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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

But there is more to keyword research than just the research. You have to be able organize and sort your keywords into groups that will allow you to optimize them most effectively into your website.

This post will walk you through the organizational side of the keyword research process, using a customized keyword research spreadsheet I have created to make the process easy. You still have to do the research, but this tool helps us create keyword lists for on-page optimization.

Let’s get to it.

First, you need to download and open the spreadsheet linked above. You should be on the “Phrase 1″ tab at the bottom.

If you know what your “core” phrase is, you can rename that tab accordingly. We’ll work with the phrase “battery charger” since that will give us plenty of variety to work with.

Importing Your Keywords

Before you can import anything you need to have already gathered a list of keywords from your favorite keyword tools. For this post we’ll use Google and Wordtracker.

You first need to export your keyword lists from the research tool to a different spreadsheet. Make sure your search volume is to the left of the keywords. If not, you’ll need to move some columns around until it is. For Google you can insert an extra column between the search volume and the keywords so you can copy/paste cleanly into this keyword organization spreadsheet.

Tip: When exporting from Google, be sure to select the exact match for accurate search volume numbers. You’ll then need to use find/replace to remove the brackets before importing to your keyword spreadsheet.

After you paste the keywords, be sure to select the option that allows you to keep the formatting on the current sheet rather than importing the format from the sheet you copied from.

Once you paste both sets of keywords and search volume, your sheet will look something like this:

Note: Google will let you export up to 100 phrases while Wordtracker can give you hundreds if not a couple thousand. This spreadsheet can handle a little over 2000 phrases from both Google and Wordtracker (or your favorite source) combined. To keep this post simple, I’ve eliminated all but 600 phrases.

Merging Duplicate Phrases and Data

A good number of phrases will be duplicated between your research tools. We want to merge these so the Google and Wordtracker numbers are on the same row for each keyword.

The first step is to alphabetize the keywords. To do this, click column “D” so the entire column is highlighted. Then, over on the far right on the Excel “Home” tab, you’ll see a “Sort & Filter” option. Click that and then select “Sort A to Z.”

This will create a “Sort Warning” dialogue box:

Be sure “Expand the selection” is selected; then hit “Sort”. This makes sure that the search volume numbers stay with the correct search phrase as they are sorted A to Z.

The result should look something like this:

If you look at rows 16/17, 21/22, 26/27, and 34/35, you’ll see the same phrase with a different search volume for both Google and Wordtracker. These are the duplicates we want to merge.

This spreadsheet has a cool “Merge Duplicates” button. Click that button and all the dupes will be merged together. Just like magic!

Tip: Make sure no garbage code is imported in with the keywords. If a bad text is imported into the “All Keywords” column, the merge macro can get screwed up.

Here you can see the duplicates merged together. Notice rows 16, 20, 24, and 31.

Now you want to sort by search volume. Going back to the sort button at the top, select that; then, choose “Custom Sort.”

A new dialogue box will pop up allowing you to customize your sort options. You want to sort by “Ggl” first, then by “WT” (or visa versa). You may have to “Add Level” to get the second sort option to be available.

Tip: Be sure to sort on “Values” and order “Largest to Smallest.”

Sorting by volume, you can get a pretty good idea as to what phrases are more popular than others as noted by either or both tools.

Be careful not to use search volume alone for determining keyword value. As you can see below in rows 18, 30, and 37, Wordtracker isn’t showing search volume for some substantial Google phrases. Similarly, if you were to scroll down, you’d also see quite a number of phrases that Google doesn’t record as viable, but Wordtracker does.

Note: The lack of search volume on some of the Wortracker phrases here is likely due to me having deleted any phrase that registered less than 10 in Wordtracker search volume.

Eliminating Negative and Junk Words

Anytime you import keyword lists this size you’re going to end up with a number of junk keyword phrases. This spreadsheet provides an easy way of getting them out of your way without having to delete them one by one.

First, scan your list looking for any negative words you want to eliminate. Then add those words to column A in the negative word tab at the bottom.

In this case we’ll pretend the client sells only automotive battery chargers, so the four words we typed in above can be globally eliminated.

No, go back to your research tab and click the “Check Negatives” button. Any keyword phrase that contains a negative word is automatically highlighted red throughout the worksheet!

Note: The Negative Words tab is designed for global application. Do not add negatives that are core-term specific.

If you accidentally added a negative word that does not belong, no worries. Just remove it and re-click “Check Negatives” to correct.

Important: Don’t leave any empty cells in the negative keywords list. If you remove a keyword be sure to fill in the blank spot.

If you have a lot of negative words highlighted and want to get them out of your way, the spreadsheet has a filter option that lets you hide them all. Click the filter icon at the bottom right corner of the negative column heading, then uncheck the “x”.

This will cause all the negative words to be hidden. Notice below that rows 47, 61 and 77 are now hidden.

In most cases, using negative keywords is not enough. You will need to manually go through and eliminate keywords that aren’t any good for optimization to your site. Simply place an “x” in the “No Good” column and your phases automatically highlight red.

Note: Do not manually add “x’s” to the Negative column. If you run the Check Negatives macro again these will automatically be removed. Only manually mark negatives in the No Good column.

