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11July2007

Future of Search Marketing ala MIMA

Chris Boggs is moderating a local MIMA event, aka “Salon”, with reps from Google (Kevin Willer) and Microsoft (Saleel Sathe) tomorrow night and asked if I would join since the Ask.com rep had to bow out. It’s called “The Future of Search: A Holistic View” and should be pretty interesting. As a guy who’s involved with every organization and publication in the search marketing industry you could possibly think of, Chris is a very sharp fellow and I’m sure he’ll keep the engines on their toes.

The event promotion rightly emphasized the search engines’ participation on the panel and since I’m being added the night before the event happens, no one will expect to see me there. I hope the Ask.com fans are not too disappointed. I’ll just have to say I’m there to channel Gary Price since he’s been so good about providing us the latest and greatest Ask.com developments.

The topic is terrifically spot-on for what’s happening in the search marketing industry right now and it’s great to see a panel of (mostly) reps from the search engines coming here to the Minneapple. I do like the notion of “holistic search marketing” and have written about that recently as “holistic SEO” as well as, “digital asset optimization“. However, I’ll be taking a big back seat to Kevin and Saleel since they’re the reason (besides Chris and the drinks) people will be attending.

If you’re in the Twin Cities, come on down to the Calhoun Beach Club tomorrow at 5:15 or so for registration and lubrication. The fun starts at 6 followed by networking, food and the ever present MIMA staple, the cash bar at 7pm.

More info and details are here.

Sponsored By: ClickZ: Online Video Ads Seminar 7/19 Get up to speed on addin

Original post by Lee Odden

Popularity: 7% [?]

10July2007

Holistic Search Engine Optimization

Posted by under: Online Marketing; SEO.

I think it’s safe to say the idea of optimizing web sites for better rankings, traffic and sales is an idea that that has become pretty standard for most web site owners. Ranking well on search engines can provide an incredible amount of “free” traffic to a web site. Many companies base their entire business model on traffic from natural search results generating millions in revenue.

Due to the lure of the so called “free” traffic and monetary goals, many site owners, webmasters and web marketers succumb to short term strategies and find themselves chasing after the latest “trick” or tactic. Because search engines and traffic opportunities change often, web marketers can find themselves in a never ending loop.

To hedge against unsustainable search engine marketing tactics that drive many misguided web site promotion efforts, marketers would do well to diversify their optimization. Taking a more holistic perspective not only provides additional streams of web site traffic, it also benefits standard search engine rankings.

Here are three considerations for holistic optimization:

Keyword Messaging
Consider this situation: The web site optimization team conducts content and competitive analysis to generate a keyword glossary. This glossary indicates the keyword concepts being used to find the kinds of content and solutions present on the company web site. Depending on the size of the organization, who gets to see this keyword research? Is the web team the only corporate entity that produces electronic documents published to the web? In most cases, the answer to that question is no.

Keyword insight, whether it is in the form of a detailed analysis or a basic keyword glossary should be shared with any department responsible for generating content that might get published to the internet. In fact, keyword research should be involved with messaging and branding from strategic branding to product descriptions.

That way, whether it’s the company tagline or a product data sheet in pdf format, content is produced with the keywords that are relevant and in demand. Press releases, announcements, case studies, webinars, archived company newsletters, audio, video, images and of course blogs, are all candidates for keyword messaging.

Channels of distribution
Web sites are rarely the sole means of content distribution on the web for most companies. Video, podcasts, blogs, newsletters, forums, wikis, news and PR, corporate communications and intranets are all methods of online content distribution. With the increasing popularity of social media, users are interacting with a wider variety of content if new and interesting ways. Using these channels effectively presents significant opportunities for online marketers.

A holistic approach to content optimization starts with an inventory current media and channels of communication and then includes a program for information sharing, training and feedback on the optimization effects of the various channels. At a minimum, best practices can be implemented that allow communications to be keyword relevant whenever new content is published online.

