So what does this have to do with SEO? If we look at Search Engine Marketing as Customer Service – these commercials are spot on. Basically, my internet marketing friends, this ad campaign is our fault, and everyone who laughed at these commercials is laughing primarily at you. You should be more mad at yourself than Google is.

We get so wrapped up in all the goofy aspects of SEO, we seem to forget the fact that people are looking for answers from a search engine. Which means, users are asking a question in the form of some keywords. Which meaaaaans, we do an extremely poor job of answering their questions.

Who cares, right? You’re getting the traffic. Your conversion rate and bounce rate are where they should be!

Hey, listen Goo-Roo, I’m sure I don’t look like a guy who cares, so do the math yourself.

If you’re not targeting specific pages for specific keywords (and by that I mean using specific pages to answer specific questions) then think about how many visitors your site is bleeding off each month.

Maybe, maybe Google calls SEOs criminals because that’s the best descriptive container to explain how we’re treating our potential customers.

Instead of acting like human-cattle herders, we should be focusing on the visitor paths.

Tweet This Rule!

• Where have they come from? Does the landing page answer the question indicated by their keywords?
• What specifically are they looking for? Could you benefit from creating more specific pages under a broad one?
• Where did they go to next if they didn’t bounce? Did they move the direction you want them to?

Answer these questions for yourself to find out if you’re answering the questions being brought to you. You will likely find you can segment your traffic in a much more user-oriented way. This is the difference between a great site and an OMG site that can seemingly read minds.

Make the visit personal. Figure out the conversation your customers/visitors are having with your site, then make it better.

I’d stop talking to my best friend online if he had an agenda.

There, I said it.

I don’t care how carefully you tip-toe around, unless you’re “socializing and making friends” online with a bunch of other internet marketers, no matter how friendly or inviting your money-links are they will (almost) always be highly irrelevant to me when I’m busting someone’s chops online for liking the latest Black Eyed Peas single.

It seems marketers are so rabid to make something work in a social setting that they’re willing to throw out everything else we know about relationship selling. Go ahead, throw away years of proven internet marketing experience and tinker around with the coldest traffic available and calculate your ROI. Try “Social Media Sniping” because if someone is talking about their dog, they must want to hear about the latest dog collar line available at Amazon, right? That makes so much sense. Because instead of ranking organically for keyphrases or advertising, we can intercept them virtually in real-time now and engage them immediately mid-conversation.

Wait… what happened to framing your visitors? What happened to commercial intent? Where’s the lead-in, the follow-up, the free-line, relationship, reputation, authority, social proof, reciprocity….

Where’s the magic push-button to make this happen?

I’m about to save you weeks worth of work, if you’re willing to accept what I’m about to tell you:

The social tactics that worked 4 years ago, still work today. Nothing has changed except the number of people available and the speed of which you can research (not engage).

Sure they’ve been modified and polished slightly with the onslaught of Web 2.0 flexibility and availability, but “changed” it has not.

To understand social media, you sort of need friends to qualify (take that to the bank). Make me laugh. Give me two free movie tickets. Tell me my coin collection is awesome and you took time to calculate it and it’s worth approximately $7.

If you want to learn social media, then guess what, that book was written 73 years ago. Your choice. Around $10 for that book or up to $3,000 for a misguided “education” on a social monetization strategy.

Stop thinking like a marketer. You might actually find something more valuable than your ROI spreadsheet can calculate. You can get invited to be a guest blogger, be interviewed on a webinar, or asked for help on a product launch. These things are of incalculable value whether you’re an authority or not. Don’t charge for it. Just build the relationships.

Now go make friends.

But don’t start with me because I’m already mad at you for trying to pad your pockets with fake friendship.

Bonus!

Take the “Spot the Social Media Marketer” Quiz!!

Ok so check this out – I created a quick video for Site Source 101 on how to customize your Facebook Fan page to include a HTML widget (note: This is not currently applicable to your profile page).

If you aren’t doing this yet you need to be, especially if your fans are throwing your page around to their friends’ feeds. Think of all your options here. You could:

• Graphically link your Twitter and other Social accounts
• Include a picture and bio of the business or product owner
• Duplicate your website navigation for easy access
• Advertise coupons or promotions to your fans
• Highlight your favorite fan of the week

This is your chance to pull new visitors to your site the first time they land on your fan page. The video is less than 3 minutes long, so this is something you can learn and implement in less than 10. Watch the video, then take some time to consider how you could improve the value of your page to your fans and in turn increase the value of their visits!

Feel free to download or view the PDF for easy reference.

You can read up on FBML in Facebook’s Developers Wiki (welcome to Awesomegeekland).

Now just answer one question: WHO LOVES YOU?!?!

That’s right…. this guuuuuuuy.

As Web 2.0 continues to evolve, so do our chances of meeting people and networking with some real talent. There are a multitude of social sites to apply this strategy to, so just think of this as a “hey, maybe there is life outside the box” kick in the head in an info-product-but-it’s-free-info kind of way.

When the Affiliates Don’t Come to You, Go to Them.

Yeah, I said it. Swallow your pride and go head-hunting. If you’ve got a great product and competitive commissions, go find someone qualified in your niche and show them how to make money in your program. Twitter is all the rage lately, so let’s take a quick look at how easy this is to execute. Depending on the size of your niche, the length of this process will vary.

Start out at  Search.Twitter.com (this link is also found in the footer link section of any Twitter page). This is like Google, but exclusively searches tweets. If you’ve never used this service by Twitter, you need to sit and think for a minute about how powerful it is to find people at any time who are talking about anything in that same moment. That is typically how it is used – to find out what’s hot, what’s being talked about, and who you can communicate with about whatever is on your mind.

What I want you to do is flip the coin. Don’t just look at Twitter as a great place to meet potential clients who share your interests and could likely benefit from your product or service. Instead, find other professionals in your niche who are already offering valuable content to the same people. Here comes the “for instance”…

If you have a product for “[your keyphrase here]“:

1. Do a Twitter search on your primary or related keyphrase.
2. Look for the box in the upper right of the screen subscribe to the query RSS. It will look like this:
   
   This will create an RSS feed that updates every time a new result would show in the search query.
3. Review the results regularly and watch for links pointing followers to related products in your niche.
4. Start networking with the leaders already in your niche who have a decent following but understand that their following might be all fluff and they may not have a “real” list to work with. Take time to see how they interact with others and whether or not their followers respond.
5. Once you’ve felt them out over a period of time, direct message the ones you would like to work with and let them know you’d like to offer them a JV deal that you have determined could be instantly profitable for them based on their following.
6. Get them on-board and help them help you.

I came across this method by accident but I was surprised at how easy and effective it is. Make sure you both use tact and proper social-media-etiquette (don’t spam) to protect your reputations. This will either be highly adventageous for you, or ruin you both. No pressure.

Once you’ve run a successful JV, get a video testimonial from them, revamp your sales page, and it’s off to the races to test your new offer to potential customers and affiliates.

The added benefit of this is you will also have a chance to have your product or service critiqued by another professional in your niche since you will be working closely together and they may be able to shed some light onto why you’re having trouble to begin with.

You’ll be able to quickly sharpen up your product, pitch, following, and “stickyness” of your campaign in no time and start reaping the rewards you’ve been missing out on, all while making your first successful affiliate a partner in crime for a long time to come.

To your continued success.