With that said, there are some basic components of every SEO campaign (not to mention a really big checklist) that form the foundation of a successful campaign. Anyone who’s been around SEO for any length of time already knows these “basics,” but they bear repeating for anyone who is unfamiliar as to where to begin with their SEO effort:

SEO & Keyword Research

Every SEO campaign starts with keyword research. It’s critical to uncover and organize your core terms and extended phrases in order to create the optimization road map moving forward.

The SEO uses keyword information to create customized titles, descriptions and page heading recommendations, along with editing the content of your pages to make them more keyword friendly. The SEO can use your existing content and rewrite it specifically to integrate the keywords selected, as well as improve the sales conversion funnel. Text edits should includes internal linking to other important pages as well as adding strategic calls to action if necessary.

As keyword performance is measured, additional recommendations should be provided, tweaking the pages to improve rankings and conversions.

Information Architecture & Usability

SEOa should regularly be reviewing site analytics information in order to seek out and uncover site architectural issues that hinder your performance in the search engines. Using this information, they can provide specific recommendations and solutions that will build better site architecture, remove duplicate content, fix problematic HTML and a whole lot more.

The mission here is to make your site search and searcher friendly on all levels.

Content Review

A site-wide content review provides strategic recommendations designed to help you produce content that better relates to your audience, effectively uses frequently searched keywords and improves the overall sales message being delivered. The goal is to create engaging content that informs, educates and sells your products or services while also attracting visitors through the search engines.

Content development doesn’t assist SEO alone, but also improves your sales process and your link and social media efforts. Without great content, your site really doesn’t deserve great search engine placement.

Link Building

Your SEO should research your and your competitor’s link landscape and provide you with a variety of linking opportunities to pursue. These opportunities include lists of  sites, directories, blogs, and other strategic sites and the best approach for establishing a linking relationship that compliments your optimization efforts.

The SEO works to establish contact with these link opportunity sites and lays the groundwork for a (linking) relationship, submits linking requests and negotiates link placement, among other things.

Social Media

Developing an immediate and long-term social media strategy is critical to leveraging your blog, Twitter, Facebook and other social streams to your advantage. In conjunction with the SEO efforts and content strategy efforts, the social strategy pushes content in the most effective way, monitors reputation and boosts SEO performance through keyword and link targeting. Part of the social media strategy is to create a publishing calendar that can help you keep moving forward and not get caught in social stagnation.

Analytics & Conversion Optimization

SEOs need to regularly review your and your competitor’s Web data to understand search performance and user trends. With this information, they can provide additional insight and strategy recommendations that assist on-page optimization, link building, social media and content development.

Based on the analytic data and findings, the SEO can conduct a/b and multivariate testing designed to test various performance and conversion options. Selecting the best performing options provides the ammunition needed to continually improve your site conversion rates.

These are just the basic fundamentals of a solid web marketing campaign. Each area noted here can produce a plethora of actions, reactions and recommendations that are designed to continually propel you forward in the search results. This is by no means an exhaustive list of the tasks in each of these categories, but it can give you a good place to start.

Follow me+ at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

Have Content Worthy Of Linking To

If you’ve been listening to or engaging in conversations regarding web marketing, you’ve probably heard this mentioned as often as the Pittsburgh Steelers have been to the Super Bowl: you’ve got to have great content to build links.

Having just one piece of content won’t be enough to sustain value over time. It’s vital to have a content strategy. By having a strategy, you’re able to build a following that generally consists of your target audience. If you create well-researched and well-written content around their needs, you’ll naturally build links and become a source of authority. Blogs can be a great platform for sharing content, but there are many other innovative content types.

Get Your Social Shares in Front of the Right Eyes

Again, this will take time, but find out who the influential voices are in your niche. Begin to interact with them on social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn to build a relationship with them. Read and add thoughtful feedback on their blog posts. Share their content on your social streams.

In creating those connections, it’s highly likely that they’ll begin to follow you. And, to make sure I beat the dead horse, I’ll remind you to have desirable content for them to link to.

If You Build the Relationship, They Will Retweet/Repeat

Social shares aren’t worth much if they aren’t distributed by those with clout (or is that spelled “klout”?). That’s why it’s necessary to build contacts who provide some swagger. In Todd Heim’s post, Social Media Link Building he writes, “Even if your content is appropriate and of acceptable quality, you still need to have some influence and a network of users for it to spread. Otherwise you’re wasting your time.”

Your ROI will be more significant if you spend your time building associations with prominent people. These free tools that can help you find people to follow:  Twitter Advanced Search, Followerwonk, Tweepz and Twellowhood just to name a few.

Look to see how many followers/friends/likes an account has, as well as the frequency and substance of their posts. These are helpful indicators to figure out how noteworthy a person is. Often, the more people following them and the fewer they follow, the more authoritative they are.

So What?

If you take these ideas and make them actionable in your social media link-building strategy, you’ll know the likes and tweets have value, not only because of what they contain, but also because of the network of people that will re-share them.

Feel free to disagree with me in the comment section, or let me know the ideas you have.

Persona = motivation (what the visitor needs, why they are on your site)
Personality = temperament (how they navigate, what they need to see or read to find what they want)

Using both personalities and personas is important when writing great content that is both user- and search-engine friendly.

Use personalities to give your visitors the content the need

Despite what we believe about some people, every person has a personality. That personality determines how searchers seek out information that interests them. It effects keywords, sites they click on, how they navigate and what their expectations are.

There are four basic personality types, and every person usually has one that is dominant over the others, while maintaining some attributes of them all. Understanding these personality types helps you create a site that provides visitors the information they need to make the best decision for them and for you.

The four personality types:

• Competitive (aka Choleric or Lion)
• Spontaneous (aka Phlegmatic or Golden Retriever)
• Humanistic (aka Sanguine or Otter)
• Methodical (aka Melancholy or Beaver)

Competitive
Mal is a competitive personality. He wants to see options before making a decision. Not just some of them; all of them. He will often look at every nuance possible to determine which iteration of a particular product or service is the best one. Because of this, Mal can become frustrated when he can’t find the “perfect” option.

Mal is driven and thrives on challenges, sometimes even volunteering when others avoid. Everything is measured in goals and achieving those goals. Leisurely (non-goal oriented) activity is difficult for Mal as he measures his self worth through success. Mal does not like inefficiency and constantly seeks ways to improve things. When looking for a product, the one and only concern is – will it help him achieve his goals. As such, he is also hard to sell to, as he isn’t easily swayed by fluffy marketing language.

Traits:

• Spontaneous buyers – no time to “shop around”
• Curiosity driven – try to peak their interest
• Goal oriented – they are there for a purpose
• Appreciates honesty – no BS!
• Loyal customer – earn their business, they’ll be back
• Hard to sell – forget all the emotional fluff
• Dislikes inefficiency and disorganization – make your site EASY to use
• Impatient – tell them and tell them quick!
• Abandons page and sale easily – if they can’t find it they’re out

To sell to Mal, you must start with being upfront and honest. Creditability is important and you can establish that by saying what most people won’t–point out your own negatives along with your positives. Never make claims that cannot be substantiated and proven true. Do what you can to demonstrate the true value of your product without over-hyping it. Make sure all necessary information is readily available so they don’t have to dig just to find what they need. Use links and calls to action to get them to take the next step in the conversion process.

Spontaneous
Kaylee is a follower of whatever happens to be the latest trends and places a high value on others opinions. For her, it’s not so much about finding the value herself, but seeing what other trusted sources have to say. This gives her assurance she is making the right purchasing decision. She also fears missing out on a good thing, which can cause her to buy based on the excitement factor alone. Immediate gratification is a primary motivation, so great customer service before and after the sale helps provide the comfort and justification needed to help her feel like she made a good decision.

Traits:

• Follows trends – fads are a good thing
• Feeds on positive opinion – get testimonials and reviews
• Opinion-based buying – facts don’t matter so much
• Sold by word of mouth – social media is key
• Turned away by negative opinions – good products rule
• May suffer from buyer’s remorse – after-the-sale reinforcement is needed to get them back

To sell to Kaylee, your site must go beyond the bland corporate mumbo-jumbo. Content must be captivating and speak to her on an emotional level. Kaylee wants a lot of information but will likely skim until she finds what she needs. Be sure to clearly show your unique value proposition and that of your products and/or services. Provided they are good, having ready access to customer reviews and testimonials will be the final push for her purchasing decision.

Humanistic
Zoe wants to see your testimonials, but for a different reason. She is looking for anything that confirms that you are able to meet her needs, and the testimonials will either back that up or send up the red flags. Zoe looks at the bigger picture when making decisions and will often put the needs of others before herself. She wants to choose something that has broad acceptance, fearing any decision that may leave her hung out to dry on a planet full of Reavers. She doesn’t like getting “locked in,” so providing options for cancellation or returns can give her a sense of freedom to change her mind.

Traits:

• Motivated by security – display guarantees, return and cancellation policies
• Repeat buyer – once comfortable, they’ll come back
• Scared of commitment – make buying (and changing mind) easy
• Needs constant reassurance – hold their hand through the sales process
• Relies too heavily on others’ opinions – build up positive reviews and testimonials

To reach Zoe, be sure to have ample links to the pages that reinforce your trust, commitment and quality. About us and testimonial pages are frequently visited so make sure yours is robust. Provide reassurances via guarantees, links to policy pages and iterate your site security. Be sure your content maintains a personal tone and often speaks of the bigger picture, as to Zoe, it’s not always about her.

Methodical
Simon Tam will be the most likely to read every word on your page. In fact, he’s likely to read every page on your site. He’s not an impulse buyers but reviews and weighs all the evidence in order to make an informed decision. Dr. Tam is a logical person with an eye for detail. He is likely on your site looking to solve a problem of some kind. Before making a decision, he weighs everything to make sure it is a responsible decision in the end.

