I’m also fine with retargeting, the strategy of serving me ads based on a site I’ve been to but chose to leave without making a purchase. Offline stores would love to be able to do that.

However, let’s imagine a scenario where an offline store had a sales rep follow you out of the store and start showing up everywhere you went. Starbucks, the grocery store, the driving range, church — you name it, there he was. Always.

It wouldn’t take long for you to get pretty freaked out.

Well that’s what happens when you turn your retargeting up to 11 like Liquid Web has. For any site running AdSense ads, they magically turn into Liquid Web ads when I view them — even on my own sites. Over the past month or two, it has gone from interesting to creepy to very annoying. In just one week, here are the various sizes of Liquid Web ads I’ve seen:

Now I’ve probably been Liquid Web’s biggest fan over the past few years, but this is really annoying.

Be very careful if you ever choose to use retargeting. Not only could you fail to make the sale, but you could also drive the customer away forever.

Bill’s post about why Borders is struggling reminded me of this. He says that “one of the biggest problems Borders faces” is that they don’t rank well in Google searches for books they offer. He may have some inside knowledge that I don’t have, but just from the outside, there are several reasons why I don’t think ranking well in Google would help them at all.

Why SEO Won’t Help Borders

Top 10 Rankings are Pretty, but They Don’t Sell Books

When Google started showing clickthrough rates in Webmaster Tools last year, the numbers came as a shock to many of us long-time SEOs. I had always believed that ranking in one of the top 3 positions for a search would give you a roughly equal shot at being clicked on. Across the board, though, what we all saw was the the number 1 spot had a significantly higher clickthrough rate, and that the rates dropped off precipitously after that.

So to have any solid impact, Borders would have to be ranking #1 for a number of different titles — not an easy task when you’re competing against the likes of Amazon.

Search Engine Traffic is Completely Unreliable

Building a business on search engine traffic is like building a house on sand. One good algorithm change can destroy a business literally overnight. I’ve been there.

It’s a Tiny Part of the Overall Traffic Universe

I don’t know how it is for books, but I know how it is for lots of other industries: Search engine traffic is an amazingly small piece of the traffic pie. At CareerBuilder for instance, we got a crazy amount of search engine traffic. We ranked great for short-tail and long-tail terms alike (and they still do). Even so, search engine traffic was a measly 5% of our overall traffic. 5%! And that’s including the significant number of people who typed “careerbuilder.com” into a search engine to get to us.

People just don’t use a search engine to find things as often as we think they do. Search engine traffic can be great (believe me, I know), but the vast majority of people will find your business some way other way. You can have a great business that never shows up in Google at all.

Just ask Borders competitor Books-A-Million (NasdaqGS: BAMM). They have a market cap almost 50% higher than Borders, and I’ve never seen them in a search.

What Will Help

Borders gets plenty of business. The challenge for them, and us, is twofold.

First, we have to do a better job at making money from the customers we already have. I have no idea how Borders makes money or how well they’re monetizing, but I see very few online businesses that are monetizing as well as they could be — mine included. We need to do a better job with what we’ve got.

Second, and maybe more importantly, we need to do a better job retaining customers. Take a look at the stats for your site. How many visitors to your site have never been there before? If you could retain just 10% of those who visit and never come back, how big would your customer base be a year from now? If you’re not following Mark Riffey, you need to be.

When all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. I’m as guilty of that as anyone. I made all my money because of SEO, and it’s easy to think of every business idea in terms of how much search engine traffic is available. When we do that, though, we severely handicap ourselves.

Run your business like search engines don’t exist. You’ll be more successful in the short-term and the long-term.

The difference between a site worth a few thousand dollars and a site worth more than $1M is in the details, though… literally.  Listen to the developer of that iPhone app:

We obsess over details. It makes for better apps. Camera+ was no different than any of our other apps in this regard and it’s taken literally dozens of design sessions to get it in the state that it’s currently in. I’m talking about hundreds of hours just for the app design.

But we’re passionate about this and love doing it so it hardly feels like work to us. Spend substantial time making your app look and feel good to the user and it’ll likely pay off.

Or the five-figure blogger:

The best way to make money with a legitimate blog is by focusing all of your time and attention on providing your readers with as much value as you can.

They’re not saying this to discourage you or to hide their real secrets.  It’s true.  If you really want to have a million-dollar website, you have to sweat the details and create real value.

Let’s Look at Some Examples

I bought Lobster Boats from Rick Latona a while back.  It’s not the thinnest of sites in the world, but it’s pretty weak — nothing more than really just the minimum required to make it, technically, a “real” site.  I could build links and drive traffic to a site like that all day long, but I’d always be swimming against a very significant current.  It’s just not delivering any real value.  This is the type of site people build and then wonder why they’re not making any money.

Online MBA Rankings is a big step up from that.  The design is better, the content is much better, and it’s delivering some real value.

And then there’s TrueCar — a site so amazing that people link to it and tell their friends about it all on their own.  A ton of development went into this site and it shows.  Building links and traffic to this site is like shooting fish in a barrel.

