TECHNOLOGY

We have been hearing a lot lately about tricky or “stealth” marketing practices. We thought you might like to have some information about that subject from our perspective. We believe strongly in building traffic based on strength of content.

The term “stealth marketing” refers to deceptive techniques that try to fool search engines into bringing extra traffic to a Web site. Such techniques usually incur the wrath of the search engines, and sometimes the search engines will blacklist the offending Web site. Even when stealth marketing techniques are successful, they often attract a high number of low-quality visitors.

A high volume of low-quality traffic looks good in your visitor count, but does not help your business. For instance, your Web site can have a million visitors, but if the visitors do not impact your business in some way then your site is like a store on a busy street where thousands of cars drive by but no one stops to shop. In order to maintain a profitable business, you must attract visitors who come in and stay a bit. This is the kind of information we want to give you: how you can best attract high-quality visitors who will help your business grow.

We are all in new territory. The Internet is a fairly new tool and is constantly changing, so even the experts are novices. Some of us have been around since the beginning and others are just really beginning to accept the power the Internet has in our lives. As Real Estate professionals it is imperative that we become knowledgeable about the Internet as a business necessity.

Being well-positioned in the search engines is the goal of every Web site owner. There are many techniques, one of which is stealth—otherwise known as cloaking. Cloaked pages are specifically designed to attract search engines. They are text-heavy and image-light, emphasizing a specific key phrase or phrases. The script or code distinguishes between the stealth page and your normal page, showing the stealth page to a search engine spider as opposed to your normal page which is seen by your regular visitors. As a rule, search engines do not really appreciate this and will penalize sites when such scripts are patently abusing their guidelines.

According to Stephan Spenser of Netconcepts, cloaking is only acceptable in a very limited use: namely, as a way of simplifying search-engine-unfriendly links. If you are in any way selectively modifying the page content, this is nothing less than a bait-and-switch. Search engines have undercover spiders that masquerade as regular visitors to detect such unscrupulous behavior.” ^1.

Here is a brief explanation of spidering: Search engine spidering is the method used by search engines for reviewing your Web site pages and collecting information that tells them how true you are to their requirements. Spiders are like radar, constantly scanning the Web and gathering information about your site so that it can be judged as relevant or not relevant. This information ultimately results in where you are positioned in the search engine index. Spiders are constantly becoming more sophisticated. There was a time, back in the day, when stealth pages were rampantly used by webmasters. Now, your stealth page has to be as sophisticated as the spider—and that is no easy task.

In general, I would say that employing stealth tactics is not a job for amateurs. Even the professionals have better ways of improving their positions. The penalty for getting caught doing this is far worse than taking the time to optimize your pages correctly. Nonetheless, there are people who do use stealth marketing effectively. I’ve listed a few of the pros and cons of stealth marketing below:

Pros:

1. Stealth marketing allows you to protect your code.
2. You can feed specific pages to specific engines.
3. You can modify pages that visitors see without changing well-ranked pages.
4. You can modify metatags, code, keywords, and keyword density without changing pages that are attractive to visitors.
5. If you are in a highly competitive industry, cloaking a few sites will lead to the ability to develop an in-house matrix system where Web sites can be totally built around one key phrase. With the inexpensive cost of domain names, you can purchase domain names and set up hosting at very affordable rates for 10 Web sites, all working together to promote the overall client’s main business portal.

Cons:

1. Stealth marketing can be perceived as something less than honest.
2. Cloaked pages are easy for hackers to abuse via spamming, codejacking and other negative practices.
3. You can be sure that search engines will aggressively try to detect it. If caught, you will be banned. This is especially true of Google, and to be banned from Google is the kiss of death for your Web site.
4. This method goes against the terms of service set in place by Google, Yahoo! and MSN, which are the three main search engines.

Personally, I feel that you are taking an enormous risk by trying to outfox the search engines by less-than-honest means. Building a Web site with truly relevant content is much more beneficial in the long run for sustainable numbers over time. Right now there is a return to content as positive criterion for a well-ranked Web site.

