Question time with Ammon Johns
Ammon
Johns might be a new
name to many, however Ammon
has been in the online marketing
game since 1995, with the
enviable track record that
not one of his 400+ clients
has ever gone bust. Obviously,
Ammon is doing something
right!
In this interview, Ammon tells
us about his approach, how
to measure ROI and his vision
of the ultimate search engine.
Thanks for
taking the time to talk with
us Ammon. Can you tell us a
bit about yourself? What is
your background?
I came online in 1995, jumped
on the old web-design bandwagon
in '96 and ... sucked at it.
I had a few clients however,
and they liked my designs,
but came back to me asking
how to get more visitors -
how to let people know they
were out there. I didn't know,
but though I wasn't a great
designer, I gave great customer
service, and started trying
to find out for them.
Well, I looked into all the
things I could, from banner
exchanges (those were huge
in '96) to affiliate programs,
from web awards (remember those?)
to advertising. Also, of course,
I started to learn about search
engines and how to format and
optimise pages for good positions
in search engines.
Whatever I learnt, I brought
to those brave clients, and
they started to refer friends.
Not for my design services,
but just to help promote them.
Those friends started to refer
their friends too. By '97,
I was no longer a web designer;
I was an Internet Marketing
Consultant. I shut down my
web design business site, and
worked from then on purely
on client referrals.
It is weird of course, that
my success in Internet Marketing
comes from having no website
of my own, yet there's a strange
logic too. The fact that companies
came to me from direct referrals
gave me credibility, and the
fact that that was the *only*
way to come to me made me sort
of an 'inside secret'. That
really seemed to appeal. It
also freed me from having to
promote my own site and services,
so I could spend all of my
time on research and work for
my clients.
I'd have stayed below the
radar forever except for one
thing. My work was made harder
by the search engines constantly
adjusting their algorithms.
The search engines did this
to keep closing the loopholes
on low-quality SEO 'tricks'
(such as 'invisible' text,
keyword stuffing, etc). The
only long-term solution I could
see was to help stop the bad
tactics by promoting better
ones. That's when I started
posting tips in a few forums.
I don't really know how high
a profile I have these days.
I suppose that the fact I'm
doing this interview means
that I'm now reasonably well
known, at least within in the
industry <grin>. I meet
quite a few successful SEOs
who quote me as an early inspiration,
and I really like that.
I still suspect that half
of your readers will have no
clue who I am or why I'm here.
Perhaps for any in that category
my background is best summed
up with the achievements that
still make me a bit of an inside
secret:
With over 400 clients since
the Nineties, not a single
one has ever gone bust, despite
the fact that statistically
around 95% of all ecommerce
businesses go under without
even making back their hosting
costs.
I have no less than 5 past
and present clients in the
Neilsen NetRatings Top sites
charts for their respective
fields, with dooyoo.co.uk being
the latest to attain that distinction.
With those kinds of achievements,
I guess I have kept my profile
remarkably low. I still gain
my clients mainly from personal
referrals and recommendations,
and I like it that way.
What
have been the biggest changes
in the industry since you
started?
A lot has changed almost beyond
recognition, but I think the
biggest single change has to
be that of attitudes. Back
in '96, SEO was regarded as
tantamount to hacking. Respectable
companies didn't do SEO - or
at least never admitted it.
Back then, all clients wanted
a full NDA (non-disclosure
agreement) that prevented you
even saying you'd worked for
them. SEO was a dirty word,
and a concept that many companies
would not consider.
Now, search engine marketing
has been embraced by the search
engines themselves with sponsored
listings and paid for inclusion.
Companies approach me specifically
asking for SEO and are happy
to provide testimonials and
references openly. The shift
in attitudes has been immense.
Another huge change that most
people overlook is in metrics.
Back in the mid nineties, the
big metric was hits. Hits were
always a worthless metric,
but people used to regard me
as eccentric for ignoring simple
hits and clicks, talking about
customers, sales, and profits
instead. 'Old business' metrics.
This was new business with
new rules they said. That's
changed.
Business is business, and
while the Internet opens up
new techniques and new ways
of reaching people, once you
do reach them, the old business
principles apply - supply a
demand, and do it as well or
better than anyone else.
