Business Management Consultant - Stuntdubl Search and Marketing Consulting

Last week I got some great feedback on the post about Using KOB Analysis to plan SEO Campaigns. Here’s a few more links - a mini-interview with Todd Mintz about the upcoming presentation on KOB Analysis at SEMPDX. In addition, I did a video with the world-renowned Mike McDonald on KOB Analysis and Market Motive Internet Marketing Certification at Pubcon Vegas. I’ll be speaking more on competitive analysis and KOB score at the upcoming Pubcon Austin as well. Video is embedded below.

More WebProNews Videos

KOB Analysis stands for Keyword Opposition to Benefit Analysis. It’s the process I’ve used for the past several years to determine which projects have the most opportunity. It helps to determine which keywords to target so that resources will be used most efficiently for maximum benefit. KOB analysis is essentially a way of creating a cost benefit analysis on a specific keyword (or set of keywords). It is designed to answer the most important questions in any search marketing campaign:

–What is the opposition?
(how strong is the SERP competition?)

–What is the benefit?
(how much new business can we generate?)

Teaching at MarketMotive has forced me to take a look at how I conducted my research in several years as a search marketing consultant, and document a formal process that could be taught to someone.  It made me realize that to effectively judge the potential of a SEO campaign – you really have to do your keyword research and competitive analysis in unison.

The idea of KOB Analysis originally started in the form of a morphing powerpoint and outline, the way I often suss out my ideas these days. (Which is very similar to Rand’s process).  KOB Analysis stands for Keyword Opposition to Benefit Analysis (or ratio).  This ratio provides us with the “sweet spot" for conducting an SEO campaign based on the allocated resources (labor, existing links, budget, etc.).

It’s certainly not an exact science, but the tools to evaluate the value and opposition of specific keyword results are evolving quickly. (As a quick aside, if you are developing competitive analysis tools, I will gladly give you my algorithm and methodology for "The KOB Tool" in return for a link and credit for the term - drop me a line)

The “low hanging fruit”

SEO folks have always looked for the mythical “low hanging fruit”, It seems the barrier to entry in most industries and keyword sets is rising by the day, and the fruit is growing much higher on the trees these days.  Fortunately, our tools for establishing the best opportunities are improving as well. The KOB tool will exist shortly from someone - and some variation is no doubt available in some of the high end agency toolsets.

KOB analysis allows you to find the best opportunities for conducting an SEO campaign, and thus allocate your resources in an efficient manner.  Aaron has a somewhat similar idea built into his competitive analysis tool (one of my VERY favorite tools of all time), which he deems “upside potential” that helps you to choose which keywords potentially offer the most return for the least amount of effort.  Upside potential doesn’t take into account opposition score, but it does look at the opportunity posed by marginal improvements in existing ranking. 

So how do we calculate KOB Analysis?

Keyword opposition refers to the competition level of a search result.  In the past, wordtracker had used KEI (or keyword effectiveness index) as a similar metric to KOB, but it was flawed by the way the opposition levels are calculated (by number of competing pages).  Rand talks about the flaws in their opposition score here, and how it’s being changed. The number of pages doesn’t matter nearly as much as the overall strength of the sites in the top 10 spots (where you need to be to receive the valuable search traffic).

Opposition can be calculated with a few factors:

1. Age
2. Anchor text
3. Onpage optimization (several sub factors)
4. Global link popularity
5. Local Set links
6. Unique linking domains
7. Exact match bonus
8. Social signals

In very rudimentary fashion – we can assign a 1-10 score to each of these areas, and weight them to come up with an opposition score similar to what SEOMoz provides with their keyword difficulty tool (based on some different factors). This could be done much more scientifically with the right program and algorithm (again - tool providers please ping me).

Benefit is much more simple to calculate.  Instead of just using search volume, we are able to get a more meaningful figure for benefit by multiplying search volume times benefit.  While this figure for benefit is not always completely accurate based on adwords projections – it does give us some better insights into which terms have the highest volume AND commercial value. 