You can then filter out all “No Good” keywords just as you did with the negative words, leaving you only with phrases that you believe are worth optimizing!

Categorizing Into Shopping Funnels

I’ve written about the Research, Shop and Buy funnels for keywords before. You need to be familiar with that before using these categories.

The general idea is that you want to categorize each keyword into one of these funnels. You can through this section in four steps, marking phrases that fit any one category at a time, or go keyword by keyword and mark the most appropriate category for each as you go down the list.

Tip: If you organize one category at a time you can hide each category when complete leaving only unassigned keywords. This can help make sure none are missed.

Once you’re done your spreadsheet will look something like this:

Assigning Keywords to URLs

Next you want to figure out which keywords should be optimized to any given page on your site. Let’s start with the “Research” funnel. Use the filter options to hide all other keywords but those.

Looking at these keywords together can help you determine which URL(s) is/are best to optimize for the keyword group. Place the URLs in the blue area at the top of the page. Start with P1 (Page 1, see above). Now go through your funnel list and add “p1″ to each keywords you plan to optimize for that page.

Note: You will likely find that not every keyword in each funnel works for a given page. You might need several unique URLs for each filter group.

As you can see, we placed “car” and “automotive” keywords on page 1, “motorcycle” keywords on page 2 and “boat” keywords on page 3.

When you’re ready to optimize, you can use the filtering option to hide all keywords except for the page you you are optimizing. Below I’ve filtered all but page 1 keywords.

Now you can back and repeat this process for the Shop, Buy and Info keyword funnels.

One last thing. If you run out of blue URL space at the top of this spreadsheet, don’t fret! You’ll notice the rows jump from 6 to 14. There are six hidden rows that will allow you to add more. All you have to do is highlight rows 6 and 14, right click and select “unhide”.

Now you want to repeat the entire process with your next core phrase! If you need more core term tabs, just copy a blank one and start afresh.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

He thinks his way is the only way to do SEO.

Recommendations for your meta keyword tags are considered “critical.”

When all your competitors are buying links but your SEO recommends “playing fair.” (via chrisfaron)

You can’t get them to return your calls or emails, but they are burning up twitter with status updates.

When your 404 error log is bigger than your referral log. (via @btabke)

Foursquare says they checked in at the beach when they should be checking on your account.

Your SEO firm boasts you get a dedicated SEO Strategist, PPC Strategies, Link Strategist, Analytic Strategist, Social Media Strategist and Copywriter. But it’s all the same person.

Your home page title tag still reads, “home page” (via Matt_Siltala)

They spend more time on Google+ and tweeting about it than they do on your site and fixing it.

The person in charge of SEO scratches their head and asks “What is SEO?” (via @Trinity_IT)

They provide ranking guarantees based on #1 rankings for AltaVista.

They provide ranking guarantees based on #1 rankings for VERY long-tail keywords

Your first paragraph lists your city 5 times. (via @ACTeeple)

He believes everything Matt Cutts says.

They claim to have a “special” relationship with Google.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

There are a lot of ways to measure the success of an SEO campaign and rankings can be a relevant factor, but that should not be the only factor. Heck, I’m not even sure it’s one of the top 5 most important measures of success! But instead of just yelling, “ranking reports suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck” at the top of my lungs, let’s look at how we can accurately measure the value of any particular keyword ranking. I think you’ll find a lot more here than meets the eye.

The Value of the Search Engine

Assessing the value from one search engine to the next isn’t always as easy as just looking at the popularity of any particular engine. Each engine has a different audience with varying degrees of interaction and conversion.

If you spend any amount of time looking at your site analytics, you’ll find that what gets huge click-throughs on Bing may not work so well over at Google. Similarly, what converts well on Yahoo may not convert at all on Bing.

Each engine has varying degrees of searcher interaction, search quality and searcher intensity. This ensures that the value of a top ranking on Google is very different from one on Bing or Yahoo, and not always for the reasons you think.

Market Share

Google is the clear leader in search engine market share department, currently getting more than 3x the search traffic over Yahoo and double that of Yahoo and Bing combined. This generally makes Google the primary search engine most people care about. If someone wants top search engine rankings, what they generally mean is they want top Google rankings.

But one would be wise not to ignore the “lesser” the bottom rungs of the big 3 engines. Collectively, they bring in over 95% of all search traffic. After that, it’s all small-time stuff, with Ask and AOl usually fighting it out for 1-3 percent.

Search Quality

A significant number of Google’s searchers are business owners, executives, employees and SEOs performing vanity searches and ranking reports. These are people that just want to see where they rank or where a competitor ranks for their keyword phrases. This skews the market share data. While many SEOs perform the same vanity searches on Bing and Yahoo as they do Google, it’s not to the same degree.

This means that Google may actually have a lower search quality than the other engines, as a larger percentage of searches on Bing and Yahoo are from people looking for actual information. But, Google still delivers more traffic for similarly ranked keywords on Bing and Yahoo. It may be a smaller percentage than the market share data suggests, but it’s still a significant piece of the pie.