That shift in attitude to
ecommerce is the final truly
massive change. There was a
time in the nineties when people
looked at the Internet and
said, "There's millions
of people online that our business
can reach". They forgot
or missed the real truth. The
Internet is the most competitive
business environment that has
ever existed. What is really
online is every competitor
you have in the whole wide
world. They can all be equally
close to every customer in
the world too - one click.
Companies now realise that
the world isn't easy to conquer
and that being one of twenty
thousand businesses in their
market is only workable if
they are the one that the customers
find, and decide to buy from,
hopefully repeatedly.
These are certainly changes
for the better.
Unlike many
in SEO, you've gone for a wider
approach, encompassing more
marketing oriented activities.
Is this the way you see things
going? Are clients demanding
more than good ranking positions?
In my experience, the smarter
businesses have *always* been
careful to use SEO as part
of a marketing strategy, not
as an alternative to one. SEO
is a means to get your message
across, not a message in its
own right. The companies who
get that wrong, and make SEO
its own goal, tend to go under.
I think the danger is that
SEO is sometimes thought of
as a marketing strategy in
its own right, while I believe
that SEO is a tool that is
used *within* a marketing strategy.
That's why I don't call myself
an SEO as such. I use SEO techniques,
and I'm pretty good at them,
but it is a means to an end,
not an end in itself.
When selecting keywords and
search terms, what matters
is to have the terms that your
market segment will use, on
the engine they will use, even
if neither are the most popular
generally. Keyword and search
term selection are really marketing
and advertising based on knowing
how and where your target market
do their shopping. Likewise,
search positions are a means
to do advertising, branding
and PR. SEO is the tool, not
the strategy.
I see that being a constant.
The businesses that survived
the dot-com shakeout have brought
lessons with them regarding
basic business sense, and attaining
good ROI on any marketing campaign.
The new businesses have examples
of what works, and alternately,
of what could make you the
next Pets.com.
When you see SEO as a tool
in marketing then it makes
sense for the professional
to embrace the broader role.
You have to at least understand
it. A hammer is a tool, but
people want to employ a carpenter,
not just a guy who knows how
to hit a nail but needs someone
else to aim and position the
nail for him. It's important
to know what you are building.
Of course, not all companies
ask for more than just rankings,
but those who don't consider
how to use a high ranking for
advertising, branding or PR
with an end view to marketing,
are not the companies I'll
take on as clients. There'd
be no ROI for them in real
terms.
You've been
outspoken recently on Overture
in the UK. You felt that they
weren't providing enough support
for the advertisers. What opportunities
do you think PPC engines are
missing when it comes to dealing
with search engine marketers?
I think they are missing the
biggest and most important
opportunity that any business
can have: To satisfy customers
so completely that there is
no room in the market for rivals.
Pay-per-click search positions
are a tremendous product and
make superb business sense.
They are the perfect form of
advertising when done right.
The listings are advertisements
that can be displayed solely
to those who've actively expressed
an interest (used specific
search phrases), and the advertiser
is only charged when the customer
responds to the advertising.
It's the ultimate in unobtrusive,
interest specific advertising
that appears at the exact moment
that a potential customer is
seeking a solution.
The only problem is one of
poor service from the providers.
I recently highlighted that
from Overture's own figures
they were employing less than
one editor for every 730 advertisers.
If you prefer that another
way, Overture was employing
less than one editor for every
$566,670 spent by advertisers
each month! To add insult to
the injury, they then tried
to blame the lengthening queue
of unreviewed submissions on
search engine marketers.
This shows that there is *plenty*
of room for better competitors
with higher standards of customer
service and who take genuine
pride in having satisfied customers.
An old style company who takes
pride in doing what they do
as well as is possible. Overture
invented this whole business
model (when known as goto.com)
yet even with that immense
head start, allowed competitors
to flourish because, in simple
terms, it can be done better.
Google AdWords have many advantages
over the Overture system, and
Overture is right to be worried.
Overture still has the bigger
list of partner sites however,
so what it should do is improve
the product and service to
make its position unassailable.