Imagine a prospect that searches Google and is presented with your company’s brand in the natural search results, PPC or both. Depending on the query type and topic, your brand might also display in Google’s one box results. The same goes for blog or news search. Consistent keyword messaging in the channels where the target audience is looking instills brand familiarity, credibility and confidence.

Make optimization a habit.
It’s not realistic that everyone responsible for content generation within an organization will become skilled in the arts of SEO copywriting, but there are fundamental best practices that can be put in place to significantly improve the search engine friendliness of the content that is produced.
There is a demand in each marketplace for solutions. Making content optimization a part of best practices content creation will help meet that demand by making information easier to find wherever prospects are looking.

An organization that can proactively implement the insight that comes from keyword research across company electronic communications, within the various marketing channels and as a process, will benefit from more sustainable and productive search engine visibility whether it’s a standard search engine, news, blog, social media or even mobile search.

Sponsored By: 2007 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide All new report from Marketing Sherpa

Original post by Lee Odden

Popularity: 7% [?]

9July2007

Google GrandCentral Invites

Posted by under: Online Marketing.

This weekend I was able to get an invite (thanks Adam!) and try out Google’s recent acquisition, GrandCentral which is in private beta.

GrandCentral allows you to use one number to manage all your phones: home, cell, work, etc. The web interface allows you to manage greetings for each number, archive all voice mails indefinitely, setup notification preferences and many more options. There’s even a nifty phone spam option to filter out telemarketers and other unwanted calls. The basic idea is that if your work or home numbers change, you don’t need to update anyone because they would have your GrandCentral number.

Once you have an invite, signing up is very easy. You identify an area code and/or city and state, then GrandCentral provides you a list of 5 numbers. Pick one and then you associate your various phone numbers to the main GrandCentral number.Here are more GrandCentral screen shots, a pre-Google acquisition review from Om Malik and plenty of blog coverage on the acquisition by Google.

I have about 6 invites left, so if you’re interested, link to this post and I’ll randomly pick a few blogs from the trackbacks and/or comments to give out the invites.

Sponsored By: 2007 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide All new report from Marketing Sherpa.

Original post by Lee Odden

Popularity: 5% [?]

6July2007

Search Marketing Blogs Update 070607

Posted by under: Online Marketing.

It’s been a light week of sorts with the July 4th holiday and all, but the TopRank search for new and interesting SEM and SEO blogs never stops.

Eyefall Search Marketing Blog - A group blog from the team at London based search marketing agency eyefall blogs about SEO, PPC and affiliate marketing.
The Marketing Excellence Blog - Eric Kintz, Vice President of Global Marketing Strategy & Excellence for HP, offers his observations about CMO issues, corporate blogging, marketing ROI, viral marketing and web 2.0 topics.
Dosh Dosh - This anime spotted blog written by Maki, a Political Science and Philosophy student in Toronto Canada, is all about making money online and along with that comes posts about professional blogging, affiliate marketing, get-paid-to programs, advertising networks and social media monetization.
Probing Gray Matter - Yahoo in-house SEO diva Laura Lippay blogs using the Y!360 platform on search engine optimization, searching and a bit of “Yahooishness” mixed in for flavor.

Honorable mention:

Clickblurbs - Rob Humphreys is an interactive marketer that writes about search engine optimization as well as PPC and industry observations. With the most recent post on April 11, 2007 this blog is unfortunately, not updated often enough to be included in the BIGLIST. Hopefully that will change.

For those blogs that want to share this recognition with their readers, feel free to grab a BIGLIST badge.

Original post by Lee Odden

Popularity: 4% [?]

5July2007

Advantages of Ongoing SEO Consulting

Posted by under: Online Marketing; SEO.

When companies consider search engine optimization as a service, it’s important to understand that this kind of consulting comes in a variety of forms with the most popular being: phone consultations, site audits/reviews and ongoing SEO consulting.

Businesses that are very early in their stages of search marketing and not entirely “sold” on SEO as a channel seem to gravitate towards short term engagements. “Can we test SEO for a few months?”, they’ll say. Also, companies that perceive SEO as a set of IT and web development focused tactics also tend to see the promotion of a web site via search as a one-time set of recommendations.

