Stephen Harris, Consultant, SPH Associates
Stephen Harris has been involved in the Internet marketing space since the late 1990s-initially as director of e-business technology at ADP, creating the first e-business platform for small business payroll services. Since then, Harris has designed and managed affiliate marketing programs and worked at DigitalGrit, an online marketing agency. For DigitalGrit he devised and provided project management processes to search marketing for large-scale, big-brand companies.
Harris’s hands-on experience with SEO and online marketing has been as a consultant for the firm he started-SPH Associates. The firm is focused on small businesses. And this venue has led to his beliefs about conversion-based thinking for SEO.
Jerri: Where do you see the current state/importance of SEO?
Harris: SEO is very important… at least that is what business owners think. I receive calls where they say they need SEO-but in truth we learn that they need more effective web design and even paid-click programs. This does not mean to dispel the value of a top ranking-for credibility and indeed traffic -as per the Eye Tool/Did-It study. (You can find this study at http://www.eyetools .com/inpage/research_google_eyetracking_heatmap.htm.)
I also see a ton of snake-oil salespeople, or people who simply give the client what they asked for without actually listening to what they need. There are people who claim they will submit your web site to the top 200 search engines. There are some that say they guarantee top listing on a few of the top 200 search engines but would never make such a claim for Yahoo!, Google, or MSN ([those companies] represent around 98 percent of all searches). These snake-oil salespeople make it hard for legitimate SEO professionals to earn trust in the small and mid-sized business space.
However, it is clear that the top three or four search engines are so ingrained into our way of life- we use Google as a verb-that it is important for businesses to design their web sites not only for effectiveness and usability, but to get long-tail benefits.
Jerri: Could you please explain to me what you mean by long-tail benefits?
Forrester: It just means that well-written, readable, and relevant content will help the site appear highly ranked on obtuse or lesser used search terms. But in accumulation all these “little used” terms can add up big-time. I think that natural, well-written content that speaks to the reader will allow for long tail- rather than content that is gamed (or abused) for the top keyword that the SEO specialist is trying to achieve results for.
Jerri: What can organizations do right now to improve their SEO?
Harris: Work backwards-examine your web site and make sure your house is in order. Make sure your content is quick and tight but yet readable- and do the SEO basics (title tags, image tags, and the like). This all by itself will help your site to be relevant and relevancy is key to Google success and of course conversions.
I am more of an on-site optimizer. I find some off-site linking to be dubious. I think the winds may be changing, causing highly linked sites not to be as relevant unless the links are truly relevant.
I provide suggestions to my clients on how to get effective links and provide them with linking code to give to their peers and customers. I do employ someone that does linking since it still works, even though I don’t fully agree with pursuing linking strategies.
Just create a relevant and compelling site. Make me want to be there and everything else will work out.
Jerri: What should web-site owners be focusing on for future improvements?
Harris: From an SEO standpoint [web site owners should] become thought leaders in their space, using blogs, writing articles, and posting on the Web. [You should also] create a Web 2.0 stickiness to your site. Give people a reason for being there and wanting to come back. This in itself is not an SEO play, but by having strong content that is frequently updated and extended, you give the robot spiders plenty of reason to want to come back time and again.
Jerri: Are there any strategies that organizations might know about but are not implementing that might help with SEO results if they did?
Harris: I have been trying to figure this out, [looking for] some technology that enhances SEO beyond what we all know already. Unfortunately, some of these [technologies] tend to come back as black hat, which I am not a party to. The only black hat area I think should be carefully allowed is creating a clone for heavily flashed sites. But that is a tough one to call.
The key is Web 2.0-social integration, updated, frequent, and relevant content, and thought leadership. This all goes back to Google’s principles on relevancy! Make it relevant and they will come… and come again.
Jerri: What do you consider a strong, viable web site and how does that impact SEO?
