What Makes a Site Too Small?

A site can be five pages and not be too small if it’s a closely targeted site that conveys all necessary information. For example, a brick-and-mortar store that doesn’t have an online catalog will be well served by a small site that details their location, hours, and services provided. They don’t need to host 500 pages about their services.

On the opposite side of the small site coin, we might find a small e-commerce site. Even an ultra-niche site may find value in expanding beyond the 30 or so pages needed for products and policy pages. Not everyone who reaches an e-commerce site is looking to buy that day. They may need information about using a product they already own, or they might be researching a problem for which one of your products is a solution. FAQs, tips, and related articles can increase the site’s size without weakening authority or straying from the core mission. Some of those informational visitors will eventually become e-commerce customers.

What Makes a Site Too Big?

A site can be 500,000 pages and not be too big if it’s an e-commerce site with a diverse product mix and a page for each product. In this case, an effective SEO strategy will make maintaining all those pages manageable, and improve the ability of each page to rank appropriately.

A site becomes too big when the product mix can’t be properly maintained, or when every page is simply a doorway to the same product. For example, a lead-gen site could create a page for each potential variation of a four-word search phrase, but it will quickly lose its authority for users and the search engines. It’s simply not possible to write unique content on 16 variations of the same four words. In this case, the site would be better served by a smaller set of articles incorporating two or three variations of the search phrase in each article.

How Do You Know If Your Site Is Too Small?

Analytics is the simplest way to determine whether your site is too small. Is all your traffic coming from your brand terms and one or two related terms? Then you need to optimize your existing pages around additional terms, and consider adding authoritative content on additional keywords.

How Do You Know If Your Site Is Too Big?

Again, there are two simple approaches:

First, ask yourself if you’re adding content just for the sake of adding content. If the isn’t part of a larger strategy and won’t serve a real benefit for your site or your customer, then you probably don’t need it.

Second, is the new content being visited? If you’ve added a bunch of new content and none of it is receiving visits, or even being indexed, it’s possible that it’s not properly optimized, but it’s more likely that that content isn’t perceived as valuable to the search engines, and by extension, to your customers.

Churning out content may work for the eHow’s of the world, but for the rest of the web, a targeted content approach that makes your site neither too small nor too big is the best way to get a return on your investment.

Free Delta Flight – Maybe

The commercial in question was for the Delta Skymiles card. It instructed people to search for “free Delta flight” no less than three times in the ad – both in the ads graphics and the voiceover.

I happened to have a computer right there next to me on the couch, so I went to my friendly neighborhood browser and did as instructed.

Sigh.

I’m a good SEO, and my eye immediately goes to the organics. Imagine my surprise when the Delta credit card didn’t appear anywhere in the top 10 results. I tried Bing and Yahoo, too. Same result.

Finally I spotted the #1 position for the term in the paid listings. In fact, their ad is the ONLY ad in Google. From an SEM perspective, that’s an easy win. From an SEO perspective, it couldn’t be a bigger fail.

Why Sacrifice a Portion of Your Search Traffic?

Although people do still look at and click paid ads, there are many like me who don’t look at the ads. By failing to optimize an organic page for the term “free Delta flight,” they’re missing a huge opportunity to bring in users who saw the commercial and want their product, but didn’t notice the ad. They’re also missing an opportunity to snag people who search for “free Delta flight” without seeing the ad.

At the very least, optimizing a page on their site for the keyword would score them a second spot in the SERPs. They might even get the first ad spot and the first organic spot. A double-whammy that will bring them tons of traffic from both sources, and possibly save them the cost of a few clicks.

What Delta/Amex Should Have Done

First, they should have created a page on their site for “free delta flight.” I’ll even give them a free URL: www.deltaskymilescard.com/freedeltaflight.html

Boom, that’s one key step. Next optimize the Title tag, Meta Description, and H1 tag around the term. Include some content explaining how customers can earn a free flight by signing up and using the card. Go one step further by use some of the same colors used in the ad to reinforce the message. Finally, direct a link or two to the page internally and ask partner sites to link to the site with the anchor text “free delta flight.”