There are serious flaws in the thinking that improving on-page content optimization as a single exercise is going to deliver the ongoing competitive advantage possible of improving bottom line sales that most companies have in mind when they hire an outside resource.

I see examples either personally or hear from our account teams every week, of how having a SEO consultant either saved the client considerable expense or provided insight for creating significant competitive advantage. Such a topic would make for a very good Reader Poll, but for now, I think we’ll start with five good reasons for ongoing SEO consulting:

Oversight of implementation - Most companies do not implement SEO recommendations they’ve paid to receive most of the time, correctly or at all. SEO implementation isn’t just the first pass at content optimization and making the site more spider friendly. It’s an ongoing process of adding new, search engine friendly content, making sure that content stays search engine friendly, promoting and monitoring. Not implementing SEO recommendations properly can mean the wasted investment in SEO in the first place.Ongoing SEO oversight gives another pair of eyes, focused expertise and resources for the completion of tasks that overworked, multiple-hat wearing company webmasters are expected to perform. With multiple people responsible for web site content creation and maintenance come the opportunity for error like overwriting all the SEO title and meta data recommendations. Oversight also provides a site SEO quality control element that if left unchecked, can undo months or years of previous SEO investment. Over the past 2 years we’ve noticed that while many organizations are bringing SEO as well as PPC in-house, they continue to retain an outside agency for both strategic direction as well as a helping hand on production.
Link acquisition - Links drive traffic, they promote brands and search engines recognize links in their various forms as signals in determining the best search results for a given query. TopRank’s opinion is that you can never have enough links. A vibrant, relevant and popular web site is in part characterized by the quantity and quality of links pointing to it. With many web sites, this is a chicken/egg situation where there might be useful content being created, but because the site is new, there is limited distribution. If no one is aware of the great content, then there’s no one to link to it.Therefore, active and ongoing promotion of a web site is necessary in the form of link acquisition.Very few companies persist at any kind of proactive link building (directories, content promotion, profiles, press releases, link bait, social media) or even bother with creating passive link acquisition efforts (bookmarks, widgets, RSS, etc). Ongoing outside consulting services provide the resources for persistent best practices link acquisition, content promotion, analysis and measurement. This is where the notions that “search marketing is a form of PR” and “PR is the future of SEO” come into play in a very big way.
Professional consulting - The search marketing industry moves fast, changes often and can consume an incredible amount of a company’s IT and marketing department’s time. Many search engine optimization companies will provide up front consulting offering keyword research, content optimization, code and/or template optimization, inclusion assistance, paid links (TopRank doesn’t do paid links), directory submissions and monthly ranking (or similarly automated) reports. To some that might seem like a lot, but it’s just a start. Getting the most out of search engines as a marketing channel is a process, not an event.Professional SEO consulting includes strategic direction as well as ongoing education for the client side staff responsible for content creation, web site administration, marketing, public relations, business development and even customer service. Providing clients with technical as well as creative expertise along with the processes that can bring measurable accountability to the search marketing investment are all key components to proper ongoing consulting. Not only does the SEO consultant need to justify the return on their own efforts, but provide the advice, processes and reporting that makes the client side contact look like a rock star to their management team and the company the most relevant resource to online prospects.
More hands on deck - Most companies have IT and marketing departments, or at least individuals filling those roles. Some even have dedicated in-house search marketing professionals. However, for anyone with client side experience, you know how thinly spread technical and creative staff can be. Search engine optimization is just another check mark on their long list of tasks to complete.SEO agencies provide the additional expertise for implementation of certain tasks so that in-house web teams can focus on their internal customers and keep the web site running properly.
Pipeline and search marketing analytics - “The devil is in the details”, they say and analytics for search marketing is no different. After 10 plus years in the search marketing business, many companies still report they do not actively use web analytics information for marketing or that they do not have a clear understanding of the conversion process for online lead generation.In direct marketing, knowing cost per lead and cost per acquisition is fundamental. Why not for natural search or PPC? Monitoring keyword traffic trends, referral trends, time spent on site, visitor interaction with calls to action, conversions and many other metrics provide invaluable insight into a successful search marketing program. The ability to attribute (correctly) revenue or lead generation outcomes to search marketing expenditures provides the fundamental feedback loop that should be an expected component of just about any search marketing program.Search marketing analytics consultants bring years of “been there, done that” experience to organizations still making sense out of search as a channel. It’s not all about lead generation either, since “brand” is still one of the leading reasons companies invest in search. The importance of branding brings into play the need to understand how the search experience, from query to conversion, impacts the consumers brand experience.