Harris: Well, I am such a content purist sometimes – I believe that one should have a brief but good strong content strategy that tells me who you are, what makes you great or special, why should I be here, and how do I learn more (which falls under permission marketing). I can live without a lot of Flash and images. But I always lose that argument and concede the need for aesthetics.
Seriously, a good balance of content and attractiveness will rule the SEO day. Too much Flash and gee-whiz does not help conversions nor relevancy except in some unique cases. A well-designed, well-written web site will do well from all perspectives.
Jerri: What changes in SEO are coming as the result of the growth of social media?
Harris: There are some tough decisions coming here. The power of Adobe Flex and Ajax is making web sites much better usability-wise-more like an application than a web site-but this is caus- ing tracking people to freak out (pageviews are passé in this genre), and of course these are not very white-hat SEO-able. But it can be done and we do know Google and Adobe are talking (I am actu- ally participating in this interview from the 360Flex conference in Seattle).
I think the biggest changes are again that balancing act between the visual and the content, and how to balance them effectively.
But here is a radical thought- SEO may not be as important for a strong social site, whereas word of mouth and viral marketing will be what delivers the visitation. Could social sites be able to thumb their nose at the search engines?
Jerri: Are there any other coming changes that will affect SEO?
Harris: Well we think that Flex and other tools will become SEO-friendly. We hope people get it and write their sites to focus on the visitors, not the robot spiders. To my knowledge, no sales have come from the spider… but they do come from the visitors.
We also are well aware of strong vertical search engines, and this may be an area where the rank- and-file SEO specialist is not focusing-to optimize for vertical search engines that are within the space of the client web site.
Jerri: Is there anything I haven’t touched on that might be important for small to mid-sized organizations to know about SEO?
Harris: Cost… cost is a huge issue. Education is another. I spend so much time discussing main- tenance programs and the need to keep doing SEO monthly. It is not a one-time thing. And of course educating people that you do not need to pay people to submit your web site and that no one can guarantee a top position on the top three search engines.
Again, back to cost. Small businesses have been educated that they need SEO, but they find they cannot easily afford it. Even mid-sized businesses feel this way. The issue is that SEO is still mystical- whereas they know paid-click programs work, or if it doesn’t work they can stop it quickly. The snake-oil people aren’t helping.
My approach recently has been more common sense-based, as discussed earlier. When someone asks me about SEO, I immediately ask them about their web site. Is it working for them? Then I look to see if it is effective and usable. I also try to manage their expectations. I had someone ask me to get them top-ranked for the word “diamonds,” and they ended up not hiring me because I said they should consider more realistic targets like “quality diamond earrings” or something simi- lar. Of course, for $100,000 maybe I could have gotten them top rankings [for such a broad term] but they only wanted to spend $5,000.
I am coming up with a product called SEO Lite which provides basic usability and web effective- ness, along with SEO best practices and education about what a web-site owner can do on their own for optimization.
I do hear of major companies that have stopped their SEO initiatives. It’s all about results and costs.
Jerri: In what circumstances would a company stop their SEO initiatives?
Forrester: When they feel or perceive that they are not getting any real results from their ranking vs. the cost of the maintenance fee. I think that this is often a perception that maintenance fees bleed site owners dry, especially where it takes a long time to achieve high ranking for a top keyword. I think showing the long-tail increase may help stem this kind of maintenance remorse. It also may be a lack of clear communications with the client, or it could be specialists that get lazy and then the client does not feel there is any real effort occurring.
Jerri: If they are not focusing on SEO, what are they focusing on to improve site visits and conversions?
Forrester: Site usability, implementation of Web 2.0, paid-click programs. And I think these are or could be even more important for clients initially, as they can achieve an immediate kick in visits and establishment of retention/loyalty. If the site is built using SEO standards, then over time the long tail effect and time can naturally lift the site. I have not done any meaningful changes to my own site (http://www.stephen-harris.com) in many months, yet it is top-ranked! And in some very competitive keywords!