Traits:

• Feature oriented – benefits are not warranted here
• Does not like fluff – be straight and honest
• Factual based buyer – back up your claims
• Engaged in content – more info is good info
• Skeptical – convincing may be tough
• Needs specific, detailed information – provide as much as you can

To reach Simon you need to present hard evidence in an organized fashion. He doesn’t care about a personal touch, but rather wants an authoritative voice. Simon likes graphs and tables, specs and any other detailed “proof” you can provide. State your facts with little fluff as that only raises the skeptical hairs on his head. Don’t say anything that sounds too good to be true, because it likely is and Simon will walk away.

Using information about these basic personalities helps SEOs and content writers to structure a website with the most appropriate content available on each page. Used in conjunction with established personas, the site content can be created to meet the specific needs of different individuals with different temperaments, different desires and different goals… but ultimately driving them to the final goal: the sale.

Addressing the right persona with the right temperament in the right place can be tricky. But these considerations are an important part of creating a website that will drive the most conversions possible.

Follow me+ at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

Today we published our latest inbound marketing e-book, the 2012 edition of Link Building Secrets Revealed. Available for download at no cost on the Pole Position Marketing website, the e-book is a compilation of helpful link-building tips from 10 of the industry’s leading link builders, including:

• Jim Boykin of Internet Marketing Ninjas
• Peter da Vanzo of GoFish Media Ltd.
• Michele Baldoni of MBWeb
• Peter van der Graaf of SearchSpecialist.nl
• Eric Ward of EricWard.com
• John Doherty of Distilled
• Jason Acidre of KaiserTheSage.com
• Garrett French of Citation Labs
• Melanie Nathan of CanadianSEO 
• Arnie Kuenn of Vertical Measures

The new link-building resource is one of several e-books offered by Pole Position Marketing, which include The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period!, Keyword Research and Selection and Destination Search Engine Marketing – all authored by our CEO Stoney deGeyter.

Link Building Secrets Revealed 2012 is available in Pole Position Marketing’s online learning library.

When creating engaging content, there are two concepts that you must first understand: why visitors are on your site and what they want to find. These two concepts can be translated into two words: personas and personalities.

Persona = motivation (what the visitor needs, why they are on your site)
Personality = temperament (how they navigate, what they need to see or read to find what they want)

If you want to create content that engages with your audience and motivates them to take the conversion action you desire, you have to get into the mind of the visitor. Know what they want and why, and then you can create content that engages readers on their level and allows your content to meet their specific needs.

I’ll cover the personality aspect of writing in another post. Here we’ll discuss how to create personas that help you understand your visitors’ motivations, why they are on your site and how your content can convert them based on that knowledge.

Using Personas to See Your Visitor’s Needs

Because there can be dozens, if not hundreds, of reasons a visitor might be coming to your site, it’s easy to get bogged down in trying to develop a persona for every possibility. Don’t get stuck in that trap. With a little work, you can boil everything into a handful of personas that you can use to craft content that meets virtually all of your potential customer’s needs.

I’ve developed three very basic personas that can provide a solid framework for just about any visitor. This is by no means comprehensive, nor will they work for every kind of site, but it can give you a general idea how to quickly put together a persona you can work with. You’ll want to put more work into analyzing visitors to your site specifically, but this should give you start.

The “how-to” Persona
This person is an information seeker. They are not necessarily looking to buy a product or service, but want to learn how do it themselves. This visitor likes checklists, how-to guides, videos and any other information they can get their digital hands on. Basically, they are information and knowledge seekers. Usually they are looking for free information, but some are willing to pay if the value is there.

Example: Athena goes to a baby products site to find out how to properly install a car seat in her Raptor. Her goal is to learn how install the seat properly, with minimal work, and without teaching her baby, Hera, how to say “fracking”, “fracked up”, “frack it” or any other of its variables.

How-to videos or step-by-step instructions give Athena and her hubby, Helo, exactly what they are looking for. This type of free how-to content doesn’t create immediate sales, but it does build brand loyalists. Athena may never become a customer, but she may share information about your site with Starbuck, who also has a child. Or, Athena may post about it on her blog, sharing your content (and brand name) with all of the 12 colonies!

The “I care” Persona
These people are usually researching something they care about, and a thoughtful approach is necessary. They are passionate about a topic and likely consider themselves extremely knowledgeable, if not “experts.” Anything less than authoritative content will likely leave them unimpressed. Your job is to show them how your product or service is going to meet their needs and convince them it is the best solution.

Example: Gaeta goes to a baby products site looking for a safe and reliable car seat. He’s been reading (on your site?) about the importance of car seats, which car seats have better safety ratings, and learning how to install them properly in a number of spacecraft. His goal is to buy the best seat possible, regardless of price. Whistles and bells are a secondary concern. If you can provide the information that satisfies Gaeta’s informational needs, and have the product in stock, you’ve got yourself a reliable customer.

The “Just get it to me” Persona
They are the type that don’t really know what they want but don’t care about much of anything other than, “how do I get this (or do this) fast?” They have a need but are unsure on how to best to fill that need. They just want a product or service that gives them the desire result.

Example: Tigh needs a car seat. To him (and Ellen, his wife), all car seats are essentially the same. They don’t understand why one is more expensive than the other, unless it comes with apps that tap directly into the CIC, or allow him to order his next bottle (his or the baby’s) through a network-connected device. Most likely Tigh will choose the least expensive car seat available, as long as it works and it has a place to hold his flask. Given the right information in the right way, Tigh can be convinced to pay more for certain features.

You can see how each of these personas gives you ammunition for creating content that will meet the needs and expectations of each. Some content may be stand-alone for each persona, however it’s possible to incorporate elements (or links) for each of these into a single page. The better your personas, the better targeted your content will be, and more likely it will be to produce the conversions you want.

Follow me+ at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

I think it’s some of both and a little of all. SEO has to focus on more than just “getting rankings” and must use the knowledge of the search engines to bring together all the various online marketing elements into a singular web marketing campaign. People seem to be using the term “inbound marketing” more and more to describe this integrated approach.

Businesses today need much more than an SEO agency. They need a web marketing firm that looks beyond rankings to help clients set online growth goals, develop strategies to achieve those goals and measure the success of those strategies along the way. Those goals are achieved through a variety of online marketing channels.

SEOs must use the skills they have to provide needed recommendations to get clients the results they want, regardless of the avenue it takes to get those results. SEOs are there to help you build the most optimized, search- and searcher-friendly site possible; this attracts visitors, builds engagement and, ultimately, converts those visitors into customers.

Why Collaboration is Essential

Successful SEO is not the responsibility of any one person, but is a collaboration between the marketers, the developers and the business managers. If any one group fails to fulfill their part in the process, the success of the online marketing campaign also fails. After all, we don’t rank websites, Google does.

Over the past five years search engines have added an increasing number of signals that factor into the ranking performance of a website. Google boasts there are more than 200 ranking signals being used, and at any time there are anywhere from 50-200 different versions of the algorithm in effect. The weight of each of the search signals vary by industry, website and even the individual as locality, personalization, social networks, relevance, comprehensiveness, freshness and speed all factor in and even change on a daily basis.

It takes much more than an “optimized” website to get good rankings. It takes a great website! That means great design, great usability, great content, great customer service, great architecture, great optimization and time. You can have all the right pieces for a great website but time is still a crucial factor.

For search engines, ranking a website is about trust. The more the site is trusted in all the areas mentioned above, the better it will rank. But as with any relationship, trust takes time to build, and, unfortunately, there are no shortcuts.

Building a Great Website

Much of what Google or other search engines consider a “quality website” deemed worthy of a top ranking falls outside the scope of traditional SEO (i.e. adding keywords to the page). The SEO and web marketing team must help you set the strategy (or work with you to do so), make recommendations, and seek out ways to improve your site based on known algorithm criteria, personal experience and historical testing. These recommendations must then be implemented if you want results.

It’s not about temporarily achieving top rankings because you’ve outsmarted the algorithm, but rather to build a site that deserves top rankings because your website is better than the competition and you’ve established the trust signals to prove it. SEO firms today must be web marketing firms that do SEO (and social media, analytics, link building, etc.). The goal is to help you build a better website. No, not just a better website, a great website!

Call that SEO if you want. Some are now calling it “Inbound Marketing.” I just call it good Web marketing!

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

I’ve read that the best way to win an argument is to tell a story, so I got one for you. Well, no. I’m not a good story teller, but I can throw together a pretty decent analogy.

Let’s say you have a pile of money and you need to “invest” it. As with any investment there is potential to fail. The question is, where to invest?

You have two options:

1) Invest the whole pile in one place.
2) Split it up and invest in multiple areas.

The saying “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” comes to mind. After all, when playing poker, you usually don’t go “all in” on the first hand. You spread it around, (hopefully) winning more as you go.

Online marketing isn’t all that much different. Diversification is a good thing (unless you have very little to diversify to begin with, then you have to build up to that). Before diversifying, you have to make sure you have enough to invest in one area to ensure its successful return on investment. If your budget is frog-butt tight, this post probably isn’t for you. If you have–or dream of having–a larger marketing budget, then keep reading. The good stuff is yet to come.

Diversifying Your Online Investment

I want to preface this section by repeating that you can only diversify your online marketing if you have enough budget to ensure the success of each. If you invest too little into SEO or PPC, ultimately your ROI will be a loooong time in coming, or you will find yourself outpaced by your competition that is investing in business growth.

Aside from the fact many businesses are not willing to invest enough in online marketing, the next biggest issue is having an unbalanced approach. Throwing your entire marketing budget at SEO may reap you HUGE rewards. But, you’re still missing out on a significant portion of business, and therefore profits, if you ignore PPC altogether. Similarly, if you throw everything at PPC and ignore SEO, again, you’re missing out on a lot of lower-cost conversions that SEO delivers.

Let’s not forget to mention that if all your money is in one and something goes bad, you have no secondary source to keep the revenue flowing! The key is to take a more balanced approach to your online marketing efforts. That’s where the 3-3-3 approach comes in. Or, as I like to call it, the 3-3-3 Online Investment Model. Catchy, isn’t it?

