There is always to much to write about SEO and not enough time. Sometimes I just want to highlight something to save the upcoming SEO people some time and effort, and this time it’s about SEO as a Distraction. It seems to be a common problem.

Don’t let SEO distract you from business.

Publi$hing on the web is business, and business has objective$. If you get caught up in SEO for rankings and search engine referral traffic, and lose sight of those busine$$ goals, you aren’t winning the SEO game. Really. And if those dollar signs bother you that’s ok, too, because it isn’t always about money. BUT, it is never about SEO either unless you are selling SEO services or SEO books or SEO advice.

SEO is about business, not SEO.

I have a story to tell you. A few years ago writing articles was viewed an important aspect of ranking for sites that were too thin and facing steep semantic competition in Google. Truth is, according to me, articles were not an optimal solution to the problem. But, as with most SEO topics on the web, since adding articles appeared to work, adding articles became a solution to an “SEO” problem (Actually, a keyword-focused content strategy was needed, but that was beyond the knowledge of many of the SEOs of the time. When they added articles, they got a large portion of the benefit of strategic semantic content. That was good enough).

Anyway people wanted articles so article networks grew and copywriters expanded into SEO and article submission sites mixed back links with articles and the whole article-based SEO thing gained momentum. Clearly, article writing represented promise as a business of it’s own. And that’s where the fun began for me.

Consider me for the moment as an SEO copywriter. I am one of those people who insist that my job as an seo copywriter cannot be outsourced oversees. The reason is semantics - no outsourced worker can know the local culture and “semantic” like I do, since I live here, immersed in it. Because I live here, where the cost of living is high, as a copywriter I am relatively expensive. Any oversees worker trying to semantically optimize for New Yorkers cannot succeed. They simply cannot target the New York web consumer as well as the local competition, because they are not here, in New York (or Seattle, etc). They don’t know a bagel from a bialy. But then again…. maybe there is a way around the location problem?

Sure there is. ESL at that time was growing fast as an industry. “English as a Second Language” (ESL) was taught overseas by … you guessed it… English majors and other college-educated Americans willing to work for low pay overseas (like in China) because it gave them opportunity to travel and engage a foreign culture close up. Fresh out of college or perhaps at a career or personal inflection point, they chose to live and work for low wages, with room and board and a job teaching local (Chinese) people English. With an 8:1 currency conversion and hosting expenses covered, these Americans were okay earning peanuts for the short term. Maybe they would like an opportunity to earn some side AMERICAN DOLLARS writing articles over the Internet for me? Every dollar I paid out was $8 to them, so $4 per article was $32 dollars per article. Hell, some of them were worthy poets and creative writers fresh off doctoral programs and scholarships! And, as a bonus, I could communicate in my local SEO vernacular because these people would fully understand when I gave them a keyword rich example of good-but-not-spammy SEO copy to emulate. They even knew what emulate means! This could work!

I was going to be outsourcing what I said could not be outsourced. Woo hoo!

But I had forgotten about business. Of course I had connections with the Chinese ESL program managers and recruiers, which was to be my entryway. Through my connections, I would gain access to a database of American, English-speaking ESL tutors. Of course I would have to grease the palms of the middlemen, who were recruiters actively head hunting for ESL teachers. Maybe I could do the greasing in China to gain that 8:1 benefit. So after working out the SEO details of my GrandPlan, I dug into the business particulars with my Chinese associates.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, there is way more benefit to holding an ESL teacher socially captive in a small rural town in China than I could ever cover with my SEO article writing enterprise. With my “little project” I was immediately identified as a threat to a very lucrative legal “human trafficking” system that was earning serious money signing teachers to ESL contracts. In many cases the commisions paid to recruiters exceeded the total earnings of the ESL teachers, as government incentives and corporate sponsorships covered back office operations. Everything was being monetized on the back end of that ESL program. Housing subsidies, food, travel expenses, participation, “tuition”, supplies, etc. The middlemen wanted their people captive, and were very eager to prevent their people from earning freedom with side money, or needing freedom to visit the Internet cafes and upload articles. The whole idea of foreign workers writing content within China to be sent back to the US over the Internet was a BigRedFlag for regulators to look closely at the ESL business, which was operating as a new private enterprise in the delicate merging new privatized economy of China. Since I was working with existing contacts, I was urged to forget my stupid idea and instead join in and recruit people to become ESL teachers. I would be paid handsomely for my efforts. If my SEO was any good, I should be able to make good money recruiting (from which, of course, my upline would profit handsomely as well). Instead of pursuing article writing, I added “ESL” to the list of known SEO money making opportunities, and moved on.

