SEOfrancois

Sometimes I wonder why I ever chose the "seofrancois" nickname... Oh right, those guys at a conference kept pressing me for a twitter handle! But still, SEO is just a little part of what I'm interested in as far as making money, ahem, I mean as far as Internet Marketing is concerned.

I believe everyone doing SEO should keep in mind that SEO alone is useless. Optimizing a site for search engines doesn't do much, unless you're doing an SEO contest, maybe... but I'd still argue that doing an SEO contest doesn't do anything useful either.

If you're doing SEO, ask yourself: what's the point? More specifically: what happens next? People find your site in web engines. Some click through. Now what?

Below are some additional topics you may want to think about. (No, I'm not talking about PPC!) And what's more: contrary to SEO, those topics still have a lot of margin for improvement in many verticals, even the juicy ones:

• Copy writing
• Landing page optimization
• Navigation optimization & site usability
• Branding
• Customer loyalty
• Customer experience
• Trust factors
• User engagement
• Community building (onsite)
• Facebook & co.
• Mailing list buildings
• Email deliverability
• Mobile browsing

Email deliverability, for example, can be quite an interesting topic for SEOs; there is definitely a parallel to be drawn between how many factors influence your position in search engines and how many factors influence whether or not your email is going to be delivered to the recipients' inboxes, spam boxes or not delivered at all... (You guys should do email deliverability contests to Hotmail for a change! :p )

But beyond that, the list above contains areas which are less technical but require more creativity instead. I believe these are the areas where you will find the most growth in 2012.

This is a utility post for anyone going to a4uexpo and looking for some above average food... especially steak:

• The best place in town is called "Zum Goldenen Kalb" - Utzschneidertr.1 80469 München. The filet is just as juicy as the best you'd get in the US... and the spinach... don't even get me started on the spinach! (and it's MMWYE approved ;)
• The Hilton Am Tucherpark hotel restaurant is also pretty decent. The filet is less awesome than am Goldenen Kalb but the lentils... yes the lentils... are just the best I ever had! Seriously!

Note: if you wonder what's up with spinach, lentils and slow carbs in general, check out the 4 hour body book by Tim Ferris ;)

Other places of interest:

• Cafe Rischart am Marienplatz for all sorts of cakes ;)
• There's also that awesome Spatenhaus an der Oper (near the Opera) with the insane schnitzl... some of the best I ever had ;)

Sometimes it's interesting to do a reality check on your own little domain portfolio...

Here are the top 10 domain sales in 2010:

1. Sex.com - $13,000,000
2. Slots.com - $5,500,000
3. Dating.com - $1,750,000
4. Photo.com - $1,250,000
5. Flying.com - $1,100,000
6. Zip.com - $1,058,830
7. Poker.org - $1,000,000
8. Credit.fr - $851,875
9. Guns.com - $800,000
10. Ringtones.com - $750,000

Full story »

I'm speaking at SMX Paris 2010. I'm actually giving a presentation in 3 different sessions:

• Architecturer un Site - june 15th, 12:00
• Un design web optimisé pour les moteurs de recherche - june 15th, 15:30
• Contenu dupliqué et tag "canonical" - june 16th 11:30

I am pretty excited for this is the first time SMX comes to Paris... I'm also eager to meet the French SEO scene and see what they have to say about the poor state of search in France...

Link: http://www.a4uexpo.com/europe/

I'll be speaking at A4U expo in Munich (May 18-19th, 2010).

I'll be on the super affiliate panel on Day 2 about "Tips to Increase Productivity & Profit". Pretty exciting!

I guess I'll leave the tech tips to the other panelists and focus on some hugely underrated secrets... including... marshmallows! (I kid you not!)