High cost per click search queries are currently the best predictive indicator of the commercial intent (and therefore transaction value) of a potential customer arriving from search.  Therefore, combining cost per click and search volume gives us a more meaningful number for the overall benefit to a company’s bottom line revenues.  Taking this idea a bit further - You can easily see how specifically targeting relevant messages to these beneficial visitors arriving from organic search with referral targeting would likely be a very good idea as well.

SEO (campaign planning) is a Moving Target

Creating SEO projections is like shooting at a moving target (in a hurricane). I’ve almost never found projections of anyone with the exception of a select few in house experts to be even remotely reasonable.  Despite the flaws, Projections and budgeting are mandatory for acquiring corporate budgets for actually doing the work. Perhaps this helps to explain the disconnect in PPC and SEO spending.

KOB analysis assists in these projections, and helps to set more reasonable expectations.  As any good SEO consultant will tell you – the key to successful client relationships all starts with setting these reasonable expectations (the same can be said for the success of your career if you’re working as an in-house SEO person). The tools for calculating TRUE benefit (and overall value) of organic search traffic are still just evolving (SEMRush and Spyfu lead the charge). The best tool at this point is an understanding of concepts used to create projections.

KOB Analysis in some form is always the foundation for any successful SEO campaign. Unfortunately, SEO is not conducted in a vacuum. There are lots of moving parts involved, and your best competitors are always improving as well. They are learning about how to attract links better. They understand linkbaiting, creating infographics, hiring link ninjas, and they’ve been buying links under the radar for years. They had their onpage optimization tweaked over 5 years ago. They live on the bleeding edge just like you do. They’ll have many more links and a lot more content in 6 months. You need to consider the timeline and moving parts when creating your projections. In some keyword sets it’s just not realistic to expect you will EVER compete in the top 3. Regardless of your mega-budget - the return will not justify the spend for your one-word vanity phrase (why not spend it on some longer tail phrases that offer more benefit?).

When you determine the resources that you need to rank for a given term, you also have to consider the timeline involved. If you’re shooting at a target 3 months, 6 months, or a year out, you have to budget for your competitors growth as well. If you don’t, you’re going to be very disappointed when you reach some of your link goals and still fall on your face with your ranking and traffic goals. BE CONSERVATIVE with your projections, and always focus on managing expectations when you’re dealing with lots of unknown variables. You’ll be able to better understand your competitors growth patterns with tools like Majestic SEO that show historical data on their link graph growth over time. Don’t underestimate the competition - UNDERSTAND them with KOB and you’ll have better understanding and more respect for the folks you compete with, and more realistic expectations to set for the people around you.

 I think many search marketing folks use similar process for conducting cost benefit analysis for their campaigns, but I haven’t really seen much common language used to describe it.  If you know of any great competitive analysis tools, or similar methodologies to run cost/benefit analysis for organic search, I would definitely be interested in checking them out. Want to see examples in action? Well, we have that available over at Market Motive. I’ll also be presenting on KOB analysis (including a case study) on a competitive analysis panel with John Andrews at SEMPDX on Feb. 23rd.

Some other competitive analysis resources and tools:

Learn more about KOB Analysis at Market Motive

Tools

• SEOBook Competitive Research Tool **
• SEOmoz Keyword Difficulty tool **
• SpyFu**
• SEMRush **
• Compete.com **
• SpyFu Videos on Competitive Analysis
• SEO Competitor Checklist - Raven SEO Tools
• Majestic SEO
• KeywordSpy.com
• iSpionage.com
• Hitwise.com (must be mentioned but VERY pricy:)

**My personal favorites

Resources

• Ultimate guide to keyword competition (35 experts) from wordstream
• Guide to competitive backlink analysis at seomoz
• Using twitter to boost your google rankings (social signals)
• Potential social signals from Rand
• SEO Warfare - oldie but goodie at stuntdubl.com
• Marketing Warfare book review (highly inspirational!)
• Analyzing SERP Dominators by Garret French of Ontolo.com
• Competitive Intelligence Presentations From Andy Beal
• Competitive Analysis using raventools by Taylor Pratt
• WellonTop Competitive Analysis Survey (looking forward to the results)
• Competitor backlink analysis using Open Site Explorer by Fabio Ricotta
• Outspoken Media Comp Analysis coverage at SMX
• Top 20 Social Media Monitoring Companies for Business
• Monitoring Competitor Traffic by Sam Crocker
• Aaron’s reviews of keyword and CR tools
• Competitive Intelligence: Purpose and Proceess by Joanna Lord
• More old competitive analysis tools and info