Now that I have said that, I am compelled to warn you against those who would promise a quick fix or instant huge numbers. This is a form of malpractice and can be devastating to your site. Here are some of the things to look for when you are employing a search engine marketing company.

1. If you hear your prospective company refer to “no-traffic” keywords, take heed; you may see huge numbers and have a good ranking—even a great ranking—but users will be diverted from your Web site. This is a divisive method widely employed by scam artists. They do deliver big numbers and high ranking, but no true visitors to your site, which is useless for developing your business.
2. Beware of any marketing company’s reluctance to give you your actual numbers. You want to know the numbers.
3. Some companies discourage you from doing your own tracking. They suggest that your tracking may interfere with theirs. Nonsense!
4. Short-sighted companies tell you to overload your site with keywords, especially those not really relevant to your product or service. Back in the day, you could add sex to your list of keywords and see big traffic. No one would even think of doing that now. I cannot tell you how sophisticated the search engine spiders are. You would be banned in a trice.
5. Avoid writing content to fit keywords. Rather than writing content to fit keywords, you should list your keywords to match your content. Both the spiders and your readers will reward you for having good content. Remember: write the content first, keywords and phrases second. Use a keyword density analyzer to hone down your use of keywords. Use common sense.
6. If a marketing company guarantees results then you should walk away. It is impossible to guarantee results. However, it is possible to see steady growth with the application of best practices. Ask them to provide you with a best practices statement.
7. If the word “automatic” even comes into the conversation, take a pass. The only viable way to submit to a search engine is by hand. You say: but it’s the Internet, isn’t everything automatic? No. Every Web site is individual. You cannot successfully market a site in an automated fashion. This is why companies like OneUpWeb—my personal favorite—charge an average of $50,000 a month to market a site, and their customers beg them to take their money. They do it right! Don’t let that number scare you though; you can find search engine marketing in all price ranges. Just try not to think of marketing as your last priority. It should be your first. Do not even build a Web site without thinking of how you will market it first.
8. Do not use link farms or other types of Web-linking scams that promise to give your ranking a boost through linking. Instead, link to sites that are actually of interest to your visitors. Make sure that anyone you hire does the same.
9. ROI—return on investment—is a familiar term in business. It applies to Web-based businesses as well as to the bricks-and-mortar world. No matter what kind of Web site traffic you are seeing, you must have bona fide customers to stay in business. Hire a Web site marketer with that goal in mind. Remember: the higher your numbers, the more you are going pay for marketing. Do not be intimidated because you do not really understand how this all works. You understand business, you understand your goals. Make sure that your marketing people speak to those goals. Follow your instincts. If you feel like you are being given a line of fast-talking excrement, you probably are.

Again and again, I tell you to trust your instincts. We are talking about Real Estate here. We know some things. We know that traditionally Real Estate has been a local market. We know that is not true anymore. Especially in our markets in Las Vegas Metro—and even in our other EREE markets like North Carolina—more and more people are not only shopping through the Internet, they are shopping from far away. Investment properties, retirement homes, job relocation—there are a myriad of reasons people shop for Real Estate from far away. As a Real Estate professional it is imperative that you use this market downtime to beef up your Internet presence. Whether you study about it, interview Web site building and promotion companies, work on a design, or research options—do it.

Like I said above, do your thinking about building your site based on marketing the site. Do not think “build it and they will come.” Your customers have to know you are there. You can have the Taj Mahal of Web sites (the real one, not the Donald one) and if no one knows you are there, then your site will stand empty. In Real Estate we say, “location, location, location.” In the Internet world the key to success is search engines: “position, position, position.”

Remember: in order to build a Web site that brings cash flow into your company, you should invest in good, solid Web site marketing and stay away from stealth marketing practices.

1. Stephan Spencer is founder and president of Netconcepts. He is a senior contributor to MarketingProfs.com and coauthor of the analyst report "The State of Search Engine Marketing 1.0," published by Catalog Age. Stephan blogs at www.stephanspencer.com.