The reason I bring it up now? Well, of course go and look at ESL as a potential earner to compete with affiliate programs, but it’s been a few years so no guarantee it still pays well. More important though… realize there is a whole business aspect to everything your SEO enhances. The money is not always where you think it is. Think through the business aspects, and move yourself as close as possible to the true revenue driving the business. Do it before you get caught up in the details of SEO, and understand the business aspects of the area you get into for lead generation or product sales or whatever. It’s the same story others are telling with regards to CPA vs PPC and smart affiliate work, but generalized to a look at where the money is in the business message. It can save you time and money and SEO headache, and may just change you from an “SEO” into a “domainer”, or “publisher”, or whatever, as you realize the real money is not in SEO.

As a consultant I work with and for marketing directors, VPs and senior executives. As business issues arise, they like to gather the creative and strategically-innovative minds together for review and comment, so I am often pulled in to discussions of side issues not directly related to SEO and web performance, but aligned with long term web performance and/or competitiveness. One of those issues is domain names for projects and businesses. What domain name to use? What domains to get or buy? Usually, there is a branding consultant on task as well, usually from the ad agency or PR firm.

But we don’t need them any more.

I exaggerate. But we don’t really need what they used to do, anymore. They used to brainstorm on domain names, coming up with possibilities that properly reflect the corporate values, touch the target market, enable the right kind of branding, etc. But now all the domains are taken. The name consultants are coming in with agendas… seemingly trying to pitch and sell a particular domain name they know is available or have held available, but treading carefully due to obvious conflict of interest. What else can they do? No one wants to go domain fishing… typing in candidate after candidate only to see it’s taken. That’s an endless and useless exercise in many cases. All the domain names are already taken.

Or are they?

The domain aftermarket is exploding, offering lists of domain names for sale. Those lists have become our naming consultants. The people with the skills to navigate the domain aftermarket are doing the work. The list says XYZ.tld is available, and keyword1keyword2.tld is available. Those are candidates, and they even come with prices. How easy is that?

As the market matures, I expect domain aftermarkets to improve their search and suggestion tools because it helps sell domains. Who loses? Everyone but the AgnecyGuy wins on this one. If they were smart, agencies would collaborate with domainers and aftermarkets to acts a brokers for excellent domains, but I doubt that is possible with today’s players and the culture of TheAgency model. Brainstorming on domain names without a clear opportunity to get them is expensive and disappointing when largely unproductive.
Wise advice would be, pre-announce the understood need for a domain with a vision statement, and spread the word to your marketing, advertising, and SEO consultants in advance. They can look for available candidates using their available skills, tools, and connections, and carry the burden of due diligence right thru to the meeting where they pitch their ideas. Domains come with prices, and cost is a consideration, so let that market compete to set prices before you have to pick from the pool of candidates. Once you pick, it should be a simple matter of the transaction. If the vendor/agency/consultant can’t deliver on the domain, they haven’t done proper due diligence, and their own reputation suffers.

As the domain aftermarket matures, the marketplaces will assume all of this responsibility. You will enter your vision statement via proxy, set your price range, and wait for responses. Brokers and domainers will reply with candidates, expertly graded for non-branding value. You get your list of candidates with “by now” prices and auction reserves. Domain acquisition specialists may independently approach webmasters of active domains, to form partnerships that can sell you the domain if the price is right. It’s happening now, even though you don’t see it.

