Archive for the ‘SEO’ Category

What You Can Learn From Jerry Garcia

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Around here we listen to and enjoy all types of music, you are as likely to hear AC/DC as you are Miles Davis, and everything in between. Bluegrass, rock, funk, jazz (my personal favorite) and jam bands all stream from Pandora and iPod alike. While musicians inspire and stir our emotions with their creations, everything from sports teams to weddings, indulge me for a moment as I explain how I think musicians can also inspire your marketing.

Live music is something that many people enjoy, from large stadiums packed with superstar performers to classical concerts in small theatres. For many, experiencing music live takes it to a new level. Jam bands, those that seem to have the ability to recreate a song every time they play it, set the bar, when it comes to live performances.

The Grateful Dead, Widespread Panic, Leftover Salmon, Yonder Mountain String Band, Phish and Govt Mule are just some of the jam bands that have created strong brands by leveraging their content and their communities. Jerry Garcia was an incredible guitarist; Is it possible that he and the Grateful Dead were pioneers of content and viral marketing? You decide.

Why are jam bands so successful at content marketing?

  • Jam bands take a story and present it in a unique and captivating way.

    • Of all the jam bands I have had the opportunity to see live, I never once walked away from a show thinking it seemed contrived. Can you say the same thing about your content? Tell your story in a personable way. Corporate speak sucks, ditch it and roll with the story the way you would speak it, not how you think your 8th grade English teacher would want it.

  • Jam bands keep things interesting.

    • They accomplish this by always changing play sets, arrangements and sometimes they will really surprise you with a guest appearance. How can you mix your content to produce something new? Know someone you can reach out to for a guest blog post? Never hurts to ask, and you give your audience something new, something fresh…they will thank you.

  • Jam bands spread their music virally

    • Most jam bands allow, and even encourage, the recording and trading of their live music. Some will even allow “tapers” to plug into their sound boards for maximum quality. The “taper” community then trades and shares the recorded concerts, which allow the band’s music to spread virally. The bands allow this trading of their music to take place free of charge. You are creating content and sharing it with your audience, but are you giving them the access, the permission and the tools to share it? Sharing of content and music helps spread your content and helps build a stronger community.

  • People enjoy “discovering” new bands.

    • Many years ago I had the opportunity to see The (then unknown) Dave Mathews Band play at a fraternity party. They were damn good, but hadn’t hit the big time yet. Think we all didn’t tell our friends about this new band we saw? Of course we did, we all wanted to feel like we had “discovered” something great. Things are no different online. A great video, a really good blog post all are things that people love to discover and share. Create things that people will want to tell their friends about, don’t just create to complete a milestone.

  • Jam bands create community.

    • These communities are tight-knit, many having their own norms, nomenclature, and even nicknames – the “Dead Heads”, “Spread Heads” and other countless communities are fiercely loyal. Each member of the community consumes the content in their own way, and react to it differently. Some spin, some sway and some simply shake it. Your audience is no different. They consumer your content in different ways and react differently – some share a blog post through their RSS reader, some post a video to their Facebook page. Do you know your audience and their nuances?

So crank up some music, play a little hacky-sack, start thinking like a jam band and you will see improvements in your content, your engagement and your rankings.

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Posted in Content Creation, Digital Marketing, Inspiration, Marketing, SEO, Social Media | 2 Comments »

Getting Started With Keyword Research

Friday, February 12th, 2010

One of the most intimidating aspects of SEO for small business owners, is doing keyword research. Where to begin, what tools to use, what does all the data mean? It creates confusion, inaction and quite often falls back to reliance on hunches as to what people might be searching to find you.

Keyword research is a critical component of any search marketing campaign, and when done correctly can provide astounding results. I’d like to take a look at a few ways to get started with your own keyword research.

Let me begin by saying that you most likely have no idea what people search for to find you, and more often than not the supposed “money” keywords you are monitoring, are not the ones you should be concerned about. Keyword research can reveal the terms which will provide the highest quality traffic, identify areas of low competition in which you can capitalize and help refine your search marketing strategy.

This quote from Lisa Barone’s 2007 article on Search Engine Guide, sums it up:
One of the most common misconceptions about conducting keyword research for a search engine optimization campaign is the belief that you already know which terms a customer would use to find your site. You don’t. Not without first doing some research anyway. You may know what your site is about and how you, the site owner, would find it, but it’s difficult to predict how a paying customer would go about looking for it.

Getting Started
Brainstorming all the possible terms and phrases that could be used to describe your products and services is a great way to get started. Going analog with plain old pen and paper is a great way, or consider using one of the many mind mapping tools (we recommend Mind Jet, or Mindmeister) available to help keep things moving along. At this stage, don’t get bogged down by analysis, that will come later in the process. Here, we are simply trying to get topically relevant ideas on paper…er in a map.

