca calling mvandemar a ‘douche bag’ and will take this up with her in private.” Then I’d give her a raise.

SEOHack: Then when people say “she didn’t call him a douche bag.” My reply would be “oh, my bad.”

Syzlak: Fair enough. We won’t see eye to eye on that one. Still, although I get the actions being commendable, did you see Rebecca’s comment on Skitzzo’s blog? The attitude didn’t end with mvandemar.

SEOHack: I need to update the page…when I read it, it was only at five comments.

Syzlak: weewar is slow today – I’m gonna get a burrito

 

Time elapses

SEOHack: Maybe part of my problem with Skittzo is the whole condescending, disappointed father tone of his post and his comments.

Syzlak: http://smackdown.blogsblogsblogs.com/2007/10/05/hey-rand-since-its-not-wrong

SEOHack: Oh for fucks sake! How about one of us Sphinn that with the title “More Rand Is A Lying, Thieving Asshole Fun-ness!”

Syzlak: Do it

SEOHack: yeah? Think I’ll hit first page?

Syzlak: No, but it’d be fun.

SEOHack: You got a vote for that comment!

Syzlak: ‘Tis a good comment

SEOHack: Tis! I especially love the “take search seriously” bit. Brilliant!

Syzlak: I’m so good but no one likes me

SEOHack: You are! As am I!

Syzlak: You’re ok

SEOHack: Yeah, I suppose you’re right. This is gonna die with only three Sphinns as well, isn’t it?

 

Time elapses

SEOHack: Can you find that submission? I think they scrubbed it. Holy shit they deleted it. I’m done with Sphinn.

SEOHack: Fucking weewar…

 

As you can see, 1 instance can snowball into grand misunderstandings and arguments the likes of which we may never resolve. I didn’t know it at the time and neither did he, but we were onto something more important that autumn. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since the beginning of summer when Winnie Cooper left for camp. She’d be back soon, and would have no doubt learned how to express herself in new ways. In the end, we all learned something really:

Not to pick on WeeWar – we really love our accounts. Please don’t block us

 

123s of Search Engine Efficiency

Posted on: October 2, 2007 by Syzlak Comments

I work with some horrible search engines.

After running a campaign on ABCSearch for months (reader remembers when I first wrote about 3rd Tier engines) I saw traffic for the first time last week. Anxious to build a report for my client, I went to their reporting center and this was a link on their reporting page:

Download Report In XL sheet

 

XL!!!! XL!!!! A gigantic sheet will deliver your report!!! Not an MS Licensed product. Do you know what happens when you click it? It takes you to a new screen where you have to re-enter the dates you want the report to cover. Then you click a button that says:

Upload Report

 

Really? Could this be more amateur? At this point, not only do I have no idea where these ads are being displayed, but I also have no reporting to study. Fantastic work! I know that some of you out there will suggest calling support…this may be more inept than their site. One day I called support at the behest of my client (he was concerned that we hadn’t seen traffic, I was sure that we may never) asking if there was anything we should try to increase our presence. The response?

Increase your bids on the keywords

 

Really? That’s it? Did you not look at my campaign? Do you not realize that increasing bids does nothing for you if you’re already ranked #1? Moments like these I’m glad I’m not the SEOHack, I’m glad that I have a calm button on my person. However, it still infuriates me that search engines exist with this level of ineptitude. Have a UI that makes sense! Hire and train your employees! Don’t recruit businesses to advertise on your search “network” if they won’t have traction.

 

Funny, just now current future ex-Mrs. Syzlak texted me:

why cant people just admit it when they don’t know how to do something. i work with such bozos i swear

 

So do I.

Happy to be Home

Posted on: October 1, 2007 by Syzlak Comments

3rd Tier Search Results

Posted on: October 1, 2007 by Syzlak Comments

Hey Reader!

Remember that post on 3rd Tier Search i did a while back? Well, here’s a short writeup on the results! Nothing unexpected happened, as the search engines were held well in check.

 

3rd Tier Search Review

The Players: Enhance, Miva and ABCSearch.

Metrics: Cost Efficiency, Traffic and ROI.

 

From our test we have been able to gather some interesting teachings on cost efficiency and traffic. When properly controlled, 3rd tier search engines are a relatively cheap source of traffic. Their limited scope helps to keep costs down, while providing an alternative to the mainstream online audience (Google, Yahoo).

After examining the traffic, we see some encouraging trends. The 3rd tier engines performed as we wanted. They delivered low volume of traffic and we incurred no spikes in traffic. Although we cannot analyze the traffic with 100% accuracy, we can make some assumptions as to its quality. Since we did not see any spikes in traffic, we can assume that the engines delivered the results to qualified sites. We can also assume that the traffic was legitimate, as we saw what appeared to be quality website referrals.

While none of the campaigns resulted in conversions, we can see the potential of employing a properly managed campaign on 3rd tier engines. With such little traffic being delivered and little cost incurred, a strong ROI would be easily achieved with just a few sales.

3rd tier search engines offer a distinct opportunity for branding campaigns. Due to their alternate audience, 3rd tier search offers the ability to expand the online market. Instead of competing for position on Google and Yahoo, one can be a top advertiser in 3rd tier engines.

While we only received nominal amounts of traffic from Enhance, our campaigns in Miva were rather successful from a traffic standpoint. Miva slowly increased its traffic share over the course of 13 weeks, and has recently performed at a consistent level of roughly 4 visits/day. As we will not continue to advertise on the 3rd tier engines after this test has run its course ($150 budget depletion), we have raised our bids in Miva and Enhance for further testing.