The 3-3-3 Online Investment Model

There are three key areas of online marketing investment:

• SEO – search engine optimization
• PPC – pay per click
• CSML – content, social media and link building

The idea here is to split your spending between these three areas pretty equally. If you have $30,000 to spend on marketing each month, as tempting as it may be, don’t throw it all into your PPC ad spend. It boggles me when I see companies spending that kind of money on PPC but only a couple thousand on SEO.

Why does this kind of discrepancy happen? I think mainly because PPC is so much more trackable than SEO. This makes PPC appear much more lucrative than SEO, when, in actuality it isn’t. PPC accounts for only about 1/3 of the total clicks in the search results. Plus, it usually isn’t as cost-efficient, delivering conversions at a higher costs than you’d get with SEO. This means that it would be wiser to put more money into SEO than PPC.

I wouldn’t recommend dumping PPC for SEO entirely, but splitting up your budget between the two is smart marketing. You could easily get away with throwing $20,000 of your $30,000 budget toward SEO. But this doesn’t fit the 3-3-3 model. Or does it?

In a way, it does. Often times, content marketing, social media and/or link building are wrapped into SEO. All three are tied closely together as linking is, or at least should be, a part of any successful SEO contract. The problem is, linking is difficult and time consuming so it can often get bypassed by the sexier on-page optimization aspects.

By using the 3-3-3 model, you are placing equal investment into linking as you are on-page optimization. Again, that is smart marketing. Take your $30,000 budget, put $10K to content, linking and social, $10K to SEO and leave the last $10K for PPC. That gives you a robost on-page, off-page and PPC marketing strategy that is drawing traffic and building reputation through not one, but three different sources, all adding to the value and overall growth of your business.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

So, without a plan for how to create and optimize your video content, you may end up a Sisyphus. (Just saying that word makes me giggle like a junior high girl.) In Greek mythology, Sisyphus pushes a gigantic boulder up a hill every day only to watch it roll back down again. Every day. For eternity. That’s a rough gig.

Naturally, you don’t want to be a Sisyphus. So, before you run headlong into video production and online posting, consider these 10 tips that can give your video a chance – and perhaps even an edge – online.

1. Decide where video fits with your business goals.The worst thing you can do is spend lots of time and (if you’re going for quality) lots of money on a video, only to figure out that the topic doesn’t support any of the goals you need and want to accomplish. So, revisit your goals first, and then determine how a video might fit.
2. Figure out who your target audience is, what they like, what they want to know and what they might share.This is all part of building buyer personas, which is not exactly a new marketing concept. But, it is critical and applies to every aspect of your marketing plan. Creating personas takes time, effort and research, but it will pay off in the end.
3. Outline what would make your video successful, based on your goals.Guess what? Your video doesn’t need to have a million views to be successful! If it gets the number of shares within your industry that you want, brings potential buyers to your site or generates a certain number of leads, that may be exactly what you’re looking for.
4. Know your online influencers. Who would be most interested in your content and in a position to help you promote it? You need to do this research before or while you’re making a video. That way when it’s time to post, you’re ready to reach out and ask these influencers to help get the word out.
5. Create good content. No one has to get hit in the crotch with a baseball or do voice-overs with animals for your video to have success. Yes, humor is helpful, but informative and how-to videos also do extremely well online. After all, people turn to the Internet for information. So, don’t be afraid to give it to them!
6. When you upload a video, don’t forget to embed it in your blog. According to Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR, 44% of videos are discovered on blogs. (Let me add that I owe Mr. Jarboe thanks for several other great tips in this blog post.) This gives you the best of both worlds. If you upload to YouTube, your videos will be available on the world’s second most searched website, and the content is available and searchable on your own site. Plus, any time someone views the embedded video on your site, you get credit for that view on YouTube (counted as part of total views).
7. Optimize, optimize, optimize. Video content itself is not visible to search engines. That makes the text that surrounds each video very important.

   The title of the video becomes the page’s title tag. You have up to 100 characters, so make sure the title is both compelling and contains keywords. But, the sky’s the limit with the description. You’ve got 5,000 characters! Include lots of keyword-rich content, as well as links to other videos, your social media channels, customized landing pages and more. Make sure you use the http:// prefix; otherwise, it won’t become a link.

   If you’re not sure what keywords you should use, try YouTube’s keyword tool. Or, use the autocomplete algorithm that’s part of YouTube search. Start typing keywords into the YouTube search bar and see what other terms YouTube suggests. Tags should also be as detailed as possible. Be sure to use the keywords you want the video to rank for.

   Consider putting the URL you most want viewers to visit first in your description. That way even when the description is collapsed, the URL can be seen.

   Don’t forget to do all this for your channel settings, as well!

8. Take advantage of “recency” in YouTube’s algorithm, designed to help good new videos rise to the top. Jarboe says this recency factor lasts for about a week, so, before you post, make sure you’re ready to promote the video on a blog, on social media channels, in a e-newsletter and more. Don’t post and then decide to publicize later.
9. Experiment with YouTube’s captions and annotation features. They can help your video stand out in the crowd and provide a way to link to other videos, include a call to action and generally be more interactive.
10. Monitor what’s going on with your channel using YouTube insights. After all, at the end of the day, you need to know if your video accomplished what you wanted it to.

SEOs don’t design websites; they make your website more usable.

SEOs don’t build links; they build relationships.

SEOs don’t socialize your content; they communicate your value.

SEOs don’t spam keywords in content to rank; they integrate key words into content to sell.

SEOs don’t sell your products/services; they help you attract buyers for you to sell to.

SEOs don’t drive traffic; they drive customers.

SEOs don’t create conversions; they make your website more conversion friendly.

SEOs don’t create your sales message; they improve it for your audience.

SEOs don’t write your business plan; they help fulfill it.

SEOs don’t manipulate Google’s results; they make Google’s results relevant.

I often wonder what it would be like if the power of the Internet was made available in regular, everyday life…

High Speed: Imagine having high-speed life capabilities! I could read an entire library or watch all the DVDs in my collection in a few hours. Long waits at the grocery store, DMV and drive-thru are no more! (Yes, I know the drive-thru is supposed to be fast, but is it fast enough? I think not!) Boring meetings are over in a jiffy, and long drives are handled in a few seconds. High-speed life lets you blast right through all the annoying things and spend time on the things you enjoy. Productivity and leisure would skyrocket at the same time!

Search: Finally I’d be able to find where I left my keys, where the TV remote has run off too and where I hid the good cookies I wanted for myself! Everything in my home and car is indexed and easily found with a simple query.

But let’s take that one step further. I want to be able to search my memory for that hidden nugget of information. Is that word you’re trying to use just on the tip of your tongue? One click and out it comes. Tired of running upstairs only to forget what you were going up there for? Submit your query and get real-time indexed results!

Everlasting Updates: Buy once and get a lifetime of free upgrades! Want to add that sun room to your house or want the 2012 model of your car? Just jack it into the internet and download the latest version. If your ex-girlfriend won’t give back the key to your house, download the latest security patch and the problem is solved.

Peer-to-Peer: Your best friend borrows a book, you can hand them your copy and still keep a copy for yourself. It’s called “sharing.” Love your neighbor’s garden? Tap into a peer-to-peer network and they can hand a copy of it over to you without losing a tomato! The potential here is limitless. You can share anything–home decorations, kitchen appliances, toiletries (no toilet paper, please), snacks, etc. No more keeping up with the Jones’. Now you just download peer-to-peer and you are the Jones’.

Spyware Protection: Giving someone the brushoff is easier than ever. No more annoying friends that won’t stop clinging to you and draining the life out of your spare time. No more ex-boyfriends calling you all hours of the day begging you to return. Equipped with personal spyware protection, you can be sure that “clingers” can be cleaned off with the click of a button. Wipe them out of your system to keep them from disrupting your social life ever again.

Spam Blocker: Eliminate unwanted advice from friends or family. All bad advice is rerouted to your spam box before it ever reaches your ears while allowing good advice to sail right through. Tough decisions become much easier as the reliability of the advice you receive increases dramatically. And if you wonder why you never hear from a certain friend anymore, you’ll know they were probably just spam anyway!

Virus Protection: Forget about the flu shot. (Shots hurt!) Now you have a built-in virus scan and protection. Coughing, aching, sniffling, sneezing, colds, flu, diarrhea, food poisoning, carcinogens and all other ailments are kept out. Just remember to run a full-system scan every day and keep up-to-date and you’ll never have to (legitimately) call in sick again!

Bug Reports: Everybody makes mistakes, but now you can notify and be notified whenever “it” happens. No more waiting for long-term consequences to catch up to you; correct the mistake immediately and recover quickly! You can submit and receive bug reports 24/7 for all areas of your life. Be warned: you may not want your faults pointed out… that’s just the cost of being able to do the same!

Back Button: Ever wish you could undo that mistake or go back and start over? The “Back” button lets you do just that. Go back a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year, or all the way to the beginning and start fresh. Make all new decisions and, by all means, don’t make the same mistakes twice!

We often don’t appreciate how truly awesome the web is. Things are fast and easy, and when something crashes, nobody dies! (Though you may want to kill someone!) Someday real-life might be this simple, but until then, we’ll just have to do things the “old-fashioned” way.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

The question is, what do you do with your keyword lists once you’ve compiled them?

Just as there is no shortage of good keyword tools, there is also no shortage of metrics that you can use to determine the value of any given keyword. A few that tend to top our keyword selections lists are:

• Search volume: How many searches per day or month are being performed for each phrase. The higher the volume, the greater the opportunity to drive traffic to your site.

• Search competition: How many sites are displayed when performing a search using a keyword.

• Title competition: How many sites are displayed when performing a search for the keyword only in title tags.

• Direct Competition: Whether a specific competitor ranks for any particular keyword.

• KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index): A score based on how often a keyword is searched balanced against keyword competition.

Each of these metrics provides valuable insight, but they ultimately should not be used in selecting keywords. Stats like these can tell us what is happening with the keywords, but it can’t tell us why. And unless you know why something is, it’s impossible to make a smart decision about it.