I expect a counter to listing these five of many reasons for ongoing SEO help would be that you can hire and train staff for these responsibilities. I suppose that’s possible, but good luck in today’s marketplace with “real” search marketing experts in very high demand by top agencies of all kinds as well as companies brining search in-house.

The other issue is that it takes a pretty strong commitment by an organization to be able to justify the expense of expertise and time it would take to stay on top of what’s working as well as implementation. There are only so many conferences you can send your employees to and only so much time in the day to read blogs, forums, newsletters, publications and web sites on top of internal testing and measurement.

I’m not saying it’s impossible to do all SEO in house with the desired long term results, but like any specialized knowledge area, an ongoing relationship with a trusted expert offers clear and distinct quality of work and process advantages over doing everything yourself.

What are some of the most important reasons you’ve experienced for ongoing SEO consulting?

Sponsored By: ClickZ: Online Video Ads Seminar 7/19 Get up to speed on addin

Original post by Lee Odden

Popularity: 4% [?]

4July2007

Reader Poll: Most SEO Friendly Industries

Posted by under: Online Marketing.

A participant of the DMA Search Engine Marketing Certification program emailed me with some feedback about the program (very positive) and also posed a question about what industries need the least amount of education about search marketing. What industries are hiring in particular? Which I thought was a great question.

Many search marketing and interactive marketing agencies focus on certain vertical categories, so I don’t think you’d get too many consistent answers. However, if a hundred more different agencies, in-house marketers and consultants participated in such a survey, I think we’d get some pretty interesting data. And that leads me to this week’s reader poll:

Loading …

You’ll notice I left PPC industries out, as in “pills, porn and casino”. We already know those industries are highly SEO friendly and I’m leaving them out because I can.

Sponsored By: 2007 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide All new report from Marketing Sherpa

Original post by Lee Odden

Popularity: 3% [?]

3July2007

Bye Bye Marketing Sherpa’s SEO-SEM Buyer’s Guide

Posted by under: Online Marketing.

For the past 5 years or so, Marketing Sherpa has published a buyer’s guide for SEO and recently, SEO/SEM firms. The initial guide ranked the search marketing companies which caused a bit of a stir, since it’s hardly a consistent industry to measure. What followed was a report that was less of a guide to SEO and SEM firms per se and more of a guide about the industry and tips for choosing an agency. The listings for each SEO/SEM firm were self reported.

Mike Murray recently wrote on the Fathom SEO blog that he thought there won’t be any future guides being published. I emailed Anne Holland and she confirmed this was true, saying that Marketing Sherpa will be focusing their efforts on the Benchmark Guides and because of the inherent difficulty in providing qualitative evaluations of each SEO and SEM service.
She also commented on the Fathom blog:

Mike, Thanks so much for your kind words about our Buyer’s Guides. We decided to discontinue the line of Buyer’s Guides this year because while the information was valuable, it wasn’t precisely what customers wanted. They wanted ConsumerReports style verified ratings of each firm’s performance. That’s an impossible task for a technical service industry. So, this year we’re retiring the line and considering ways to re-tool it so it’s useful to customers as possible while keeping the data true and real. PLUS, for data hounds, we’re broadening the scope of our annual Search Marketing Benchmark Guide (currently weighing in at more than 200 pages of stats) to include more firm info.