Note: This post is fairly self-serving, but I promise watching the videos will help you make your site better. You can skip all the reading and just watch the totally FREE FULL videos (part I, and part II), or skip to the next paragraph for the details of the awesome video that Avinash (aka the Web Analytics Wizard) and I recorded on how you can “Teach a HIPPO (highest paid person’s opinion) to make your website better”. In just under 3 years, Market Motive Internet Marketing Training has become a pretty amazing resource for training webmasters and internet marketers on a diverse and well rounded skill set. While there are many places that offer great SEO training (SEObook, SEOMoz, SEO Dojo, and many others, I don’t think there is any place that offers the well rounded education solutions that MM now provides. Scott Milrad has helped me develop a pretty awesome curriculum for SEO certification (I can hear the debates starting already), and the rest of the information is really top notch (I occasionally study web analytics, ppc, pr, and other videos myself). As a whole, MM creates a no nonsense HONEST learning experience that I REALLY wish I had a decade ago when I started on the web. You won’t get rich quick, but you will learn a skill set that will aid you for a lifetime. If you’re looking for corporate solutions to training issues, please feel free to drop me a line, and I’ll be happy to answer your MM questions, or see about putting together a walk through demo of the site.

So what’s all this hoopla about?

Avinash and I decided to do a video on how to make a website better. Fortunately Mr. Kaushik is wonderfully eloquent and makes me look really smart. He is a master of disseminating data, and is helping to dissolve the myths involved with SEO by quantifying potential and results. To me, this is extremely exciting since I have always been a “gut feel” marketer, developing strong instincts that can be occasionally proved wrong with testing and data. Both approaches certainly have merit, but I have to say I love coming up with a hypothesis and seeing Avinash prove or disprove it based on quantifiable data points.

The topics (of things you can do to make your website better) in the videos include:

1. Improve the site design (without sacrificing content)
2. Credibility matters (add credibility indicators)
3. Research keywords that matter to your site
4. People can’t read computer (make your urls human and bot friendly)
5. Improve Time on Site (unless you’re a directory)
6. Reduce Bounce Rate
7. Improve the site Usability
8. Don’t hide content from your users (don’t move stuff!) & don’t hide links from search engines!
9. Get a better web host (site speed MATTERS)
10. Organize your information better
(IA matters – don’t give too many choices means no choice)
11. Make it easy to contact you
12. Make it easy to find out about your company
13. Anchor text is important
(internal and external – you are what your links say you are)
14. Attract citations (links) is critical (linking thinking)
15. Social media is not your normal user (but can create links)
16. Selectively deliver content (block duplicate content from search engines)
(robots and humans are unique and your site index quality matters)
17. Organic Search traffic converts (and is 8x higher than PPC)
18. Encourage (or even incentivize) positive off site sentiment
(degree and kind of engagement)
19. Exact match micro sites for head terms
20. Do we need subdomains or subdirectories?

We discuss how to take ACTION on these subjects using an understanding of:

• Clickstream
• Multiple outcomes
• Experimentation and testing
• Voice of customers
• Competitive intelligence
• Insights
• Foundation

Your world is one of continuous actions (that is, surveys testing, behavior targeting, keyword optimization) and continuous improvements, where customers not HiPPOS, rule. Enjoy the videos, and definitely let me know if you have an questions, and please comment on anything we missed or you’d like to see in the future.

Normally, MM videos are for members only, but we liked these videos so much we wanted the world to see them. Hope you enjoy! Part I: Teaching HiPPOS about Better Websites Part I and Part II: 10 More things You can Teach HiPPOS about Building Better Websites.