Search Intensity

Each engine has different users with different levels of searcher intensity. Demographics can play a role in this, as do the type of searches peformed. Some searchers use different search engines depending on what they are looking for. Other engines attract users that are shoppers more than researchers, or are favored in one industry over another. This intensity can make the difference between a quality hit to your site or someone just doing some window shopping.

If you’re an e-tailer, you want ready-to-buy traffic. If you are an informational site, you want info seekers. Both of these can be intense searchers, but the intensity is focused in a different area. Look at the conversion rates from each engine and see where you prosper the most. That might help you determine where to focus more of your efforts.

The value of the keyword

Not every keyword is equal to the next, even if they are close in similarity. Keyword research and selection is no small task, nor is it unimportant. Taking the time to thoroughly research and understand the value of each of your keywords can be paramount to your SEO success and determining the value of that success.

Search Volume

There is a tendency for business owners to want to go after keywords based on search volume alone. If Keyword A gets searched 10x more often than Keyword B, Keyword A is seen as a “must get ranked” phrase. SEOs, on the other hand, often want to go after the “low hanging fruit” first. These are the lesser-searched-but-easier-to-rank phrases.

Neither of these are bad keywords, as long as there are expectations as to what value each top ranked keyword will provide. Sometimes it’s best to start with the lower-volume phrases as you build a foundation for the more difficult high-volume phrases that take more time.

What many find is the low-volume phrases can collectively outperform the high-volume, both in terms of traffic and conversions. Basing the value on a keyword on search volume alone can cause you to miss out on this important traffic.

Relevance and Conversions

If the keyword you’re ranking for doesn’t give the visitors the information they want, or the conversions you want, it doesn’t matter how much traffic it’s generating; it’s a poor keyword choice.

This can be difficult for many people to truly grasp. They just see how much traffic they are getting. But more traffic doesn’t mean more sales. Look for the keywords that are most relevant to what you have to offer and then check the conversion rates. If conversion rates are low, you may not want to place such a high value on this keyword.

The Value of Your Industry

Some industries are more popular than others. It’s easy to see some phrases for a particular industry get thousands of searches a day, where other phrases in another industry may only get a few dozen. When looking at keyword popularity, you can only compare the keywords within your particular field.

It doesn’t matter if thousands of people are searching for products or services that you don’t offer. What does matter is that there is enough searcher interest in what you do offer, and that you are able to build a successful business in that niche.

Unfortunately, there are some niche industries that simply do not have enough searcher interest to build a sustainable business model. They can get rankings for all their keywords, but the ROI isn’t there.

But don’t let low search volume scare you out of a successful model. Many niche industries thrive by ranking for hundreds of lower volume phrases that produce enough conversions to keep them profitable.

The Value of Your Profit Margin

Profit margins are a significant factor in the value of your search engine rankings. Low search but high profit keywords can be a goldmine by allowing you to get more money for less marketing investment. Many keywords – even those with very little traffic – can often be worth a premium if the profit that keyword brings in is significant enough.

In any industry, and with any marketing efforts, you need to be aware of what your profit margins are for each keyword related to any given product or service. Some products undoubtedly have a higher profit margin than others, which makes rankings for these keywords more valuable to you regardless of search volume.

The Value of a Keyword Ranking

The ranking your site or page gets for any given keywords does factor in to the amount of traffic you’re able to bring to your site. Statistically very few people click past the third page of search results, and no small number of people don’t scroll down to the end of the page. This means you have a greater chance of getting noticed the higher rankings you have.

That’s why everyone wants to be #1!

Unfortunately, as Highlander taught us long before there was SEO, there can only be one. Only one person can be #1 out of the dozens, hundreds or perhaps even thousands of others competing for that keyword. The chances of you obtaining that position is pretty slim, even with the best SEOs working for you.

Simply put, your commercial site may never overcome the highly popular informational site which is considered the de facto authority on the topic. It can happen, but its a long hard road!

But it helps to keep in mind that a well optimized site can actually do better in lower positions than the sites in higher positions. Carefully crafted title and description tags can make your site much more compelling to the searcher, especially when searcher intent is vague.

A #1 ranking isn’t always necessary, but it sure helps the ego!

The Value of Localization and Personalization

Search engines are working hard to personalize results for every searcher based on history, preferences and locality. As localized and personalized results become more prominent, search results can vary from searcher to searcher. That site you see in the top spot is not what someone else sees.

What you think is a valuable top ranking may only be showing up for you. Or what you see at the bottom of the SERPs may be much higher for the next person. This means there really is no reliable search engine ranking report.

So what is the value of measuring keyword rankings? Not a whole lot. Should you stop obsessing over search engine rankings? I recommend it.

But whether you look at rankings or not, it’s important realize that rankings are merely a single measure of your SEO success. It is not the measure of success. You can gain a lot more advantage by focusing on other more traditional marketing aspects of your site such as usability and conversion improvement than by focusing on top search engine rankings alone.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

SEO is like a car. You can’t just ask “how much does SEO cost?”

SEO is like food. Quick, cheap SEO and has little long-term value, while healthy SEO costs more but has a better long-term effect.