Here is what the stats don’t tell us:

• Search volume: How many of these searches are actually relevant? Will the searcher find what their search intended on your site?

• Search competition: Are the sites ranking for these keywords legitimate competition? Are they truly optimized sites?

• Title competition: Are these competitors that cannot be defeated? How many of them will be easy to topple?

• Direct Competition: Do you know if your competitors are getting any value from ranking for these keywords?

• KEI: Does a competitive score mean you shouldn’t try to rank for the keyword? Is there long-term value in trying?

Looking at keywords in terms of volume or difficulty is a good measure for setting expectations in terms of time and budget it will take to get your site ranked. Looking at whether your competitors rank for that phrase only tells you whether your competitors rank for a phrase. For all you know they have performed zero keyword research, or went after a phrase because someone else did. That’s not a good signal by itself.

The problem with looking at any of the signals and data above is it does not tell you anything about searcher intent or whether you can convert those keywords into sales. It’s good data to have, but not the data you need to make good keyword selection decisions.

To do that, you need to apply this simple three-rule test for keyword selection:

1. Is the keyword relevant to your target audience? There are a lot of keywords that are seemingly relevant, but when you look closer at visitor intent, you find that the searcher is looking for something different entirely. Not even all “industry relevant” keywords will be relevant to your products or services in particular. Be sure to analyze visitor intent for each of your keywords. Unfortunately, the only tool that can do that is your brain.
2. Will the keyword deliver traffic? This question cannot be answered until the question above is. Not all traffic is the same, so you need to make sure it’s targeted traffic. Don’t let high search volume bias you. Even low volume keywords can deliver a fantastic amount of targeted traffic when combined with other long-tail phrases.
3. Will the traffic sent by the keyword convert? You can take your best guess here, but only time and analytics will tell. Every keyword you invest any significant amount of time in optimizing for SEO or PPC should be able to convert your visitors into customers. Spend more time investing in keywords with higher conversion rates.

The simplified version of this three-rule test is: Relevancy, Traffic and Conversions. Every good keyword should be able to satisfy each of these satisfactorily. If they are lacking anywhere, then the value of the keyword will also be lacking.

You can select relevant keywords that drive traffic, but if you can’t convert them, maybe it’s not as relevant as you thought. You can select relevant traffic that converts, but if the traffic isn’t there. Conversions will be sparse. If you select high-volume keywords that occasionally convert, but without the relevance, the conversion rates will be low and your effort will be high. Not a good mix for productivity!

There may be some wiggle-room between each keyword, but ultimately, you only want to select keywords that will deliver performance on all three levels. If not, then you may just be wasting your time! The best keywords are keywords that you have determined to be relevant and have tested to get results. Nothing else really matters.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

There is a reason people build businesses in cities surrounded by people, rather than in a desert surrounded by cactus! You need people to market to, and you need customers coming in your door. The success of your business relies on how well you market your product or service first, and second by how well you deliver it. Very few businesses survive on word of mouth alone. But what many small business owners fail to realize is that while marketing is everything, everything you do is marketing!

Everything you do, as a small business, has an impact on your marketing message and ability to get that message out to your customer base. How/whether you answer your phones, how you reply to email messages, what you say on Twitter/Facebook, the presentation of your website, and your ability to produce satisfied customers all play a role in your ongoing marketing efforts.

How are you perceived?

My company helps business owners build and execute their web marketing strategies. But all too often, many are missing even the most fundamental marketing and common-sense business development components. We can help them online, but lacking the offline aspects, we are simply attempting to fill a bucket that has holes in it.

Perception matters. If your potential customer’s perception of you, true or not, is less than they expect, you’re going to have trouble selling them. Would you trust a mechanic with a poorly tuned vehicle? A lawyer who drives a Yaris? A contractor with a run-down office? A landscaper with an overgrown lawn?

You might, but I guarantee you’d think twice before you do. None of these things demonstrate how well any of these business owners do their job, but the perception is, if they can’t take care of themselves, how can you trust them to take care of you?

When performing link building for our clients, they are often picky about where we get links from. So are we, but they often want to get links only from high-caliber sites, when their site is somewhere below that. In link building, people will generally only link to site’s of equal or higher caliber than themselves. If you want a link from a high-caliber site, you have to be one. Otherwise, take what you can get from those below you!

The little things matter the most

Businesses purchase online marketing because they want to increase sales. But if the SEO is doing its job but sales don’t follow, there may be something else at play. Lack of business success doesn’t always fall on the marketer’s shoulders. In fact, such woes may directly be caused by how the business is being run.

The SEO’s job doesn’t include running your business. There are a lot of things that fall outside the SEO’s area that can make or break your business success, and even your search engine rankings!

As an SEO, we routinely try to help our clients in areas that fall far outside the SEO box. We’ll provide feedback on design, programming and presentation, just to name a few. We want our customers to succeed, and sometimes that means we have to help in areas that we were not necessarily hired for.

Everything matters, and when it comes to business success, everything should be on the table for a discussion on how to improve your ROI. If your SEO thinks your design isn’t great, it may be worth discussing in greater detail, even if you love it. There might be a reason they hate it that goes beyond personal preference. If your SEO provides a recommendation on how something looks or appears on the website, it many worth noting, even if you can’t change it right away.

Little things can create big perceptions. Especially when it comes to usability issues. It’s not just website design, it’s also communication, problem resolution, response times and a whole lot more.

A picture on your website may be worth a thousand words, but perception is worth 1001. You are what you’re perceived to be. That’s true whether you believe it or not.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

But things might not always be as they appear. While it’s never a bad thing to grow in profits, ROI or a growing customer base, you may actually be paying good money to lose great customers.

I use this analogy often, so forgive me if you’ve heard this one before. But let’s pretend that you’re tasked with filling a bucket with water. The only problem is that your bucket has holes in it. You put water in, but it keeps leaking out.

What’s your solution?

You can a) add water into a bucket at a rate faster than it leaks out, or b) plug some holes.

Now, let’s say your website is the bucket, the water is your website’s traffic and the faucet is your online marketing efforts. Oh, and the holes are usability issues that cause you to lose customers before the sale is complete.

Every drop (visitor) that you let out of your bucket (website) is a lost opportunity to convert a sale. It’s a lost customer. Since you want more sales, you can choose one of the options above: a) drive more traffic to your website and hope to get more sales that way, or b) fix your usability issues to retain more customers without having to put more money into turning up the faucet (marketing).

If you choose option A (driving more traffic to your site), you’ll ultimately retain more customers by sheer volume alone, but the money spent on your improved marketing efforts are not helping you improve your ability to convert customers. It’s only increasing the number of customers you have available to convert.

Option B is a better bet. By plugging the usability holes, you are not only getting more sales, you are doing so without having to pay for any additional marketing efforts.

But there is also an option C. Fixing your usability issues while you are increasing traffic to your site. This is what any good SEO should be doing for you.

Unless you or your SEO are improving your conversion rates by plugging usability holes, you might as well be paying your SEO to send visitors away from your site. Otherwise, your visitors will be leaving just as fast as they came – with no sale to remember you by!

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

Almost. I might have left out a few details.

While the ease of starting a business online is great for life, liberty and the pursuit of sticking it to the man, it can also have its drawbacks. Just like starting a 100 mile sprint may be easy, finishing is another thing altogether. Every business must still follow basic business principles of success in order to attain a long and profitable life.

Your business’s place in history

Mom and Pops have been around since Abel sold Cain a little something from his road-side pets-and-rocks stand. Since then, the stronger guys have been using their leverage to force the little guys out of business. But the Internet provided a way for the little guy to fight back. It leveled the playing field and became a place where David could slay Goliath.

Due to their flexibility, lack of red tape and ability to make decisions without forming a super-committee, Mom and Pops were the first to really use the Internet as a sales channel. In fact, they were what initially fueled the growth of the Internet as they found ways to compete that were previously unavailable to them. Their corporate counterparts lagged far behind for many years.

Many mom and pops were able to use the internet to grow their small businesses to be medium-size companies and, in some cases, large corporations. Jeff Bezos started a small online bookstore and turned it into one of the largest online retailers in the world, Amazon.com. Amazon is a stiff competitor to Wal-mart (which also started as a Mom and Pop) and is, in part, responsible for the demise of Borders Bookstores. (Ultimately, the demise of Borders was its own fault. “Adapt or die.” They didn’t do the former so the latter snuck up on them!)

But not all Mom and Pop owners have ambitions of turning their start-up into a billion-dollar behemoth. Getting bought out by Google for $3.1 billion is rarer than some people may believe! Many Mom and Pops are content to shoot for something slightly less ambitious, or even desire to stay small so they can maintain their flexibility, freedom and live life without all the stress.

Your business’s place online

Small businesses continue to move online to find their place of success. But so are larger corporations. Maintaining the online success that was easy to achieve ten years ago has become more and more difficult.

The barrier for creating a web presence gets smaller with free tools like WordPress and Facebook, yet competitors, both small and large, are investing increasingly larger amounts of marketing dollars into their online campaigns. What seemed like a large investment five years ago is only a fraction of what many companies are spending today.

While starting a business on the Internet today is still relatively easy compared to doing so off-line, building a successful business has become more expensive and time consuming than ever. For many small business owners, the cost of SEO is getting out of reach.

A good SEO consultant or firm might cost between $100 and $500 per hour. Employing a full-scale SEO campaign can run anywhere from $12,000 on the low end to $100,000 or more per year, all depending on the industry and how badly you want to beat the crap out of your competition (figuratively speaking). Be careful, your competition fights back. A small twig doesn’t do much damage against a competitor holding a club!

SEO costs like those mentioned above may be chump change for large corporations, but they do make the online environment a less viable marketplace for new businesses on limited budgets. This is why do-it-yourself SEO articles are so popular. Why pay someone to change your oil when you can get dirty, ruin your clothes and scream curses at your car all on your own! (A little insight as to why I don’t change my own oil.)

But even do-it-yourselfers eventually run into the ROI factor. It may be cheaper to do it yourself, but the return on the time invested is just not there in the long run.