Most people are taught that the first rule of SEO club is that you don’t talk about SEO club (some learn this rule harder than others.) This is an important question as far as most people in the SEO community are concerned. Based on the system that information is knowledge, power, and ultimately money, you can see how people often have a vested interest in outing other peoples techniques, or keeping them secret. You also learn very quickly that who you can trust is extremely important. Everyone has their own code. Mine personally is started with - ""their are no hats, only goals". With the essence of that being that only illegal techniques are truly crossing the line, but everyone has to determine their ultimate level of risk and reward (similar to investing or anything else). Hats are bullshit. Techniques and code should be determined by one’s career choice and goals.

My buddy Brent got a little bit of flack last night for this post, about digg selling links. I’ve also had more than a few conversations defending my friend Rand’s choices for outing sites on more than one occasion (as well as arguing with him about where I disagree with his choices). I figure I’d open it up for a bit of public debate, as well as state for the record where I stand with it, since I helped Brent in this case rather than mentioning it was a bad idea. This of course, got me riled up on a pretty good topic of discussion anyhow, so I figured it was a good time to put it on paper quick and bust out a blog post.

I’m not gonna point out names, but you know who you are, and where you stand.

When is it okay to out a site’s SEO techniques? Here’s the spectrum of types of people I would categorize people into. "Outing" a site includes doing a spam report or blogging about it, which are essentially different methods to do the same thing.

Old School Affiliate SEO/ Competitive Webmaster

It’s never okay to out a site. EVER. EVER. EVER. Google Japan buying links MAY qualify as an exception, but probably not. They’ll definitely talk about spammy techniques in the bar (and you’ll learn a helluva lot), and swear you to secrecy, or have you know that secrecy in these matters is always implied. I respect this code the most, and only disagree with it in a very few rare instances.

I think Rae sums it up nicely, “back in the days when we used to have Omerta and anyone with a name earned it - kinda like television before reality TV”

Basically - the rule is “keep your mouth shut unless you have been granted permission to speak about it” on anything outside of a conference presentation (especially if you heard it in a smokey pub at 1 am).

SEO Consultant/ Blogger (aka me)

It’s okay to out ultra large sites on very rare occasions with proper justification and research, knowing that they are large enough that there will be no penalization instituted because of the hypocrisy of search engines. Outing these sites is mainly to piss them off a bit (get their attention), or demonstrate the hypocrisy of search engines. I didn’t get this, until I saw some of my favorite OG SEO folks discussing Colgate, BMW, and other large brands that ultimately got a tiny slap that amounted to nearly nothing more than probably a link monkey getting a scolding from their boss. In cases of big brands being the new black hat

Personally, I still wouldn’t out these, but I can at least find a rational reason why a journalist/practioner (see below) might when they discover and seo company or consultant that totally sucks at what they do and does it for a giant dumb corporation. Again - not my thing (and I would never do it since I respect the OG affiliate competitive webmaster code far too much), but I can at least understand their logic, unlike some of the other following types of people.

This being said, on at least one occasion, I’ve ACCIDENTLY outed things that I didn’t mean to (and still feel bad about it JS:) Tough lessons to learn, so I always try to err on the side of STFU

"I’m curious who the genius is that told Experian buying a straight link on Digg was a good idea. Pretty fuckin clueless." - Greg Boser on Twitter

Oh - one other time it’s probably okay to do a spam report - if you’re searching for blues clues and get beastiality pr0n

Weak (and cowardly) SEO

People who do spam reports and outings because they’re not competitive enough to play the game. I probably have the least amount of respect for these people than anyone. They hope that by reporting others, their rankings will improve. I learn from my competitors, and it pisses me off when someone acheives higher rankings than I with a bogus OLD technique. It still NEVER justifies reporting them in my opinion/code.

Journalist

For people whose business model is based on news, hype, ratings, and traffic - they’re going to out as much stuff as they can to get the traffic. Just the same as traditional media, they are not active practicioners of SEO. The trouble becomes when you are an active practicioner of SEO and don’t respect your craft enough to have a solid code.