SEO is like a chair. It’s something you don’t want to collapse underneath you. (via @mflem25)

SEO is like ice cream. There are a lot of different flavors of SEO strategies that bring satisfaction, and you usually want to try more than one.

SEO is like music. The foundation hasn’t changed since the beginning, but the application of SEO evolves with time.

SEO is like kids. A lot of work goes into it and you can’t be guaranteed of the results.

SEO is like a surgeon. Sometimes you have to do a lot of website surgery in order to cut out the sickness.

SEO is like a doctor. If you don’t follow the advice of your SEO, you’ll never have a healthy site.

SEO is like a diet. It’s easy to know what to do. Not so easy to do it successfully. (via @mflem25)

SEO is like getting in shape. There are no shortcuts to good results. (via @mflem25)

SEO is like exercise. If you don’t keep at it, you lose the benefits of it.

SEO is like gravity. What goes up eventually comes down.

SEO is like the Jones’s. If you are only keeping up, you’re falling behind. (via @PaschenM)

SEO is like Inspector Clouseau. Even the most bumbling SEOs can still stumble across a solution.

SEO is like a lawn. Paying lawn mower-kid prices doesn’t get you beautiful SEO results, just a chopped budget.

SEO is like gardening. You can’t plant your SEO recommendations this week and expect a rankings harvest the next. (via @CraigGeis)

SEO is like the weather. When traffic is hot everything is cool. When traffic disappears, temperatures rise.

SEO is like global warming. Just because you say it’s true doesn’t mean your soapbox strategy is really viable.

SEO is like art. You can theorize about it all day long, but it’s the end result that matters.

SEO is like a video game. You want a top 10 score to show off to your friends, but you can’t be sure you’ll keep it. (via @rhcerff)

SEO is like a dog. If you feed it right, it can be your business’s best friend, specializing in fetching ROI.

SEO is like a cat. Just because you optimized your site to call traffic to you doesn’t mean the search engines will comply.

SEO is like Lady Ga Ga. Even average looking SEO can appear “sexy” if you dumb down your audience enough and dress it with outlandish claims.

SEO is like a supermodel. It’s something you want to [censored due to violation of company social media policy]. (via @mflem25)

SEO is like Michael Jackson. It doesn’t matter if it’s black (hat) or white (hat) if you’re riding high at the top.

SEO is like Anthony Weiner. Exposing yourself to the wrong audience can have disastrous results. (via @PaschenM)

SEO is like John Grisham. A strong start can overshadow a decade of laziness that follows.

SEO is like a Michael Bay movie. It can look pretty, but if you’re just throwing a bunch of crap at your audience, they’ll just shrug and walk away.

SEO is like Highlander. There can only be one number one ranking (per keyword).

SEO is like the military. A good strategy can do some serious damage and dominate your competition in the SERP’s theater.

SEO is like government. No matter how many years you’ve been at it, there always seems to be more to do.

SEO is like taxes. You can keep pouring money into your SEO, but if the bastards aren’t managing it properly, you start looking for ways to opt out.

SEO is like 24 Hour news. There are lots of people giving their opinions, but very few have any solutions.

SEO is like politics. There are lots of people giving their opinions, but very few have any solutions.

SEO is like religion. There is only one way to do SEO right. The rest of you are idiots.

SEO is like Jesus. It’s not dead.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

Most people look for ways to “succeed” by investing the least amount of effort possible. That’s why the lottery makes so much money for the government. One dollar can make you extremely rich. If you’re extremely lucky.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with looking for ways to become successful with the smallest amount of effort. Luck isn’t random happenstance; it’s being prepared when the right opportunity comes your way! I have a motto I use quite often when I’m not working, “I worked damn hard to be this lazy!” But the key here is that I worked. I didn’t just get lucky and get to be lazy because of it – I earned it.

Over the years I’ve busted my butt to create a successful website marketing strategy firm. It’s had it’s ups and downs, not to mention countless long nights and weekends. And whenever I start to feel like I can relax, it seems something comes up, and we have a new push to get us to the next level.

Successful SEO can’t be done in a vacuum of search engine algorithms, social media and on-page optimization strategies. There is something even more fundamental to being successful at your SEO efforts than the knowledge needed to carry it out. These are foundational issues that, when applied, will help you not only gain the knowledge you need, but the wherewithal to grow in your success, even through difficult and dry times.

Seven steps to making sure your SEO is successful

Daily Growth: SEO requires a constant education on what the search engines are doing, how that might affect your site, and what new strategies you might need to employ. As rapidly as technology changes, your SEO knowledge yesterday won’t always carry you through tomorrow.

Value the Process: SEO isn’t about the destination (top rankings) but rather the process that brings constant improvement to your site. Every day you should find some ways to improve your site over yesterday’s version. Look for new keywords, opportunities for new content and ways to improve the usability and persuasion processes that will increase conversions.

Don’t Wait for Inspiration: Inspiration most often comes after you have started doing something. It’s the work itself that inspires thoughts, ideas and strategies. If you’re stuck in an SEO rut and don’t know what to do next, start doing something. Look at the analtyics, read a blog or strike up a conversation with someone about the site you’re working on. Do something to get the creative juices flowing.