All of this wouldn’t cost much, less than $10,000, but it’s a worthwhile investment before you spend millions of dollars on a TV campaign where you ask people to search.

The Aryn Kennedy Experience

When Dave sent me the link to this new tool, I was excited. I’ve had problems in the past with Adwords not being a true reflection of the level of traffic my clients can expect. A tool that only showed results for actual search volume, not including the content network, would be great. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out the way I’d hoped.

I started by searching for “real estate.” This is an area where I have a lot of experience, so I know the top keyword already. I expected to see “real estate” at the top of the list, followed by variations like “los angeles real estate” or “Chicago real estate” or “real estate listings.” Instead, I got this:

A big, fat nothing. I entered a website address and finally got some results, but I still didn’t see the top terms I expected to see. It appeared that it wouldn’t show me results for keywords that were also keyword category names (see Dave’s experience for the categories.)

Next I input the site FTD.com to see what keywords it would recommend based on the site’s content. I expected to see “flowers” at the top of the list. But what I actually saw surprised me:

At this point, I gave up and threw my computer against the wall. Well, not really. I just gave up and went back to Adwords. The idea of a search-based keyword tool is great, but this version is useless to me for two reasons: 1. It doesn’t show me top terms that I should be going after, and 2. It doesn’t work well if you don’t enter a site name. If I’m working on a brand new site, the tool simply won’t work for it.

The David Waterman Experience

In addition to Aryn’s observations on how the tool doesn’t suggest keywords that are fundamental (and quite obvious) to a website, the Google Search Based Keyword Tool also has categorizing issues. Here’s what I mean.

I decided to see how the tool works with a general term like “mortgage” (without including a website). At first glance, the tool pulls logical keyword suggestions.  However, when I looked at the “Categories for this search” column on the left, I noticed something very unusual. I saw the category “Apparel”. When I clicked on Apparel, I saw more detailed Apparel subcategories like “Clothing”, “Casual”, “Outwear”, and “Underwear”. Wait….UNDERWEAR?????? FOR A MORTGAGE CLASSIFICATION????? I was a bit confused. When I clicked on “Underwear” the deeper category “Boxers & Briefs” appeared. I scratched my head for a minute but then noticed a pattern within the keywords presented. Almost all the terms that were subcategorized as “Underwear” had the term “short”….”mortgage short sale”, “short mortgage”, “short pay mortgage”, etc. Since these “short”-related mortgage terms were categorized under “Underwear”….specifically “Boxers & Briefs”…I assumed the tool was equating “Short” with “Shorts” and “Shorts” with “Boxer Shorts” which can be classified as “Underwear”. And that’s how it probably ended up with mortgage terms classified as “Underwear”. Of course, none of us would classify these terms as such, but we’re dealing with a program…a program that needs some tweaking.

Here’s visual proof of what I saw:

So as you can see, the tool has some problems. Is this a peak into possible difficulties the Google algorithm has with classifying and identifying relevant keywords? Who knows! All I know is I don’t think anyone but a confused algorithm would not know the term “flowers” would be an ideal suggestion for FTD  and the term  ”mortgage short sale” should not be classified as “Underwear”.

p.s. If you’re curious as to what mortgage terms the Google Search Based Keyword Tool classified as “Jewelry”, I’ll give you a hint. Most of terms have the word “watch” in them. Good one, Google.

I passed that sign for at least a week before I finally remembered to search for it when I got home. In Google, the result was the official site for the movie “2012”. My first thought was, “Clever.”  My second thought was, “Maybe.” Then, because I overthink things, I came up with several ways this campaign could be a marketing fail from both an organic search standpoint and a consumer targeting standpoint.

Targeting Consumers in the Wrong Place

I passed the sign in my car, while driving up the freeway. If texting while driving is illegal, I’m sure web browsing is, too. In order for this ad to be effective, consumers have to remember it long after they’ve passed it (or choose to break the law).  Each consumer gets multiple impressions because they pass it every day, but how many ever completed a search? The last thing most people want to do after fighting traffic is fire up the computer and search for an ad they saw on a billboard. (Unless, they’re crazy search marketers like the fine folks at TSA.)