Keep it Rolling
Once you have brainstormed your seed list, let’s find some additional items to add to it before we begin really drilling down.

Search Suggest
Ever notice when you search Google, Bing or Yahoo! how they try to “guess” what you may be looking for? They aren’t just using their Little Orphan Annie randomizer…those suggestions are coming from query data. Tap into it for additional ideas. (click the images below for a larger version).

Related Searches
Additionally, the engines are now trying to help refine your search by showing “related searches”. Theoretically, searches that appear in their query database that are used as subsequent or precursor searches to the query in which you used.

Google Wonder Wheel
A really useful tool for coming up with additional keyword and content ideas is Google Wonder Wheel. A simple search option in Google, you can search for a phrase and it will return a set of related phrases which will allow you to continue to drill down to more specific sets of keywords.

Now What?
Once you have a long seed-list of keywords, start to organize them by topic/theme and prepare to refine your list. In the next post we will look at refining your list, and putting some of the various keyword tools to work for you.

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Posted in SEO | No Comments »

Have You Changed the Oil on Your Web Presence?

Friday, December 11th, 2009

Quick- how often do you think about your web presence?

Personally, I think about it almost all the time.  Yours, mine, theirs, how to improve, how to expand, how to increase conversions.  All of it.ferrarif430- bakar

The other day I was thinking of a way to explain the importance of website maintenance.

First, what is it?  In simple terms, it involves everything from bug fixes to security loopholes, from making sure that your content is current to tracking how people are finding it.

Well, it just so happened I was on my way for an oil change, and the metaphor hit me all at once:

When you buy a new vehicle, you’re making an investment which is generally a result of planning.  What kind of vehicle? What brand? What color? What features?  It’s similar to hiring a digital marketing company or a web designer, no?

Also, you have expected outcomes of the investment – smooth ride, worry-free driving in the snow, great gas mileage, even status. These are the goals that you intend want to reach through your investment.

Your web presence is similar; You go through the process of hiring an agency, and you determine features, content,  and styling issues.  You launch a website and a digital marketing campaign with expected outcomes.

However, here’s where usually the website loses out in our set-it-and-forget-it world.

You own a vehicle- do you change your oil somewhat regularly?  Ever replaced your wiper blades, tires, or air filter?  When the weather is nice, you wash it….maybe even once a year spring for a detail?  You might not do all of those, but in order for your vehicle to run properly, it requires maintenance.

Your website is no different.

Would you walk into the dealership a year after purchasing a new vehicle and complain it isn’t working properly?  What if you hadn’t ever changed the oil?  Probably not.

Why, then, would you expect your search engine rankings to maintain or improve with no new content?  Is it reasonable to expect improved conversions on your PPC without investing in testing of ads, landing pages, and calls to action? Social media success without participation?

Your web presence, like your vehicle, requires consistent attention and routine maintenance for maximum effectiveness.  No way around it.

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Posted in Marketing, Pay Per Click, SEO, Web Design | No Comments »

Google Social Search – The Possibilities?

Monday, November 16th, 2009

Heard of Google Social Search?

If you haven’t, you most likely will soon.  That is, unless you’re one of the few who doesn’t care about your Google search traffic.

Social Search
If you don’t think social media has an impact on your search engine rankings, guess again.  Google Social Search was an experiment released in late October.  If you’re following it, you know that in the last day or two it’s been essentially shut-down.

Still, it’s naive to think it is not coming.

There has been speculation about this for some time, going back to Business Week’s mention of a patent filing in September of 2008.  Jordan Kasteler and others have been postulating its implications over the past few months.

What does this all mean? Well, from my perspective, the Google Social Search Experiment, along with the sandbox-play Google Caffeine (the much discussed algorithm update) is the first iteration of a real organic social search engine in play.

If you aren’t familiar with either, just read the links in the above paragraph.

What’s This Mean To You?
Well, essentially it solidifies what many have been saying for a long time. If you’re not actively participating in the social media sphere, you’re going to be playing catch up.

Your potential customers’ search results will be influenced by their social media connections.  Your past customers’ search results will be influenced by their social media connections.

Which don’t include you (but do include your competitors).

Ready to begin building and solidifying those relationships now?  Or do you want to keep barking about your awesomeness and hot deals?

Some Questions I Have
I think it remains to be seen how this all shakes out. The implications for users, businesses, and marketers is huge.  I don’t think this can be overstated.

Whatever happens, it’s going to be fascinating.  Google social profile optimization?  Businesses afforded Google profiles?  Or will it simply pull from Google Local?  How good will the algorithm be at sniffing out quality vs. quantity of connections?

The answers are forthcoming.  It’s just a matter of “when”.  Which is a good thing- we have lots of questions.

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Posted in Digital Marketing, SEO, Social Media | No Comments »

The Reinvention of SEO (Psst- It’s Not Dead)

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

A search on Google for “seo is dead” returns more than 12,000 results.