Be Willing to Pay Now: There is a saying that says you can pay now or pay later, but you will pay. Be willing to invest heavily in SEO, especially in the early stages. In many cases SEO has to be done in large chunks rather than small bites. Be willing to invest in those large chunks of time. They often lead to greater rewards (sooner rather than) later.

Don’t Focus on Your Limitations: There is no SEO in the world that can do everything greatly. Sometimes you have to know what you don’t know and find qualified people to do what you can’t do. Don’t get stuck worrying about what you can’t do and work with people who can provide strengths that compensate for your weaknesses.

Master Your Time: SEO can often be an endless process. There is always something more that can, and should, be done. In order to get anything accomplished you have to manage your time wisely. Focus on areas that will provide the best results first, then move on to other areas later. Don’t get bogged down in the inessentials.

Trade Up, Not Down: When dealing with clients, developers and owners, the SEO often finds they don’t get everything they want. Sometimes you have to make concessions. When you can’t do everything, then look for trades that bring more value to you. Trade quantity for quality. Trade time for effectiveness. Trade rankings for conversions. You get the drift.

What’s good for SEO is good for business

Each of the tips above can be applied to every area of our lives and in business, not just SEO. They are tried and true principles for success in any arena. It’s just the application that varies.

SEO requires patience, determination, hard work and sometimes even sacrificing our perfect ideals. Everybody has a different definition of success. Many clients or SEOs look to rankings as the goal when they should be looking at business growth, conversions and profits. Determine what your real goals are and do what it takes to achieve them. Then you’ll be successful at SEO!

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

The SEO has a right to…

I.
Receive payment from the client for entire amount contracted.

A contract is a contract. If you change your business model, rethink SEO or decide to invest in other marketing avenues, you still have an obligation to fulfill your end of the SEO agreement. If you really want out, talk to your SEO about a proper buyout of your SEO contract.

II.
Collect payment from the client on-time.

Nobody likes to get paid late for work performed. The SEO is building profits for you, and the least you can do is not put that in jeopardy by delaying payment for work performed. If payments are delayed, even for a couple days, the SEO has a right to charge a late payment fee.

III.
Not to allow the client to place a “hold” on their account.

The SEO has the same obligations to its employees and other clients as the SEO client does to it’s employees and customers. SEOs often hire based on the expected income of all accounts, including yours. If you request a hold due to finances or other restructuring, you may be impacting the employment and performance of your SEO firm, which may impact your performance down the road.

IV.
Charge the client for services that fall outside the scope of the contract.

If the SEO client requests work that is above and beyond the strategy outlined in the contract, the client should expect to pay for any additional hours needed to complete that work. SEOs can only do so much with the time and investment they are given. If more is work is requested, more funds are required.

V.
Expect their recommendations get implemented in a timely manner.

SEOs never expect that every recommendation they make will get implemented or implemented perfectly. However, they have a reasonable expectation that any and all recommendations will be be discussed with them by the client and implemented sooner rather than later. The client cannot hold the SEO accountable for success if there are a number of unfulfilled recommendations on the table.

VI.
Not justify every minute spent. (Unless client pays hourly.)

SEO has its highs and lows. Some months require a lot of work and a lot of hours, and other months a lot less. Give the SEO freedom to track hours but not be bound to a certain expectation x hours every month. Let them rest some months and ramp up in others as needed.

VII.
Not spend too much time “reporting” to the client.

Providing the client status updates and information critical to the success of their campaign is expected. However, the client cannot demand so much of the SEO’s time providing reports and updates that it eats up a significant chunk of the time need to make the account a success.

VIII.
Revoke deliverable work performed due to client’s non-payment.

If SEOs fulfill their end of the contract but the client doesn’t pay for work performed, that is theft. The SEO then has a right to undo all work implemented, retract all recommendations and change destinations of links achieved, if necessary, until the client pays in full.

IX.
Suspend client’s account if needed.

If the SEO client is not keeping payments up to date, an SEO has the right to suspend work being performed on the client’s account. The SEO cannot donate their time or effort into a delinquent client when there are other clients making their payments and in need of work to be done.

X.
Cancel client services.

If the client is a problem and eats up too much time and resources, the SEO has the right to cancel services if warranted. This should only be done if the SEO has delivered on everything the client has paid for to date, and there is no expectation without further payment; otherwise, a refund should be provided.

If clients and SEOs agree on these expectations, there should never be a dissatisfied client! You can also read the historical documents from which this post originated.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

There can often be confusion between clients and their marketing team as to expectations, due dates, goal measures and even invoicing. While many of these things can be, should be and are handled in the service contract, not everyone reads the fine print.

So here are some basic guidelines to help SEOs and their clients realize what they have a right to in their SEO campaign.

The SEO client has a right to…

I.
Expect the SEO to fulfill the contract in full.

If you don’t have time to invest in fulfilling the expectations as laid out in the contract, give the client a refund for all uncompleted work. If you have failed to deliver any results as expected, a full and complete refund is warranted. Only charge the client for work completed and results accomplished.

