In response to a lot of recent client enquiries on how long it takes to get found on Google, I thought it’d be a good idea to give an explanation. Many website owners feel that their site should be on the first page for their keywords, and are surprised and disappointed when this doesn’t happen immediately. We always repeat the caveat: it could take between six and 12 months before you get found. In most cases, it’s less than that, but you need to be prepared for the way Google deals with new websites, and newly optimised websites.

Many people think that Search Engine Optimisation is more of a dark art than a science, but really it’s just a case of moulding your site to fit what Google likes. If Google can’t understand what your site is about, or if Google doesn’t realise that your company is an industry leader, then we work to help Google like your site. This is an ongoing, and sometimes protracted, process.

Getting into the top 10 results on Google is not getting any easier, and Google is always inventing new ways of deciding how relevant websites are for a particular search result. Old chestnuts like (excuse the techy talk) link popularity, H1 tags, ALT text, meta Description tags, etc., have fallen by the wayside. While they still figure in the mix, there are so many different factors at play. Are searchers clicking on your site, where are your links coming from, is there much readable text on your home page, how is your website designed, where is your site hosted…the list goes on.

Add to this the fact that Google would prefer you to spend money through their AdWords programme rather than give you free ‘clicks’, and you can see why the forces are stacked up against your website getting high rankings anytime soon.
But work at it, and stay the course, and you will see an improvement. The simple things work best, but waiting is often the best option. Pepper your homepage with keywords, try to have content-rich pages on your site, submit your site to the directories, and check back every three weeks to see if rankings have improved.

And if you don’t see instant results, don’t be disappointed. It’s a long-term strategy, but it will pay off in the end.

Funny email attachment I got from a friend. Click on the image to expand it.

In yesterday’s Media section of the Guardian, several Internet frontrunners attempted to peer into the crystal ball and tell us what they saw. A very interesting article indeed, with contributions from MySpace, YouTube, Google and other heavyweights.

But one section I found to be very interesting was by Maurice Levy, CEO of Publicis Groupe, who was predicting future trends in advertising. Levy, who is referred to in Wikipedia as a “French advertising magnate”, made some very cogent points about the future of interruption advertising.

Levy argues that, in an era where people are vocally against advertising that ‘interrupts’ their enjoyment of a programme, show, website or newspaper, advertisers will need to seek more creative means of reaching their target market. “This implies a brave new world of engagement and involvement between marketers and consumers”.

As far as online is concerned, I have to disagree. Ads on popular websites are rarely given the attention that their designers had hoped. Click-through rates are miniscule. And for every successful viral promotion or online game, there are countless others being decried as shameless publicity stunts.

More than ever, search engine marketing is the basis for online advertising. Being found when users search for your products and services is still by far the best way of raising your sales.

While Google is working to increase its hold on advertising outside of search, expect some innovation. But in terms of achieving measurable results from online, search is still the key and in that arena, simplicity rules supreme.

I signed up to WebProNews about 8 months ago - I saw a couple of interesting article on their site, and decided that I should opt in to receive their emails.

So they started to send me their emails every day. As with all newsletters, I’ll scan the subject line and see if it’s worth keeping for future reference or to read on a break.

After a while, though, it stopped appealing to me. For one, a lot of the articles were telling me what I knew already or was getting elsewhere.

I’d also been receiving unsolicited email in the guise of ‘WebProNews Sponsor Updates’. These didn’t appeal to me at all - nor did the spam I received from sites I’d never heard of before. Seeing a connection, I decided enough was enough and unsubscribed from the WebProNews site.

I was taken to a page on the iEntry site saying “Thank You for your patronage”. I was off the list.

Or so I thought. The next day, another mailing from WebProNews. So, I think to myself, it takes a few days for them to remove you from their system.

But now, over 10 unsubscribe attempts later, I’m still receiving mail from them. I’ve set up a rule for it to go directly to my Deleted Items, but it raises a question: How can a company that writes articles daily on best-practice online marketing get their unsubscribe process so wrong?

Of course, I’m not the only one giving out about this - check here, here and here - but when WebProNews publish articles bemoaning the proliferation of spam and encouraging email marketers to get the unsubscribe function right, you’d think they’d sort this issue out.

Okay, so it sounds like I’m in rant mood here, and I am. I’ve disabled comments for our blog - for every comment posted that was interesting and provocative (i.e. posted by an intelligent human), there were about 300 comments advertising the usual, and posted by a software program or a spammer with a lot of time on their hands.

Spam in blogs is a big issue - this Wikipedia article describes it better (and less lividly) than I ever could. Essentially, a spammer posts on your blog with links to their website.

Some of these spam comments are funny, but by and large they are hugely predictable, and make me do the angry dance. A (very) quick survey of the 10,510 comments awaiting moderation for the Clientwell blog shows that there are four specific categories of blog spam:

Blog Spam Category #1: Idiot Spam

This is where the spammer assumes that the comment posted on our blog will go live immediately, so they can put whatever they want in their. Depending on what the spammer is promoting, it’ll look something like: “dunlop goodrich kumho tires tyres”. Okay, usually it’ll be a lot more ’sexy’ (in a very literal sense). Every word will be linked to the spammer’s site. I’ll be expected to leave it as a comment on my blog. Ah bless.

Blog Spam Category #2: I like your site

This goes along the lines of “Very interesting post - check out praxis viagra mp3 etc etc etc”. The spammer tries to be ingratiating, but then gets down to the business of hawking their wares. Fair enough, you’re at least pretending that you read the article before you got down to the sales pitch, but you’re still not getting in.

Blog Spam Category #3: Tied to a news event

Borrowed from the PR industry, this blog comment will attempt to come across as a news article, with links to the spammer’s site. So, we’ve got a few articles that start like: “ORANJESTAD, Aruba - Felix rapidly strengthened into a dangerous Category 5 hurricane and churned through the Caribbean Sea on a path toward Central America…”. It’s a nice touch, but the lack of relevance to online marketing means it’s easily flagged.

Blog Spam Category #4: Bizarre, just…bizarre

The final category of blog spam is often the funniest of all. For example, on 7 September, at 9:39 AM, someone called Inispeple read one of our previous blog articles (presumably) and then decided to post: “The kisekae to indian of your picking problems could be invalid if you heckling up disheartening productiveness discount…” I tried to put in more of the text, but the copy and paste function on my laptop broke into laughter. Anyway, this punter was trying to hawk log homes in Alaska. Good luck to him.

So, just in case you wanted to leave an insightful comment on our blog and were thwarted, please accept my apologies. If you’d like to get in touch about any of these articles, you can email me at david@clientwell.com. That does assume that you’re not trying to sell me a log home in Alaska.