A follow up post on the Fathom Blog provides more info as well as an invitation to give Marketing Sherpa feedback.

So it looks like the SEO/SEM Guide is no longer going to be published, at least in it’s current form. If you haven’t seen the SEO/SEM Guides, you can read previous posts from OMB or visit the most recent guide page at Marketing Sherpa’s site.

A question for search marketers is, “Does it matter if this guide isn’t published?” I’ve read debates about this in the forums, where many report not having heard of the guide or haven’t received any new business as a result of being listed.

However, TopRank’s experience with being listed in the SEO Guide the past 3 years has been positive to say the least. I’ve had it happen in several prospect meetings on sizeable projects, where the marketing VP or director literally pulled out the print version of the SEO guide, pointing out how impressed they were that TopRank was listed. Several other clients have mentioned seeing us in the guide as well.

The SEM Benchmark Report that Anne mentions in the comments is not meant to be a replacement for the SEO/SEM Guide, but it is a fantastic report and exceptionally useful for client-side marketers as well as agencies. Here’s a link to last year’s Search Marketing Benchmark Report. A new survey to capture data for an updated Benchmark report was run recently so be sure to watch for a review here in the coming months.

Also, for companies looking for resources on selecting and hiring a search marketing agency, see this post, “Finding a Search Engine Optimization Company“.

Sponsored By: Landing Page Optimization Class Marketing Experiments Certification Program

Original post by Lee Odden

Popularity: 3% [?]

29June2007

TopRank Team at the Lake

Posted by under: Online Marketing.

Sue, Jolina, Mike Y., Lee, Julie, Thomas, Dana, Max, Bill, Melinda, Roberta and Amie. Missing are Mike O., Chris and Anthony.

One of the cool things about working for TopRank is that during the summer, we operate on “summer hours”, which means the Friday work day ends (supposed to) at noon. Most of our team takes advantage of this but it’s pretty common to see the Account Managers sticking around a bit longer. I guess we’ll need to work on that.

We also hold an all hands meeting every two weeks to do in-house training, discuss certain strategic information and for Account Teams to report on clients and demonstrate new tactics. We hold these meetings at our office on Lake Minnetonka but today we’re starting a tradition and having the bi-weekly meeting literally ON the lake.

Once nice thing about having a small company, 16 and counting, is that we can fit everyone on one boat. So while many of our peers will be toiling away in their offices and cubicles today, our thoughts were with them (not) as we hung out on the lake.

Sponsored By: TopRank SEO Consulting

Original post by Lee Odden

Popularity: 3% [?]

29June2007

Friday Links 072907

Posted by under: Online Marketing.

iContact, formerly IntelliContact, secures $5.35 million in funding. iContact is a tool to create, send, and track email newsletters, surveys, and RSS feeds. Congratulations Ryan Allis!

Louise Rijk posts a great article on Social Media Marketing over at the Yahoo Publisher Network blog.

Todd Malicoat is at it again with 8 Simple Rules for Social Media Marketing in Business to Business Markets.

Gord Hotchkiss shares more wisdom in his Search Engine Land column with a post on, “The Slums of Search“. I think it’s safe to say you can count on one hand (after a serious shark bite) the number of people in our industry with Gord’s level of understanding about search engines and searchers.

Upcoming Search Engine Strategies events include:

SES Travel in Seattle, July 26 & 27.
SES Training in Boston, August 8th.
And be sure to register for SES San Jose by August 3rd for the Early Bird Discount.

Sponsored By: 2007 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide All new report from Marketing Sherpa

Original post by Lee Odden

Popularity: 4% [?]

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Archive for the ‘Online Marketing’ Category

Future of Search Marketing ala MIMA

Holistic Search Engine Optimization

Google GrandCentral Invites

Search Marketing Blogs Update 070607

Advantages of Ongoing SEO Consulting

Reader Poll: Most SEO Friendly Industries

Top SEO Blogs by Link Popularity

Bye Bye Marketing Sherpa’s SEO-SEM Buyer’s Guide

TopRank Team at the Lake

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