II.
Not have a site hijacked, mutilated or destroyed by the SEO.

The client has a right to expect work of the highest quality. The SEO must not do anything that disrupts the usability or sales process of the site or creates a poor customer experience in order to achieve search engine rankings. Rankings are not the goal, but customer satisfaction is!

III.
Accept or reject certain recommendations that may affect their website.

While the implementation of the SEO’s recommendations are critical to the success of the campaign, the SEO should work with the client to ensure all recommendations fit with the client’s goals and programming abilities. When recommendations cannot be fulfilled, the SEO and the client should work together to find common ground that gives both what they need.

IV.
Know the on- and off-site strategies being employed.

There are no such thing as “proprietary strategies!” The client is paying for a service and therefore has a right to be fully informed of any and all strategies being implemented. The client should also be appraised on how those strategies will affect their website and the website’s performance in the search results.

V.
Not have their site penalized or lose value for violating search engine guidelines.

Any strategies employed by the SEO should not, in any way, knowingly or potentially bring harm to the client’s website or their performance in the search engine rankings. Any questionable strategies should be discussed and approved with the client first.

VI.
Question results and value of the work being performed.

If the client does not understand a recommendation, they have a right to ask “why?” If the client is not seeing the expected results, they have a right to ask “why not?”

VII.
Expect optimization work performed to increase sales and profits.

SEO must provide more than traffic or ranking data to “prove” the value of their worth. The client should see the ROI from their SEO investment through an increase in sales and conversion rates.

VIII.
Have regularly scheduled performance updates.

Whether in person, via the web or over the phone, the client has a right to regular performance updates on their campaign. It is the SEO’s duty to inform the client of progress being made, issues complicating results and areas where opportunity may arise for further growth of their results.

IX.
Maintain ownership of all work performed by the SEO.

Unless the client is on a pay-per-click contract, the work they pay the SEO for belongs to them. The SEO cannot provide any type of switching, changing or removal of optimized content once the contract expires. All work performed belongs to the client paying for the work.

X.
Buy out of the SEO contract at any time.

If the client has lost faith in the SEO and the work being performed, they have a right to get out of the contract. The contract should contain stipulations for such contingencies and allow the client to get out when needed.

I’ll cover the SEO’s Bill of Rights in my next post. In case you’re interested, you can read the historical documents from which this came.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

Yet, optimizing a site isn’t terribly difficult. Anybody can be taught the basics, which many already know and are implementing on their websites right now. But SEO is more than basic implementation of strategies you’ve read about online or on Twitter. SEO is much bigger the sum of its parts.

There are hundreds of “parts” that can play a role in an effective optimization campaign. Google looks at more than 200 “signals” alone, each with varying degrees of value and necessity. Most people who start out doing SEO soon realize there is a lot to keep up with, and it’s better passed on to more capable hands.

So, just who do these capable hands belong to? Well, that depends on who you talk to. Everybody believes there is a certain level of knowledge and know-how that pre-qualifies you as an SEO. Sometimes it’s fun to see what certain bottom line “requirements” are. In light of that, I put together this list of things you absolutely, certainly, necessarily or quite possibly need to know in order to qualify as an SEO.

You’re not an SEO unless…

…you know HTML code

HTML is pretty much as basic as basic SEO gets. But guess what, you really don’t need to know every bit of HTML to SEO a site. Does it help? Absolutely! You do need a considerable amount of HTML knowledge, but don’t let anyone tell you that if you can’t code an entire site by hand, you’re not an SEO.

…you monitor the search engine algorithms.

SEOs need to know what the search engines are doing, but how much “monitoring” is really required? Some SEOs have almost a religious dedication to documenting, analyzing and testing every detail of an algorithm and then doing it all again when Google makes a change. Others take a big picture approach, looking at long-term SEO strategies that are not affected by every algorithm whim. Just because you don’t monitor algorithms as much as someone else doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you read search engine patents.

I admire those who can read search engine patents and makes sense of them. These individuals have their pulse on what is possibly coming to a search engine near you. But, only possibly. Not all patents actually result in something being incorporated into the algorithm. They help you keep an eye on a possible future, but not necessarily the destined future. Just because you don’t read search engine patents doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you build links.

Every SEO should know how to build links, but some are far better at it than others. Link building is like sales. Some people just have the gift. Every SEO should understand both basic and advanced link-building concepts and their corresponding strategies, but just because you don’t do actual link building doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you know analytics.

Analytics is the best way to prove the value of your SEO efforts. But analytics itself isn’t SEO. It’s simply the reporting method. If you want to know how well your SEO is really doing, you need to learn analytics or, better yet, employ someone who can in order to analyze your website traffic data. But if you can’t, that doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you follow search engine guidelines.

The search engine guidelines are just that: guidelines. It’s smart to be sure your SEO strategies don’t violate any policies that might get your site dinged. On the other hand, some of the guidelines propagated by the search engines are entirely self-serving. Being good at SEO doesn’t even require that you know the guidelines, so not knowing them doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you can initiate “black hat” SEO strategies.