I don't see that happening,
and unless it does, I believe
Overture will continue to lose
ground to rivals.
Both Overture and Espotting
offer campaign management services
now (another drain on the understaffed
editors' time?) for a fee.
The shame is that at the moment
this offers little value apart
from saving someone in the
company having to do it. They
are competing head to head
with an ever-growing number
of SEO firms that will manage
PPC accounts. The difference
being that a good SEO firm
brings you far higher ROI than
the staff editors do.
The fact is that the editors
seem content to compare their
ROI to those of other forms
of advertising, not against
the ROI that an optimisation
firm will give on a Pay-per-Click
account. Perhaps it is not
seen as being in the interests
of the PPC provider to actually
encourage users to spend less
for the same results. It should
be, because advertisers will
spend more in total when the
ROI is higher. When you've
gotten used to making back £1,500
for every £500 spent
on PPC, if the return then
doubles, so does the pressure
to double the spending and
thus quadruple the total sales.
One of my services is to train
clients to dramatically improve
their ROI from PPC campaigns,
and many will gain more than
a five-fold increase in ROI
as a result. Were the PPC companies
offering the same guaranteed
quality of management, they'd
have a far stronger service,
and the customers would be
far more likely to opt for
managed accounts.
I've
always admired your holistic
approach to online marketing,
and I'm sure other SEOs looking
to diversify would be interested
in what you do. Can you tell
us a little about your approach
and method?
Certainly. I guess the different
approach comes from taking
a different start position
to a lot of other companies.
My approach is all about ROI,
and that my end goal isn't
to just send a certain number
of visitors per month, or to
gain a given position in particular
searches. My goal and metric
is to aid my client to meet
their true marketing objectives
- increased sales and profits.
It is true that sending more
visitors will generally increase
sales, but it is often not
the most cost-effective means
to attain that result. Often,
sending less total visitors,
but ensuring that every single
one of them is a genuine, prequalified
sales prospect works better.
The average ecommerce site
converts less than 2 percent
of its visitors into customers.
If you spend money on visitors
of the same quality, with less
than a 2 percent conversion
rate, then more than 98 percent
of that spending was wasted.
So, I help advise on converting
customers too. This can be
very closely tied to SEO sometimes.
What I mean there is that when
a visitor arrives from a search
engine, you already know what
they are interested in, and
so technically can present
a sales pitch that is tailored
to exactly what the customer
was searching for.
No good sales-person would
make exactly the same pitch
to every potential customer.
They seek clues as to exactly
what the person is interested
in, what their needs are, and
then tailor the sales pitch
to the individual. A site can
make any sales pitch that a
salesman can, and can target
it as closely as you bother
to make it do. Search referrals
help you take a lot of guesswork
out of that targeting.
Another thing is that too
few companies bother to collect
and mine data. An SEO is used
to tracking results, and this
experience is something of
great value to any company.
Looking at who your best customers
are, in terms of how and where
they found you, helps you target
future advertising a lot better
for higher returns on investment.
Don't just track hits, track
the sales back to the original
referral so you can see, not
only which campaigns send traffic,
but which send you the highest
converting traffic.
Stepping a little further
away from things directly relating
to standard SEO practices,
we have the fact that the really
good SEOs will understand searchers
and surfing habits. They know
that searchers are just like
real-world shoppers: Most shop
around before committing to
a purchase.
Being the highest ranked is
not enough. Most users will
look at the other sites in
search results too. Having
someone warn you of this, and
more importantly, help you
see what makes searchers buy
from one site over another
is a great service.
Naturally, there are aspects
that are not directly linked
to SEO at all. I network a
lot, as I suspect most good
SEOs do, and I have a breadth
of experience (over 400 successful
ecommerce ventures) that is
in itself a great asset.
I guess that the best way
to summarise the difference
in my approach is that I charge
by the hour, and I don't even
make a proposal for a job unless
I'm absolutely confident that
the client will see a five-fold
return on the investment in
my time within 6 months. In
actual fact, I average a ten-fold
ROI, but I like to make safe
estimates <grin>.
To base my work on guaranteed
ROI is simpler than it seems.
