January 28, 2005

So we commissioned a whitepaper on search engine optimization. It was trashed by one of our bloggers, Robin Good, in a piece called "Bad SEO: Marqui has the Reference", and continues to generate controversy. In it, we recommended that marketers look for a Content Management System (CMS) that allows them to easily add metatags and keywords to increase their hit rates, among other tips and tricks.

The other day, another blogger, Meryl, had a comment posted on her site referencing Marqui's inability to get top billing on our own name.

The comment, in part, reads:

"(Marqui's) program is an absolute failure at SEO! They are not driving visitors that are seeking the products they sell to their website... Interestingly enough, they don't even rank #1 for their original company name. A blog talking about them has a higher ranking (unfavorably speaking about them I might add)."

Ouch! "Bad SEO: Marqui has the Reference" strikes again!

Check it out! It's true! No matter how much time passes, that result is #1. Of course, Robin is an expert at SEO himself, and it shows.

The comment is from "James Paden" who says he is "the developer and owner of one of the most highly ranked web designer related websites and a SEO professional."

I assume it's Xemionthat he is referring to, since he links to it. Uh, most highly ranked by whom, James? It shows as a 6/10 on my Google toolbar. Run a Google search for "web design professionals" and Xemion is not anywhere near the top ten. They make #20 for "web designer".

To be fair, maybe James and Xemion are relatively new. As is Marqui.

In an article I just ran across in Search Engine Guide, Scottie Claiborne writes about 'Google's Aging Delay for New Sites.'

Read it. We, too, rank highly in MSN and Yahoo's search engines. But Google is the ubiquitous engine - the Holy Grail - for now.

Make no mistake about it. Search Engine Optimization is not simple. Even the smartest marketer and 'big brands' suffer from optimization used against them.

Download the whitepaper. Talk to Robin Good.

Such challenges have been well documented for Starbucks and Home Depot, battling against detractor sites like ihatestarbucks.com and homedepotsucks.com. They frequently are outranked by those sites and for no obvious reason except that they use the company name more times than the company's site.

We feel their pain.

Enough for a Friday afternoon.

Posted by at January 28, 2005

Comments

James Paden email - www.Xemion.com

First, my apologies. I don't wish this to be a battle between us. Nothing like that please.<br><br>

Second, your SEO report. I *agree* with pretty much everything listed in it (I haven't read it word for word yet). I believe Robin's criticism was for the most part unfair (please, Robin, don't post about me too :-).<br><br>

Third, your SEO company. They have a nice site. They seem like they know what they're doing. They look like really good, trust-worth guys to me. My PageRank is higher than theirs, so lets be fair when it comes to PageRank (which isn't as important to rankings as people would suggest). Nothing against Anvil, I like them, good SEO people, but your brought up PageRank so I thought I'd mention that ;-)<br><br>

Fourth, my company. I launched Xemion as a web design company in Spring 2002. In October of last year, 2004, I turned it into to a web designer directory because of it's high rankings. So yes, the directory is new, the website itself is not.<br><br>

Fifth, my rankings:<br>

#1 small business web design (my primary target 2 years ago)<br>

#7 web design company (dropped from #4 because I'm no longer focused on it)<br>

#6 web design services (dropped from #3)<br>

#21 professional web design (dropped from #11, only a recent addition to my SEO efforts)<br>

#20 web designer (I'm sorry, but that's *DARN* good SEO to be listed as #20 for web designer and my SEO is not directly targeted at that term)

<br><br>

James Paden email - www.Xemion.com

First, my apologies. I don't wish this to be a battle between us. Nothing like that please.<br><br>

Second, your SEO report. I *agree* with pretty much everything listed in it (I haven't read it word for word yet). I believe Robin's criticism was for the most part unfair (please, Robin, don't post about me too :-).<br><br>

Third, your SEO company. They have a nice site. They seem like they know what they're doing. They look like really good, trust-worth guys to me. My PageRank is higher than theirs, so lets be fair when it comes to PageRank (which isn't as important to rankings as people would suggest). Nothing against Anvil, I like them, good SEO people, but your brought up PageRank so I thought I'd mention that ;-)<br><br>

Fourth, my company. I launched Xemion as a web design company in Spring 2002. In October of last year, 2004, I turned it into to a web designer directory because of it's high rankings. So yes, the directory is new, the website itself is not.<br><br>

Fifth, my rankings:<br>

#1 small business web design (my primary target 2 years ago)<br>

#7 web design company (dropped from #4 because I'm no longer focused on it)<br>

#6 web design services (dropped from #3)<br>

#21 professional web design (dropped from #11, only a recent addition to my SEO efforts)<br>

#20 web designer (I'm sorry, but that's *DARN* good SEO to be listed as #20 for web designer and my SEO is not directly targeted at that term)

<br><br>

James Paden email - www.Xemion.com

My apologies for the double comment! I didn't see it when I pressed post (a website bug maybe?) so I tried it again. Please remove, thanks.

James Paden email - www.Xemion.com

Also, your preview line breaks are messed up. Thanks.