In some industries, it’s very difficult to get good results unless you invest in black hat SEO strategies. If you’re not in those industries, then you don’t need to worry about it. And not knowing how to implement these type of strategies certainly doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you’re a copywriter.

Copywriting skills are a must… for copywriters, not necessarily SEOs. While SEOs work with copy and should be able to craft a decent sentence and fiddle around with keyword additions into the text, the SEO can pass the job of actual copywriting to a copywriter. Not having the gift of copywriting doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

…you are a conversion optimizer.

Conversion optimization is good for SEO and necessary for a strong marketing campaign, but this isn’t, strictly speaking, SEO. I’d definitely want an SEO that understands usability and persuasion before letting them make changes to my site, but not understanding conversion optimization doesn’t mean you’re not an SEO.

You’re not an SEO unless you read this conclusion

All of the factors above help make SEO valuable. But not having any one or two of them doesn’t disqualify you from being an SEO any more than not knowing how to weld a pipe precludes you from being a plumber. Valuable, but not strictly necessary.

But make no mistake, these are important, and to the degree a person has knowledge, understanding and skills in these areas is a factor into how valuable they can be as an SEO. Any one of these, however, is not a defining factor. SEOs are often best judged on the results they get. If you don’t get results, then you’re not an SEO.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.

Should I start marketing my website with search engine optimization (SEO) or pay-per-click (PPC)?

The response from our three in-house experts was unanimous! You need both. Here’s why…

Stoney (@StoneyD): While both SEO and PPC results are displayed on the same search results page, they operate very differently (and independently) from each other. PPC can be set up much quicker and get results sooner than SEO can. But don’t let that make you think you’ll “instantly” get ROI out of it. PPC takes optimization before profits are secure. SEO, on the other hand takes along longer to work. My suggestion is, if you can afford it, get started on PPC right away to start bringing in profits sooner. While the PPC campaign improves, be working on the optimization of your website, targeting keywords, building links, growing your social base and improving conversions.

Craig (@craiggeis): SEO takes time to gain ground, so starting asap is important. SEO also improves site usability because it takes visitors into account. You need PPC because it helps fill the traffic void while SEO is ramping up. Together they generate a synergy effect on visibility and conversions.

Mike (@mflem25): There are going to be keywords up front that you know you want to rank for.  Begin both PPC and SEO for those keywords immediately.  Your long term goal is to dominate search results pages for keywords that work at growing your business.  The best way to do that is to have listings through both PPC and SEO.  Each reinforces the other, resulting in overall lift of visitors and conversions.  In fact, with the rise of universal search (including product listings, local listings, product extensions and the like), you can have more than two options for the searcher on a page, all with different messages.

After you’ve ranked well for keywords you know you should be hitting homeruns with, use PPC experiment data as intelligence for where to go next and how to proceed.  Since SEO typically takes 6-12 months to begin seeing significant results (if done right), here are some advantages that PPC offers that make it a channel you don’t ever want to leave behind.

Immediacy

1. Results – You don’t have to wait to see if a keyword, landing page, message or promotion will work.  You know what is going on as soon as you get statistically significant data.
2. Feedback – You’re target customers immediately tell you what keywords they are using to find what you offer, allowing you to customize the conversion process for their needs.

Control

1. Performance – Improvements in performance can be made instantaneously.
2. Keywords – You decide exactly what keywords you show up for.  With SEO, pages can show for many unqualified keywords.  Also, how about the keywords you aren’t ranking organically for yet, but that are important to your business?  You can have a presence there at a profitable ROI.
3. Landing Pages – You decide exactly what landing pages prospects using specific keywords land on.  With SEO, visitors on those same keywords may land on a variety of site pages.
4. Location – You are able to geo-target your ads to customers to make them more relevant.  With SEO, there is no geo-targeting function.
5. Position – You can decide to pay for any position on the page.  Although it’s not necessarily desired, you CAN test to find out what an optimal position is for you and stay there.
6. Spend – You can immediately raise and lower your bids or budget depending on results and other outside factors of your business.
7. Ad Messages – You can immediately test ad messages to see what resonates with your prospects better.
8. Promotions – If you want to run a promotion, you can immediately gather targeted customers to that promotion.
9. Special Situations – If something happens where you need to get a message out on specific keywords right away, PPC gives you this option.

Testing

1. Keywords – Which keywords work and which don’t?  You want to know before you optimize your site organically for them.  PPC gives the added ROI of market intelligence.
2. Landing Pages – Which landing pages work to convert which keyword markets?  PPC gives this too.
3. Ad Messages – Testing ads is immediate and easy to do, giving you results based on data, not opinion.

In the last few years social media has jumped to the forefront of online marketing for many small businesses. Some business owners aren’t even bothering to market (or in some cases even build) their websites anymore.

They can just create a Facebook page.

Or a blog on Blogger.com

Or tweet on Twitter.

Or build a Google Places page.

Are we entering an age where SEO just doesn’t matter?

You can now get a local ranking on Google just by having a places page. No website needed!

When all these other avenues are available, many without all the added marketing “expense,” is SEO still viable?

The short answer is yes, SEO still matters.

SEO Still Matters

That was important so I made sure to say it twice!

