Guest Post By: Michael Schmitz

The job description of too many internships these days consists of nothing more than coffee-making and paper-filing. But after spending the last month and a half immersed in the Vertical Measures internship program it became clear that Vertical Measures is not one of those companies that summons its interns to busy work.

This Internet marketing company offers hands on experience while learning from SEO and Internet marketing specialists about link building. Here are some of the activities and tasks I regularly performed during my time in the Vertical Measures internship program and some tips I learned along the way:

1. Commenting: The majority of my curriculum in the program has revolved around link building through commenting. Throughout my month and a half I learned the ins and outs of including a link in a comment and quickly found out what to look for when searching for a page to comment on. Relevancy of the post and engaging in conversation make for a good comment.  Using a variety of search quarries can lead you to some worthwhile sites to comment on.
2. Directories:  Locating directories to get listed on has been another focus of the internship program.  The goal is to get your client listed in a relevant directory using the requested keyword as the anchor text.
3. Editing Articles/Blog Posts: A large chunk of my time with the internship program is spent editing articles and blog posts for both grammar and keyword usage. Through this I’ve learned a lot about article marketing services, like how many times you should use a keyword throughout an article and where you should use it.

Commenting, directories and editing takes up the majority of the internship curriculum, but there are also a few other things that I’ve done during my time as a Vertical Measures intern.

1. Webinars: A huge part of what I’ve learned during the program comes from the Vertical Measures webinars. As an intern I’ve watched and listened to six webinars, each with a different theme and focus. The Vertical Measures employees put together a Power Point, walked through different lessons and techniques and answered questions at the end. The content has covered almost everything from commenting techniques to different Google search queries. One of the most important takeaways from the webinars has been learning competitive analysis. I’ve learned how to analyze a competitor and their links, seeing where they come from, the keywords they’ve hit, the anchor text they’ve used, etc.
2. Vertical Measures Project: I worked on this project during which our team created a link building infographic comparing different types of links to different types of beer.
3. SEO Content Writing: After I learned how to write content for SEO purposes, I was able to re-write a client’s website content. I added meta descriptions for the pages, title tags and improved keyword placement throughout the content.
4. Keyword Reviews:  Another task I completed briefly during my internship was reviewing websites for their keyword usage. I answered questions like: Did they use the keyword too many times, or not enough? Are their heading tags visible and in the right places, among other questions.

While so many internships offer nothing more than another thing to throw on the resume, the Vertical Measures internship offers legitimate knowledge obtained through hands on work and webinars.

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This past week, I once again had the pleasure of presenting at the Online Marketing Summit, this time in Texas! It was hot, but what I really wasn’t prepared for was the intense humidity. Despite the sweltering heat, I had a great time presenting and travelling across Texas. Along the way, I met a lot of new and interesting people and am eager to share my experiences from the three OMS events. And of course, my artistic staff at Vertical Measures created yet another mural in my office while I was away, depicting what they imagined my adventures were like in Texas. I must admit, it’s pretty accurate.

I travelled from Dallas to Austin and then to Houston to speak about Social Media for SEO and Link Building.  In this presentation, I called attention to the significance of optimizing social media profiles for search, as real-time search includes social media results.  Also, as social media links and social news links can influence your rankings, you need to be conscious of your social media presence.  But the most essential point I tried to make was for website owners to understand that once you manage a website, you are considered a publisher.  As a result, you must publish quality content that will attract and maintain visitors.  With valuable content and happy visitors, links and search ranking will follow.

During my three stops, I met a variety of people from a broad range of professions. I met some great folks in the marketing industry including: Patrick Prestriedge from Imaginuity, a Dallas website and search engine optimization company, Troy Scheer from Trance Marketing Group, an integrated inbound marketing company, and Teresa Russel from Door 24 Marketing , a realtor marketing company.  Also, I met some individuals in the small business industry including: Erin Verbeck from The Joy of Marketing, a small business marketing company, and A.J. Mistretta of Biztools.com, a company that provides small businesses with advice and resources.