James Paden email - www.Xemion.com

Whoops...sorry...spoke too soon. My rankings for "web designer" are up to #15.

Janet email - www.marqui.com

Hi James,

I appreciate your energy and the integrity with which you defend your position. I don't disagree with you on many of your points. And I love a lively conversation - this is a debate about a position, not a personal battle, I promise you.

However, I want to make it clear that we're not claiming success with SEO as a result of our site itself. Rather, we're astonished at the success of our blogging program in getting us so much google juice so quickly. That's what's cool.

And yes, we've published a paper on SEO for marketers about what to look for in a CMS (content and communications) with regard to SEO. I think it's a wonderful service to our prospects (marketing and communications professionals).

You nailed it, no one's looking for Communications Management Systems (CMS) yet. But if we do our job right at Marqui, maybe people will - our customers use our solution for much more than content management. Some of our users never publish to a web site. They use our solution to do things like manage RFPs and quality processes. But we couldn't let the acronym go - we are trying to reposition the C to cover more than content, and encompass 'communications.' (People absolutely search for CMS, according to our research, and we couldn't let that go.)

You're right, I've only optimized our web site to a certain degree following our own guidelines.

And I can honestly only blame myself for that:

I built the site myself (having never posted a thing to the web before) using our tool. One non-technical marketer building content in order to launch a company does not necessarily good SEO make.

Which is why we partnered with Anvil. I followed many of their guidelines in order for the site to go live at launch in the US last November. I was immediately sucked into other launch activites (like getting print and online coverage for Marqui).

James Paden email - www.Xemion.com

Janet, thank you. Much nicer.

I would encourage you to define success by visitors, rankings or sales not the statistic "Google hits" (which is confusing and almost lying). As I'm sure Anvil will tell you, the number of Google results really isn't very relevant to anything. It doesn't guarantee you any more Google traffic, it's just means people are talking about you more. That may be your desired effect, but I would state that it does not, by any means, equal SEO success (as Steven's interview and your press release states).

Granted, your PageRank has probably gone up quite a bit as result of the program...but that's an extremely expensive way to obtain PageRank (which doesn't necessarily translate into visitors, rankings or sales).

I would also encourage you to go complete the SEO job. Most of the recommendations in your whitepaper are correct (a little basic, but your response to Robin stated the reason for that). Just implement them. I look forward to seeing what you do :-)

Your idea is optimizing for "CMS" and selling a "Communication Management System" (or "suite") is an excellent one. Be sure to research

sub-phrases as well. "CMS" itself would be a difficult phrase to obtain top rankings for. It's similar to obtaining top rankings for "web designer" ;-)

I'm definitely interested in working further with you. Someone at Marqui has my contact information (Meryl forwarded it on) and it's posted on my site as well.

James Paden email - www.Xemion.com

Now, my website is really targeted at *local* listings. If you want to get a real feel for why I feel my website is one of the top ranked on the net, download www.xemion.com/rankings.txt. Open it in Excel. Notice the high rankings (I only searched for the top ten). Notice the sheer number of keywords (1726). Notice the graphic design related keywords that I''m not even optimizing for yet (I''m going to expand to graphic designers soon). Notice there are many other smaller cities I rank highly for too.

Please remember that I had none of the listings until October of last year. A mere 3 1/2 months ago. They are all new. Granted, I was already highly ranked by Google, but not for any location-based terms.

Sixth, I hope you take a look at that. I hope that after doing so you can say that I have a very highly ranked website. Perhaps it still doesn''t meet your standards, that''s ok.

Seventh, as much as I hate to do this...I don''t have the highest ranked website. Other highly ranked websites (in my mind): www.marketingtool.com (they''ve been around a lot longer than me, but I feel my SEO is better and I''ll beat them in the long run), www.1234-find-web-designers.org (the oldest highly ranked web designer directory), www.leveltendesign.com (these guys are brillant, they wrote a free website statistics/counter that links back to their site. what a great idea).

Eighth, honestly my problem with your SEO, is that you don''t follow the advice in your whitepaper. I quote:

- Identified your target audience(s).

- Established a theme for each of the pages on your site.

- Established a list of keywords and phrases appropriate to your target audience(s).

- Positioned those keywords and phrases at or near the top of each page to optimize their

relevancy.

Currently, all I see your website truly optimized for is "Communication Management System". Nobody is looking for such a thing (according to Overture)! 41 people looked for a mobile communication system last month. T

James Paden email - www.xemion.com/

That''s it. Maybe Google''s stats are higher on the phrase (I only checked Overture''s because I have them bookmarked).

You have a paragraph tag in your meta keywords for pete''s sake! There''s no keywords in your metatags! Atleast not ones that are also in your website body or title.

You claim to have made a big success with your SEO. I''m just disagreeing with that claim. I don''t feel you''ve implemented the SEO that''s even outlined in your whitepaper. That''s all I''m saying. I''m not mad at you. I don''t dislike you. I won''t come out and say I''m a support of your pay-blogger program, but I''m definitely not against it. You guys seem like nice guys to me, trying to do the right thing. Do the right thing here.

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