There are many reasons why SEO should still be on the forefront of your online marketing efforts. I’ll make the case below, but before I do, I want to stress that I’m not trying to take anything away from Facebook, Google Places, Twitter or other social media efforts. I’m sure someone *cough@martijencough* could write a post titled “Making the Case for Social Media in an SEO World!”

But since social media is the new big “it,” I think it’s important to revisit the case for SEO, as a solid reminder as to why it still matters.

You have Ownership of Your SEO

If you own your own domain name, your website belongs to you. It’s yours.

The same can’t be said about your Facebook, Places or Twitter profiles. Whatever marketing you do on these other profiles may be building your business today, but what if any of them go out of style? (Anyone remember MySpace?)

The marketing you do TO your social media profiles is temporary at best. At any time you can be removed, be kicked off, lose your profile or see the site disappear. If your web host doesn’t like you, you get to take your site (you do have a backup, right?) and find another hosting company. You get to keep it, and no one can tell you otherwise.

That means the SEO you do for your site is also yours. All that work, effort and money invested is yours to keep as long as you keep your site hosted.

SEO Gets You Noticed by Your Customers

Social media is great for getting the word out and building your brand, educating your audience and even providing information about your services. All good. But SEO puts you in front of your buyers. Top rankings put you in front of people that are interested in what you have to offer but don’t already know about you.

One of the goals of SEO can be to get people to engage with you on your social networks. This helps build long-term relationships. But SEO gets you in front of people who don’t already know where to get what you offer. That’s why they go to search engines.

Top rankings put you front and center for searchers who have an active interest in what you do. These are potential customers, not just information seekers. This is your money audience!

SEO Has a Mighty Long Reach

Your reach with SEO can be far greater than your reach in your social networks. Sure you can build a lot of followers and friends and they can repost or retweet your content to get an even wider audience… provided they are looking at the time your tweet or post goes out.

You may have 10,000 friends and followers, but are they all looking at you moment you need them to be? If not, your message is lost.

SEO puts you in front of your audience when they search. Even PPC can fail here as ads roll in and out depending on your available budget. But with SEO, once you get those top rankings, your link is there for all the world to see.

Not only that, but the more keywords you optimize, the bigger your reach can be. Optimizing your site for well-searched keyword phrases puts you in front of a larger audience. Optimizing even low-volume phrases in large quantities can boost your reach even more while increasing your ROI. (More on that below.)

SEO is Relevant Now

Driving someone to your social media page gives them only limited amounts of information. It’s kind of a one-size-fits-all approach. Driving visitors to your site, through SEO, gives them all the information they need to make a purchase decision.

One of the beautiful things about SEO is that you can also drive each searcher to the most relevant page on your site, based on the query. That’s what optimizing is all about. Each page is optimized for a set of keywords that are most relevant the searcher. This is custom-fitting at it’s best!

SEO Focuses on the Conversion Experience

When a properly strategized SEO campaign is implemented, your website should see a boost in user experience. Your SEO should be looking further than optimizing keywords onto a page. They should be analyzing your site architecture, calls to action, internal links and conversion processes.

When your SEO focuses on the conversion experience, your site becomes much more about getting your visitors the information they need while making them confident in their purchase decision. The better user experience, the more loyal customer you create. Driving traffic to a site without considering usability can be akin to pouring water into a leaky bucket.

Your Competition is Performing SEO

Your competition is ranking for the keywords that would otherwise be driving business to your site. If you’re not competing for those keywords, search engine traffic is being diverted to them. That sound you hear is your profits going to your competition!

If your competition is investing in SEO, shouldn’t you be? If they are working hard at earning top search engine rankings, don’t you want to be right there next to (or above) them? And if your competition isn’t there today, they may be there tomorrow. Don’t let them get the competitive advantage on you.

SEO Delivers the ROI

The return on investment in SEO has been proven time and time again. It’s different for every industry and website, but in the long term, because SEO is long-lasting, the ROI validates itself. Compared to other forms of advertising, SEO can be a bargain.

The ROI on social media has yet to be fully proven. Its great for building an audience and driving brand awareness. It’s even better in conjunction with your optimization campaign, to create links and build off the SEO. As a standalone service, however, the benefit of social media is extremely limited. It’s only one piece of the marketing pie.

SEO has Extreme Longevity

SEO is (almost) forever. A page properly optimized today is a page properly optimized after the next four Google updates. On-page optimization is good for a very long time. Once you have that then you just need to continue to build your site and keep your audience interested. This is where social media, link building and content strategy really helps; they help maintain your position once your site is optimized.

This is why so many are flocking to social media. They think this is the way to get in front of your audience. And it is, but it’s only part of a smart marketing strategy. Getting your site optimized internally, and using social media and link building externally, gives you a long-lasting optimization campaign that withstands the tests of time.

Focusing on SEO, even as social media is the new, shiny thing on the block, still makes a lot of sense. If you bring in the right people to do the job, your optimization campaign should be one of the primary drivers of traffic, conversions and new customers.

Of course, you already knew all this. But it’s nice to have the reminder.

Follow me at @StoneyD, and @PolePositionMkg.