Using Flash while Targeting Mobile Browsing

Most movie websites are built in Flash, which is fine if you’re targeting TV or movie-watching consumers who browse from their computers. Not so much if you’re targeting people in their cars because mobile phone browsers can’t display Flash. As Frank Lee points out, the iPhone displays a graphic 2012 banner, so at least the user would see the movie logo. The Blackberry displays a black screen with Sony’s navigation, and then shows the 2012 logo after scrolling way down, if the user bothers to go that far.

Not Optimizing for All Engines

I conducted my search in Google, which placed the official movie site in the #1 spot. Then I checked Yahoo and Bing. Oops. The movie site places third in Yahoo.

It also places third in Bing, but with a different URL, thereby splitting the value should users choose to link to it, but that’s another matter entirely.

The original ad was a little vague as to which site consumers are supposed to wind up at, which could lead people who use an alternate browser to visit the wrong site. That’s great for the owner of Survive2012.com, but not so good for Sony.

Perhaps Sony realized their folly, because the sign changed to “Who Will Survive? Search: 2012” a week later.  That’s a bigger clue to the site you’re supposed to reach, but it still leaves room for error. The sign now displays the same image you see on the website and the movie title. No room for error there, but no search command, either.

Using the Search Tagline in the Trailer

The trailer also ends with the instructions to “Search: 2012”. If people see that trailer in a movie theater, what are the odds that they’ll remember those instructions after watching a two-hour movie?

Fortunately for Sony, far more people will see the trailer on TV. If those viewers see the instructions, they may get right off the couch to perform the search that instant. Unfortunately, they still might use an alternate browser and wind up at the wrong site.

I’m all for businesses integrating the internet into their advertising campaigns, but they need to be careful not to lose consumers by asking them to search rather than giving them a URL. There’s no guarantee that they’ll wind up at your site. Or, that they’ll click-through to your site even if you land in the #1 spot organically. Personally, I’d still prefer that studios put the URL in the ads and trailers. Even if someone does perform a search for the movie, seeing the advertised URL on the computer screen might be enough to trigger them to click the right site.

As a side note for anyone concerned that the world will end on December 21, 2012: I visited the Mayan ruins of Tikal last December and learned from an actual Mayan that the calendar’s end date marks the beginning of a new age, not an apocalypse. So unless you also fear the dawning of the Age of Aquarius (dang, hippies), there’s no reason to fear the Winter Solstice, 2012.

One day, a gorgeous photo appeared of a rock off the Lebanon coast. I promptly emailed my Lebanese immigrant friend to tell her about it. She wrote back to explain that it was Al Rawcheh Rock and tell me she’d made it her desktop wallpaper. Without thinking about it, I had just promoted Bing to my friend, and she’d taken the bait.

This is What Good Content Is About

As an SEO content writer, I have a dual task of writing good, optimized SEO copy, but also writing copy that will engage users and hopefully prompt them to share it. When it comes to creating good copy that’s engaging and encourages sharing, Bing wins the prize for most innovative. Rather than a joke email that will be passed around and then forgotten, or a video that will go hot on Youtube and then slowly lose steam, this content is ever-changing. It brings me back to the site daily to admire the picture and mouse over the Advent calendar-like info boxes. This one picture spurs me to go deeper into the site to learn more about it. When I do that, Bing gets me to engage with their search engine in a way I might not if it was just a simple screen with the Bing logo.

How Can We Imitate this Success?

The simple answer is that most sites don’t have the resources to create an entirely new home page every day, nor would it be appropriate to their business.  However, we can still create fresh, engaging content regularly and encourage people to share it by making smaller daily changes to the home page. Is there a place you can feature a product of the day, a fact of the day, a photo of the day? If you can make this something unusual, interesting, or particularly useful, you’ve now created a reason for someone to visit your site every day. Every so often, that person will tell a friend to visit your site.

What Bing does isn’t difficult as a concept. It requires research and planning, but one staff member can spend one day a week creating the content and loading it into the system. Their approach does, however, require dedication. You can’t go a day without updating, or stop updating when that staffer goes on vacation. Once you stop updating daily, users will stop visiting daily. Soon visiting your site will no longer be a habit. Soon after that, your site may be forgotten.