Additionally, I met Sarah Eshelman of LifeSize Communications , Jeff Austin of Jeff Austin Creative, a freelance graphic design and print design artist, and Reiner Musier from Allegro Development, an energy trading and risk management software company.  Also, I had the pleasure of meeting Angelica Young of Direct Energy, an electricity and gas company, as well as Jason H. Smith from Spiceworks, a free help desk software company, and David Lineman of Click True, a pay-per-click company specializing in click fraud auditing and block.

Overall, my trip to Texas proved worthwhile. I always enjoy presenting and sharing my expertise and experiences with others interested in Internet marketing and to top it all off, I even had time to stop in San Antonio for some leisure time with my wife Andi before I flew back to Phoenix.  All in all, a very successful and enjoyable trip!

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As August quickly approaches, I’ve begun prepping for the Vertical Measures August webinar “Onsite SEO: Building a Solid Foundation for Your Website” and I had the privilege of speaking to some of the great minds in SEO for the next few weeks of Expert Interviews on SEO. I’ve started by speaking with Dana Todd, the Co-founder and CMO of Newsforce, Inc. Press industry analysts and technology leaders frequently tap Dana for her knowledge of the search engine marketplace. She regularly appears as a top speaker at national and international conferences.

Elise Redlin-Cook: Would you consider yourself a “coder/ programmer”?

Dana Todd: Gosh, no. I wish I could code – I’m envious of programmers, but my brain is not entirely linear and my background is in classical marketing and advertising. My talents lie more in being able to DE-code rather than code. That is, sifting through verbal and visual clues to find patterns and unique opportunities. It works for creative brand development as well as quant-y keyword analysis. I have a gut instinct that’s faster than any software program, and it’s usually right, but I use a lot of proper research and tools to make sure I’m on track and to refine my strategies.

Elise: What are your thoughts on the direction of Web 2.0 technologies with regards to SEO?

Dana: The title “Web 2.0” technologies is pretty fuzzy. I’ve seen people apply the term to practically anything, including referencing web graphic styles that have rounded corners! But I think the biggest concern in SEO-land was regarding heavy use of Ajax and client-side technologies for rendering information. Obviously, if Google can’t read the page then you need to find alternate forms of providing this information. I don’t think it’s a deal-breaker, just make sure that all your critical information isn’t invisible to search engines. Most webmasters have figured out ways around it by making sure that shareable widgets, mashups, etc., are properly encased in meaningful content containers. Ajax seems to be most useful in back-end applications such as dashboards, that aren’t SEO fodder anyway.

Elise: Good stuff. Well, what role does social media play today in an SEO strategy?

Dana: While social media today has only a small impact on SEO, it may have more significant impact in the future. Google and Bing are both experimenting with how to integrate “real time” and social influence factors  – which typically come from social media sources – into the main search results. Pure “Social Search” sites and technologies have been around for a while, but they don’t seem to get a lot of traction with everyday users. People are starting to use Twitter and Facebook for searching out opinions, but the information gleaned for a user is fairly anecdotal.

One place that you can definitely point to an immediate opportunity is in the news and news search space. Highly referenced news sources that get Twitter traction and Facebook/LinkedIn exposure are more likely to get picked up in online media sources and blog content. Which of course can ultimately tip the scales in your favor for SEO if you succeed in securing a decent amount of reference links. So, utilizing your social media channels effectively to support a PR/breaking news strategy can have immediate payoff both in terms of organic SERP improvement and incremental social media traffic.

Elise: We get asked a good deal about on-site factors. I’m curious what are the main tools that you use in your SEO Site Audits?

Dana: I don’t do a lot of technical audits myself . My work is primarily executive strategy, but I am privileged to be an adviser to SyCara, a new enterprise SEO software tool in beta now. I and several other customers got to help build the specs on it so that it meets our institutional needs better than just the random collection of tools that most people use. I get a little frustrated with the software options out there right now, which don’t lend themselves to building a scalable service organization. Every time there’s employee turnover, all the history walks out the door which ultimately endangers your SEO investment.

Elise: The Search Engine Optimization field has changed a great deal in the last couple of years. How does it differ from when you first began?