Your business’s place with your competition

It’s no longer easy for small businesses to achieve easy online success. That’s not to say the Internet is no longer a welcome place for those with grand dreams of starting their own business and making it big. It’s just that the competitive landscape must be duly considered before making the leap. Those who already have an established online presence have the advantage. New sites take more time to build the authority and reputation that is necessary to push past the mainstays.

There is really no reason why a new site should outperform an older site in the same industry that has already established trust and reputation online. The only way to overcome that is to beat them – not by manipulating the algorithms, though that can work for a time – but by making your site more valuable, reputable and trustworthy than your competition. Being unique helps too!

But just because you’re the mainstay doesn’t mean that you can’t be out-performed in the rankings. As long as your new competitors are willing to build a site that is more valuable, reputable and trustworthy than yours, they have a shot at being competitive. And the more money they invest in making that happen, the greater the opportunity they have in overcoming those that are spending less.

If you’re comfortable staying a Mom and Pop shop, this won’t concern you much. If your dreams are bigger than that, you need to be doing more than monitoring your competitors. You need to be outsmarting (and in some cases outspending) them.

Your business’s place in marketing

If you’re fine being a small fish in a big pond, then you’re also fine not having top 10 results in the search engines. And if you’re not fine with that reality, then you need to adjust your goals. Not every hardware store can compete with Lowe’s or The Home Depot, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t be successful. You don’t need to be #1 to make a comfortable living!

However, if your ambitions are greater than staying a small company, you have to think like the big fish. You may not be able to compete against The Home Depot today, but you certainly won’t get there until you create an online marketing game plan that factors in higher budgets year after year. The Home Depot spends millions in marketing. Good luck beating them with your paltry $1000 per month campaign!

To be considered a competitor you need to change your drive, motivation and financial investment. Look to apply similar online marketing strategies and tactics, even on a lesser scale for now, but plan for growth until you’re matching or exceeding what your competitors are doing.

Even though the barriers to starting a business online are still less than starting one off-line, the mindset of success shouldn’t be. Earning first-page placement for your keywords requires much more than throwing up a website. You must be willing to invest in whatever it takes to overcome your competition. More determination, more effort, more patience and more marketing.

If you don’t know what or where your place is as a business, your marketing efforts will find it for you. You can complain about Google, argue with your SEO or rub a magic lamp, but until you’re ready to make a serious play for the next level, your marketing plan will put you in your place, which is right where you belong.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

Final Lap time again! Check out some of the great stuff our team The Pit Crew read during the week of October 24.

Stoney deGeyter (@StoneyD)

Proof that Google’s Secure Search Now Affects More Users
by Rachael Gerson

Google is rolling out the new secure search to more users, and we all need to be prepared for the outcome.

Mike Fleming (@mflem25)

Dear Internet Marketers: Stop Building Your Careers On A Single Commoditized Skill
by Scott Cowley

I like Ian Lurie’s list of skills internet marketers should have because it represents a transformation that our entire profession has been seeing over the last several years, not just the copywriters. It is not enough to be copywriter or community manager or customer service specialist. The truth is, people are hiring cheaply for these positions at a time when every dime matters.

Advertising Companies Fret Over a Digital Talent Gap
by Tanzina Vega

When the Ad:tech advertising technology conference hits New York next week, marketers, advertising agencies and recruiters may spend less time listening to the panelists and more time working the floor to find new employees.

Annalisa Hilliard (@ahilliardm)

Get the Marketing Basics Down Before Worrying about SEO
by Nick Stamoulis

Too often site owners jump the gun when it comes to SEO. While I appreciate an enthusiastic site owner, it’s important to make sure that the rest of your marketing basics are in order BEFORE you start worrying about rank, visitor growth, bounce rate, conversion rate and so forth. If you don’t fully understand exactly what you are trying to accomplish for your business and brand, SEO isn’t going to be able to tell you.

Viral vs shareable: Do you know the difference?
by Hugo Guzman

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had an executive at a Fortune 500 company (or an agency stakeholder for said company) skim through the real meat of a social media plan or strategy and then assert that they what they really need the next Old Spice idea, etc. and so forth.

A New Way of Looking at Ranking Factors
by Danny Sullivan

SEOmoz readers are no strangers to the concept of search engine ranking factors. In general, much of the community that comments seems to delight when some new factor is discovered that may provide a potential ranking boost. Who wouldn’t, right? But in this post, I’d like to suggest that perhaps some refocusing on the “forest” of the ranking factors world, rather than the individual “trees” that populate it, might be in order.

Jen Carroll (@martijen)

The Smartphone Wars Are Over
by Kit Eaton

Statistics, arguments, sales figures, and passionate explanations claiming one or another smartphone platform has sold or will sell more than another in a specific market might litter the web for a while to come. But, really, it’s all over but the shoutin’.

Google Penalizes Overstock for Search Tactics
by Amir Efrati

Google Inc. is penalizing Overstock.com Inc. in its search results after the retailer ran afoul of Google policies that prohibit companies from artificially boosting their ranking in the Internet giant’s search engine.

An honest look at being a Social Media consultant
by Mack Collier

Typically, I am loathe to write personal posts here, because I think I am boring y’all to tears, but I wanted to do so today. Over the past few months, I’ve had several discussions with people that are working in this space as the umbrella term of a ‘social media consultant’. What prompted me to write this post was because several times I have heard from friends that are struggling, and they assume that since they are struggling, that it’s a direct reflection on their abilities as a consultant. They also assume that most consultants are doing extremely well, so if they aren’t, that further cements the idea that they just aren’t ‘cut out’ for this type of work.

 
What’s the best thing about online marketing that you read this week? Leave us your comments.

Rolling out a newly optimized website is good. Checking it first is better.

Investing in SEO is good. Investing in ROI is better.

Optimizing your e-commerce site is good. Using optimized concantenation schema is better.

Quick-fix SEO is good. Long-term SEO is better.

Performing SEO correctly is good. Doing what you can quickly is better.

Keyword research is good. Keyword research and segmentation is better.

Adding keywords to content is good. Following user-friendly keyword optimization guidelines is better.

Having content on your website is good. Having unique content is better.

Being unique is good. Being remarkable is better.

Meeting your audience’s needs is good. Making your audience feel special is better.

Optimizing for your important keywords is good. Optimizing for a lot of great keywords is better.

Expecting rankings is good. Getting rankings is better.

Getting rankings is good. Growing your business is better.

Increasing traffic is good. Persuading visitors to buy is better.

Growing your business is good. Increasing profits is better.

Understanding algorithms is good. Understanding analytics is better.

Charging (or paying) for SEO services is good. Being fair with charges is better.

Writing about SEO is good. Writing about SEO while trashing Will Ferrell is better.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

If social media is the darling Cinderella of the current marketing world, then link building might be the u___ (unrecognized?) stepsister. When I describe link building and its important role in creating a company’s Web presence (see SEOmoz’s What is Link Building? for a definition/details), most people furrow their brows and say, “Sounds like you’re talking about social media.” (Cinderella gets all the glory!)

So, we’d like to end, once and for all, this unnecessary cause of forehead wrinkles by tackling the FAQ: What’s the difference between link building and social media?
 

Stoney (@StoneyD): Link building and social media have a lot in common and, in many cases, share similar goals. I would say that pure link building is a sub-set of SEO. The goal is to get keyword rich links on external sites pointing to your keyword-optimized pages. There are a lot of link-building methods, several of which cross over into social media: building relationships, creating great, linkable content and broadcasting it to bring eyes (and links) to that content.

Social media is an outlet for link building, but it also has its own goals, one of which can be getting valuable links. But social media has concerns far greater than just getting links, and any social strategy that doesn’t look beyond links is bound to fail.

You can have a link strategy that uses social media, as well as a social strategy that has a goal of links. But to maintain that narrow of a focus on either is ultimately not using each one to your greatest advantage.
 

Annalisa (@ahilliardm): Social media should be an important part of a business’s link-building strategy. It’s a way to engage an audience. In a sense, it’s relationship building. If you share information that is relevant and unique to your niche, you’ll be able to build relationships, and those relationships can lead to natural links.

Links are an outcome of a well-established social media presence. Here is an analogy to explain the difference between social media and link building. An athlete must train in order to compete. The goal of training is to be able to win the competition. Social media is the training and preparation. Link building is the reward or pay off. Now, don’t get me wrong, links are not the only purpose of social media. It’s important to create relationships in online marketing for many reasons. And, through those relationships, you can get links.
 

Jen (@martijen): Before I started with Pole Position Marketing, I had never even heard of link building. And, I suspect there are many in the marketing industry (particularly the “traditional” side) who are just as clueless as I was.

Thankfully, I’ve learned a few things about link building, including its primary Web marketing goal – to improve the rankings, visibility and credibility of your organization’s website. The more quality links to your Web content, the better your online presence looks to search engines, as well as readers. Think of them as love and hugs pointing in your direction.

But, it’s difficult to get that kind of attention without going where your potential “linkers” (and customers) are. Social media sites are vehicles for making connections and sending out your message. Think of them as online places where you give out love and hugs (with some specific goals in mind).

Social media can support your link-building strategy in two primary ways:

• Helping you identify and engage industry influencers who may want to collaborate with your business or promote it by publishing content or advertising. In either case, you have the opportunity to negotiate a link!
• Serving as a broadcast medium for your quality content that influencers may want to share and link to.

When you blend social media and link building together, they form the foundation for great online PR. Unlike the traditional discipline, online PR actually focuses on the public, not just a small group of media gatekeepers. Your news releases (with links) are for every online reader! For publicity, reputation management, coverage and more links, you can turn to not only social media, but also news outlets, bloggers, directories, partner websites, industry associations and even to yourself. (You, too, can become a publisher!)

So, while link building and social media have distinct functions and “directions,” they work better in tandem as a part of an overall online PR strategy.

Look for our Q&A posts about online marketing each month. Or, if you have a question you’d like to ask our team, just send it to ask@polepositionmarketing.com. We’ll be glad to answer via our blog.