SEOs and Internet business consultants are doing all of this now, using their expertise and connections to manage the inefficient marketplaces offering domain names. Clients pay the market prices for the actual domains, as well as the consulting fees. As the marketplaces mature, the domain prices will increase and the need for consultants will diminish, unless they hold domains out of the aftermarket. And that brings us back to domaining… and the way clever agencies could hook up with domainers directly… oh, wait. I already said that wouldn’t work with today’s agency players and culture. Too bad.

TropicalSEO says domainers are in a slump, having profited hugely from generic domain appreciation while not developing beyond page parking. After 3 days at DomainRoundtable, I have to disagree with a few things. I wanted to say it in comments on the blog, but TropicalSEO requires registration so I’ll post here.

First, I sat through the auction action and there were a number of domains sold at very decent prices. There were 450 domains listed, and many (in my humble opinion) were sub-par as undeveloped domains go. I sat with experienced domainers, most with bidding paddles, and every name was subject to live whisper valuations among us. As I listened, I learned that the experienced domainers basically agreed on most domains. Most were deemed to be not worthy as listed. In addition, it seemed many sellers really didn’t want to sell. The reserves were too high to initiate bidding interest, despite talk about how they worked to get reserves lowered. Domains not selling at overvalued prices doesn’t indicate a slump - it indicates that the domainers didn’t want to sell - the reserves were too high for things like AquariumFishes.com for $3000.

But how about Ahora.com at $20k? You must be kidding. Command language for “now!” or “today” for the Latin American markets. Supremely brandable. That’s a powerful domain name, and it was bid up to $31k or so where I still think it was undervalued. Sitting in a corporate meeting room with a marketing team looking at domains for a media project, something like that would be worthy of top consideration at a multiple of that price. The domainer that bought it made a wise investment. FrenchFries.com for $100k? Looks like someone isn’t really interested in selling FrenchFries.com at a domainer’s auction. That reserve is too high for consideration.

I spoke with several people who had pulled their domains from the auction before the start. They had second thoughts, and didn’t want to sell. After speaking on SEO in two sessions, I met over a dozen domainers looking to discuss several aspects of SEO. It was all business development. Not always site development, but business development. Slump? Nah. Not for these guys. Maybe the smaller portfolio domainers are unclear of how to proceed, but then it seems pretty clear to me many of the smaller SEOs are unclear about that today, too. Most of the domainers I spoke with were strong businesses working serious projects, in addition to their domain holdings. They all had visions well outside of domaining. Of course they are looking to utilize more of their domain portfolios, but I think that has much more to do with Googles complete control of the PPC market and the fragility of the parked page monetization model than anything about domaining. As one large domainer told me, buying select domains at the auction was not spending money. Buying them was like putting money in the bank.

Andy can poo-poo the parked page model, but with tens of thousands of parked domains in your portfolio you’ll find yourself solo managing a “business” with millions in revenue before you have time to consider various “more advanced” aspects of monetization. I met guys with several hundred thousand domains. They’re busy being successful, building up war chests for the next recession (to buy more domains) and finding people they can trust for business development - not an easy task. They’ve made millions in a few years focusing tightly on domain acquisition. What’s the point of highlighting that they haven’t gotten into development yet? When they do, they will do it with the passion that led them to become so successful at domaining. Big surprise? No. And now that the domain name drop has been squeezed by registrars, and Google is squeezing page parking monetization, yesterday was the time to shift some attention to that business development. From what I have seen, these guys are ahead of the curve.

If you really think about it, what is in all of these portfolios? There aren’t that many generic domains. Obviously there are strategies in play.
We SEOs and domainers are in the same business. We publi$h on the web. To do that we need domain names, content, and traffic. The SEO community chose to focus on traffic, while the content people evolved content management systems and blogs, and the domainers optimized the domain acquisition and portfolio maintenance arenas. We each encountered similar forces of aggregation and control, and change. SEO now suffers under a Google monopoly, and domain acquisition has been stymied by registrars and a shortage of easy domains. With Google and Google’s “partners” controlling the monetization of domain portfolios, it’s time for innovation. From what I have seen this past week, that innovation is not only happening, but it is being very well funded.

What good is a war chest until there is a battle? Why do nations go to war? Who needs SEO? Good questions, and I think they are very relevant to the current domainer and SEO fields.