Cshel Chicago SEO, PR and Web Development

SEO 101: Competitive Intelligence

Posted on 18. Dec, 2007 by Carolyn Shelby.

In this episode (#102 by our count) of SEO 101, Brian Mark, David Brown and I discuss competitive intelligence and ways you can keep tabs on your competition as well as how to protect yourself and your company from snoopy people who are up to no good.

This episode is based on my liveblogging notes from the Competitive Intelligence session at PubCon Vegas 2007. There are a lot more details and links to resources in my write-up over at search engine roundtable, so I encourage you to pop over there and check it out. Our discussion veered a little more into protecting your stuff by making sure you’re not making it completely simple and easy for bad people to do bad things to you, which isn’t entirely SEO but I think it’s valid and important business stuff to know. My notes from the conference had more detailed information on gathering intel on your competitors via various tools that are available online.

Important Points Covered:

1. Vendors are chatty. Make sure (1) that YOUR vendors are not chatty about YOU to your competitors and (2) that you take advantage of chatty vendors who have info about your competitors. If they’re not blabbing to you, they’ll just blab to someone else, you may as well benefit.
2. Sometimes people aren’t entirely honest when they call. Make sure that you, your family, your employees, etc. know to not discuss business with “unauthorized” people. Loose lips sink ships.
3. A google a day keeps the crisis away. Search the web regularly for info, media mentions, blog mentions, etc. about your competitors, their products, their key personnel, as well as YOUR company, YOU, YOUR key personnel, YOUR products, etc. You might be surprised by what you can google up.
4. Shredding isn’t just good, it’s good for you! Sure shredding is fun, but did you know it’s also a great way to keep your account numbers and other sensitive personal information out of the hands of ne’er-do-wells? Invest in a decent cross cut shredder and use it often.

Fun Items to Listen For…

In this episode, I share an interesting story from Vegas about some of the… um… “people” who were… um… “working”… at the Wynn. I also manage to make a relatively not stupid sounding football reference after I mispronounce Brett Favre’s name, and I worked in a Star Wars reference for good measure.

Popularity: 63% [?]

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SEO 101: Obligatory 100th Episode Outtakes and Bloopers

Posted on 14. Dec, 2007 by Carolyn Shelby.

Brian Mark put together a clip show featuring all of our screw-ups, funny stories and miscellaneous other stuff from the first 99 episodes of SEO 101 (that we told him to not record) and released it to publicly humiliate us celebrate SEO 101’s 100th episode. So this episode is a little light on the SEO 101 education, but rife with me, David Brown and Brian Mark sounding like tards :)

Enjoy!

Popularity: 74% [?]

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SEO 101: What You Should Expect From Your SEO

Posted on 11. Dec, 2007 by Carolyn Shelby.

I’m absent from this episode of SEO 101 because I think I was stuck in Omaha working, so it’s just David (NeO) Brown and Brian (#1 Tool) Mark answering a listener question about what he should expect from his SEO consultant in terms of service, reports and support. This is a great episode, and I even ended up taking notes :)

In a nutshell, a lot depends on your payment level. If your budget is less than a couple thousand dollars a month, Brian believes you’re better off keeping your money and using it towards PPC. On the other hand, if your budget is $2,500 a month and up, you should definitely feel like you’re getting your money’s worth. Download the podcast to listen to Brian and David go in-depth into what you should be looking for from your consultant or firm and what kinds of results you can/should expect.

Programming Note!! Tune in to WebmasterRadio.fm on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 at 1pm/Noon/10am (Eastern/Central/Pacific) to hear the special 100th episode of SEO 101. It’s basically a clip show, but it’s full of out-takes and stupid stuff we said when we didn’t realize Brian was recording, so I’m sure it will be hilarious (and hopefully not too embarrassing!).

Popularity: 53% [?]

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