Dana: First of all, there was no Google in 1996 when we first started doing SEO at SiteLab. A lot of people think that today’s SEO is more difficult, because you can’t get the “easy wins” that were possible back then, but I actually think that it was much more complicated back then in many ways. For one thing, we no longer have to make 5-6 copies of every page, one for each search engine (yes, there were six majors back in the day). Everything back then was “black hat.” Heck, there were no rules at all so everyone was throwing all kinds of things out there, very chaotic and ultimately bad for the industry in terms of perception. That cowboy mentality brought excitement to the field, but the damage can still be seen today in terms of how people outside the industry feel about SEO.

Elise: What are the biggest obstacles that you face in getting clients and/or developers to execute your action plan?

Dana: Most obstacles can be overcome by setting expectations from the beginning, and making sure that clients fully understand their role in the process. They’re resource constrained – that’s why they hired you. So, it’s up to you to deliver something they can act on. If they don’t act, it’s YOUR fault, not theirs. That’s right, I said it: your fault. You need to go back and figure out where you didn’t communicate well enough or project manage well enough, and make it super easy for them to execute. The most valuable SEO partners are those that can think through the business-readiness of their services, and who create the least pain in their customers’ lives.

Elise: What advice would you give to those that are new to SEO and lack the knowledge, experience, and hindsight that you possess?

Dana: Once you get a solid set of training wheels and you have tested your mettle on a few SEO cases, find a way to specialize so that you can stand out and get ahead. If you’re competing against SEO heavyweights or large teams, you may not win easily, so find niches such as video optimization, image optimization, real-time/news optimization, local search optimization, etc., that can help you pick up customers and build a name for yourself. Also, since you’re a specialist you will have a better chance of ranking for that specialist term than general SEO terms. Bonus! There’s a huge need for SEOs in the publishing world, which is an industry I am deeply involved in – particularly news. It’s a completely different kind of SEO, and creative minds can really have fun with this job.

Elise: As a co-founder and former board member of SEMPO, are you still involved with the organization?

Dana: Of course! I stepped off the Board this year, but I’m actively involved as a co-chair on the Education Committee which puts on free public webinars. Our topics and speakers are always fantastic, so I urge everyone to sign up for the mailing list at sempo.org/webinars. We also place SEMPO members as speakers at events all over the world and answer questions from people who ask for advice about working with search marketers, etc. The organization has really grown its local presence in 40 countries, and I’m excited that we’re getting a lot more traction in local markets to provide connection points around the world.

Elise: What search marketing conference do you most enjoy attending? Speaking at?

Dana: I have spoken at almost every US Search Engine Strategies conference since the program began, and have represented the search community at ad:tech, OMMA and other general advertising conferences. I have also spoken at SMX and Pubcon. I love talking about Internet marketing and educating folks no matter where I am – be it at a formal conference or in the back of a cab – so it’s hard to choose a favorite. Each has a unique audience and character, so they’re very different experiences and methods of engaging. I love the networking at any conference; SEMs are such an amazingly supportive and friendly community.

When speaking, what’s compelling for me is figuring out what they are interested in learning, and how to best model my teaching style around their mental patterns. Some of my most challenging, but fun, conferences are vertical associations where the audience is almost completely unfamiliar with the technical components of search and it’s not their job to understand at that level. You have to put all the SEO logic and tasks into a business decision framework and avoid talking “techie” so that your message is received and they can use the information to help drive their own success.

Elise: In 2004 you stated that you had serious doubts about the usefulness and quality of personalized search. How, if at all, has your view changed?

Dana: My opinion hasn’t changed much except for appreciating the geo-location component of personalized search. I must say that the technology has gotten MUCH better since 2004, and it’s more subtle now. It used to stick out like a sore thumb and interrupt my research thought-stream, and it annoyed me that it never offered a “Reset” button to clear the cache and start over when doing a seriously deep research project. I still log out of iGoogle most of the time, so that I get only same-session personalization. If I’m logged in and search for “cars” I get this random stuff in my results:

While I might like to check out what my Twitter crew thinks about cars, I can already get that from Twitter so I really don’t want it cluttering my Google. Frankly, though, I doubt most people even notice it which means I’m the only old crank in the user base who is bugged by it. I also don’t like my food to touch on the plate.