Final Lap time again! Check out some of the great stuff our team The Pit Crew read during the week of October 24.

Stoney deGeyter (@StoneyD)

Discussion: Should SEOs Accept Clients That Compete With One Another?
by Matt McGee

Whether you’re a solo consultant or part of a bigger agency, chances are good that you’ll eventually be faced with this situation: the opportunity to provide consulting for two companies that are in competition with one another. In our “Discussion of the Week,” we’d like to hear your advice for handling that situation. Should SEOs accept clients that compete against one another? If so, what are the best ways to deal with potential risks of doing so? The floor is open!

Mike Fleming (@mflem25)

How Search Conversions Are Driven By Display Impression Frequency
by Manu Mathew

Along with the most obvious campaign attributes that impact cross-channel marketing performance — traits like publisher, size, creative, keyword, placement, etc. — are a number of less intuitive factors that can significantly influence your results. Among these more ancillary factors is “frequency” — specifically the frequency with which online users are exposed to a given marketing tactic in advance of an eventual conversion.

5 ways to use the new Google Analytics Real Time features
by Helen Birch

In certain situations real-time data can be a very powerful tool in the analyst’s kitbag. I’ve been testing the real-time reports for a few weeks now and whilst there is still room for improvement, I’ve been able to help a client find out some great insights on events that have been occurring which otherwise would have been a lot harder to discover.

LANDING PAGE QUALITY SCORE
by George Michie

As Pamela Parker described at SEL earlier this month, Google has announced that going forward, landing page quality will be a larger factor in an ad’s overall Quality Score. Given that my last post for SEL was on Quality Score and suggested that landing page quality was mostly a hammer used to beat up bad actors and didn’t have much meaning for legitimate businesses, this announcement was a bit embarrassing. It also made me curious as to how quality will be defined.

Jen Carroll (@martijen)

Pinterest stands out in crowded social media field
by Adam Belz

Time magazine called Pinterest — a website where users post collections of images of their favorite food, clothes, places and everything else — one of the five best social media sites of 2011, along with Google-Plus and Klout. The company has raised $27 million in venture capital led by the firm Andreessen Horowitz, which several tech news outlets have reported as valuing Pinterest at $200 million.

Nobody Gives A Damn About Your Klout Score
by Alexia Tsotsis

Klout’s pervasive problem is that the deeper among us are never going to judge anyone based solely on some arbitrary decimal score. Especially when that decimal number ranks teenbot Justin Beiber at 100, but precludes me from claiming Windows Phone 7 “Klout Perk” and tickets to a Matt and Kim concert because I don’t have enough technology Klout.

Google Plus Finds Sweet Spot Between Facebook & Twitter
by Jon Mitchell

Google Plus got a few more fun features today in addition to workplace ones. There’s a new feature called What’s Hot that surfaces popular posts (don’t call them “trending”), and a very cool visualization tool called Ripples that lets you watch Plus conversations flow out across the network. These are neat ways to track social activity that Facebook and Twitter don’t offer.

What’s the best thing about online marketing that you read this week? Leave us your comments.

In each phase of this cycle, the searcher is typing in a unique set or words or phrases. Each search is designed to provide more relevant information than the last. As the searcher learns, the search phrases reflect what they know and what new information they need.

There is value in building a website that provides information to each of these searchers, but the value in each isn’t the same. By understanding the full marketing value and potential of your website, you can build an effective sales funnel that provides each and every visitor the information they need to make the decision you are hoping for.

Your website is a pre-sell channel

Not every visitor who comes to your website is ready to buy right now. In fact, many searchers are merely curious and are looking for knowledge they don’t already have. These researchers could turn into buyers, but the chances of making a sale today are slimmer than me turning down a free lunch at Chipotle. It can happen, it’s just not likely. (Try me and find out!)

Instead of trying to force your visitors to give you what you want, why not give the visitor what they want?

Every business website should implement a variety of pre-sell strategies. If you think about it, only your product/service pages are doing the actual selling. This leaves the rest of your site to walk people through the research and shopping cycles, pre-selling them on what you offer, so that when they are ready to buy, they come you.

Your home page, product category pages, about us pages, etc., are great places to engage in active pre-selling. They provide a goldmine of opportunities. Use these pages strategically to talk about your brand, your product selection, your value, quality of service, and whatever else will give your visitors confidence in you and your products. This won’t sell any single product by itself, but it will reinforce to the searcher that you are a reputably and trustworthy site to purchase from.

Content: Enter stage right

A lot of ecommerce business owners tell me they don’t like SEOs that want to add a bunch of text on the page. Instead, they just want to push the visitors to the product. This is the right strategy for those searchers already in the buying phase of the cycle, but most aren’t. At least not yet. And those that are – they are likely using search phrases that deliver them directly to your product pages!

If you’re not writing great content for your category and sub-category pages (or are hiding it), you’re not using your website as a pre-sell tool. This leaves you only with the sales channel after the visitor has already performed all their research searches on Google. Ultimately, you’ll have missed out on a lot of potential traffic and branding opportunities that would likely have brought many of the buyers back to your site for a purchase.

Your website is a sales channel

The sales channel is where the majority of the “value” of any website comes in. It’s certainly the most trackable and justifiable. Implementing analytics and conversion testing will allow you to tweak your conversion funnel to capture more sales and generate a higher ROI.

A lot of websites focused on selling products or services fail in this area. It’s almost like they tried to recreate the magical experience of the paper catalog online. File that under ‘FoMP’ – Failure of Monumental Proportions!

Your website sales channel must express your unique value to your potential customers. This is especially true if your products are sold at any number of other outlets. Why should they buy from you instead of that other guy?

Your customers should feel you know your products better than the manufacturer does. You can do this by writing unique product descriptions and value-based headlines and using language that is customer-needs centric. Telling your customers what you or your products do is good. Telling your customers the benefit you or your products provide is better.

Building up your tips, tools and helpful article database can be an asset to the active sales funnel. If a potential customer has a question that can be answered right from your website, helping them finalize their purchase decision, you both win.

Your website is a post-sales channel

When the sale is done, the sell isn’t done!

We all know it costs far less to keep a customer than to get a new customer. Unfortunately, too many online marketers fail at pursuing the customers they already have and continue to spend, spend, spend on acquiring new ones. (A great book about this is Flip the Funnel by Joseph Jaffe.)

A good portion of your online marketing budget should be used to maintain customer loyalty. There are a lot of ways you can do this; you can provide customer loyalty and rewards cards, re-marketing through PPC, coupons and discounts for a follow-up purchase, email follow-ups with “on sale” updates, etc.

Give your customers a reason to come back to your site, or, at the very least, a reason to stay in contact with you.

Social Media: Enter stage left

A great way to do this is with regular blog updates providing helpful tips and tutorials that let your customers know you care about them, not just their wallets. Use Twitter and Facebook to engage your customers and deal with potential PR nightmares before they get a chance to take a foot hold. Make sure your website allows customers to easily contact you when there is a problem.

If you’re not implementing some kind of follow up or engagement after the sale, you’re losing thousands of dollars worth of profit. Who better to convince to buy from you than an already happy customer?

We often build websites with a singular thought in mind: selling our products or services. Unfortunately, we usually do that with a singular method–getting a sale. But we don’t think about what happens before the sale is ready to be made, or after it has been completed. We have to be willing to lay a little groundwork to build credibility, build branding, and lay the foundation for a potential sale in the future.

And once the sale is complete, why give up there? Continue to pursue the customer. Let them know just how much you appreciate them and wish to continue a mutually beneficial relationship. Don’t just focus on getting new sales. Focus on building customer relationships before, during and after the sale.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

It’s time again for Pole Position Marketing’s Final Lap! Check out some of the great stuff our team The Pit Crew read during the week of October 17.

Stoney deGeyter (@StoneyD)

SEOs Strike Out as Google Encrypts Signed-in Search Data
by Jonathan Allen

Google has made a major change to the way secure search works for signed in users of its services. If a user is signed into a Google account, any search performed will now be done on a secure socket layer (SSL) and will no longer pass the search term referrer data. However, Google have also said that search term referrer data will be passed to advertisers who use their pay-per-click product. The SEO community is crying foul…

HTML5 and SEO: New Strategies for Optimizing Code
by David Gould

The evolution of HTML has been a long transition away from how things look and toward what things mean. Gone are the days when web pages were cobbled together in HTML tables to compensate for limited layout controls. (Or, rather, those days should be gone. You know who you are.) Improvements in the language and the rise of CSS allowed web programmers to build pages that looked great for users and made better sense to search engines.

SEO Training Courses & SEO Certifications
by Dave Naylor

To save others from the time and hassle it took me to sort through all of the redundant courses to find the useful ones, I decided to do the decent ones and write a review on each. I also knew that just like reading a few different books on the same subject I would still learn at least something from each one, due to the different experiences, knowledge and perspectives of the course authors. A few more courses have come along since I found the first ones, therefore I’ve waited to do those so that they can be included here.

Mike Fleming (@mflem25)

INTEGRATING SEO & PPC: 3 AREAS TO STUDY
by Adam Audette

A plethora of articles have been written about the convergence of SEO and PPC, most of them fairly elementary. I think everyone understands that, at least from a keyword level, each channel can (and should) inform and reinforce the other. That idea of “reinforcement” is a bit tricky, however.

How To Take Your Keyword Research To A Higher Level
by Tom Schmitz

Keyword research is your time to understand the market you are competing in and how people search. It is your opportunity to comb through the competition and learn their keywords, content and link-building strategies. It is your opportunity to map out what you should track for your website, your market competitors and your keyword competitors. If you plan a months- or years-long relationship with a client or website, you owe several hours or days to get this right.

Five tricks our minds play on us and what marketers need to know
by Kelvin Newman

There’s a phenomena on the cusp between behavioral economics and psychology known as cognitive biases which are essentially scientifically documented tricks that our minds play on us. As all of us in the world of digital marketing are in the business of persuasion, understanding these often irrational tendencies can help us do a better job.