Apparently, a lot of folks want SEO to die.  Or perhaps they simply enjoy sounding off on its demise.  Or maybe they’re mistaking “death” for “change”.

Die? No.  Change? Yes
For any SEO that has been around for more than a few years, change in search is nothing new.  Some changes have more impact than others, but change is a constant.

FloridaThose that claim SEO is dead should  brush up on the history of SEO.   What exactly has brought us to this point in the evolution of data retrieval (a.k.a. “search”)?  Don’t get me wrong- I don’t feel that experience is essential to being a good SEO.  But it sure as hell doesn’t hurt.  If you’re going to give a eulogy, you’ve got to know about the life that’s been lived.

Ask your SEO about “Florida”. If they say, “yeah, I have family in Orlando!”, they haven’t studied the changes of SEO.  You say “Florida” to an experienced SEO and you will likely see a hand go to the forehead, a “bitter beer” face and couple curse words.

Google’s Florida update was change.  Big change.

Did SEO die? Nope.

The Theoretical Goal of Search
The idea is to take your query (what you searched for) and return the best possible results. Simple right?

Complicated mathematical algorithms retrieve information, run a series of tests on the data entered, and then organize, order, and format the results for you to choose from (and give you SERPS = Search Engine Result Pages). The ordering is based on a number of factors, most of which are often debated.

What is not debated is that those factors can, do, and will change.

A Quick Look at Change

In the past (when I started in 1997) the King of the Hill was Alta Vista. You could stuff your page titles, page copy, and meta tags  with keywords and see strong results. It was a terrible end-user experience, but it was universal, and expectations where low.

Then, engines began to weed out keyword stuffing, began to discount meta tags in the algorithms.  The SERPS started to re-order.  Google incorporated links as a primary ranking factor.  They filtered and weighted those links.  They slapped you if you had the wrong kinds of links, or links from the wrong places.  They changed the way they interpreted the links, or passed “link equity” from link to link.

Those were huge changes.  And many, many other changes have occurred.  Several recent developments have brought about even more change and, yup, you guessed it, more claims that SEO is dead.

Decision Engines

Microsoft’s Bing, which is a search engine with which touts itself as a “decision engine”, displays a list of results based upon the query, and a list of “related searches” which you can check out.  I’m not anti-Microsoft, but Bing as a decision engine leaves a lot to be desired.  Shouldn’t a decision engine answer questions?  Try asking Bing a question, and see what you get.  Be careful- you’re probably going to confuse it.  What kind of decision engine is that?  None, really.

Hunch, however, is a decision engine. Apparently, they opted to not call it such after Microsoft’s Bing marketing campaign roll-out.  It is, however, definitely a decision engine- you don’t search, you ask a question.  Some argue that these types of engines will kill SEO, replacing “traditional search”.  Enter query keywords, decipher results.

I think this is just another change in the landscape.  And it’s one that I honestly don’t see having a big impact for some time.  Want to see what I mean?  Try Hunch.  It’s cool.  But it wouldn’t be my first choice for locating information (yet).

Algorithmic Change

Algorithmic changes happen all the time. If you monitor results closely you can almost see the search engineers turning the knobs.  However, a recent change, an example of algorithmic change, has some significant impact.

Some SEOs used certain tactics to influence the filtration of link equity through a website, making some links much more valuable than others.  By eliminating link equity from passing to some less important pages, you could, in theory, boost link equity to the more important pages.  Some call it “Page Rank Sculpting” others “Siloing” and still others “Pure Hogwash”.

One of the tools helping achieve this kind of link equity is called the “no-follow” tag. You can add a teeny bit of code to a link to prevent Google from passing link equity to that particular page.  Mike McDonald from WebProNews describes it as:

PageRank sculpting is the practice whereby you add no-follow attributes to less important links in order to emphasize links you deem more important. We used an analogy of a bucket withe holes in it. The holes represented your outbound links. Your website’s PageRank (link juice) flowed thru the holes. The fewer holes you had, higher the percentage of your link juice went thru the remaining holes (links). That’s PageRank Sculpting in a nutshell. Dividing your link authority by a smaller number of links in order to maximize the authority you pass on.

Google recently created a bit of buzz by stating the way in which Google dealt with no-follow had changed.  I don’t mean to get into a technical debate about no-follow, page rank, or siloing.  I want to re-enforce the idea that change is always an issue in search.  Lee Odden of Top Rank Blog has a great quote:

“if it can be searched, it can be optimized”

And check this out:  A recent SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization) Study found that spend on search marketing will grow to more than $26.1 billion by 2013.  That doesn’t sound like a death rattle to me.

When you read or hear statements of “SEO is dead” look at who is saying it and why.  The fact is SEO is not dead. It’s changing. 

How do you see SEO changing and moving forward?

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