Archive for September 2011

"Ending the Management Illusion"

"Ending the Management Illusion"

I was reading a book by a friend, Professor Hersh Shefrin of the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University, on how managers in companies can apply principles of behavioral finance to make better decisions,  and came across a *great* table.  In it, Prof. Shefrin lists all of the common sources of behavioral bias that people commonly find themselves subject to.  Much of the book is about forecasting, which is actually a critical part of the SEO process; forecasting the potential for a website gives an indication of  how valuable SEO efforts will be, and puts some boundaries around what constitutes a reasonable amount of effort.

With his permission, I’ve reproduced the table below with an additional column that suggests how these biases are relevant to our industry.  Overall, it makes for a cautionary warning – before diagnosing a website, perhaps we should diagnose ourselves… Read on »

Cluck Cluck...I Hope The "Entrail" Reference is Just a Fowl Joke!

Cluck Cluck...I Hope the"Entrail" Reference is Just a Fowl Joke!

In Part 1, we came up with a standard decay curve by position that can be used to estimate Click-Through Rate, provided you know how many clicks  are available.  In this posting we’ll extend that to provide two ways of estimating organic search traffic potential, complete with a downloadable spreadsheet.  One approach is for keywords with no history, and the second one can be used for keywords with a history of performing, to project the effects of moving up various amounts.

Before we start, a number of commenters on Part 1 pointed out that the CTR decay curve will vary Read on »