Annalisa Hilliard (@ahilliardm)

Check My Links Chrome Extension – A Link Builder’s Dream
by Jon R. Cooper

Not too long ago I was dead link building with the Mozilla Firefox LinkChecker Add-on. I started recommending it in a few posts, saying how great of an add-on it was, when in reality I had no idea there were other broken backlink checkers out there. But one day Ross Hudgens was kind enough to tweet about one of the greatest link building browser extensions known to man – Check My Links, a chrome extension. From that point on, I was fully converted to the Chrome toolbar, but arguing Firefox and Chrome is a topic for another time. In a nutshell, Check My Links will become your best friend for building some of the top links on the web for multiple reasons.

How to Get the Most out of Guest Blogging for Link Building
by Alan Grainger

Ever since Google came along and Panda-spanked article websites into oblivion, guest blogging has been the preferred choice for the internet marketer who is looking to squeeze a little more link juice from their articles. Guest blogging can be an effective way of getting a link, but could you get a lot more bang for your buck by making just a few small changes to your strategy? Here are a couple of tips to make sure that your efforts are not wasted.

3 HIGH QUALITY LINK BUILDING TECHNIQUES
by Matt Jackson

When it comes to link building schools of thought, there are those that opt purely for quantity, ignoring the quality and even relevance of the links received. However, and especially since recent Google algorithm updates, the onus in a link building campaign should be on quality for at least part of your monthly link work.

Jen Carroll (@martijen)

Are you placing too big of a bet on social media’s direct impact on SEO rankings?
by Stephen Chapman

You’ve heard it time-and-time again: social media has changed the SEO landscape. But just how much does social media actually impact rankings directly? Not as much as you might think…

Why the QR code is failing
by Sean X Cummings

They have become the standard violator appearing on advertising; in the corner of print ads, across billboards, on buses, or in pieces of direct mail — even peppered throughout this article. You’ve seen them; that little block of even littler squares. Unfortunately the technology behind QR codes was not invented for advertising and marketing; we are just co-opting its usage, and it shows.

Is Youtility the Future of Marketing?
by Jay Baer

What we’re trying to do with all forms of marketing is tie interests to actions. We assume that some percentage of the people seeing your smoke signal are indeed in the market for a new horse, and when we link interest and action to create a prospective customer, we call that “filling the top of the funnel.”

What’s the best thing about online marketing that you read this week? Leave us your comments.

Many developers do have a solid grasp and understanding of SEO concepts and some even dig in to become tried and true SEOs as well. Those that fit this latter group are few and far between, and those from the former group know as much about managing an SEO campaign as a community organizer knows about managing a country.

Many (but not all) developers know what it means to create a search engine friendly (SEF) website. But that is not the same thing as optimizing a website for top search engine ranking performance. Think of building a website as building a car. You may have created a high-performance machine, but it’s not ready to compete in the Indy 500 when it rolls off factory assembly line!

I don’t want to discount the developer’s role in the overall optimization process. This is critical work and becomes the foundation the SEO has to build from. But SEF isn’t SEO!

You have to be SEF before you can do SEO

Many web developers who claim to know SEO really don’t know that it’s much more than throwing a few meta tags into the code. Presto! Your site is now optimized! Too bad it isn’t’ that easy.

By claiming to have a solid understanding of SEO, these developers do the entire industry a huge disservice. I’m sure no designer would like me claiming to be a web designer when my best artistic creation is a stick figure hanging from a noose. (No, I’m not being morbid. Think: H_NGM_N.) Well, neither do I like it when people with very limited SEO skills or knowledge claim to be SEOs.

Every web developer should be skilled at building websites within a very strong SEF framework. They should have a grasp of how to create a solid architecture, understand visitor usability, know how to design reliable conversion funnels and have a basic understanding of how the search engines spider/index websites. This is Web Design 101 and SEO 101, but this knowledge doesn’t get you a degree in either.

While SEF is generally (or should be) done in the development stage, SEO is continuous. If your web developer says they will SEO your website as part of the one-time design fee, you know right there that something’s not right. If they tell you they’ll create a search engine friendly or SEO-ready site, then you know you may have a developer that has a clue.

#teamwork

It is impossible to design or program a search engine optimized website. But you can design or program a search engine friendly website. The website design/development process and SEO process are two completely different strategies, though very closely tied together.

This is why it’s a good idea to get your SEO involved in the development process early. The SEO can work with the developer to ensure that the site is developed to be as search engine friendly as possible. Even if the developer has strong SEF knowledge, the SEO can make sure that everything they need will be in place so they can move forward with the actual optimization quickly and efficiently.

When you get your SEO and website developer in communication early on in the site development process, your site will be built on a strong search engine friendly foundation, laying the foundation for a successful SEO campaign.

Two roles, one desired outcome

When site development is completed on a strong search engine friendly foundation, the SEO can then begin the work of actually optimizing the site to get traffic for your important keywords. The SEO process requires hours of additional research beyond what is done in the development stages. (Keyword research and IA are important SEO factors in the development process.)

At that point, the SEO has the ball and it’s their job to run with it. There may be times when some development changes are required, as development issues are uncovered that might fall afoul of the optimization efforts, but the earlier the SEO is involved, the less frequent these should be.

It’s not the SEO’s job to to do the work of a developer, nor is it the developer’s job to do the work of the SEO. SEOs and developers have very different areas of expertise, but one area where they should overlap is in making websites search engine friendly and helping you, the customer, grow your business.

Both the SEO and the developer have a unique role to play with some overlapping skill sets. Just be careful about your expectations. If you think your developer is also an SEO, you might be mighty disappointed with the results. If you’re wondering what the SEF your SEO is doing, it may be that you don’t have an SEO at all!

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

Our team The Pit Crew has read some informative and helpful articles on Web marketing this week. Here are our picks.

Mike Fleming (@mflem25)

PPC Streamcap – Dealing With PPC Struggles
by Matthew Umbro

In the transcribed Streamcap from live chat, Matthew explores questions like, “What proactive measures do you take to ensure client satisfaction when results are less than satisfactory?” and “What has been your primary reason for losing PPC clients?” Lots of insight here!

Best Social Media Metrics: Conversation, Amplification, Applause, Economic Value
by Avinash Kaushik

I am going to break one of my unspoken cardinal rules: Only write about real problems and measurement that is actually possible in the real world. I am going to break the second part of the rule. I am going to define a way for you to think about measuring social media, and you can’t actually easily measure what I am going to recommend. So why break the rule?

How To Save Money On AdWords Placements With Google Analytics
by Brad Geddes

Google’s display network can bring you tremendous amounts of clicks and conversions if used correctly. If it is not used correctly, you can quickly spend mass amounts of money and have nothing to show for it.

Annalisa Hilliard (@ahilliardm)

The various forms of influencer currency
by Hugo Guzman

One of the hot new catch-phrases in social media marketing circles is the word “influencer“. In a nutshell, it’s a person or entity that can influence consumers, readers, etc. and marketers large and small are trying to figure out ways to identify these influencers and then get them to behave in a manner that benefits branding and marketing efforts.

Link Building for Bloggers
by James Harper

Whether you’re a pro or amateur blogger, everyone wants traffic to their sites. And building links to your website is a great way to do this. Not only can it improve the visibility of your website in the search engines, but also if you pick your sites wisely you can benefit from referral traffic.

4 Reasons Blog Comments Are Great for Link Building
by Nick Stamoulis

Blog commenting is one of the best components of a link building campaign for numerous reasons. Aside from the obvious value of the link, there is a lot of long term value associated with developing a strong blog commenting campaign that can impact the overall success of your SEO and website. Here are 4 reasons why you should amp up your blog commenting.

Jen Carroll (@martijen)

Jobs’ Apple Standard vs. Page’s Google Standard
by Scott Cleland

The worldwide outpouring of respect, admiration and eulogies for Steve Jobs, Apple’s legendary leader and creative genius, proves his standard and legacy of innovation is one to measure other aspiring tech industry leaders by. Given that Apple and Google are the #1 and #2 most valuable brands in the world and that Google has invaded all of Apple’s markets in the last few years as a new competitor, it is illuminating and instructive to compare and contrast the radically different visions, values, and standards, of Apple’s former leader Steve Jobs and Google’s current CEO Larry Page.

5 Page Quality Indicators That Can Outweigh PageRank
by Bradley Zarich

PageRank would be a great indicator of page quality and relevancy if there is no link selling or artificial link building involved. Lacking that, Google has to implement a quality scoring system independent of link popularity. Let’s explore how to gauge page quality in a more sophisticated way using these 5 metrics.

The Holy Grail of Globalizing Editorial Planning
by Pam Didner

Social networks and search engines have changed the behavior of Intel’s business marketing audience of IT managers who are constantly searching for information and evaluating new technologies even when they are not purchasing them. As marketers, we need to engage with them on topics they care about and that are relevant to Intel on a timely basis. This is where an editorial planning process comes into play.

What’s the best thing about online marketing that you read this week? Leave us your comments.

Comparing In-House vs. Outsourced Costs

The number of hours “needed” to optimize your website can fluctuate from one SEO company to the next, as will the hourly rate. Assuming that the cost of a quality SEO team runs $150-200/hour, you can see it’s not difficult to reach a monthly investment of $3,000 or more. For a lot of small businesses, this is no small chunk of change. Many small businesses will look at a $36,000 per year investment. At that rate, you could just hire a full-time employee!

While true, you also have to consider other questions as well. The main question is this: Can a single person do everything a team of experts can? Can they efficiently research, write, optimize, link build, implement proper IA to the same degree and hit expected results?

It’s rare that you can find one person who is an expert in all these things. Then throw in the education time they’ll need to not only become an expert in each of these fields, but to keep up with the latest trends and algorithm changes. You’re looking at a lot of education, time and money!

When you outsource you don’t have to pay for education time, only hours worked on your site. When you hire in-house, you have to pay for education time, materials, conferences, travel and everything else needed for a quality education. Let’s not even get into benefits, holidays and PTO!