As far as SEO and personalization goes, there doesn’t seem to be any solid information on how to optimize for it. There are a lot of theories about how social media may ultimately influence personalized search, but I haven’t heard anything concrete about what to do/not to do to influence personal search.  Certainly, it’s impossible to get any reporting around what level of exposure you got on a term in a personalized search.

Elise: Could you recommend some relevant reading materials to newcomer in the field

Dana: I always recommend for newbies:

• The Truth About Search Engine Optimization, by Rebecca Lieb (fast read, condensed tightly and written at a high level – suitable for business managers as well as practitioners)
• Search Engine Optimization One Hour a Day, by Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin (more of a workbook. It breaks the process down into bite-sized activities)
• The Art of SEO, by Jessie Stricchiola, Rand Fishkin and Stephan Spencer and Eric Enge (this is a bit more comprehensive but should be a “Bible” to anyone serious about SEO)

Of course I have to brag on the Insider’s Guide to Search Marketing course from the SEMPO Institute. We’ve trained several thousand people with this online course and it’s very accessible to newbies and even non-technical marketing people. Also, SEObook.com isn’t really a book, it’s an ongoing training series, but I hear great things about it. And, Bruce Clay has written an SEO for Dummies book that would be accessible to newcomers.

Elise: Awesome! Those are great recommendations. So, do you have any exciting projects that you’re involved in right now that you’d like to discuss?

Dana: I’ve always got my fingers in a bunch of pies. I’m a serial entrepreneur not by conscious choice but because I love creating things and taking leadership roles wherever the mood strikes me. Newsforce has been my obsession for the past four years, building a new type of engagement media that supports news sites with increased revenue, and is uniquely positioned to play in that unique space between news media and PR/brand awareness tactics. I’m also helping to grow a new organization called IIA, the International Institute for Analytics, which is a “big tent” peer research organization for analytics across business information (BI) and other applications such as web analytics. And, I just joined the Board of San Diego Software Industry Council, with the intent to help broadcast the long-held secret truth about how amazing the tech innovation is here in San Diego. There are many brilliant people and companies in SoCal (Southern California), but we don’t do a good job of bragging about it to our Northern cousins and beyond.

Elise: I know that you do a great deal of business traveling in general. In all of the places you’ve been, where would you most like to live?

Dana: I’m quite keen to get out of the US before I get too old for adventure, and try living in another country. I just haven’t decided which one yet. Asia seems fascinating, Europe is romantic and rich in arts, and on and on. I’ve been kicking around South Africa and New Zealand, both of which would be incredible adventures. Tell your readers to pitch me their countries! I’m still collecting data…

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Recently, here at Vertical Measures, we got a very special delivery: a SuperYellow Book. Wow, totally useful for an Internet marketing company like ours….I made a beeline for the recycling bin and promptly discarded it. It made me wonder though, do people actually still use the Yellow Pages to find local businesses? As someone who knows a little bit about local search marketing, I knew online local search has surged in recent years, but the exact numbers: not so much. Let’s examine the numbers.

Local Search Trends
Over the past few years local search sites have popped up all over the Internet. From Merchant Circle and Yelp, to Hot Frog and Google Maps, these sites help you find more than a business’s listing. Searchers can see detailed profiles for businesses: what customers are saying about a particular business, links to the company’s website, photos, video, and more. Basically: a Yellow Book on steroids (but not the bad kind of steroids, the natural, good, user generated content type of steroids).

Online users have flocked to local search portals to find more information about businesses. The numbers of monthly visitors are quite alarming. Below you’ll find a visual representation of the overall upward trend on some of the most popular local search sites.

(All figures below are courtesy of QuantCast.com)
Google Maps

Understanding the Numbers

Via Zany Pickle

Even if your business doesn’t receive a lot of traffic from local areas, there are still benefits to having a listing. A link back to your site, for one, is a great benefit. In addition, having a place for your customers to go to rate your business, discover more information, and share more information about your business are just a couple reasons to put up that local profile.

Want more information about local search? Well lucky for you our very own Sarah and Jason presented on the very topic in this month’s webinar. Check it out on our SEO Webinars page.

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