If I take on a client who
already uses PPC, I'm certain
that I can enable them to gain
greater numbers of better-targeted
(conversion-wise) referrals
for less. If I charge for training,
and for providing a reference
document to back up what they
learn, they'll easily make
back that investment in my
fees within 2 months on average.
With an ecommerce site I could
lower their marketing costs
(as I did in the PPC example),
I can improve marketing results
without a corresponding rise
in costs, I can generate more
overall sales per month, I
can seek to help them decrease
overheads and thus increase
profits from the same volume
of sales, I can help them develop
new revenue streams ...
The possible ways in which
I can generate bottom-line
ROI are almost endless. It's
therefore generally a cinch
to charge £2,000 for
20 hours of my time, and be
assured that they'll get £10,000
value back as a direct result
of what I can do for them,
or teach them, in 20 hours.
Besides, guaranteed ROI is
a very powerful selling point,
meaning that I don't need to
spend so much time and effort
on marketing myself. As I mentioned,
most of my work comes from
direct referrals from satisfied
customers, and that's the way
I like it.
The SEO world
exists in a strange place where
the relationship between the
search engine and the SEO is
not clearly defined. How do
you think the search engines
feel about those who practice
SEO and do you ever see a point
in time where both sides will
see eye to eye?
It seems like everyone has
an analogy to explain the relationship
between the search engines
and the SEO industry. I have
one too. I know you like documentaries,
Peter, so this one you may
like.
The search engine is like
a documentary filmmaker trying
to film one of those fly-on-the-wall
documentaries. The SEO is someone
who makes everyone in the company
where filming is going on wear
a suit for the first time in
their lives, and makes everyone
play to the camera so that
his firm is portrayed in a
better light. It frustrates
the entire point of the documentary.
In the example, just as in
the reality of SEO, anyone
who goes too far risks being
dropped from the documentary
altogether.
I see the situation we have
continuing pretty much. Search
engine marketers are naturally
often power users of search,
and thus can be of great feedback
value to the search engines.
On the other hand, SEOs can
harm the value of the SERPs.
When Altavista was the primary
target for every optimiser,
its relevancy was almost useless.
Likewise, I think Inktomi provides
very poor results in the main.
The easier an engine is to
'fix' the results in, the worse
it becomes, and the sooner
it loses market share to competitors
with less spam in.
Many SEOs are poison to the
SERPs, polluting the very environment
they depend on. That isn't
too likely to change until
there are recognised standards
for SEO, with some sort of
regulatory body to enforce
those standards.
What amuses me sometimes is
the cry by many SEOs for Google
to be declared a utility and
regulated as a resource. If
that ever happens, I can see
a day when SEO becomes a crime
- tampering with a public utility.
Now there's a scary thought <grin>.
If
you could build the ultimate
search engine, what would
it look like? How would it
operate?
That's a really interesting
question. For me the ultimate
search engine would stop trying
to be a one-size fits all solution
and would actually relate to
the user. It would learn about
each user, learn how they put
searches together, and learn
to understand more about the
individual. It would return
result based on the context
of the searcher, not just the
words they use.
This would require that the
users let the engine collect
some data about them of course,
but it gives a damn good reason
to do so. In return, the engine
becomes empowered to place
their queries into context
of who the searcher is, where
they are, and what their known
interests are. The fact that
this would give the search
engines some truly excellent
scientific data (of considerable
value) is one hell of a side-benefit
too, of course.
The ultimate search engine
would acknowledge that SEO
isn't going to go away and
would take the realistic step
that is always taken in such
circumstances - they'd legitimise
it. The search engine would
give a seal of legitimacy to
all SEO companies that played
by the rules. Well, perhaps
not all. It would make more
sense to use this opportunity
to create fewer-but-more-powerful
companies, of course.
The engine would charge for
the audit for the seal of approval,
naturally. Only those companies
that had been approved would
be allowed to purchase the
demographics reports from that
side-benefit I mentioned earlier
too. There's a lot more to
this, of course, but I don't
want to go giving away ideas <grin>.
Of course, there's a lot of
room for improvement even without
personalisation. Improvements
that would be needed anyway,
for those who chose to be anonymous,
or to block cookies. Again,
contextual search is a major
feature, but here we do look
at the context of the words.