Sometimes the hard part for the SEO provider is convincing clients to invest in our time. But this isn’t the correct approach. We should be convincing business owners to invest in their website. It’s not how much money the client pays for SEO; it’s how much return they are getting for the time they are investing into their online marketing strategies.

Cautious Spending in an Uncertain Economy

I’m as cost conscious as the next guy, but there comes a point when pinching pennies is counter productive… especially in business. When I look at various on- and off-line marketing campaigns, I don’t look at the cost so much as I look at the overall return on the investment being made (ROI). Sure, a big price tag makes me think long and hard before investing, but what I want to know is, will I get my return on that investment?

The bigger the price tag, the harder it is to jump into an unknown investment. This is just as true with SEO as with any form of marketing, but perhaps even more true with SEO because the return is not instant. SEO requires a long-term commitment before you’re going to get the results you want to see.

Making any business succeed requires an investment of both time and money. Consider this:

If you have neither time nor money, there will be no success.

If you have time and not money, success can come, but you may run out of time before it happens.

If you have money but not time, success may come, but it will be fleeting without proper preparation and planning.

If you have both time and money, success may come, but only if you have implemented a strong plan to achieve that success.

Obviously, the best option is to have both time and money and be willing to invest it, if you want your SEO to succeed.

Spend More to Get More

Growing profits means you need to get more conversions (sales, signups, proposals, customers, etc.) for less money. To achieve that often means you have to spend more, not less.

We all know that you have to be willing to spend money to make money. If you’ve seen the show Shark Tank, you know how much of their own money people often invest to get a business idea off the ground. You gotta risk it for the biscuit!

What you have to think about is whether increased spending will give you an even greater return. Spending less would be nice, but you have to get out of that mindset. Target, Walmart, Pepsi and Coke all continue to spend, spend, spend on their marketing because they know it gets results. And the second they stop spending, they know they lose market share to their competition.

If your online marketing efforts are working they way they should, your marketing budget should always be increasing rather than decreasing - assuming, of course, that you can handle the increased business that the marketing efforts are bringing in.

As a smart, savvy business owner you have to consider all your options. Pricing alone isn’t a strong enough indicator on whether you can “afford” a particular company or not. You have to consider what is being offered, the history of success the company has, the communication they provide in meeting your needs and a whole lot more. Just because it’s more expensive doesn’t mean you can’t afford it. You just have to determine if you want some kid to mow your lawn or a gardener to make your whole yard beautiful.

Follow me at @StoneyD and @PolePositionMkg.

Here’s a synopsis (and some snippets) of the best online marketing articles our team The Pit Crew has read this week.

Mike Fleming (@mflem25)

How To Use 3 Competitive Intelligence PPC Tools
by Adam Riff

Dozens of factors go into winning of course, and one of the critical factors is knowing your opponents. If you don’t know them, it’s going to be difficult to beat them. Competitive Intelligence tools can help you do that and in this post, I’m going to disclose a few that we use to look at some key metrics and some tips on how to use them.

Unearthing Hidden Gems In Your PPC Account: A Guide
by Jessica Niver

One process we undergo for our accounts regularly is comparative past vs. present performance analysis. In AdWords you can do this at nearly any account level (campaign, ad group, keyword, ad), as well as segmenting by other settings such as distribution network. It can be extremely helpful in identifying areas of opportunity to increase your account’s profitability, and in addition it can help uncover and pinpoint the source of performance issues that otherwise can seem to be nebulously dragging your account down. The process can be time-intensive, but it’s useful enough that it’s worth undertaking.

Landing Page Relevance Criteria: Google’s Modus Vivendi
by Andrew Goodman

Following up on the news that Google is incorporating landing page relevance more directly into Quality Score as it affects position and thus CPC’s as well as eligibility in the keyword auction…

As a few of us try to digest Google’s high-level announcement, it’s still unclear what exactly Google is measuring now, or plans to measure in the future, when it comes to relevance and scent in the keyword, ad, and post-click user journey.

Annalisa Hilliard (@ahilliardm)

Branding in SEO – The Big Shift in Online Marketing
by KaisertheSage

…With these several changes in the search results’ landscape, particularly on Google, Branding appears to be one of the biggest factors that search engines might rely on when it comes to determining authenticity for web authority/popularity.

A question every brand should be asking: “What’s our verb?”
by Hugo Guzman

Well guess what? I’m going to write a post that’s all about Facebook.

Linkbuilding Recommendations When Using Contests
by Debra Mastaler

We talk a lot about using contests in link building and since this is a great one to learn from, (and a national brand so no points lost for outing) I thought I’d highlight a number of things I found impressive and provide a couple of suggestions you can use with your next contest bait.

Jen Carroll (@martijen)

Grande Guide to B2B Content Marketing
by Joe Pulizzi and Joe Chernov

If you’re among the uninitiated with content marketing and feeling the pressure to ‘just do it,’ there are scores of excellent books, webinars, e-books and blog posts for your learning pleasure. But, if you don’t have time for that kind of full-blown affair, the Grande Guide to B2B Content Marketing – available for review on October 4 – is the perfect quickie. Read my full review of the Grande Guide to B2B Business Marketing…

Comprehensive Guide to Measuring the ROI of Social Media Marketing
by AJ Kumar

…while social media marketing has its place, it’s not something that you should go all-in on without having a definite system in place for measuring its return on investment (ROI). Even though sites like Facebook and Twitter are free to join, you’re still investing your time in maintaining your presence on these sites, and it’s important to be sure you’re exchanging your time for some sort of value.

Facebook Launches New Metric: “People Talking About”
by Todd Wasserman

Facebook has overhauled its Pages Insights analytics tool and added a new metric to gauge the health of a page: “People Talking About.” That statistic, which users will see on Pages below the total number of “Likes,” will be one of four tracked by Pages Insights. The idea is that users will understand a Page with a high People Talking About rating is one that has compelling content. Likewise, content creators will be motivated to make their Pages more comment-worthy.

What’s the best thing about online marketing that you read this week? Leave us your comments.

Several years ago I wrote, “Gone are they days when SEO focused exclusively on top search engine rankings.” I wish I was right about that, but unfortunately, we still see a lot of SEOs doing just that today. Not the good ones, mind you, but still, far too many.

Today’s top-tier SEOs are getting out of the search engine ranking business entirely. Well, maybe not entirely, but they understand that there is so much more to online success than a top position for your keywords. Many clients still need convincing.

Rankings still matter to SEOs. At least they should matter. While local, personalized and historically based results are dramatically changing search results, there is still a base set of search results that all other results stem from. But SEOs that talk only in terms of getting you top rankings on the search engines should be avoided at all costs. #notjoking

SEO is one piece. It’s a big puzzle.

Achieving search engine rankings is only a small piece in to the total puzzle of online marketing. In fact, if top rankings are the only focus of the SEO, there is a significant chance that the work performed on your site will actually make things worse. Top rankings only mean so much if your visitors are fleeing your site in droves because of usability or conversion issues.

Most people don’t care if they get 100 sales from 10,000 visitors or 5,000 visitors. It’s the same 100 sales right?

Well, no, not really. The difference is that the 5,000 visitors provides a better conversion rate than the 10,000. What’s important about this is that if you are getting 100 sales out of 10,000 visitors, to then get 200 sales you must bring in an additional 10,000 visitors to your site, for a total of 20,000.

Or, you can improve your conversion rate.

Improving your conversion rate means you get more sales out of the traffic you’re already bringing in. If you improve your conversion rate to bring in 100 sales out of every 8,000 visitors, you’re now getting 125 sales from the same 10,000 visitors you were getting before! Improve it more, you might be able to get 100 sales from 5,000 visitors which equals 200 sales from the same 10,000 customers.

You see where this is going? A better conversion rate means more business. If every sale earned you just $15 in profit, you just added an additional $1500 in profit to your bottom line. Now if you were to double your traffic on top of that, your profits leap from $1,500 (from our starting numbers) to $6,000, instead of the $3,000 you would have gotten from improving traffic alone.

Top rankings add traffic. Improved usability and conversions multiply it!

Without usability, SEO Kung-Fu is SEO F-U!

SEOs must maintain a very interesting balancing act between the creative and technical. Most SEOs start on the more technical side of things. They learn code, algorithms, architecture and what makes good rankings; then they figure out how to apply these into websites. As SEOs got more and more technically advanced, the search engines did, too, in order to prevent manipulation.

Good SEOs began to realize that the battle for rankings is only a part of the struggle for business growth. While SEOs still fight for top search engine rankings, those that have invested into the marketing side of website improvement find they bring their clients far greater success.

The technical side is still hugely important, but the knowledge gained from the technical research must be implemented in an almost purely creative way. Once rankings are achieved, the site must still be able to sell to its audience.

Ranking success alone is an SEO failure

Sites that struggle only to get top rankings will ultimately fail. Maybe not in the bankruptcy sense, but in the sense that they are not maximizing their return on investment. They are spending more to get less!

The analogy I use most for this is its like trying to fill a bucket full of holes with water. You’ll be able to get water in the bucket and may even be able to get it in faster than it leaks out, but you’re consuming vast amounts of resources in order to fill it up. It’s far easier–and smarter–to patch the holes first and then start filling the bucket.

You may not be able to patch every hole right away, but patching some while working on others (all while increasing traffic) can allow you to bring in and convert more and more every day. The more traffic you bring in and the more usability issues fixed, the greater the impact your SEO campaign has.

There is so much more to SEO than just SEO. And if your SEO doesn’t know that they, IMHO, they don’t know what they are doing. Is it worth paying for top rankings if your visitors are leaving in absurdly huge numbers? Or would you be better off working with someone who can help you improve your site and get you top rankings that bring in more profits? It’s your call.

Any SEO that fails to improve usability is not really doing you any favors. At best, the usability and site conversions stay the same. At worst, they plummet due to a ranking-at-all-costs approach. There is nothing like an SEO flipping you the bird and saying it means “You’re #1!”

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.