Pointy White Hat "Ethical" SEO.

These folks have spam report bookmarklets in their tool bar, and pride themselves on making the web a better place (by ruining other people’s livelihoods) because they think google will make a rather benovelent dictatorship. Kind of the equivalent of the religious right, and often get outed themselves with something equally as morally ambiguous like Jimmy Swaggert or Larry Craig.

Search Engine Engineer

Always okay. It’s they’re job, and at least their consistent in what they do. Even google japan deserves a penalty for buying links. I respect consistency.

It’s very difficult to be respected by both sides of the fence, but in order to do it you have to have a level of respect for both sides of those playing the SEO game.

So the question becomes - when is it okay to "out" a site, and where do you see yourself on the spectrum? Anything I missed?

Search engine optimization is misunderstood and despised by those who have had consistently failed at using it, or have been repeatedly beaten by those who were successful with it. These failures often stem from not understanding the dynamics of the behind the scenes battles that go on for search positioning. It is also a shame to see bright new folks not understanding the field in which they work. It is one thing to be ambitious and competitive - it is quite another to be outright delusional about what you can accomplish. Success is often created by knowing where to start, and how to scale, and which battles will be lost before they are ever fought. A smart general (or SEO) never fights a battle unless they KNOW they can win. This post is intended to be a guide to understanding the fight that takes place for every single search result, and how to know which battles have acceptable odds based on the competition.

Organic search results ARE NOT "free traffic". It is paid for in a much different way, with calculated risks and rewards. You WILL NEVER rank for the single term "mortgages". In fact, I give you very poor odds for every ranking for "Ohio mortgages" unless you are quite proficient at understanding competitive analysis and the playbook for SEO, and executing on the important elements of top rankings.

"There is no such thing as a good marketing strategy in the abstract. Good strategy is bad. And bad strategy is good. It all depends on who is going to use it." - Marketing Warfare

SEO can easily be substituted for "marketing strategy". There is no one size fits all solution to a good SEO campaign. Understanding the nature and intensity of the competition is as important as being able to compete for the top spots (Didn’t your mother ever tell you, "you have to pick your battles?) The intensity of the battle will be determined by the other players within the vertical space, and governed by the tactics deemed acceptable and overly aggressive within that marketplace (you’re not gonna rank for "mortgages" without buying some links).

Top rankings will always consist of 3 main points - The old stand bys (content, its’ structure, and inbound links), and one that is being somewhat overlooked as it creeps its way into the search algorithms (legitimate users’ clickstream data that verify the quality and integrity of a website through their actions). These are the goals of any SEO campaign. The methodology for obtaining these goals will never be the same, which is why it takes a creative mind to develop the strategy and understand the tools available to do so.

Concepts of Search Engine Optimization Warfare

1. The principle of force -
"SEO is knowing what the search engines want and giving it to them… so hard they f*cking bleed" - quote from DaveN
Aggressive tactics will always win. The main question is how long they will be successful (the risk associated with them). Thinking that a site will outrank others because it is better in terms of content, design, and usability is a mistake made by naive webmasters that have not yet figured out the competitive nature of search results, and their true value. These webmasters overpromise on results due to their inexperience, and this naivete then borders on negligence.

Search results prove over and over that the best sites are not always the top ranked sites. The BEST product, service, or website is NOT always in the top spot of Google. (Perhaps the data borg will someday change this) While we’d like to believe that relevance will be perfect, archaic aggressive tactics can constantly be found at the top of search results, and tend to maintain those high positions for extended periods of time until there is some type of human intervention (in the form of spam reports). This is not a knock on the ever increasing improvements of relevance, but only a caveat to those believing that these tactics will never again be effective, and drink the koolaid that these tactics have been remedied by solely algorithmic means.

2. The superiority of defense -
"Domain names may play a big roll not only in anchor text, but also in overall domain credibility, linkability, and defensibility." - Aaron Wall

Defensible traffic is a concept that will not go away in the world of search engine optimization, and why we will see the love affair between domainers and SEO’s continue to grow. When you’re doing lead ge