So Which One Are You?

The easiest way to tell is by how hard you have to work to get someone to link to you.  If it’s always a struggle, you probably need to step back and spend more of that time working on making your site great.

There’s no shortcut to a million-dollar site.  Quit trying to find one.

(What do you need to work on?  Check out The 3 Reasons Your Traffic Is Struggling and Are You Sure You Have a Great Website?)

Photo by zzzack.

There are three big things that could be holding you back.

Your Content is Forgettable

Is your site unique and/or better than other sites in the same niche?  If not, you’ll always be swimming upstream — trying to get people to visit your site when there’s really no reason for them to.  It’s a loser’s game (unless you’re just a really strong swimmer with a stubborn streak).

Get a few people who are familiar with your niche to give you an honest opinion.  If your content just isn’t as good as it needs to be, either fix that or do something else that you can be great at.

You’re Ugly on the Outside

Ok, your content is great.  Now what?  Your site has to look good too.  The Craigslists of the world aside, you’re crippling yourself unnecessarily if your site isn’t easy on the eyes and easy to use.  Most people won’t hang around to see your inner beauty — your outer appearance has to match or they’ll just click away.  Good design can have a stunning ROI.

You’re the Great Unknown

If you’re creating great content — and looking good doing it — then your problem is that no one knows about you.  It’s time to start working hard on generating traffic to your website.  If you’ve truly taken care of the first two things, it shouldn’t take long to get that snowball rolling.

Be careful, though: Lots of people think they have a great site that looks good, but they’re fooling themselves.  Compare Campus Squeeze with College Humor or Cracked.com, for instance.  Think they’re all equally good?  Sucker explains why they’re not.

Spend some time getting some honest opinions from your target audience to verify that you’re on the right track — or to discover what you need to do to get there.

————————————————-

In an effort to promote the official launch of WikiCity, we decided to spend $680 that we really didn’t have to publish a “US1″ press release (the granddaddy of them all — PRNewswire’s most expansive U.S. distribution offering) entitled “WikiCity Launches a Hyper-Local City Wiki for Every City.” Simply put, we decided to invest in a press release because we wanted more traffic. As part of the decision process, we considered a number of factors, researched best practices, and did everything we could to determine what kind or results to expect. Despite our best efforts and growing frustration, none of the dozens of experts or reputable press release agencies we met would dare guestimate what kind of results we might experience. And therefore, it is this same frustration that has motivated me to share our press release results here with you so that if you are considering investing in a press release, you can draw upon our experiences so that you won’t have to make the decision in the dark. I’ve recapped our results below, but in summary, traffic results did not meet expectations, and the key learning was — as with many things in life — size doesn’t matter; it’s how you use it that counts.

Traffic Results

Not much incremental traffic, but lots of much-needed links. Unfortunately, not a single phone call or even an email inquiry from a journalist. Pathetic.

• Incremental # of unique visitors on day of release: 150
• Incremental # of unique visitors on day after release: 50
• # of links / web publications: 180
• # of phone calls from journalists: 0
• # of email inquiries from journalists: 0

Key Learnings

A variety of lessons, ranked in order of importance:

• Size doesn’t matter; it’s how you use it that counts. Even if your initial results sucked as bad as ours, recognize that a press release is a single action. It’s what you do around them that matters. Contact targeted journalists both in advance and after your press release is published, asking them if they will help share your story. Use the release as an excuse to tell everyone you know… Link the release to your blog, website, Facebook fan page, LinkedIn profile, etc.
• Credibility: Press releases, especially when distributed through reputable agencies, can get your release published on reputable sites such as Forbes or Yahoo Finance, which search engines seem to appreciate. Beyond that, these links have already helped to lend us credibility with our partners and users, while at the same time, making it much easier to share our story with selected journalists.
• Links from web publications: You get lots of them. (Quick math: $3.78/link)
• Time your distribution wisely: Avoid distributing on Mondays, Fridays, when the stock market opens/closes, or when pop icons die.
• Choose distribution wisely: We chose PRNewswire’s “US1″ distribution because it was the only way we could reach small-town newspapers within the thousands of small communities we serve. However, based on the lack of inquiries from journalists, we will need to instead find other means to reach this audience. If we were to do it all over again, we would probably select an on-line only distribution.
• Choose your press release agency wisely: Sure, each agency has a little something different to offer, but for the most part, as long as you’re distributing through the Associated Press, press release distribution is a commodity. Note: There are a lot of “free” press release services out there, and I’ll be the first to admit that they too can be used effectively to help boost credibility, but you likely won’t reach the more reputable news agencies because the freebies are generally considered “spammy”, and therefore, you won’t enjoy nearly as many back-links. Stick with PRNewswire, PRWeb, Marketwire, or Warren Buffett’s Business Wire and you should fare well. Hope this helps, and best of luck!

————————————————-

Pat and I will continue our conversation in the comments, but please add your own questions and your own experiences with using press releases as well!