We are getting into that favourite
old discussion topic of Themes.
Allow me to paraphrase an
article of mine to explain
Themes as they apply to contextual
analysis:
To enable theme-based analysis
is a matter of building a lexicon
or thesaurus into the indexing
procedures. This would try
to categorise each word on
a page into topical themes
or categories. By just recording
the top 20 to 50 categories
that words on the page may
apply to, the search engine
has pretty much mapped out
the topics and subjects that
the page most likely applies
to. It has found the common
'themes' to the words on the
page. It would record those
'themes' in the database.
Imagine that two very different
pages, hosted on different
sites, both have the words "Jamaican" and "cooking" in
the text of the body.
The first page is a tale about
the author's love of cricket
and has an anecdote about a
match played by the Jamaican
cricket team, which he watched,
on television while cooking
his lunch one afternoon.
The second page discusses
the favourite Jamaican recipes
that the author enjoys cooking.
It has depth of content about
the ingredients and methods
involved in cookery in that
style.
A human can readily see, even
from these short descriptions
which page is likely to be
the best match. The trouble
is that without themes, the
search engines are pretty much
just counting the times that
the words you enter are matched
on various pages in the index.
However, with themes, the
algorithm is analysing each
word on the page for its 'category'
or theme. On the first page,
it finds more sport related
words than any other, and few
food related words other than
the few in that particular
anecdote. The main theme of
this page is determined to
be "Sport".
On the second page, the vertical
theme analysis algorithm easily
relates the mention of "ingredients", "recipes" and
many other words to the over-all
category of "Food".
By applying the same 'theme
analysis' to the search queries,
the algorithm can already be
looking for certain 'themes'
when the query is made. A search
for 'Jamaican cooking' provides
possible themes of Travel /
Geography / Ethnicity for the
word Jamaican, and themes of
Food and Drink for the word
cooking.
The fact that neither term
directly relates to 'sport'
will reduce the ranking of
our first example page against
pages with the same matched
words but more relevant themes.
Since the second page matches
not only the words, but also
the Food theme, it will rank
highly and present a more relevant
result to the search.
Naturally, that's a pretty
simplistic illustration of
themes, but I think it shows
how it can improve the quality
of results. I have a lot more
ideas, some far easier to implement,
but I think I will save those
for commercial use one day.
I'd get a huge kick out of
bringing my services to a search
engine client one day.
While online
marketing trends come and go,
search engine optimisation
appears to have been a constant.
Where do you see SEO heading?
Where do you see yourself two
years from now?
Well, I believe that SEO is
already moving into becoming
an accepted and powerful part
of any online marketing endeavour.
Already, many companies have
moved away from banner and
popup advertising and are spending
a significant proportion of
resources on PPC search listings.
I think that the standards
expected of an SEO provider
will rise, partly through competition,
and largely through the fact
that as SEO becomes mainstream,
clients will insist on proper
contracts, and will enforce
them. Also, general knowledge
about SEO among businesses
will increase, helping to weed
out the more unrealistic providers
who don't deliver real ROI.
As this happens, SEO companies
will become larger, and smaller
companies will either be bought
out or closed out of the market.
The SEO industry will see consolidation,
with fewer players taking bigger
and more plentiful contracts
with reputations becoming all-important.
There will be an overall increase
in SEO work, but I see the
industry growing up and maturing
with fewer independent operators.
The increase in work will come
to the larger SEO companies
or agencies, who will hire
lots of staff to cope, and
also, many companies will be
more likely to hire their own
in-house SEO too.
As for me, well, I've always
enjoyed my independent status,
but perhaps I'll finally have
to open an agency to continue
doing the work I love. I really
do enjoy my work, and that
helps me to always find fresh
ideas. There are a few ideas
of my own I may sometime find
time for, maybe even that ultimate
search engine... <grin>.
</end>
Thanks a lot, Ammon. There's
a lot of great advice in there
for any search engine marketer.
Next week, I'll be talking
to.....oh, I'll leave it as
a surprise. It could be blind
lesbian-circus-performers-with-a-grudge,
or even Chris Ridings!
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