Virtually all the sites I’ve worked with have been U.S. sites that marketed nationwide, but I’ve worked with a handful who were only interested in marketing locally.  Here’s what I’ve learned with those clients.  Your mileage may vary, but I think at least some of it will be useful.  I’d love to hear any other suggestions (and corrections) you guys might have as, again, I’m not an expert here.

Not a Magic Potion

I talk to a lot of people who think the Internet is the answer to all their problems.  It’s not.  In fact, it may cost you way more than it could ever pay you back.  When you’re marketing locally, there are often way more effective ways to spend your time and money — especially if you’ve never done any Internet marketing before.  Don’t believe the hype.

Take Care of the Basics

That said, there’s no reason not to do some basic work to give yourself a decent presence online.

Have a Great Design

This is absolutely essential.  People will judge the excellence of your business by what your website looks like.  That’s probably not an accurate indicator even 50% of the time, but it’s what people do.  A great design can be had at 99designs for less than $1,000, so you have no excuse.

Submit to Local Business Directories

Go to Google and search for Atlanta dog sitters or any other local search you can think of.  Chances are, the first thing in the search results is Google’s “local business results.”  You want to be in that list and any other lists like it.  Three places you need to be sure to submit your business to:

• Google’s Local Business Center
• Bing’s Local Listing Center
• Yahoo! Local

Or you could just use GetListed.org.

Basic SEO

Be sure your site follows basic SEO principles.  It’s not rocket science.  You might not see much traffic from search engines, but you’re sure to see none if you don’t at least take care of the easy stuff.

Network… Network… Network…

I’m not talking about offline, though that’s a great strategy too.  I’m talking about online networking.

Blogs

Be a regular, quality commenter on blogs that a) are written by people in your geographic area or b) are about topics related to your business.  Use your real name and don’t comment just for the link.  Genuinely add something to the conversation.

Forums

Same thing here: find and participate in forums that are local and forums that are about your topic.  The advantage of forums over blogs is that you can automatically include a signature on each or your posts that tells who you are and advertises your business a little bit.

Here again, though, you have to genuinely add to the conversation.  Being a valuable member of the community is why you’re there. The publicity for your business is just a side effect of how well you do that.

Twitter

Join Twitter and start posting quality stuff.  Don’t post commercial stuff, and don’t reply to others with a sales pitch.  That will do far more harm than good.

Once you’ve been on for a week or two and have some quality stuff, start following people in your area.  You can find them using Twitter’s advanced search.

And one more time for good measure: add value to the conversation.  You’re not there to market your business.

Get Noticed

Everything up until now has allowed you to interact with people who were already looking for your business (or one like it) or who already had something in common with you.  If you limit yourself to only those people, though, you’re missing a huge segment of the population.

Be Newsworthy

What can you do that is newsworthy?  Newsworthy things get into the news (thus the name).  People read the news and find out about your business.  Pick up your local paper and see who’s in there and why they’re in there.

Be An Expert

Sites like Examiner.com give you a forum to be a local expert on a very wide range of topics.  Take advantage of that.

Or, better yet, write Examiner-worthy content on your own site.  That way you own the content and you get all the publicity (and links).  Select a topic from their application form and take a look at the questions they ask in order to get a feel for what kind of content really draws readers — then get writing!

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Finally, take a look at PPC advertising — particularly with AdWords (because of the much greater reach and much better tools).  For the people who are searching for what you’re offering, you can be front and center and control your costs down to the penny.  Start slow, though.  You can spend a lot of money in a very short amount of time if you’re not careful.  Once you get your legs under you, though, PPC is an incredible tool.

For me it was Aaron; for you it might be someone else.  For all of us, though, there are times when we just need something to put our business on a brand new growth curve.  So what better gift could I give you than a prize package that gives you that?

I’m calling it The $X,000 Business Boost, because I’ve only just begin pulling together the prizes and I don’t know yet just how valuable it’s going to end up being.  Check out who’s signed up already, though:

• Jeremy from Wildfire Marketing (the guys who do the 0% website financing) is providing a brand new custom web design.
• Aaron has donated a free subscription to his awesome SEO training — which is way more than just SEO plus a powerful forum.
• ShoeMoney has followed suit with a free subscription to ShoeMoney tools — an incredible array of applications to give your business an inside edge plus another powerful forum.
• Neil Patel is in with a Pro subscription to Crazy Egg — one of the easiest ways to see huge improvements both in how efficient your site is for users and also in how well it converts.
• The great guys at BuzzStream have donated a Pro subscription to their awesome buzz-building tools that will be released to the public very shortly.

Details on how to enter will follow soon, but what I’m looking for right now is more prizes.  Do you have a nice prize that would be a great fit for this contest (or know someone who does)?  Is there something you think would help you get over the hump, but you just can’t afford it?  Let me know!

And please help me spread the word!  Blog it and tweet it and mention it in forums.  The more people who know about it, the bigger the prize pack will be!

Update (4/22 9:01): Added Crazy Egg to the list of prizes.  Thanks, Neil!

Update (4/22 1:51): Added BuzzStream to the list of prizes.  Getting close to $10,000 in prizes!